reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Monthly Archives: July 2015


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holding on, letting go

photoit’s that time of year. the school supplies are out en masse. i wander through the store, the office-supply-lover in me fondling the new blackandwhitespeckled composition books (wide rule), spiral notebooks (college rule), mechanical pencils, sharpies, highlighters, sticky notes…. we are surrounded by signs for college necessities: futons and storage containers, bins for the shower and three-drawer chests made of every color plastic can achieve. and it suddenly occurs to me:

this is the first year i will not be buying school supplies.

what?? no colored pencils, no erasers, no pencil sharpeners, no index cards for cramming late-night-factoids into too-tired brains? no. none of it.

for the last twenty years i have religiously gone to a variety of stores and bought a plethora of supplies. i was always shocked by how picked-over the choices were when i went, even weeks before school started. some moms are just overzealous, eh? nonetheless, i would love shopping, with or without my children, for everything on the list the school provided, the list they provided, and my own list. every year a box of kleenex was on the list from the schools. every year dry erase markers were on the list. and somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that i could actually put the 6783 colored pencils we had accumulated over the years into one bin and they could choose from those, rather than buying yet another brandspankingnew box.

but this year? this year is different. the girl graduated from college three years ago and is well into her life-minus-index-cards-and-futons. the boy is almost done with college. just a few short weeks and he will no longer require paper or pencils or pens or post-it notes from me.

and this is taking my breath away.

i stood in target today wondering where the time went. my yearning to buy a new lunch box or bag is unfulfilled. my mom instinct to find the coolestfoldersthatmatchtheirpersonalities is untapped. i wandered – still touching the 50 cent composition books and in awe of the sharpie highlighter display – and i realize that in my holding on, i am also letting go.

maybe i should buy a few composition books and that box of kleenex.  for me.

holding on, letting go

www.kerrisherwood.com

itunes: kerri sherwood


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mmm…the gift of insomnia

photo-3it was the middle of the night and i woke up. like wide-awake waking up. but not the i-want-to-get-up-and-vacuum or anything kind of awake. just the lie-here-and-ponder kind. of course, after a while, that pondering gets, well, a little old, and i was wishing i could go back to sleep. counting sheep. counting the minutes (and the hours) as i watch the clock. counting hot flashes.   counting my own breaths. counting the mosquitoes i can hear. counting – sheesh- anything trying to get back to sleep. somewhere in there, the night turned to early morning. and then i hear them. the loons. in the distance out on the lake somewhere up here in the north country there are loons gathered and i can hear their mournful cries, that gorgeous sound, the timbre of which is indescribable and yet, so recognizable. i listen. i am both reassured that all is well in the night and in the world right at this moment. i close my eyes and float with the loons. mmm…the gift of insomnia.

it was the middle of the night and i woke up. i had been sound asleep. we were all tired from a big family celebration. i rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, but the images from the day were hankering to be looked at again. so i laid in bed and thought about the whole day. the moments of hugs, the moments of hard work together making a party, the moments of laughter and great banter, the moments when looks of great love and history were exchanged between people who had been related forever and people who are newly related. i partied through the party once again, this time in my mind’s eye, this time meandering a little more slowly through the precious moments. mmm…the gift of insomnia.

photoit was the middle of the night and i woke up. i had been sound asleep, the sound-asleep kind of sleep that comes from drinking in the mountains all day and weeping at every turn. i was so overwhelmed with the beauty of the day and the drive through passes, thousands of feet above sea level (with, by the way, no guardrails.)   sheer majesty. i laid awake and reviewed the drive. each bend of the road. each steep ascent, each use-the-brake descent. i could feel the air on my face, i could hear the rustle of aspens, and i could smell the crisper-than-the-crispness-of-a-fresh-apple-off-the-tree air. i close my eyes and can see those mountains. mmm…the gift of insomnia.

it was the middle of the night and i woke up.photo-1  i was surprised because i had spent a good part of the day hiking and outside in the superbly fresh mountain air. my sprained-not-too-long-ago ankle was aching and i had those good aches that come with having really great exercise. i tried to go back to sleep, but i already missed the mountains, even though i was still there. they are glorious. they are alive. they make me alive. i closed my eyes and reached out my arms to hug them. mmm…the gift of insomnia.

the middle of the night can challenge me. like you, i can find myself reviewing and worrying and worrying and did-i-mention-worrying? photo-4but tonight i will wake up – again – in the middle of the night. and i wonder what gift i will find there.

in the night

www.kerrisherwood.com

itunes: kerri sherwood


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nurselog (nurs lawg, log) noun: each of us

photo-4we were silently canoeing in a quiet lake. very few other people were out. it was almost still. the sun was warm on our faces. and there is a certain rustling sound that birch trees make in a gentle breeze.  as we drifted around a bend, there was an old, old tree, its broken, jagged end angled a foot above the water. from a distance, and then closer, we could see what looked like a tiny garden growing in the tree’s jagged end.

“it’s a nurselog,” he said. as the fallen tree disintegrated, the organic matter became the perfect soil for new growth. small plants were stretching out of their new home, this welcoming space they had found.

(later i looked it up.   on asknature.org i read, “tall, wide trees in the forests of the pacific northwest serve as nurse logs to their seedlings after they fall, providing decades of water and nutrients as they slowly decay.”)

nurse log. nurselog. (i like it as one word.) i thought about it as we paddled. my sweet momma was a nurselog. everyone she encountered she gave space to, nurtured, made at home. she was the perfect soil for others’ new growth, whoever they were.

isn’t that our job?

one of my favorite children’s books is called ‘the carrot seed’ by ruth krauss.  the copy i have of it is one of those hard cardboard books that get all goobery on the edges after hundreds of readings. in the book a little boy wants to plant carrots but is cautioned by his mother, his father and his big brother that the carrots won’t grow. regardless, he diligently continues to water and tend the little spot where he planted the carrot seed. and then one day, a carrot came up. my favorite line from the book is “just as the little boy had known it would.” there is an illustration by crockett Johnson that depicts the little boy with a wheelbarrow that has in it the biggest carrot you’ve ever seen.

the power of nurturing.

anne lamott (in ‘grace, eventually’) wrote, “all of us lurch and fall, sit in the dirt, are helped to our feet, keep moving, feel like idiots, lose our balance, gain it, help others get back on their feet, and keep going.”

what’s more important?photo-2
what are we REALLY here for?
how can we help each other grow?
what does it all mean?

“…provide decades of water and nutrients…”

we kept canoeing, our paddles gliding in and out of the calm water, the lake answering our unspoken questions.

nurture me
is one of my earliest tracks.

recorded on ‘released from the heart’
THE CARROT SEED inspired this piece.

www.kerri sherwood.com

itunes: kerri sherwood

 

 

 


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welcome, barney!

barney is in our backyard. he is holding clay pots with our herb garden and some beautiful white impatiens. there are a fewphoto candles in glass jars. and he is perfect.

i’m not sure i ever thought that someday i would have a piano in my backyard. barney is a very old upright. about a hundred years old, he is tired and worn from long years, decades even, spent in a basement boiler room, but i can see the life in him as the sun hits him. never ever would i have imagined the idea of wild geranium growing up around a piano tucked into a bed of day lilies, just a few feet away from our little pond. never would i have imagined the idea of water getting on a piano, without dashing to wipe it off. it rained yesterday and i had to fight the urge to run outside and wrap my arms around him. barney’s new life is to feel loved and not ignored, appreciated and smiled at and not relegated to a dark, piano-inappropriate place. he was slated for the scrap dealer.

photo-1each morning since his arrival i have gone outside and thanked him for all his good work in the world. i am grateful to have a spot for him to rest. he looks proud. and he truly looks happy.

i really am an acoustic girl. my big yamaha grand has a studio of its own. my growing-up-spinet has a spot in our basement (not an easy place to move it to in this old house.) barney has a place in the backyard.

and all have big places in my heart.

photo-2

www.kerrisherwood.com
itunes: kerri sherwood


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wear the crystals

today is my sweet momma’s birthday. she would be 94 today if she were still on this earth. i suppose she is 94 anyway, only this time i can’t celebrate with her in a traditional way. i know that i have been writing a lot about her these days. i am filled with memories, surprised in a moment by tears, and i can hear her voice in my head. i’ve been so lucky. i had the privilege of her on this good earth for 56 years. but i truly miss her. jen wrote, “that relationship with our mom is so grounding and when it’s gone or changed, life feels so different.” yes.

yellowdragonss2 copyon april 11 the first of momma’s books was released, the first of The Shayne Trilogy. her joy at that reading and signing was a pinnacle moment for us – watching her, at almost-94, surrounded by people, sharing her writing. today, at would-be-94, we announce the release of the second in the trilogy. we thought it would be finished a bit sooner, but we kind of fell off the pony for a bit, so to speak. all of a sudden last week though, we felt infused with energy to get back to work on it. it is one of my greatest honors in life to make these children’s books happen. despite everything amazing she was in this world, i cannot think of something more important than to have given momma something she valued after-the-comma-after-her-name. someday, after a millionzillion of The Shayne Trilogy have sold to children and schools far and wide, i would love to set up a beakybeaky foundation to help other women, later in life, late in life, do exactly this-find what’s after-the-comma-after-their-name, the thing that they have wished for, the thing that they value for themselves and have put off, delayed for reasons that are valid and important and what women do. but for now, i wish i could see her face the first time she held Shayne & The Yellow Dragon, the first time she read through it.

today i am wearing a crystal necklace of hers. when i put it on this morning, i wondered, in my crabmeadowbeach kind of way, if it were too fancy. i decided to wear it regardless of its appropriateness. it’s her birthday and so, it’s perfect.

“live life,” she said. i keep remembering that. i can hear her saying it. i know she could see i used one of her favorite big stainless steel bowls for a huge salad for guests yesterday. she could see us slow-dancing on the patio early in the day. she was there at the fabulous fireworks last night, which she adored. she was there this morning when ptom told everyone to “slow down.” my sister said, “i kind of thought that for once mom could actually see me riding my bike today.” yes, my beeg seester. i’m quite sure she was riding along.

wear the crystals.  photo

www.kerrisherwood.com

itunes: kerri sherwood