so it feels a bit like a continuation from tuesday’s post that i wrote on sunday, but here we are – on monday morning – waking up to a winter wonderland. it all feels kind of early, if you ask me. i mean, it’s only november 10th. but, somehow, in the middle of the night – in those wee hours when i laid awake – in the middle of a great dark hush outside – the kind of hush in which you would never have guessed what was happening – it was snowing. clearly, non-stop.
the sun is coming out now and the sky has that blue that only follows a big snow. crisp, unexpected, inches and inches of snow. since we live by the lake, we were pretty slammed by lake effect and a ruler shows that there are – truly – about 15 inches out there.
we are cozy in here, though. under a comforter and a quilt, sipping coffee, we feel beyond fortunate. we have had our simple breakfast and, even if we can’t get out later, we have leftover food for lunch and dinner. lucky.
what about those people without? there is nothing i can say that would be – in any way – polite language about an administration fighting to continue the cruelty of withholding monies for food. i cannot grok that kind of evil.
i’ve looked – a couple times – at d’s aca healthcare policy to see what his new premium will be. i am well aware that it – a premium already ridiculously expensive – will probably be triple. we also noted that his actual policy will no longer exist and the “comparable” policy that was suggested is one with – no surprise here! – higher deductibles, higher co-pays, a higher maximum out-of-pocket combined with less coverage and – the icing on the cake – zero out-of-network coverage at all.
and who is it that is against universal healthcare??
of course that doesn’t begin to address the violent removal of people that a bigoted administration has decided are not worthy of being here.
one nation, under god, with liberty and justice for all. uh-huh.
so many people – the populace of this country – struggling, desperately trying to stay healthy, to stay fed, to stay safe, to stay alive.
i would never have guessed – in the dark hush of this administration’s years and years of strategizing, scheming, conniving – what was happening, all of what they had planned for this country.
somehow, the siri of the universe seemed to think that we meant “snowed under” literally.
as autumn moves into full bloom, it is track-able on our westneighbor’s fence. the virginia creeper vine is fully immersed in the transition of seasons – producing berries for the birds, changing color day by day.
but there are fewer and fewer leaves now on the vine. dark is longer and colder and the cicadas and night crickets have ceased their song. in turning back the clock, there’s no turning back the clock.
and we head full-tilt into this season, knowing that winter’s lull will follow, that a time of fallow will start.
we blink back the wistful for summer, for early fall’s warmth as we head into the colder seasons. and we try to remember what we treasure about this next season, just six short weeks away.
with different eyes we look to the horizon of each day – changing our expectations, sorting to presence and appreciating each remaining leaf.
and soon the fence will be bare, save for the vining twigs.
but under the soil there is a gathering momentum of energy. and one of these days again – in the way that nature continues and continues – in the way that goodness goes on – it will burst open and we’ll see growth again. the vine knows.
with what seemed a millisecond between seasons, it is – clearly – fall now.
i had a list of places to go, places to show d. but the tropical storm/nor’easter put a crimp in all that. planting fields, millneck manor, blydenburgh park, hecksher park, every beach on both shores, out east – it was all on the list.
but the reality was that both time and good weather were limited. so in tiny bits of time, we went to the most important places. the other places will have to wait.
grateful to be home, we went to our favorite loop trail and immersed in the turn of the season, appreciating all the little and big ways it had changed in the week we had been away – a week that felt infinitely longer.
i readjusted the smart lights and the old-fashioned timers. d pushed the garden lights earlier. we refreshed happy lights and, and just a few days ago, i turned on the heat for the first time this season. i love autumn, but the waning light is a bit challenging.
any store we enter now is decked out in full holiday schmalz. that – i have to say – is too much for me. though i am completely aware this works for some people, it just seems too soon and it seems a bit tone-deaf to me, considering all that is actually happening.
as i think about the holiday season – knowing our adult children will not be celebrating here with us this year – i wonder about our own celebration. i have some seriously mixed feelings about it all. though being surrounded by lights and cheerful reminders of merriment and joy would be helpful, i also know that there is a tipping point – at least for me. too much of that might be like closing my eyes to the painful changes taking place right here, right now. it will be important to balance the hope of a season of light with reality. some of the merriment, the decorations, the glitter and ribbons and wrap might have to wait. just like millneck manor and planting fields, the beaches and parks of the island. sometimes just a bit is also enough for the moment.
in the meanwhile, we touch this season. we take cuttings of our plants to propagate for next year. we miss long, lazy light as it slowly disappears. we start to wear boots.
the time of fallow is coming.
fallow.
and then?
i truly hope that soon we here in this country are able to – driven to – resume the cultivation of kindness and humanitarian goodness, to regenerate respect and care for each person here, to break the toxic infestation of these days, to recover a nation of integrity, equality, generosity and democracy for all.
it’s the last two. the very last two jalapeño peppers. today or tomorrow we’ll make ann’s jalapeño poppers recipe and celebrate the crazy-abundant harvest of these two relatively small plants. their season is clearly over; there are no tiny flowers left, there are no miniature peppers. these plants are done producing. but, in a new discovery, i have found that we can overwinter these perennials (more easily sustained in warm climes) – if we bring them indoors before the first frost we can give them a headstart for next year.
last year we only had one plant. its harvest is what convinced us to have two this year. maybe next year it’ll be three. in these last years, we have discovered the equation of this garden – what we get out of this garden is a direct result of what we put into it. it – and the experience of it – remain part of us, for we have paid attention to it.
like artistry – if you follow the imperative – being true to who you are – and who you’ve been and who you are becoming – and not beholden to societal expectations or fiscal returns – its produce potential is crazy-abundant. amorphous, ethereal, it will shape and re-shape, build and break down, condense and stretch – you are feeding it always. in the quiet and in the noisy, in season and out-of-season, overwintering. it’s all fluid, continuous.
i wonder when i will compose again. sometimes i can feel it building – the tension of the imperative. on those days i walk into my studio and touch my piano. it’s just a gesture, an acknowledgement. but it counts. it connects me back and forward, both. it is perennial.
and i can see – they are one and the same – these jalapeños and my music.
“not even the tiniest perennial grows only to die. it comes back again and again when the season and the time is right.” (kate mcgahan)
this tiniest flower of spanish needles reminds me of tenacity…as every plant produces about 1200 seeds to ensure its continued propagation – its desire to be in this world.
to be in this world…to be a part of this universe…to be valued.
we walk – when we walk in the ‘hood – past this plant every day. and every day i am enchanted by these tiny blossoms, in each phase of their living, each season they exist.
and i wonder how so many people – so cavalier – so uncaring – right-here-right-now – in this country – find it so hard to care about the very existence of other people when it is really so very easy to be grateful for the even the tiniest flower.
planted in a barnwood planter – one that is split in half where the top half balances on the bottom half – I have been tending this mint all summer. we have used it in suntea all through these months. it’s made a few appearances in quinoa tabouli. and then.
then – all of a sudden – it went dormant. the stems were leggy and leafless. it seemed done. i snipped it all back, tossing the dried stems behind the potting stand, and i resolved to buy mint for the remainder of the suntea season. and then.
then – all of sudden – there it was. a few new sprigs and a few more. yesterday, i picked mint for the fresh jug of tea and took a few pictures of the new lush green leaves.
petsitter ann had told us to beware – that the mint would take over the garden were we to plant it in the ground. so we heeded her advice and chose this planter instead. i’ve already decided it will be the mint planter again next year. because we will surely need mint again next year.
we’ll need it so that we can watch its zealous growth – bursting from the very beginning, right out of the nursery pot.
we’ll need it for our cool tea, for our tabouli, for the zucchini parmesan pasta dish.
we’ll need it to gauge the hot sun and the water levels of our other plants – it responds to changes in weather and moisture, giving us good indicators for tending our other herbs as well.
we’ll need it to watch firsthand something that, well, just isn’t very fussy about stuff.
and we’ll need it to remind ourselves of the regenerative power of spirit – that even if something seems passé, even if something seems dried-up – done – out-of-season – even if something seems downright irrelevant – there is still an ever-lit pilot light.
when they were little, i was accustomed to watching their growth spurts – these moments when their tiny bodies were overcome by fiery energy of growth……a sudden few inches here or there…a burst in language or fine motor skills. childraising is a continual surprise. just when you thought you knew what you needed to know – at least temporarily – you were stymied by your own tiny child – and you became a little heap of not-knowing uncertainty. oof. it’s all a glorious mystery.
the one – and only one – daylily wasn’t giving up. all around it, blooms had tired and turned into wrinkled brown tissue, stems were drying out, its green frond-y leaves were yellowing.
and then, the growth spurt of this one last blossom – not yet willing to give up the game. it raised its head to the sun, singing.
we are watching the transition to autumn – all around us. fallow is in the offing, just off-stage, waiting for the summer to clear and sweep the wood floor of time it had inhabited. lighting is clearing the way for dark, a slow decrescendo of available daylight. sound is preparing to – soon – shut down the microphones of cicadas and crickets. the props of summer – all the heavenly hot-sun blooms and flowers and produce and herbs and the fantastic tapestry of color – the stagehands of fall are collecting them, quietly putting them to bed.
but the daylily in the front garden is having none of it.
in the middle of the transition to the quietude of fall, it is speaking loudly. it is not remaining silent. it is – in fact – screaming out to us to “remember!” it is reminding us we don’t know it all.
daylily’s transition is not without noise. it is not without color – its flame orange a loud pushback on what seems inevitable – fading fall, falling.
it is having a growth spurt of independent spirit. one lone bloom. glorious.
“instead of silence, she chose fire.” (celeste ng)
mama dear repurposed gramps’ old wooden cigar boxes. she’d label them with a magic marker with a big Z or a big B on the front – which stood for zippers and buttons.
i have these old cigar boxes. The Z box now stores nespresso pods in our sunroom. the B box stores harmonicas, kazoos, egg shakers in my studio. the unlabeled corona cigar box is in the office and is loaded with business cards from days when my recording label was flourishing.
the zippers from the Z box are in with my sewing supplies.
and the buttons from the B box? there is a giant collection of buttons. tiny buttons, metal buttons, plastic buttons, wooden buttons, buttons with distinction, whimsical buttons, spare buttons in those tiny plastic bags along with a bit of matching colored thread – that used to come with every blazer, every shirt, every coat.
it is a direct connect to pass by these button-flowers – these fading daisies in the meadow – and think of mama dear, my grandmother, my sweet momma’s mom. she is the person who taught me how to sew and i simply cannot so much as thread a needle without thinking of her.
i found a letter from mama dear the other day. it was from early 1980. i was 20. in it she thanked me for a christmas gift i had given her and a card i had sent from a trip to visit my parents. no one knew at the time it would be her last holiday season. born in 1899, she was a feisty almost-81 with bright red hair and a penchant for gambling slot machines in vegas. in her letter she wrote, “i hope you are happy with your choice” referring to my staying in new york instead of going to florida with my parents as they retired.
at the time it wasn’t really a difficult choice. i was at the beginning stages of a composing/recording/performing career and retirement-central wasn’t the place to grow. so, yes, i was happy with my choice. until one day when that choice became dangerous and i fled all semblance of my budding career, leaving any feisty i had inherited from mama dear behind, devastatingly leaving all artistry buds behind for decades to come.
the button-flowers are charming. they punctuate the masses of goldenrod lighting up the meadows. and they make me think of my button collection.
i have no idea what i will do with all of those buttons. i suppose one day i will list them on marketplace and give them away to a seamstress or crafter who will make creative use of them. maybe i will tell them a little about mama dear, about how many of these buttons are vintage, about how they carry a spirit of feisty red-headed grandma in them.
or maybe i’ll just quietly gift them the collection and hold onto the feisty myself.
and every time i pass a button-daisy on the side of a trail i’ll check in – inside – and make sure it’s still there – the feisty – still growing, still challenging me, still repurposing into profound and important choices for the L box. Life.
mid 80s, late 80s, the 90s – it was a thing. posies of dried flowers everywhere you could find a spot. on indoor trellises, tucked into cornices, hooked onto doors, gathered in bowls, in wreaths and vases and garlands, in frames and potpourri vessels. so many dried flowers.
and it wasn’t that they weren’t beautiful. next to the quilts on quilt racks and the doilies on the side tables, old silverware windchimes, painted wooden tchotchkes and cross-stitch anything, the dried flowers complimented the style of the times – this nod to nostalgic country-ish.
there was a day – years ago – when, having been surrounded by dried flowers for decades, i literally walked around my home with a big garbage bag and tossed all the dried flowers i had managed to hang, tuck, hook, trellis, gather, weave, drape, frame or potpourri-mix. it – this decorating obsession with things-dried – was suddenly done.
(now, to be fair, currently, there’s a posy of lavender from our garden in a small glass milk pitcher and a couple reeds from a hike. oh, and a few hydrangea from out front. of course, there are two big branches in our house now, not to mention driftwood from long island and an aspen log from the forest in breckenridge, but, in essence…for the most part…in theory and almost-all-application, the dried-flower-dust-accumulator period is over.)
instead, as we hike along the river and in the woods and walk in the ‘hood, we watch the flowers of the meadows and the gardens changing. their waning beauty draws me in – even more than their mid-summer blossom. there is something about the fading flower, something about the button left after the petals fall, something about the curve of the wilting coneflower or a tired black-eyed susan, the almost-fluffless dandelion, the loves-me-loves-me-not petal-less daisy. i stop and linger with them, always curious how graceful it is they go into fallow, this period of rest, how they so readily give over to this change in appearance when humans seem to resist so vehemently any visible aging.
the 1980s/1990s dried-flower-hanger/tucker/gatherer in me rises as i admire these beautiful nods to autumn’s arrival. but i leave the flowers in the meadow, in the garden, in the marsh next to the river, in the woods.
and, instead, i carry their beauty – and the moments i was witness to it – with me, knowing that diminished beauty is – nonetheless – beautiful.
we’d get on our bikes early in the day and just take off. susan and i would bike hike anywhere – we’d plan our journeys and make sure there was a carvel or a mcdonald’s somewhere on the way. as long as we were home by dinner no one worried about us. and we had the freedom to roam around our neighborhoods or anywhere we could reach on the island.
it should be this way.
back in school, in the fall – after the ultimate freedom of our summer – we practiced getting under our desks at school but the likelihood of any bombing actually happening to our school was a mere mention on a fire-drill-bomb-scare just-in-case checklist.
every year d and i talk to each other about “the wistfuls”. it hasn’t happened yet this year – neither of us has felt it descend on us. but we know it will.
there’s fall – the changing of the guard moving toward fallow. my favorite season of jeans and boots and flannel shirts. and there’s fall – a recognition of summer ending, of the sun and long, hot days and freedom and a lightness of spirit coming to a close.
and i wonder – in these gorgeous fall days, the lower sun intense, the breeze cooler, the colors more vibrant with the humidity pushed aside – what that wistful is about.
is it about those days growing up? is it about a yen to have little to no responsibility, no concerns, a time of fiercely following curiosity, of grasping the tiny adventures of childhood with both hands, believing they were huge explorations? is it about painfully remembering a time when my whole extended family seemed to be on the same page, supporting each other, caring for the world and its inhabitants?
is it about a yearning for when my own children were little? when their backyard playing was the everyday joy of looking out the kitchen window? when the dining room table was the gathering place for school supplies and backpacks? when the summer freedom slipped back into a schedule of school and homework and lessons and sports practices? when, after dropping them off or seeing them onto the bus, hoping that they ate their packed lunch, remembered their spelling words, weren’t bullied by anyone were my worries?
although there were occasional bomb threats issued at the schools and 9/11 was a profoundly terrifying day, there was never an actual shooter on the premises (that i knew of).
but there had been moments in our town. and the moment i heard a loud inner voice direct me – vehemently – to NOT stop at the mcdonald’s i was about to pull into on my way home from the mall with my two tiny children – the day that minutes later a shooter entered that very mcdonald’s through the back door, killing the people at the table where we always sat – the one at the very back opposite the door, where the smoking-allowed-smoke didn’t reach our happy meals – that moment reached inside me and raised up the fear i had carried with me since my own earlier life, the time after bike hikes and carvel and fireflies in the neighborhood.
it shouldn’t be like that.
i just watched an instagram reel during which a mom instructs her little boy – who is five years old – about following his teacher’s directions during an emergency at school. between reading the circumstances about her little boy, his physical challenges, and the thought that his tiny – tiny! – self following directions could mean the difference between life and death made my head want to explode.
it should not be this way.
and is it any wonder that i wonder what the wistful is about???
oh, i imagine that when the wistful hits, it will be with some degree of force. for everything is changing – not just the leaves. and we are suddenly thrust into a world – a country – where freedom and rights are being usurped, where the administration is upholding the secrecy of sexual predators, where school shootings – with children and adults dying – dying! – elicit merely passive thoughts and prayers, where xenophobic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic leaders wish to eliminate – eliminate! – actual people they consider superfluous, unwelcomed, expendable, where the premise of warmongering seems to be a sport and the propensity to further lethality and offensive actions on those they perceive as disposables runs rampant, where healthcare and the ability to have enough food is considered elite, where having more gets more and having less doesn’t matter.
reverse threading 