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harvest the love. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

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.

now if only we could all act like it.

*****

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

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every falling leaf. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

in my son’s first year at lawrence university, i had the joy of visiting the campus fairly often. one of those times there was a comedian on campus and, along with a group of his friends, i went to her show.

it was fall 2011. tig notaro was about 40 then – though she looked way younger. i was 52 or so, not a heck of a lot older. following her bright career for a bit, it was difficult to see her deal with complicated and dangerous medical issues, the abrupt death of her mother, breast cancer, a double mastectomy, relationship breakup.

hundreds – maybe thousands – of shows in the growth of her success later, we watched her on anderson cooper’s – stunning – grief podcast “all there is”.

we stumbled upon this just a few nights ago – after you-tube-ing the news until we could no longer take any more in. anderson was visiting with ken burns and the show was titled, “the half-life of grief is endless“. there is nothing like an honest, open conversation about mortality and loss to draw you in. i repeated the words aloud: “the half-life of grief is endless” before realizing that quote had been – aptly – chosen as the title of that episode.

it feels true – in my opinion. the half-life of grief IS endless. and in that space we inhabit – that space that loss always shields with an impermeable membrane – we find so much meaning, so much life, so much right-now.

though well-acquainted with loss of dear people around her, tig spoke specifically of the loss of her friend, poet andrea gibson. she described the feeling of andrea nearby her. she read bits of her poetry. anderson cried. i cried. i think d cried too.

i never could understand how – when my big brother died – the world could just go on. i wasn’t a child. i was 33 and pregnant with my second child. but i still couldn’t grok it, even as i had lost others in my life, even as I could cognitively understand it. it was a gut-punch, yet i could feel him – wayne – nearby. i could sense his humor, his brilliant mind.

in the love letter that andrea wrote to their fiancée, they wrote “dying is the opposite of leaving…” and in the same, their words, “ask me the altitude of heaven and i will answer ‘how tall are you?'”

i cannot hike in the woods without stopping. there is so much to take in, so much for which to gently hold space, so much to be grateful for. just to see it all…washes over all the grief and enlivens all the grief. both.

and then there is this: “every falling leaf is a tiny kite with a string too small to see, held by the part of me in charge of making beauty out of grief.” (andrea gibson)

*****

LAST I SAW YOU © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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

as autumn moves into full bloom, it is track-able on our westneighbor’s fence. the virginia creeper vine is fully immersed in the transition of seasons – producing berries for the birds, changing color day by day.

but there are fewer and fewer leaves now on the vine. dark is longer and colder and the cicadas and night crickets have ceased their song. in turning back the clock, there’s no turning back the clock.

and we head full-tilt into this season, knowing that winter’s lull will follow, that a time of fallow will start.

we blink back the wistful for summer, for early fall’s warmth as we head into the colder seasons. and we try to remember what we treasure about this next season, just six short weeks away.

with different eyes we look to the horizon of each day – changing our expectations, sorting to presence and appreciating each remaining leaf.

and soon the fence will be bare, save for the vining twigs.

but under the soil there is a gathering momentum of energy. and one of these days again – in the way that nature continues and continues – in the way that goodness goes on – it will burst open and we’ll see growth again. the vine knows.

in the meanwhile, we will wait and watch.

and hope.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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and then. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

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.

*****

MILLNECK FALL © 1996 kerri sherwood

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fire. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

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)

*****

IN TRANSITION ©1995 kerri sherwood

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TRANSIENCE © 2010 kerri sherwood

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the grand way. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

“burning sundown, colored autumn trees, mountain rivers, country livers put my mind at ease. and to realize such perfect harmonies, i’m standing in the dawn of a new day coming on and i’m looking for no tomorrow.” (john denver – in the grand way)

breck is turning. little by little we can see it. if it isn’t too stressed in a week or two, this aspen will be golden and its leaves will shimmer in the sun. breck is standing in the moment…tall, steadfast, perfect…in the dawn of a new day coming on.

i get that. after everything, every big and little thing that has happened over the last few years, i feel like i am – at last and finally – standing in the dawn – here, now – and looking for no tomorrow.

we are – in this sweet phase – doing right now. to be present in your present is, i think, a gift you give yourself. we sprint the rest of the time – striding, striding, sprinting, sprinting – to something we can’t necessarily qualify. we’ve all taken our turn doing this.

and, sitting in the mountain stream, we laid it all down. it floated off with the leaf bits floating past our old brown boots perched on slippery rocks in the middle of the flow. looking for no tomorrow.

breck is beautiful every day. so is this life.

we are – in the grand way.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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getting ready. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

fall has cracked the door open. and, though it may tiptoe around a bit in this teeter-totter season, it will not backtrack. it is on its way.

and nature – in its wisdom – is doing the work, prepping for cold to arrive, stoking up, storing up, guarding its ability to survive, seed heads readying to spread far and wide.

she asked me if i would be recording again. I wasn’t sure how to answer. i don’t know. it has been some time since my last project. recording is expensive and – because of today’s world of streaming – not particularly financially rewarded, making it a kind of skewed investment…heavy on the cost, extraordinarily light on the payoff.

yet, every independent artist knows recording is not solely about the financial reward. it is the expression of what’s inside, just waiting to hit air. it’s doing the work, prepping, stoking, storing, guarding – all for the seed heads to fly.

she asked me other questions as well – how i compose, if i hear music inside. her questions cracked open the door to a conversation I haven’t had in a long time, a real conversation about my music. i felt grateful – not only for her inquisitiveness, but for her obvious support of what i have already produced. it was a sort of balm on a wound that was just lingering, lingering.

I don’t know when – or if – i will produce another album. i’ve teetered-tottered just like the waning of summer and the rising of fall, just like daisies struggling to stay vibrant, open, to stave off utter fallow. i’ve wondered through these last few years if, after fifteen albums, i was “done”, wondered if, at 65, i was no longer relevant, wondered if i still had the necessary chutzpah.

i miss the stage, a piano and a boom vocal mic, a wood apron beneath my boots. i’ve missed telling the stories of songs and the gestures of instrumental piano. i’ve missed eye contact with an audience, finding resonant bits, making people laugh or reminisce, the moment you know they are right there with you.

the daisy seed heads are getting ready. it’s pretty certain they will proliferate gardens again in the spring after their fallow through fall and winter.

maybe – somewhere in here – i am getting ready too. i guess we’ll see.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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golden light rising. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the glow of the setting sun teased through the grasses out front. autumn is rising.

my old hiking boots are waiting by the back door. soon – and very soon – it will be time to change out of our hiking sandals and back to these boots, worn from many, many miles of trails. we need to replace them. the podiatrist informed us we should purchase new ones every six months or so if we are wearing our boots regularly. since we are artists, this is not quite possible. and so, these circa 2016 boots have graced our feet for the last eight years of hikes. every bit of worn leather, every creak, has a story to tell. someday it will be a tad bit hard to retire them. they have served us well.

today is the first day of school here. i am completely out of sync with these touchstones of time. the trip to target – with school supplies galore – helped place me in time. but with grown children and no direct connection to the school system, we had to look up the district calendar.

a certain wistfulness comes on the breeze with the return of the fall sun. it happens every year. it’s hard to identify, but it is palpable.

i wonder if it is a kind of homesickness – for growing-up times back on long island and for my own days with a backpack – stuffed with textbooks, spirals and new pencils – slung over my shoulder.

i wonder if it is a kind of nostalgia – a yearning – for the times when my children were little, when they picked out new backpacks and pencil cases, gathered their wide-ruled notebooks and glue sticks, colored highlighters and crayons, those days when packing lunches and snacks and waiting for the bus were the defining times of the day.

i wonder if it is the bank of memories i carry – taking my children to college, unpacking into dorm rooms, apartments, toting stuff back and forth, my heart holding dearly to the threads of their childhood while, at the same time, supporting their gossamer winging wings, watching their contrails.

i wonder if it is a kind of longing – a pining for things undone to be done, for things not accomplished to be accomplished, for summer dreams to extend beyond the setting summer sun.

autumn rises and i feel invigorated. these are new times. there is new possibility. i have no idea what is coming but this rising autumnal sun is full of golden light.

golden. light. and my old boots are waiting by the back door.

“the sun shines not on us, but in us.” (john muir)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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leaves and leaves. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

in the last weeks our hikes have taken on the shuffling gait of autumn…the days when you crunch through the fallen leaves on the trail or even on the sidewalk. it’s crisp out and maybe you are wearing gloves, a warm vest. there is that sound as you walk. it resonates backward in time – and memories of other walks and hikes flood in. having lived in a few different places – distinctly different from each other – gives plenty of fodder.

when i first moved to wisconsin – decades ago now – we drove down one of the main east-west arteries of the city and into a temperature inversion. it was later fall and, apparently, there were homeowners – in the township that has boundaries meandering in and out of the city – burning leaves. the smoke was like a giant blanket, trapped and literally hanging over the road. it was strange to drive from clear daylight into this smoke-filled area – fogged way high up so that you couldn’t see the blue sky when you were in it. i haven’t encountered this since, but the memory of it is still clear. it was early in my time here and it felt unnerving, adding to the feeling of homesickness.

my sweet poppo used to burn leaves. back on long island our home was in front of a woods so there were plenty of trees in our yard. after we raked and raked (and raked) he would burn them, like everyone else. the smell of leaves burning still takes me back there. it brings hot cocoa and marshmallows to mind, my momma adding to the fun. sometimes i’d have friends over and call it a leaf-raking party.

i have snapshots in my mind’s eye – my children playing in leaf piles. towheaded toddlers, mittens, sweatshirts or snowsuits – tumbling and laughing and throwing leaves. neither were raking-fans but there is no denying the pull of a good leafpile.

i’m not doing the raking these days. my wrist can’t handle it. but d doesn’t seem to mind – he loves the physical-ness of raking leaves. there are times i think that it would be exceptionally wonderful to live in a place that is completely natural – where grass is not manicured, leafblowers are unheard of, and leaves are left to become mulch and part of the earth. maybe someday.

in the meanwhile we abide by green biobag rules and rake the extra off our yard, making sure there is plenty still to insulate our plants and to provide frigid-weather shelter for critters. it makes me happy to think of the bunnies who have clearly taken up residence under our deck, tucked into leaves we could never reach.

and – on those days we hike in the woods and the wafting of a distant bonfire reaches us – i stop in the middle of the trail. and, like layers of leaf-smoke blocking the sky for a moment or two, i am wrapped in the embers of memories.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

ASPEN STAND

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orange sherbet and milkweed. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the orange sherbet sky is a stunning backdrop to most anything but the milkweed’s wisp is anything but most-anything.

we pass by and notice. we pay attention. texture and color and movement from the gentlest breeze – it is a photograph before it was a photograph. my job was simply to snap it.

our days are slower. we linger in not-knowing. we acknowledge time as it sneaks by. and the next week comes before any of us are ready, before it seems possible. even the milkweed is surprised.

we are learning lesson after lesson. that this is life: the things our fingertips touch, the scent on the wind, the view before us, the call of the black-capped chickadee, the ground under our feet. we are caught up by the impermanence of it all. we are realizing the folly in the gathering of stuff. we immerse in the river where there is no stratum. we feel the moment, without knowing the edges of next.

the orange sherbet sky doesn’t dawdle. color has another place to be. and as the sun drops below the horizon, the shadow-gaps fill in.

we stand with the milkweed in dusk, close, loitering in early night and, with gratitude and rest, ready for next.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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