“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.
they were luminescent as the noon sun caught them in its grasp. magical. glowing. each individual seed seemed poised for takeoff, ready to catch the breeze, twirl and fly.
it is much like how i am feeling as i painstakingly go through the house … the bedrooms, the attic, the basement …
the memories all gather on the plume, ready to catch the next breeze and twirl in front of me, bringing me back to moments a long while ago – many decades or even just a few years.
they are golden, these memories, and i give them time as i touch the relics, leftovers saved. i’m trying to go slow, even as i wish to accomplish much quickly. my thready heart relishes what i can remember, even when it sorts to sadness, even when it sorts to tears. in the timeline of life, i am bobbing around like the crazy super balls we had as kids – the ones with bouncing trajectories you couldn’t predict. the wham-o super ball would zig and zag and i am zigging and zagging through time just like that.
sometimes i have to leave a box or a bin or a pile for a bit, step away and breathe through it. i have found that touching these objects – the tactile – makes it all real and up-close, almost like it’s now. and, because i am the sensitive, emotional type, i have to step back … back into the room, straighten up, look out the window, pet the dog, sip some water. it can be overwhelming, this going back stuff.
as the bins empty and the sorting keeps going – this is merely phase one – i can feel the space opening. i can feel the air of whatever is next. i will still save many things, though i know that perhaps some will be relinquished in phase two or three. it gives me a bit more time with the artifacts of my life.
and the treasured antiquities nod as i put them in the save pile. they know it is their golden moment – their chance to twirl for me, their flight with me. they are as luminescent as the plumes, ever so countless, glowing in the noon sun.
with what seemed a millisecond between seasons, it is – clearly – fall now.
i had a list of places to go, places to show d. but the tropical storm/nor’easter put a crimp in all that. planting fields, millneck manor, blydenburgh park, hecksher park, every beach on both shores, out east – it was all on the list.
but the reality was that both time and good weather were limited. so in tiny bits of time, we went to the most important places. the other places will have to wait.
grateful to be home, we went to our favorite loop trail and immersed in the turn of the season, appreciating all the little and big ways it had changed in the week we had been away – a week that felt infinitely longer.
i readjusted the smart lights and the old-fashioned timers. d pushed the garden lights earlier. we refreshed happy lights and, and just a few days ago, i turned on the heat for the first time this season. i love autumn, but the waning light is a bit challenging.
any store we enter now is decked out in full holiday schmalz. that – i have to say – is too much for me. though i am completely aware this works for some people, it just seems too soon and it seems a bit tone-deaf to me, considering all that is actually happening.
as i think about the holiday season – knowing our adult children will not be celebrating here with us this year – i wonder about our own celebration. i have some seriously mixed feelings about it all. though being surrounded by lights and cheerful reminders of merriment and joy would be helpful, i also know that there is a tipping point – at least for me. too much of that might be like closing my eyes to the painful changes taking place right here, right now. it will be important to balance the hope of a season of light with reality. some of the merriment, the decorations, the glitter and ribbons and wrap might have to wait. just like millneck manor and planting fields, the beaches and parks of the island. sometimes just a bit is also enough for the moment.
in the meanwhile, we touch this season. we take cuttings of our plants to propagate for next year. we miss long, lazy light as it slowly disappears. we start to wear boots.
the time of fallow is coming.
fallow.
and then?
i truly hope that soon we here in this country are able to – driven to – resume the cultivation of kindness and humanitarian goodness, to regenerate respect and care for each person here, to break the toxic infestation of these days, to recover a nation of integrity, equality, generosity and democracy for all.
it made me cry. it was all i could do not to down-and-out messy cry. had i lost control it would have been ugly. i grieved for every single american child as i struggled and hiccuped my way back to some semblance of calm. phil vassar’s lyrics were poignant and profound and deeply troubling.
the concert was amazing. phil vassar is a prolific songwriter, a consummate performer, his voice strong, his ballads clear. i’ve seen him in concert several times and was thrilled to see him again. he is now 63 and, having had both a heart attack and a stroke, he is making his way back – to the attention of the public – for the public forgets quickly.
there are artists you hold onto, particularly when you are an artist yourself. you know when there is something absolutely special about someone – you can feel it. every song, every note, every sung lyric – this man is a master singer-songwriter. there’s nothing really fancy about him…he plays a painted acoustic yamaha piano, often standing (which i can totally relate to). his band is extraordinary and tight, the perfect backup for him.
“cause 419 lakewood had no silver spoons/just an old beat up upright that played out of tune/now i’m singing and living the life that i love/and when i count my blessings i thank god i was an american child/an american child/’cause dreams can grow wild born inside an american child.” (american child – phil vassar)
every american child.
and that’s why i cried. because it’s no longer the same. i cried for my adult children. i cried for my friends’ grandchildren. i cried for the children i don’t know. i cried for what this country has lost, the dreams that have been violently stolen, the hope that has dissolved, the democracy that hangs by tiny filaments.
at the end of the concert, phil vassar – in seemingly no hurry at all – sat on the edge of the stage and chatted with people, took selfies with his fans, signed shirts and hats and cds.
i stood at our seats and watched, both proud of him and a little bit stunned at how very gracious he was – his obvious, deep gratitude to a concert hall that should have been filled.
i knew he couldn’t hear me – and i didn’t go up to tell him – but as i stood there i whispered, “you’re relevant, phil vassar. you’re so relevant.” deep down, he already knows. he’s always been relevant.
an american child. the american dream.
“there is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. there is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they can grow up in peace.” (kofi annan)
“a promise once made/will it shine, will it fade/will we rise with the vision or fall?” (american child – john denver)
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.
reverse threading 