reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Category Archives: story


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the storms. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

there are 6186 photos on my phone that – in some shape or form – are photos of the sky. there are 2400 that are of clouds. i’m pretty sure there’s some overlap there. but that is a lot of photos looking up.

with yet another storm watch in the state – on an unusually warm late april night – we sat out on the deck with 20 watching the sky. i took pictures. it felt like a summer night – minus the mosquitos – and we adirondack-chair-sat for quite a while, intermittent conversation and laughter punctuating the quiet.

as i’ve previously written about, we pay attention to storm watches and warnings. we use our weather app to track the arriving front systems, to watch the hourly forecast. we depend on it to make good decisions for our safety.

i remember a roadtrip – crossing through the state of wyoming – trying to outrun a giant dark greenish sky that seemed to be chasing after us. littlebabyscion has never zipped along as fast as it did that day. i remember d carrying dogga downstairs to the basement, with supplies and important papers, all while the tornado siren was sounding outside. i remember – way back in the day – laying in a ditch in the middle of rural illinois somewhere while vacationing at my big brother’s, his vehicle parked on the grassy shoulder of the county road on which we had been driving. i remember – not too long ago – just last june – sitting in littlebabyscion literally tucked up against a brick restaurant after-hours as we tried to evade the tornadic wind that had lifted us up off the open parking lot.

each time we made efforts – to use caution, to think-it-through, to be reasonably safe – and we took action. each time survival was the end goal. the storms of climate change are becoming apocalyptic – severe, with devastating consequences. we do our best to be knowledgeable, alerted, constructive.

the gale force winds of corruption are whirling around us. we must use caution, must think-it-through, must be reasonably safe, must take action. survival is the end goal. the collapsing of democracy is apocalyptic — severe, with devastating consequences.

we must all do our best.

*****

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the exquisite. [kerri’s blog on flawed wednesday]

in these days we are waking very early. our old dogga is hungry, maybe a little stiff, needing to get up and get us moving. and so we do. we open blinds and let the sun rise through our windows. we sit with our coffee against pillows in a bed we have now lowered closer to the floor for dogga. we listen to the birds and our pond gurgling. it is quiet. really quite exquisite.

we wake to the beautiful barebones of this universe – and sit in appreciation, silent as we listen and absorb the dawn of this next day. we are both very, very aware of this gift of time, this gift of stillness. we revel in the simplest of things for it is the simplest of things with which we surround ourselves; our budget is squishy-tight and we try our best to abide by the premise of ‘less is more’.

and it is in those moments – the moments of rays across our quilt, coffee in our hands, dogga at our feet – the moments of listening – that i can’t understand.

i can’t understand how anyone – particularly any person in any influential position of leadership – can wake up in the morning with evil-agendized intent in their heart. i can’t understand the superficiality of wanting-it-all, needing-it-all, having-it-all. i can’t grok the indecency of plotting against persons, peoples, missions, goodness.

i wonder how it is that one can wake so conversely differently, full of dreadful scheming. i wonder how it is that those people are of the same humankind. i wonder what twisted them, what broke their connection to morality, what tore the silken filaments of the recognition of unconditional beauty from them. what maelstrom enveloped their souls and trapped them in an eddy of cruelty.

we sit on the deck and look to the sky through the mixup of branches above us to the north. dogga lays nearby and the sun is sinking lower, the dusk sky an ombré canvas.

and – like many of you, i suppose – i still can’t understand. and it still doesn’t feel real.

but it is. and there are those – waking up yesterday, today, and – with nothing stopping them – likely, tomorrow – the textures of our woven universe unimportant, their own needs driving corrupt obsessions of power and control, their view of the world – this country – dark, their actions ruthless and cavalier, each of them impervious to the exquisite.

and the barebones of the universe sigh deeply, grief spilling into the technicolored chiaroscuro sky of dawn, the ink of dusk.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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pi(e) in the sky. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

i owe my love of math to my sweet momma and two amazing math teachers in junior high and high school (woody and bill).

so to look up in the sky and see ‘pi’ made me laugh aloud. of course i sent a photo to both of my kiddos with the caption “so is this what they mean by pi in the sky?” – to which neither responded a peep. oh well. i thought it was pretty funny – in a corny kind of way.

it did, however, make me think of all things pi-in-the-sky, er…pie-in-the-sky.

pi (3.14…) is a constant. it never changes. it is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. it is used in many equations and – from the time you learn it – is a number you just never forget.

yeah, kind of like the constitution or the declaration of independence. once you learn about them, you never forget.

well, most people never forget.

well, some people never forget.

anyway, here we are – in the middle of a constitutional crisis – with the declaration of independence mouth-open-silently-screaming relevancies at us – and my pie-in-the-sky is that it will all just stop – with a happy hallmark ending where all rifts fade and all fighting ceases and people just love one another and live in peace and harmony and respectful, compassionate democracy for the rest of all time.

pretty pie-in-the-sky-ish, eh?

a dear old friend sent me a youtube video of the song beautiful city (from godspell):

“out of the ruins and rubble/out of the smoke/out of our night of struggle/can we see a ray of hope?/one pale thin ray reaching for the day… we can build a beautiful city/yes, we can/we can build a beautiful city/not a city of angels/but we can build a city of men/we may not reach the ending/but we can start/slowly but truly mending/brick by brick/heart by heart/now, maybe now/we start learning how/…when your trust is all but shattered/when your faith is all but killed/you can give up bitter and battered/or you can slowly start to build!…”(stephen schwartz)

i am hoping against hope that this is not pie-in-the-sky. that a chance remains for this country to rebuild – to stop this madness – to stop the evil and cruel extremism that is taking over – to stop authoritarianism – to stop the ruining of this democracy.

pi in the sky above me, i couldn’t resist taking a photograph.

i couldn’t resist sending it as my picture-of-the-day.

and i couldn’t resist hoping – at least for a little bit – for some pie-in-the-sky.

*****

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

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

though we love-us (as they say) a familiar trail, we found a new trail to hike recently.

it was a really windy day and we set out knowing we would not-know what we might find along the way. that – in itself – is one of the gifts of hiking. even on trails we know like the back of our hands.

i knew being a minister of music like the back of my hand. and, as the easter holiday just passed by, i thought a lot about the 35 or so easters for which i had been responsible – the decades i had shaped the music of these seasons. i always believed it was my job to help people connect to that which they could not see – thus, ultimately, to touch faith, to touch love.

a dearest friend of ours retired this past week. with great joy, we celebrated his new freedom and listened as he told about the party his colleagues had thrown for him. he told of their stories, their comments, their appreciation – it was a powerful validation for him and for all the time and energy and life he had spent working in that place. he finished with a flourish – full of affirmation – ready to walk into next. one door closed, others ready to be opened.

it brought up personal grief.

for my very last days – of that career – one of the professions in which i used my knowledge of music – that spanned three and half decades – these days were not lined with validation or gratitude or even a nod of thanks. instead – for me – they were fraught with being fired, what felt like a plethora of undistilled meanness, full of unanswered questions, betrayal and shock and – then – absolute quiet. an assault.

i never finished. there was no brunch, there were no casseroles, no sheet cake, no jello mold. there was no t-shirt, no mug to carry off and use each morning, warmed by the memories of time spent.

this was an awakening.

i suddenly realized that i wasn’t done.

for all the sorting and cleaning and throwing out, there was still something incomplete.

there was no flourish; there was no affirmation.

this was an epiphany.

since i can’t go back literally, there is something in me that wishes to find a way to closure. maybe it is to go back to this place we found on this new trail. to this gate that stands in the messy field of wild grasses next to the birch tree just a bit back from the meadow. maybe if i lift up that gate and just step – even just one step – into what is past it – what is on the other side – maybe it might feel – in some metaphorical-retirement-party-crepe-paper-streamers-strewn way – like there was a little flourish. that i will grant myself the validation, the affirmation – the acknowledgment of a great deal of dedicated time of my life – that others tore from me, disregarded – that i will know – deep inside me – that i gave that place – and all the 35 years in that particular spoke of my sedimentary-layered life of music – giant pieces of my creative soul and that i can finally – finally – leave the familiar behind and get about the new. whatever their agenda or issues – in an end that was not of my choosing – it should not detract from my own celebration of me.

i will never be a minister of music again. that part of my life – that arrow of dedication of the music within me – has finished. and – i was damn good at it. i understood it. i knew it like the back of my hand.

and now it’s time for a new trail.

right after i pull down all the streamers and toss them out.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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blank foam core. [kerri’s blog on flawed wednesday]

i found the foam core board in the attic while i was trying not to step in between the floor joists. i was carefully looking for something in a box, placing my socked feet on the old piece of paneling that covers a small part of this tiny room under the rafters. leaning up against the wall and straddling two joists was this cellophane-wrapped blank foam core. making a mental note that it was there, i backed out of the attic – because turning around while bending over – which is necessary – bending over, that is – is almost an impossibility. one does not want to mistakenly place one’s foot through the plaster ceiling of the living room below. (this, by the way, is the reason i go into the attic rather than sending d…just in case any foot goes through the ceiling…i’d rather it be mine….for obvious reasons.)

when we heard of the protest early this month i went back up into the attic and retrieved the foam core, dusted it off and got ready to write on it.

which brings me to my question.

if you had a piece of foam core and one of those really thick intensely smelly magic markers, what message would you write?

because it is time to speak up. way past time.

who are you? what does your heart say? what does your conscience say? what kind of america do you want? what kind of america would you like to pass on to your children and grandchildren?

is it a supportive country that generously embraces the unlimited potentiality of its melting pot of different people? or is it a cruel isolated land where every evil move hinges on how it benefits only the wealthiest and the extremists among us, marginalizing the rest?

are you rah-rah-ing the fall of democracy? or are you stunned beyond belief that we are facing authoritarianism in this country – literally i’s-dotted-t’s-crossed – in the matter of a few days?

what is your truth?

what would you write?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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riding wild horses. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

david, mark and i stood by the dyed harbor in the wind. mark commented that he did not have a painting of st patrick’s day green, rusty brown, cement beige. we told him that he did now. because we had made it so – as we stood there – “totally looks like a mark rothko,” we opined as we viewed the photograph i had just taken. mark laughed – in that other-dimension way we imagined. i reminded him of green and maroon – and my dedication to this painting at the milwaukee art museum. he was amused and agreed that emerald, rust and cement was – maybe – a worthy addition.

david just finished a piece he painted for me. it is stunning, both visually and emotionally. a really large canvas, it will find a home in my studio, where i can be reminded of the freedom – of space, of life, of voice, of love – it represents.

i have always wanted a horse and so he gave me one. this painting. and you can see – by the repose of my face – how undeniably happy it makes me, the peace it bestows, breathing the very air of all the universe.

it is said that mark rothko sought to make paintings that would bring people to tears. “i’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on.” as an artist, i cannot imagine any other reason to create other than to tap in, to elicit, evoke, to acknowledge human emotions.

when i stepped onto the floor of the basement – off the last wooden step – i stared at the painting in progress. it was potent for me. it was a painting of an arrival, of sorts. though David’s title is in dreams she rides wild horses, the reality for me is the wild horse of voice. it is the gallop of speech, the beginning of the release of silence, the horse i never yet had. i wept as i told him.

mark appeared suddenly, standing on the basement floor with me. he stepped under one of the studio spotlights and called over to d, “good work, robinson. way to make her cry.”

d looked surprised and glanced at me calling back, “thanks, rothko!” before i wrapped my grateful arms around him, “yeah, good work, robinson.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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count on dogga. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

sometimes – these days – it is simply his smile that keeps us grounded.

sometimes – these days – it is a belly-belly or a dogga kiss that helps us feel our feet, centered in our home.

sometimes – these days – it is his sensitivity to the tenor of the room that keeps us from getting too loud, too angry, too upset.

a few days ago i had a very hard day. i’m guessing i am not out of the ordinary; i’m guessing this is not unusual – these days.

i felt – particularly after my revelations from my call with my dear old friend from new york – that we were on a tiny island, out of balance.

we – like you, i’m sure – have been through so much in the last few years. and, i guess, because we have been coast-ers (d the west, me the east) – more easily candid, despite whatever others’ reactions are to our tales – woe, included – we have shared about them – with family, with friends, with whomever chooses to read our blogs.

but we have found that sharing our intense feelings can be disconcerting. there is most definitely this thing in this part of the land that dictates what you share. if you don’t wish to tell how you feel, you just simply ignore the question about how you feel. it’s a weird phenomenon. and frustrating. it is hard to be an open book when others don’t crack open their binding.

and so – the other day – outside of the pure constant stream of consciousness d and i share with each other – i was pining for shared deep conversation, for shared grief, for the shared pondering of unanswerable questions, unfathomable challenges. i did not want pity. i wanted two-way sharing, raw human interaction. i wanted to cry and scream – both. i did cry. watching dogga watch me prevented me from screaming.

it feels absolute that we need to be in this chaos together. we need to join together in like-mindedness and push back against the continued takeover of our country. we need to share the gut-wrenching sorrow of losing family and friends to this pervasive illness of extremism. we need to share our worries about our future and the future of our children and our children’s children.

bottom line? we need to talk. because actually talking about it all doesn’t make it worse. it quite possibly helps. you know, the meeting-together, the walking-in-another’s-shoes thing, the heartfelt compassion, the reality check, the let’s-sort-this-together, the we-are-here-for-you. the two-way street.

it makes me absolutely crazy when people act like nothing is happening. i want to beg, “open your eyes! we need to talk about this!”

but – instead – there are a few we share with, a few we trust with our deepest musings, our biggest fears, the trauma we are all enduring, what is really happening in our very own personal lives. the rest – like many – we filter.

and in that very short list of whole-heart-sharers, dogga is one of them. he holds things in confidence and we can always count on him to react emotionally and with – seeming – empathy. like he gets it.

and then he smiles his getting-older smile at us – holding our hearts and reminding us that his unconditional love is unconditional.

time after time he saves the day. even in these days. every single day.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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our tracks. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

like you, maybe, i woke up on tuesday, sickened. the scourge has impaled the nation and i am stunned beyond belief. though i know we – personally – will be working at keeping on keeping on, the fallout of less than 24 hours was mind-blowing. which i know was the point. shock and awe, as they say.

in the tracks of our future we need to decide just exactly what we wish there. the present tense cannot be that which we leave in our wake, for this twisted leadership’s twisted governing will – most definitely – be the end of humanity as we know it. it is hard to grok this kind of cruelty.

in this time of grieving for our country, our democratic ideals, rights and freedoms on the chopping block to be desecrated, a moral center devoid of morality, the heaviness of depression and dread move in like a thick fog – difficult to see through to the other side. this is stifling, intense, horrible.

and so, maybe, i know how you feel. and sitting in this “collective depression” (john pavlovitz) is necessary – for the moment. we need spend time looking back, looking at now, looking down the road. we need spend time in the middle of it all. there are no easy solutions, i suspect. but each inch of the road forward counts and the tracks we leave will tell the story of our attempt to find balance and peace and goodness. it is the fundamental one-foot-after-another.

even as i write this i know that i don’t know what i’m talking about. not really. i have not lived through such a time. i am – like you – newly embarking on a trek heavy with the baggage of an administration steeped in hatred, retaliation, corruption. to think i know anything about such things is overstating, hyperbole. i – like you – have been mostly fortunate to live – most of my life – in a country with laws, checks and balances, at least a few grains of fairness mixed in. but here we are. and, though 77 million people voted for this maniacal cadre, more did not – through their vote or their silence.

anne frank embraced hope, “i don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

ralph waldo emerson’s words remind, “life is a journey, not a destination.”

when i come out from under the quilt, reopen the blinds and step out, i know that we will consider carefully our path as we go. we will step lightly and intentionally. we’ll not carry the fancy luggage with leather-edged nasty executive orders and gleeful manifestations of greed and malfeasance with us.

we will carry the scroll of our constitution and its good will from here and now to next days and the days after – our tracks will not be shameful indicators of the worst of us nor will they embarrass us. instead, they will be steady and strong and will tell the story of this journey for “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (martin luther king, jr.) and we have a legacy to choose.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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by a thread. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the connective tissue between us is sometimes like strong rope and sometimes like filmy silken thread. yet we are – one to the other – connected through bliss and storm, hot heat and bitter cold, mountaintop summits and chasmic challenges. though you may be peripheral in my every day story, we connect in the subplot of all our stories – the humanity of living – our interdependence, our shared earth.

we – together – in our shared mission seeking goodness – step into the next day. in our joining – together – we bring the best of each of us – the uniqueness of all our strengths, our gifts, our wisdom – and we buoy one another.

when the ice formed on the window in threads – more beautiful than i could have ever created – the feathery crystals latching onto the ice-strand – like tiny preschoolers holding the knots on a rope while walking in a safe-line – it reminded me, once again, of your presence. the threaded crystals remind me that we are not alone, that – together – we may find the beauty we know is there, the pause between the notes, the reinforcement, the ‘ands’ that we each desperately need.

the needlepoint of the universe – crocheted vapor – a talisman of hope.

“if everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.” (rumi)

we are the light in this darkness – together – particularly when we make together our intention. though feeling as if hanging on by a thread, i take comfort knowing you are hanging with me, with us.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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relentlessly. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

they are on 24/7. we haven’t taken them off our old wrought iron railing because – well – we need the light.

today i read a tiny post about someone who had taken her christmas tree down and had lugged it outside, getting it ready to go to the drop-off where it will be picked up and recycled into mulch. she wrote that she was sad and that she told her husband – when he arrived home – that she already missed the lighted tree. the end of her bitty post revealed that the tree was back in the house – lighted. it warmed my heart.

we have taken down the holiday decorations. it was just a couple days ago and i already miss the glimmer. it’s all so joyous and – once put away into bins – feels plain. to be honest, i did keep one lighted lodgepole pine tree in the sitting room and i am contemplating bringing another back up. it won’t take much to convince him that they are necessary for a while, even though i was prepared with “they don’t reeeeally look like christmas trees….”

whatever it takes, i’m thinking. if we need more happy lights, then we should – by all means – put them up. anything to stay in the light, particularly right now. these darker winter months require much vitamin d and anything else that brings us beams of hopeful … and this one – this winter – well, there are particularly dark circumstances that will make us look for anything to try to even out the seesaw. if a couple fake lodgepole pines and a wrought iron railing with lights help, then so be it.

we spent saturday moseying about antique shoppes, one of our favorite things to do. i was looking for glimmer….things that might reflect light or hope or remind us to be “relentlessly present” (john pavlovitz).

each of the seconds that ticks by – even in this particular right now – cannot be held, cannot be relived. to lose them – those seconds – is to let the indecency win. to seek a balance – where we zero in on the stuff that is flashing by us and still attend to whatever we can do to further goodness in a not-good time – seems prudent. otherwise, every last bit of glimmer will be gone and the dark will usurp us. to be relentlessly present is to be mindful of breathing, i’m learning.

we found a cool candleholder – wrought iron and reflective silver – bargain-priced. it is now on the radiator where the happy-light-covered aspen log is, reflecting the light from those tiny bulbs.

we also found a wooden ampersand. we didn’t buy it – though also bargain-priced, there is the budget and all – but i think we may be going back for it (or find some other iteration of it).

something about having an “and” sign in the living room may remind us – relentlessly – about each other, about the fragile balance we need to hold, about this moment and the next and the next and-&-and.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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