“just kickin’ down the cobblestones. lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy…”(simon & garfunkel)
it would probably be easier to pick up the phone, call magical scraps in breckenridge, talk to jess and ask her to ship this sweet towel, but i’d much rather drive there, walk down main street, take a time in the oversized adirondack chairs on the sidewalk next to the coffeehouse, devour an ABCLT at breckfast, climb the steps to marigolds, hike up the mountain forest at the north end of town, watch the river go by and the bright sun floating.
then we could wander into magical scraps and admire the artisan handiwork there. and – ultimately – purchase this kitchen towel that we should have purchased when we first saw it. i mean, it’s just a towel. sigh.
i am not an impulse buyer so sometimes, well, things get lost in the shuffle of the decision. lots of times that is easy to correct – run back to the store, pull the website back up, click on purchase. but sometimes, it’s not as easy and the best solution – the most satisfying solution – is to get in the car and drive 1114 miles (and that’s not even our preferred route) to the door of the shop. yes, we are pretty dedicated to those mountains, that air. “life, i love you, all is groovy…”
breck doesn’t have cobblestones – that i have seen anyway – but it is our place to be kickin’ down the road, lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy. there are places you feel like you fit and places you feel like you don’t fit. sometimes, places you feel like you don’t fit at all – or even at all-all. those mountains and breck – well – we fit there.
and the daisy turned skyward – cup-full. and as i passed, it reminded me of abundance and plenty.
for the measure of both abundance and plenty is not rigid. it is variable. my plenty is different than yours. and different expectations apply to abundance. it does not serve me well to gauge mine – my plenty, my abundance – by your standards. no, that comparison is not right. there are similarities. there are dissimilarities.
instead, i’ll look at the daisycup. i’ll set my face to the sun. i’ll count the times the dogga runs around the pond. i’ll gaze at the pussywillows on the white bathroom windowsill. i’ll savor the creak of old floors under my bare feet. i’ll tighten the back screen door handle. i’ll watch the house finches dine on grape jelly. i’ll feel his hand wrapped around mine.
we’ll go look for turtles from the bridge. we’ll clink glasses on the deck. we’ll listen to the wind in the chimes. we’ll paint rocks, write words and create big pots of soup. we’ll walk in sync on the sidewalk. we’ll make leftovers and serve them with happy napkins. we’ll relish time with family, with friends. we’ll make plans; we’ll revise plans. we’ll kiss goodnight.
the solid wood door leading to the basement has a permanent arced groove worn into it. it’s where the chain (for the chain door guard) dangles and it has likely dangled there for decades upon decades. it’s been there the entire time i have lived here – so 35 years. likely installed long ago to prevent small children from opening the door and falling on the steep stairs, back and forth it has swung when unlatched, wearing off the paint and into the wood. it would take some serious spackle, some sanding and a few good coats of paint to make this door look like new again. but we won’t be doing that. it’s the patina that matters.
the old back screen door has a similar worn-in arc. that one is from when i installed a hook and eye latch on the door a number of years ago to help prevent our babycat from pushing open the door and exiting the house. because the old door handle doesn’t always completely catch, the hook and eye was a guarantee to keep the door closed. once again, the hook has worn off the paint and worn into the door. it’s not a pristine door, but it tells a story. the patina matters.
our house is like that. one patina after another. it is not new construction – or even relatively new construction. it will be 100 in just four years and i’m already thinking about its centennial birthday party. we are not worried if there is another scratch in the old wood floors or a glitch in the paint or an imperfect ceiling. our house is not unlike us that way.
the old building in breckenridge drew me closer, inviting photograph after photograph of textures, the juxtaposition of wood and metal and brick facades. this copper hinge – in its march through time – in the green oxidation stage – beautiful. though i suspect there might be people who would prefer restoring it back to its original glory, i prefer the mark of the passage of time, the nod to aging, the stories that accompany its transition. the patina counts.
we love to watch hgtv househunters and we love to pick up real estate magazines in distant places. it’s always the old houses that are the most intriguing for us. never the perfectly-perfect new houses with perfectly-perfect paint and perfectly-perfect trappings. it is difficult to visualize us in a house like that. i’m not sure what that says about us.
maybe by appreciating – and truly loving – the old stories, the wear and tear of these old houses – the arcs of time passing by – we’re just sticking up for our own personal patinas.
we will be there as long as the sun is at our backs. and then we won’t.
and the we-there – on that bridge – will first get longer and longer and we will appear taller and taller – more long-legged and spindly – and then we will flatten and distort and eventually disappear into the lack of distinction of color and shadow and water.
it will be over the course of a short time – not a long time. and if we stand there, we can watch the whole process, intrigued by the morphing of presence to absence.
i suppose – in an over-simplified way – life is like that. here as long as the sun is at our backs.
which means we have some stuff to do.
as daylight wanes – for it is none too obvious now that we are more waning than waxing – we each peel back layers of comparison, false imperatives, losses – and we expose the vulnerable – and exquisite – more-of-who-we-are. we pay attention to the tenderest of touches – literal and figurative, to the tiniest of blessings, to the most evanescent moments. we look back – with more forgiveness than we could ever muster before. we look ahead – with more optimism than we allowed before.
we begin to sort and see more clearly – even in our shadows in the water.
the sun is at our back. and we have some stuff to do.
i have sixty-three recent photos of our peonies. to say i love them would be an understatement. they have endeared themselves to me and i’m craaazy about them.
the other photos are more “normal” – they are taken at eye level with the peony or a photo of their generous flower – they are moments capturing raindrops on fragile hot pink petals. they are pictures of tightly-wound buds and sunlight escaping from an early blossom. they are peonies in full regalia.
because i have so many photographs of them it seems obvious to look for a new perspective. “the real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (marcel proust)
so i knelt down and put my iphone on selfie mode, held the camera under the peony flowers and clicked peonies in the sky. because our world tends to be a from-the-top-down, house-stage world, it seems prudent to look from the bottom-up sometimes. it changes things.
the juxtaposition of color is intense. it takes away the denseness – and the greenness – of the whole plant. it focuses on the individual flowers, on their stems.
i’m not really fond of this photo shoot so much. i prefer the other 57 i took up-close-and-personal with my precious peonies. but it’s a good reminder to step back and look at peonies from many aspects. they will look a tad bit different depending on the surroundings, depending on the background. they will blend in and they will stand out. they will be one-of-many and they will be the star-of-the-show. each peony may be appreciated in different ways, in different contexts, for different reasons. with new eyes.
once upon a time she decided to hold others accountable.
unlike the david and goliath story, she has no slingshot, no rocks to thrust. it is the real world.
she is an individual against a system – one that hides and protects its own, that has no hesitation around spinning webby tales, one in which truthtelling does not fit into the agenda. nevertheless, she persisted. despite their fabrication of narrative. despite the misogyny. despite their absence of proof and her wealth of evidence. she persisted. despite the badmouthing. despite the betrayal. despite the hypocrisy. she persisted. despite the lack of respect. despite the disregard of boundaries. despite the downright ugliness. she persisted. despite the small desperate contingency of Them in a her-them. she persisted.
and in the end, that will be the prize. persistence. speaking up. standing up.
maya angelou is quoted, “each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”
we stood there – in fresh thyme – tawking, tawking, tawking – for at least 45 minutes. we hugged, we showed photographs, we told stories. we laughed, we got serious, we spoke in earnest, we laughed more. delightful, it was a total social experience. a visit. in the grocery store.
and when we left, waving and still laughing, we promised to continue our catch-up. a bit later. in person. not in an aisle.
the thing is – these bits and snatches of community are important. and i, for one, am grateful to the cart.
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“tonight while the lights are shining and the microphone is on, i’ll play for you…” (seals and crofts)
or no lights.
a piano perched among the boulders looking out toward the mountain range – in this very special place. a boom mic.
in my dreams, i can see it.
the bigrocks are seats and the program is not written. it all comes from the spirit in this place, from air, from healing. and – even more specifically in my dream – a yamaha disklavier pro minus the fancy-schmancy newfangled stuff – an instrument to record directly to disk…on-the-fly on-tape, in the vernacular.
in my dreams – in my regaining of feeling relevant – my fight to regain relevance – as a 65 year-old recording artist who broke both wrists snowboarding and then tore my scapholunate ligament (leaving me with a rh grand total of 45° forward rom) – i am sitting at C7 pros all over – in fields of boulders, in canyonlands, perched on mesas, in meadows of wildflowers, on a cool sand beach. i am playing the boulderfield, the canyonland, the mesa, the meadow, the beach. it is a conversation between us – even, maybe – through me. it is simply an offering to anyone – or any one – who wishes to listen. it’s a dream awash in unlikelihood but with maybe-just-maybe the smallest iota of possible. maybe we can make it happen.
i stood – again – on the most obvious rock from which to bow to my invisible audience. and i bowed low.
because sound or not, there is music. sheet music or not, there is composing. audience or not, there is listening. it is all happening – simultaneously. right there. in that place.
the boulders on the grassy knoll know it. and i can see it.
“i’ve practiced many years and i have come a long, long way just to play for you… my life is but a song i have written in many ways, just to say to you…”
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“follow me where i go, what i do and who i know. make it part of you to be a part of me. follow me up and down, all the way and all around. take my hand and say you’ll follow me.”
“you see I’d like to share my life with you and show you things i’ve seen. places that i’m going to, places where i’ve been. to have you there beside me, to never be alone. and all the time that you’re with me, we will be at home…” (john denver)
the first time i saw the rockies i was 18. i was in the backseat of my mom and dad’s dodge and they took my breath away. i was changed – those mountains stayed a part of me.
so when it was that he was from there, it just seemed right. our path now includes going there fairly regularly and always a desire to be there more and more, to return and return, to linger. those mountains…it’s that john muir quote: “the mountains are calling and i must go.”
there will be a day soon he will follow me to long island. we’ll go to the regular haunts. we’ll bring sage with us and, having lost them forty-five years ago, i’ll take those places back. and he will be there. with me. our path will take us to the beach and to the harbor, maybe out on the sound, definitely past my old house. we’ve been there together before – because we have followed each other – taking turns leading the way – for over a decade now.
“…take my hand and I will follow you.“ (j.d.)
the path through the john denver sanctuary in aspen leads past boulders of lyrics. we amble our way through, choosing to be slow. we have returned here. we will return again and again.
“come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops, sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars…”(j.d.)
we have danced in places noisy and places quiet. we have danced in places with music and without. we have waltzed on our deck, in our kitchen and on dusty dirt trails. we have carried the wind with us and discovered stars on the horizon we had not noticed before. the path winds and makes unexpected turns. laughing and crying turns. and we trust it together.
“you fill up my senses like a night in the forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean. you fill up my senses, come fill me again.”(j.d.)
and we tell tales of the times we did not share together, the stories of before. sometimes we tell them over and over. they don’t get old. they are the pieces that made up who we met eleven years ago. two weeks after the day we first set eyes on each other, he came back – to see if it had really happened. sometimes you have to see home more than once to believe it.
“this is my autograph…here in the songs that i sing, here in my cry and my laugh, here in the love that i bring. to be always with you…and you always with me.”(j.d.)
and each path now – in the simple times and in the fancy times – we’ll hold hands or link arms, we’ll dance, we’ll lead, we’ll follow.
reverse threading 