reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: in the 'hood


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dale of allendale. [two artists tuesday]

dale is a pretty good name for a turkey. but then, so is allen. we decided on dale. (even though i am now, post-visit, thinking allen is funnier.) regardless, dale strutted his stuff around our allendale neighborhood for a few days, acting like he belonged here and we were the aliens.

the first afternoon we saw him, we stopped the car and pretty much just stared at him walking down the sidewalk. he gobbled at us watching him and then harumphed into the street to get to the proverbial other side. then, walking around littlebabyscion, he kept heading west. we saw him another time or two wandering about but haven’t seen him now for days. maybe he moved on or maybe he heard about forest park and headed there – a neighborhood west of us that a turkey named carl called home for quite some time.

i suppose it’s easier to change ‘hoods when you’re a turkey. it’s not like you are carrying much baggage with you. unless he had them stuffed under some bushes somewhere, he carried no suitcases, no boxes or plastic bins. he didn’t have his offspring’s elementary artwork or handwritten stories, the driftwood he found on the ocean, heart rocks he collected on trails, photo albums dating back decades. there were no pots and pans, no spices-in-a-box, no favorite jeans or boots or that old ratty flannel shirt he couldn’t bear to toss out. he had no bill folder, no cellphone, no ipad, no coffee grinder or french press. no cds or dvds or canvases or paintbrushes or pencils or paper.

dale had just nothing. yet he looked as though he was completely confident in the world, wandering, exploring, warbling in that gurgling kind of way. apparently, male turkeys do that most often in the spring when they are looking for love. he must have thought that (one of) thelovesofhislife might be in allendale.

a friend of mine is moving from her home of decades. the decision to move was pragmatic and the move will be generative for them. and yet, there is the whole moving-from piece of it. sometimes i think about that. i understand the need to run and touch every glass doorknob, to brush the woodfloor with one’s fingertips, to wander from room to room, deep in memory. when i think about moving – i know that there would be much stuff to go through, dispose of, to give away. but it’s this place – this house – that holds so many emotions. it’s a mixed bag. after all this time – this town feels like home. after all this time – this town doesn’t feel like home. both are true. the dichotomy of these truths wakes me in the night sometimes and i ponder staying, going.

i used to tell the kids – when they were making a decision – to imagine themselves having made it one way and to feel what that feels like. then, imagine making it the other way and try to immerse in how that feels. it’s not always possible, but sometimes it’s an exercise that helps. in the middle of the night, it’s a seesaw.

what i do know is – as i look around this cherished home – that i must turkey-down. not so much on the main floors, but most definitely in the basement where the bins and boxes are stacked, waiting maybe for dale to come and retrieve them.

ahh, but dale is footloose and fancy-free and he has no interest in such baggage. he’s got places to go and things to see. he’s got a world to love. he blows a kiss to allendale and moves on.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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the waxing moon. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

“the beauty of the earth is a constant play of light and dark, visible and invisible.” (beauty – john o’donohue)

i prefer to think of it as waxing, not waning. growing in illumination, not heading toward darkness. the moon on our ceiling just above the crown molding shows up from time to time. the conditions need be right, the lighting need be perfect. and then it’s there, waiting to be noticed. i ran for my camera the first time i noticed it, afraid the shadow-and-light interplay would quickly disappear.

like everything else around us – waiting to be noticed – we are always in choice about noticing or not. we can take the time or not. we can nuance our time to scurry past or we can slow down, just a little, to see.

i recently saw an article about spain, a country that embraces the siesta, a time of rest within the day. there is consideration there to move to a four-day work week in an effort to balance work and life. it is hard to imagine that there is much more important than paying attention to that balance. what else is living? why are we rushing through it?

i really love to take photographs. our hikes in the woods and walks in the ‘hood and time-just-being-time are punctuated with my stopping-stopping-stopping to grab a photo here or there. some things are just blatantly beautiful, visible and full of light. they need not beg to be captured on film. others are not so obvious. they are not so visible, darker, perhaps even invisible, courting imagination. on the trail they disappear silently behind the woods-models, the fashionable haute couture of the forest. instead, they are quiet and steadfast. they have a certain je ne sais quoi that cannot be easily named. and they are indeed beautiful.

on the trail, the tiniest pink petals rising from the decayed leaves, the green-and-green variegated leaves tucked behind the flowering shrub, the fallen tree – home to symbiotic white rot fungi – in and amongst the stately, the healthy. the thistles, dried and browned wildflowers, inosculated trees sharing soil, underbrush, like understudies, taking their usual back seat to the crowns of the woodland.

in our daily routine, the way the spring rain forms a heart-puddle on the patio, the way the snow piles on the wrought-iron table, the way rays through the miniblinds shadow the wall, the way barney ages in the backyard, the way wine glasses clinking catch the light, the way the quilt gathers the morning sun, and the way the light in the living room gifts us a waxing moon.

the balance of the obviously beautiful with the less-obviously, less-definitively beautiful.

we take a bit of time as we can – we slow down just a little as we are able – to make sure that we notice the play of light and dark, visible and invisible.

we look around us, through waxing and waning, standing in the light and the dark. to make sure we notice all the beauty of the earth.

*****

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