there are great white trillium all over the woods now. beautiful big blooms lighting up the underbrush, making the forest brilliant. they precede the may apples and have more pizazz than the maroon prairie trillium. they get our attention.
it’s not easy to capture a good photograph of great white trillium. not because they are elusive or shy, but because they reflect back sunlight and the images tend to be somewhat blurry, details burned out into flat white. i felt fortunate with this photograph. even the specks of pollen off the yellow pistils are visible.
and then i noticed it. the shadow. the tiny dandelion next to the trillium was casting a shadow onto the delicate petal.
when i first noticed – further down the trail – i thought that i had missed my shot – that the interrupted petal somehow blemished the photograph.
the more i studied it, the more i realized how very lucky i had been – to capture the very moment in the sun’s angle that this little dandelion made a distinct shadow on its neighboring wildflower.
sometimes we don’t realize how imperfection is simply perfect.
what looks like wreckage is that which welcomes grace, how a broken road reveals the right path, how organic surpasses the staged, how cobbled-together – all the moments of bliss and the moments we think are shadowed with ruin – our lives really are, how imperfection is actually perfect.
what we thought was the wrong shot is – in reality – the right shot.
one of my favorite mother’s day cards came from david last year. we make all our cards for each other and on his he drew me, looking at a starry sky. there are two arrows pointing at individual stars and inside he wrote, “for the two times you wished upon a star.”
the wisps of miracles-of-all-kinds floating about the galaxy – the ones that became my children – have my everlasting gratitude.
for i have learned of the infinite spectrum that is motherhood. the triumphs and the failings, the angst and the bliss, the hugs and the pushaways, the unconditional love that somehow birthed an extra heart when each child was born – gracing me with whole hearts for each of them and with a heart to do the rest of the work, the heavy lifting of living.
in a world that is full of galactic nonsense, the real essence becomes more and more clear to me: each wisp of intense beauty, tiny nuances of time passing, the dust that is me – in a river full of stardust.
a few years ago we watched a show about housing in the bay area of california. the housing crunch was producing outlandishly high rents, making it impossible for workers – particularly younger people at the outset of their careers – to live anywhere near where they worked. an answer – it seemed – was to offer sleeping pods – bunk bed pods stacked upon each other or next to each other – in a communal living space. with very mixed reviews to these confined space morsels, people moved in and made tiny personal space within communal living their home.
in the many years that our girl was working in the snow industry of the high elevation mountains, she – like every other professional snowboard or ski coach or instructor, every other industry worker from restaurants, boutiques, ski shops, etc – was faced with the impossible task of finding a place to live. costs far outweighed earnings and, so, either these dedicated employees shared spaces (often questionably-worthy of passing basic health standards) renting the rights to a bedroom and a shelf in the refrigerator or they drove extended commutes in all kinds of treacherous weather. it was nerve-wracking, to say the least, as a mom – ever concerned with the daily living conditions of her child (who was far more tolerant of the living conditions than i might have been). post-pandemic exacerbated these circumstances and rentals are scarce or aggressively priced.
for the longest time we have watched house hunters on hgtv. though there are many fix-up kinds of shows, our favorite is the basic house hunters where you watch people select a home to purchase from three homes you virtually-visit with them. you are aware that there have been many other homes considered before this ultimate decision, but you are steeped in the choice between three – with the information of their purchasing budget, their desired amenities and location and a walking tour through the house. it is astounding to us – over and over again – how much a basic house costs these days. we watch – totally immersed – and try to decide which house will be chosen, always blown away by what that choice will cost the buyers.
and each day – for a multitude of reasons – we thank our own home. its old house juju suits us. it is our sanctuary. it looks like us, feels like us, buffets us from the world and renews us. every one of its quirks – that we love – reminds us to love our own quirks. every one of its tiny beauties reminds us of our own tiny beauties. we find peace there and we find a jumping-off place for challenges and self-exploration.
and as i write this, i am aware that – if we are lucky enough to have any physical place we call home – we each make it into what we need. we embrace whatever its circumstance, its location, its imperfection or perfection. we find the space where we feel comfort and reassurance and the ability to be exactly who we are.
some day we would love to travel in an old vw minibus (or one of those amazing converted vans our son-in-law creates), carrying with us all we need for extended periods of time, seeking home in high mountains and canyonlands, deserts or meadowlands, atlantic or pacific beaches, northern forests.
some day we would love to thru-hike one of the national trails, carrying all we need in backpacks on our backs.
either way, i’m pretty certain – even now, even before we have tried either dream – we will feel at home, at peace, in our skin.
“remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.” (rumi)
there are 6186 photos on my phone that – in some shape or form – are photos of the sky. there are 2400 that are of clouds. i’m pretty sure there’s some overlap there. but that is a lot of photos looking up.
with yet another storm watch in the state – on an unusually warm late april night – we sat out on the deck with 20 watching the sky. i took pictures. it felt like a summer night – minus the mosquitos – and we adirondack-chair-sat for quite a while, intermittent conversation and laughter punctuating the quiet.
as i’ve previously written about, we pay attention to storm watches and warnings. we use our weather app to track the arriving front systems, to watch the hourly forecast. we depend on it to make good decisions for our safety.
i remember a roadtrip – crossing through the state of wyoming – trying to outrun a giant dark greenish sky that seemed to be chasing after us. littlebabyscion has never zipped along as fast as it did that day. i remember d carrying dogga downstairs to the basement, with supplies and important papers, all while the tornado siren was sounding outside. i remember – way back in the day – laying in a ditch in the middle of rural illinois somewhere while vacationing at my big brother’s, his vehicle parked on the grassy shoulder of the county road on which we had been driving. i remember – not too long ago – just last june – sitting in littlebabyscion literally tucked up against a brick restaurant after-hours as we tried to evade the tornadic wind that had lifted us up off the open parking lot.
each time we made efforts – to use caution, to think-it-through, to be reasonably safe – and we took action. each time survival was the end goal. the storms of climate change are becoming apocalyptic – severe, with devastating consequences. we do our best to be knowledgeable, alerted, constructive.
the gale force winds of corruption are whirling around us. we must use caution, must think-it-through, must be reasonably safe, must take action. survival is the end goal. the collapsing of democracy is apocalyptic — severe, with devastating consequences.
though we love-us (as they say) a familiar trail, we found a new trail to hike recently.
it was a really windy day and we set out knowing we would not-know what we might find along the way. that – in itself – is one of the gifts of hiking. even on trails we know like the back of our hands.
i knew being a minister of music like the back of my hand. and, as the easter holiday just passed by, i thought a lot about the 35 or so easters for which i had been responsible – the decades i had shaped the music of these seasons. i always believed it was my job to help people connect to that which they could not see – thus, ultimately, to touch faith, to touch love.
a dearest friend of ours retired this past week. with great joy, we celebrated his new freedom and listened as he told about the party his colleagues had thrown for him. he told of their stories, their comments, their appreciation – it was a powerful validation for him and for all the time and energy and life he had spent working in that place. he finished with a flourish – full of affirmation – ready to walk into next. one door closed, others ready to be opened.
it brought up personal grief.
for my very last days – of that career – one of the professions in which i used my knowledge of music – that spanned three and half decades – these days were not lined with validation or gratitude or even a nod of thanks. instead – for me – they were fraught with being fired, what felt like a plethora of undistilled meanness, full of unanswered questions, betrayal and shock and – then – absolute quiet. an assault.
i never finished. there was no brunch, there were no casseroles, no sheet cake, no jello mold. there was no t-shirt, no mug to carry off and use each morning, warmed by the memories of time spent.
this was an awakening.
i suddenly realized that i wasn’t done.
for all the sorting and cleaning and throwing out, there was still something incomplete.
there was no flourish; there was no affirmation.
this was an epiphany.
since i can’t go back literally, there is something in me that wishes to find a way to closure. maybe it is to go back to this place we found on this new trail. to this gate that stands in the messy field of wild grasses next to the birch tree just a bit back from the meadow. maybe if i lift up that gate and just step – even just one step – into what is past it – what is on the other side – maybe it might feel – in some metaphorical-retirement-party-crepe-paper-streamers-strewn way – like there was a little flourish. that i will grant myself the validation, the affirmation – the acknowledgment of a great deal of dedicated time of my life – that others tore from me, disregarded – that i will know – deep inside me – that i gave that place – and all the 35 years in that particular spoke of my sedimentary-layered life of music – giant pieces of my creative soul and that i can finally – finally – leave the familiar behind and get about the new. whatever their agenda or issues – in an end that was not of my choosing – it should not detract from my own celebration of me.
i will never be a minister of music again. that part of my life – that arrow of dedication of the music within me – has finished. and – i was damn good at it. i understood it. i knew it like the back of my hand.
and now it’s time for a new trail.
right after i pull down all the streamers and toss them out.
somewhere around 1984 or 1986 or so i totally splurged on a dress. it had a background of light blue with puffed-up shoulders that narrowed along my forearm to my wrist, like a juliet sleeve. the bodice was fitted and the dress was knee-ish length. it was a pricey $35 and i wore it only “for good”.
i’m pretty amazed thinking about that treasured dress because i am not really a light-blue person. now, i love light-blue sky and light-blue robin’s eggs and light-blue forget-me-nots and the lightish-blue denim jacket that was my poppo’s, but light-blue in general is not a color i wear.
were i to wear it, however, i would have the tones of this photograph…reeds and sky on an early spring day.
i could have stood and stared at the reeds for a long time. as it was, i did stand and stare at them for quite a while, lost in the ballet that was driven by the wind.
and in those moments, i never once thought about what is happening in the world right now, the chaos and destruction. instead, i was dancing with the reeds, immersed in light blue sky and blonde plumes.
at this point, we are finding it necessary to try and escape our thinking minds. overwrought with angst is not a good way to spend time. so we step out of time and hike or cook or write or give belly-bellies to our dogga. we dream of places to go and trips to take and projects to embark upon. we continue to sort and clean out, donate and toss. we don’t – we can’t – spend every single waking moment trying to solve something that we – alone – cannot solve.
somewhere along the line i gave away that light-blue-puffy-shouldered dress. i wonder if someone cut it up for a quilt, much like i will do with a little-house-on-the-prairie type dress i remember absolutely loving in 1982 and which i found in the dress-up-and-pretend bin downstairs. that dress had big layered ruffles – which apparently are back in style. as a person who is now somehow always peripheral to trending fashion, it’s surprising to see flouncy ruffles out and about.
the dirt trail, dancing reeds and unlimited sky don’t seem to care what i wear. their light-blue and blonde gift is not simply lack of apparel-judgment or vogue-couture-wincing.
their gift is what they offer to us in presence. engaged in the ballet, the dress-memories, the air around me, i learn – once again – to stand still in the center of the moment.
barney has been stalwart, steadfast, unwaveringly standing in the garden through every infamous weather challenge – the rain, the sleet, the snow, the ice and the wind, the extreme heat, the drought.
it is one of the most gorgeous things in our backyard. we have watched it age, its wrinkles, its furrows, its jowls. we have watched it struggle to stay young, fresh, shellacked. we have watched it give in – to time and the elements. and, in that giving-in-ness, we have watched grace in real life.
in this insane world, i have thanked our old house and its painted-wood countertops, its old floors, its cracked plaster, its doorknob-less six panel doors. i have admired the tile floor in the bathroom and the way light streams in through the double-hungs. i have relished the paintings on our walls and the fabulous chunks of concrete that serve our living room. i have whispered to our house and i have thanked its familiarity and its comfort. i have taken refuge in its security. i have reveled in our comforter, our dogga at our feet, coffee by our side, happy lights. i have simplified need and put want to the side.
in this insane world, i have patted littlebabyscion as i get in and out, stroked big red as i have walked past it in the driveway. i have noted with great appreciation the wild geranium and the day lilies pushing up through cold dirt, the buds on breck. i have sat on adirondack chairs on the deck – still a bit bundled up – watching birds and squirrels, sipping wine and eating maybe too many chips. i have been grateful.
and i have gazed at barney-the-piano, over there, in the garden. i have felt it steadying me.
in this insane world, i have thanked barney.
“pardon my sanity in a world insane.” (emily dickinson – and barney)
each morning now, as dogga awakens us or we just mosey out of sleep unprompted by a cold nose snuffling us, i can hear the birds. in the middle of every everything, it is the birdsong that gives me joy as i wake.
when i was growing up on long island, my birthday was serious spring-cusping-time. no longer were winter coats or down vests necessary. the forsythia was blooming and the sweaters were out. i can still hear the birds in the woods behind our house.
i’ve been watching the weather, hoping for a nice day. it’s supposed to be cloudy with a high of 54. surprisingly, though there is a definite absence of forsythia, it will be warmer today than in my old hometown. we will likely go for a hike somewhere – one of our familiar – but loved – trails. because it’s a thursday we’ll have dinner with 20 and we will probably play rummikub together.
and sometime during the day i will sit and ponder turning 66. I’m not sure what 66 is supposed to look like – physically, emotionally, spiritually, economically. i know that many people around me have had different journeys to 66, some of which are much more predictably stable than my own.
nevertheless, i plan on being in wonder. i’ll put lack of perfection aside, next to disappointments and failures. instead, i will look at abundance and think about what would be blue-notebook entries – the mica moments that glitter, the blooms that are ready to blossom, the things that can’t be contrived or spun – all those shiny times and matte times that just simply happen so that we might notice, pay attention and embrace them for all the rest of time.
it’s still there. at the bottom of the deck steps – stepping onto the patio – it is still there.
i don’t know where it came from, but suddenly this white heart appeared. it was at the end of a week when i really-really needed a heart to appear.
it is snowing right now as we work to write blogposts ahead. snowing! i honestly cannot think of anything i would like more at this moment.
tucked under a quilt, gazing out the window, the snow’s quiet is extraordinary. like after yesterday’s intense wind we just needed the blissful silence of a soft snowfall. it is calming my heart. the little vibration in my chest i can feel sometimes is absent. i know that any accumulation of this snowfall will be gone in a day or so – as the temperatures are expected to warm up – but for right now, it’s perfect.
while sorting through and cleaning out file cabinets and the attic upstairs i stumbled upon the binder of music i used for two of my recordings – let me take you back volume 1 and 2. they are both solo piano recordings of songs from the 60s and 70s. i put it aside, surprised to find it – particularly in that drawer – but continuing to work on the reorganization/purge.
but later – when it was time to go back downstairs i brought it right into my studio. i called d, flipped the binder open and started to play snippets of well-loved songs from our teens and twenties. i have this feeling that we could spend hours going through those songs, singing, reminiscing. and we might just do that. it was a balm to actually play – play!! – it’s been sooo long!! – and thinking of us singing along together makes me happy. maybe it’s a good snow day thing to do.
i will eventually bring the white heart inside. it will go with other heart rocks we have – or – maybe – it might go into my studio.
it is like a trifecta of goodness – the white heart, the snow, the binder.
i won’t question any of it. maybe divine intervention is just that way.
it seemed to trust us as we approached on the trail. this sweet opossum calmly stayed where it was even as we got closer. eventually, it ambled into the brush nearby, but, still, really close. we spoke to it in hushed tones, trying to reassure it that we meant no harm. i took a couple of photographs as it slow-blinked at me from under some grasses. it was a wonderful start to our hike, grounding us and pushing worries back.
“get outside!” kristy always ends the wander women video with this directive. she and annette have created a lifestyle of activity, of the outdoors, of community, of simple values. i’d venture a guess that we could be fast friends. they do not concern themselves with fashion or decorating trends or competition or vast material possessions. instead, their living is based on the certainty of mortality – of doing the best they can, the most they can, exploring and tapping all the goodness out of each day.
we were at REI the other day. we pored over backpacks and all-things-trail-friendly. we studied sunshirts and sleeping pads. i purchased two pairs of toe socks for hiking – my toes have issues with each other inside my hiking boots so we are hoping that these will help – in lieu of bandaids and walking funny. we are dedicated to our trails, even the local ones. tapping as much goodness out of each day seems a good plan, particularly in light of all the uncertainty that surrounds us.
i’m not sure how we could handle everything going on in the world if we did not get outside. even cold wind in our faces makes us feel more alive, more centered than anything else might. these days of beautiful weather have been gifts and – for a few minutes here or there – have helped us to set aside our worries and angst about the direction of this country.
i happen to know – really – that the sweet opossum did not have the same fixation on the state of the nation. it merely had basic needs to be met…safety being one of the most basic.
i suppose we are much like this critter. from somewhere high above – looking down at us – we probably look much the same. cautiously watching as others approach, trying to discern whether or not they are safe or if they pose a threat. retreating to the underbrush, slow-blinking at the intruders – still trying to discern their intent, whether or not they will interact.
it sounds a lot like going to the grocery store these days.
reverse threading 