reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: fortitude


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clematis sisu. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

clematis is known as the “queen of climbers”. it is symbolic of ingenuity, cleverness, mental strength, all clearly relevant to this vine climbing with abandon, climbing wild and free.

out back – next to our potting stand, completely covering the metal peace sign we purchased at a tiny garden shop on the great river road, trying desperately to overtake the tomato plants on the ground and the basil on the barnwood stand – there is a clematis vine. unlike this purple clematis, it is sweet autumn clematis and will have tiny fragrant white flowers late this summer. we didn’t plant this. it was planted by our eastneighbors a few years back, seemingly to block the open visual space between yards created by the wrought iron topper to their otherwise privacy fence. in the last couple years they have not tended nor encouraged this clematis.

but it is unstoppable.

on our side of the fence it is exploding. it doesn’t seem to favor nor suffer the hot weather, the dry days, the stormy torrential rain and wind; it is ambivalent to the forecast and presses on, despite any challenges, regardless of anything in its way. the clematis finds its way around – or through – and continues growing – a burgeoning bundle of green that each day swells in size, thriving on the fence and the potting stand and the tomato and the basil’s clay pot and our wrought iron gate and scrappily winding its way through the ornamental grasses along our lot line. flourishing, flourishing.

it is not unlike women.

and right now, with the warped, conservative, backward, rights-thwarting, chauvinistic, misogynistic, downright hateful view being thrust upon this nation as policy on women, we must draw on clematis-sisu.

recently someone read a post i had written a few years back – one that included reference to an even earlier post from december 2019. it seems inexorably relevant right now and, with your grace for repetition, i’m reposting it here:

“this piece today is dedicated to all the women who have made it through, all the women who are making it through, all the women who will make it through.

your fire has brought you to the edge of the battlefield many times and you have still made lemonade; you have still prevailed.

you have made it through intensely emotionally abusive relationships.  you have picked up the pieces and you have moved on.

you have made it through physical or sexual abuse.  you have risen from the ashes.

you have made it through terrifying health scares.  you have pulled up your boot straps and determinedly plodded through with massive courage.

you have made it through society’s prioritizing of body image and appearance.  you have been measured by your cleavage or lack thereof, by the indent of your waist, by the clothing you choose, by your hair.  you struggle to remember you are beautiful.  you stand tall.

you have made it through vacuumous times, the middle of chaos, the middle of multi-tasking.  you have created.

you have made it through physical summit experiences.  you have scaled mountains.  you have boarded down untracked chutes.  you have trained your body with weights and exercise.  you have run.  you have skated.  you have pedaled.  you have breathed in and sighed an exhale.  you’ve run thousands of lengths of playing fields.  you took the next painful recuperating step.  you dove to the depths.  you have been on world stages.  you have risen with hungry or fevered children night after night.  you have competed.  you have given birth.

you have made it through falling.  you have made mistakes.  you have been human.  you have forgiven and you have been forgiven.

you have made it through an education steeped in gender-inequality and bias.   you have chosen to learn more, to actively seek the resources, rights and opportunities due you, to resist against the discrimination.

you have made it through a system that undermines your success and devalues your value.  you have fought for your place.

you have made it through financial challenges of single womanhood, of single motherhood.  you have been scrappy and, without complaint, you have layered onto yourself however much it took to get it done.

you have made it through work situations where you’ve questioned how you would be treated were you to be a man.  would you be yelled at?  would your professionalism be questioned?  you have asked these questions.  you have stayed, holding steadfast, or you have moved on; you have decided what is best for you and moved in that direction.

you have made it through the skewed-world fray into leadership roles where your every decision is challenged or thwarted.  you have overcome; you have triumphed.

you have made it through being-too-young and through aging.  and you are not irrelevant.

you have made it through.  you have spoken up, spoken back, spoken for.  you have written letters.  you have marched.

you have been pushed around.  but you have pushed back.  and, just like the tortoise [in the photograph accompanying this post], you have made it through.“

we are clematis. we are women. we are: all the women who have made it through, all the women who are making it through, all the women who will make it through.

scrappy.

like a vine.

with abandon.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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artists. just being mint. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

“survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention…” (julia cameron – the artist’s way)

here’s the thing i have discovered about mint: it is a survivor.

we bought the scrawniest mint plants – looking like they were fading away even as we paid our $2 for them. we brought them home and planted them in some good soil in an old barnwood planter that is somewhat self-destructing. we put the planter on the seat part of an old kitchen chair in the corner of our tiny potting stand garden, knowing that the sun would reach these tiny hopefuls and that these container gardens would have my rapt attention. and then we basically backed up and let nature do its thing.

and, despite some seriously hot weather, some seriously wet weather, some serious challenges from neighboring vines wishing to choke off access to nutrients, the mint has prevailed. it just keeps keeping on and the planters are burgeoning with mounds of luscious green mint.

i had heard – from people who know their stuff – that it would be important to keep mint in a planter rather than planting it in the ground. they said that mint would take over all else in the garden. i can see where that might be true – it is pervasive and aggressive about growing – resilient and tenacious and not at all timid.

which brings me to what i believe might be a good definition of an artist.

i had to have a crown re-affixed this past week – my utterly superb dentist simply popped the crown back on and aimed a blue light of some magical quality that will make it stay there. while i had my mouth gaping open he asked how we were and what we were up to. without the aid of consonants i said, “artist stuff” and he nodded.

artist stuff.

probably a better answer than “oh, we’re just being mint. you know.”

and yet, it is the job of an artist … to be mint. to be pervasive and aggressive about growing, resilient, tenacious and not at all timid. to keep growing despite all the odds, to keep creating regardless of acidic soil or toxic chance of sunstroke or over-saturation or dehydration. to keep paying attention and asking questions and pushing the boundaries – to simply survive.

I wouldn’t have compared myself (or d) to mint before. I would have preferred being sweet basil or maybe spicy jalapeños or willowy dill. or, better yet, i might like to be a pale pink sarah bernhardt peony or a daisy or a sunflower rising above a verdant farm field. mint seems so….survivalist.

but – even as i mosey through that fantasyland – the one where i am gracefully encompassing a body that is tasked with, well, different tasks – ones that are rewarded in traditional fiscally-rewarding ways – i am grateful to have been burdened with these tasks, the task of mint.

to keep on keeping on. to be as beautiful as the ordinary can be. to cling to living and to encourage others to pay attention to the very littlest things. to dance and laugh and sing raucously and to raindance sanity from the universe-sky to a world that is not sane.

“i believe art is utterly important. it is one of the things that could save us.”(mary oliver)

*****

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

cattails feel like home to me.

i grew up on long island – which is, quite obviously by definition, surrounded by water. i spent the vast majority of my time outside at the beach. winter, spring, summer and fall. pebbly beaches along the sound, sandy dunes along the ocean, beach grasses and willowy reeds dominate the vegetation and, so, seeing cattails is like seeing home.

the next time we go there i’ll spend a good bit of time at those beaches. it will be time to reclaim them, to reclaim that place.

it is no surprise to learn that these plants that pull at my heart – cattails – are resilient and adaptable, persistent and resourceful, able to flourish in all kinds of circumstances and under adverse conditions.

spiritually, they symbolize peace and tranquility – the very things i always felt at those beaches back in the day, the same thing i feel as we hike through portions of our trail where we are dwarfed by the cattails surrounding us.

i slow down in those sections, soaking up the denseness of these stands on both sides of the trail. seagulls and red-winged blackbirds elicit the same when i spot them – they zip around and i stand – transported back in time to the marshland on my way to crab meadow or the dunes surrounded by sand fencing on fire island. i stand in memory. no wonder i love this trail.

we arrive back home after hiking – a tiny bit sunburned, our legs tired. the grasses and daylilies in the front yard greet us as we pull in. they are robust and their greeting is in chorus. and i realize that these, too, are the plants of the island. these grasses, these daylilies, spilling-over hydrangea, the ferns in the back, the hosta, sweet lavender…they are the plantings of the waterfront; they are familiar.

we surround ourselves purposefully – and sometimes unintentionally – with things that help us, things that feel good, things that ground us. we sink roots deep and move in the wind like the reeds in marshes, like cattails in a summer storm. we are resilient and flexible, making do with workarounds and chutzpah. we survive and have unlimited ability to thrive.

we are just like the cattails.

those plants that feel like home.

*****

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

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etched in clay. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

once upon a time she decided to hold others accountable.

unlike the david and goliath story, she has no slingshot, no rocks to thrust. it is the real world.

she is an individual against a system – one that hides and protects its own, that has no hesitation around spinning webby tales, one in which truthtelling does not fit into the agenda. nevertheless, she persisted. despite their fabrication of narrative. despite the misogyny. despite their absence of proof and her wealth of evidence. she persisted. despite the badmouthing. despite the betrayal. despite the hypocrisy. she persisted. despite the lack of respect. despite the disregard of boundaries. despite the downright ugliness. she persisted. despite the small desperate contingency of Them in a her-them. she persisted.

and in the end, that will be the prize. persistence. speaking up. standing up.

maya angelou is quoted, “each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”

nevertheless. persist.

*****

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in the same way. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

in the same way this peony bud waits – tightly budded – absorbing the sunshine and the rain, glomming onto every gift nature offers her – i write this ahead, in great anticipation of being in the mountains.

i am a peony bud – wrapped up and waiting to unwind. ready to stand in the sun, soak it in, my breathing a little off as i adjust to altitude, weeping at the first sight of the range in front of us.

and in the same way this peony will soon glimmer in blossoming, i can feel it in anticipation. i can feel standing on a crest or tucked into the aspen forest along the trail or sitting in the brook on a rock. i can feel the petals relax, unwind. i can feel the air brush past me. i can feel my heart beating.

“i am here now,” i will remind myself, “stay here in each moment. don’t go anywhere else but here right now.”

and all that will come – all that will happen – whether ants or good weather or bad – i am nevertheless a bud that will open, unfurling petal by petal. nature and time will have its way. no matter. unconditionally. like goodness and love.

and i will stand today in the mountains – grateful – for peony lessons, for patience and fortitude, for all things unconditional.

*****

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

the first sentence in the new york times arts section front page article reads, “chris domig was ready to throw in the towel.” but then…

for years he persevered and persevered, through thick and thin, this dear friend of david’s. a consummate actor and dedicated off-off-broadway theatre co-founder and artistic director, he was not hindered by the somewhat invisible but definitely impenetrable wall in new york city’s theatre world. and then…

the front page in the arts section belies the rest of the story. but every artist knows it. the ever-present imperative to create and to succeed, not only from a soul place, but from a place where you just might be able to afford to pay the bills, to have a littlebit extra, to hold the esteem of your colleagues, to be recognized. you hold the towel close, knowing that at any moment it might be the thing you do – you just might throw in the towel.

chris decided to take on mitch albom’s tuesdays with morrie. but it took a long time to land. everything takes longer than you think. a long fermata of longing. every artist knows this. most craftspeople know this. most philosophers know this. poets write of it. composers strew melodies around like patio lights. painters throw paint and prep canvas time and again. dancers pirouette, spinning ever faster. writers wordsmith, deleting and reading and elaborating and deleting. beavers in bogs – singularly focused, ridiculously hard work – and the tree still stands. and then…

the sea dog theatre tells this remarkable story – tuesdays with morrie – through the interwoven magic of len cariou and chris. it is earning high regard and the reviews are outstanding. it has landed.

and the towel is set aside.

*****

LONGING from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

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snowdrop chutzpah. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

with rugged tenacity and will, the snowdrops push through the top frozen layers of soil. these are tough little plants, hardy in the snow and cold. the sap contains a type of antifreeze that prevents ice crystals from forming, even in the most inclement weather. they withstand it all.

that’s the kind of chutzpah one needs in today’s world. the ability to withstand it all. the tenacity to pierce through the untruths, the agendas, the misaligned loyalties, the unreasonableness.

as a person who leads with her heart (ask my children!) this can be a rough world. but those who know me really well also know that it’s not just my heart in the game. those who know me also know that – like a dog with a bone – i will hold on….and on….only letting go when it is time to let go. i will not go away easily – particularly if someone is wronged. i will not move on, forgetaboutit, celebrate a new start until i have pierced the opaque frozen layers shielding the truth and readied antifreeze to repel what i would anticipate to be coldhearted strategy.

i’m certain there are many of us. those who have challenged wrongdoing. those who have asked for answers. those who seek the wisdom of unprejudiced eyes. those who are compelled to ask for objectivity in circumstance. those who have pushed back. those who have suffered in pushing back. those whose blooms still open in winter’s freeze. those who are hardy and tenacious. those who withstand the elements, whatever those may be. those who do not give up.

if someone told me i was a snowdrop, i would be proud.

*****

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

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it ain’t heavy. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“… the road is long
with many a winding turn
that leads us to who knows where, who knows where
but i’m strong
strong enough to carry him
he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

… so on we go
his welfare is of my concern
no burden is he to bear
we’ll get there

… for i know
we would not encumber me
we ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

… if I’m laden at all
i’m laden with sadness
that everyone’s heart
isn’t filled with the gladness
of love for one another

… it’s a long, long road
from which there is no return
while we’re on the way to there
why not share?

… and the load
doesn’t weigh me down at all
he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

… he’s my brother
he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

(bob russell / bobby scott – he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother)

queen anne’s lace does not bow down under the weight of the snow. it stands – upright – proudly holding what looks like a single-scoop of snowfall. despite the wind, despite the force of gravity – queen anne’s lace bears the burden, singing along with the hollies “and the load doesn’t weigh me down at all…..”

we have a thing or two to learn from nature. long roads, winding turns, shared concern for welfare, love for one another.

we are witness to miracle after miracle out here. they are tiny; they are vast. we stand at the wayside of nature’s rest area – in the fallow that is late autumn and early winter – and we watch as the journey of the woods marches on. working side by side, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, the forest and its inhabitants are thrust onto the long cold road ahead, eventually seeking spring. the ecosystem is symbiotic and nothing is encumbered more than the next. even in any not-knowing, critters and plants and trees alike trudge on, sans complaint. they carry with them the exchange of energy and the work of the fallow. they are strong. and it ain’t heavy. they are brothers-sisters together.

and they are waiting for us – the humans – to catch up to their simple wisdom.

*****

WAITING from JOY! A CHRISTMAS ALBUM ©️ 2005 kerri sherwood

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like this tiny plant. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

it was precisely the message i needed. like this tiny plant – clearly steeped in sisu – was quietly saying, “there are ways. even against all odds. it is possible.”

and on this day, walking along the lakefront downtown, i nearly missed it peeking out of this drain in the asphalt aggregate street.

i thought about the days, the challenges coming, the uphills, and standing-my-grounds. as we all choose our battles it is much like this tiny plant. the odds may be stacked against us, the difficulties numerous. frustrations will loom mighty, listeners won’t listen and talkers won’t talk. the village looks different than you thought.

but we carry on like the little plant with chutzpah – with sisu – so that we can climb out of the drain-in-the-road and have our say. we speak up and we speak out. we stand firm.

and we root – with fortitude and courage – with sisu – and tether ourselves to the good earth. we stoke up perseverance and grit – sisu – so that we have a surplus from which to draw when we need it.

and, together with the little plant growing out of the drain in the middle of the asphalt street, we rise up and whisper, “don’t underestimate me!”

*****

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

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one more step. [merely-a-thought monday]

mount everest wisdom. mark whetu, professional guide – passionately speaking about the mountain – maintaining, “one more step. you can always make one more step.”

it is without any doubt that i can say i will not be climbing everest (or, for that matter, k2 or annapurna et al). i have watched enough video footage to know that it would not be possible for me to summit. i don’t feel badly about that. i know that there are other challenges i will take on, other summits to step to. and those will take remembering the same mantra “one more step” with the same bravery.

we each have our everests, himalayan mountain peaks up close and personal. some of them are indeed adventures – the stuff we try during time away from work, on vacations near and far. some of them are health issues – and we work toward healthy. some of them are traumas we have lived through – and we, as survivors, work on healing, a little bit at a time. some of them are learning challenges we place before ourselves – to learn a language, to learn to dance, to learn to build, to learn the piano. some of them are more philosophical – a chance to explore and try to understand social and political issues, to dissect and parse out and ask questions, have discourse and form opinions based on true information. some of them are more existential – to sort out how we belong in the world, no small feat.

regardless, there is no way ‘there’ from ‘here’ without taking steps.

“on the road of experience
i’m trying to find my own way
sometimes i wish that i could fly away
when i think that i’m moving
suddenly things stand still
i’m afraid ’cause i think they always will“

(john denver – looking for space)

mark was on everest. in an excruciatingly difficult situation, he speaks to the standing-stillness of choice. he knows that after the way up, the way down is an imperative for survival. he knows the only way there – either way – is one step at a time.

it’s the only way no matter what. no matter the challenge, no matter the summit. one baby step at a time.

*****

BABY STEPS from RIGHT NOW ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

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