and what if we, like the sweet autumn clematis, were each merely one featherduster, one long, wispy tendril birthed from a maroon-brown pod joined with other maroon-brown pods on a single branch of a single vine.
what is it we would do with our wispiness, our soft fluffy plumes, tiny jet engines to propel us near and far? what seeds would we disperse, what knowledge would we dispense, what silvery sheen would we spread?
what would we choose to do with our one, wild featherduster life, our one journey through air, aided by wind, abetted by the twirling of our feathertail? where would we go, what jet stream would we join? what earth song would we sing? what would we touch – ever so lightly – brushing past, barely felt, a tickle of plume?
what if that were all we had? would we join with all the other featherdusters, an intertwined community seeding community? or would we spend our time engaged in disjointed competitive infighting with the others? would we choose a path on which we might twirl through together or would we choose to shoot off, like that one plane in a memorial fly-by, forging a new trail in air, bushwhacking through underbrush? what would our desire path be?
what if that had been our passage in this place? what if our featherduster existence had been it? would we have been all in? would we have given our best? would we have embraced seeding more clematis – like seeding more shimmery goodness? or would we have held back, continually waiting for something glorious to happen, for better weather, or for whatever later might be?
bundled up in down vests and gloves, we were finished the cleaning-up of the backyard, readying it for winter. though we are reluctant to face the winter, it feels good to tuck away the adirondacks and the gravity chairs, the rugs made of recycled plastic straws, the firepit and the little wrought iron glass table. as i cleared leaves off the deck to make it easier for my wonderful husband to shovel future snows, i stumbled across this bit of evergreen. fallen from our spruce tree, it reminded me immediately of the little tree we – years ago – had brought home from aspen: “ditch”, named after our favorite trail there, a profoundly emotional place for us.
i brought it inside.
it now has a place of regal importance on the bistro table – the place we tend to sit for happy hour, for dinner. with windows overlooking the backyard, we can watch the waning light and review our day, dogga at our feet, for he loves the cool floor of the sunroom.
we won’t be traveling this holiday season. our old dogga is now a senior dog and as we watch him – in his slowingdown – we are dedicated to being witness to these days with him. it’s not like we wouldn’t like to drive – or maybe, even fly – to visit relatives or friends or go on an adventure, but it is definitely that we don’t want to leave him.
dogga’s presence has been a constant for us in the entirety of our living-together. his steady amber gaze, his unbridled enthusiasm, his quirks – they are all a distinct element of our life. he steadfastly helped us through all the – interesting – transitions in this decade plus. and so, we are committed to being by his side, honoring him in his aging, in his challenges and his ever-growing list of quirks. we want to hold space with him.
and so things like a bit of evergreen, like a strand of happy lights tucked inside the chiminea in the corner of the sunroom, like fluffy pillows on the glider in the living room – they are tiny ways to really enjoy our home during a time we will spend most of it not away, most of it at home.
like babycat, dogga has many theme songs, which we sing for him. “dogga-dogga, you’re the one. do-do-do-do. dogga-dogga, so much fun. do-do-do-do. dogga-dogga, in the sun. do-do-do-do. dogga-dogga, number one.”
he doesn’t require brilliant lyricism nor originality. his joy is pretty simple. kind of like a bit of spruce in a little glass vase.
“dogga-dogga, puddin’ and pie, mom and dad love you as big as the sky.”
in a very, very long-ago life i wrote a song for a youth choir called “harvest the love“. i recently found the arrangement i composed. it is a bubblegum kind of song – full of rhyming idealism. “…we are all one fam’ly under the sun, we are brothers, we are sisters, we are one...”. wowza.
one of my closest friends in high school – marc – used to make fun of me (in the kindest way possible). he’d poke at my embrace of rainbows and sunrises and bubbles and sunsets. i was all-in on that stuff, believing it was absolutely possible to be “all one fam’ly under the sun”. “…for aren’t we really crops in the sun and aren’t we ready for work and for fun, as all one fam’ly under the sun…”. (it’s ok to laugh.)
we had a quiet thanksgiving. it felt good to store away the deck furniture and rugs, to complete prepping the backyard for winter – for (as i write this) we’re due for 6-10 inches of snow over the weekend (which, incidentally, we did get about 10). we wrapped happy lights around the giant tree branch that used to be in our living room, now fastened to our deck. on a timer, we look forward to this tree greeting us as we arrive home in the dark. we neatly tucked everything else away and the snow shovel is in its at-the-ready place by the back door.
we had the good fortune of visiting frank over the holidays. in a rehab facility, exhausted and challenged from a serious health event, he roused to tell us stories accumulated over the nine plus decades of his life. he – most definitely – lived a life ready for both work and for fun, just like my giddy song lyrics.
and then – back home – between sending out thanksgiving greetings and receiving them – we prepared a big stockpot of irish stew for our meal. with george winston playing in the sunroom, we chopped and sautéed and, ultimately, simmered our way to dinner. it was just us, but as we gathered, we talked about the people in our lives who have meant so much to us, about memories of thanksgivings, about our gratitude for our home and each other. two weeks ago our children and their partners gathered around our dining room table and i am still holding fast to how it all felt that day, stretching it out like good taffy.
most of the lyrics of this old song are really indicative of my age (late teens) and where i had come from – you can tell i spent a lot of time sitting in my tree outside my window writing poetry. “…isn’t it time now to harvest the love in your roots and splash in the puddles around you. from dawn of the day and its dew, we bask in the sunshine surrounds us...” yikes.
then there’s: “…dig our holes in fertile soil of living and hope that it will yield us as giving...” that would seem an innocently metaphoric way – full of autumnal reference – of saying we reap what we sow. and…i still agree with that.
and then, after the song – predictably – in late 70s fashion – modulates up a full step to a new key, it ends: “harvest the love within your heart, harvest the love. harvest the love within your heart, harvest the love…(with repeat signs)...”
which is – really – i think – still what i believe. love. harvest the LOVE. gather with those you love. LOVE one another. we ARE all one fam’ly under the sun. we ARE brothers, we ARE sisters.
spent. the at-least-ten-foot-tall sunflower by the library looks spent. but oh, no, it is not spent. the transience of its time – of time itself – is just the beginning of a new phase, a new purpose, a new cycle. its seeds perpetuate its enduring soul. it keeps on.
“i’ve spent the past fifteen hundred days working tirelessly toward a single goal – survival. and now that i’ve survived, i’m realizing i don’t know how to live.” (suleika jaouad)
and so, here in the little garden just outside our favored library in town, this sunflower is still in its glory. tall, stately, i still catch my breath to see it. alone, it towers above all else there.
today we will have irish stew and mashed potatoes for dinner. it is not a traditional big turkey extravaganza nor is it a gathering of many at our table on this day. but we two will sit – with candles and cloth napkins and steaming bowls and bread – and we will give thanks for each person in each of our phases who have helped us work toward survival, helped us with endurance, with purpose.
we will be grateful for the full table in our dining room just two weeks ago, our beloved children, with us. we will offer up thanks for the food we will eat, for each other, for cherished ones, for being together. we’ll likely chat about thanksgivings of our growing-up, tales of earlier grown-up thanksgivings, thanksgivings when – to their delight – our childrens’ dad did an early-morning turkey-dance with the turkey, thanksgivings when our parents did the traditional end-of-the-table carving.
and we’ll dream about thanksgivings to come when – hopefully – this nation will have come back to its senses, when it will lead with gratitude and appreciation for all its people and its wildly fantastic diversity. we’ll ponder when extended families might return to the holiday table together, in love and generosity, with compassion for each other and all the others, all schisms laid out forever to rest. we’ll wonder about the seeds of the soul of this day – thanksgiving – and the true honesty and heart behind the honest and heartfelt wish – “happy thanksgiving” – we’ve heard so many times this week before today.
we are reminded every day – by something or other – that we all don’t really know how to live. it goes beyond survival, beyond the giant yellow bloom on the ten foot tall stalk. it stands the transience of time and its soul of goodness endures, cycle after cycle.
it is not spent.
and we are grateful for another chance to keep on.
this is called ‘the babycat chair’. though many would have disposed of it years ago, we held onto it…homage to our babycat.
for some reason, he chose this chair – and really, no others – well, to be accurate, he did have a bit of a relationship with the red gingham wingchair recliner in our bedroom. this was his to do with as he pleased, i guess.
babycat would just arbitrarily start scratching the back of this wicker chair. maybe it was when i hadn’t recently cut his dagger-nails, counting as i clipped – 1, 2, 3… – each paw a new 5-count, with his patience on the edge and his teeth locked around my hand holding him. treacherous stuff, but i knew i was in no peril. (though, in retrospect, as i look at this chair-destruction, i can see he was pretty capable of much peril, after all.)
when he’d start clawing the back of this chair, dogga would become instantly nervous, knowing instinctively that b-cat was ‘gonna get in trouble’. dogga would run over and push b-cat aside or pull him by the neck away from the chair entirely. the first time we saw him pulling the cat around the wood floor by his neck, we were totally scared and stopped him. but babycat would go back for more and the dog-pulling-the-cat-around-by-his-neck game would go on and on – for years and years – these two best friends playing and teasing each other.
we put a throw blanket on the chair – and a few pillows – to try and hide the missing wicker, hoping no one would fall through entirely if they chose to sit in the chair. it was really the back of the chair that was the worst – well, and the one side – but babycat had not clawed through the bottom, so this guest-ending-up-on-the-floor thing wasn’t really a big worry.
babycat died unexpectedly in march 2021 and took parts of our hearts with him. he had been with me (and then us) for about twelve years and was a true saving grace for me in his years. i’m not sure how i would have survived many of those years without his lumbering, hulking tuxedo-cat self keeping close to me. we still miss him. both of us. and, for dogga, it’s exponential. babycat was his bestest friend.
in these days of cleaning out, we (or i) have to keep making decisions about things that have threadiness written all over them. this chair has been one of them. do we keep it or do we move on?
knowing that many people are capable of fixing things or repurposing things or utilizing the materials of things, we placed the chair – after i did a photo shoot of it – at the curb. it is never more than a couple hours before someone picks up the things at the curb.
but no one picked up the chair. we talked about breaking it down and placing it in the trash. for perhaps, there was nothing really reusable about it.
in the end, we brought it back up the driveway. it is now at the top of the driveway, adjacent to the garage and the fence, next to the birdfeeder. we haven’t really talked about what’s next for it. but as we pass by on the way from the back door to littlebabyscion or big red, it always makes me smile.
and there are things – here and there – as i continue to muster what i need to go through everything – things i find – things that must be considered delicate, things that must be held gently.
they are not the delicate things that one would label fragile, nor the delicate things that one would think of as valuable. they are the unexpected, the morsels of real life, of real moments, moments felt, moments lived.
there was the torn piece of paper – torn from a decades-old church bulletin – with the first notes of the first piece recorded on my first album.
there was the last physical mother’s day card i received from my girl, before everything went text and digital.
there was the note in little-boy pencil-writing from my boy, filled with hearts.
there’s a small green ceramic compass – just a trinket – i put on my piano.
there is a tiny stick person my big brother made of electrical wire.
there is the (very) ripped sweatshirt jacket i wore driving thousands of miles, criss-crossing the country in busy performing days.
there are the old notebooks. when the kiddos were here, it was my son who first spotted the spiral notebook. it was in a stack of spirals on a shelf in the office upstairs. but this one was sticking out enough he could see his handwritten name on the front cover. he immediately pulled it out to look at it, wondering aloud, “what’s this??” the notebook was empty – all the pages were blank and he asked why we had it in this stack, just as my daughter pulled one out with her name on it. “because we repurpose and there’s still paper in these, so we like to use them so we aren’t wasteful. plus they were yours…it connects me back,” i answered. i would never think of just throwing these out, without using up the paper still in them. it’s a total joy for me to use a notebook that has one of my children’s handwriting on it.
now, there are other things too. there are decorative plates and leaded crystal vessels, vases and wooden carvings, pieces of silverware, scandinavian artifacts, vintage ornaments. i’m guessing some of these items have a little bit of value, maybe – though i don’t imagine a lot. and that’s really ok.
for the things i am finding i hold most gently – the most delicately – are the realest things i come across: the list of homemade candles and tiny cacti i sold door to door when growing up, pulling a wagon behind me around the neighborhood, an early entrepreneur at ten or so. the handwritten notes from my mom or dad, pompom-ing me. the drawings and writings of the girl and the boy. the rocks – so many rocks – i come across, knowing that i chose each one for a reason, for a place, for certain minutes i spent. the earliest lyrics i wrote, the poems from my tree, the bits and pieces of me from a very long time ago, on a different trajectory, giddy and cells-vibrating, in a world i wholeheartedly trusted.
there are many, many things in our house – just like in your house. we try to surround ourselves with the stuff that makes us feel comfort, that makes us happy, that brings us a bit of peace.
in this part of our lives, we are finding that those things are not valuable antiques, newly-purchased tchotchkes or expensive collectibles, top-of-the-line anything. they are the things with story, the things we can carry without burdensome weight, the things that connect us – our dots – back and forward. they are the things that distinguish us from all the rest – our morsels – these relics. they are the delicate things, for without them, we would not be who we were or who we are.
we have few vices. very few, actually. we love coffee. we enjoy a glass of wine. and chocolate – well – sometimes chocolate makes the list (more often for d than for me.)
so when our dear dear friends made us a care package for a recent roadtrip, they included all three. a bottle of wine, a box (yes! a whole box!) of hostess cupcakes, and a bottle of stok cold brew coffee. there were other goodies too – nuts and chocolate bars, munchies galore.
the first night was following ten hours of driving. though we have decided we prefer (wholeheartedly) to drive road trips in reasonable daylight hours now, we were past sunset and were driving the last of our journey that night in the dark. naturally, this was on windy, hilly, non-lit roads with the presence of deer, both alive and deceased. stressful. we went slow and were anxious to get to our accommodations in a little town in the mountains.
we warmed up the pre-prepared dinner we had brought with us and sat down at the tiny counter with a glass of wine to eat, exhaling from a long day and the last hour of our travel.
though we haven’t indulged in a hostess cupcake in forever, it was our obvious choice for dessert (gluten or no, it was clear!). we cheered our glasses and raised our cupcake to jen and brad as we sat, talking about our trip and the gift of having people traveling alongside with you, cheering you on, buoying your every mile.
because the hostess cupcake and the bottle of wine and the stok weren’t so much about the hostess cupcake and the wine and the coffee as they were about the talismans of support and love.
there is nothing like people walking – or driving – or flying – or just holding steady with you.
we raise our hostess cupcake to any of you out there who do the same for others. i’m pretty sure that – THAT – is what being in the world is about.
“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.
so it feels a bit like a continuation from tuesday’s post that i wrote on sunday, but here we are – on monday morning – waking up to a winter wonderland. it all feels kind of early, if you ask me. i mean, it’s only november 10th. but, somehow, in the middle of the night – in those wee hours when i laid awake – in the middle of a great dark hush outside – the kind of hush in which you would never have guessed what was happening – it was snowing. clearly, non-stop.
the sun is coming out now and the sky has that blue that only follows a big snow. crisp, unexpected, inches and inches of snow. since we live by the lake, we were pretty slammed by lake effect and a ruler shows that there are – truly – about 15 inches out there.
we are cozy in here, though. under a comforter and a quilt, sipping coffee, we feel beyond fortunate. we have had our simple breakfast and, even if we can’t get out later, we have leftover food for lunch and dinner. lucky.
what about those people without? there is nothing i can say that would be – in any way – polite language about an administration fighting to continue the cruelty of withholding monies for food. i cannot grok that kind of evil.
i’ve looked – a couple times – at d’s aca healthcare policy to see what his new premium will be. i am well aware that it – a premium already ridiculously expensive – will probably be triple. we also noted that his actual policy will no longer exist and the “comparable” policy that was suggested is one with – no surprise here! – higher deductibles, higher co-pays, a higher maximum out-of-pocket combined with less coverage and – the icing on the cake – zero out-of-network coverage at all.
and who is it that is against universal healthcare??
of course that doesn’t begin to address the violent removal of people that a bigoted administration has decided are not worthy of being here.
one nation, under god, with liberty and justice for all. uh-huh.
so many people – the populace of this country – struggling, desperately trying to stay healthy, to stay fed, to stay safe, to stay alive.
i would never have guessed – in the dark hush of this administration’s years and years of strategizing, scheming, conniving – what was happening, all of what they had planned for this country.
somehow, the siri of the universe seemed to think that we meant “snowed under” literally.
it is rare that grocery shopping delivers such gloriousness. really, i would say, it is never. even though i celebrate the tiniest things – like a minimally-loaded cart that doesn’t add up to over $100. rare, like i said.
but on this day – walking out of woodmans market – into the early evening, ten minutes before 5pm on the first day post-time-change – we both stopped in our tracks.
there was another guy standing there as well – frozen – like when you used to play red-light-green-light-one-two-three as kids.
i instantly reached down and pulled the phone out of my purse, my eyes never leaving the stunningly radiant sky. we all oohed and ahhed together, incredulous at the sunset.
the horizon and the sun stared back, wondering at how this sunset was different than any other they performed.
and we…well…we remembered that – in addition to all the relationship woes this time of great division and angst brings – we could still stand with a stranger and acknowledge beauty that eclipses everything.
reverse threading 