and in the middle of the night – him sleeping like a baby and snoring like a freight train – while i am sitting there, wide awake, gazing adoringly at his smug-sweet-sleeping-snoring face – as much as i remind myself my insomnia is not his fault – it is neither his joy or his angst – it is not his to own or relinquish – it is not his to have and to hold – he tends to bug me just the teensiest-tiniest-minutest-nanoscopicest-infinitesimalest-bit.
and all the wishes in the whole wide world gather together. and they wait in the queen anne’s lace, sipping fine champagne and eating bonbons. they wait for their moments, individually and together. every-every queen anne’s lace pod. they wait for the tipping point.
and one day – in the middle of saunas and steambaths, luxurious manis and pedis, chamber orchestras playing taylor swift, candles and lavender pillows, crystal glassware topped off with port – the sun and the moon having risen and fallen many, many times – the wishes release into the world on new morning rays and seeds go every-everywhere.
and they drift and soar and look down from the jetstream at all the people.
and from my tiny home under the clover, i can look up and see that maybe the sky is clearing and the rains have stopped. the whole town has put up black umbrellas; some are bent from the wind and most are taller than they are wide, so it’s still easy to get caught in the downpours. and i can see – over there – the brown fulton birdcage umbrellas all set up, rounded bubbles – but everything that has been drenched is now drying a bit and it’s all verdant green and lush. it’s time to carry on.
i’m leaving my little home under the clover to go back out into the world. to see its giantness and feel the arriving sun and appreciate the balance of sunsoaked and rainsoaked, to try and understand the relationship between lack and abundance, to navigate the seesaw of positive and negative.
i see that it is quite possibly all about perspective. for the birds flying over our umbrella-world don’t see us here and, from our vantage point under the umbrella canopy, we don’t see them there. it’s only in the open field that we see each other, in the open field we can discern and hear each other, in the open field we can find truth.
my perspective has gotten lost from time to time, focused merely on my own parched landscape and drenching rainstorms. stepping out, looking around, taking stock – i see past the tiny market-umbrella-town in which i’ve taken shelter.
and i am no longer silent. there is much to be said, much to be learned.
and in the sun i’ll revel. and in the rain i won’t carry an umbrella.
in the way that dads are corny, my sweet poppo was just that – a little bit corny. somehow, it seems it’s supposed to be that way. his humor was lighthearted and the way he repeated some jokes was comforting. “do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?” he’d quip. waiting just a few seconds, he’d respond to himself – if you didn’t beat him to it – “not if it’s in cans!!” and then he’d laugh. every time.
i think he was buying time to think when he’d quip about the rhubarb. it wasn’t like he was intently concerned about the rhubarb. matter of fact, i only remember them growing rhubarb maybe one or two years, back behind the house. and even then, it wasn’t like he was a huge rhubarb fan. i think the only way he liked it was with strawberries – in a pie.
but his jokes were harmless and predictably silly. no stand-up routine for him, he was just daddy-o, trying his best to carry on. and because he wasn’t a giant conversationalist – he turned that over to my sweet momma – he’d just fill in the gaps. “well, how do you like them apples?” he’d say.
i’m pretty sure he’d had loved the corn we grew in our backyard this summer. the squirrels and chippies had everything to do with this crop. they’d deplete the birdfeeder in mere hours, tossing kernels and seeds everywhere. i have no doubt where the cornfield came from. but it was pretty astounding to see. we suddenly became prolific mini-farmers.
it was everywhere. next to breck, our aspen. inbetween the ornamental grasses. under the birdfeeder. under the potting bench with our herbs. next to the garage. yesterday we found it in the front garden bed.
i could hear david’s dad columbus chuckle from the other side when we found it in the front garden. a cornfield-lover from way back, i figure he might have had something to do with that. we laughed as well, delighted in a – hmmm – corny kind of way.
for the longest time we left it all right where it was. there was something really pleasing about glancing out at the corn.
but then we decided it was time to pull it out, so that it wouldn’t suffocate our intentional plantings. we took pictures and then pulled it, thanking it for the entertainment it had provided.
outside on the driveway we talked to our westneighbors. we talked about our hummingbirds and our feeders and the birdbaths we had placed in our yards and the chippies and squirrels stealing seed and the birds gathering in the bushes. we were all zealous, loving the little creatures in our yards. “we’ve turned into our parents,” i noted and we all nodded and laughed.
and then, there it was. in our pond. the first frog in a couple years.
it was helen, who is steeped in her gift of faith, who told us the significance of having a frog appear. “f-r-o-g,” she said, “fully-rely-on-God.”
it is astounding how very much the appearance of this frog means to us. in the middle of the middle, a nod (or hop) of reassurance is unbelievably gratifying.
not every frog likes a photo shoot, but “hope” participated nonetheless. she was shier than most of our other frogs, but maybe that’s because she’s just getting to know us. one of our frogs – 2020 maybe? named “pando” – actually let me pet it, stroke its head and speak to it up close.
regardless, we’re a tad bit worried because it is so late in the year. she arrived on the equinox and the fall weather will race past the starting gate, sprinting to winter.
there are heartstrings attached to this vw. mine. it’s been a part of my life since 1971, although it wasn’t specifically mine then. it became mine in 1976, when i “bought” it from my sweet poppo for a token amount of money. just to do the math for you – so you don’t have to (even if you don’t want to know) – that is 47 years ago. this little super beetle has been mine for 47 years.
and it still is.
now it resides in the one spot in our one car garage, next to the lawnmower and the solo stove, a little bit of potting soil and some spare clay pots, the wheelbarrow with the flat tire, under the eaves with the old screen door and the snow rake, the tricycle and the little red wagon, a couple of old webbed aluminum lawn chairs and two zero gravity lounges, just far enough away from the bikes suspended on j hooks, covered with a couple dropcloths, keeping the dust off.
i love it.
it has history, as most things dating back 47 years. it was purchased in germany brand new and my parents drove it all over europe. i was there the day we picked it up on the docks in ny after it was shipped to the states. i was there the day my parents fell in love with a giant painting of fjords listed for sale at a seafood restaurant and it wouldn’t fit in the bug so after dinner we waited while my dad drove home to get the other car. i was there when driving in snow, i slid directly into the curb and nothing happened. i was there when my sweet dog missi pooped in the backseat well. i was there adventuring, layer-caking jobs, buying cornflakes to survive, with the windows down blasting 1970s AM radio. i was there with my bug on the beaches, out east on the island, driving in the humid heat of florida, in wisconsin the day i went into labor with my baby girl. i was there on the re-homing drives from new york to florida, florida to wisconsin, state to state. through thick and thin it has been a constant. even if it’s in the garage. even not driving.
i suppose my dad would say to sell it. and i’ve thought about it. there is likely someone out there who would relish rebuilding the engine again, re-oiling its joints and changing out rubber stuff that needs changing. (personally, i sort of like the idea of that restoration project myself.) and then, the bug would be driven and gleeful.
but i don’t know. i mean, even director/producer ron howard drives an old cherished bug around california. so there are other people who “get it” – driving an old bug around here – or anywhere else one might live.
both my kids (and probably most people who know me) can attest to my threadiness. so no one would be surprised that this little bug is still in the garage. i am heartened by the fact that my neighbor has an old triumph in her garage, same sort of story. it’s nice not to be the only one…
we pushed it out of the garage to clean – a yearly (or so) event. checking for evidence of chippies homesteading, with a soft sponge and a microfiber cloth i gently washed it. and then i did a photo shoot as it smiled and mugged for the camera. it knows how much it’s loved.
it shocks us every time we are out. at the grocery store, at a department store or boutique, at a restaurant. the prices!
though we love a wonderful epicurean experience just like the next person, we rarely have them out in cafes or eateries. the cost of eating out and a generous tip equals quite a few groceries for us. so instead, we end up creating our own dining experiences – at our kitchen table or in the sunroom under happy lights or out on the deck or somewhere else at our pop-up table and stools. we eat as healthy as we can and enjoy a glass of wine with dinner when we can. nothing fancy.
because we believe it’s not really about the food. it’s about being together.
i remember when we were on the whole30 diet. we’d pass a tray full of scrumptious brownies and be taunted by their deliciousness. ultimately – because brownies are not on the whole30 – we’d walk on. and the thing we’d remember is that the brownie experience would have only been about five minutes of food bliss.
in paris – with fabulous cuisine and bistros at every turn – we picnicked at parks and on cathedral steps with baguettes and cheese, olives and tiny salads, glasses of wine. neither of us felt gypped. instead, it was an experience rich with blissful moments, immersed in the city.
and so it’s a little bit like that with eating out for us.
we either need to get the side salad and bread or we just need to find our food bliss somewhere else.
my sweet poppo died three years before my sweet momma. when she died, the tilt that my world had already felt dove down into a deeper angle, the axis of the earth struggling to keep it in balance. the loss of both parents is profound, no matter your age.
it had been years since i had heard or seen a blue jay. they were common where i grew up, the screeches of jays in the woods or the trees surrounding our home. they have husky voices, always a little bit raspy. but they make me think of home.
i still remember the first day i saw one – after. it’s a few years ago now.
we were hiking on one of our favorite trails and suddenly i could hear them. they flew across the path and i stood still, reveling in the moment, taking it in. since that day, there have been more sightings and i have heard their birdcalls, even out our bedroom window from time to time.
since they are a common bird in wisconsin, i wonder how it is i missed them.
and i realize that sometimes the way home – the sound of a blue jay – is something we just don’t pay attention to, something that falls down on the list of priorities. until one day.
the day comes that all the really important stuff comes into focus. and we realize that we have – maybe – taken for granted the stuff that really is a part of who we are. we slough off paying attention to those things, those places, those people because we believe that there is plenty of time – later. or perhaps there are reasons we cannot grant grace to those things, those places, those people and we somewhat haughtily, in some selfish kind of righteous amnesia of our own actions, put them to the side, the corners of our hearts. or maybe we are just too busy and we have gotten lost, overwhelmed in our very real and partly contrived busy-ness.
any way you look at it, i am surprised i didn’t see the blue jays. until after.
now i hear them, see them, find their feathers in the usualness of our days. each time it is like a tiny nod to home, to all the moments of goodness, to the realness of unconditional love in the midst of the ridiculous hardness of life.
my tree. i found a photograph of my tree. the one i sat in for the years i was growing up on long island. i wrote poetry and tinkered with lyrics and sorted out the pinings of teenagehood. in that tree.
things are never as big as what you remember. the maple tree wasn’t huge – but it provided solace and a quiet, private place for me. i’d climb up and sit on one of the limbs, my back against the sturdy trunk, sun filtered through the leaves, my bedroom window within view. it wasn’t in a thick forest. and it wasn’t a giant old tree. it was a younger maple, just old enough to wisely offer me space, fill the place in me that needed it.
we walked into the silo. it was silent and tall. like a tiny round cathedral, it hit us both as a place you could sit, meditate, think, pray. a place to go to when you need to get centered again, when all else is spinning, when blustering winds or words are pummeling you, when you feel you cannot stop.
as we stepped in, damp cool gentle air wrapped around us. everything slowed down – hushed slow motion in a cave. had we had a chance to sit, we would have folded our legs beneath us, closed our eyes. leaned back against the trunk … oh, wait, it was cement…
quiet spaces are like that. inordinately remarkable, uncannily ordinary. but they share something. serenity.
guided imagery meditation ushers you to a quiet place. in belleruth naparstek’s meditations she invites that space to be anywhere – the forest, the shore, the desert, the canyon. places that have brought you peace. places you hold in your mind’s eye. places that are sacred to you.
even without guided imagery we find our own corners and crannies. they are the porches of our hearts – a spot to rest and rock.
i suppose the gift of these places is the unexpectedness. the silo was unexpected. the log on the side of the mountain stream, the jetty jutting into the sound, the edge of the canyon. i guess the first time so was my tree.
it’s all in recognizing it when you feel it. and you’re forever changed as you carry that place with you.
reverse threading 