barney’s nails are popping, its layers are peeling back even more, rust is gathering on surfaces subjected to air and moisture. this is not a surprise. barney has been outside in the sun and the rain and the snow and ice and wind and humidity and drought for almost ten years now. a decade has a way of peeling things back. i wonder what barney might look like in another decade or maybe two. its soul will be intact; its boxy exterior will be falling away, opening strings, hammers, soundboard to the world. and always, its soul, present, true.
barney is no less beautiful now than the day it arrived in our yard. in fact, as it changes, its transformation is a metamorphosis into an aged piece of art sans any expectations. it stands as a stalwart symbol of constancy in our backyard. it reminds me that soul is resilient, fluid. no matter the weathering, the chippies and bunnies nesting, the birds stopping off to rest, the squirrels sitting and taunting the dog. no matter only eleven white endpieces of keys are left. no matter the line of popped nails in a row along its upright top. its soul – exposed – carries on, aged and stronger than before.
“this is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing i know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” (mary oliver)
if barney needed to express itself, tell stories of its past, the narrative of a life of a hundred years, it would merely stand and speak – firmly planted. time and nails have loosened its jointed wood and the container of a million tales, and have – figuratively – unlidded the top of the shoebox under the bed or on the top shelf of the closet. every story counts and, as we sit in the backyard, we pay attention. we listen to barney, giving credence to its voice, glad that even in its aged appearance – and its agedness – it is not silent.
in ways i can’t explain, i can feel the nails popping.
“squeaking with joy, ” cousin kate wrote – all in caps – “the turtles are back!”.
at the exact time she sent that, we were on our trail, on the bridge over the river, gazing down at the turtles. we had seen a couple earlier in the spring, but then it got cold and they disappeared. now, they are back – seemingly for good – and we, too, are squeaking with joy.
earlier in the winter, i had written:
“i think about the turtles. they are there in the warmer months, sunning on logs and rocks that jut out of the river. but, when it dips below fifty degrees or so – and stays there – they disappear. apparently, they dive down to the muddy bottom, their metabolism slows down, they require less oxygen. their mucky homes keep them safe as they bide time, these wise, long-lived creatures of the water and the land.
we know they are there – somewhere – in hidden spots, places they feel sheltered and secure. i think about what they might be doing. they are silent and the fallow is long. i trust they are sorting what is next, kind of like us.
time keeps moving, though, and i keep hope that when it warms up and the turtles have a more secure sense of themselves in the world they will reappear, out of the suspension of presence. i’m hoping for an early spring.
and waiting. and the river freezes. and then it thaws.“
and then i had this idea walking down the hall the other day. it was a the-turtles-are-back idea.
in my mind i named it “out of fallow” or “out of the mud” or even “the relevant challenge” or “on the fly” but the name is fluid. the idea floated around and landed tiny feet on my brain, so i eventually told david about it.
it’s relatively simple. we choose ten destinations – in wisconsin, in the midwest, on the northeast coast, in the high mountains, on quiet southern beaches, in the canyonlands, in the grand national parks – all different projects. taking a yamaha portable battery-operated keyboard (with recording/disc drive capability), ten canvases and paint, both laptops, and a couple spiral notebooks – we go to each destination for a pre-determined amount of time (say, three hours). while there, i compose on the fly – what that place feels like – and he paints on the fly – what that place feels like. on the fly – spontaneous creation – is not for the meek at heart. it requires focus, has a terminal product necessary at the end – a short time after beginning – and necessitates a degree of letting go. it pushes us back into the active-art-place and pushes us past edges. it gets us out of the muddy bottom. it produces the raw pieces of an album to be orchestrated and a collection of paintings to be framed. it needs some support to get off the ground. it has me pondering, swimming to the surface with the turtles.
our snouts will pop out of the river and we’ll look around some, trying to figure it out. we would definitely need some encouragement, some warm sun, some help.
and, if we move forward, out of the suspension, we – turtles, too – will definitely be squeaking.
i lived in florida. merely 14 miles from the gulf of mexico. for eight plus years. yet, i can count the number of times i went to the beach while i lived there. likely on two hands. i spent more time on the gulf before living there and after living there. just not during.
as a teenager and young adult i was at the north shore all the time. biking there, vw-ing there, boating, diving, fishing, walking, climbing the fence to take sunrise pictures – winter, spring, summer, fall. all the time.
in recent years i’ve yearned for the days on those long island beaches. and, though they are remarkably beautiful and warm and sunny and tan-producing (definitely not important anymore), i can’t really say the same for the florida beaches. i don’t find myself pining for them.
maybe it’s just my history with them. or, perhaps, the lack thereof.
the other day we went to the beach. on lake michigan. we walked and walked for a couple of hours, searching for hagstones and paintable flat rocks. then we settled down on a big log of driftwood in soft sand and sat and watched the waves. we wished we had a picnic lunch with us and a good book. it was that kind of day. the only thing that drove us out was hunger.
but we’ll go back, because the beauty of that beach was powerful.
when you live with someone who also likes to walk, you will walk anywhere. strolling in the ‘hood, hiking on the trail, trolling for stones on the beach. it’s the thing we do when all else stops – all work, all tasks. it’s the thing we do when we want all else to stop – all wistfulness, all thought, all worry, all out-and-out angst.
it’s funny to me that there was this big chunk of my life when i wasn’t walking, wasn’t hiking. just like this big chunk of my life when i wasn’t going to the beach – to stare at the waves, to watch gulls swoop and dive in the wind, to find the gifts of the air and the water – tuning into soul and energy, soothing and healing.
i’ve pondered, before, what would have happened had i walked. now i ponder what would have happened had i gone to the beach.
we have been tracking them. like really good private investigators – ok, not so brilliant but quietly watching – we watch the map that shows when they might get here. the map plots everywhere a hummingbird has been sighted and so we are anticipating seeing one anydaynow. we are waiting. with no promise at all.
“waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the…” (dr. seuss – oh, the places you’ll go)
it seems that waiting is a thing. “i can’t wait till….” we find ourselves saying. impatient for time to slip by and for the anticipated moment to arrive.
yet, exquisite it is to sometimes simply linger, to stretch out minutes, to wade in the shallows of right now. waiting need not be passive. instead, it is filled with arrows-forward-arrows-back present-time. it is the only thing we can really feel, the only air we can breathe, the only. it is all that we have at the moment.
i’m sitting against the headboard, my pillows falling into the abyss between the iron bars. i can feel wrought iron against my back as i think about readjusting my stack of fluffy polyester and down alternative. i can hear the taptaptap of david typing next to me. i can hear the gentle easy breathing of dogdog at my feet, dozing and dreaming. if i stop typing i can hear birds outside, the pond gurgling, wind in the trees, every now and then chimes. if i close my eyes i can taste the last sip of coffee and see the maypole i thought about on monday’s mayday.
there are many things i cannot wait for. to see my daughter, hug her, hear her voice in the same room. to watch my son perform at pride festival in chicago. to take a roadtrip. to finish a long chapter that has had challenges.
but i am reminded – every day – that to rush would be to miss it all along the way. i am reminded to stroll or, at most, skip.
our trail has signs that designate a trot as the terminal gait. were i on horseback i would be tempted to canter – for the thrill of it. but i would go back and do it all again – walking and, maybe but not likely, trotting. i would stroke the mane of my horse and talk quietly about all we were seeing. i wouldn’t worry about the end nor would i gallop cause i couldn’t wait to get there.
i’d go slow. and try to relish the now, pushing back impatience so as to wait to feel the restlessness of waiting.
every day of this mysteriously unknown-unrevealed-unmapped extended journey of life we have been granted – we are seeking to make sense.
and – in the moment of moments – the ones when the abyss is evident or the peak is present, the ones when confusion reigns supreme, the ones when you cannot imagine any more bliss or any more dread or any more ardor or any more devastation, the ones when complexity is the starting gate, the ones on the roller coaster you wish someone would stretch out flat – in those moments none of this – any form of art – any medium, any life-giving expression of creativity – is a luxury. it surely does sustain, heal, breathe life into the motionless heart of fear or sadness. it is the music, the paintings, the photographs, the lyrics, the poetry, the clay pot in your hand, the dance. it is what the pads of your fingers touch just simply by seeing, hearing, reading, smelling, tasting, watching. necessary. of the essence. crucial. fundamental.
“give your heart to everybody you meet. the rest is pretense.” (e.h.)
and – the creators – each of us – stand by, fools all of us. humankind. finding who we are, what we love, expressing, connecting.
“showcasing a piece is allowing it to come to full bloom, to let it breathe in the world, to share it. but showcasing a piece is not for the meek at heart.
in the way you would likely feel standing in your underwear in a town square, introducing the world to some new piece of your heart is raw. on old wooden stages with a piano and a mic, centered on a wall with a tiny price tag placed nearby, during poetry-reading night in the corner of the general store, sharing with the novel-writing club every first thursday, skating the first performance on ice, tapping “publish” on a blog each day … pieces of your heart float shakily about as you try to hold onto sisu and stay grounded. it matters not how many times you have done this. your heart has been unbridled and you are allowing others in. each and every time.” (the underwear moments* – kerri sherwood)
“but then i thought about beauty. i thought about how artists dive below the surface, try to find the depth of meaning, try to hear and see that which others might pass by, not noticing. i thought about stages and boom mics and connection and standing in front of a diebenkorn – or a robinson – deep inside, marveling. i thought about arvo pärt and his absolute tug on my heart. i thought about john denver and simplicity. i thought about recording studios and soaring string sections, cello lines that make clouds rearrange to allow in light. the weaving of intricate relationship between people and nature, between people and art in any form.
there have been moments – and i can actually remember them – when i have been driving and listening to a song and i weep or hiking and seeing something so stunning i stop and cannot move. these moments when i know, without a doubt, that it was right to turn down the business-school-accounting-program acceptance. these moments when i know, without a doubt, that i will not have the same security as the person-i-would-have-been following that route. moments when i feel a sense of pride to be a tiny part of the tapestry of what people turn to in time of rejuvenation, of rest, of crisis, of pure bliss. these moments when i know, without a doubt, that somewhere along the way what i have done with my time has touched someone, has opened them, has taken them diving with me. below the surface of this great big world – to beauty.” (the gig economy tapestry – kerri sherwood)
“…boldness. the uninhibited freedom of expression – artistry come to fruition in the moment of utter sharing. terrifying and liberating. raw and real. the underwear moments.”(*)
this great big planet earth. sedimentary layers of beauty. we are all in our underwear.
at the front corner of my growing-up yard on long island was a forsythia bush. and many years, at the march of my birthday, i remember having my picture taken there. home. spring. there are few things that make me think of Home like forsythia does.
except for maybe the voice of my beloved daughter on the phone. she is forsythia for me. for just moments or for an extended conversation or – if i am fortunate – in person together, the sound of her voice, her zeal, is Home.
and except for watching the way my beloved son immerses himself in his music. his hands – now all-grown-up man-hands – moving dials and sliders, his voice and body dancing, his explanations – it’s forsythia for me. Home.
and except for the look across the room from david – the moment he touches his hand to his chest while in his gaze – forsythia. Home.
and dogga – at the door with his angel-babycat greeting me – thrilled, once again, to see us. forsythia. Home.
and the love and care and concern that are abundant in our lives – our family, our friends. forsythia. Home.
and the work we have chosen to do – create – music, paintings, many-many words, cartoons. forsythia. Home.
the may apples stood on risers in the forest, singing to spring, singing to any audience who might be there, singing their glorious song. just like a choir. unified. united. elated to be in harmony. creating four-part jubilation to be alive. making music.
the singtolive choir stood on risers in the sanctuary of the beautiful church, directly in front of the organ pipes. their joy was palpable and, if i closed my eyes as they sang their program of the great american songbook, i could imagine the record albums of my parents playing and the choirs of 33rpm singing into our living room. they were cohesive and gently exploring the expanse of the songs chosen for the evening. and then, at the end of the concert – this concert dedicated to breast cancer survivorship – the singers left the risers and came out to stand among us, the audience.
to say that their last song was touching would be an understatement. a trademark of this marvelous group, why we sing was exquisitely performed. we all had eye contact with singers surrounding us. you could feel hearts swelling and tears forming. they delivered this emotional piece like no other preceding it in the program. i whispered to david, “this is the stuff.”
there is a lot of choir music ‘out there’. for the decades of my career as a minister of music, i was shipped an enormous number of catalogs, of listings, of cds with samples of songs. and then, there were charts to study, trends in music. and then, arrangements and reviewing lyrics and the range of my singers – in note as well as in degree of difficulty. i reviewed all this music always seeking that which would resonate, that which would help a person’s heart and mind connect with their faith, with the questions they had in this world, with good intentions and their community. it’s not a small responsibility to choose that which a choir – any choir, any worship band, any ukulele band, any choral ensemble – will sing in public – no matter the venue.
heidi and i stood in front of thousands of people through the time we worked together, performing “celebrate sweet life” – our breast cancer survivorship programs. with audiences of 35,000 in new york’s central park to hundreds in a medical center to a few thousand in the chicago sun with lance armstrong’s tour of hope to a more intimate group in pjs at md anderson to sharing a long island stage with hillary clinton to oncology pharmaceutical sales conference in puerto rico, it was our privilege to share messages – of hope, of healing, of making a difference for each other, of being alive – with audiences all over the country.
there is a video from one of our performances that touches me each time i see it. it is a bit blurry, not captured with the best of equipment. yet, at the end, as the audience has risen to their feet, there is a man in the foreground. as heidi speaks her last words and i sing the last lyrics of one of my songs, this man wipes at his eyes, stirred. and each time – no matter how many times i have viewed this – i am profoundly moved.
the may apples – gleeful in their rising out of the eradicated forest, now clear of invasives and plants with ill intent – stand proudly. they are furled at first and one might think they are quiet, meek, hiding. but as the sun warms them they arise. they will give their performance their all, joining together as one umbrella of green. the trillium will watch in the forest as audience members. and then, pure white flowers will form under the may apple parasols. and the trillium will turn to each other and whisper.
in the moments of performances under my choir baton or concert stages under my feet, there has been nothing quite like thinking that someone out there is whispering to the person next to them, “this is the stuff.”
it is likely the heron’s. we have seen a couple together out there – gliding through the marshland, standing regally by the side of the pond, walking sedately. we hiked past the downy feather, that had likely fallen from where down is hidden beneath the heron’s outer feathers, and i went back, the talcum powder white capturing my attention on the trail. sometimes i pick up feathers – to keep them, beautiful signs of divine and freedom and flight. i left this one on the trail, tucked between the pine and the cone, its texture begging notice.
under the outer layer of my straight hair is an unruly curly layer. the days i do not blow-dry my hair, i am banana-curled, little-orphan-annie-curled, a combo-platter-no-real-sense curled. i personally have found it annoying. most women desire hair which they do not have – a different kind of hair – a different color – a different texture, thickness, bounce, volume. it is the way of this society.
instyle magazine did an entire month of articles on women and their hair. i read the initial article from 2018 and, frankly, found it somewhat entertaining. the most common uniting hair complaint is frizz, which, i must say, i have complained about a time or two. d has trouble understanding frizz as he is a non-frizz-haired guy (incidentally, with better hair than me – which doesn’t seem quite hair-fair). regardless, hair has become a tool of empowering for women, especially in this nation.
according to what i read, we can be flushed with excitement or nervous as all get-out, challenged beyond our perceived limits or drudging our way through the day – but, if our hair looks good, we feel good, no matter.
i wonder if the heron – in its elegant wisdom and intuition – has concerned itself with its feathers. or has it just simply concerned itself with its basic needs, its instinctual movements and rituals, its patterns and place in nature. is it thinking about its frizzy down feathers? i suspect not. compare that with the reported 81% of human women who feel more confident if their hair looks great.
according to the majority of human women – none of the hair products out there reeeeally work. everything promises to de-frizz, de-curl, celebrate the curl, straighten, give volume, grant sheen, untangle, combat thinning, retain moisture, eliminate split ends, make it bounce, make it stay still, give a hairstyle hold. but nope, none of it really works.
if you add perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause to the hair equation, you are faced with a variety pack of even more hair concerns. for me, that means that – despite all my deliberate blowdrying intentions for straightening my hair, the instant a hotter-than-hot hot flash swings by, i am frizzed. drippy hot, frizzed and curled – definitely not a jennifer aniston hair look.
“in order to cool their body temperature, great blue herons will partially extend and droop their wings and open their mouths while fluttering their throat muscles. much like dogs panting, this helps cool their body through evaporation. this behavior is called gular fluttering.”(nps.gov) the innate wisdom of the heron – gular fluttering. who knew?
so…if you see me – curly hair askew sneaking out from under a few straightened hairs trying to hold on to their straight – fluttering my throat muscles (is this synonymous with talking too much in humans???) – you will know i am post-yet-another-hot-flash and am channeling my internal great blue heron. please don’t comment on my hair.
with gordon lightfoot crooning in my ear, i stroked the pussywillows on the trail. i can’t remember seeing these on trail before. i know i would have noticed – their softness begs touch.
“pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses rain pools in the woodland, water to my knees shivering, quivering, the warm breath of spring pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses”
smooth silvery-grey under our fingertips, we each took time to touch, to marvel at the beauty. and gordon lightfoot sang on in my mind.
as a writer, composer, lyricist, there are decisions one must make along the way. we place ourselves in a vulnerable spot, not for our own purpose or indulgence, but, instead, in the hope of resonating with someone who needs the words or music or lyrics we write, in the hope of reaching someone else walking in similar shoes, in the hope of assuring someone out there who needs to know they are not alone. and so, at the risk of thus vulnerably over-sharing, i offer this:
but some things are triggers. and, as the verses and guitar continued, this particular gordon lightfoot song is one of them. my #metoo was at the hands of a musician, a serial predator who walks freely even today. he played guitar and charmed his way into the never-to-forget-lives of many susceptible young women. a man who softly sang gordon lightfoot and james taylor, who wrote love songs, new lyrics for gorgeous SATB hymns, and taught guitar surely was to be trusted, right? wrong.
i can appreciate these beautiful pussywillows, another harbinger of spring and new life. but i stop a moment and give nod to my much earlier self. in a watershed, i recognize the parallel of this earliest time working in the church and my latest work. bookends.
“riding on the roadside the dust gets in your eyes”
it’s not the dust that brings tears to my eyes, it’s not the spring air laden with newness of pollen, the turning of season. it’s the raw bookended time in places i trusted as safe. i cannot help now but examine it all up close, process it, grieve the loss of innocence, the devaluing of women, abhor the loss of respectful truth and the reign of agenda. the bookends hold upright the time in-between, all the books of life, times and experiences and mistakes and successes, the laying down of any attempt to process, to make right, of any ramifications for the wrongdoer. the bookend of late was a stunning surprise. i am astonished at its destruction, now, no longer a teenager. i find it all shockingly galling.
“slanted rays and colored days, stark blue horizons”
the horizon is much like the horizon all those decades ago. it’s surprising to return to that feeling. i want to leave, to run, just like that other time, that other bookend. my physical life, however, is not at stake this time. it is me, my loss of community, my loss of position, stolen integrity. i cannot wrap my head around the slanted rays, the starkness.
“treasuring, remembering, the promise of spring pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses”
treasuring, remembering. promises. but roses…the flower of love…it is hard to hear lyric of roses…my hope is to only hear gordon lightfoot in my mind’s eye and to forget the echoing bookends.
“shivering, quivering, the warm breath of spring”
to remember – spring is beginning to spring. the catkins of the willows are soft, cattails seed in the wind, warm circles us on the trail.
they chopped down, chainsawed, mulched, chemicalized, burned. they decimated the whole forest to eliminate the invasives. and – in the way of oncological medicine, of environmental eradication programs, of corporate and organizational ousting – the good cells may somehow survive, burned edges and all.
to be a tree with burn marks is to be human. one cannot traipse through this life without them. we all carry with us whatever balm has helped us get through the fires. we lean on the surety that spring will come, eventually.
as we hike the trail, we know that it is not one hundred percent that only the good will keep on. it is not a certainty. instead, it is a risk, a gamble, that there may be cells that escape treatment, there may be invasives that escape annihilation, there may be people-in-power-with-ill-intent who either escape the pointed fingers or are the ones corruptly pointing them.
and in those cases, the worry is that those cells will reproduce, those invasives will take over and choke out the organic, those people will destroy the place. a ravaging burn. devastation. and the good cells, the good plants, the good people will be left to fend for themselves, to remain upright – stalwart – to grow despite the odds.
it is good friday for those who are keeping a religious calendar. a day of destruction following betrayal and many burned edges. as this sacred story goes, three days later there is a resurrection. and the targeted jesus rises.
as we hike the trail, we notice the green shoots growing out of the ground, their top leaves still blackened. we marvel at the tenacity of these plants as they garnered energy best-as-they-could, regardless of the burn. the good xylem and phloem somehow survived.
there are naturalists who are watching closely, tending to the native plants best as they can. there are doctors and nurses and researchers and clinical trial experts who are watching closely, tending to patients and health and life best as they can. there are, therefore, it would seem, allies who are dedicated to the truth, to transparency, to the best parts of an organization who are watching closely, tending to the burns of the sacrificed.
“i want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.“ (oriah mountain dreamer)
shrinking back will allow the devastation. standing in the fire – the center of the fire – will allow the resurrection.
*****
“and you were there in all of my suff’ring.
you were there in doubt, and in fear;
i’m waiting on the dawn to reappear...” (you were on the cross – m.mayer, k.butler, a.assad)
reverse threading 