white flowers in the forest. with delicate petals – like the wood anemone – or the three sweeping waxy petals of the great white trillium – these white flowers dotting the underbrush of the woods are stunning, really beautiful. these seemingly fragile white blooms in and amongst a landscape not quite green, a landscape still rummaging around, waiting for spring’s full chorus.
we stop sometimes – just to take it all in – past ourselves, our thoughts, our conversation, our footsteps on the dirt. it gives us pause and slows our breathing.
the landscape design is immaculate – perfection. downed trees, leaves naturally composting, the canopy towns of mayapples bursting up through the ground, enchanting purple phlox, flowering pear trees. it is a slice of heaven.
in these days – when mosteverysinglething we read in the news makes us despondent, it seems that we must balance out our equilibrium a bit. for us, as you already know, that is the trail. the dirt paths in our area help us thrive as we all live in the shade of the current political chaos and the wreckage of our democracy. tiny bits of dappled light get through, but the challenge is to still keep going, despite the vast amount of dark.
white trillium prefers shade. these exquisite blooms find their home to be best in part or full shade. they are slow-growing, but long-lived – a combination that seems to push back against threatening negative influences, that rises out of deep winter, that sustains despite the odds, that shines in beauty. trillium live in colonies, interdependent on all the shrubs, trees, composting soil, insects, bacteria and fungi around it. its brilliant star shines alongside those it shares space with, symbiotically life-sharing companions.
pause for thought. yes. it gives us pause for thought.
“sometimes you have to listen harder to hear it, but the music is always playing.” (rob shaver – the life we have)
there have been plenty of times i didn’t listen hard enough.
i wonder. maybe it’s different if music is what you do, what you are. maybe sometimes it’s harder to hear because i have so much invested in it, because it winds around everything. maybe sometimes it’s harder to listen to because it sits heavier on my heart, with imperative and expectation. maybe sometimes it’s harder to hear because it is mixed up with cellular strands of pain, with the memory of the painful, with reinvigorated pain. sometimes i choose not to listen.
in those times it is quiet i seek. there are no melodic gestures that invite me in, no harmony, no beat pattern of rhythm. it is blank staff paper. skeletal. it is silence.
and then – like now – i begin to discover – rediscover – that it was there all along. it was the thing that carried me from one measure of rest to another. it was the beast of burden that enabled me to rest in the rest, to climb when necessary. it was the universe that offered it up – always playing – as breath. healing. not a bandaid kind of thing, but a gut-punch of adrenaline, a reminder of melody-flits in my mind, a few keys on a piano i can feel in my fingertips – prompts for an intuitive artist, shoulder-taps, a wistfulness i can’t avoid.
and every sound becomes a symphony, ready for my own ovation. every chance at a riff, an arpeggio, a singular line of potentially-exquisite melody is the divine. it plays always – off to the side, in the wings of our individual stage, just waiting for the curtain call, for the downbeat, for the crescendo, for the fader to bring up the volume.
sometimes i have wished that my work was left-brained, measured, predictable, with less of a low-tide-tidal-wave spectrum. but the spectrum – the kaleidoscopic roller coaster – is my continuum and i know – particularly now – when one note arrives at a time – that i wouldn’t trade it.
tiny parachutes – white filament – catch the breeze and lift the seeds – about 200 of them or so – from their home – the head of the dandelion – scattering them about in the world. the dandelion plant is left behind to generate a new flower head, more seeds, more parachutes. it is not singularly connected to any of these. its job is to simply be prolific, to produce more flowers and, thus, more seeds which will germinate more plants. and the beat goes on.
i would not be a good dandelion. i could not be so disconnected, so cool-y aloof. it is not in my nature to let go so easily, to ride on the wings of apathy. my children could tell you differently. my thready connection with them hangs on, even with all their efforts at asserting their independence. my thready connection – sans parachute – will never cease. motherhood – as i experience it – is like that.
fistful of dandelions is now kind of an old song – recorded in 1999 – which is 27 years ago. i hesitated a moment before i sent it to a newer friend – someone who i doubted had ever heard any of my music. i wasn’t sure if it was the best song to send her way, since it is only the second vocal recorded professionally in the second phase of my artistry – the phase that started in 1995. i know – in my library – there are better-sung songs, better-sounding songs, better-written lyrics, better-performed tracks.
i sent it to her anyway.
because i have found that this song speaks to moms and she is a mom. because it was more raw – desperately honest – an earlier piece sort of buried on an instrumental album, whereas other vocals are more readily accessible, easier to peruse if you wish. because – maybe, hopefully, we’ll see if possibly – someday i may record others and, just as time keeps moving on, so does style and relatability and such.
and so i sent it to her.
i haven’t heard anything back, which is always a tad bit disconcerting for an artist – any artist. we all know that it is how a piece of music, of art, of writing hits another that gives it life, gives it lift, sets its parachutes in motion so that it might float and swing on a breeze, setting seed in yet another place, with other people, new gardens to receive it.
i bent way down on the trail to capture this particular dandelion. its job was not yet done – there were more seeds, more parachutes; there is more possibility.
the same is true of my children.
and i will hang back at the flower zone, in the garden, while they fly around the world seeking rich soil in which to experiment and grow, in which to continue to grow their own wings, those stunning kaleidoscope wings of color and texture and challenge and success and brilliant brilliance – those iridescent shimmers – a myriad of sheen – though invisible to the naked eye.
and i will be astounded.
“…it overwhelms me what i feel, this heart outside of mine/is walking in another person, in another life…”
we have a relationship with mason jars. ball, kerr, various other brands, it doesn’t matter. we even have a relationship with faux mason jars – the smuckers jelly jars that we used to use for wine, the bonne maman jam jars we currently use as water glasses.
at our wedding we had dozens of mason jars, daisies tucked into all of them. some were ours and we borrowed some (does that work as something borrowed, something blue…?) because way back when – when i first moved to wisconsin – i got hooked on these jars.
my dear friend linda and i would attend the late 80s/early 90s craft fairs, peruse antique shoppes. her home was a celebration of all-things-vintage and i fell in love with it. there were textures and stories – a distinct warmth – everywhere and buying-vintage became a viable – and smart – option for me. we have several metal flour sifters as a result of that and a collection of old wooden textile mill spools and bobbins (from the 19th and earlier 20th centuries). when other people were buying cutesy painted tchotchkes, i was lusting over old wooden boxes, lidded crates and blue mason jars.
we stopped at a couple antique shoppes recently, looking for a small wooden garden table for a plant or two on our deck. we had purchased one last spring but then d loved it so much outside he brought it inside in the fall to serve as his bedside table. now he is a devotee to this little peeling-paint garden table and we are on the hunt for another.
i don’t suppose many people would have brought this table inside – or the old glider – or the chunks of concrete – or the birdhouse – or the chiminea. but in an effort-that-is-no-effort to have a home that doesn’t look like it’s staged-and-ready-for-sale or is a furniture-outlet showroom or magazine piece, we dive into our intuitive to use the things that really speak to us, that are organic, that have stories. i maintain that everyone should be required to purchase mostly used things – there is just too much stuff in the world and i can’t imagine why we need even more manufactured stuff. but i digress.
in that same vein, though, we have started regularly using the things that we have found in our going-through the basement, the attic, the closets. we are eliminating plastic here and there and choosing the cut-glass vessels for our carrot sticks and salty snacks. we are soon going to reconfigure the stuff in the cabinets under the counter in the kitchen – to make access easier to the old pyrex, the fenton hobnail, the cut-glass.
we have found we have no real need to purchase many things. i’m not sure if that comes with age or if that comes with a bit of wisdom – or if those are one and the same. our inclination is to use what we have, to not save things for “good” (which is particularly difficult for me), to minimize as much as we can.
every now and then we find something that just pokes at us, prodding us to bring it home. there is a raw rough-hewn clay pot from northport, a couple linen napkins from the same boutique. there is a new peace sign button hanging in littlebabyscion. but way more has gone out than come in – donated, sold on marketplace or poshmark. less is most definitely more. especially in these times.
the blue ball jars all lined up at this shoppe made me smile. the proprietor clearly loves organization; everything there was in categories, lined up or gathered for ease of perusing through. we had no impulse to buy anything, but loved our walk through.
because each time we walk an antique shoppe, we have stories to tell – about the stuff of growing-up, about things we have previously owned, about stuff we never had or never wanted, about – well – life.
if you have never taken a walk through any vintage shop, you might consider it.
it’s generative in a way you might not expect, with sudden glimpses into the decades that have past, with moments when your heart surges – focused on a memory, with a wistfulness that reminds you of how fleeting it all is and how very much we need to “wring out every ounce of life, breath by breath, [all] that this world has to offer.” (words from a text from dear friend lisa.)
it’s sunday morning as i write this. with our coffee and the sunrise, we started our morning watching an rei video called “the life we have”, an intensely moving documentary that follows rob shaver, the subtitle of which reads, “mortality, movement and the richness of being alive.” too big.
by the end we were both crying. tears streaming down our faces. sniffly noses. the tightness in your chest when you are trying hard not to just out and out sob.
and then we just sat – holding tightly onto each other under our quilt and comforters – cold morning air coming in the window, sun streaming in the other side. we were quiet.
we stirred from our stillness. x’ed out of that youtube. and stared at the screen that presented many, many options of other videos to watch, most of which had something to do with the current administration – which – in absolutely no way at all – could ever begin to demonstrate the respect for life that this video we had just viewed did. seeing the faces of those involved in this vileness made me sick to my stomach – again. the juxtaposition was well beyond striking. it was monumental.
we sat in wisconsin’s oldest operating theatre – the 1915 downer in milwaukee – the scent of popcorn wafting everywhere. it was our first time to this theatre, but i daresay not our last.
we were there to see the documentary GASLIT, a movie – directed by katie camosy -shining the light on how the pervertedly-swollen oil and gas industry “impacts the land, air, water and human lives.” it is practically too big to write about.
jane fonda – one of the producers as well as activist and narrator – says, “it’s about injustice, pollution, and the destruction of entire communities.” the destruction and profiteering by those hoarding big-money – the gluttonous – is unconscionable. we were so sickened – so outraged – when the movie was over we couldn’t move for minutes. out of body, feeling like we were living in surreal times, we struggled our way out of the theatre and walked down the street, catching our breath, trying – again – not to cry.
sacrifice zones are areas of this country – the united states of america – where big money has decided that the people, the town, their homes – all of it – are worthy of being sacrificed. big money – like this current administration cheerleading for more fossil fuels, eliminating clean energy projects, drilling, drilling, drilling and decimating natural lands – including parklands – has decided that they can decide where people – PEOPLE – are not worth it…are disposable…that they can be sacrificed in order to benefit the extraction and production of dirty carcinogenic fuels and petrochemicals. toxic communities, cancer alleys, not fit for habitation, everything that is alive affected. they are disgracefully and deliberately created. activists describe these places as “the wrong complexion for protection”. what in the absolute hell?! this is the united states of america and this is a priority of its current administration…one of many revolting atrocities in their sick cauldron of intention. it is sinister wickedness.
we backed away from the youtube panel of choices this morning. the faces of such self-consumed, twisted corruption were just too much for us.
i spun the outer band of the fidget spinner ring we got at peacetree. it brought me back to the words of rob shaver, the life of a man who is just trying to live: “it’s literally just a choice daily. to live deeply and thoroughly and with beautiful effort. not for results, not for money or fame or lifestyle, but for the richness of being alive.”
that there is what the current leadership of this country – this place that purports to care about the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all its people – every last freaking person – will never ever get.
ever.
and yet, that leadership – lacking the wisdom that gratitude for sheer life bestows upon those who choose to be grateful – dares to decide who can be sacrificed.
i suppose it depends on how big your viewfinder is. looking through the viewfinder of a handheld camera brings your rapt attention to whatever direction you have aimed it.
as you know, we often watch the youtube videos of hikers on trail at night, before sleep. we hike the trail – vicariously – through their eyes and it is fascinating to see how the trail changes – and how the trail stays the same – through a multitude of viewfinders.
it is particularly helpful to be on the trail “with” these hikers, for their cellphones and gopros are our eyes until that time when we are stepping the millions of steps on a thru-hike path with a hulking backpack and – hopefully – a lovely mule carrying it. (ok, just kidding – about the mule.)
we just read each other our posts from an earlier day, as is our custom. we write from an image but don’t share until after we are done. it was during the reading of one of my posts that we just stopped – full stop – and said how very fortunate we are…despite everything.
though there is much that would need be “shut out” in order to achieve serene peace, we focused for a few minutes on what is a part of our personal viewfinders.
for a while – years, maybe – i carried a white cardboard square slide frame in my wallet. my dear friend crunch had told me that there might be times that holding the slide frame up in front of me (not close to my eye), closing one eye and focusing on only what i could see through it – while blocking out everything else – might help my perspective. one thing at a time, not the whole picture. sometimes i have found that is necessary.
“just look through the viewfinder…” and the peripheral stuff falls off. at least momentarily. we all have it – all that peripheral stuff, some of which sets the entire somber tone for the entire country, even the whole global world, some of which is personal and keeps us burdened and struggling, some of which is just the picayune detail of life and living, some of which is a bit lighter, less difficult to carry.
years ago my beloved teacher and friend andrea wrote to me, “nothing is idyllic. i think we have idyllic moments. we have to take time to savor what is around us.”
the viewfinder keeps us in the moment and doesn’t let us forget to acknowledge the right now. it keeps us appreciative of the way it feels to smell the coffee in the morning or hear the earliest bird calls. it’s perspective-arranging, gives us a breath when we can hardly breathe. it helps us see the glimmer on the water, the mica right around us. it is life-giving, even if just for a small bit of time.
it gives us what we need to then leave that narrow focus and, once again, look at the whole horizon and all of that which is there.
wearing a traditional scandinavian jumper, i danced around the maypole. holding a ribbon tethered to the pole, i danced to and fro with other young girls also holding ribbons. it was an ancient spring festival – at an arboretum on the island – and my sweet momma happily got us involved in taking part in it.
may day – the first of may. it seems impossible that we are already at may. time has a way of zipping by while at the same time taking-its-sweet-time. langsam – slowww – one of the few german words i remember from six years of studying the language.
but the return of spring it is and we are both grateful for it, despite its exceedingly stormy arrival.
we wake in the morning even earlier now, the sun streams in on our quilt, the breeze through the open window. everything is greening…gorgeous new-green crayon tones against easter-egg blue sky…tiny buds bursting into leaves, stalks of peonies growing taller before our eyes. the aspen is filling out, the ferns are unfurling, the daylilies are daylilly-ing – they require no help whatsoever.
and the birds and squirrels and raccoons are taking full advantage of our zeal to keep the feeders full. they linger on the top of barney, on the top of the potting stand. they gather in the pine tree next to the birdbath, waiting turns at the water.
and we can hear the call of the cardinals – beautiful song punctuated by sharp chirps. they stick around during the winter; their presence is always reassuring…a sign from the universe reminding me that my sweet momma and poppo are nearby, just on the other side, having slipped from this dimension to the next.
we’ve sat on the back patio a few times now, on the back deck in the sun. we’ve watched these creatures of our yard, narrating for them as they move about. wanting a photo of the cardinal at the birdbath, perched on its side, getting a drink, i grabbed my phone. but i was, regretfully, too late and he took off as i snapped the picture.
it wasn’t until much later – hours, really – as i looked at my photos of the day when i saw this photograph, the cardinal taking off, flying away from the birdbath.
so much better than a static perch photo, the cardinal taking flight – its may dance – its own celebration of the arrival of spring, of renewal, of new life.
we sit in our adirondack chairs and plot out our spring. we talk of our gardens, of an annual flower or two we might choose, of the herbs and vegetables we will grow on our barnwood stand.
it is hard not to feel passion for our very earth watching it come back alive all around us. it is impossible not to take deep, cleansing breaths, to turn our faces to the sun. it is time – for all good things – to dance around the maypole, to take flight.
the ferns are curly-cuing their way up – out of the ground – taller and taller every day. they are spectacular, these fiddleheads, coiled fronds answering the beckoning of the sun.
this particular photo of our ferns in our fern garden strikes me as very maternal…as if the momma fern is looking out for the young ferns following suit – the one with tilted head, the one not yet fully unearthed. i am reminded of one of d’s paintings…mother-daughter…the never-ending inclination to protect, to hold close, to comfort.
but unfurling-life doesn’t provide us with the never-ending opportunity to physically hold our children, to physically protect them, to physically comfort them. instead, they scatter – like wildflower seeds – as they must – as they should – and we parents are left to watch over them from afar, to celebrate their successes and hold fast their hearts when they are mourning. we have not given up our connection, but it is stretched out far and we find we must also rely on the grace of the universe to protect, to hold, to comfort them.
as our own beautiful children – now in their thirties – move about the world being who they are, i miss them, the preciousness of their presence.
i sometimes miss the days when they were reliant on me (and their dad) for most things. those days were intense, busy, skewed mostly in the direction of making sure their needs were met, that we provided for them the best we could, that we offered up opportunity as well as critical boundaries, that we cheered their journeys.
i sometimes miss the days when they had new freedom…those days they were in college and littlebabyscion was the moving van again and again, taking them to and fro, witnessing year by year their growing independence.
i sometimes miss the days when they were newly out of college, when they weren’t quite as established as now, when home still kind of meant wisconsin.
in going-through the basement, the attic, the closets, all the rooms of the house, i try hard to remember that the things of those times will not help me hold onto those times. i try hard to remember that their baby clothes, their early toys, the old trinkets from their rooms, their junior high notebooks will not keep those times at hand. i try to release all that as i go, my heart trying to just gently hold the memories i can remember, my heart trying to tenderly – empathetically – hold my heart. i try to be a good fern in a big world of fern gardens.
and now, as the frond that burst out of the soil first, the frond that unfurled first, the frond that aged first, i glance at the verdant fiddleheads following. i could not be more proud. i could not love them more. and i will never not miss physically holding, protecting or comforting them as they answer the beckoning sun.
“the white trout lily humbly bows on the forest floor. much like people, though on a different scale, their presence is ephemeral, fleeting. on sunny days, their petals will curl back, up, towards the sun; on shady days these small flowers may not even open. their simple beauty a mystery to the passerby, their faces shyly downward, they fill the underbrush on the side of the trail, dotting the landscape with fragile white blooms. i trust they are not concerned with the impact they make on the world nor do they wonder about their footprints once they are gone. they are simply there – love – dressed in white floral.” (from a post on august 26, 2021)
the tiny trout lily forest – as seen from the ground – stretching on and on, dotting through dry underbrush, the accumulation of fall and winter now giving it up to spring.
the day was stunning…warm, sunny, blue skies. a gift of a day, indeed. it was our first time back on our loop since we arrived home. it was time to process it all and that trail is one of our touchstones for processing. we wandered along the dirt path, talking, being silent, noting how this new season was transforming our woods.
when you travel to or through places where you are not known – where you are a stranger – there is a sense of humility. we immerse in little towns on back roads when we can, finding our way through someone else’s place, through a community of ‘others’ – those in the know about local customs, local gems, local folklore. we are just passersby – soon to be on our way somewhere else.
but we have discovered some of our favorite spots this way. we’ve found places to which we must return some day, places with which we have connected, places that seem magically aligned with us.
discovery is like that. our steps take us past the familiar, into the unknown, the mysterious.
as i got down on my knees to photograph the trout lily forest, i imagined being tiny and walking amongst the lilies. like walking in a city of towering buildings, anonymous to most.
this trail – so familiar – each twist and turn, the spots where we know there will be standing water, the spots where the sun bathes the path, the places where the scent of pine is strong. we are lucky to know this place.
it is not likely that hikers after us will wonder about our footprints. they will be intent on the awakening forest and the swollen river, on their own silence, on their own talk–talk.
but we were there.
and – again – i realize we are each just one of the trout lilies in the woods, just as fragile, just as ephemeral, bowing to time.
“a ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” (john a. shedd)
i daresay that any artist understands this. there is no pursuit of artistry without the taking of risks, the exposure of vulnerability, the stepping out of one’s comfort zone. our job – as artists – is to seek growth, to encourage growth, to open up vast space of potential instead of squeezing complacency.
our trip back reminded me of this. the sailboats, the cruisers, even the skiffs in the harbor are protected…from the challenges of the elements and any stormy surf. but these boats will not stay in the harbor. people will take them out on the sound, perhaps around the island to where the sound and the atlantic meet, perhaps further into the ocean. they will explore and adventure; they’ll follow a star they alone can see.
we followed the star here. this is my chance to reclaim it all, to find the 19 year-old i lost, to hold her and assure her that she is now safe and that i have taken on that which attempted to squelch her forever. ships weren’t built to stay in harbors.
i have found my way home – intentionally. and in that finding, i have found her. and in that finding, i hope that the so-many-years lost will come rushing forward – music in every star i can see, in every star i can capture.
and the ships in the harbor will bear wings and, all together – with me at the helm – will sail into next.
reverse threading 