i wonder if they breathe a sigh of relief when they come upon a trail. do they huff and puff, trying to slow their heartbeat having bushwhacked their way to this place? do they glance around – tentatively – looking both ways before stepping out? are they exhausted from finding their way? is a bit of clear-path welcome in their wilderness? do they wonder how long they should stay on this which is not a game trail?
the wilderness is a big place.
as we hike – in places mostly not as wild as we would wish – it is a gift of our time-on-trail to cross paths with the spoor of other creatures. we go slow, quietly – peering into the forest – far back in the meadows – to catch a glimpse of these elegant deer, busy-gathering squirrels and playful chipmunks, birds of many calls. we count ourselves fortunate they share the space with us.
it is possible they are deep in the woods – camouflaged – peering back at us. i wonder if they ponder our hiking on the trail. i wonder if they wonder why we are not bushwhacking through underbrush, running when flight is the answer. i wonder what they wonder.
they don’t know if or what we have bushwhacked, how we have arrived at the path on which they see us. they don’t know where we have been, what we have seen, where we have come from. they don’t know what desire path we have created in the woods for ourselves, what watershed at which we stand.
it is all a mystery – back and forth – what we do, what they do. yet, we share the same options for arriving at a destination. we can take a well-beaten path, a planned laid-down trail. we can go the way that is prepared ahead. or we can bushwhack our way free.
i think it was $250. that is the number that sticks in my mind. the amount of money my sweet poppo spent on the family’s very first calculator. way back when.
now, $250 was a lot back then. it still is. but my dad wanted us to have this newfangled device with which we could add, subtract, multiply and divide to our heart’s content, sans paper and pencil. it was a pretty exciting time and we all felt inordinately lucky to be living in such a technological world. wow.
my big brother was the one who made an abacus for me. in searching through bins in the basement and the attic i was hoping to stumble upon it. but no abacus to be found. amazingly enough, i even knew how to use the abacus.
and then, it was, again, my brother who showed me how to use a slide-rule. he was a surveyor for a time, so it was a tool of his trade. and anything my brother used, i wanted to use. he was that kind of idolized big brother. i’ve come across several slide rules in boxes and pencil cases. i’d have to refresh to figure out how to use them. i’m just certain that my treasured high school math teacher would be proud were he to know how attached i still am to these pre-calculator devices.
the stick on the trail somehow brought all of this to mind. linking-thinking, my dear friend heidi calls it. as we approached it, it just simply screamed “number line” to me. it appeared that each little branch nub was placed exactly the same distance apart. it immediately brought me back to number lines i’ve created in the past…for history classes or for math or for one of those “describe your life” timeline projects that have you looking back and then looking ahead. plotting on the line the ponderous things that have happened in your life that have in turn impacted your life.
i stopped to take photographs of the stick and got lost in plot-my-life-on-the-number-line thoughts. i’ve been doing a lot of looking-back and this stick would come in handy as a visual.
somewhere on that stick it would show our first calculator. somewhere before that it would show the abacus and the slide-rules. somewhere later it would show a first computer. and then, subsequent computers, laptops, ipads, cellphones. it’s easy to place stuff on the number line.
what’s much harder to place is the impact of moments in your life. but for one decision, one meeting, one event, the rest of the number line would be entirely different. it’s profound.
in the way that – in elementary school – you would draw a curved line – to the right – under the number line to show addition or a curved line – to the left – under the number line to show subtraction, it is much harder to reflect – with a simple curved line – the entire impact one nub on the stick might have had on you. though one might try to reflect the way one nub informed the rest, it is nearly impossible to wrap all impact into a few curved lines.
in fact, the number line, the abacus, the slide-rule, the early-bird calculator – none of them can calculate all that.
standing on the trail, mid-photo-shoot with the stick, i realize that it is likely we cannot actually portray ourselves – our lives – on a number line. it occurs to me that – because life and heart and soul are like this – we are living many nubs concurrently – backward and forward – all at the same time. no nub stands alone. each is altered and informed by all the others.
and we are witnesses. to the thistle. to the meadow. to this slice of the earth.
we watch, as time passes. we note changes, dramatic and subtle. we are aware of the nuances of these moments – transitory. we are inside the ephemeral.
we are intentional; we fritter away.
and the thistle is witness to us as we stand still – for little bits of a while – in admiration. our gaze is focused, memorizing beauty, not questioning the randomness of our attention.
just holding it all in wonder. just perceiving the glorious. just unmoving and moved.
sharing this space of time – together – within the perpetuity of it all, what do the thistle, the meadow, this slice of earth see – looking back at us?
luckily, we had covered the parsley and rosemary and lavender. the mint and basil are far gone. now i have to figure out how to save these others.
i read that you can simply snip off the parsley and rosemary stems and freeze them, so that seems the best solution. the lavendar, though…
i used to have a lavender garden out back. it was thriving until my eastneighbor’s snow-on-the-mountain continuously grew under the fence and suffocated it. that is some aggressive groundcover. i suppose it’s too late in the season now to try that again. over there, next to barney, the perfect spot. i wonder if it’s beyond the time to transplant it into the ground. maybe the next frost will hold off…
i could bring the whole plant inside to winter – it’s a really large pot, though.
i could snip off the lavendar and hang small bunches of them upside down, maybe create some sachets after they’ve dried.
i’ll have to decide soon; i may have waited too long already. the snow was a bit of a surprise and it caught me off-guard. it’s like this weird time-between seasons. sort of like a mixed-berry jam. not just one. not just the other.
in some ways, i feel like i need a pause button. just to pause fall for a minute or two – to drive out in the county and stop at the farmstands with pumpkins and gourds. to go to the apple orchard that has homemade wine tasting and apple cider donuts. to take some more time to crunch on leaves underfoot in the woods. to wear boots and jeans and not-yet-a-heavy-coat.
but winter’s coming on and, even though we sat on the deck late-night last week with shorts and our fire column burning, time keeps moving.
glancing out back as i write this – ahead – snow lingering on the grasses – there is no doubt.
there was something about how these speckled leaves were nestled that got my attention.
and, in the way that everything makes me think of something else, it also brought to mind the nursery song five little speckled frogs:
“five green and speckled frogs sitting on a speckled log eating the most delicious bugs, yum, yum
one jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool now there are just four speckled frogs, glub, glub…”
but i digress.
maybe it was the symmetry of the trees. maybe it was the orange and green (which were the exact shades of my growing-up shag rug and the wall-to-wall carpet in our sunroom when we moved in.) maybe it was simply the happenstance of that particular branch of leaves, caught in the little crook made by two trees growing closely together, perhaps inosculated.
whatever the reason, i found it to be a thing of beauty. and those things are out there, everywhere, calling to us – to notice.
i didn’t disturb the leaves. just like i didn’t disturb the blue jay feather i passed on the trail. i left them there – like so many other times – so that others could see them as well.
on the contrary, there have been many snakes on the trail in these last hikes. garter snakes and brown snakes of all sizes – even the tiniest snake i’ve ever seen – sunning on these gorgeous autumn days. but the problem in that is that there are bikers who are populating this trail as well and there have been numerous times we have come across a snake that is deceased or struggling, having been run over by a biker who did not see it.
so, each and every time we see a snake – in the middle of the trail – we stop. we either prompt it to move, escorting it to the side of the trail to which it was headed or, in the case of the struggling or fatally wounded, we pick them up and place them gently in the grass, issuing a tiny blessing and saying, “you are not alone.” we know some of them are in their last moments and, in the way that this universe is all connected, we hope that our holding them for a moment helps them in crossing over.
we immerse in what the trail offers – everything – from helping the tiniest fuzzy caterpillar to taking in a sunset of grandeur. we are grateful for the deep breath it consistently brings to us. we get centered in the step-by-step repetition.
i suppose these are the reasons we find ourselves pondering – imagining – a giant thru-hike in the someday. the opportunity to hold such beauty and be held by such beauty – all around us – is enticing and, surely, delicious.
the harmonic overtones ring, free in the wind. they are a voice of purity, peaceful in the day and night. they drift into our window and i lay still, quietly listening.
for years as we walked our lakefront, we would stand on the sidewalk at a certain house and listen to the tenor windchimes hanging on one of their trees. the pentatonic scale sang from the backyard all the way to where we were standing, swirling around us. we would just stand there, quietly listening.
we had looked at chimes in garden shops and boutiques, but they were out of reach and we just agreed on “someday”. so we wrote about them – such a thing of beauty and meditation. and one day, guy wrote to us to inquire if we would like to adopt their set of chimes as they moved on to a home where there would be no place for them. and “someday” arrived.
the windchimes hang on a blue spruce in our backyard, back by the birdbath and bird/chippie/squirrel feeder. they are nestled next to the grasses and are stunning against the white fence. because they are not out in wide open space, they don’t ring with every breeze. instead, they seem discerning, choosing only breezes from a certain direction, a certain velocity. sometimes, it is merely a prolonged single note we can hear, floating. other times, when the wind picks up a bit, several notes will ring out, immediately bringing us pause, a moment of peace, a moment to reflect and root and center.
in much the same way that experiencing intentionally-played crystal singing bowls can rejuvenate, the frequencies of these windchimes resonate with the place in my heart that is hungry for sublime sound. translucent pitches that wrap around us – in gratitude, we are quietly listening.
in the juxtaposition of october’s start and summer’s last grasp – up north – we were the recipients of the gift of a subtle duality, the gift of liminal space as the seasons shift and morph into the next: summer falling away and autumn rising.
i am a fall-girl and october is my favorite month. way back when – when color and season analysis was a thing – i was told i was autumn. but i already knew it. and now – in what is defined as the autumn of my life – i find myself looking back so as to look forward, to go forward. sometimes this is with great intention, sometimes it is not at all deliberate.
i stumbled across a video the other day. i was googling a youtube of one of my recordings. second up on the googlelist was a video i had never seen. from 1996, shot and edited by a videographer, this was posted recently as a memorial to him and is a 25 minute snippet of a full-length concert i had played at uw-parkside’s auditorium. i released two CDs that night, my second and third…a dozen albums and so, so many concerts and stages ago.
i pushed the play button.
there are days you wonder where the time has gone, how summer has turned to fall and fall to winter. time has rushed by and, in its fleetingness, you have left behind profound moments, defining moments.
watching this video became one of them. watching this video reminded me.
my straight-bangs-wrinkleless-eye-shadowed face was in her element. i could feeel it.
maybe – in the autumn of my life – in the liminal space of relevant-not-relevant, of summer-fall, of falling away-rising – i’m not quite done yet.
*****
snippets from 1996 CONCERT at UW-PARKSIDE – releasing BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL & THE LIGHTS CDs(a memorial post on YouTube to videographer Harry Stoetzel)
to sit at a bistro table – to eat a meal, to sip wine, to talk and linger – such a simple pleasure, so rich, brimming with visions of sidewalk cafes and closely sharing time. we bring to any table the joy of being together, the gift of gathering. there is not much Lovely that a bistro table and wrought iron chairs doesn’t elicit for me.
what we bring to the table…this pause in our day…a sacred preparing of foods for those we care about. in those moments of frenetic movement, of too-busy-busy-ness, of emotional or physical overload, this pause – at the table – to slow down and relish taste – to breathe the air of another – to sate our hunger and stoke our energy – moments we so often rush through.
and so, i think maybe i will approach any table instead as if i am about to sit at a bistro table, about to hold time in a little bit of suspension to enjoy whatever the meal may be – simple or fancy – unadorned or with a beautiful table-setting. i’ll bring to the table my utter appreciation for sustenance, for those i am gathered with – even if alone – for the act of living. i’ll bring to the table my knowing that this ritual of goodness – to eat, to carry on, to experience hunger, to eat – is a privilege i have enjoyed my whole life – even when my hunger was bigger but my dinner was cornflakes. i’ll bring to the table gratitude for taste, for texture, for spice and organic, for the delicious.
and i’ll sit at the table acknowledging the very moments there. i’ll collect my table-sittings in my oeuvre of song and prose that will scatter someday into the galaxy. too often we forget we are merely blips in the compendium of the universe and each good moment that is ours is truly a gift of time, a wonder.
and all the wishes in the whole wide world gather together. and they wait in the queen anne’s lace, sipping fine champagne and eating bonbons. they wait for their moments, individually and together. every-every queen anne’s lace pod. they wait for the tipping point.
and one day – in the middle of saunas and steambaths, luxurious manis and pedis, chamber orchestras playing taylor swift, candles and lavender pillows, crystal glassware topped off with port – the sun and the moon having risen and fallen many, many times – the wishes release into the world on new morning rays and seeds go every-everywhere.
and they drift and soar and look down from the jetstream at all the people.
my sweet poppo died three years before my sweet momma. when she died, the tilt that my world had already felt dove down into a deeper angle, the axis of the earth struggling to keep it in balance. the loss of both parents is profound, no matter your age.
it had been years since i had heard or seen a blue jay. they were common where i grew up, the screeches of jays in the woods or the trees surrounding our home. they have husky voices, always a little bit raspy. but they make me think of home.
i still remember the first day i saw one – after. it’s a few years ago now.
we were hiking on one of our favorite trails and suddenly i could hear them. they flew across the path and i stood still, reveling in the moment, taking it in. since that day, there have been more sightings and i have heard their birdcalls, even out our bedroom window from time to time.
since they are a common bird in wisconsin, i wonder how it is i missed them.
and i realize that sometimes the way home – the sound of a blue jay – is something we just don’t pay attention to, something that falls down on the list of priorities. until one day.
the day comes that all the really important stuff comes into focus. and we realize that we have – maybe – taken for granted the stuff that really is a part of who we are. we slough off paying attention to those things, those places, those people because we believe that there is plenty of time – later. or perhaps there are reasons we cannot grant grace to those things, those places, those people and we somewhat haughtily, in some selfish kind of righteous amnesia of our own actions, put them to the side, the corners of our hearts. or maybe we are just too busy and we have gotten lost, overwhelmed in our very real and partly contrived busy-ness.
any way you look at it, i am surprised i didn’t see the blue jays. until after.
now i hear them, see them, find their feathers in the usualness of our days. each time it is like a tiny nod to home, to all the moments of goodness, to the realness of unconditional love in the midst of the ridiculous hardness of life.
reverse threading 