reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


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two. together. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

sometimes – in the stats of this blog – i can see older posts someone has read but which i have forgotten. today one of those came up.

it is a blogpost from the very beginning of january 2024 called the place by the big trees. it is as relevant today – maybe even more so – than it was back a couple years ago:

i spent much of last year looking back. way back. way past up-close. way way back – way way past the smallest of trees on the horizon. it was necessary and painful and shocking and mighty tedious.

“… the mind clings to the road it knows / rushing through crossroads / sticking like lint to the familiar…” (mary oliver)

…

and there it all is. raw.

and you can see it. and your brain tries to stop you from seeing it. both. so you sit with it – laden – burdened – in the retrospect of it all – connecting the dots, sometimes nodding your head in sudden understanding, sometimes eyes wide, horrified at it all.

it is surreal. you are back there. you can feel it. but you know – that in merely a blink – you can be where you are right now…where you are really.

and suddenly, you are at a crossroads. you must choose between replacing the lint – tamping it back down and turning your face away from it – or recognizing it as a shield, pulling it all out – this ancient insulation – discarding it and then staring at what’s left – what is now feeling air and space and attention.

“trauma creates change you don’t choose. healing is about creating change you do choose.” (michelle rosenthal)

and then, after some time – some processing, some sorting, some meaning-making, some swearing, much courage, sheer survival – you glance at all the baggage laying next to you – and you pick up only that which you wish to carry.”

we hadn’t been on our loop in the woods lately. we haven’t been on it since. but that day we took some much-needed time to go to that place, to hike and be silent, to talk it all through, to go sort, to ground.

these two black-eyed susans weren’t the only black-eyed susans in the brush trailside. but these two were separate, they were not in a stand of flowers. instead, they were standing – in all their glory – alone, faces to the sun.

and they made me think of us – me and d – standing – as we all do, as we all find ourselves – alone together – faces to the sun – in the middle of the middle of all the stuff.

and again, in the middle of the middle, maybe like you in the middle of some middle, we once again process, we make meaning, we swear and cry and drum up a bit more courage and we choose.

and we once again dispense of any lint that clings to what-would-be-safe, what would be mute – soundless, what would insulate us from looking at it all, recognizing the burden of it all, honoring the gravitas.

and we turn our faces to the sun – our choice the crossroad – feeling the air and the space and the raw.

together.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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make-do-ers. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

i always feel like i have to explain – to people new to our kitchen – that our kitchen is old (like our almost-centenarian house), that the range is at least sixty years old, that – yup – all told, we have some significantly old stuff.

we are make-do-ers. we’ve been make-do-ers all our lives and we will likely be make-do-ers the rest of our lives. it is a mindset. not a bad thing or a good thing, it just is. and neither of us can imagine a different way.

the heat and humidity and rain of the last months have made our basil go crazy. we have two plants and i have cut them back – which actually makes them grow more. we’ve made pesto and tabouli, pizza margherita and tomato soup with fresh basil – it is caprese heaven.

the other day – on one of the days of tornado warnings and severe thunderstorms and torrential rain – i went out and snipped off a whole buncha basil, placing it in water in ball jars and small vases – so that later in the day we could make basil cubes. how lovely to have a harvest so plentiful that we now have both basil cubes and pesto cubes in our freezer for the winter. pretty amazing.

so she was here only for a day – and as we showed her around our house, chatting about the basil cubes we made the night before – i got to see our home through someone else’s eyes.

and for a moment or two, i took in her truly delightful comments about what she saw. for her enthusiastic words about our old kitchen, her laughter about our chunks of concrete and repurposed “furniture”, her “awww’s” when we told stories about rocks or branches or tiny baby shoes or old suitcases – these were so welcome, particularly for two people whose cars have ages that add up to 100 years right now.

we make-do. we are kinda proud of it. some of our best stories are stories about how we made do. we are convinced we would have nothing to talk about if everything were just … you know … perfect.

the suntea is out on the deck steeping now and the mint for it is at hand; the basil is ready for another shearing. we used the tomatoes on some homemade pizza last night and have all the ingredients for jalapeño poppers – both of ann’s recipes. we are soon to make another batch of tabouli and are – rightly (right now) – staying away from (as they say in colloquial wisconsin) “boughten” lettuce and other dangerous parasite-dwelling produce. our range is ancient; we wash all our dishes. we take back roads and turn our shampoo and conditioner upside down for weeks before calling them done. we have a window a/c unit, there are clamps on the edges of our roofing (waiting for the roofing guys), and a zip-tie holds the rocker molding onto littlebabyscion.

but heck. we wouldn’t be interesting any other way.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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all the phases. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the sowthistle can’t help but stand in all the phases of its life at the same time.

and i wonder what wisdom it can impart by doing just that – standing simultaneously in bud through flower through feathery seed into senescence.

being able to see the stage that is next, the stage that was before, the stage that was the beginning, the stage that will be the end – perhaps this is perspective-arranging, perhaps it zeros one in – on what is right now.

i wonder if the sowthistle thinks about any of this. does it base any of its thistling decisions on this omnipresent view of the arc of life, on the conglomerate-rock plant approach – or does it just live, detached from stressing, disconnected from the mindset of striding through stages upon which it has little impact?

and what about us? what if we could see our whole life right in front of us? what if we knew – from beginning to end – how it would all shake out?

don’t we, though? sort of?

don’t we know that we will somehow travel through these stages – the beginning, the middle, the end – that we will somehow grow and change and celebrate and grieve and jump and hang back and be active and sedentary, brilliantly productive and passively idle, bowled over and resilient, profoundly angst-filled and radically happy, loving and beloved, young and – hopefully – old.

is the sowthistle consistently sanguine, glass-half-full, amazed at simply living?

as we hiked by this bit of meadow, sowthistle wild on the side of the trail, i was struck by the all-in-one-frame of thistle – all its life cycle – a life arc in one tiny space of dirt.

and in the way that nature reminds us – all the time – i was immediately aware of my own life arc, my own mysterious timeline.

and mary oliver whispered – once again – this time from the tangle of buds and flowers and seeds – because she can never ask this enough – “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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before another step. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

the clouds parted for a tiny bit of sun, the tiniest bit.

it seemed well-deserved after a week punctuated with heavy. it seemed well-deserved after the torrential rains that were the bookends of the last six days.

and there, in the middle of grey skies and uncertainty, was the smidgiest smidge of blue – a bit of an inhale, a few moments to catch our breath, to recover – before setting off to continue on the route.

there. there was the chance to stoke up, to firmly plant our feet, to focus our attention on what we need, to rest – before we look onward, before we discern what is ahead, before we take another step.

*****

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

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the view. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

and in lessons that remind us:

our out-of-town guest had never been here before. not to our state, not to our town, not to the shores of lake michigan, not to our home.

staying at the local hotel right on the harbor channel, she sent photographs right after arriving, stunned by how beautiful it was. she repeatedly expressed this – along the lakefront, on the channel, by the rocks, in the gardens, in our neighborhood, in our old house, on our patio.

through her eyes we saw Home.

this week i passed through my 37th anniversary of living in our old house. more than half my entire life, it’s longer than i’ve lived anywhere else.

sometimes – no matter where you live – you stop seeing it…really seeing it.

and you get caught up in every everything else.

and you miss the sweet creak of the floors, the breeze off the lake, summer sunlight streaming in all the windows, the fresh basil in ball jars in the kitchen, the dogga-holes in the backyard, the giant pots filled with flowers in the parks, people out sidewalk-walking together, the birds lined up for grape jelly, sunset’s eastern sky over the water, the sound of children giggling in the surf at the beach or an amplified live band drifting over from by the harbor.

it might benefit each of us – even for just a few minutes – to just follow the advice of this chalk artist:

“sit down and enjoy the view.”

*****

THE WAY HOME ©️1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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there’s still softness. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

given the chance, softness catches your eye.

in these times of unmitigated chaos, it feels important to somehow remain open – to have just enough stillness in your mind to see it – the soft thing.

i often click on videos of puppies, horses, cats, birds, wildlife, vast expanses of national park lands, tiny carter cooking. my analytics are clear, i’m guessing, because those are the videos i find when i open my social media. well, that and thru-hikers, tiny houses, a plethora of musicians, random acts of kindness, people growing basil or dahlias or raising kung fu emus.

they keep me going.

because the chaos can be all-consuming.

and if you add your own personal set of challenges to a chaos bar that has been raised just by the tenor of this country, you are faced with the nearly impossible task of trying to maintain some sort of balance, some sort of steady, some – any – sort of zen in your days.

but softness is still out there. and it’s all around us.

the universe waves its arms at us, trying to get our attention, “look! over here! “

and every now and then we listen. we look to where grace has pointed. and soft wraps itself around us, reminding us:

“there’s still softness in the world” (tyler merritt)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

browse softness in DAVID’S GALLERY

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a minute or two. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

the day became inky black. we spent a lot of time in the basement, tornado sirens blaring, the skies ominous.

we put backpacks with important stuff and a few clothes into the basement, because, well, you just don’t know. d carried dogga down the steps and we had flashlights and a lantern handy.

rain fell in buckets – torrential – unstoppable. we mopped up in the basement, laying out old towels to direct the flow of water into the floor drains.

we could hear it whipping around above us from the basement. the alert came for baseball-sized hail. we hoped they were wrong, maybe overestimating a bit. they alerted fierce winds and we hoped the trees out back would be steadfast.

and from social media online in the basement, we knew that other parts of our state were being devastated by these winds, by a callous tornado.

once we are down there, it takes a lot for me to want to come out of the basement. i am most definitely more afraid of storms now than i ever had been. but the storms are worse, they are more damaging, they are unrelenting. that is clear to me.

when – finally – the sky began to clear – the day had mostly gone by. and even though the sun tinged the clouds in pink lemonade – and it was beautiful – i know, that for people who suffered in the storm – this storm or any other kind of assaulting storm – it was not much solace.

the storm took its toll. everyone is exhausted.

there is so much more work to be done now.

but, for a minute or two, it is time to rest.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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facts and fire. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

i read these words recently:

“facts are stubborn things.” *

no matter what someone wants you to believe about something, facts will stand the test of time, they will rise to the surface like a bobber on a lake, floating in incandescent shine into the air, ready for discovery. facts will – and should – lead the way, speaking loudly, burning down all the detriment of machinated false narrative, twisted stories that serve no purpose to truth.

facts. the intense combust of silence.

facts. silence. fire.

i have chosen facts.

i have chosen fire.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

66 and 19 (mixed media)

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*heather delaney reese wrote these words in a recent post, but they are also attributed to president john adams in the history of this country.


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get after it. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

sometimes it feels as if you are at a starting gate, a jumping-off point, the very membrane between what is now and what is next.

sometimes it feels as if everything is hinging on that moment, that all you have been, all you have done, all the ways in which you have prepared are coming together – the confluence of it all.

sometimes it feels as if you are no longer in total control – as if you were at any time – and you are facing down something most giant, most pivotal, reaching this pinnacle from wherever you came, this place you have arrived.

sometimes – when you arrive at this place – the weight of which is enormous – you know you must take a deep breath, you must give over, you must trust all the dots that have connected you from before and through next and next and next to now, and, though you know not how it will all turn out, you must lay down every everything and somehow trust that the universe is rigged in your favor.

sometimes this place comes and the only thing to do is to get after it.

*****

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

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

they will come back to grind out the stump. the crew said it will likely be a few weeks before the grinders get around to it, but eventually they’ll come and remove the last vestiges of our sturdy old tree.

after that we can get on a list for a new tree, the cost partially underwritten by the city. there’s a list of tree varieties one might choose from, depending upon availability. we’ve printed the current list and have begun studying trees – like one studies refrigerators or washers and dryers when you need one – immersing in photographs and information and reviews.

when we are officially on the list we will request our tree; we are actually hoping – with all the space out front – we might be able to purchase two. we’ll see. and then, maybe in the fall (or next year?) it (or they) will be planted in our parkway and we will start a new relationship with our tree or trees. it will signal a new time, a new era. and, in the way that these things go, it will also mark time. a new tree for both of us in this time of daisy-pathing.

there is something about a fresh start, something inviting, even compelling. a chance to write new narrative, from a different starting gate.

i can feel it – that fresh start – peeking out from around the corner. it has showered me from time to time with its freeing grace. and when it does, it is euphoric, a buzz of sorts – intoxicating like dopamine. releasing all harm that has been tightly held – stored – a toxic i did not choose but which has stayed with me through all the silent times.

and i hope – against hope – that soon i will also be a new tree. soon, there will be a sapling i can nurture. soon, there will be new growth, new branches and leaves. soon, all manner of the old pain-inducing stump inside will be gone.

and our new maple – or honeylocust – or ginkgo – and i will freshstart together.

*****

HOLDING ON, LETTING GO ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

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