purple has been her favorite color for as long as i can remember. so every single time i come upon a purple flower i think of her. this time – this downy wood mint – was no different.
i don’t always send a picture or a message that says i’m thinking about you but maybe i should.
because in these days i’m realizing that people really need that. people really need to hear that you are thinking about them, sending them good wishes, holding them close at that moment. because these are not normal times.
we are sticking closer to home, closer to our dogga. we don’t want to miss any moments with him, don’t want to not be there if he needs us. it’s not too much to ask from a beautiful being who has loved us unconditionally from the first. and so we hang out at home, out on the deck, on the patio.
sometimes we go to the store to resupply and sometimes we go for a hike. we ask 20 for help when we have to be gone a little longer, to stop in and keep an eye on dogga.
we won’t be going on vacation – away – this summer. it’s just not the right time for that. our priority needs to be this amazing pooch who has stood by us in every moment.
and so we tend our little garden – herbs and vegetables and flowers. we make suntea on the deck and move our adirondack chairs from sun to shade and back again. we are grateful for the littlest things – the house sparrows taking dirtbaths in the holes our dogga digs. the squirrels scampering across the wire and down the spruce to get a sip of water at the birdbath. the intermittent hummingbirds at the feeder, the cardinals on barney munching on birdseed, the baby raccoon trilling from the maples behind us. nothing extraordinarily exciting, but it all feeds our souls on this daisy path.
and – as we chat – planning or reminiscing – we pick up our phones every now and then and let someone know we are thinking of them. at that very moment. knowing how good – how reassured – it makes US feel, we try to do the same.
in a diverse cross-section of life, i sat at the round table – one of fifteen such tables in the room. there are chairs, too, but not enough to accommodate all the people in the room, waiting.
it is a waiting place.
it is a jury room…and the hundred-twenty-five or so people gathered there all held a little orange card with their panel number on it.
it was a strange time to be serving jury duty, for more than one reason. the climate in this country does not seem to be one where the law is upheld, where the court is respected. and the ultimate court, those supreme justices, seem to be strangling the constitution at every turn. it is disconcerting.
i take this responsibility seriously. i’ve been on jury duty twice before. the first time i was merely 18 and in new york, called for two weeks. the second time i lived where i live now – and i, likely, sat in this same room as i waited for the high sign about my duty. that time i was sent home the first day. this next time, i was one of about 40 who remained in the room…
…and so we waited.
eventually we were told that cases had settled and that there would be no jury trials, that we could go home. i admit to being relieved, for i had much on my plate that might have precluded me from being the best juror i could be. and i believe that one must be the best juror one can be. in every single case.
and so as i look at the most recent decisions of the highest court of the land – the jurists above all others, i am appalled. how are these decisions upholding the united states constitution? how are these decisions aligning with the touted compassionate nature of this country? the empathy gap is extraordinary; the rhetoric of this political polarizing is aggressive and downright cruel beyond imagination. how is this the best these supreme judges can be?
it is utterly shameful.
another waiting place.
i hope for a profound watershed moment. i hope for the sun to come back out – to find its way, to wipe away the sickening darkness that has fallen upon our country. i hope for people to actually be the best versions of themselves – to use good moral conscience, to have compassion, to care about their sisters and brothers in the country and in the world, regardless of any social identifiers. i hope for this despicable time in the history of this country to end, for our nation to honestly examine how it got here, for people to honestly examine how their hearts embraced this bigotry and extremism. i hope to eradicate all that is choking off our democracy’s true potential so that it can be the best it can be, so that we can be the best we can be.
it’s been 38 years since i’ve moved here. thirty-eight. it even takes me by surprise. when we moved here, the deal was “three to five and then we move on”. uh-huh.
but it’s where we bought this old house, where the children were born, where life was lived – good and bad, happy and sad – and time seemed to fly by. truly. and now it’s 38 years later.
in the time i’ve been here – this place where i was transplanted – i cannot remember weather that has been as ornery as this spring and summer.
yesterday, while trying to keep up with yet another tornado warning coming from the west, i was on jake’s weather page on facebook – a local and much-appreciated meteorologist. he was reporting on the progress of the storms heading in our direction, with his predictions about them.
i read the comments on his latest post and totally agreed with a few, particularly:
“good grief! not again!” and “i can’t believe these storms this year.”
exactly.
because climate change is real and our extreme weather is directly related to it.
because global warming is real and our extreme weather is directly related to it.
because ecology and green sustainability are real and dealing with our extreme weather is directly related to both.
because caring about our resources, our natural environment, our atmosphere, our forests and seas and aquifer and pollution control and this good earth is real and we should care about all of it, protect all of it, invest in all of it. our extreme weather – and the extreme weather around our state, our region, our country, the global world depends on us and what we choose to do.
the survival of this place we call home – whether it’s wisconsin or any other place on this planet – is dependent on us to make good choices.
there is no way around it, despite any twisted misinformation that the current administration wishes one to believe.
make good choices. time flies by.
our world becomes our childrens’ and then their childrens’. our home becomes theirs.
“preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” (carl sagan)
“the symbolism – and the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions for the environmental crisis.” (al gore)
breck is as tall as halfway up to the peak of the garage now. it feels as if you could quite possibly sit in an adirondack chair – with time on your hands – and watch it grow…bits of branch reaching, reaching, leaf buds and then leaves unfurling and then more branch reaching, reaching and more leaf buds and more unfurling leaves. and it keeps going, despite the weather: storms and wind and hail and threatening conditions, despite it all. we love this quaking aspen.
breck, as i have mentioned, is the only tree i have ever – personally – purchased and planted.
we have had saplings planted on independence pass in honor of our mountain girl’s thirtieth birthday, we have had trees planted in memory of a cousin who loved the outdoors. but neither of us has had the opportunity to plant our own tree in our own yard – before breck.
because our shy-of-a-century-old maple has fallen, we will have another chance to pick out a tree – we hope two – to go in that parkway space between the sidewalk and the street. there is a reforestation program in our city that assumes part of the cost so that there are trees lining the streets of the city. it dates way back to the early 1900s when our ‘hood near the lake initially was planted with elegant elm trees, which, a couple decades later fell to disease. our maple had been steadily shading our home since the time of replanting. we will honor its beautiful and steadfast life by planting another tree – or two.
in the meanwhile, i’ve been whispering to the other trees here. the old – very tall – pine that is green about half-way ’round, its other branches shaded from the sun by neighboring trees, the spruce that stands in the opposite corner of the backyard. and the maples that are on the other side of the fence – they are enormous trees, towering over our backyard and our home. my whispers are for them to be stalwart, grounded, steady, flexible as we experience more and more extreme weather events…to stay standing all in one piece.
we have seen in recent days the dismantling – the decimation – of all kinds of laws as they pertain to climate change, all kinds of laws as they pertain to national forests, all kinds of laws as they pertain to national parks, all kinds of laws as they pertain to clean water, clean air, clean agriculture, all kinds of laws as they pertain to food growth safety, all kinds of laws as they pertain to livestock welfare, all kinds of laws as they pertain to renewable energy, all kinds of laws as they pertain to pollution, all kinds of laws as they pertain to science, all kinds of laws as they pertain to medical research….and all kinds of laws as they pertain to aggressive deregulation and expansion of timber production, regardless of any historic conservation or environmental protections. need i go on?
it is a heartless, short-sighted, ignorant set of ideals that annihilates, ravages, and diminishes the collective intellect of researchers, environmentalists, conservationists, scientists and that annihilates, ravages, diminishes and trashes the ecosystems of mother earth.
preservation is a much bigger word than demolition.
it feels like an honor – with substantive symbolism – to plant a tree in our yard – and to know that we will likely not be here to see it tower above our old house, to know that it will sustain through time – like trees do, to know that it will both breathe and generate clean air, to know that it will remember that we carefully chose it, we nurtured it, and we trusted it to stand fearlessly in the face of all change and any challenge.
because trees are like that.
“happy the man to whom every tree is a friend.” (john muir)
at approximately 3:48 last wednesday afternoon, in the first mighty gust of the storm, the great soul – the great tree – in our front yard – for decades and decades and decades – fell. and nothing was the same.
this sturdy old tree was wise beyond its years, withstanding all manner of weather-fury, all seasons of plenty and not-enough.
this sturdy old tree – magnificent, its canopy shading our lawn, its spirit encircling our home and family – stood vigil out in front, a talisman of protection and a peaceful adapter to the change of winter to spring, of autumn to winter, each time, bending to the rules – or whims – of nature…for at least seventy-five years.
this sturdy old tree – was what i looked at from the nursery while rocking babies, looking out the window. it marked the passage of time as my babies grew, early morning light in its leaves, the sun setting through its crown, its winter-nakedness to its verdant maple-leaf splendor, its yellow glow in fall, the way snow lay on its strong branches, its promise in early spring.
this sturdy old tree – was what i looked at from my bench in my studio, sitting at my piano composing, lyricizing, practicing. it gave me breath and reminded me to place rests in the music, to give others breath, time to process, to take in, to feel. i stared at this tree out the window from that spot, standing still or sitting quietly, pondering what had been, what was, what might be. it was a touchstone of consistency, of continuity, of the timeline that goes back and forward, dynamic.
this sturdy old tree greeted us as we came down our road, as we turned the corner. it offered shelter and filtered sunlight, framed the moon and the stars and planets, played with color at dusk. it elicited our appreciation for yet another homecoming. it was the monument, the lighthouse, the trailmarker that said “home”.
this sturdy old tree – wizened – was that which i advocated for, in times of electric-wire-branch-trimming, in times of water main work, in times of road construction, in times of other injuries it withstood.
i whispered words of – truly loving – gratitude to it, “you did nothing wrong. you did everything right,” as they began to tend to the-cleaning-up after the wind had wreaked havoc upon it. with more extreme storms coming – and a heavily one-sided bit of our beloved tree left – i knew that it was its time. and it was hard to watch, this family member which had preceded me, which had lived here the whole time i have, which had seen much life in that bit of yard at this house on this street. we were fortunate that it was our tree and we loved it for being our tree.
it feels like a marker in time to have felt and heard this great tree fall. to see its brokenness. its soul continues on with us; we need that wisdom and resilience, especially now. we need its tenacity as it aged, especially now. we need its stalwart goodness, its dedication to being the best tree it could be, especially now.
our big, sturdy old tree lives on. it will always be one of the great trees because of its great soul.
and – after its decades and decades and decades of time as a tree on this good earth – in the bowing of its beautiful canopy of leaves, its hefty rough-barked branches, its branches that curved outward with a bowl in the center of the trunk where creatures could rest and shelf fungus could excel, it reminds us of something:
there is no great anything without a great soul.
“and when great souls die/after a period peace blooms,/slowly and always/irregularly. spaces fill/with a kind of/soothing electric vibration./our senses, restored, never/to be the same, whisper to us./they existed. they existed. /we can be. be and be/better. for they existed.”(maya angelou)
i could get lost in just gazing at this spot where greens converge. i find myself breathing deeply, taking it in, appreciating how utterly extraordinary the nuance, how textural, how life-affirming.
it has been a week. with multi-layered challenges, personal and nationwide.
in the middle of the week, neck spasms – which i had in february for the first time in my life – and which sent me to the emergency room – returned with a vengeance. to say that i was laying awake all night, fearful of the way these manifested in my shoulders, my jaw, my chest, my neck, would be an understatement. it was downright scary. and so painful – even for someone with a relatively high pain threshold.
when it finally slightly eased up for a bit in the morning – after a long, sleepless night – i was exhausted and overcome with how it must be for people who are in chronic pain. the chronic pain of disease, of life-altering treatment plans, of hunger and thirst and of not-enough, of homelessness, of psychological and emotional scars, of addiction, of deep, all-consuming worry. thinking of others always puts one’s own pain in perspective.
for a bit of time – the bit when the spasms did not refer to all these other parts of my upper body – i could breathe more deeply. and so i went outside to our deck and little potting stand – to look at new growth, to soak in the colors green.
in wednesday’s news there was much headlining about a quiet interview that the speaker of the house had on a tiny radio station in his home state. and, in that interview, he revealed the intention of this administration – to fix (read: gut) medicaid, medicare and social security in an effort to free up money so that this government might be able to make a dent in the country’s trillions of dollars of debt which is – clearly – attributed to mountains of tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
so. their goal? take away from the most vulnerable and the eldest in order to further bankroll the gluttony.
it is hard to wrap your head around this kind of whoring of humanity. the word “disgusted” barely touches it.
again, i say, there is no reverence. they have reverence for nothing.
i wonder what our communities, our states, our nation, our world will look like once they have eliminated all that is good, all that is natural, all that is lawful, all that is compassionate, all that is life-giving or life-affirming. what will be left after the land and the natural resources and the regular folk and the goodness are decimated?
as i stood and looked at our tiny vegetable and herb garden, i was filled by the beauty, wrapped in the essence of green, and a sense of balance was restored in me.
though the spasms started up again, this is not about my neck spasms. when they re-started, i felt slightly more equipped to deal with them, carrying into the pain the knowledge that they would – in time – ease up.
but for some, there is no easing up. there is only long-term pain, without ceasing.
there are people intentionally hunted down for their ethnicity, people intentionally taken off rolls for food assistance, medical assistance, housing assistance. people removed from jobs of science and education and journalism so that the country ceases progressive forward-movement and so that the only narrative going forth is vile, self-serving propaganda. there are people targeted by the brandishing of bigotry. there are people whose chronic pain – no matter what it is – no matter the umbrella under which it falls – seem a nuisance to this administration, an administration without a heart or a conscience or any sense of reverence for anything other than self and money and retribution.
were i to be given a choice – live acknowledging simplicities – like the nuance of green OR live inside the insanity of always-wanting-needing-hoarding of moremoremore – i would go with cherishing the tomato plants and herbs and lavender and licorice plant every time.
i would go with the convergence of green, the convergence of goodness, the convergence of growth, the nuance of breath, the affirmation of life, living and reverence for it all.
it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdbath so that the birds in the area can count on a drink of fresh, clean water.
it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdfeeders – or the hummingbird feeder – or the oriole feeder – so that, if necessary, the birds in the area can count on accessible, clean food.
it isn’t hard to sweep the driveway and clear off the seedshells on the top of barney so that the birds in the area aren’t sickened by wet, moldy seed or bits of bread that have become sodden and mildewed.
it just isn’t hard.
but neither is it hard to be concerned – to wrap your heart around – those people in our country who are hungry, who do not have enough food, enough clean water, who are suffering from hunger-related or poor food issues.
yet, the government of this country – the administration that is gluttonous even beyond our imagination – has eliminated millions of dollars funding yet another source of food for the hungry, for the downtrodden, those who can ill afford food yet face peril without it.
i am truly sick of it.
what is so hard about this?
ours is a government in charge of a large country filled with people of phenomenal potential – yet they are limiting the most basic element of need for those very people – so that they might fund a garish ballroom and its associated bunker, an ill-intentioned war and its apparently-coveted weapons of mass destruction, vanity projects, payola to criminals pardoned by a narcissistic hand, wildly expansive tax cuts for the wealthiest, crude corruption never before witnessed on such a cavalier, widescale plane, the slicing and dicing of healthcare, education, global health, medical research, climate change programs that actually help people, mass deportation sans conscience, and the elimination of lawful rights of people who fall under the machete of bigotry.
but, you say, what about the people…how does this government view the everyday, everysingleperson people?
we took off our sunhats. it was a hot day and we had been gardening for hours. the purchased plants had been potted, all the transplanting in the yard was done. it was that golden hour after all the work and before making dinner. we poured a bit of cool pinot grigio, took a tour around the yard and then settled into our adirondack chairs in the shady corner of our deck to gaze out at the yard – one of our favorite pastimes now.
the daisy path – as d has aptly named it – is slower. it doesn’t require the striding or racing around of earlier years. it is a – rather, The – sweet phase and we are trying our best to hone it. we never expect to perfect it, so we are doing everything we can to appreciate it, be grateful for it, honor it.
every night last week we sat on our patio or on our deck, just sitting. at the end of the day – after having dinner al fresco – we – truly – just sat.
and we talked. about anything, everything, nothing.
earlier in the day – on one of the days – i got ready to plant one last sweet potato vine. d had spray-painted a plastic pot and it was ready for the transplant and to be hung on the old ladder in the corner of the deck.
d asked me if he could get me a chair – as i have found that placing a chair on the patio next to the raised deck makes planting easier on my back. i thanked him and said that i was only planting this one pot.
but then i was struck by how generous this offer was. for in the middle of everything he was doing, he was concerned that it might be easier for me if i had a chair – as i had used while potting other days – and he was going to drop everything to go get me one if i wanted or needed it.
and so, it was then – one of those rare moments you remember – not because you don’t appreciate each other all the time, but because sometimes a very intentional wave of gratitude is easy for your brain to snapshot into your memory.
i walked over to where he was weeding the cracks in the patio and bent down. wrapping my arms around him, i told him how much his kindness meant to me. it wasn’t even a few seconds and dogga was there, right in the middle of our embrace, pushing his head up into the armwrap hug, his face even with ours, in the middle of so much love.
i whispered to d, “memorize it.”
of course.
we three stayed that way for at least a full minute, which is a long time for a busy aussie. it was a magical minute. definitely daisy-path stuff.
our old dogga stuck close for a bit more, to get kisses and pets and butt-butts. he didn’t see the tears welling up in our eyes as we committed it all to visual and visceral memory.
d went back to weeding and i potted the sweet potato vine and hung it on the ladder.
it seemed right that this sweet potato would keep vigil over our little corner on our deck. my sweet momma’s words, “live life, my sweet potato,” ring in my ears.
sweet potatoes and the daisy path. sunhats and glasses of wine, a checkered tablecloth and adirondack chairs. our dogga and a sanctuary of peace. love and gratitude.
we’ve gotten a few plants now. a couple sweet potato vines, a couple licorice plants. we also have our basil, chives, parsley, cilantro, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes and lavender. in the last few days we transplanted them into clay pots for our potting stand or their new home on our deck or patio.
our first day at the nursery was completely about reconnaissance. the second – at a different nursery – was to be wowed and make a few purchases…four to be exact. we were directly behind someone who had ridiculously-loaded carts of plants and flowers, along with a ridiculously-loaded price tag. we were just as excited as she was, only our joy was about our four plants, not a multitude. there is a reality to budgeting and we try to plan our purchases wisely, particularly in these times.
our third day out was crowded with people, the nursery was messy and the plants were picked over, but we still managed to find some herbs and tomatoes, lavender, salvia and sweet purple flowers whose name escapes me. our fourth day we filled in the gaps. the nursery had resupplied and we picked up the mint, jalapeños, and little white with purple flowers to contrast with the purples we had already gotten.
d lined up all the pots and planters on the patio and i took out my gloves from the old cabinet we had placed on the deck. and then it started.
from individual elements – these small (though not inexpensive) plastic pots of baby plants – turning into our own backyard sanctuary, filled with potential of beautiful flowers and edible produce. exquisite. each morning we look out the window – in the earliest morning light – to see these new residents of our home. each morning they are enchanting.
one day – over a century ago – all the pieces of barney were put together into an upright piano. where he went from there is unknown, but we found him in the church’s basement boiler room, not exactly a prime location for this musicmaking instrument.
after we managed to have him delivered to our backyard instead of to the junkman, we were thrilled with his presence. his aging might have been preserved by some marine wax, but we chose to go organic with barney. he’s way more of a granola piano than a botox piano.
through the years we have now had him, he has become more and more gorgeous, more and more a part of our backyard, offering shelter to the wee critters, a landing pad for those who fly or scamper. barney’s higher-purpose presence is grounding and part of the peace we feel when we step out our back door.
it’s hard to believe that it is almost june again. already. summer is at the edges.
the last two nights we have had dinner outside on the deck. as the sun just begins to slightly wane – to fall off into acute angles with the horizon – we sit and chat while the garden lights reflect in the pond. we wait for hummingbirds to zoom to our feeder. we watch breck quake in the breeze, marvel at the play of birds and squirrels, adore our dogga laying on the deck in the shade. it is all enchanting.
as the dark begins to settle into the alcoves of our yard – the ferns breathe deeply, the peonies stretch – we yawn and make our way inside. as we settle in under our quilt we talk about our day. we talk about the delights of new plants, marvel at the perennials we are astounded to see again. we are grateful for plastic adirondack chairs, a tiny bistro set, two old gravity chairs and a couple round rugs – the trappings of our deck – a place we truly find enchanting.
as it turns out, we don’t require much to be enchanted.
as close as we are, as much of a presence it is for us, we sometimes forget that this giant lake is right there.
we walk along it, we drive past, we linger – staring at it. but we still forget the magnitude of lake michigan, its oft-seemingly-own weather pattern, the big-water force it has on us.
i’ve never not lived near water, big water. my growing-up town on long island is between the atlantic ocean and the long island sound. i lived in florida a hop, skip and a jump to the gulf of mexico. on island we were right on water’s edge on the lake michigan side. and here – a block or so off the lake. i don’t know what it is like to live in an area that doesn’t have big water, that’s land-locked. i suspect i could find it difficult. so, near or on a lake will have to be the future minimum standard. somehow, big water all makes me feel closer to the far horizon, closer to the universe, closer to a two-way with god.
valerie bertinelli in her book enough already wrote, “i [] had long since lapsed in terms of structured religion. but i [] had develop[ed] a recipe for my own spiritual soup. it still included a belief in god, a higher power who accepted collect calls in emergencies.”
i, too, have lapsed in terms of structured religion and i, too, have my own spiritual soup. after thirty-five years of working for churches plus all the rest of being at churches, i have had enough of it all. i realize now that my last church job did me a favor when they fired me. they broke the continuity, making it possible to NOT do that which seems obvious TO do. i am grateful. it was a long time and i endured much at churches that you would likely rather not know. it was time to stop.
but my faith has not stopped. and as i stood at the edge of the sound a couple times in last months, as i stand at the edge of our lake michigan, i can feel the tidal strength of the universe. i can feel the days sink into nights into days into nights. i can start to understand the stars and the vast-ness. i can feel the connection to that which is so much bigger than me.
maybe that is what big water does for me: a place that brings the divine closer, just across the waves, just beyond the shore, just brushing the sand and leaving shells and rocks in its wake, just right here for me. a place to gaze and stare, a place to ponder and pray.
reverse threading 