reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


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trees are like that. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“the symbolism – and the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions for the environmental crisis.” (al gore)

breck is as tall as halfway up to the peak of the garage now. it feels as if you could quite possibly sit in an adirondack chair – with time on your hands – and watch it grow…bits of branch reaching, reaching, leaf buds and then leaves unfurling and then more branch reaching, reaching and more leaf buds and more unfurling leaves. and it keeps going, despite the weather: storms and wind and hail and threatening conditions, despite it all. we love this quaking aspen.

breck, as i have mentioned, is the only tree i have ever – personally – purchased and planted.

we have had saplings planted on independence pass in honor of our mountain girl’s thirtieth birthday, we have had trees planted in memory of a cousin who loved the outdoors. but neither of us has had the opportunity to plant our own tree in our own yard – before breck.

because our shy-of-a-century-old maple has fallen, we will have another chance to pick out a tree – we hope two – to go in that parkway space between the sidewalk and the street. there is a reforestation program in our city that assumes part of the cost so that there are trees lining the streets of the city. it dates way back to the early 1900s when our ‘hood near the lake initially was planted with elegant elm trees, which, a couple decades later fell to disease. our maple had been steadily shading our home since the time of replanting. we will honor its beautiful and steadfast life by planting another tree – or two.

in the meanwhile, i’ve been whispering to the other trees here. the old – very tall – pine that is green about half-way ’round, its other branches shaded from the sun by neighboring trees, the spruce that stands in the opposite corner of the backyard. and the maples that are on the other side of the fence – they are enormous trees, towering over our backyard and our home. my whispers are for them to be stalwart, grounded, steady, flexible as we experience more and more extreme weather events…to stay standing all in one piece.

we have seen in recent days the dismantling – the decimation – of all kinds of laws as they pertain to climate change, all kinds of laws as they pertain to national forests, all kinds of laws as they pertain to national parks, all kinds of laws as they pertain to clean water, clean air, clean agriculture, all kinds of laws as they pertain to food growth safety, all kinds of laws as they pertain to livestock welfare, all kinds of laws as they pertain to renewable energy, all kinds of laws as they pertain to pollution, all kinds of laws as they pertain to science, all kinds of laws as they pertain to medical research….and all kinds of laws as they pertain to aggressive deregulation and expansion of timber production, regardless of any historic conservation or environmental protections. need i go on?

it is a heartless, short-sighted, ignorant set of ideals that annihilates, ravages, and diminishes the collective intellect of researchers, environmentalists, conservationists, scientists and that annihilates, ravages, diminishes and trashes the ecosystems of mother earth.

preservation is a much bigger word than demolition.

it feels like an honor – with substantive symbolism – to plant a tree in our yard – and to know that we will likely not be here to see it tower above our old house, to know that it will sustain through time – like trees do, to know that it will both breathe and generate clean air, to know that it will remember that we carefully chose it, we nurtured it, and we trusted it to stand fearlessly in the face of all change and any challenge.

because trees are like that.

“happy the man to whom every tree is a friend.” (john muir)

*****

TRANSIENCE © 2010 kerri sherwood

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no outlines. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

a full box of crayolas at my side, i, too, in my itty-bitty chair at the itty-bitty table, would outline the image on the coloring book page and then color it all in. like there was some artistic reason for outlining – making a definitive and clear break between the image and the background. for a non-artistic-in-the-sense-of-drawing type, it seemed to make my coloring page look better, cleaner, more striking. i’m not really sure. but it was a popular thing to do – this outlining thing – and, though i don’t know who initially suggested it, nearly everyone colored their pages that way. you could see it on the ever-important bulletin board wall.

if i were to pick up a coloring book and crayons now i might even just fall back into old patterns, grasping the crayola stub in my hand tightly, pursing my lips and concentrating on not drawing off the line. then i would color it all in – in the lines – and my page would be neat and tidy and whatever other adjective might apply, synonymous with success.

when i color in “adult-colored-pencil-coloring-books” i have found that i don’t do this – i just color with my pointy pencils – no outlines, no outlining. is it the difference between the paraffin wax/powdered color pigment combo of crayons and the pigments/binding agents/fillers/casing used in pencils? is it some leftover art lesson from elementary school – where the emphasis was on some sort of impossible sought-after perfection for our coloring sheets? and why – knowing me – did i not color out of the lines? well, i can answer that one. back then i was an in-the-lines colorer, going with the crowd, hoping to get my picture on the bulletin board wall.

i move up close to the peonies in our garden out back. they stand their ground as i move around, right in their little peony faces, alternately snapping photos and taking big whiffs of their intoxicating scent.

there are no outlines here. everything up this close blurs as my depth of field changes, my point of focus changes, my intent changes.

were i to make this photograph a coloring sheet – an accurate coloring sheet – it would require fuzzy lines – no clear outline – instead, a fade of one color into the next, maybe difficult to capture with a stub of crayon looking to make something definitive.

but life is more like that. less definitive, more fuzzy. it is less distinct and more out-of-focus. it is less green and white, and more grey. there are no outlines and, if you really get it, there’s no ever-important bulletin-board-wall upon which to hang up your life.

it just is.

and the moments we get to sniff peonies or color out of the lines, to allow the unfocused to swirl around us, to not get all caught up in the bulletin-board-wall – those are the moments to grasp, to hold onto, to store away as balm for those other moments – the ones that test us, that hand us crayons with impossible confidence-taxing expectations, that, somehow, in all the chaos, make us forget that peonies exist. craziness.

and so, no outlines. just color.

“…you write about my flower as if i think and see what YOU think and see of the flower – and i don’t.” (georgia o’keeffe)

*****

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what a dance! [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

less than a week. the peony shared its dance with the world for less than a week. but oh, what a week it was.

i don’t imagine that it wondered – ahead of time – how long would be its time in the sun. i don’t imagine that it pondered the kind of notoriety it would have. i don’t imagine it was fretting, “bloom/don’t bloom/bloom/don’t bloom“. i don’t imagine it planned its choreography – the minuet or ballet, the jazz steps or interpretive improv – based on what it understood its stage and its time under the fresnel of light.

from a tight bud to wrinkly vestiges of peony petals, it danced for the sun, shied from the moon. it held on during the winds and collected bits of rain, courageously standing under the pressure to bow its fragile stem, its velvet-soft blossom.

the peony didn’t measure its relevance by its time here. it didn’t concern itself with striving or success, abundance of blooms or lushness of plant. it just bloomed as it bloomed.

and in the giving-over of trying to control any thing else, in the giving-over to follow its natural path, in the embrace of its exclaiming-life dance, it exploded in beauty.

what a week it was.

what a dance!

*****

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such goodness. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

and the icefall went on and on, a looming presence as far as the eye could see, the night inky, the serac-umbrellas like mushroom caps over smooth slopes in shades of white and grey, the spectrum peeking out with the changing light. snow had fallen, stacking up in dune-piles created, urged by the wind, not yet sharpened by the coldest of temperatures. the telephoto lens captured it up close, though we were far away, many, many steps from the dangers of traversing the icefall, its chasms and crevasses.

the peony giggled, thinking it had fooled me for a moment, delighted with its fictitious story, its little tale of shape-shifting. knowing that it was just joshing me – steady in the real and good impact it has in this world – its merriment was because it was solidly based in its goodness. it had nothing to prove, no reason to make us believe it was goodness, because it just was.

and so it could play with us a bit, help us visualize, let us fly over the arctic or the himalayas in our minds. it could encourage imagination and fantasy. there was no fear of losing its way – for it would still fulfill its peony life, its peony self-actualization.

things that are good – that do no harm – do not concern themselves with convincing others that they are good. they just are. there is no reason to pretend to be something else, to permanently twist reality, to alter that which is truth.

the soft petals of the peony layered over each other, gorgeous bits of the bloom, exquisite.

we are fortunate to see such goodness, to witness it, to breathe it, to hold it.

for surely we need this in these times.

****

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our sturdy old tree. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

at approximately 3:48 last wednesday afternoon, in the first mighty gust of the storm, the great soul – the great tree – in our front yard – for decades and decades and decades – fell. and nothing was the same.

this sturdy old tree was wise beyond its years, withstanding all manner of weather-fury, all seasons of plenty and not-enough.

this sturdy old tree – magnificent, its canopy shading our lawn, its spirit encircling our home and family – stood vigil out in front, a talisman of protection and a peaceful adapter to the change of winter to spring, of autumn to winter, each time, bending to the rules – or whims – of nature…for at least seventy-five years.

this sturdy old tree – was what i looked at from the nursery while rocking babies, looking out the window. it marked the passage of time as my babies grew, early morning light in its leaves, the sun setting through its crown, its winter-nakedness to its verdant maple-leaf splendor, its yellow glow in fall, the way snow lay on its strong branches, its promise in early spring.

this sturdy old tree – was what i looked at from my bench in my studio, sitting at my piano composing, lyricizing, practicing. it gave me breath and reminded me to place rests in the music, to give others breath, time to process, to take in, to feel. i stared at this tree out the window from that spot, standing still or sitting quietly, pondering what had been, what was, what might be. it was a touchstone of consistency, of continuity, of the timeline that goes back and forward, dynamic.

this sturdy old tree greeted us as we came down our road, as we turned the corner. it offered shelter and filtered sunlight, framed the moon and the stars and planets, played with color at dusk. it elicited our appreciation for yet another homecoming. it was the monument, the lighthouse, the trailmarker that said “home”.

this sturdy old tree – wizened – was that which i advocated for, in times of electric-wire-branch-trimming, in times of water main work, in times of road construction, in times of other injuries it withstood.

i whispered words of – truly loving – gratitude to it, “you did nothing wrong. you did everything right,” as they began to tend to the-cleaning-up after the wind had wreaked havoc upon it. with more extreme storms coming – and a heavily one-sided bit of our beloved tree left – i knew that it was its time. and it was hard to watch, this family member which had preceded me, which had lived here the whole time i have, which had seen much life in that bit of yard at this house on this street. we were fortunate that it was our tree and we loved it for being our tree.

it feels like a marker in time to have felt and heard this great tree fall. to see its brokenness. its soul continues on with us; we need that wisdom and resilience, especially now. we need its tenacity as it aged, especially now. we need its stalwart goodness, its dedication to being the best tree it could be, especially now.

our big, sturdy old tree lives on. it will always be one of the great trees because of its great soul.

and – after its decades and decades and decades of time as a tree on this good earth – in the bowing of its beautiful canopy of leaves, its hefty rough-barked branches, its branches that curved outward with a bowl in the center of the trunk where creatures could rest and shelf fungus could excel, it reminds us of something:

there is no great anything without a great soul.

“and when great souls die/after a period peace blooms,/slowly and always/irregularly. spaces fill/with a kind of/soothing electric vibration./our senses, restored, never/to be the same, whisper to us./they existed. they existed. /we can be. be and be/better. for they existed.” (maya angelou)

*****

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convergence. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i could get lost in just gazing at this spot where greens converge. i find myself breathing deeply, taking it in, appreciating how utterly extraordinary the nuance, how textural, how life-affirming.

it has been a week. with multi-layered challenges, personal and nationwide.

in the middle of the week, neck spasms – which i had in february for the first time in my life – and which sent me to the emergency room – returned with a vengeance. to say that i was laying awake all night, fearful of the way these manifested in my shoulders, my jaw, my chest, my neck, would be an understatement. it was downright scary. and so painful – even for someone with a relatively high pain threshold.

when it finally slightly eased up for a bit in the morning – after a long, sleepless night – i was exhausted and overcome with how it must be for people who are in chronic pain. the chronic pain of disease, of life-altering treatment plans, of hunger and thirst and of not-enough, of homelessness, of psychological and emotional scars, of addiction, of deep, all-consuming worry. thinking of others always puts one’s own pain in perspective.

for a bit of time – the bit when the spasms did not refer to all these other parts of my upper body – i could breathe more deeply. and so i went outside to our deck and little potting stand – to look at new growth, to soak in the colors green.

in wednesday’s news there was much headlining about a quiet interview that the speaker of the house had on a tiny radio station in his home state. and, in that interview, he revealed the intention of this administration – to fix (read: gut) medicaid, medicare and social security in an effort to free up money so that this government might be able to make a dent in the country’s trillions of dollars of debt which is – clearly – attributed to mountains of tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.

so. their goal? take away from the most vulnerable and the eldest in order to further bankroll the gluttony.

it is hard to wrap your head around this kind of whoring of humanity. the word “disgusted” barely touches it.

again, i say, there is no reverence. they have reverence for nothing.

i wonder what our communities, our states, our nation, our world will look like once they have eliminated all that is good, all that is natural, all that is lawful, all that is compassionate, all that is life-giving or life-affirming. what will be left after the land and the natural resources and the regular folk and the goodness are decimated?

as i stood and looked at our tiny vegetable and herb garden, i was filled by the beauty, wrapped in the essence of green, and a sense of balance was restored in me.

though the spasms started up again, this is not about my neck spasms. when they re-started, i felt slightly more equipped to deal with them, carrying into the pain the knowledge that they would – in time – ease up.

but for some, there is no easing up. there is only long-term pain, without ceasing.

there are people intentionally hunted down for their ethnicity, people intentionally taken off rolls for food assistance, medical assistance, housing assistance. people removed from jobs of science and education and journalism so that the country ceases progressive forward-movement and so that the only narrative going forth is vile, self-serving propaganda. there are people targeted by the brandishing of bigotry. there are people whose chronic pain – no matter what it is – no matter the umbrella under which it falls – seem a nuisance to this administration, an administration without a heart or a conscience or any sense of reverence for anything other than self and money and retribution.

were i to be given a choice – live acknowledging simplicities – like the nuance of green OR live inside the insanity of always-wanting-needing-hoarding of moremoremore – i would go with cherishing the tomato plants and herbs and lavender and licorice plant every time.

i would go with the convergence of green, the convergence of goodness, the convergence of growth, the nuance of breath, the affirmation of life, living and reverence for it all.

*****

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it has the heart of… [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

the question “when does it cease being a peony?” never occurs to me. because it never ceases being a peony. it is intrinsic, even as its extrinsic identity falls – petal by petal – to the ground.

the storms came. and wind and heavy rain. and the peonies bowed to them. the blooms were large – triumphant pink – but couldn’t withstand and, though some blossoms remained intact, many began to lose their velvet petals as the deluge let up and the sun came out.

there was not a peony on that entire plant, though, that was not still a beautiful peony. even with pistil exposed, with stamen missing, with wrinkled or missing petals. through the storm – and after – it remained – drumroll – a peony.

the storm has been brewing. apparently, there is more to the storm than i understood – as i now realize that there has been much in the history of our country i did not learn – so much was about teaching to the test we missed the dualistic humanity of the narrative. the story is not so innocent; the intentions are not so magnanimous. there is much malevolence in the story of this country and current events are mimicking the evil of earlier times.

but the democracy has been in place now for two hundred and fifty years.

yet, devastatingly, we celebrate america’s birthday just as we are watching the takedown of america’s freedoms, laws, its very constitution.

when does it cease being a democracy?

that question had never before occurred to me with such a sense of urgency. until now.

now i am worried.

the peony is a peony any and all times because it has the heart of a peony. it is nothing else. it hasn’t been anything else. it won’t be anything else.

but what about these united states?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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what about? [kerri’s blog on flawed wednesday]

it isn’t hard.

it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdbath so that the birds in the area can count on a drink of fresh, clean water.

it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdfeeders – or the hummingbird feeder – or the oriole feeder – so that, if necessary, the birds in the area can count on accessible, clean food.

it isn’t hard to sweep the driveway and clear off the seedshells on the top of barney so that the birds in the area aren’t sickened by wet, moldy seed or bits of bread that have become sodden and mildewed.

it just isn’t hard.

but neither is it hard to be concerned – to wrap your heart around – those people in our country who are hungry, who do not have enough food, enough clean water, who are suffering from hunger-related or poor food issues.

yet, the government of this country – the administration that is gluttonous even beyond our imagination – has eliminated millions of dollars funding yet another source of food for the hungry, for the downtrodden, those who can ill afford food yet face peril without it.

i am truly sick of it.

what is so hard about this?

ours is a government in charge of a large country filled with people of phenomenal potential – yet they are limiting the most basic element of need for those very people – so that they might fund a garish ballroom and its associated bunker, an ill-intentioned war and its apparently-coveted weapons of mass destruction, vanity projects, payola to criminals pardoned by a narcissistic hand, wildly expansive tax cuts for the wealthiest, crude corruption never before witnessed on such a cavalier, widescale plane, the slicing and dicing of healthcare, education, global health, medical research, climate change programs that actually help people, mass deportation sans conscience, and the elimination of lawful rights of people who fall under the machete of bigotry.

but, you say, what about the people…how does this government view the everyday, everysingleperson people?

and what about the american goldfinch?

they clearly could care less.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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stunning evening. stunning evening. stunning evening. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

a couple weeks ago, on friday night’s date-night, we had no plan – as is often the case. we so enjoy the sanctuary of our backyard that it, more than not, wins over going out anywhere. it was quiet and the sun was waning, a little cool. we added a layer and talked about watching a movie outside or taking a walk.

we hadn’t yet been – this season – to the marina in a town down the road where they sponsor live music at a biergarten on the harbor. and so we decided to jaunt down there for just a bit, walk on the boardwalk along the lake, listen to the band.

it was a stunning evening – between 7:30 and 8:30 the star of the show. the sun was setting on the western swale horizon of sand prairie grasses and fen. little to no wind, perfect temperatures, boats lining the docks, guitar strains in the air, a paramotorist sailing across the sky.

this past friday night, on friday night’s date-night, we left for milwaukee in humidity that made my hair into unkempt-fuzzy-curly-big-1980s. our third time to see our son perform at milwaukee pride, we were excited as ever. it was also a stunning evening – between 7:30 and 8:30 the star of the show – for us.

leading with the joy of doing what you really love, they took the stage and transformed the house. what had been a meager audience, with a complete lack of dance juju – with a lead-in karaoke non-dance-non-EDM-music performer inappropriately booked into a dance pavilion slot by someone who clearly did not understand how to shape the evening – well, they turned it around. in short order, there were hundreds and then thousands of people under the pavilion, dancing, raising their arms in the air, celebrating. i’m sure the next performers were grateful; our boys were one heck of a lead-in for that next slot.

we took photographs over by the water, the sky turning inkier as time went on. they went on to play a big nightclub gig and we drove home with lightning in the sky to our west, glad that the storm hadn’t arrived any earlier.

it’s saturday as i write this. tonight, i imagine, we’ll make some homemade pizza and a salad, maybe pour a glass of wine, turn on some music, and sit at the bistro table on our deck. our old dogga – who is worrying us a lot these days – will lay nearby and we three will watch the sky change as day moves to night.

another stunning evening.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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to survive. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

this reminds me of the song lyrics: “what goes up must come down/spinnin wheel gotta go round/talkin ’bout your troubles is a crying sin/ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin….” (david clayton-thomas). spinning wheel is a late 60s song – popular by blood, sweat and tears.

john denver’s quote is likely from ten to twenty years later: “things go up and down. if you can survive the down it will come back.”

both encourage holding on for the long haul – which is precisely what we need right now. to survive.

though as i write this, i am pondering the wisdom in simply riding a painted pony and letting the spinning wheel spin. we need something different now. inaction in these times is not survival. it is how a democracy perishes.

it is a bit like the recent flippant current-administration quote “just sit back and relax. it will all work out well in the end – it always does.”

for who?

that makes my skin crawl.

every single day the new news astonishes us and, yeah, doesn’t astonish us. it’s always more of the same – gluttony, cruelty, bigotry, corruption – exhibited and acted on by people in positions for which they have no credentials but for sycophantic loyalty.

sitting back and relaxing because it will be well in the end is merely complicity. it’s going down with the ship without even trying. to go down and to not come back.

the words “it will work out well” are suspect. they are the cavalier words of a dictator. and, in a twist of twists, these are the words – the recommendation – of the leader of the free world.

is this really where two hundred fifty years has brought us?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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