in the last few days, one of my friends became a first-time-grandmother. those of us who were aware of her daughter’s giving-birth-countdown would text her asking for any news or updates, as excited as if it were our own story. sunday morning she texted to say that indeed a little baby girl had been born in the pre-sun hours of the day. her daughter, a friend of my own daughter’s since kindergarten, was now a mom and all was perfect in the world.
i saw this painting-in-process as i walked down the steps into david’s basement studio. the new mother, sitting cross-legged, gazing intently at her new baby made my heart skip a beat. i recognized the look, the tilt of her head, the gentle but secure way she was holding her baby. it took me back – immediately – to my first moments holding kirsten or craig, those nothing-short-of-miraculous minutes when time stood still and everything was perfect in the world.
i cannot imagine the power of this painting when it is completed. it’s already intoxicatingly striking. it brings back every memory. it reminds me of what is most important. the delicious feeling of holding a tiny baby, the dreams that soar in your head, the bond of love. times when everything is perfect in the world.
an unnecessary display of knowledge…we all have been around this one way or another.
i once received a christmas letter that was about 2-3 pages long, single-spaced. it was from a long-ago friend from elementary school and i was pretty excited to see her name on the return envelope. i looked forward to hearing what she was up to; we hadn’t been in touch much since “the olden days” and i was happily curious.
so i opened the envelope and settled in to read her news. it took less than a few seconds to see that this was not about fun stuff that she, her family and extended family had done through the year; instead it was a report – although she included a flowery description of their home in a california beach town, there was a wordy review of books she had read, a detailed, verbose list of accomplishments at work. there were no anecdotes about family or, for that matter, any talk about family. i’m still unclear about whether or not she has children. her language was untypical, conspicuously intellectual verbiage. it felt pointedly like a display of knowledge. ick.
we’ve all been subjected to this. in writing, in person, on tv or podcasts, on facebook or twitter. it’s definitely eye-rolling territory. my daughter – The Girl – has perfected eye-rolling and i have used her technique from time to time in an effort to deal with the after-effects of such displays of knowledge.
although i am aware of and respect that you have accumulated vast knowledge through the years, i believe i mostly want to know what you think, how something makes you feel, what your story is, how you participate in life with others. that will tell me what you know and, with gratitude for you and the unique gifts you bring, i will learn from you.
as human beings, it seems like gaining knowledge is our job. sharing knowledge is our gift. displaying knowledge is a whole ‘nother thing. and so unnecessary.
i know it comes as no surprise to you that we watch the national geographic show ‘life below zero’. we’ve talked about it before and have even quoted snippets of wisdom from some of the show’s regulars.
in the next day or so it will drop to a “feels like” temperature of -52. that’s negative fifty-two. the “actual” temperatures won’t even reach the single digit negative numbers. now, that’s cold! and yet, each time the temperature is posted on the screen when we watch ‘life below zero’ it is usually some negative number (which doesn’t include the wind chill.) then, whichever arctic resident they are following will proceed to go miles to hunt or gather or fish, walking or driving snow machines in bitter winds, dragging behind them sleds upon which they will place their findings. i think we watch it because it is so far from our own lives. we love the vistas and can’t really imagine the life.
the whole town was closed today; the school system, the colleges, the city offices. and we haven’t even gotten to the life-below-zero temperatures yet. at lunchtime we took a walk and the snow was amazing. it was quiet and the lakefront was full of ice. our sedum plants looked like the lemonade ice pops i used to make The Girl and The Boy with the tupperware do-it-yourself-ice-pop-set i’m saving for the possibility of grandchildren. the snow is everywhere; there are enormous baby-sled piles on the sides of the roads. icicles abound. it’s beautiful. it’s a vision of real old-fashioned winter, a calendar entry on one of those the-year-in-wisconsin calendars, postcard images of this time of hibernation.
and so, in deference to the scope of mother nature’s ability to stop us in our tracks, we plan to limit our outdoor exposure the next few days. we look outside at all the snow that has already fallen and, expecting more, make sure we have enough basics in the fridge and the cupboards to last, in case we can’t get out. our little scion rocks, but unplowed roads and extreme cold are not necessarily its gig.
maybe we’ll take a little time and watch some more ‘life below zero’. by sheer comparison, we’ll realize how easy we have it. oh! and hey, maybe we’ll make some ice pops. or not.
we walked past the store window in ridgway, colorado and i stopped to laugh and take this picture “dear brain…please shut up!” i’m not sure i can count how many times i have wished my brain would just stop talking to me for a few minutes. as a detail person, it is always engaged in figuring something out, sorting or strategizing. there seems to be always something i am wondering, worrying about, thinking-thinking-thinking-through. even while hiking, in the middle of the woods or on a trail of bountiful beauty, i ponder.
now, there are times i have managed to ignore it – moments sitting on a precipice staring out at mountains, sitting on the rocks staring at the lake, sitting on the beach watching the waves hit the shoreline, sitting and warming up by a bonfire, sitting on a pew absolutely silent. all those involve sitting still. in those rare moments of slower breathing and meditative peace, i can feel my whole body let down. more of that, please.
wishing you – wherever you are – a few moments to sit. for your body to be still, your thoughts to be quiet.
the last i saw him was not the last of this world being this world. but it was the last moment my world was the same. i wrote about this yesterday. it’s all fragile. like a soaring violin note bowed over a line of piano, it’s ephemeral. it will vanish in the next moment. we keep hearing the line in our heads; we keep hearing the cello passionately talking to us; we keep those we have never seen again close.
i wrote this piece to speak to the last time i saw my big brother. i listen to it now and it is also about the last time i saw my sweet momma, my poppo, my uncle allen, my grandparents, my adored high-school-english-teacher andrea, my not-really-a-triplet-from-elementary-school-on-dear-friend kenny… it’s about the last time i saw people i’ve loved forever. it’s about holding on to shared moments with my living-far-away-children. it’s about the last time – when i don’t know when the next time is.
LAST I SAW YOU is the gossamer strands of connection between us. it’s how we hold that and honor that. for me, just know it is a statement of enduring love.
download THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby
“…no one can tell us because life is not something which can be understood from a book…” (krishnamurti)
when my big brother died almost 27 years ago, my world tilted, never to return to the same again. i struggled to understand that this amazingly smart, talented, witty man – someone i depended on my whole life – was no longer going to be in this world. losing him left me with a lot of questions.
ever since then i have not been able to wrap my head around how the world keeps going if you cannot feel it anymore. and yet, each loss i have experienced is evidence that is exactly what happens. the world keeps going. it’s all a mystery. no one can really tell us.
there is no handbook available to explain all this. life’s complicated layers and sideroads, the junctures where we choose left or right, the places we decide to stop or go…it’s all a mystery. no one can really tell us.
nearly every day there is some world-tilting reminder to wholeheartedly embrace the moment you are in; nearly every day we forget. it’s not as easy as just remembering. it’s not easily understood. your shoes are not my shoes and, although it is easy for me to sense all the concurrent emotions in a room, i still cannot grasp what you are actually going through. my sun could be your rain. it’s all a mystery. no one can really tell us.
so we try. we try to understand, without instruction, the strands and tattered fragments and shiny-mica-bits that weave together into life. mostly, we keep feeling life. and the world keeps going.
it wasn’t exactly a blizzard, but it was a great snowstorm. it makes me wonder what would have happened if i had wished for something else….
every weekend My Girl drives back and forth across the high mountains. she is a head coach for a snowboard team in aspen and instructs in telluride, so this four-and-a-half-hour-each-way-she’s-driving-where-there-are-no-guardrails-worry-zone for me is a necessity in her life. i check the weather and implore her to stay in touch as she goes. this last week, both of these towns and pretty much every town in-between had “winter storm warning” and THIS posted:
not exactly words that warm a momma’s heart. but kirsten knows i am worried and, probably rolling her eyes, generously lets me know how things are as she goes. she has good snow angels and i count on them.
i always say things like, “someday you’ll understand” to kirsten and craig, but i know that right now my mom-worrying might just be a burden to them. i’m grateful they humor me, and i do know that someday they’ll understand.
when we were driving across the country in really bad weather, wendy had the ability to locate us and we were both really relieved for this. checking in every so often, had something happened, at least she knew where-in-the-world we last were. a good snow angel. both The Girl and The Boy can locate me at any time too. this is not an uncommon device used by families and i know that every mom has eternal gratitude for such a thing.
we took a walk in the freshly fallen snow. It was very cold out and the wind was blowing, causing drifts across sidewalks and the waves to slam against the rocks on the lakefront. i was glad not to be driving and my mind wandered back in time to other snowstorms….ones where my children bundled up and ran out to build snowforts and snowmen, ones where i was the one on the road and my sweet momma was the one worrying. snowstorms when i went outside and played in the snow laughing with beloved old friends.
it had been kind of a long while since i’ve made a snow angel. we got back from our walk downtown and were in front of our house. i took david’s hand and we fell backwards into the snow. i drew in my breath at the cold and laughed, my arms the wings of a snow angel.
it seriously makes me cringe looking at the little square boxes of tissues (the size that will appropriately fit in our bathroom.) most of them, in my humble opinion, are ugly. i wonder who designs these boxes and i wonder why anyone purchases them who doesn’t have one of those crocheted-tissue-box-covers that you could purchase at any church bazaar in the 90s. (we don’t have one of those.) the color choices, the patterns (or i should say the lack thereof) are really disconcerting to me. someone is clearly getting paid to design them and they are dull and uninspired. target used to have a solid-color-series of tissue boxes; maybe they still do somewhere, but it isn’t at our target location. choosing a solid color is much better than a pale-skin-tone-dot-pattern-on-cool-light-beige box. i mean, really? i suppose if you want your tissue box to blend in with the environment that would overly-work, but what if you want your tissue box to be a statement piece? or at least be attractive?
so by now you are rolling your eyes at this, a clear first-world-problem-meaningless-rant. and i understand that. but my question remains…a question i quite often wonder about with many different products…who designs this stuff?
we were at festival recently (one of our grocery stores) and stumbled across this tissue box. we purchased this one. although the band of mustard gold at the bottom edge with advertising seems unnecessary, the font is mostly acceptable, the colors are not simply muted non-shades. and the saying is a good, albeit trite, every-time-you-are-in-the-bathroom reminder, “the best things in life are the people you love, the places you’ve seen and the memories you’ve made along the way.”
i don’t suppose everyone ponders tissue boxes. but two artists living in the same household pretty much ponder everything that will sit out in view. although i have to admit, david is not as zealously-picky about tissue boxes as i am. maybe, just maybe, i should have been a tissue-box-designer. or maybe i was one in a former life. either way, it makes me a critical-kleenex-consumer.
my poppo was staunch about a few things. tires, brakes and windshield wipers were three of them. not only staunch, he was particular; his tire brand of choice (for him and for anyone he loved) was without-a-doubt-michelin. and so, with the exception of the time i had a tire blow out on a highway far from home, on a sunday, with no specialty tire store open, i have always bought michelins.
we’ve sat at kenosha tire many times, really for every vehicle: the vw, the minivans, the jeeps, the xb. having new tires mounted or a tire fixed or having all four rotated, they are courteous, informative, and speedy. i never truly mind waiting for something like this to be done; i love to watch people so i stay amused most of the time.
this establishment has been there since 1970. it’s not a fancy place; there’s a variety of chairs, a variety of plaques with sponsored-team pictures, a variety of tire samples and tire signs and a large screen tv. sometimes there’s a dog or two and i suspect maybe there is a cat back in that office with the counter-level swinging door. this is a family business and their dedication not only to their customers but also to the community is obvious. i always feel like they listen to me; i always trust them.
before we went out west, we had our tires rotated…i could hear my dad nagging, er, reminding me all the way from heaven. on the wall next to my chair was this sign. the four-way test of the things we think, say or do printed on rotary international paper. it struck me as a simple tool…something to help frame our thoughts, the things we blurt out or defiantly or unthinkingly state, the things we do that have the potential to hurt others.
it is clear to me that kenosha tire values people. it is clear that they support their community. and now it is clear to me that they found this simple guide to kindness was important enough to put on the wall. we should all have a wallet-sized copy to which we can refer.
i’m betting my dad would be pretty staunch about using this shop to buy our tires. kindness in business was another one of those things he was pretty particular about.
as a matter of fact, i’m also willing to bet that, other than 2x4s, i-beams, sheetrock and maybe shiplap, this is the only wall-related-discussion he’d be interested in.
“…and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should…” (desiderata by max ehrmann)
when i listen to tracks i have recorded i can either picture the time i spent writing at the piano or the time i spent in studio recording. this piece drums up the same image; in a time of pronounced inspiration and the transferring of much emotion into music, this was simultaneously written and recorded at yamaha artist services in nyc back about 15 years ago.
even then, i could see the willows-bending-in-the-wind characteristic of life – it will unfold as it should, despite our best efforts to stymie it or change it or enhance it. and so i loved when ken, my truly amazing producer, added a bended electric guitar line, arching and buckling, flexing around the melody line, a musical painting. even now, and i suspect as will always be, i try to be that willow, bending as the wind takes me, allowing the universe to unfold.
“unfolding: trying to trust that life is unfolding the way it should be”(liner notes)
reverse threading 