we are all guilty. we speak before thinking. we spew before thinking. we condemn before thinking.
my sweet momma used to tell me if i couldn’t think of anything good to say, not to say anything at all. my dear friend linda taught me that if i couldn’t think of a worthy response to, let’s say, situation/thing x, to say instead, “now THAT’S a situation/thing x!!” both are generous people who have abided by the golden rule and have remembered that they are indeed messengers, anywhere they are.
we are ambassadors, everywhere we go. we take our partner with us, our family with us, our workplace with us, our community with us, our country with us. we represent. we can choose to be messengers of goodness, of grace, of kindness, of fairness, of positive and supportive words spoken about others. or we can choose to be messengers of negativity, cynicism, apathy, denouncing places or another person or peoples.
i recently overheard someone demeaning their workplace. the message was clear and their words of disregard served only to discredit the person speaking. a-messenger-wherever-we-go is a responsibility, sometimes a true test of our maturity. we need be careful. my sweet momma would say, “think before you speak!” i would add – not only because you could be overheard, but because it is the right thing to do.
lists. we have lists of things to get done today, this weekend, next week. so.much.to.do. “…it’s not just romance, it’s not just spark…it’s not just passion, it’s not just flame…” (lyrics)
we are not alone. real life requires lists. and lots of hard work. together. we lean on each other for the challenges. we hold each other through the really tough stuff.
we just came back from being on an island where we heard a story about the recent high school graduation. there were three (3) graduating seniors. (the school has about 72 students, k-12.) most of the people on island went to this graduation. it lasted two hours, with speeches and personally-chosen-songs played by the graduates and a recessional. it is amazing to think about how many unrelated people watched this ceremony, taking time out of their lives to witness this very important moment in the lives of these young people. it takes a village to raise a child. yes.
but everyone knows everyone there, indirectly if not directly. deb recommended to never say anything negative or derogatory about anyone because they are likely related or best friends to whom you are speaking. she added, and i agree, that “we should always live like that.” there is a shirt in her sweet bookshop that already has my name on it and reads:
as we plan our lists and our calendar for this next crazy week, we can see, ever so clearly, that our own village is here to help us. we lean on each of them for the challenges. they hold us through the really tough stuff. it does take a village. it takes each other. together. that is the stuff of real life.
the studio in our basement is full of beautiful paintings that haven’t yet found their proper home. it is also full of boxes of cds that have been replicated and shrink-wrapped, ready for their new homes. there is no shortage of completed work down there, no shortage of heart projects, no shortage of sweat and tears. there is no shortage of work in progress, canvases prepped, notebooks of lyrics and melodic gestures.
we moved our 20’s father’s paintings last week. today we will move the remainder. as we carefully loaded big red, you could not help but feel wistful about these paintings moving away from their home, to be stored by 20. duke was a prolific painter and his work is stunning; we wondered where and how these mostly large pieces would find a permanent home. where does it go from here?
any artist, thinking about the impermanence of life, wonders that. where does it go from here? who will purchase it, hold onto it, look at it, listen to it, read it, ultimately – feel it? will it matter later on? does it matter now?
colorado to wisconsin. with a stop in columbia, missouri. the first day is long. twelve hours give or take. we drive out of colorado into kansas, which has to be one of the wider states in the journey, and head for wendy’s. she and keith are tolerant of whatever-time-we-get-there, knowing the challenges of a long drive. this time, it was different.
this time we weren’t in our littlebabyscion toodling along, huffing and puffing up hills. this time we were in Big Red, a giant ford F150. she hadn’t been driven this-far-at-one-time in years. we were high up and felt like road warriors.
columbus gave us a couple cassette tapes to play in the player and, in planning ahead, i had brought a dozen favorites from years past (ok, the 70s are many years past.) we played each of them, singing along. and then switched to the radio. it only seemed right that country music be blaring out of the speakers, so we obliged.
although we blasted cassettes of john denver, loggins and messina, alabama, england dan & john ford coley among others, i have a few favorite radio songs of the journey east and north. one direction’s what makes you beautiful, lady gaga and bradley cooper singing shallow, toby keith’s i wanna talk about me and my new fave, billy currington’s good directions and turnip greens. a sweet country-music story.
we were talking with jen and brad last night in their kitchen, lingering over our potluck together. we talked about compromise and life and decisions and chance. like everyone, david and i have had our share of each of those. decisions sorted and pondered, and compromises, bending to the things that make life meaningful, balancing reality with idealism. and then there’s chance. we could relate to the story of turnip greens…happenstance changing life. a choice, one direction taken, a turn, one click…and everything changes. what comes is predicated on what was and what is this very second. we second those lyrics – thank God for good directions and turnip greens.
we turned up the stereo in Big Red and opened the windows with the AC on. somewhere along the way, we decided it was a she, for she had gently mothered columbus as he drove a bit more gingerly in recent days and she sturdily and protectively lumbered us across the country. laughing and certain of everything and absolutely nothing, we turned this beautiful big old pickup truck toward home.
i cry when i first see them. i cry when they are disappearing. those mountains. my last long look at them as we drive east out of colorado. those billboards and tshirts and bumper stickers that say, “the mountains are calling and i must go” speak to me. they have ever since i was 18 and first experienced them. john denver’s rocky mountains have been a lure for decades now. and i can feel the pull, even from a distance.
if you look past the horizon in this photograph you will see what i last saw as we drove away a few days ago. you won’t know that tears came to my eyes or that i turned in my seat to watch the vista fading away at 70mph. we didn’t even get into the mountains this trip and i could still feel my heart stretching, reaching to hold on.
they are in the distance now. so much so that i cannot see them.
but i carry those mountains with me and know we will one day, again, be there. i will catch my breath when they loom suddenly into view. we will drive deeper into them, surrounded by forest and canyons and soaring beauty. we will hike on adventures and we will sit and gaze in wonder. and then, when it is time to leave, i will crane my neck and watch them disappear. into the distance. no dry eyes here.
we were talking on the phone. it had been quite some time and there was so much to catch up on it was difficult to know where to start. we started with this week. “so much life lived this week,” heidi said. yes. so much.
in the last week or so we have traveled both east and west. from the ocean to the mountains. from children to parents. from littlebabyscion to big red. we traveled from together to missing. from gathering things for a new home base to removing things forever from a home. from being known to the dementia-induced-agony of being not-known. from a new plan to yet another new plan. from certainty to uncertainty. from before to after.
we have driven over 3000 miles and flown 1000 miles. we had the absolute joy of being with our children. we had the absolute joy of being with david’s parents. we’ve been with beloved family, with our dearest friends, with complete strangers on airplanes, in rest areas, in hotels, in shops. we laughed, we talked, we questioned, we argued, we cried, we cringed at how life changes, we celebrated life’s changes.
days swirled around us as we turned the pages of our calendar and we kept going. taking snapshots, memorizing moments, sealing memories for eternity (as mike wrote). for this was only one week or so. and yes, there was so much life lived.
i researched. for months. looked at tons of sites and reviews. i ordered brochures from the chamber of commerce (which, incidentally and almost predictably, arrived after we returned from the trip.) i poured over other people’s adventures and stories, made lists of things to do and places to go. it was a really important time for me and i wanted it to be perfect: my-children-under-the-same-roof-at-the-same-time. the perfect mom-gift.
always up for a roadtrip adventure, we drove to hilton head in our littlebabyscion. first thing upon arrival, we opened the shades in the living room. the dunes and the ocean exploded into view, the sunset beckoned us. without unloading, we took two juice glasses of wine and a blanket down to the water’s edge and watched the sky relinquish day. night arrived and it was perfect.
My Girl flew in the next morning and My Boy the very next day. the sun was bright, the sky was blue, the sand hot, the ocean was a constant lure. walks and conversation, games and homemade sangria, bold coffee and generous glasses of wine, watching crabs on the sandbar and googling jellyfish, chips and guac and kirsten-margaritas, eating out on the deck under the umbrella and time in the pool, watching kirsten or craig prepare a meal or two, relaxing on lounge chairs and a one-time bowling adventure. this was the stuff. it was hot; over 100 degrees with the heat index; a bit too hot for kayaking or standupboarding under a sunburning sun. but time seemed to morph and days passed us by in the way time on the beach does.
later i wondered why i didn’t take out my lists, my research, my reviews, the brochures i got from the grocery store. why i didn’t insist on an adventure-a-day, an activity. but jen encouraged me to let that go. she said she does that every time she is lucky enough to have her children all-under-the-same-roof-at-the-same-time as well. a mother’s brain (and heart) on overdrive.
it isn’t the activities or the adventures. it’s simply the time. when you are there and you are real and you share bits and snatches of life, joyful or trying. when you catch your breath gazing at your children, beautiful human beings experiencing the wide spectrum that life offers. and you love them beyond words, grateful that they have given you this time. together. under-the-same-roof-at-the-same-time. HH. hilton head. perfect.
hilton head, south carolina cares. it is an honor to be in a place that has committed itself to protecting creatures put at risk by human behavior.
each night, right before 10pm, one of us (often it was dan) would run to carefully lower the shades on the ocean side, turn off the outside lights, and double-check that there was no light spilling out onto the sand, something that could confuse the loggerhead hatchlings on their pilgrimage from nest to water. large sections of sand and dunes were roped off to protect shorebirds and information is readily available that explained how one should not run into a flock of birds or go too near an obvious nesting area. the piping plovers are endangered, as are the loggerheads. and hilton head is dedicated to them.
these creatures deserve our respect. this world deserves our respect. how many creatures, how many species are endangered? how are we making an effort to respect and protect them? how are we not?
there was something very sweet, very encouraging about seeing My Girl, My Boy and our Dan all immediately acknowledge the importance of these simple rules protecting the shore wildlife.
it gives me infinite hope, despite the current efforts of our country to ignore the plight of our good earth, that this next generation will not stand by and watch it destroyed. it’s pretty simple, they said, referring to the rules environmentalists had written. yes. it is. respect and protect.
the sand was ridged pointy and very hot to the touch, but this is the place we had already chosen to park our flipflops. each time we all walked down to where the waves hit the shore we wore our flipflops through the dune seagrasses, punctuated with sand spurs, trying to avoid the inevitable. the horseshoe crab shell was our marker…the place we would leave off our shoes and venture to the water over sand that had been warmed by extreme-heat-wave-induced temperatures. The Girl said we needed to be zen, as if we were walking on hot coals. and so we scrambled over the blistering sand, all zen-like, as we walked and then, quickly, ran asfastaswecould down to the water or back to our shoes. we became creatures of habit. no matter how far we walked along the beach, this horseshoe crab signaled home.
until.
the feels-like temperature was about 106, the sun beautiful and bright but dangerous. the sand….was brutal. i started to leave my flipflops by the horseshoe crab and make my way again across the pointy-burning-the-bottom-of-my-feet sand when it suddenly occurred to me that we could wear the flipflops further. that we might c.h.a.n.g.e. where we were leaving them. that there may be other places we could all park them. there could be another horseshoe crab parking lot. or some other marker. we could actually wear them across the pointy-burny sand, all the way down to the damp sand cooled by the ocean. brilliant!
The Girl and The Boy immediately followed, no second thoughts for them. change must be easier at 29 and 26 than it is at….our ages. we laughed aloud at this habit, this ritual, that we had created, that we were adhering to, d and i. we wondered aloud why it hadn’t occurred to us sooner to just leave the flipflops on till we were closer to the water’s edge, to avoid the pain.
i’d like to think it was because it was held over, from way-back, when our ability to zen-ly walk across burning coals excelled. and habits were easier to break.
we have a dishwasher. this is a picture of it. it does not work. but it takes up space in our old kitchen that would otherwise be blank. instead, we wash dishes. by hand. the old fashioned way. it’s a good time to gaze out the window and think or have a little conversation as we wash, dry and put away. in no rush. i distinctly remember watching my sweet momma and poppo do this when i was growing up. they would stand and chat (or be quiet) and work together until one day when my dad brought home a portable dishwasher that attached via a hose to the sink. they would roll the dishwasher out of the laundry room. it would sit, attached to the faucet, in the middle of the kitchen and you had to maneuver around it to get to the cabinets or across the kitchen. ahhh. dishwashers have come so far. and yes, some haven’t. like ours.
for the last week we have had the gift of being in an absolutely beautiful place on the ocean. there are too many superlatives to list about the magic of being there, too many stories to tell. so many memories to take with us, so many learnings.
and – we had the use of a dishwasher… a real live one that actually works; it washes dishes all by itself and then dries them. amazing!
one morning, after waiting for the coffee to brew, david brought me coffee in bed and said he had realized something. during the spell of time he was waiting, after opening up the house to the rising sun, he emptied the dishwasher. he took each item out and carefully put it away in its place. slowly. when he came upstairs he told me that this simple task had actually been quite profound. and, because it’s what we do, we talked about this observation.
as we take on many new tasks with much to orient to and learn, we have agreed to do just this, to move with this simple mantra: to empty the dishwasher slowly. to put each thing gently in its place. to be mindful and intentional and not overwhelmed. each glass will get put away, each plate will stack, each utensil will nest. there is no rush. there is right now.
reverse threading 