reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

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backer rod, oh backer rod. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

we have become backer rod junkies. having never heard of it before this fall, it has been a quick conversion to fanhood, but we are there, nonetheless.

it’s been a week now since i woke up at midnight to the steady drip, drip, drip in the next room. yes. IN the next room. i threw off the covers, which woke d up immediately. and then i ran into the sitting room.

pulling up the miniblind disclosed what i expected: internal window sills of ice and a steady drip from above. it’s called ice damming.

the ridiculously frigid temperatures have caused the water in the gutter above these twin windows to freeze. we have a heating cable in that gutter, but – and here’s the big but – despite checking it before the snowfall, we didn’t know that the outdoor outlet the cable is plugged into had since failed.

so the water in the gutter froze and then the heat from the house started to thaw the snow on the steeply pitched cape cod roof which then melted toward the gutter – which had somehow misaligned itself – and, with the ice filling the gutter the water had nowhere to go but into the window structure behind the wall and voila! an interior (of the double hung windows) filled with ice. this – as you may guess – is not our favorite thing.

so, there we were, at midnight getting our equipment together. david with his 32 degrees base layers and boots and the infamous nike jacket, the ladder and plastic pitchers from which to pour hot water – and me, with my blow dryer, lots of old towels, a heater, a rubber spatula, mallet, and anything i could get my hands on that might waylay water from actually spilling INTO the room.

it was 2:30am before we went back to bed after d had climbed the ladder about 57 times in the frigid night air, melting the gutter and the downspout and replugging the heating element wire into an extension cord.

and then it all started again the next day. and the next. and the next. we are hoping for a 50 degree day, but it doesn’t look promising.

i’m writing this ahead so i am hoping that we have gotten it all under control by this time – hoping the backer rod and the towels and the cold-weather flex paste and the overburdened gutter guy have – in combo – solved this. but, for right now, as i write this, we are still in midstream, dealing with it. yep. midstream.

it is my hope (against hope) that the inordinate amount of backer rod we now proudly own will do the trick – being impermeable to water and such. we are counting on that impermeable thing. we shall see.

but in the meanwhile, we are nevertheless hope-filled-backer-rod-fans and will not hesitate to do the backer rod dance should backer rod help to solve this issue.

ice damming is a royal pain. we do our best to avoid it. every time it snows i hopehopehope it won’t be followed by a period of melting and then frigid sub-zero temperatures. not to mention a failing outlet or a gutter that has shifted out of alignment. eh.

we try to keep it in perspective, though, as we punt through our improvised fix. we feel fortunate, even as we damn the ice damming.

and mostly, i’m trying to decide if we should publicize my new backer rod theme song (to the tune of “edelweiss”) “backer rod, backer rod, every gap you are sealing. backer rod, backer rod, our love for you is revealing…joints and gaps will be waterproofed, that’s no spoof, we’re cheering…back rod, backer rod, you can’t know how much we’re feeling.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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if the curves could speak. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

we know its curves well. if they could whisper, they would share the secrets of our conversations – conversations of the last decade – times calm, times fraught.

if the curves could speak, the dirt we have kicked up with our boots would sputter and cough, spilling how many painful moments there have been on this trail, how many times one of us has wept.

if the curves could speak, the underbrush just to the side of what is worn down would rise and wave verdant leaves, singing about our triumphs or the laughter that has ridden the wind just above us.

if the curves could speak, they would talk of the ping-ponging of decisionmaking, decisions discussed, decisions debated, decisions made – all on this trail.

if the curves could speak, they would mournfully tell of regrets, of disappointments, of trauma.

if the curves could speak, they would opine on our opining…of health, of politics, of purpose, of relationship, of faith.

if the curves could speak, they would – with glee – share the tiny goodnesses they had overheard, the learnings they had witnessed, the big abundances they had eavesdropped.

if the curves could speak, they would brush the air with words that describe something fluid, something everchanging, something they have helped to not be rigid.

if the curves could speak, they would wordbubble with every shape and form of love, spoken and shouted, sung and murmured.

if the curves could speak, they would give up our secrets – every last one of them.

but the curves cannot speak. and they hold close our hushed voices, our loud voices, our confusion, our tears, our anger, our laughter.

they could not know how much knowing them has aided us, comforted us, pushed us, reassured us.

and i suppose we could not know how well they know us.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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if we were featherdusters. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

and what if we, like the sweet autumn clematis, were each merely one featherduster, one long, wispy tendril birthed from a maroon-brown pod joined with other maroon-brown pods on a single branch of a single vine.

what is it we would do with our wispiness, our soft fluffy plumes, tiny jet engines to propel us near and far? what seeds would we disperse, what knowledge would we dispense, what silvery sheen would we spread?

what would we choose to do with our one, wild featherduster life, our one journey through air, aided by wind, abetted by the twirling of our feathertail? where would we go, what jet stream would we join? what earth song would we sing? what would we touch – ever so lightly – brushing past, barely felt, a tickle of plume?

what if that were all we had? would we join with all the other featherdusters, an intertwined community seeding community? or would we spend our time engaged in disjointed competitive infighting with the others? would we choose a path on which we might twirl through together or would we choose to shoot off, like that one plane in a memorial fly-by, forging a new trail in air, bushwhacking through underbrush? what would our desire path be?

what if that had been our passage in this place? what if our featherduster existence had been it? would we have been all in? would we have given our best? would we have embraced seeding more clematis – like seeding more shimmery goodness? or would we have held back, continually waiting for something glorious to happen, for better weather, or for whatever later might be?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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at home. with dogga. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

bundled up in down vests and gloves, we were finished the cleaning-up of the backyard, readying it for winter. though we are reluctant to face the winter, it feels good to tuck away the adirondacks and the gravity chairs, the rugs made of recycled plastic straws, the firepit and the little wrought iron glass table. as i cleared leaves off the deck to make it easier for my wonderful husband to shovel future snows, i stumbled across this bit of evergreen. fallen from our spruce tree, it reminded me immediately of the little tree we – years ago – had brought home from aspen: “ditch”, named after our favorite trail there, a profoundly emotional place for us.

i brought it inside.

it now has a place of regal importance on the bistro table – the place we tend to sit for happy hour, for dinner. with windows overlooking the backyard, we can watch the waning light and review our day, dogga at our feet, for he loves the cool floor of the sunroom.

we won’t be traveling this holiday season. our old dogga is now a senior dog and as we watch him – in his slowingdown – we are dedicated to being witness to these days with him. it’s not like we wouldn’t like to drive – or maybe, even fly – to visit relatives or friends or go on an adventure, but it is definitely that we don’t want to leave him.

dogga’s presence has been a constant for us in the entirety of our living-together. his steady amber gaze, his unbridled enthusiasm, his quirks – they are all a distinct element of our life. he steadfastly helped us through all the – interesting – transitions in this decade plus. and so, we are committed to being by his side, honoring him in his aging, in his challenges and his ever-growing list of quirks. we want to hold space with him.

and so things like a bit of evergreen, like a strand of happy lights tucked inside the chiminea in the corner of the sunroom, like fluffy pillows on the glider in the living room – they are tiny ways to really enjoy our home during a time we will spend most of it not away, most of it at home.

like babycat, dogga has many theme songs, which we sing for him. “dogga-dogga, you’re the one. do-do-do-do. dogga-dogga, so much fun. do-do-do-do. dogga-dogga, in the sun. do-do-do-do. dogga-dogga, number one.”

he doesn’t require brilliant lyricism nor originality. his joy is pretty simple. kind of like a bit of spruce in a little glass vase.

“dogga-dogga, puddin’ and pie, mom and dad love you as big as the sky.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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keeping on. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

spent. the at-least-ten-foot-tall sunflower by the library looks spent. but oh, no, it is not spent. the transience of its time – of time itself – is just the beginning of a new phase, a new purpose, a new cycle. its seeds perpetuate its enduring soul. it keeps on.

“i’ve spent the past fifteen hundred days working tirelessly toward a single goal – survival. and now that i’ve survived, i’m realizing i don’t know how to live.” (suleika jaouad)

and so, here in the little garden just outside our favored library in town, this sunflower is still in its glory. tall, stately, i still catch my breath to see it. alone, it towers above all else there.

today we will have irish stew and mashed potatoes for dinner. it is not a traditional big turkey extravaganza nor is it a gathering of many at our table on this day. but we two will sit – with candles and cloth napkins and steaming bowls and bread – and we will give thanks for each person in each of our phases who have helped us work toward survival, helped us with endurance, with purpose.

we will be grateful for the full table in our dining room just two weeks ago, our beloved children, with us. we will offer up thanks for the food we will eat, for each other, for cherished ones, for being together. we’ll likely chat about thanksgivings of our growing-up, tales of earlier grown-up thanksgivings, thanksgivings when – to their delight – our childrens’ dad did an early-morning turkey-dance with the turkey, thanksgivings when our parents did the traditional end-of-the-table carving.

and we’ll dream about thanksgivings to come when – hopefully – this nation will have come back to its senses, when it will lead with gratitude and appreciation for all its people and its wildly fantastic diversity. we’ll ponder when extended families might return to the holiday table together, in love and generosity, with compassion for each other and all the others, all schisms laid out forever to rest. we’ll wonder about the seeds of the soul of this day – thanksgiving – and the true honesty and heart behind the honest and heartfelt wish – “happy thanksgiving” – we’ve heard so many times this week before today.

we are reminded every day – by something or other – that we all don’t really know how to live. it goes beyond survival, beyond the giant yellow bloom on the ten foot tall stalk. it stands the transience of time and its soul of goodness endures, cycle after cycle.

it is not spent.

and we are grateful for another chance to keep on.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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the babycat chair. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

this is called ‘the babycat chair’. though many would have disposed of it years ago, we held onto it…homage to our babycat.

for some reason, he chose this chair – and really, no others – well, to be accurate, he did have a bit of a relationship with the red gingham wingchair recliner in our bedroom. this was his to do with as he pleased, i guess.

babycat would just arbitrarily start scratching the back of this wicker chair. maybe it was when i hadn’t recently cut his dagger-nails, counting as i clipped – 1, 2, 3… – each paw a new 5-count, with his patience on the edge and his teeth locked around my hand holding him. treacherous stuff, but i knew i was in no peril. (though, in retrospect, as i look at this chair-destruction, i can see he was pretty capable of much peril, after all.)

when he’d start clawing the back of this chair, dogga would become instantly nervous, knowing instinctively that b-cat was ‘gonna get in trouble’. dogga would run over and push b-cat aside or pull him by the neck away from the chair entirely. the first time we saw him pulling the cat around the wood floor by his neck, we were totally scared and stopped him. but babycat would go back for more and the dog-pulling-the-cat-around-by-his-neck game would go on and on – for years and years – these two best friends playing and teasing each other.

we put a throw blanket on the chair – and a few pillows – to try and hide the missing wicker, hoping no one would fall through entirely if they chose to sit in the chair. it was really the back of the chair that was the worst – well, and the one side – but babycat had not clawed through the bottom, so this guest-ending-up-on-the-floor thing wasn’t really a big worry.

babycat died unexpectedly in march 2021 and took parts of our hearts with him. he had been with me (and then us) for about twelve years and was a true saving grace for me in his years. i’m not sure how i would have survived many of those years without his lumbering, hulking tuxedo-cat self keeping close to me. we still miss him. both of us. and, for dogga, it’s exponential. babycat was his bestest friend.

in these days of cleaning out, we (or i) have to keep making decisions about things that have threadiness written all over them. this chair has been one of them. do we keep it or do we move on?

knowing that many people are capable of fixing things or repurposing things or utilizing the materials of things, we placed the chair – after i did a photo shoot of it – at the curb. it is never more than a couple hours before someone picks up the things at the curb.

but no one picked up the chair. we talked about breaking it down and placing it in the trash. for perhaps, there was nothing really reusable about it.

in the end, we brought it back up the driveway. it is now at the top of the driveway, adjacent to the garage and the fence, next to the birdfeeder. we haven’t really talked about what’s next for it. but as we pass by on the way from the back door to littlebabyscion or big red, it always makes me smile.

the babycat chair lives on.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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every falling leaf. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

in my son’s first year at lawrence university, i had the joy of visiting the campus fairly often. one of those times there was a comedian on campus and, along with a group of his friends, i went to her show.

it was fall 2011. tig notaro was about 40 then – though she looked way younger. i was 52 or so, not a heck of a lot older. following her bright career for a bit, it was difficult to see her deal with complicated and dangerous medical issues, the abrupt death of her mother, breast cancer, a double mastectomy, relationship breakup.

hundreds – maybe thousands – of shows in the growth of her success later, we watched her on anderson cooper’s – stunning – grief podcast “all there is”.

we stumbled upon this just a few nights ago – after you-tube-ing the news until we could no longer take any more in. anderson was visiting with ken burns and the show was titled, “the half-life of grief is endless“. there is nothing like an honest, open conversation about mortality and loss to draw you in. i repeated the words aloud: “the half-life of grief is endless” before realizing that quote had been – aptly – chosen as the title of that episode.

it feels true – in my opinion. the half-life of grief IS endless. and in that space we inhabit – that space that loss always shields with an impermeable membrane – we find so much meaning, so much life, so much right-now.

though well-acquainted with loss of dear people around her, tig spoke specifically of the loss of her friend, poet andrea gibson. she described the feeling of andrea nearby her. she read bits of her poetry. anderson cried. i cried. i think d cried too.

i never could understand how – when my big brother died – the world could just go on. i wasn’t a child. i was 33 and pregnant with my second child. but i still couldn’t grok it, even as i had lost others in my life, even as I could cognitively understand it. it was a gut-punch, yet i could feel him – wayne – nearby. i could sense his humor, his brilliant mind.

in the love letter that andrea wrote to their fiancée, they wrote “dying is the opposite of leaving…” and in the same, their words, “ask me the altitude of heaven and i will answer ‘how tall are you?'”

i cannot hike in the woods without stopping. there is so much to take in, so much for which to gently hold space, so much to be grateful for. just to see it all…washes over all the grief and enlivens all the grief. both.

and then there is this: “every falling leaf is a tiny kite with a string too small to see, held by the part of me in charge of making beauty out of grief.” (andrea gibson)

*****

LAST I SAW YOU © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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my dandelion face. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

it is tuesday. we just watched the press conference during which the sexual abuse survivors of the notorious epstein case spoke in support of releasing all the files – yet again. these women showed photographs of what they looked like at the age they were first groomed, molested, sexually abused and trafficked. on this cold november morning in the capitol city of our country, they once again pled for justice. because abuse is abuse and wrong is wrong. and this country should be sick to death of protecting the vile people who have taken part in this what-seems-eternal coverup of heinous crimes.

“they [epstein and maxwell] changed the trajectory of my life,” said one survivor as she described herself as a young woman, ready to step into her life, full of possibility – ‘before’.

yes. because grooming and sexual abuse and power and control and manipulation and the resulting devastation are suffocating. yes. because the trauma is all-encompassing – overarching – and is like glue stuck inside your body. yes. because this kind of devastation has tentacles that reach around and into survivors in all ways – emotionally, physically, relationally, professionally, spiritually, financially. yes. because when no one takes responsibility, when all who are culpable for this torturous takeover of your freedom of choice are not held accountable, it is spirit-crushing. yes. because it truly does change the trajectory of your life. yes. because ‘after’ is never the same as ‘before’.

but, these victim-survivors have courageously chosen to tell their truth and we are watching them rise to the beacon of light, look to the beacon of hope.

the hold of the past is slipping – even a smidge – and a tiny bit of healing is seeping in.

let’s hope that there is finally a moment when the rest of the power differential is broken, when morality and conscience and equality under the law take the lead, when survivors everywhere might find that justice is possible.

in the meanwhile – this interim period when we wait and watch and hold fast to the integrity of the truth – i – also a survivor of sexual abuse – will stand in the sun with them, my dandelion face rising above the darkness of predation and coverup.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

66 and 19.

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blink-of-an-eye. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

in a really rare moment, we had the amazing chance to have our children and their partners gather around the dining room table with us. to say i was thrilled would be an absolute understatement. it had been six years since we had actually been together – my two children and us. it was a giant gift and i am grateful for it.

plates, pasta, wine, bread – all were merely props as i gazed around me, watching these beloved faces, listening to laughter and conversation. i tried hard to memorize all of it. these brilliant, creative seeds of tomorrow, bright lights of real humans, of good people.

the next day we hiked, just d and me, after everyone had left. we talked about our blink-of-an-eye time with our adult children, about the fun chaos in the kitchen the night before, about the teasing and the ribbing. and i found myself holding onto the filmy threads of each moment before they flew away.

the photographs will help, of course. they will be posted in our kitchen and i will pass by them, often looking at them and smiling. but inside, i will hold onto the way it all felt, the heart-stopping hunger i had felt longing for a moment together, the breath i could exhale as i sat at the same table with my children and their partners or as we all clustered together in photographs.

but i know i won’t be able to hold onto all of it. time tugs at memory like that.

and the clustered fluffs of seeds will be tugged out of the pod by gentle breezes and fierce winds. they will swirl about and land somewhere, planting. another milkweed.

and i hope there will be another table-sitting somewhere soon – all together – as these brilliant humans go about their all-grown-up lives, swirling about with gentle breezes and fierce winds at their backs.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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who’s got time? [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“life hack: stop trying to be cool. be nerdy and obsessive about the things you love. enthusiasm will get you farther than indifference.” (posted on barkersounds IG)

this could possibly be my new mantra. nerdy and obsessive and (possibly overly) enthusiastic.

indifference slays me. the whole aloof, apathetic, flippant thing. all that gets under my skin, which is particularly sensitive to all the stuff on the opposite end of the spectrum from nerdy, obsessive about the things you love, and enthusiastic.

so that might explain the excessive photographs of barney, the old piano in our backyard, losing keys and structure in each season, its patina dusty wood. it might explain the innumerable pictures of breck – in every season – its leaves – budding in early spring through its golden age in autumn. it might explain why i take a zillion photos and generally completely annoy my adult children with my wish to capture them on film (well, “film” so to speak).

my sweet momma was a person who was also pretty nerdy and obsessive about the things she loved and, most definitely, enthusiastic. her “wowee!!!” goes down in history as a word she owned, and each of us knows we are referring to our beaky when we use that word.

life is short. that becomes more and more apparent as the years go flying by. the age spots on breck’s leaves are like the age spots i find on my own person. everything is fluid and keeps changing and the youth of our budding – like our aspen’s – is fleeting.

i can see no reason to not be nerdy. i can see no reason not to be obsessive about the things i love. and – yes – i can see no reason not to be ridiculously enthusiastic.

i mean, who’s got time for anything else?

*****

GRATEFUL © 2004 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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