i had never been in a butterfly house before. the chicago botanic garden has such an exhibit right now and we saved it until last – after all the beautiful gardens and fresh air had zenned us out. if it is possible to sink further into zen than being enfolded in gloriously intentional blooming, this butterfly garden is it.
it isn’t a huge screen enclosure – and they allow limited people in at a time – but it is complete immersion in the magical. enchanting. for two artists who draw inspiration from the outdoors and its gorgeousness, we felt like we could have stayed there for hours.
butterflies were literally everywhere…on the plants, on the screen, on the path and – most delightfully – on us. the first moment a butterfly landed on us felt like you had been chosen for something uniquely special – this fragile creature with wings of scales and chitin (a fibrous protein) supported by a system of veins. nature, indeed. how is this kind of iridescence even possible?
only one other time – that i can remember – did a butterfly land on me. it was shortly after my big brother died and, as this butterfly flitted around me out front in an adirondack chair, i was convinced he was sending me a message. until it landed on me and hung out. then i was sure it was my brother, having converted his life energy temporarily into that of a butterfly. i was astounded and ever so grateful.
this time i was just in complete awe. i felt chosen as a few butterflies lighted on my hands or my arms, one at a time. i spoke quietly to each of them, thanking them for this incredible moment in time…a moment when i was reminded that we are all – butterflies and people – on this good earth together. we are all doing life the very best we can. we are all capable of gorgeous and of making another feel singled out and exceptional.
butterflies in this sanctuary just have to fly around and then land, their visit a thing of softness…a mica moment.
we – as people – can also lift someone, transport them into nirvana … in so many ways. we need remember that. our goodness is not winged, but – with our loving encouragement – others may fly. it’s all pure magic.
three words stand out: weathered beauty. revered. a sign in the japanese garden section of the chicago botanic garden.
we walked around the 500 or so booths of the outdoor antique show held at the neighboring county fairgrounds. and we were drawn to the same kind of items, again and again. we are pretty consistent. we list to the things that are weathered.
it’s the tall peeling column we’d place in our living room somewhere near the peeling paint chunk of concrete that holds our iPod. it’s the galvanized metal work light on a tripod that would serve for reading in our sitting room somewhere near the old farm table, bits of barnwood showing through its white paint. it’s the old white porcelain coffee pot that would sit with the metal coffee pots on the shelf in our kitchen holding teabags. it’s the collection of glass doorknobs like every doorknob in our own home. we hold these things in esteem not because they are perfect, but because of their stories, because they are weathered, because they have patina, because they are real.
“you become. it takes a long time. that’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. but these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (the velveteen rabbit – margery williams)
in these times, it would seem that Real would count most, regardless of age or stage or any other categorizing of any sort at all. it would seem – in particular – that it be most important that we choose people around us who have become Real, who are Real. it would seem obvious – absolutely and entirely obvious – that is where truth is found, where respect is valued, where perspective is honed, where conversation is possible, where progress has potential.
we need be mindful of what we revere, of whom we revere, for there is much pretending, much misinformation and misrepresentation, much that is truly Ugly in this world. Real is sometimes difficult to discern and aligning with Real can make one vulnerable to the scorn of others.
but Real is, well, real.
“once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. it lasts for always.”
i don’t usually eat thomas’ english muffins these days – the “real” ones are not gluten-free and i have been pretty much sticking to a gluten-free diet. but lately, i’ve been trying a little gluten here, a little gluten there, just to see if i can push the envelope a little. plus, “real” english muffins are one of my favorite things and eating them seems a tad bit happily indulgent.
so the other day – when david was talking about his weathered face, the wrinkles, the aged-ness – it just seemed like the highest complimentary comeback to tell him they – his wrinkly wrinkles – are simply nooks and crannies…just like my favored english muffins.
i’m not sure he was pleased with the comparison, but i love his face even more than i love english muffins, so it was meant with a whole world of reassurance.
we are what we are – wrinkles and all – and we need to celebrate THAT extraordinariness.
PLEASE NOTE: my 2008 macbook pro has crashed so i have zero access to the tools i usually use to produce SMACK-DAB. please bear with us as i attempt to continue this cartoon with workarounds while sorting out having to invest in new technology. xoxo
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in this time – the lull – we will immerse in each moment. we will not tarry in angst nor indulge in everyday worries. we will step back from all of it. we will try to quiet our minds. we will simply be in it.
it’s like a pause. only not. because we are not paused; we are breathing and moving and appreciating – all in gratitude, intentionally slower, intentionally sans complexity, intentionally sans discord.
soon enough, there will be lists of things to do, to sort, to attend to, to concern ourselves with. things to decide, things for which we need muster courage or fortitude.
but for right now, for this bit of time, there is only the lull.
we walked out of the parking garage and up the grassy hill to the path along the lakefront. a perfect day outside, we strolled as long as hunger allowed us and then we turned around, completely sated by art and fresh air, heading for the public market and bowls of gumbo at the fish market counter.
the idris khan exhibit “repeat after me” intrigued us. layers of digital repetition, scores of music sedimentarized into a single panel, stamped words superimposed on stamped words, scribbles on top of scribbles, it was surprising and fascinating. beautiful – seemingly blurry – images in larger-than-life scale, it felt an interesting statement of the concurrence of everything as it happens in this plane. in the collections of classic scores, words stood out to me: presto…poco rall (poco rallentando)…tempo markings…because he allowed them to be visible, i wondered if they were adjectives of his life then or just simply part of the music he was layering. i admonished myself then, aware of the overly analyzing curator mode to which i was succumbing. i remembered seeing christopher wool speak…the curator was going on and on about the psychological underpinnings of his work and he sloughed it all off – he was merely creating what he liked, what he felt he wished to express. art doesn’t always need to be analyzed – it is sometimes just your heart speaking out loud, on canvas, in image, in wet clay, in melody, in haunting harmony.
walking through this exhibit – from room too room- i was so aware of all the music books, sheets, scores in my own file cabinets. i kept thinking of ways i could incorporate all my collections into art pieces – for surely, there is little use for some of it otherwise and it will certainly go the way of recycling that millions of pages of music-on-paper have already. perhaps even an accent wall expanse papered with pages – the genius of composers gone before physically surrounding a studio space. the energy – sans the analysis.
idris khan called us. but, as always, *richard and mark and ellsworth* were there for us as well – steadfast and notoriously inspiring. we stopped by to say hello and they nodded the quintessential guy head-nod, barely discernible but a clear thank-you-for-always-stopping-by. we wouldn’t miss it.
we drove to have gumbo, hearts full and talking over each other about what we had seen. and then, the ride home was quieter, reflective and flush, revitalized.
*****
*favorites richard diebenkorn, mark rothko, ellsworth kelly
the first. these are the first peppers we have ever grown and we are sort of stunned by them. because they are really real-live peppers!!
when we purchased the plants, they were on clearance at lowe’s. we bought our basil and parsley plants there and, as we wandered around – a tiny bit late in the early summer planting season – a few pepper plants spoke to us. on our potting stand are three pepper pots – a jalapeño, a red chili and this snack red pepper. because we are budget-conscious, we worried about the cost of failing. but, in the end, we thought it was worth the risk…this first attempt at pepper-growing. plus it helped that there were a few buds on the plants by the time we purchased them; it made us think that maybe we stood at least a chance of being successful.
and now…here we are. there are two jalapeños and multiple red snack peppers ready to be harvested and we are truly stunned. the red snacks and a jalapeño will become part of a meal we will share with 20 – stars in our fajitas. it will be a proud moment for us and we’ll be grateful for the amazement of growing our own food, just like we were with the batches of pesto (red and genovese) we made and froze last week.
we spent monday at the chicago botanic garden this week. each time we visit we are wowed by a different spot in the garden, a different grouping, a different extraordinary flower, beauty after beauty. david remarked about how much he loved the english walled garden. he said that if he were to build and plant a garden today he would plant a walled garden. i laughed and pointed out that our backyard is kind of like a walled garden. we don’t have the same level of order or discipline in our garden – for, along with our pond, there are ornamental grasses and peonies, ferns, day lilies and hosta planted slightly more haphazardly, but it is mostly walled in by the back and side fence, the garage serving as a perimeter. there is a privacy afforded, a quietness.
we sit at our bistro table or in our infamous adirondack chairs and watch our birds and squirrels and chippies. we share time and space and life with our dogga. and our barnwood potting stand – adjacent to the deck and the patio – is a place of tiny miracles.
we could have shied away from trying peppers, even at their discounted price. we could have worried that we would not bring them to fruition, that we would not be successful pepper-planters.
instead, we tried something new.
and these gloriously red peppers in tomorrow’s fajitas will remind us – once again – that life is there for the trying. it is not in the certainty of succeeding that we live. it is in risking. it is in anticipation. it is in mystery. it’s all really quite stunning, after all.
the drawer-pulls on my old dresser clattered. they were a little bit fancy and made of brass and i can still hear them in my mind – a repetitive clack-clack-clack when i closed the drawer. it was one of those big six-drawer dressers, wide and low with a big mirror in the middle. it was maybe mahogany and in my growing-up house this girl’s dresser-hand-me-down from my sister sat on my orange and green shag rug before i moved it to my first apartment. it wasn’t grossly oversized but it had plenty of space…places for delicates and t-shirts, jeans and shorts and – astoundingly – nothing was wrinkly when i extracted things from the drawers. i think i remember moving it to florida and then, somewhere along the line, it went back to my sister…this time for her little girl.
ahhh…the joy of having a big dresser should not be underestimated. i haven’t had a dresser with six drawers since.
i think of lois every time i open the dresser i have now owned for almost forty years. when she took a teaching job overseas, she gave me this dresser. is is solid, standardly narrow and upright and has five drawers with giant big wooden knobs and i share it with david. as you might suspect, he gets one drawer and i get four. i would venture to say that you might be shuddering to think of trying to fit all your dresser-stuff into four drawers. (not to mention his in one, but, hey, he’s a boyyy so he has significantly less dresser-drawer stuff.). before you get all judge-y, keep in mind, too, we have old-house-closets. any accumulation of clothing – is a challenge.
we went to a giant antique flea market at a neighboring county fairgrounds. there were over 500 vendors and it was ridiculously fun to wander around, reminiscing and laughing at some pretty weird old stuff, some stuff we still have, some stuff about which we had great stories to tell. as you know, antiquing is one of our favorite pastimes and being outdoors and antiquing together…well, a fine pairing.
when i came across the big bin of knobs, i could actually feel them in my hand without even touching them. they were smooth with history and the hands of all who tugged on them, the wood worn and any finish gone. as i stood there looking at them, i could not help but think of all the cabinets or dressers they graced in all their years. i thought about all the ways they have been replaced – contemporized – and the possibility that the pieces they came from – the chifferobe, the cupboard, the desk – may have been disposed of.
in all the years that i have had my dear friend’s dresser, i have thought many times about painting it, redoing it, replacing it, at the least, re-knobbing. i never did any of that. it’s still the same old dresser.
i can’t imagine how many stories this old dresser has in it. just like the dresser up in my son’s room – a hand-me-down from miss peggy from next door thirty plus years ago – i wonder how old these dressers are.
mostly i wonder about the hands that have touched this old knobs. like all the old doorknobs in our house, i see these as diligent and sturdy; they have done their jobs year after year, decade after decade.
the history just danced in the box in front of me. so much potential. so many drawers and doors. i thought about who might purchase that box of knobs, where the old knobs would end up.
and i was suddenly glad that I hadn’t changed the ones on our dresser.
in so many ways – from up-close-and-personal to nationwide – this is a post of the moment.
“you are magic and not everyone can handle magic. some people are accustomed to mediocre. they run from magic. let them run…” (unknown)
people who have immersed themselves in mediocrity, who are threatened by anything bright with joy, who are afraid to step outside dark dullsville, who cling to their own agendas for power…these people will run from magic. and – i now agree – let them.
for you are not going to change someone’s mind who is a mediocrity-mongrel. he or she will clutch their good-enough expectations and will relish lack of abundant growth – for that is safer for them. they will purport to be interested in ‘the community ‘ – whether that be this nation or a closer-in community – and they will ultimately suffocate it.
magic is out there. it is people giving their all in service to each other. it is gorgeous and limitless. it is a gift. it – in the way that fireworks light up the sky – lights up other people, sparking pilot lights everywhere, spreading excitement in concentric circles wider and wider.
magic is the exhale of joy. it is the call and response of people – dedicated to one another and to thriving.
so in answer to this devotedness to less-than, this rejection of light, this dogged constancy in drudgery, in ugly, this resolve to quash the flourishing of all… i’d just say this:
let them run, those who can’t handle magic, those accustomed to mediocre. let them excise you in their zeal for the mundane. it is likely you will not miss them.
it made third and fourth grade recess tough. i would be outside on the playground with my little group of girlfriends and – all of a sudden – there would be this incoming-bully, chasing after me as i ran my heart out to get away. he was faster and dedicated to his mission of twisting my wrist, so he would always catch me. he never really got in trouble, though. i wonder how that has carried him through his life. i suspect he is still a bully, only now uses words or actions that don’t involve twisted wrists (at least not in the literal sense.)
we just got off a call with a dear friend out of state. we played ukuleles and sang together over a zoom call. we chatted. and it was a joy. the thing we most agreed on was the fact that there is not enough time as it is in life to be anything but joyous. we don’t have time for ugly.
truly, none of us has time for ugly. the bullying and name-calling and undermining and hurtful harm stuff is the stuff of third grade – a period when the whole world is stretching out in front of you and you have no true concept of time’s limitations. it is closer to adulthood – and, certainly most definitely in adulthood, i would think – that we become aware of our mortality, the fragility of this life, the gift of being present on this good earth. and – with that all in mind – who’s got time for ugly?
david asked me if tommy remained my friend. i answered honestly. he did not. i no longer trusted him – his bullying was tormenting and mean-spirited. and there is no reason why i would want to be friends with anyone who would treat me that way. there is no reason why i would want anyone to treat people that way. anyone at all.
bullies have no place in a reasonable, compassionate society. they have no place in the public eye. they have no place in leadership.
we all don’t have enough time for them or their ugly.
in the same way that the bamboo along the lakeshore is suggestive of a tropical clime, so is this red banana tree. it sort of creates a different reality, for this is wisconsin and – though this summer here might be leaning in a tropical (temperature and humidity) sort of way – it is still wisconsin, after all. we are not known for our beach tiki huts or crowded sandy beaches at spring break. this is the north. and, truth be told, i – in the midst of whatever this thermostat-malfunction-post-menopausal-too-hot thing is – am grateful. but a walk in the very beautiful downtown eichelman park gardens and you will be transported, surrounded by huge tropical leaves, plants dwarfing you. really stunning. they have created a different reality, at least temporarily.
it is the same way that entrepreneurs initiate and grow buzz around a new product or service. one must convince buyers that the offered product is far better than another, that it is superior in value, that it creates a different reality for the consumer. but it’s all made up. it’s just marketing.
when you own a recording label, you are tasked with developing the trajectory of an artist. in my case, that was me. so, with the help of a small amazing staff of dear ones, it was our job to create the bubble – to buzz the albums, to work retail accounts, to attend to radio play, to book concerts and events and stages, to grow, grow, grow. the one thing i refused to do was exaggerate – to get in over my head – to represent myself as something i wasn’t. i didn’t pretend to be part of a giant label or a different genre, for i was proud of my grassroot roots, of the music i created. i was content to take the turtle’s pace and to be sure to actually get where i was going and not be waylaid by fast rabbits offering shortcuts (always exacting a price, never wholesome).
so i find it particularly offensive – no, repugnant – to look at the bombastic campaigning – marketing – that is a part of the maga party. their desire to create an alternate reality in which america is great again is an unfathomable falsehood of gigantic proportion. they are not waylaid by any conscience to the underpinnings of democracy nor do they feel bound by the parameters of truth-telling. the future plans of project 2025 and agenda 47 are parallel and real – dangerous – and we can all read their intentions, though i would point out that there is this as well: we don’t know what we don’t know, what we can’t easily read or find – or even imagine – about their suffocating plans to take america to the place they call great.
what we do know is that america is not great going backwards. america is not great thwarting freedoms of all. america is not great divisive, a place where peace does not exist. america is not great full of rage. it is extraordinarily repulsive to watch the bigoted, bullying, incoherent, rage-filled ramblings of this maga candidate, yet they are wrapping believers – everyday people – in a bubbles-and-rainbows-reality they tout…a reality that will implode on them – the everyday people – should he be elected.
in september we will walk at the gardens by the lake. because it will likely still be warm – temperature-wise – the red banana tree leaves will still likely be towering over us.
in october we will walk at the gardens by the lake. it may be a bit chillier by then. and, depending on the parks department and scheduling of available staff, the red banana trees may still be there, standing tall.
in november we will walk at the gardens by the lake. all the flowers and banana leaves will be gone. the soil will be turned over and ready for whatever is next – in the spring of 2025.
when the alternate reality is gone and the dust settles, what really remains? is it rich soil or is it just filthy dirt?
we walk in democracy in september, in october and a few days in november. as we vote on november 5 we need to choose what we wish to remain in the garden. what reality truly is. what reality we truly want.
eichelman park is not meant to be the tropics.
the united states of america is not meant to be a fascist autocracy.
reverse threading 