we drew heavy curtains to sleep in the land of the midnight sun. my grandmother mama dear and i were in the arctic circle in finland and, much to the fascination of my eight year old mind, the sun refused to set. i remember a twilight like no other – a time of in-between that just lasted and lasted, not day, not night. it was stunning and magical and wreaked havoc on circadian rhythms, necessitating new practices.
EARTH INTERRUPTED VII makes me think of that twilight, that time in the river of not-this-not-that. a time of waiting, it appears that the telescope zeroed in on earth detects an interruption, a wafting darkness. in this time of pandemic, it would seem a portrait of covid-19.
but, as in all other times of darkness, there exists a glow of light. the blackness is dissipating, the shape of the earth is visible, the twilight is vibrant. this painting offers radiant hope.
just like pulling back the curtains in lapland, the sun will rise and we will have awakened from the strange twilight. we will have lost much to the dark. we will have learned new ways, employed new rituals. we will be tired and wary, cautious yet sure. we will have crossed the river of the midnight sun into a new day.
wearing flipflops, our feet weren’t prepared for schoolhouse beach. one of only five sandless limestone beaches in the world, we were picking our way across glacier-polished rocks on washington island, vowing to wear our hiking sandals the next time. it was stunning, these smooth white rocks representing thousands of years of geology. it is illegal to take even the tiniest of stones from this beach, but it is obvious that people need to hold these silken rocks in their hands, cairns built along the water’s edge. it’s a place you will forever recognize once having visited there, a place that touches a sense of peace within you.
the cairns up on the high ridges of red rock were equally as moving. stunning in the sunsetting high desert sky, the uneven sandstone edges of stones were piled in formations and i relished every second sharing this with my cherished daughter. it is a sacred place, these canyonlands full of red rock millions of years old.
as we walked in the drizzle in our neighborhood, the sky over the lake began to take on a pinkish hue. we approached the lakefront down by the old beachhouse and saw them, something in thirty years of walking this lakefront i have never seen: dozens of cairns stacked on the rocky beach, mazes, tiny labyrinths.
inspiring and inviting, the cairns beckoned us and we spent time in raindrops wandering and photographing. we were quiet; you could hear the lake gently lapping at the shoreline. mostly, it took us out of our thoughts and worries of the time. someone had made lemonade and we had the good fortune to sip of it.
there is a place on a washington island road where the rest of the world disappears. you are walking alongside forest and can see the sky as you look up, tall trees framing blue, the sound of sandhill cranes and red-eyed vireos accompanying your steps. and then you enter this place. the trees gently arc over the road and you are covered by a canopy; we have sheltered in this spot during more than one sudden rainfall. even in the bright day, the green above you – which turns to brilliant umber, rich red, flaming orange during summer’s release on the forest – allows for little light. and at dusk, while the sun sinks into the water hundreds of feet away, walking in the middle of the road, it is dark-dark, the canopy a lure for night creatures, safe in the shadows.
there is a place in a tree in the yard of my growing-up house outside the window of my old room where the branches invited sitting. for hours i would sit there, write, ponder. in the summer the maple seemed to grant me privacy from the world, its branches full of leaves and canopying my little spot. a shelter.
there was a place in the wooden structure in our backyard that had a yellow awning that made a fort. when My Girl and My Boy were little they would play up there for hours, The Boy lining up matchbox cars, The Girl often reading a book. a special space, this little fort, it was hard when it was time to dismantle it and pass it on to friends with little ones.
these places of shelter – places of canopy – provide such a sense of protection, a sense of being held from harm – from the elements, away from others, in our own private place. much like our homes, they can give us pause, a deep breath, safety.
in this time of distancing and stay-safe-stay-at-home, i look around our house and give thanks for its canopy of shelter, for the way it holds us from harm, for the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years it keeps us safe.
i didn’t mean to take this picture. somehow my phone camera snapped it and i was unaware. later, when i looked at my photo stream of the day i was surprised to see this. it took a few minutes to figure out what the picture was of, the way you feel when you look at an ink-blot picture, your eyes focusing on the dark, the light, the foreground, the background, searching-searching for an image to emerge.
i always had trouble with those. i must have been concentrating too hard to find something there. i suppose relaxing into it would have produced an image sooner.
the feathers gave it away. the feathers made it recognizable. a piece of familiar, the feathers gave it perspective. the dream-catcher hangs on the switch of the lamp on our kitchen table so it wasn’t as hard as the inkblots after all.
i wonder how many times i have not recognized the ‘real’ image. how many times i have given little attention to the everyday, glossing over it. how many times i have passed by light, my eyes focusing on the dark, my attention to the background instead of the inkblot or vice versa, trying too hard to find ‘it’. passing by the familiar, looking to the distance. or staring at the familiar with no eye to the distance, the horizon out-there attention-less. what might i have missed? what more might i have seen?
i am finding comfort in the familiar right now. i am recognizing more-and-more that which is basic is that which is familiar is that which is comforting. like chicken soup and pasta sauce, i find basic and simple consoling, the familiar i see heartening.
might we have different eyes post-this-crisis? might we all hold simple closer? might we ford the great-chasms-of-divide in this country with horizontal -not vertical- ladders of understanding like the ladders that traverse deep crevasses in high mountain climbs? might we be more willing to see economic, educational, opportunity differences? might we truly address them? might we see the landscape-that-has-always-been-there differently? might we realize that which is comforting, familiar to us is the inkblot that so many cannot even begin to see, that so many cannot even imagine? might we believe that every one is worthy? might we see universal needs, universal struggles in a more united, focused-energies way? might we come together, support different perspectives, talk about what is essential, strive for something different?
our universe camera is snapping pictures left and right of this pandemic crisis. what will we see when we look through the photo stream? what we will recognize about ourselves, this country? will we embrace an image of care, of concern, of responsibility for each other, of unity, of equality? or will we remain blind to the obvious differences we experience as this divisible ‘indivisible one-nation-under-God’ and will the dark inkblot prevail over the light? we can look for the feathers as clues.
“hope…it makes you breathe differently. it makes your heart beat faster. it makes your knees weak and your ability to wait strong. it makes you weep with anticipation and holds you close with others who are also hoping.” (reverse threading, dec. 7, 2018)
i have done time on the kitchen floor. like you, i have been brought to my knees with grief, anxiety, worry, pain, shame, fear, sadness, loneliness, anger, disappointment. when you are on the floor, any movement seems monumental. anxiety is crushingly powerful. it seems unlikely you will rise. and even as you go about your days, doing the things you do in life, it seems you will remain on the virtual kitchen floor.
but then, there is a moment. it appears illusory yet it is luminous. it is a mere butterfly wing, the slightest of silk tendrils, but it is there. elusive and tiny, it asks for absolute focus. like viewing through the eyepiece on binoculars, you slowly steady your gaze. something inside you knows. something tells you to reach for it and hold it gently in your shaking hands. it is hope.
“hope. there aren’t many words like this…describing that which you can actually – viscerally – feel in your body. it makes you breathe differently. it makes your heart beat faster. it makes your knees weak and your ability to wait strong. it makes you weep with anticipation and holds you close with others who are also hoping.” (reverse threading, dec. 7, 2018)
like many of you, i have laid awake many nights now. exhausted when i lay my head down and then, voila!, wide awake. the middle of the night has many monsters these days. it used to be that as i lay awake and would get hungry and hungrier, i would convince david that the perfect thing, rousing him from sleep, would be to have a 3am bowl of cereal together. since we went dairy-gluten-free i’ve substituted and have chosen a banana in the wee hours. somewhere i read that bananas are sleep aids, so waking david up to have a banana seemed like i was helping him. but now, we have no bananas.
we need to go to the grocery store. but it’s complicated, with disinfecting wipes during our trip there and being absolutely careful upon our return home to wash everything or store it for a period of time. it’s important, vital. we step back from the person who is a personal-space-invader. we make room on the walking path for those coming the other way. we marvel at the recklessness of large numbers of people still gathering in spaces. we weep for those who have succumbed to a disease that is apparently sorely underestimated.
this painting, eve, is a beautiful landscape of color and shape. eve, religiously historic as the first woman.
is it possible that the apple of eve and adam, the one in the story from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, could now be seen as a casualness toward the spread of this pandemic, a cavalier attitude, a lack of regard toward social distancing or the peril facing citizens, medical personnel, workers at essential businesses? the apple that, in the story, changed everything, for all time?
in the last year of my sweet momma’s life, at not quite 94, she would say astonished things like, “i looked in the mirror and i look like an old woman!” we would laugh together when we mentioned her age and that she had earned every last wrinkle, every age spot, every grey hair. never have i seen a more beautiful old woman. in a life that spanned from 1921 to 2015 her hazel eyes saw vast changes, world hurdles, family loss and strife, wild technological advances. and love.
barney was born around the same time as my momma. i wonder about the life he had before he arrived in the basement boiler room. was he a honkytonk piano, a barroom upright, a sunday school accompaniment, the instrument in someone’s drawing room? he was headed to the scrap guy when we met him and we intervened. i suppose as he has lingered in our backyard these last five years he would wonder about the reflection in the mirror, his outer shell, those wrinkles, that peeling laminate, the keys that no longer play. does he realize that chipmunks perch on his brow and snack on acorns? does he realize that birds land, patiently in wait for their respective and restrained turns at the birdfeeder? does he realize that his soul remains rich, his exterior beautiful in its aging?
i laid awake for hours in the middle of the night last night. i looked in the virtual mirror in my mind and saw wooden stages and boom mics, big pianos and blue jeans. i realized, suddenly, that i am older. despite everything that would suggest to me, try to convince me of, the contrary, i have gotten older.
scrolling through social media during this time of distancing it is stunning to see all the ways people are incorporating posting with streaming, youtube, visiting with google hangout, facetime, videoconferencing with zoom, webex, as they try to be there without being there. it’s exhausting.
my 1970s-lingering-self puts on readers and starts to read the directions. the chipmunks are perched on my brow and i resource apps to stay in the loop and do my part to help keep people connected in a time where connection could easily fall away.
i take a deep breath and remember the day that my sweet momma’s iphone facebook status read (from her assisted living facility in tampa) that she was checked in at a miami dolphins game in miami. i quickly and quietly fixed it for her.
and then i giggle and think, ‘heck. if she can do it, i can do it.’
it is the symbiosis of peeling back the layers, honoring the wrinkles, relying on each other’s strengths in the mirror and working together, the virtual birdfeeder our community.
there are moments when both dogga and babycat seem to be on the same page. sweetly tuned in to our every emotion, they put aside their own agenda to curl up, their warm bodies tucked in against one or both of us, just being there.
in this time of necessary and vigilant waiting, as we defer to healthcare workers, scientists, the experts, all in their prodigious work, perhaps this is the most potent aid we can offer. to curl our warmth and any practical and safe help we can muster around each other. to acknowledge each other’s worry, each other’s fear, each other’s process. to be tuned in, to listen, to offer words of comfort. to stand with each other, hold each other’s hands, even from afar. to quietly just be there.
this is an old woods. while we still can hike in it, we are driving -without stopping- to the woods and, generally without seeing anyone else, taking a hike. it is grounding to be in a woods that is old, a woods that is natural.
around us many trees have fallen. they lay quietly on the ground, nurselogs to others, the white rot fungi that is sharing their space an invitation to symbiosis.
we spend time looking up at the very-mature-trees standing, reaching to the sky, parallel to each other, taking in the sun. they too share their space. they have endured storm and wind, snow and torrential rain; they have endured times of thirst and times of excessive heat. they are still enduring.
i suspect most of these trees are much older than us. their rings of life could tell stories of lack, stories of abundance, stories of challenge and stories of ease. yet, they quietly stand, swaying in the wind like cattails along the curves of a slow river. not one boasts of its steadfastness; not one complains of its fall. the wisdom of the ages seemingly is in the long story. not in the angrily staccato-ed punctuation of a self-indulgent-short-story.
we step into the forest and the community of trees seems to sigh, pleased to see us again. it is not the prettiest of woods. but it is deeply, silently reassuring. life goes on.
my emotional well was full when i woke up today. thinking of us, our children, our families, our dear friends, our community, this world. i desperately want to gather our beloveds in, hold them close, protect them.
i have no words for all of this; i have too many words for all of this. i fear that none of them are helpful, none of them are wise. it’s just me. and, like you, carrying the weight of the world one step at a time, one quiet minute at a time, staring out the window and wondering.
