this reminds me of the song lyrics: “what goes up must come down/spinnin wheel gotta go round/talkin ’bout your troubles is a crying sin/ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin….” (david clayton-thomas). spinning wheel is a late 60s song – popular by blood, sweat and tears.
john denver’s quote is likely from ten to twenty years later: “things go up and down. if you can survive the down it will come back.”
both encourage holding on for the long haul – which is precisely what we need right now. to survive.
though as i write this, i am pondering the wisdom in simply riding a painted pony and letting the spinning wheel spin. we need something different now. inaction in these times is not survival. it is how a democracy perishes.
it is a bit like the recent flippant current-administration quote “just sit back and relax. it will all work out well in the end – it always does.”
for who?
that makes my skin crawl.
every single day the new news astonishes us and, yeah, doesn’t astonish us. it’s always more of the same – gluttony, cruelty, bigotry, corruption – exhibited and acted on by people in positions for which they have no credentials but for sycophantic loyalty.
sitting back and relaxing because it will be well in the end is merely complicity. it’s going down with the ship without even trying. to go down and to not come back.
the words “it will work out well” are suspect. they are the cavalier words of a dictator. and, in a twist of twists, these are the words – the recommendation – of the leader of the free world.
is this really where two hundred fifty years has brought us?
early in spring, the markings on jumpseed in the underbrush look like hearts. they capture my attention because, well, hearts.
as jumpseed matures, it is said that these markings either fade or disappear entirely. so, no more wearing its heart on its sleeve…so to speak.
before settling in to write today we watched three john denver videos – of his song for you, his song the wings that fly us home and his annie’s song. we leaned back against a stack of pillows, snugged under a quilt on what has been a rainy day so far, linked arms and listened.
i am married to a man who is not afraid of weeping. he is not afraid of the tears that come to his eyes as he sees or hears something beautiful. he is not afraid to feel or show how he is feeling. his heart is emblazoned on his outer leaves. and i hope that no amount of maturing will change that.
i am fortunate to be a mush married to a mush. it doesn’t take much to touch us, to really drive home something sentimental, to get lost in the wistful, to recognize goodness and wonder, to feel yearning for kindness in the world, to fight tears.
i feel – in these times – that we are walking with a perennial lump in our throats, a deep sadness that rises with each new report of corruption, of cruelty, of destruction, of extremism, of degrading of peoples, of the administration’s intentional divorcing of this country’s constitution. our own fear and disappointment – added to the utter chaos in this land and globally – make a kind of despondency close at hand. “unbearable,” a friend wrote about the news. yes. truly unbearable.
it helps in some ways to talk about it though we are finding fewer and fewer people who really want to talk about it. i’m not sure why that is. silence – or the lack of conversation – does not make it go away. centering only on other things can feel like looking through rose-colored glasses – a bit of pollyanna-ing. for me, the sharing of worries or frustrations or fears seems authentic and feels like a way to support each other through these times.
but not every plant wears its heart on its leaf.
though…in these times…wearing your heart on your sleeve – even just a bit – a heartbroken heart watching the decimation of our nation – may be the thing that can bind us together. and talking-it-out might gird us all with the fiery grit we need to push back, to reclaim goodness here and everywhere.
“…and the spirit fills the darkness of the heavens/it fills the endless yearning of the soul/it lives within a star too far to dream of/it lives within each part and is the whole/it’s the fire and the wings that fly us home.”
we hike along this trail often, so often we know it well, its curves and windy way through the trees, the meadows, the boggy areas, the marshland near the river. only when we go earlier in the day do we see the morning glory. only when the sun is not too high in the sky are these beauties wide open, begging for attention on this, their day.
morning glory blossoms only last one day. they bloom in the early morning and by late afternoon have closed their fragile petals. the star in the middle of the glorybloom is stunning, the vine winds willy-nilly through the underbrush.
i always feel fortunate to be witness to the morning glory, though i am haunted by a song about morning glories that i cannot remember and haven’t ever spoken about. it was written by a man who stole morning glory moments from young women – from me – in vile self-serving predatory hunger.
i can hear the strains of finger-picked guitar, the croon of his easy, practiced singing voice. i know the lyrics ‘morning glory’ are in the lyrics of the song – i can practically taste it every single time we pass morning glory. but i cannot come up with the song and, since it was probably not published, i likely won’t be able to find it so it remains amorphous but potent.
and now, passing the pink and white glory holding hands and stepping together, i think it is probably time to sage the morning glory. it is time to exhale, to ease my mind into different lyrics – like the lyrics john denver sang in the song today, the lyrics of gentleness, of soft reverence for the other, of sweet love, of gratitude and appreciation, of new dawn, of fleeting time, of presence.
“today while the blossom still clings to the vine/i’ll taste your strawberries, i’ll drink your sweet wine/a million tomorrows may all pass away/e’er i forget all the joy that is mine today.” (today – randy sparks)
“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.
in the rare moments d texts me, my phone ringtone is john denver’s annie’s song.
“you fill up my senses like a night in the forest, like a mountain in springtime, like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean, you fill up my senses, come fill me again.
come let me love you, let me give my life to you. let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms. let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you. come let me love you, come love me again…”
and in those moments – daisy moments – i am reminded, once again, of the improbability of two tiny starflecks in the universe noticing each other, of the utter impossibility of our meeting, the sheer unlikeliness of our marrying, the astounding unimaginable gift of our time together.
even in the moments when my senses are overburdened, impatient, saturated, senseless.
daisies in any form, every stage – this wildflower fleabane – are just like hearing annie’s song. because i am me, they bring tears to my eyes.
“remember,” they whisper from the meadow on the side of the trail, “just remember.”
a long, long time ago my big brother penned a calligraphy print. it says, “may there be such a oneness between you that when one weeps the other will taste salt.”
“and you wonder where we’re going where’s the rhyme and where’s the reason and it’s you cannot accept it is here we must begin to seek the wisdom of the children and the graceful way of flowers in the wind“
when i was little my family took vacations at upstate new york state parks. we stayed in rough-hewn cabins where, at night, my sweet momma would warn us all to pull up the covers and she’d run around the cabin spraying raid everywhere. the mosquitos were ruthless but the fun was grand.
one summer both my brother and sister and their spouses and children vacationed as well. we all had cabins next to each other and explored the lake and the woods and surrounding towns. one of these towns had a county fair. so we went.
naturally, those traveling carnival rides were a part of the fair – the ones where they tear them down and put them back up, trailer them to the next venue day after day. as an adult i feel somewhat leery of those – always wondering if they had leftover reassembling bolts or when the last time was that they checked belts and such – but as a child, i don’t think i gave any of that a thought. i just believed in goodness and that all was well.
because i simply cannot do anything spinny, we went on the merry-go-round and then my dad convinced me to go on the ferris wheel. it seemed inordinately large and went high into the sky. we stood in line and then took our seats in the little cabin.
i was excited until we went around once. then they stopped the wheel at the top, loading other riders down at the bottom. i must have felt imperiled. i began to freak out.
my dad had this loud whistle – he could whistle perry como tunes as well, but this was a really loud whistle. he whistled his whistle and the attendant looked up. my poppo yelled down to stop the ride when we got there – we needed to get off. and so the attendant stopped the wheel and we disembarked.
i wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about wanting to stop and get off. not back then.
and i’m not the least bit embarrassed now about every now and again wanting to stop the world and get off. i feel like we all need some time off. quiet time. time out. time outta this world that has gone off the deep end. time away from feeling imperiled. a breather.
the last weeks – months, years, really – have been over the top. though you don’t know my whole list, we all know our whole list. it is not an exaggeration to say that we are imperiled. we are on the top of the ferris wheel and the attendants are not quite sure they installed all the bolts.
on these days – of too-much – we – d and i – do stop the world. we go for a hike in beautiful places. we sit on our deck with our dogga. we read together. we prepare and cook food. we appreciate the sun streaming in the windows, spilling onto our quilt. we find rhyme. we seek reason.
and, before you screech me to a halt – stopping the world and getting off is not the same as sticking your head in the sand. it’s simply a way to reassess. it’s a way to think and plan. it’s a way to evaluate what can be done about the ferris wheel. it’s a way to be able to come back to the trenches and get back to work. it’s a way to resupply the energy drain that reading the news exacerbates every single day.
i wonder where we’re going. i wonder what the rhyme and what the reason of the bigotry and division and marginalization and diminishing of rights and the barreling toward extremism and authoritarianism and downright meanness. i’m astounded and not astounded. remember, we don’t know each other’s stories.
i do know that if stopping it were as easy as having my poppo whistle from the top of the ferris wheel, he would do it. in a second. for he and my sweet momma would have nothing to do with the direction of all this. no. my dad was not missing-in-action and a POW in world war II to watch his beloved country heading toward the possibility of turning into THIS. THIS is what he fought *against*.
i’d imagine that as my mom and dad are watching from that other plane, they are also astounded. and not. for they are just as aware as you and me that there are just really evil people with inordinately evil ideas ready to pounce in unconscionably evil ways.
and i’d imagine that – yes, in the same way he looked after me on that day at the county fair – he wishes he really could just whistle and make the ferris wheel stop. he likely wishes that the world stop in suspended animation for a moment and then come back to its senses – to the place where the children and the flowers are actually from where we draw wisdom. to a place of goodness. to a place of rhyme and a place of reason.
“and the spirit fills the darkness of the heavens it fills the endless yearning of the soul it lives within a star too far to dream of it lives within each part and is the whole it’s the fire and the wings that fly us home…”
and soon afterward, the sky was softer. and soon afterward, the clouds billowed like bubbles stacking up on a bubble-wand after gently blowing, finally releasing, floating off. and soon afterward, it softened to pink and pale lavender. and soon afterward, one single bird winged its way across the sky, blurring in flight.
and the shift in the universe brought a little bit of healing, a little bit of perspective. it eased the darkpain, the yearning for something different. it connected the dots from earth’s ground to the stars-so-distant. it lit hope and a freedom that had been elusive.
and afterward, my heart flew me home. back to steady. back, but with wings. for next.
“find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”(jonathan livingston seagull – richard bach)
because it feels like the past, the present and the future all at once and – here – it all wraps around your heart.
we are both john denver fans. not the ridiculous push-to-the-front-of-the-crowd-for-a-signature type. just the quiet, eternally-grateful type. he has inspired us. he has inspired me. he made the simple melodic gesture a visceral thing. he elevated folksy messaging and storytelling; he reinforced the beauty of a lack of adornment. simplicity.
and when we stand in this beautiful place – designed to honor him, his composing and songwriting, his vision of the world – we are standing in and with his spirit. and you can feel it.
we slowly walkabout, arm in arm. we hum the songs chiseled into granite boulders. we stand immersed, pondering, in front of quotes of john muir and leonardo da vinci and helen keller and rachel carson and jacques cousteau.
there are days that the clouds form lower elevation mountains along the horizon and you are certain that land is not far away.
there are days that clouds – skybluepink, puffy white, ominous grey – float by, high in the sky or dipping down into the camera lens, and land – on the other side of lake michigan – is nowhere to be seen.
it depends on the day. it depends on conditions. it depends on tiny atmospheric changes. “air can reach saturation point [forming clouds] in a number of ways.” (noaa.gov)
we are reading john denver’s autobiography. it is a perfect example of all the conditions aligning for clouds to form, a perfect example of the fragility of saturation point. in a series of miniscule decisions, moments, meetings blessed by timing, john denver is catapulted into success. we are almost halfway through, reading aloud and relishing it. john’s music, his messages, his work in the world – most definitely crystals in the atmosphere.
we returned the measure to the library. we didn’t finish it. i look at the stack of books next to my side of the bed and realize that it is not necessarily a light-fiction-time for me, though i am quite sure there might be exceptions and i know that there are profound novels, deeply rich. this bedside stack is non-fiction, informative, questioning. it wasn’t that the measure didn’t seem a good read. it was more that it didn’t hold me, my attention. after the first couple days of blanketed-both-ends-of-the-couch reading snippets as there was time, the book sat atop the throw and just waited and – then – became overdue. the quarters accumulated for a few days and i thought we’d sit down to finish it, but we never did. eventually, we mutually decided to bring it back. and then we talked about it on the trail…why it didn’t seem to appeal to us right now.
i suppose there are times in life when all you need is a giant stack of romance novels or mysteries. maybe those times are periods of comfort – skybluepink times – when you are freer to languish, freer to relax into life. these are the times when you don’t see any horizon – the lake is endless and there are no looming summits to climb.
and then, there are other times in life – when escape would seeeem like a good idea – when, instead, the books you choose are steeped in reality, steeped in others’ challenges and successes, telling stories of grit and fortitude and good luck and the help and support of others, the stories of getting-there. the books ask questions you might ponder in sorting out next or the books outline ways to approach that which you are facing down. non-fiction is more of a unpredictable day out there over the lake, getting unexpectedly sopped by rain, seeing mountains to climb on the other side, wondering if the sun will ever shine.
john denver wrote, “i’d learned that powerful songs are powerful not because they’re pretty or bouncy or funny, but because they’re about the human condition and what we all aspire to; i’d learned those were the songs i loved.”
a pretty sky – or song or book – doesn’t hurt – in fact, it can fill one with much contentment. but only pretty skies could be suffocating. we need the rest – all the atmospheric conditions to really feel the yin-yang spectrum, to know we are truly living, to be reminded of how crystals in the sky are formed and to know the sun is shining – regardless.
so…we didn’t go to nearly enough places and i am sort of stuck in buyer’s-remorse, retail-regret, choice-underload.
i, eventually, chose frames – they resemble john denver’s and john lennon’s. a little bit bohemian. a little bit retro.
it had been a long, drawn-out affair. i tried every frame on at the vision center – well, not the really expensive ones because – though we had vision insurance at the time, my portion only covered contact lenses and no back-up glasses. we went to costco and i went up and down the optical wall, trying on, taking off, trying on, taking off. it was exhausting. we went back to the place where i had my eye exam – there would be a discount for buying glasses in addition to contacts.
nearly everyone at the vision center got involved. i had gotten it down to five different frames and – standing in front of the mirror trying them on over and over and over again – finally resorted to asking lovely sarah, the my-age vision assistant. i tried each pair on for her while david watched. we eliminated two frames. one made me look exactly like harry caray, which is not a good look for me. i loved the anderson cooper look, but all those frames were too wide and extended well beyond my face. apparently, i do not have a big face. or – women don’t mind frames that extend into their widest peripheral vision, making their hair stick out. there are many, many, many large frames out there. even bigger than the ones i had in 1985.
i had tried tortoise shell and red, maroon and clear. i had tried hexagonal and cat-eyes, square and rectangular. i had tried my-little-pony and under armour, karen kane and bebe and vera bradley. and now there were these five.
sarah turned to her colleague and asked for her help. the colleague had me try on the three frames – over and over – and then she turned to another colleague and asked for her opinion. the customer who was being served by that vision-center-person piped up. eventually, there was a vote. and everyone in the store voted. the black metal round frames won. i placed an order, laughing, and was relieved it was finally over – the stress of choosing a frame that fit my face – which, i might add, turned out to be a child’s frame. we left.
but i still think about the frame in my mind. also round, but plastic and black and just exactly right – making my forehead look smaller, the indent of my face less indented, the wrinkles around my eyes disappearing, the dark circles lighter, my eyelashes longer and my eyes more expressive.
david picked out his frame in about two minutes. so it was hard for him to understand the hissy fit i had over finding the right frames. a dedicated contact lens wearer, i have never really liked any of the glasses i have owned. i wanted this time to be different. so i tried to explain to him all the parameters the new – perfect – no, no – quixotic – glasses must fall within. purple stuff came out of his exploding head. but my hissy fit helped.
we picked up the finished glasses and, putting them on, they seemed a little blurry. i sighed. i haven’t tried them again. but i will. i’m hoping they will be ok. and i guess i’m still wondering if that truly perfect frame exists out there somewhere.
reverse threading 