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the path back is the path forward

Category Archives: DR thursday


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3D. [d.r. thursday]

it lay in the snow, the last of the sun’s rays dancing across it. it was merely a single pinecone. but the sun drew me to it and the way the light played on it called attention to the texture. up close and personal, it is a painting.

reading reveals that pinecones are the safe place for the seeds of the tree, that pinecones can remain on a tree for even ten years, that pine cones open and close depending upon moisture. more complex than you might think.

though ever-important for the proliferation of pine trees, pinecones are one of those things we pass by, often not noticing. what else are we missing – passing by the ordinary, not stopping to really look.

because we know our favorite trail well, we see the tiny shifts, the changes, the transformation. we watch the light play on the cattails and marsh grasses and catch the shadows as they fall. if one note in the woods is different, one tint of color, we draw up, stop. there are days we are stopping often, capturing the transitions, watchful.

we don’t buy a lot of new things. we are sorely behind the fashion curve – i suspect our target jeans are a few years behind-the-times. instead, we accumulate these moments of noticing. our breath is not connected to the facets of diamonds, but rather to the way underbrush berries stand out against the snow. we don’t reach for the keys of a porsche; we reach for our backpack to take on the trail. we do not watch a larger-than-life screen tv; our big-screen of choice is outside.

we look for the paintings in the snow, in the sky, in the stand of trees. we listen for the song of the breeze, of wildlife sharing space with us. the wind stings our cheeks and makes the tips of our fingers burn. we are grateful for the quiet and this path through the forest, across the marsh, along the river.

we immerse in the 3D canvas nature is providing us. no virtual reality needed.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

and his site construction continues….


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skater dreams. [d.r. thursday]

i don’t remember exactly where it was, but i remember driving my little blue vw to a hidden pond along the north shore. next to me, on the front seat, were my ice skates. i’d get there and bundle up, lace up my ice skates and spend a few hours gliding across the pond. it was silent, save for the swoosh of the skateblades on ice.

a couple decades later – when we moved to wisconsin from florida – i decided that the proximity of the ice arena left me no choice but to – finally – latch onto my dreams of becoming an olympic figure skater…clearly a dream based on reality. so i signed up for lessons.

my first lesson – with all the other eight-year-olds – was a bit of an adjustment. i wondered if i should try to find a time with just-adult-learners. i can’t remember now if i switched classes.

the instructor reviewed the skills we brought with us. i was able to crossover-crossover, go backwards (and forwards) and stop correctly (an important skill as painfully revealed to me on my first snowboarding lesson).

my next skill – along with practicing the finesse of each of the others i had mostly-mastered – was an upright spin. there are one-foot spins and two-foot spins and axels and salchows and camels and the lutz and other beautiful spinny moves. i was ready to learn. i had much to accomplish to become the world’s oldest newest-olympic-figure-skating-champion.

the day for the first spin came.

my instructor demonstrated what i was to do. it didn’t look entirely impossible so i set about practicing it on my little corner of the ice.

good lord.

somewhere – in all the dreamy fantasyland of wishing to be a figure skater – i had missed the part about motion sickness. no one had mentioned how incredibly dizzying this tiny spin would be. i mean, i was going around like twice! and the nystagmus (automatic repetitive eye movement) was killing me. i kept practicing, watching my dream dissipate into the cold-breath-vapor cloud in front of me, my brain unable to quash the dizzies. whoa.

i went back for a couple more lessons, but skipped the froo-froo tulle-skirted-skate-dressed skating recital, not wanting to outshine any hardworking eight year old. it was quickly becoming apparent to me. this was not my future. no medal platforms, no medals, no certificates of participation.

but when we left the trail and stood at the edge of the river – mostly still frozen – the snowbanks an invitation for strapping on skates – i was back on long island, jumping out of my bug, lacing those skates up and spending a few hours gliding in silence.

dreamy.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

a new D.R. website is taking shape


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in simplicity. [d.r. thursday]

the front of the garnet hill catalog features a collection of stones and says, “there’s beauty in simplicity.” yes. i recognize those rocks – they are scattered through our house…pebbles of mica-laced igneous, slices of red rock, chunks of granite, smooth water-worn river rock. small cairns stacked on the windowsill or the sunroom table, a vase with rocks that are special but can no longer be traced back specifically to why. simple beauty, they remind us that we are all a part of it. no less, no more.

as i get older i realize that i am leaning into simplicity. i am less inclined to be moved by fancy stuff, more given to the unembellished. we hike on trails and are reminded of nature’s brilliant eye for decorating the world. no tchotchkes or trinkets, just no-frills and unadorned life.

i’m guessing this propensity – this leaning – has something to do with my love of arvo pärt’s tintinnabuli minimalist exquisiteness. spiegel im spiegel on repeat. not fussy. not ornamented. straight up gut-wrenchingly beautiful, much like the pine needles in the snow. two monodic lines – melody and triad – woven into the simplest tapestry and “expressing the composer’s special relationship to silence”. nothing bombastic. no blustering. purity.

“there’s beauty in simplicity.” stark, unpretentious, natural.

i couldn’t agree more.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY


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reddi-wip. [d.r. thursday]

reddi-wip was always on her list. any holiday, any winter-hot-cocoa-possibility day, any waffles-and-ice-cream-up-a-notch day. my sweet momma was a reddi-wip fan. so i can’t help but think of her when i look in the fridge right now and see the familiar red and white canister, just waiting…

we don’t buy ice cream. i can’t have it and, though it wouldn’t really bother me – unless it was coffee ice cream – in which case i would be ridiculously jealous, d doesn’t want to eat it in front of me. so we don’t put it on the list. we will – from rare time to rare time – pick up frozen cashew milk or some other dairy-free option. just a pint. but a treat and oh-so-good.

instead, we freeze bananas. and we take out one of those appliances you buy in one of those we-need-this moments. it’s a yonanas and, even though it isn’t a front-and-center machine, when it makes an appearance from the shelves in the laundry room in the basement, it reminds us of the deliciousness of a littlebitta dessert, a little something sweet.

frozen bananas become ice cream in this miracle-machine. we top it with berries. or really anything you might put on an ice cream sundae. and then – if it’s really a fancy moment – there’s reddi-wip. swirls and white fluffy clouds of whipped cream on top – it becomes an occasion. we look at each other and wonder why we don’t make this more often. what day – really – doesn’t deserve to be an occasion, we wonder aloud. what day – really – doesn’t deserve dessert, we insist.

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word “indulgent/indulgence”. i’ve sat with it, pondered over it, journaled about it, discussed it at length. it is one of those yin-yang words, one of those words that is both inspiring and guilt-producing. the dark and light of self-indulgence, the expansive greyness of indulging, judgement and justification invisible partners. i had to decide if i would indulge in some looking-back, in processing some times of great difficulty. i had to choose between indulgence and necessity. it was a seesaw for a bit.

the reddi-wip made its way into the shopping basket as i planned for a special holiday meal. and now, as i gaze into the refrigerator, i realize it’s still there – there is more in the container – more fluffy whipped cream – for any day. it’s an every-day possibility. some things that look like indulgences are not. some things are necessary.

“joy is not made to be a crumb.” (mary oliver – don’t hesitate)

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY


					
		
	



							



	

					
				

			
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something so delicious. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					








it was the perfect “welcome home”.  





there is something so delicious about going away.  we left town and the cold north for florida.  it was just for a few days, but the difference in climate is stunning.  when you are not – in general – wearing your 32 degrees base layer or your earmuffs on a walk or your furry boots and you have traded it all for cropped jeans and flipflops and no-sleeves, it is a joy.  the sun shined down on us as we visited together – our family – a ridiculous and unbelievable four years since we had seen them.  we stuffed conversations into nooks and crannies of time and cheered glasses and cooked and took walks and played thomas-the-tank-engine with the tiny two-year-old-miracle who is now in the fam as well.  in the middle of it, we suddenly realized how fast it was all going.  and then, it was time to board.  masks on – two of like four people in the entire tampa airport – we got on the plane and zipped through the air back home.  





there is something so delicious about getting home.  behind us we had left dogdog in the ever-capable hands of our 20.  behind us we had left the worries and angsts of the moment, of this time.  behind us we had left our 32 degrees base layers and hats and gloves.  behind us we had left all vestiges of our normal schedule and normal routines.  





we exited the plane, stopped at the meditation room at milwaukee airport and got into a cold but completely happy-to-see-us littlebabyscion (i may be projecting here) and drove home, getting more excited each minute.  20 had soup and bread ready for us when we got there.  he knows how to tend to those basic comforts – those things that reassure when you have left part of your heart behind somewhere else.  and then…that deep tiredness – that happens after you have been away and have arrived back home – sunk in.





sleep came early and then we woke early.  looking out the window we watched the snow fall.  it’s winter in wisconsin and it looks like winter.  i like that.  i need the seasons to go by…it’s part of my own process as well.  





as the flakes get larger and i write this i know that today is a home-day.  i just need to stay home, do the laundry, look at the lists i left, process leaving family-i-love behind.  tomorrow i will go out.  tomorrow is soon enough.  





today i just need to absorb the “welcome home” and listen to the quiet snow fall.





*****





read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

























					
		
	



							



	

					
				

			
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out loud. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					








and nature studied jackson and drip-technique-painted the leaf on the trail.  strategically placing small muddy potholes, it invited hikers and dogs and horses to step in.  just as strategically, it placed the leaf nearby, deep brown in leftover autumn paint.  soon, creamy splotches and drips and spatterings pollocked the leaf, ever-changed.  i couldn’t help but notice as we walked.  i felt some slight validation for the paint-spattered-paintings on our walls, the ones where i stood back and threw paint and threw paint and threw paint until i knew it was done.  





i was tempted to pick up the leaf, to carry it home with us.  i kind of wish i had.  i wonder if anyone else noticed it, really noticed it as we did.  and then i realize, that it is in our noticing  – even just us – that it became a complete work and that it had a place in the world and that it wouldn’t be forgotten.





it was a good reminder for me, and i remind myself to tell d as well, to remind him.  the size of the audience never matters, the number of viewers or listeners.  even in one person’s experience of any work of art there is meaning.





“if you asked me what i came into this world to do, i will tell you i came to live out loud.” (émile zola)





*****





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not “eh”. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					








the little girl squealed.  at full tilt – for a toddler – she ran toward the dome calling out to anyone listening, “i get to go inside!!!”





i daresay that there was not an adult present who was not invigorated by her unbridled enthusiasm, by what she saw so many of us may have forgotten.  through her child’s eyes.





“you turn the pages back for me…to the way i used to be…./and now my darkest night is coming to an end, since i began to see through a child’s eyes…again.” (lowen and navarro – through a child’s eyes)





we all picked up the the pace, heading to the starry dome.  a mass of people practically careening down the path to join in the lighted dome, under the light display and inside the music. 





“you don’t go outside and see a starry night and say, ‘eh,'” anne said. “you say, ‘wow!'” (diane mina weltman – “an evening with anne lamott”)





“eh” was not part of this night.  this extraordinary display in the garden – this amazing constellation above our heads as we stood in the dome with the jumping-bean-little-girl – was not “eh”.





and, in rare moments when you can feel the threads connecting you to the earth and all that is in it – the big, the little, the massive, the tiny – those moments you can touch the gossamer, the incandescent, the enduring, the evanescent – you – really – realize that none of it is “eh”, none of it is “same-old-same-old”, none of it should actually require any less enthusiasm than a toddler at full tilt.





*****





read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY








CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN LIGHTSCAPE 2022






CHASING BUBBLES – david robinson
























					
		
	



							



	

					
				

			
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buffalo plaid and stardust. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					








tucked in my mind’s eye, along with sugar plum fairies and gingerbread houses, twinkling lights and sleigh bells and tiny trees, are matching red buffalo plaid pjs.  





old navy made it happen.  





for a few days now we have worn our matching red buffalo plaid pj pants.  flannel and cozy, we knew better than to purchase long flannel pjs for our kiddos.  old navy had already thought this out – they also had flannel red buffalo plaid pj boxers.  score!  we bought them and wrapped them into stockings.  we have no idea if they will wear them or not, but my momma-heart knows we all have them – match-the-family pjs – and just the knowledge makes me happy.





the other day – on christmas evening – they made their first appearance, under a sherpa blanket on the couch watching “love actually”.  since then they have appeared under a different sherpa on the couch in the sitting room, dogga curled up on the rug, reading a book together.  we are reading aloud the third bestseller by raynor winn, “landlines”, a tale of two long-walkers hiking through scotland, a tale of hope and renewal and restorative juju for them.  it’s descriptive and we find ourselves lost in the highlands, step after step in the rain, with them.





our new year’s eve was quiet.  we ran a few errands and settled in on the couch to read, had a couple phone calls, prepared a late dinner and settled back on the couch.  but our smack-dab cartoon had told a different story.  though sometimes-but-not-always a straight-line-to-us-autobiographical middle-age-cartoon, it told the story on new year’s eve of two people who had to get outside and who went walking before midnight so as to be outside – along the lakefront and under the stars – at the turn of the year.  





we were having trouble staying awake.  it did not seem likely that we would actually see the new year arrive, sleepy eyes and all.  





but then – somehow, the two of us, who are now earlier-to-bed-earlier-to-rise, got to the 11 o’clock hour.  and we knew – prepare yourself for the double negative – we could not not do it.  





hats and gloves and down coats and boots and the night wasn’t as cold as it seemed at 7 or 8 or even 9.  the lake is a block away and we walked along it, enjoying the holiday lights still up and lit on our route.  we cut in to the path that is right next to the shore and strolled slowly, watching the fireworks in the sky around us.





and, though it was cloudy and we could not see the moon or the stars, we could feel the stardust falling on us, with the promise of a new year.  





surely the stuff of sugar plum fairies and twinkling lights, gingerbread and sleigh bells and red buffalo plaid flannel pjs.





*****





read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY








					
		
	



							



	

					
				

			
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nothing better. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					








“the snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
                                             the meaning…” (mary oliver – first snow)





it snowed all day, the wind howling, the temperature careening below zero.  a white christmas was on its way.  the luminaria, though, they would not make it onto the sidewalks with neighbors and friends.  it would be too oppressively cold, dangerously bitter.  





wisconsin – right here by the great lake michigan – was not besieged with tremendous snow.  there were not depths taller than shovelers or windows blocked by towering drifts.  but it was so so cold.  severe.





and even in the frigid, the glitter was obvious.  





“…never settle
less than lovely!…”





the pond gathered the flakes.  you could almost see them individually…the gift of a dry and very cold snow.  dogdog laid outside, allowing snow to fall on his fur and, from time to time, jumping up and licking big swaths from the deck.  he is a cold-weather dog, gleeful in the snow.  





some of our plans were changed because of the arctic blast.  i regretted that.  for a bit.  there were so many things to go do, so many lights to go see.  





but the dura-fire was lit in the fireplace, the wine was poured, the cookies needed decorating, the ornament game waited.  and we looked out the window and spoke of bing crosby and white christmas.  





and it was beautiful out there.  and still.  quiet.  and sparkling.  





“…and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain – not a single
answer has been found –
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one…”





and we were home.  together.  and i can think of nothing better.





*****





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astonished. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					













nostalgia hits fast.  





how many times i have stood in front of the gazebo in northport harbor…how many times i have sat on the steps, lost in thought or listening to the clinking of metal sails in the docks next to the park…how many times i’ve wandered in the harbor surrounded by the dreamy lights of the gazebo and old-fashioned sidewalk lampposts on the paths.





lake bluff brought it all back.  





an absolutely beautiful display in the square drew us to it and we parked, even in freezing cold, to walk around a bit, take pictures and soak it all in.  it wasn’t northport, but it was stunning and magical.





the wordpress prompt today reads: is your life today what you pictured a year ago?





are any of our lives today what we pictured a year ago?





the element of surprise … both ways.  





at a time of year that always-always makes me miss my childhood home, both of my parents, our big stone fireplace, the luminaria lighting our neighborhood streets and groups of friends caroling around the blocks, hot cocoa and marshmallows, tinsel and krumkake, rum cake and eggnog, the delicious anticipation of opening gifts and the northport harbor gazebo radiant, its lights shimmering in the harbor, we find the little square in the middle of lake bluff.  astonishing.





“instructions for living a life:  pay attention. be astonished. tell about it.” (mary oliver)





*****




















UNFETTERED 48″ X 48″











read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY