we had the gazebo all to ourselves. it is likely that the tropical-storm-nor’easter had something to do with this. no one seemed inclined to be strolling about, nonetheless lingering on the gazebo.
so we danced. on the rain-soaked boards of this beautiful age-old gazebo, we waltzed to the music on my phone – the cherish the ladies instrumental if ever you were mine – the very piece we irish-waltzed at our wedding, surrounded by a circle of family and friends.
and on this dark starless night, with rain drifting in under the domed wood of the gazebo, it was not only magical. it was a little bit healing. it was sacred.
for here we were – both literally drenched – all alone on the gazebo of my youth – lifting the cellophane of the old magic slate – starting a new history.
just a couple people passed by in the park, walking the edges of the harbor. they paid no attention to our slow dancing. much is the way of new yorkers: you do you they imply.
we weren’t looking for an audience, so that was good. we were just sinking into the night – in the middle of the storm – in the middle of the storm.
and i could begin to feel the old break away a bit and new replace it as our feet got jumbled together in the waltz we hadn’t waltzed in a while.
i clicked play a second time, lifted the cellophane a second time.
if he were still in this plane of existence, my sweet poppo would be 105 today.
as much as i miss my dad, as much as i would love to sit with him, to talk with him, to be quiet with him, to hug him, under the circumstances that we find ourselves in this country at this time, i would have to say i am glad he is not here.
because my dad’s heart would be utterly broken.
my dad fought against all this. he fought for the freedom of this country. he fought against fascism and authoritarianism. he fought against cruelty. he fought for democracy.
my dad’s own freedom was stolen from him when he was taken prisoner of war in WWII, his army air corps b24 shot down over the ploesti oil fields, his fellow dedicated airmen parachuting out, taken into camps by bulgarian forces.
my dad persisted through all of it – his injuries, his solitary confinement, his fear.
my dad came home, back to the country he loved, the country for which he fought and sacrificed, the country with a democracy about which he was zealous, the country where he and my sweet momma would build their own family.
so if my dad were here now, he would be crushed by what is happening. he would be crushed by the evil and deliberate intentions now set in place. he would be crushed at how his country is being severed. he would be crushed that anyone – any one! – in his family would champion any of this horror. he would be crushed that his family – his very family – had broken apart because of that. he would be ravaged by utter sadness.
my dad would be unable to celebrate his big birthday.
because no chocolate ganache cake could make it all better.
it’s the last two. the very last two jalapeño peppers. today or tomorrow we’ll make ann’s jalapeño poppers recipe and celebrate the crazy-abundant harvest of these two relatively small plants. their season is clearly over; there are no tiny flowers left, there are no miniature peppers. these plants are done producing. but, in a new discovery, i have found that we can overwinter these perennials (more easily sustained in warm climes) – if we bring them indoors before the first frost we can give them a headstart for next year.
last year we only had one plant. its harvest is what convinced us to have two this year. maybe next year it’ll be three. in these last years, we have discovered the equation of this garden – what we get out of this garden is a direct result of what we put into it. it – and the experience of it – remain part of us, for we have paid attention to it.
like artistry – if you follow the imperative – being true to who you are – and who you’ve been and who you are becoming – and not beholden to societal expectations or fiscal returns – its produce potential is crazy-abundant. amorphous, ethereal, it will shape and re-shape, build and break down, condense and stretch – you are feeding it always. in the quiet and in the noisy, in season and out-of-season, overwintering. it’s all fluid, continuous.
i wonder when i will compose again. sometimes i can feel it building – the tension of the imperative. on those days i walk into my studio and touch my piano. it’s just a gesture, an acknowledgement. but it counts. it connects me back and forward, both. it is perennial.
and i can see – they are one and the same – these jalapeños and my music.
“not even the tiniest perennial grows only to die. it comes back again and again when the season and the time is right.” (kate mcgahan)
here at the end of september – heading rapidly into october – elton john’s “your song” lyrics – “how wonderful life is while you’re in the world” – are relevant to me. we soon will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary and life is truly wonderful for me because david is in it.
so the card at the antique shoppe caught my attention as we passed by it a couple weeks ago.
just as quickly as that charming card caught my attention, so did one hanging on a rack below it: “i tolerate you“.
putting them together – a yin-yang spectrum – they made me laugh aloud and i showed david. because – you know – blissful adoration and barely tolerating someone go hand in hand.
we both had a good laugh then. people in the shoppe stopped and looked at us. we kept laughing.
as we move through the days remaining of our ten married years and into the beginning of our eleventh married year – particularly at this time in our lives – we take heart in this laughter. as victor borge said, “laughter is the closest distance between two people.“
it’s one of the things i love most – laughing together. particularly when i am feeling tolerant of him.
“we are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” (dr. seuss)
when they were little, i was accustomed to watching their growth spurts – these moments when their tiny bodies were overcome by fiery energy of growth……a sudden few inches here or there…a burst in language or fine motor skills. childraising is a continual surprise. just when you thought you knew what you needed to know – at least temporarily – you were stymied by your own tiny child – and you became a little heap of not-knowing uncertainty. oof. it’s all a glorious mystery.
the one – and only one – daylily wasn’t giving up. all around it, blooms had tired and turned into wrinkled brown tissue, stems were drying out, its green frond-y leaves were yellowing.
and then, the growth spurt of this one last blossom – not yet willing to give up the game. it raised its head to the sun, singing.
we are watching the transition to autumn – all around us. fallow is in the offing, just off-stage, waiting for the summer to clear and sweep the wood floor of time it had inhabited. lighting is clearing the way for dark, a slow decrescendo of available daylight. sound is preparing to – soon – shut down the microphones of cicadas and crickets. the props of summer – all the heavenly hot-sun blooms and flowers and produce and herbs and the fantastic tapestry of color – the stagehands of fall are collecting them, quietly putting them to bed.
but the daylily in the front garden is having none of it.
in the middle of the transition to the quietude of fall, it is speaking loudly. it is not remaining silent. it is – in fact – screaming out to us to “remember!” it is reminding us we don’t know it all.
daylily’s transition is not without noise. it is not without color – its flame orange a loud pushback on what seems inevitable – fading fall, falling.
it is having a growth spurt of independent spirit. one lone bloom. glorious.
“instead of silence, she chose fire.” (celeste ng)
black and white was written in 1954 – the same year of the united states supreme court‘s decision of brown v board of education which outlawed racial segregation in public schools. it was recorded by pete seeger in 1956 and, with much more popularity – charting at number 1 – by three dog night in 1972.
clear messages.
the decision and the song.
at least they were.
the moral clarity of that decision is now clearly muddied in the sickeningly toxic waters – and also supreme court decision – of racial profiling in this administration’s efforts at mass deportation of immigrants.
some things are not black and white – things that fall into the grey of intelligent debate, the grey of historical perspective, the grey of interpretation that evolves with continual research seeking truth and information. memory is a bit grey, love is grey, indecision is grey, certainly apathy is grey.
but some things – in THIS democracy with THIS constitution, THIS bill of rights, THIS set of amendments – these things are black and white. clear. not bigoted. not racist. not xenophobic. not homophobic. not misogynistic.
pretty much each year – for years – we have had a frog in our pond out back.
but this year there was simply nothing.
to say we were disappointed would understate how much these frogs have meant to us. we were pretty sad and wondered if we had done something that had inhibited a frog from choosing our tiny pond as a summer home.
until a few days ago.
d had seen a glimpse of green hopping in the water a few days prior, but we could not tiptoe up to the pond quietly enough to see it sunning on a rock or watching the world go by, tucked into a nook or cranny. we thought it was simply a momentary visit.
on thursday, though, we had a lucky day. and, as we stood quietly at the side of our pond, scouring the edges for a sighting of a frog, there he was.
little.
we named him “little” not at all having to do with his import to us, but because he seemed one of the smallest frogs to have lived in our pond.
you would have thought we had found gold coins hidden in the rocks of our water feature – our excitement was off the charts.
and – because every frog needs a theme song – i could instantly hear his in my head (sung to the tune of sugar, sugarby the archies): little – ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba/ oh, little little ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba/ you are our tiny frog/ and you got us hop-hoppin. (etc etc etc)
each year has brought a different reason to look for the meaning of a frog’s visit in our personal world. each year the resilience and transformation, renewal and abundance messages have been positive bits of symbolism for us and have made us feel that grace has dropped in for a visit.
this year is no different. little’s appearance has been like a single candle lit in a dark night – a warm glow, a talisman for reflection and hope.
we never know how long the frog will stay. but we do know that just making an appearance is a gift. for our small pond – in the middle of other suburban yards of grass and gardens – is maybe 18 square feet – and it seems fortuitous that a tiny frog would even find it.
but maybe somewhere in frogland there is a list…and frogs can check it – like airbnb – to see where they might find a little pond they can call their own. or maybe where it is they may be named and doted upon. or maybe where it is they might get their own theme song.
there are plenty of trees where we hike. oaks, sycamores, birch, maples, pine, hickory, black walnut…there is quite a list. so it is no surprise that, as we are hiking, there are browned acorns, drying acorn shells and big black walnuts dropped on the trail, scattered everywhere, even dropping on us as we walk.
when i came across this branch, it was the brilliant green of the acorn that got my attention, the too-soon-ness of its place on our trail. i wondered – for a few moments – about what broke this branch that fell. it occurred to me that its natural aging, its natural place in the ecosystem of wildlife and forest had changed; this tree had somehow stress-shed this branch, this acorn.
there’s a lot of too-soon-ness…especially now, i think to myself.
and – a few moments later – i was back pondering the lists in my head…the to-dos, the worries, the problems to sort, the existential questions.
“lists engulf us – creating the illusion that our lives are full.” (plain and simple journal – sue bender)
the lists swirled and i organized them in the spaces of my brain as we walked in the early part of our hike.
but – in the way that being out in the forest, along the river, skirting meadows on a trail does – it all slowed down. and the joy of the trail took over. and, instead of the noise – internally or externally – the quiet serenity held my attention.
and this morning i find myself – once again – grateful for the sheer moment. even in this moment of the throes of a miserable cold, i am grateful for the simplicity of our givens.
“in that tiny space between all the givens is freedom.” (s.b.)
and it nudges me to simplify even more. the space of needing less, of making do, of knowing not a lot really matters.
the acorn is an ancient nordic symbol of life. my sweet momma kept a silver one in her purse and, now, so do i. maybe the acorn on our path was there to remind us.
“it’s time to celebrate the lives we do have.” (s.b.)
“each of us is in truth an idea of the great gull, an unlimited idea of freedom,” jonathan would say in the evenings on the beach, “and precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature. everything that limits us we have to put aside.” (jonathan livingston seagull – richard bach)
as this new school year begins i think of all the teachers and mentors i have known – those who were my teachers, my professors, my mentors, those who taught my children, friends who have been teachers, my own time spent as a teacher, instructor, director. immensely different stories, all over the spectrum.
the common denominator – to empower others to push themselves without limits, to reach their own potential, to become the best version of themselves, to fly. jonathan’s imperative.
growing up on long island meant – in the sheer sense of the word island – that i was surrounded by water. i spent a great deal of time by that water, particularly when i was able to get myself there – by bike or my little vw. i was always enchanted with the seagulls that lined our coastline, seagulls swooping and diving and soaring. the book jonathan livingston seagull was a treasured possession, kept close on the little bookshelf next to my bed. my paperback copy is waterstained and priced at only $1.50, evidence of its long tenure in my life.
even back then – on a beach towel at crab meadow beach in the mid 1970s – it was clear that the search for a life of purpose and excellence meant, also, a life of self-discovery and risk-taking. but susan polis schutz’s words “let us dance in the sun wearing wild flowers in our hair” rang for me as joyful north stars.
and so i watched and studied seagulls flying in community, flying alone. i walked the beach together with others and alone. i studied poetry with others and wrote in my tree alone. i sat on spotlit piano benches with a boom mic on old wooden stages together with others and alone.
my son recently wrote some vulnerable words. his post ended with, “…stick with it no matter what. tell your story.”
were jonathan livingston seagull around, he’d nod and think of an elder seagull’s words to him, “you will begin to touch heaven, jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. and that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
i paged through my old book. and went back to the title pages.
there in pencil i had written one of the lines i quoted above:
reverse threading 