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golden moment. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

they were luminescent as the noon sun caught them in its grasp. magical. glowing. each individual seed seemed poised for takeoff, ready to catch the breeze, twirl and fly.

it is much like how i am feeling as i painstakingly go through the house … the bedrooms, the attic, the basement …

the memories all gather on the plume, ready to catch the next breeze and twirl in front of me, bringing me back to moments a long while ago – many decades or even just a few years.

they are golden, these memories, and i give them time as i touch the relics, leftovers saved. i’m trying to go slow, even as i wish to accomplish much quickly. my thready heart relishes what i can remember, even when it sorts to sadness, even when it sorts to tears. in the timeline of life, i am bobbing around like the crazy super balls we had as kids – the ones with bouncing trajectories you couldn’t predict. the wham-o super ball would zig and zag and i am zigging and zagging through time just like that.

sometimes i have to leave a box or a bin or a pile for a bit, step away and breathe through it. i have found that touching these objects – the tactile – makes it all real and up-close, almost like it’s now. and, because i am the sensitive, emotional type, i have to step back … back into the room, straighten up, look out the window, pet the dog, sip some water. it can be overwhelming, this going back stuff.

as the bins empty and the sorting keeps going – this is merely phase one – i can feel the space opening. i can feel the air of whatever is next. i will still save many things, though i know that perhaps some will be relinquished in phase two or three. it gives me a bit more time with the artifacts of my life.

and the treasured antiquities nod as i put them in the save pile. they know it is their golden moment – their chance to twirl for me, their flight with me. they are as luminescent as the plumes, ever so countless, glowing in the noon sun.

*****

HOLDING ON, LETTING GO © 2010 kerri sherwood

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goldening steps. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

the tree lit up as the sun began to sink. oranges, reds, it was golden, the moon next to it, hanging out in the late just-sprang-forward afternoon sky.

we were sitting on the deck in our adirondack chairs – on an unexpected beautiful, warm day. it was the first time we sat outside in the sun since november.

on the same day, we took a hike in the woods, our spirits lifting with each step taken without cold wind in our faces. though we hike on very cold days with very cold winds, this was a glorious day. golden, for sure.

and nature is the only essence with which to credit this golden day. nothing else. no one else.

though the White House et al credit themselves with “the golden age of america [is here]” it is beyond delusional and a disgusting display of fealty from the capitulating folks this prez placed into powerful positions. stripping rights, freedoms, safety from the populace, putting the economy into chaos, hunting down immigrants to whisk away into oblivion, cutting helping programs that aid people so that 1% might get richer, turning our nation into a pariah no longer trusted by the world…newsflash…this is not the golden age.

we are not the elite. we are those people who wish to collect social security, who wish to have healthcare through medicare or the affordable care act, who wish to afford groceries and housing, utilities and upkeep, who wish to have income-based repayment plans for the criminally predatory decades-long student loans that have been reigning our finances, who wish to have economic stability, who wish to travel without fear of stigma, who wish to live in a country with principles based on equality and compassion, who wish our gay adult son and our childbearingyears daughter to have rights and freedoms for their own decision-making about their relationships, their health, their bodies, any children they may or may not choose to have. i’ve said it before – we are the masses. we feel this.

but, just as the moment when an olympic athlete climbs atop a podium to collect a gold medal for this country and you can feel it down to your toes, we can also feel all the vile program cuts that hurt others, the deliberate and aggressive bigotry directed at others, the loss of trust, security, and safety, the absolute betrayal of members of the populace by this cruel administration. it is the darkest of times – for each of us, for this country. light is sinking lower, deep into the horizon. we are heading into the sunless rule of authoritarianism.

it is not just what affects us that affects us.

so how do we collectively influence the actual color of these days? how do we actually golden up these times – this “age” – for real? what magic wand do we wield as a people, together? what steps – pushing back – do we take – for those we love and – in the biggest and most inclusive picture of this nation and this world – for people who will never know who we are?

maybe our collective empathy and our raised voices will help. every step we take forward – speaking up, speaking out – even against the coldest of winds – is a step – a goldening step – taken for democracy.

*****

FIGHT FOR THE LIGHT FOR OTHERS – EVEN IF THEY DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE. (you make a difference © 2003 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.

*****

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golden. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

“as we walk in fields of gold…” (gordon matthew sumner (sting) – fields of gold)

it is the grasses that thrive in our yard. the hostas have mostly yielded to the daylilies and the ferns have volunteered into a bigger garden out in the corner under the trees. the peonies hold their own – their blooms ever the sweetest. but the grasses – planted in our sandy soil near the lake – multiply and thrive.

were we to be dropped out of the galaxy into our yard, we would at least be able to identify the season – based on the ornamental grasses that grace our gardens. they are stalwart and enduring, coming back despite whatever is happening in our own universe, in the world. they are tuned to the sun and the moon and they set a high bar of appreciation for their renewal, their robust, their willowy feathered plumage, their verdant green in summer and this golden glow in fall.

we sit and gaze at these gardens of gold, particularly as dusk’s setting sun plays over them. we are smitten.

i am planting two new roots of peony, a generous gift from my sister-in-law. carefully we have decided where to place these tiny plant souls. they will flower in white blossoms, different blooms from each other. i will cluster them with one of our hot pink peonies – the one that hasn’t yet budded. and, hopefully, the grasses adjacent in the garden will keep an eye on these newcomers. we can gently plant, water and feed, be mindful of recommendations, but the garden will also tend itself and my sister-in-law has reassured me that peonies are so tough and hardy that they don’t necessarily need anything special. welcome words, as we are really neophytes at this.

there are many gardens with much more variety, that are more exquisite, more elegant, lavish, even opulent. yet, each time we come home – or finish our day on the deck or the patio – now that we have passed by the equinox and autumn is sweeping in on the departing wings of summer – i am grateful for these fields of gold in our yard. the steadfast spirit of these golden grasses aligns with us.

*****

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the edges of autumn. [two artists tuesday]

somehow breck knows. nature, in all its wisdom, whispers “it’s approaching” and breck’s gorgeous aspen leaves begin to turn.

we sat against our pillows with coffee this morning, a cool breeze through the bedroom windows. the crows were cawing and i could hear the lake pound the rocky shore. there is a beach hazards alert today calling for rip currents and higher waves. it’s a little grey out – the day i am writing this – and you can feel fall in the air. the wistfuls are at bay, waiting just a little longer to kick in.

but the grasses are evidence, as plumes of gold and maroon shoot up toward the sky. the cherry tomato leaves are beginning to yellow. the long stems of daylily flowers – sans blooms – are drying. the chippies are amping things up. there are just a few less birds in the morning and we hear geese overhead. up-north, along the side of the lake as we paddled, there were pockets of color. maples turning just a bit, reds and yellows, catching the sunlight. the mornings were cool, sweatshirt-worthy. playing bags in the garage invited a few yellowjackets, their quest to stay alive in september always pre-empting my ease outside as i try to avoid getting stung. it is quieter here at home during the day; school has started. it’s dark now when we wake up and the sun is setting earlier in the evening. autumn is arriving. we are standing at the edges.

we sat on the deck late saturday afternoon after a day of chores around the house. we talked about how it is already september. we tried to remember june. i opened the photo gallery on my phone and went back to the end of may so we could track the events these months. dates and happenings blurred as we strolled through pictures and not-too-distant memories. how does this happen? time flying by.

at the end of a week fraught with sudden worry, we were grateful. we had ridden the roller coaster of fear and intense concern, we had been lingering for days in not-knowing. we reached the end of the week with a few answers, the best of the possible worrisome scenarios. and we were grateful.

breck’s leaves quaked in the breeze that picked up that evening. a few raindrops fell on us. we stayed in our adirondack chairs on the deck and turned our faces to the sky. autumn is coming – in the way seasons roll round and round – and we are happy to greet it.

*****

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golden. not golden. [k.s. friday]

silence is golden.

there is nothing quite like the last strains of gabriel’s oboe (ennio morricone) falling into your heart. there is nothing quite like a break in lyrics, or like the moments after the words “and the world will be as one” (john lennon). in music the rests grant time for digesting, for processing, for evoking, for wrapping around you. it is golden time, those rests, and it makes everything else – all other notes, all harmony, all orchestration, all lyrics – make sense.

the music tells the story. it is honest and forthright; it is transparent. it does not suggest innuendo, nor does it allude or insinuate or imply. it does not squelch the truth or warp the narrative. one note follows another until it rests and gives the listener time to breathe, to catch up, to absorb it. its words – the notes that are played – are golden. its silence is golden. it is truth.

and – silence is not golden.

“listen to silence. it has much to say.” rumi may have been speaking of the silence of the snowfall, the silence of the sunrise. like the golden silence of music, these silences fall with grace. they are not silences with implication nor are they incendiary.

equally as powerful as graceful silences of rest is the silence of the person-who-does-not-speak who brings inference, who hints, who implies, who, because of a deliberate lack of words, causes others to jump to conclusions, to opine, to form judgements without the basis of knowledge. powerful seems the person who does not speak up, speak for, speak against, who remains silent, crediting correctness but acting out of intentional design. but this is not the power of rightness, despite any display of righteousness. it is not the power of the powerful; instead it is weakness.

to not speak up, to be silent. to not speak for, to be silent. to not speak against, to be silent. to not speak questions, to not speak objections. to not communicate in honest words, to sit in quiet insinuation, to encourage blind compliance, passive and complicit acceptance, blind trust, to encourage conjecture. weakness.

it is it is on our shoulders to choose our words carefully. it is also on our shoulders to choose our silences in that same way. should our public statements be rigorously measured by integrity and responsibility and truth? should they be steeped in justice and fairness and respect?

yes. they hear your words. and yes. they hear your silence.

*****

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