the flock of cranes were above – heading south – their bugling loud in a blue day still of rushing wind. we stopped on the trail and looked up, expecting to see one or maybe two sandhill cranes flying by, from one meadow to the next. instead, there were two distinct v’s – in the ancient pull of migration.
we stood there – still – watching…until craning our necks for the cranes was too much. i lowered my gaze and felt the earth tilt a bit in the headrush of returning to terra firma. a gorgeous sight – in my eyes and ears.
it is delicious – that sky. it is magnificent – that sky. in the day and in the night. i have been astounded and humbled. i have counted the stars and imagined the clouds. i have been soaked by its rainstorms and reveled in its snowflakes. i am fortunate to have felt the sun and the moon.
i have stood under that sky and i have realized that it is – yes – the same sky that the others i love are also under, despite any distance between us. in my mind i migrate to each – seeking the intuitive connection to their places in the world.
in tasting the sky all is possible. and, in my looking up, i feel grace and hope dizzying down on me.
in a weekend of weather whiplash, it was stunningly beautiful out. the temperatures reached the fifties, the sun was out, the snow was melting, the breezes were mostly gentle. we spent most of the weekend outside. it was revitalizing – in a week we particularly needed a bit of revitalizing.
we usually take the trails – and stay on them – but this was a week of off-trailing. we trudged our way through the marsh, feet sloppy wet, laughing, just so i could get a good picture of the stand of birch. it put us in territory we hadn’t been and the geese stared at us, wondering what we were doing there. miles later, it was no wonder our legs were tired, but oh-so-worth-it.
and then – something caught my attention sticking up from the dried straw of marsh grasses. i reached down to look at it more closely and drew in my breath. a set of three-point antlers. likely not seen by anyone except us. just touching their smoothness we could imagine the white-tailed deer that had shed them. i took pictures and laid the antlers back down in the marsh, knowing that’s where they belonged.
in the days we have hiked since that day, we have seen many deer in the woods and fields. sunday was a gift of a day – alone on the trail, we had so many visits we lost count. gentle faces peered out of the brush at us – we all stood still, silent. these beautiful creatures of grace and intuition and agility, so welcome as reminders to us. they were – seemingly – everywhere around us – off the trail by the river, in the woods next to the trail, crossing our path time and again, watching us. they knew we meant them no harm; we didn’t even move to photograph them. we just watched and our heartbeats slowed down, worries abating in these shared moments.
antlers are said to signify strength, determination, alertness, and protection. in a time during which i need strength, determination, alertness and protection, i will carry them with me – in my mind’s eye. the balance of things of beauty and things from which we would choose to shield ourselves…the deer are powerful nudges to remember both exist, to be gentle with oneself, to move with conviction, to be devoted to truth and not be mired in others’ agendas, to stand – even antlerless – in grace.
we have a basket under the tv on the tv stand. in it are all the associated remote control devices. remote for the tv, remote for the cable, remote for the firestick, remote for the dvd player, remote for the older chromecast, universal remote, remote for the ipod dock and a remote for the standing fan, because it seems to be in good company there.
i remember the days – way way back in my growing up house on long island – when we would be sitting and watching our blackandwhite tv in the den. you had to turn the dial to switch the channels and turn a different dial to raise and lower the volume. pretty straight-forward. a product of older parents, i would watch doris day/rock hudson movies and mash and petticoat junction and gidget together with them, never feeling like we were underserved, never thinking we didn’t have enough choices.
and then there’s now. an infinite number of choices.
and yet, we look at each other and ponder when we should cut the cable and minimize – slightly – the cost of all these choices. we know that wifi will connect us to the firestick thing or the chromecast thing or – should we decide a smarter tv is in order – the roku thing. as it is, there are already too many remotes. i personally have lost track of how to access all of it. i think a smart tv would make tv-viewing-life easier that way. but, when is enough enough?
i remember when i wanted to watch a movie – a dvd – after my son left for college and i was an early-on empty nester. i had no idea how to set up the tv (you know, that bottom left button on the tv remote – nonotthecableremotethetvremote! – that sets things to av or something like that) so i called the boy. he patiently walked me through the process, which i wrote down in an effort to not have to call him again.
yikes. it is not necessarily intuitive. and now, with all the paraphernalia and a non-smart tv that’s rapidly approaching “vintage” (even though it is a flat screen and cost a bazillion dollars back in the day) it’s even less intuitive. middle age has its technological challenges. i don’t feel like anyone warned us.
add to that the fact that it is difficult to find something worthy to watch. we roll our eyes as we roll through the viewing guide. and keep a list of things people have recommended you can find elsewhere without all the accessories or, perhaps, with a few less. there’s really a short list of the things we care to view anyway.
goodness! ikea has the right idea. draw pictures and people will figure it out. simple. intuitive. they’ll get it.
if only it were all that simple. seeing into the future, that is. we might be able to avoid the potholes, the pitfalls, the problems that are in our merry way. but, alas, that is not so. and, unlike oatly and its humorous point-on prediction on the lid of its coffee “ice cream”, we struggle between punting and pure intuition, hopping and skipping and maybe crawling our way into the future.
punting is a given. everyone punts. the older i get, the more i realize people are making it up on the fly. lots of experience, education, research, failures and giant successes help, but it is all kind of punting, after all.
but intuition is a funny thing. we can hear it in our inner ear; we can feel it pokin’ at us, like a snickers bar supposedly pokes at our tummies. sometimes we listen and other times we poo-poo it, dismissing it as frivolous or overly obsessive thinking. there are times, however, when we listen and it is spot-on.
in 1993, in august, i took both my small children to the mall. my daughter was three and my son just seven months old. we went to walk around, watch people, maybe purchase a few things. we were going to stop at mcdonald’s on the way home, as we always did, to have a happy meal. driving back from the mall i made up silly songs about going to mcdonald’s and my little girl was excited. this was our mcdonald’s, the one where she knew how to carry her little meal from the counter, around the corner into the back dining room, to the very back table opposite the rear door, the farthest away from people smoking, because, back then, people still smoked in restaurants.
as we drove down the main road of our town toward the mcdonald’s, in the middle of silly songs and a gleeful child’s anticipation, i heard it.
“don’t go to mcdonald’s,” the voice said.
it was clear. i looked around, surprised to even hear another voice. but there was no other adult in the minivan.
“don’t go to mcdonald’s,” it repeated.
i shushed what i now believed was the voice in my head and continued singing our mcdonald’s happy song.
it got more demanding, “don’t go to mcdonald’s today. don’t.”
that feeling you get in your belly started. the voice nagged me. i started to backpeddle, “well, maybe we will go home instead,” which made my little girl cry out, “no!” from the back seat.
“go home and make a ham sandwich,” was the weirdest. but it was clear. the voice was a ham-sandwich-pusher.
i started to listen. i had lost my big brother just a year prior and he had shown up from time to time, a wave from the next dimension it seemed. and he loved ham sandwiches.
i had to decide fast because we were rapidly approaching the mcdonald’s. i excitedly told my little girl, who – in three-year-old fashion – did not pivot immediately, that we were going to have a picnic at home instead. that we would have ham sandwiches and potato chips and we’d play we’re-on-a-picnic.
we passed the mcdonald’s and kept heading home, a few miles away.
by the time we were unloading into our house i heard the sirens in the distance. the house phone was ringing when we walked in.
“did you hear what just happened at mcdonald’s?” my girlfriend asked.
my stomach lurched.
a man with a gun had gone in the back door of the restaurant and started shooting people. tragically, two people at the table opposite the back door were killed.
i don’t know if they had happy meals; i know we would have.
i know if i could have seen into the future i would have planned on – and sang songs in the minivan about – ham sandwiches and a picnic on the living room floor. i know that tiny bit of adamant intuition-voice saved our lives. i don’t know how that works. i will not question it.
reverse threading 