it is rare that grocery shopping delivers such gloriousness. really, i would say, it is never. even though i celebrate the tiniest things – like a minimally-loaded cart that doesn’t add up to over $100. rare, like i said.
but on this day – walking out of woodmans market – into the early evening, ten minutes before 5pm on the first day post-time-change – we both stopped in our tracks.
there was another guy standing there as well – frozen – like when you used to play red-light-green-light-one-two-three as kids.
i instantly reached down and pulled the phone out of my purse, my eyes never leaving the stunningly radiant sky. we all oohed and ahhed together, incredulous at the sunset.
the horizon and the sun stared back, wondering at how this sunset was different than any other they performed.
and we…well…we remembered that – in addition to all the relationship woes this time of great division and angst brings – we could still stand with a stranger and acknowledge beauty that eclipses everything.
dogga must have known. he woke us up well before the sun: it was time for his breakfast, for our coffee, for him to go out and about in the backyard. but it was still dark and the sun still had some coming-up to do.
he must have known, though. somehow, in his dogga-dogga heart, he knew it had snowed. not a lot of snow, really, truly, just a little, a dusting. but snow, nonetheless. and snow is one of his absolute favorite things in the whole wide world. snow is his favorite season. snow is his glory.
so he must have known.
it is a bitterly cold morning as i write this over the weekend. i jump up to go push the heat up over the frost-zone mark. i am a frugal thermostat-monger. more layers, i think, more layers.
last night – after a long day of painting some vintage furniture and walls (yes, also technically vintage) we snuggled under a blanket with our (yeeesh – matching) red-and-black buffalo plaids and some thick socks to watch other people pick out homes on hgtv. dogga – rejecting the bit of heat generated by laying on the area rug in the living room – stayed on the sunroom’s tile floor. he could feel the cold building outside, i guess. temperatures dropping and his spirits soaring.
and he must have known, somehow, about the imminent snow. (which, by the way, turned out to be about 12″ (!!) here on the lakefront.)
i would not think twice about using this emergency life ring were someone to be thrashing about in the cold water of the harbor below the dock. i’d quickly read the instructions and throw out the rope to anyone – ANY one – who might be drowning or even flailing, trying to survive. i have no doubt that most of the people i know would do the same; they would not ignore the seriousness of a person in extreme need of help.
which is why i absolutely cannot understand why this country is ignoring the imminent crises imperiling millions of people. when i read historian heather cox richardson’s words “what are we doing here?” i couldn’t agree more. truly…what are we doing here?
between the withholding of snap benefits, the gross reduction of medicaid, the exponentially escalating cost of impossible healthcare policies, the grabbing of people off the street, out of businesses, cars, daycares, this country – as you know – is placing its people at great risk.
so what are we doing here?
it would seem that normal human beings – those with a conscience, with compassion and with integrity – would never hesitate to help others in an emergency or in dire straits.
the words on the emergency life ring stanchion read “TO SAVE A LIFE”.
how is it that we – every single one of us – is not concerned with just that?
they were luminescent as the noon sun caught them in its grasp. magical. glowing. each individual seed seemed poised for takeoff, ready to catch the breeze, twirl and fly.
it is much like how i am feeling as i painstakingly go through the house … the bedrooms, the attic, the basement …
the memories all gather on the plume, ready to catch the next breeze and twirl in front of me, bringing me back to moments a long while ago – many decades or even just a few years.
they are golden, these memories, and i give them time as i touch the relics, leftovers saved. i’m trying to go slow, even as i wish to accomplish much quickly. my thready heart relishes what i can remember, even when it sorts to sadness, even when it sorts to tears. in the timeline of life, i am bobbing around like the crazy super balls we had as kids – the ones with bouncing trajectories you couldn’t predict. the wham-o super ball would zig and zag and i am zigging and zagging through time just like that.
sometimes i have to leave a box or a bin or a pile for a bit, step away and breathe through it. i have found that touching these objects – the tactile – makes it all real and up-close, almost like it’s now. and, because i am the sensitive, emotional type, i have to step back … back into the room, straighten up, look out the window, pet the dog, sip some water. it can be overwhelming, this going back stuff.
as the bins empty and the sorting keeps going – this is merely phase one – i can feel the space opening. i can feel the air of whatever is next. i will still save many things, though i know that perhaps some will be relinquished in phase two or three. it gives me a bit more time with the artifacts of my life.
and the treasured antiquities nod as i put them in the save pile. they know it is their golden moment – their chance to twirl for me, their flight with me. they are as luminescent as the plumes, ever so countless, glowing in the noon sun.
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.
“life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see.” (trudy symeonakis vesotsky)
when i started my first teaching job – at a K-2 primary school in the poorest part of a county in florida – i found out quickly that the previous teacher had a favorite record album that she played over and over and over. i’m not sure how much music teaching she did, but i know that she played this record for every class, every day. it was a female artist’s album, one of her earliest. in those days her albums were all contemporary christian fixtures, full of praise songs, lyrics based on biblical messages and worship.
even back then – in this very first teaching job in the very first school – i knew that it was not appropriate to play this album ad nauseam like the students described their previous teacher doing. i was not teaching at a religious-based school; this was a public school and i had a different obligation to these children. it was most definitely not to foist christian music upon them.
in perusing social media i just saw rumors that there will be an “alternate” half-time show for the super bowl game, featuring two country artists who i thought knew better. in these times – in a world that draws strength from its diversity – it is unbelievably tone-deaf to think that we need an alternate quote-unquote “all-american” show and just the mere suggestion of what that definition likely means makes my stomach hurt. if we are to believe what we are reading in social media about this show, it is steeped in an incredibly narrow definition of faith and family and freedom – and what “all-american” actually is. it is painful to think of the people i know who will watch this – cheering – steeped in audacious narrowville.
i grew up going to church with my family. i spent 35 years as a minister of music in various christian churches across the country. never would i ever presume to foist christian music or philosophy – as a whole – upon this nation. never would i ever resort to the hateful rhetoric that is pieced – cherry-picked – from religious writings to justify disrespect of others, even ill-intended evil. never would i ever even begin to suggest that god – or any name you might choose to call a divine presence – would sort people into colors or ethnicities or genders or economic castes.
in the many, many years i spent in these buildings of faith – many of which, i learned, were disparately skewed to hypocrisy – i came to understand gandhi’s quote: “i like your christ, i do not like your christians. your christians are so unlike your christ.”
my own takeaway from a lifetime of work – if we allow ourselves to see the world as a tapestry of differences, respectful compassion, tolerances, a generous embracing, then we see in technicolor, our lives are beautiful and full of the possibility of growth and learning from others. if we allow ourselves to only see a one-dimensional homogeneous world, if that is all we tolerate, that is all we believe is worthy, then we are, as well, one-dimensional and our lives are limited in mediocrity.
if life is – truly – only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see, i would hope for all to open their eyes. i would hope for all to see what they are espousing – or proselytizing – with their words or – complicitly – with their silence. i would hope that the reflection of reality – real truth – unobscured by agenda or any form of bigotry – would be what we all see so that we might deal with the ugliness of mushrooming propaganda and contempt.
this is the best place to think. it’s the best place to ponder, to wonder, to sort, or to just – simply – take one step after another. it’s the best place to be quiet and the best place to have conversation. we link arms. we walk. and walk. and walk. we can see why pct hikers keep on going. it is cleansing and powerful. and your body feels the world, your tactile connection with the universe, your feet on dirt.
in a moment i won’t easily forget, i recently had a chance to be forehead to forehead with a horse. we stood that way together for several minutes and i could feel his breath on my face. with both of us – boots and hooves on dirt – connected by touch, i could feel the rest of the universe gently holding space, woven in tapestry with us, close by. powerful moments.
particularly in these times, for more reasons than you will imagine, i am finding the reminder of this connection to the universe to be of comfort. particularly in these times, when there is little to comfort us here in this country, i am finding the reminder of this connection to the universe to be bigger than any story of our land – it overarches the evil intention of stories personal and of the populace. particularly in these times, with so little promise of goodness, so little accountability, so little compassion, so little attention to truth-telling, i am finding the reminder of this connection to the universe to be steadying.
i will keep my feet on the dusty dirt of the trail. i will take any chance to share forehead space with another living creature. i will remember how connected – interconnected – i am with this universe. i will draw hope from that.
on the same night we waltzed in the rain, we strolled up and down main street, window-shopping. we were too drenched to go in anywhere and that wasn’t the point anyway. we just wanted to etch it all – best as we could – memorize it.
the harbor had always been a refuge and i was grateful to see the post at the information booth – in several languages – declare “may peace prevail on earth”. this tiny microcosm of the world – the village park – this space that drew people and strollers and children and dogs and laughter and music – this space certainly was shining a light on the possibility of community…shared community.
but peace is not prevailing on earth these very days. the people of our country are struggling as are people around the globe. my heart sinks as i think of all the places where real-live people are fighting for their very lives, where real-live people are being dehumanized, where real-live people are starving, where real-live people are being run over by self-centered, extremist regimes.
and i wonder, if not now, when? when might compassion rise among all people? when might we all realize the immortality of our time here, living it with generosity toward each other? when might warring cease? when might evil forces slink away in humiliation – forever defeated?
when might this world come to its senses – to actually prevail in peace?
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.
i could see the maple tree up over the roof of the house. it had really grown a lot in the decades since our family lived there. i thought about all the time i had spent in that tree…an innocent poet trying to piece together the world, make sense of it. back then, i was proud to spend time with my family, my beloved dog missi, on the piano bench or the organ bench or tucked against the trunk of my tree, riding my bike (or, later, driving my little vw bug) to the beach or the harbor, studying, doing homework. i taught piano lessons and worked at various part-time jobs – all on or adjacent to larkfield road – the main artery through our town. going back to these places after long years away makes one realize how small it all was – this world around me – with everything nearby and a steadfast belief in rainbows and sunrises and seagulls.
i wasn’t street-wise back in those days – not at all. the guys i worked with loved to test my naïveté by telling jokes and laughing before the punchline. in an effort to mask that i never really got the joke (particularly if it was a “dirty joke”), i’d laugh when they laughed. they caught me every time. but i didn’t care. it was a happy life and i was ever-so-slowly learning about the real world.
i wondered how it would feel when we first drove down into northport from high above the harbor. this cherished town, this dock – a place of inspiration for me – had taken on different meaning from the time long ago, when i left so abruptly. the sadness i felt leaving a place so ingrained in me had never left. there was grief, deep grief. as my innocence was shattered, my home – these shining places that were part and parcel to who i was had been tarnished. nothing was the same and i wondered what that would feel like, if i would feel misfit.
at first – as i’ve written – there was a disconnect. i’m certain it was a protective measure, something that would maybe prevent me from feeling the grief, touching it, maybe releasing bits of it. but the spirit – of the little village, the harbor, the dock, the gazebo, the beach, the maple tree in the distance – all swirled around me. and, as d and i created new memories there, my guarded heart opened.
the sunsets over the harbor are stunning. the inky nights on the dock are magical. i took them with me as we left, this time slowly, not fleeing.
and as we sit at the little bistro table in our sunroom, with driftwood and rocks from that place, it’s a different kind of grief i feel now. it’s the grief of missing a place that is indelibly etched in me, that is part of what has made me who i am, that is woven into what will heal me.
reverse threading 