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)
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)
“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:
in this moment, in this time, despite all the challenges it has faced, it is facing, it will face, despite all it does not know, it persists – growing in the top rail of the fence that spans the river.
this tiny plant is grabbing on to life. and living it.
she said (words to the effect), “he’s worried that with all the politics and the chaos and everything else that is happening, fewer are paying attention to climate change.”
breck is growing by leaps and bounds, it seems. the top leaves are taller than the garage peak. it is both astounding and delightful, this little aspen tree.
because it has been an extraordinarily hot summer, i have watered breck consistently. last year the heat took a toll on breck and you could see it on stressed leaves so – between that and watching martijn watering his young trees on the youtube of his idyllic life in the mountains of italy – i decided it would be best to tend it more. breck has responded with glorious growth, rich verdant leafing, a bark that is appearing more white, quaking in every breeze, soaking up the attention.
and climate change continues.
because we are being expected to play along with the distraction games going on in our nation, our focus is being whipped from one manufactured disaster to another, with an attempt to keep our attention off all things horrific. because the current administration is gutting all things organic, all things scientific, all things that point to the intensified global warming that is caused by us humans – we will reap what we have sown and the already apocalyptic weather events will worsen. the damage is being done as we ping-pong back and forth between watching the gilding of the oval and the normalization of insane rhetoric, untruths of propaganda, a dying justice system, cruelty on the streets.
and climate change continues.
breck – in our backyard – dances when i water it with the watering wand. i can see it sigh with relief. just like, in particular, the basil and the sweet potato vine. the wilty jalapeño leaves immediately perk up, the cilantro ceases reclining in its pot. it doesn’t take much.
even as we love being right here – sharing space in our backyard with breck – we miss being out in the mountains. we feel at home there and yearn for a time to return. we know they will be there when we have a chance to make the trip.
we do, however, know that there is much happening out there. it is hotter, there are more wildfires and, hence, more mudslides. there is increased smoke at elevation, there is drought, there is risk for all wildlife and ecosystems. water availability is significantly stressed and pestilence is becoming more severe. erosion is accelerating with big-money-mongering efforts at more timber harvesting and various mining operations. the landscape is changing and we – as a species – are at fault.
meanwhile, the oval office and the colonnade are being tchotchked with gold – everywhere. the disrespect – of the people’s house, the people’s land, the people’s country, the people – is rampant.
there’s no reason to gild the lily of sea-to-shining-sea-america, the beautiful. it needs no ladening of gold, no tchotchkying of adornments. there is every single reason to protect it.
i’m pretty sure our mother earth would soak up the attention.
it was late night on the train platform. though we had walked from the station when we arrived, our boys dropped us off for the way back home. the train was a wee bit late and there were a few people on the platform waiting, some a bit impatiently. we were tired but not impatient, grateful to not be driving home from the city.
the clouds and the moon got together, plotting a bit of choreography. nearly full, this waxing gibbous was extraordinarily bright, backlighting the cotton balls of clouds passing in front of it. with wildfire smoke particles catching the light, an orange glow encircled the white moon peeking out, the glow much like the salt lamp emits in my studio. we stood on the platform, waiting for the train, completely captivated by the sky above us.
in recent days i have been reading old journals. journals almost fifty years old. these were the days when i passed through teenage years. when my days and nights were long and full of adventures: dancing at discos and early sunrise photo shoots, beach-camping and scuba diving, fishing and arboretums and county parks and apple-picking, skiing and my red round transistor radio on a picnic blanket. they were days of my little blue vw bug and growing-up-nuclear-family time, guitars and poetry, climbing trees and frisbee and term papers, bike hikes, the mall, my dog missi and a plethora of friends. i was often writing in my journal at 2am, wide-awake, reviewing my day, waxing poetic, loving life. it is a pilgrimage into the innocent.
my late-nights are different now, indeed, than way back when. sleep is now something i really adore, much more so than when the most minimal amount seemed – maybe – necessary.
because i am reading and reading and reading, i am feeling somewhat immersed in back-then.
these days i turn on the salt lamp that sits on the chifforobe. i don’t do it every day, but right now seems a good time for it as i hold space for the going-through of things of the past. from this vantage point – looking back – i know the shatter of innocence comes. the voice in my journal changes.
the glow stays with me as i pass by the studio door.
and now, as sleep eludes me at night, i lay under the quilt and gaze at the moon illuminating the blinds.
back in the day we could drive out east a bit and purchase long island sweet corn at any number of farmstands along the side of the road. it was a staple in summertime, showing up at every picnic or barbecue.
when i about 16, i flew out to see my brother and his family in central illinois. nothing compared to the view below from the air – cornfields as far as the eye could see. rich, green, thriving fields of field corn.
i return to the moment in that airplane so long ago, looking down on middle america, eyes wide-open, gobsmacked at how pristine those fields looked from the sky. because it is just as stunning each time in the air – even now, many decades later – this atlantic-pacific-gulf-of-mexico-canada crayon-outlined country of america.
and now, we drive across our state on the backroads, innumerable cornfields along the way. highway 81/W/11 coursing its way across wisconsin, on illinois highway 39, along route 151 across iowa, to the letter-named backroads of missouri. any time in the heartland will place you in generous fields of corn-green. it is the corn belt, after all. it is quintessential midwest.
it also seems quintessential that our country – this bright, innovative storehouse of science and data and brilliant minds – would be aggressively concerning itself with climate change – with scientific research and empirical evidence to avoid any further harm to this planet, to protect the fragility and balance of all-things-ecological, to further generative ideas in order to avoid continued or amped-up destruction of this-place-we-call-home, to embrace sustainable and responsible methods of lessening the very real threats of the fallout of rapidly changing climate and intentional negligence by humans.
it would seem pragmatic that the solar farms deep into the fields on the side of the county roads, the wind farms lining the highways also be considered quintessentially american, for these to be so prevalent that their energy production might be a fundamental expression of this country’s fierce protection of the environment.
we all learned early on the responsibility we had on our environment. keep it clean – the bottom line. and though i have in the past stopped people who have thrown trash out of their vehicle window or while walking on a sidewalk or a path, it is not likely that i would do that in every case anymore as i weigh individual circumstances in today’s much more violent world. but i cringe each time i see any such dereliction. “we each have impact,” i think every single time.
from the air or maybe even rushing by on the highway, one can’t see – doesn’t notice – the kwik-trip cups or mcdonalds bags, the plastic grocery bags and water bottles, the emptied ashtrays, the tires in the swale or the couch dumped in the pocket of brush on the side of the road. even walking the streets of small towns speckling this nation reveals a disheartening lack of concern about the nature of nature.
the feeling of responsibility needs to start at the top, for we “little people” can only do so much to protect this environment. our hands are not in the deep pockets of big money. they are – instead – clutching the water bottle or the fast food bag, waiting to dispose of them appropriately, carefully repurposing, recycling, composting, minimizing our waste, trying to make a difference.
never would i have thought that it would be necessary to have statements issued by the international court of justice – the principal judicial arm of the united nations – that would acutely ‘remind’ this country of its accountability in this crisis. never would i have thought that this country – this country – would be ignoring such passionate pleas for holding this planet in protected space. never would i have thought that these words “climate crisis is an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet” would be in such acute danger of being sloughed off.
the international court of justice stated that a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment” is a human right.
taking any route across this beautiful sea-to-shining-sea – flying above it or on its myriad of roads or track – eyes open – provides a profound reminder of what we should not be willing to sacrifice.
it is just a little corner of our yard – about 4′ x 6′ or so off the east side of our deck, tucked next to the fence.
years ago – decades, really – we used it as a tiny vegetable garden. we planted a few tomatoes and other whatnot plants and attempted to have a bit of farm-to-table (so to speak) additions to our kitchen. being a tiny, difficult-to-access place, it was hard to keep up with weeding in that garden and it eventually went by the wayside.
wildflowers seemed like a good idea then – less maintenance – a freeness – a mayhem of a garden. that was lovely until it wasn’t. weeds were prolific and my neighbor’s snow-on-the-mountain was an ever-present menace.
half a dozen years ago or so we decided to build the potting stand with some delicious barnwood and industrial pipe. we added basil, a dwarf indeterminate tomato plant, some lettuce. we had a (yes, singular) salad with our lettuce, loved our tiny tomatoes and were ecstatic with the basil out our back door.
it has morphed – this little garden. and now, through a study of the survival of the fittest, herbs and jalapeños and tomato plants fill the space – this tiny space – wrought-iron-fenced off to really define it – this space that brings me peace.
in the last days we have had some big harvesting extravaganzas. our basil plants – despite an unsure beginning when i thought they might be goners – have responded to the sunshine and the warmth of this particular wisconsin summer.
with new clippers (it’s really the little things!) i clipped off the basil and some parsley as the youtube instructed. rinsed all the leaves in a colander and prepped everything we needed to make two batches of red pesto and a giant batch of green pesto, all of which went into the freezer for the middle of winter when fresh from our garden will taste ever-so-good. we have at least nine meals stored away and that was merely the first harvest.
i simply cannot imagine what it might be like to farm most of what one eats. the sheer joy of tending and growing and harvesting – all lots of work – tedium, really – (for even this little potting corner is time-consuming and i find myself worrying about the health of the plants, our investment in them, their yield) – but yet entirely zen as i lose myself in it.
yesterday i purchased a new cilantro plant – ours bolted along with the dill. so we will give cilantro another round – it is the perfect addition to our sweet-potato-black-bean burritos and stepping out back to snip it off is ridiculously glee-inspiring. (yes, yes…you are right…it doesn’t take much to amuse us.)
early every day i step out the back door asking dogga if he “wants to water the plants with momma”. every day we use this wildly cool watering wand and top off each of the big clay pots or wood planters out there. every day i – once again – think to myself how happy this tiny garden makes me. every day – in these moments – peace descends on me like the soft morning air.
*****
* (sing to the tune of don ho’s “tiny bubbles”: tiny garden/in the yard/makes me happy/is my zen-life-guard)
with a real feel of about 105 degrees, we gathered with thousands of others to watch our son perform at PRIDE FEST in chicago. the energy was electric and the set flew by, even in the midst of an insanely hot summer day.
northalsted is a landmark LGBTQ+ neighborhood, an ultra supportive community that offers undying love and non-profit medical and mental health resource assistance to its residents. we always feel welcome there; our son’s friends and complete strangers embrace us – just as we embrace them.
this year we took the train down and uber-ed over to the event. last year we had driven down and – between PRIDE and the cubs game at wrigley field- the traffic was unbelievable and took a couple hours longer than anticipated (not to mention the tornado on the way home when we tucked littlebabyscion right next to a brick building – a closed restaurant – after we had been literally lifted up off the ground by the winds.)
the show was fantastic. there is nothing like seeing your child in their bliss. and here was our son – an EDM artist – in his skin, in his element, in his community, in his neighborhood – doing what it is he is supposed to be doing and loving every second. there is no way i would miss that. there is no way i would miss any event for either of our children – our son or our daughter – that is an expression of themselves – given simply that we know what it is, when it is and where it is. it is the nature of parenthood. it is the privilege of being a parent. it is a choice and i will choose it every time.
i know that there are many parents – hell, many people in our country – who would not – even for a second – support any such effort as attending PRIDE or supporting – in any way – a child (young or grown) in the LGBTQ community. there are those who have – horrifyingly – excommunicated gay family members, who have turned their backs on their own. there are those whose actions have undermined this community, who wish to eliminate the rights of those in this community, who endanger this community with vitriolic uninformed rhetoric and undisguised hatred. it’s a sad statement of conditionality and it absolutely breaks my heart.
if we could show up for every one of the members of this community – at every one of their personal bliss-events or in their own life-affirming moments – we would.
because if we each stand in the middle of the grace of this universe, then we each should likewise stand in the middle of loving grace for each other. it’s not that hard. it’s not really hard at all.
and the choice to be actively-accepting, unconditionally-loving can’t be more important than it is right now.
“you are a child of the universe. no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.” (desiderata)
i don’t suppose i ever really fit in. i was the youngest in my family – separated by a decade – while most of my friends had siblings their own age. i grew up in a neighborhood where the kids were somehow athletically gifted, while i took organ and piano lessons and sat in my tree writing poetry. an early entrepreneur, i pulled a wagon around our neighborhood selling baby cactus cuttings and candles i had made. i didn’t go to – or get invited to – wild parties or cut class or skip my homework. i took bike-hikes and walked on the beach in the winter while everyone was at the mall or the bowling alley or the movies. i didn’t listen to the stones or grateful dead or led zeppelin (with the exception, of course, of stairway to heaven – everyone’s prom theme). i listened to john denver and gordon lightfoot and the carpenters. i wore off-brand clothing and didn’t keep up with fashion trends. my momma bought me less expensive boy-pants and found the offbeat stores for shoes-that-look-like-trendy-shoes-but-are-not, like my cherished construction boots. my first car was my dad’s vw beetle, nothing fancy but beloved. i had numerous part-time jobs through high school and then in college and knew the joy of serving corn flakes to both me and my dog missi for dinner. i never thought of myself as weird. but i suppose – if one considers the definition “may have unusual habits, interests or ways of thinking that set them apart” it could be true. i don’t see that as negative, though i also suppose that – depending on the way you see yourself fitting into the world – one might consider it such.
so the sticker “stay weird” hung upside down and backwards made me laugh aloud. somehow my laughter summoned mary oliver and she and i enjoyed a good chuckle about the infinite extraordinary of the insignificant and the everyday, the value of seeing the usual through a filter of unusual.
weird took a very long hiatus – it was safer, less vulnerable, and kept me out of trauma i had shelved. i pursued the inevitability of having to make money, to help support a household in a more meaningful way than the way of an artist. for this society – though its love for the arts is profound, its support of the arts is less so.
it was after my children were born, after the imperative was too loud to ignore, after the perils shushed a bit – when it was time to start releasing music. writing, practicing, recording, performing, marketing, booking, hawking – none of this is necessarily standard-work fare – it is unusual, it is tenuous, it requires a bit of courage. it doesn’t have the same parameters as a workday in corporate or structured america. it has no guarantees of reward, no regular paycheck. it is steeped in personal challenges, the need to be scrappy and the sisu to put it out there.
in the time that was the heyday of my recording career i would call absolutely anyone, regardless of their position. as the owner/artist of my label i have talked directly to vice presidents of sales of barnes and noble and borders books and music, owners of publishing houses, the personal managers of ridiculously successful recording/performing artists. i’ve sat in j. peterman’s messy office chatting (of the j.peterman catalog and seinfeld fame) and in the spare chair of radio program directors. i’ve danced across the stage at qvc-tv under a disco ball and played songs live over phone conferences with oncological pharma higher-ups. i’ve stood in the rain on flatbeds playing, embraced boom mics over my piano on theatre stages of all sizes, sang in front of 35000 people in support of cancer survivorship in central park. pushing the boundaries, carrying a little chutzpah along with belief in my own artistry was everyday life – and necessary. and i’d remind myself each time i picked up the phone or stepped into the unknown the very fact that we all breathe in and out the same way. this thing we have in common, i would tell myself – breathing. surely i could connect on that most basic of levels.
as outside the conventional box as it all seems, i didn’t feel weird. i felt in my skin.
and so, apparently, the weird continues. we know we are different than others. we have a certain run-and-jump into vulnerability that others do not. we have a certain pull towards creating, experimenting, learning – all in the public eye. we share because we have to, not because anyone has to receive it.
so, yes, the “stay weird” sticker really spoke to me.
though my life – and our life – is quite a bit different than the traditional lives or retirements of lovely people we know and care about, it is somehow just right for us. i never forget the corn flakes and he never forgets the sleeping bag in his studio space. every everything counts and we are reflexively careful about not being frivolous. for us, weird has granted us a certain appreciation of the littlest things, honoring simplicity and leftover pasta, redundant black thermal shirts and a shared bin of socks, used notebooks and repurposing taken to a new level.
what one does with one’s “wild and precious life”*…
reverse threading 