reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

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sweet tomato dreams. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the tomato photo shoot. it was our first harvested cherry tomato from our lush and hearty plant that is tucked over by the fence next to the potting stand, sharing space with the ornamental grasses. before we tasted the produce we had grown, i wanted to capture its winning smile.

now, i’m not really a still-life kind of artist…i prefer more freedom…but this little tomato turned out to be quite a little starlet in this shoot and converted me – at least momentarily.

this little tomato was ultra sweet, having been warmed by a very hot sun and carefully tended. there are so many green orbs on this plant…we are anticipating a caprese salad or pasta. in the meanwhile, there is much to be said for the positive reinforcement of produce yielded from our attempts at growing.

“a dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” (colin powell)

it would seem to make complete sense to recognize that sweat, determination and hard work, but even i can attest to the fact that there are places of employ that simply disregard the success that has been created by someone working diligently and devotedly in their name.

it is the same that is happening right here, right now in this country. workers – important spokes in the societal wheel – are being tossed left and right, leaving literal and figurative produce to rot. profound medical research, critical environmental science, expansive educational ideology, the hard work of laboring in fields or restaurants or hospitality – these workers are finding themselves booted by someone whose excuse is – obviously – a vision that no longer aligns with theirs. for a country (or a community or an organization or corporation or any institution) that wishes to abdicate any formerly-intended mission, eliminate employees who are making a difference, cut corners and costs – biting their noses to spite their faces, stop forward movement, undermine the career paths of employees and send them careening, cruelly evict its dutiful people, is a country (or a community or an organization or corporation or institution) that has lost its way.

it is simpler out back in our tiny gardens. the basil and the rosemary and the cilantro and the jalapeños and the parsley and the mint and – yes – the cherry tomatoes grow. with our careful tending, vigilant watering and pruning, they reward us with bountiful produce. in turn, we do all we can to support their growth and they respond with healthy herbs and tomatoes. it is a cycle, an if this-then that, a very simplified conditional relationship predicated on a premise and a result. even any syllogism (major premise, minor premise, conclusion) about our garden would yield a productive conclusion, steps toward the dream.

i asked AI for a syllogism about the contemporary united states. this is what instantly popped up:

major premise: a healthy democracy relies on robust, respectful dialogue and a willingness to compromise for the common good.

minor premise: current political discourse in america often exhibits increased polarization and a decline in civility and compromise.

conclusion: therefore, the current state of american democracy faces significant challenges to its healthy functioning.

i fear that this – the fallout of this republic functioning as a democracy – is exactly the positive reinforcement – the dream – that this current administration is seeking.

and now – because i am overwhelmed by the corruption i have witnessed firsthand both as an employee and as a citizen – i am going back to tending my herbs and my sweet cherry tomatoes.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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hi to you too. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

the rest of the subway car stared at us. we kept talking anyway.

back in the earlier days of my recording and performing – when a dear girlfriend and i used to travel together – we found ourselves all over the country, laughing. our escapades were hilarious – at least to us – and we readily shared our time on public transport with anyone nearby. we’d chat with the other people grasping onto the silver subway rings over the seats. we’d chat with the seat mate on the plane, once all holding hands together as the plane hit severe turbulence and – incredulously – even the flight attendants were weeping. we’d talk in the taxi, in the terminal, in the restroom. we seemed to be entirely capable of writing what-seemed a seinfeld episode everywhere we went. we were thoroughly entertained by – us – and it made all the travails of travel into adventure.

i’m a new yorker – a long islander – so talking – tawwwking – is not necessarily a problem for me. now i am a recovering interrupter (which i came by honestly) but back then…interrupting each other was part of the gig and it made us laugh even harder.

we’d step onto the subway – having gone through the turnstile with great aplomb or – more often – like something out of a cartoon – and immediately say “hi!” to whomever we encountered. sometimes people would answer as these were the very earliest days of cellphones so people were not staring into the palm of their hands. sometimes people would strike up a conversation – “you’re in town visiting, eh?” sometimes people would just stare. literally stare.

i carry these episodes with me even now. it is impossible for me to be on an elevator without saying anything; i simply cannot participate in the stare-at-the-slit-in-the-center-of-the-doors. or the up-stare at the numbers of the floor changing. “hi” just doesn’t seem to be a really challenging or aggressive kind of greeting. it just acknowledges that someone else – a person – is there. with you in the same space.

though i would not encourage the spray-painting of these boulders along the lakefront, the simple “hi” – in the middle of everything we are all reeling in, in the middle of this country – made me smile. an acknowledgment of someone else’s existence.

none of us are alone here. we’re in this together. we all count.

hi to you too, stranger.

*****

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

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holding onto henry. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

with a beaucoup of wishful thinking, i’m thinking we are there. at the lowest ebb. at the tide turning.

but the reality is that there are lower and lower ebbs – abyss-ebbs – inescapable rock-bottom ebbs – nadir-ebbs – and it appears that this administration is headed there.

i am holding onto henry wadsworth longfellow’s words. i am looking for – counting on – wholeheartedly relying on – desperately clinging to – the turn of the tide.

for surely we – as a nation – are better than this.

i hope.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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live and learn. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“live as if you were to die tomorrow. learn as if you were to live forever.” (mahatma gandhi)

the last time they were here, we made them promise that they would keep nudging us. we urged them, “don’t let us get lackadaisical!! just keep pushing us to learn new stuff, try new things.” they laughed and promised, but i hope they know how much we mean it.

it is too easy to become sedentary about learning, to be aloof to new technology (or, worse yet, to be rigidly opposed to it). it is too easy to be mired in the-way-it-used-to-be-done or to be too lazy, overwhelmed, or afraid to take on new challenges and attempt things that are hard to grok, things that are difficult to wrap our somewhat-older brains around. and so, we are placing the onus of responsibility on our kids (though our daughter doesn’t yet know this) to make sure we keep growing, to encourage us and, mostly, to help us as we try to keep learning. we don’t have too much of a problem at this point – we love to learn new things, even if we have to wrangle with complexity or confusion.

anyway, we are committed. and we hope they will help.

it is in that very spirit of things that we have signed up for classes or taken on new software or attempted new gardens. It is in that very spirit that we have books about writing poetry or youtube how-to-fix-stuff or google new recipes and the best way to store fresh herbs or stream our son’s EDM music.

so when we walked outside and found a few gorgeous sunflowers growing next to our old garage – in the spot where we have unintentional composting – we got excited. the birds frequenting the birdfeeder several feet away clearly planted these beauties and their very tall successes got us dreaming a bit.

“wouldn’t it be just perfect to have sunflowers growing all along that garage wall in between the garage and the fence?” we pondered. it got us to thinking and googling and a little bit of research.

and there is nothing like a deep dive into sunflowers – or sweet potatoes or wellness or newly-found poets and recording artists or emissions or old appliances or yep-roofing fixes and options or hiking boots or thru-trails or history or fact-checking or antiques – to take your mind off the obvious.

albert einstein said, “once you stop learning, you start dying.”

henry ford’s “anyone who keeps learning stays young” resonates with me as well.

we saw it on the wall: “tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” (mary oliver, of course)

keep going. keep learning. keep loving. keep living.

*****

RIVERSTONE © 2004 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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the colors of climate change. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

it was fuchsia the other morning.

dogga wakes us up quite early these days, so we generally see the sun rise out the east windows of our bedroom as we sip coffee. the other day it was fuchsia.

on the way out of the marina south of us a bit we drove west into the setting sun. the sky was copper and the sun was ringed with vermillion, countless other oranges on the spectrum striated in. it was like sherbet or hubbabubba, a rainbow-infused sky. each night and morning now it’s like fanta orange soda has come alive. it is quite the show.

but it shouldn’t be this way. it represents so much destruction by wildfire in our northern neighbor and it presents so much danger for anyone breathing this smoke-laden air.

we are watching the ever-growing effects of climate change – fires that are starting earlier, extending longer, more challenging, destroying millions of acres…this is “an objective truth“…higher temperatures, drier conditions are ripe for lightning strikes or human intention or error. the images of fires ravaging our own country are terrifying and the effects on wildlife and people are devastating.

so it is vivid. both the color spectrum of this threat and the threat itself.

it is distressing beyond belief and i agree with greta thunberg’s plea to mitigate this crisis: “panic, feel fear, and act!” i agree with leonardo dicaprio: “i believe humankind has looked at climate change … as if it were a fiction, happening to someone else’s planet, as if pretending that climate change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away. climate change is not hysteria – it’s a fact.”

in our little way we try to do our part. we don’t overbuy. we shop to a list and a menu and use it all. we purchase vintage often, rather than newly-produced products. we recycle and reuse and repurpose as is possible. we are currently in the over-a-thousand-dollar mark – and still rising – of ensuring that littlebabyscion is emission-safe. we pay attention to our energy consumption and to the footprint we are leaving behind.

i would be perfectly happy with the “normal” sunrise, the “normal” sunset. the colors of those are exquisite and hard to wrap words around, the air of those easier to breathe, the colors of the wind less caustic. certainly less urgent, less critical, less of a tipping-tipping point.

the objective truths are all around us. we need pay heed.

“each and every one of us can make changes in the way we live our lives and become part of the solution [to climate change]. “ (al gore)

“the greatest danger to our future is apathy.” (jane goodall)

“the environmental protection agency (EPA) said this week it would revoke its own ability to fight climate change. it’s the latest move in an extraordinary pivot away from science-based protections.” (inside the ‘radical transformation’ of america’s environmental role – david gelles & maxine joselow – the new york times – august 3, 2025)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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an endless list. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

he says that one day we must go on a trip that is specifically about photography. that we will slowwwwly stroll – wherever it is we are – and i can stop and linger – at any time – and take a picture – or twenty – of any single thing along the way. i am excited about that and we have a really, really long list of the places we might choose as destinations. an endless list, actually.

the funny thing is – this is pretty much how i do every day. on the trail, in our backyard, at the garden center, at our potting stand, in the antique shoppe, at the grocery store, in our ‘hood, in the mountains, on the beach – anywhere.

i have always loved taking photographs. even a dear old friend, who i hadn’t spoken with in about four decades, remembered that i always had a camera in my hand whenever she and i were together. it goes way back…for me, to those pocket instamatic cameras and the cameras with the square bulbs on the top that rotated for the next shot. in college i did photo shoots with my new 35mm manual camera for extra money. i climbed fences to take sunrise shots on beaches. i hiked in rivers to capture the fauna along the edges. i adored being the photography editor of my college paper, toting my camera to disco parties, softball games, campus events, college-sponsored ski trips, lunch with paul simon. if there were no pictures of something or someone from back then, there were good reasons.

there have also been times – along the way – when i have realized that taking photographs would take away from the moment – and, in those times, i have chosen to put the camera away – to simply memorize the moment instead. but this thready heart of mine loves to scroll back through images that place life and time.

it feels somewhat like cheating when you take photographs at a nursery such as i did for today’s image. i wandered about the aisles and aisles, greenhouses and gardens of nearby milaegers, entranced by the vast opportunity to capture color, texture, utter beauty. there is no end to it. even the flowers that are wilting are absolutely divine. i walk, arm in arm with david, and i feel fortunate to see so much that touches so many senses. it is impossible to not feel it. we are surrounded by the glorious.

and so we plan – one day – to take a trip sheerly about photography. i will be excited to plan it, to choose idyllic places and vistas that offer moments like the shimmer of sun on iridescent raindrops.

in the meanwhile, i will carry my iphone and its remarkable camera everywhere i go, capturing everything else that is beautiful, that is evocative, that means something, that will be a source of joy or heart or memory, that is life.

it is an endless list.

*****

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

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sephora, the arrowhead. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

in ways i can explain and can’t explain, i am really dedicated to sephora. a few years back when our daughter was visiting we went to a greenhouse and nursery. she has a green thumb and it was cherished time to walk around with her and chat. she pointed to this plant – an arrowhead – and said she was growing one back at her home. i instantly decided to add it to our sunroom and named it after another adventure we had the days she was here. it is important to me that sephora thrives, just like charlie – a heartleaf philodendron she gifted me previously.

i watch sephora like a hawk…always trying to figure out if she needs more water, less water, more sun, less sun, more fresh air, less draft. we have a complex relationship; i think sephora knows the power she has over me and she wields it abundantly. i comply nevertheless. like i said, dedicated to its survival.

even as sephora’s individual leaves turn yellow from time to time (causing me much angst) i find this plant to be so beautiful – the light from the window causing the leaves to glow and radiantly light the space.

a girlfriend and i were talking about the cleaning-out process in our homes. she has readily cleared out much of what her two daughters had accumulated – but not taken with – in their growing-up years. they both live nearby now – in the next town over – all grown-up – and she sees them and their families regularly every week. my friend no longer has much stuff of their youth; with their proximity, she found it easier to dispose of most of what they no longer wanted, even in recent years giving away all the baby clothes and paraphernalia she had saved for possible reuse. she was surprised to hear i still have so much of all this. she laughed at my difficulty – surely a form of paralysis – in getting rid of everything.

i thought about this a bit, trying to figure out why i am so thready – besides the fact that i was born thready, have always been thready and likely will always be thready.

i realized that, though some of this is simply my heart-on-my-sleeve personality, it is also a holding-on of sorts. a peril of motherhood.

it would be dreamy – absolutely dreamy – to have my adult children living nearby, merely minutes away. it would be amazing to see them often, though always respectful of their busy lives. we are fortunate and joyous that our son is just one big city away, a couple-hour backroads drive or an hour plus on the train. to be able to jaunt over and see our daughter at any old time would make my heart burst. she has lived far away – with many states in-between us – for over a decade now, so visits require planning and are much more complicated.

i remember when my parents would come visit from florida – or we would go there – it would be an intense time of visiting in the days they were here – or us there – before it was time for them – or us – to leave and a big expanse of time would gap our shared in-real-life moments. i believe it is harder that way – the concentrated-period-of-time visiting instead of bits and pieces of life scattered like seed throughout the calendar.

in moments of looking through my momma’s things after she died, i could see the remnants and relics of me that she had saved. for in her lack of ability to see me as often as she would have wished, she held on with artifacts of our time together. the dots lined up. i completely got it and it became one explanation for the difference in the ability of my friend and me to let-go of stuff.

my holding-on – of the stuff left behind, the trinkets of their growing-up, the mementos of any grown-up visit we have had, wherever they have lived – it is the holding-on of love.

as claire middleton (the sentimental person’s guide to decluttering) points out, “we think that keeping all of those things will let us keep a little of each child who left us.”

my heart skips a beat.

ahhh. to be a thrower-outer, a clean-sweeper.

i’m working on it. i just had my first two sales on the resale site poshmark, which gives me incentive again. the baby and toddler clothes are bundled up and waiting patiently to go to the mission that gives them away to people in the city who need them. the cassettes are in a box, to be sent with payment for recycling. there are things on marketplace and ebay and craig’s list and the goodwill stack is ever-growing.

but nothing, though, stops my my-name-is-kerri-and-i-am-thready momheart from the wistful.

and, as i gaze at sephora’s stunning golden leaf – sunlight shining through it – i hold my beautiful golden daughter close, blow her a kiss, and miss her.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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and here we are. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

and here we are, short-term residents of planet earth, inhabiting relatively tiny spaces of dirt for relatively tiny spaces of time. it seems absolutely paramount to be considerate of this most-amazing place – to nurture it, protect it, sustain it – while we are here before we move on to whatever other dimension to which we pass.

it was in the most basic of childhood lessons i learned to clean up after myself. i learned not to be wasteful or disrespectful to the environment. i learned to be mindful of good practices of ecology, of thrifty reuse, of repurposing, recycling, of proper disposal. my sweet momma always taught me the importance of leaving a place better than i found it, a lesson of stewardship with a quote commonly attributed to robert baden-powell (of mount baden-powell fame), the founder of the scouting movement.

and here we are. it would seem to be our deigned responsibility to be adamantly, vociferously, actively committed to leaving this home place of ours – this community, this state, this nation, this earth – better than we found it.

we need wrap our time here in conscience, in honesty, in compassionate dedication to virtue, to morality, to the upholding of equality and the rights of people to live free of prejudice and abuse, to truth, to accountability.

we need commit to the acknowledgement of empirical evidence of human-based climate change, to intelligent, scientific efforts of atmospheric correction, to alternative ways of meeting present needs without compromise of the future, to preservation and sustainability, to a rabid promise for a clean earth.

it would seem we must leave behind us all the best we can – a place of peace and respect for all, a place that will meet the needs of, nurture and not harm our descendants – physically, psychologically, spiritually. we must safeguard a place that will selflessly forward goodness for all mother earth and its creatures, for all humanity, for all time.

to place feet on the ground, to dig in the dirt, to gaze at the sky, to breathe the air, to drink the water – it is all interconnected. we all share in its enduring legacy.

“leave it better than you found it.”

please.

anything less is shameful.

and here we are.

*****

(in significantly relevant-to-the-moment news, it is more than unfortunate – quite stunningly devastating – that it is apparent – with the advent of tens of thousands of sexual abuse cases against the boy scouts of america – that actual boy scouts have not been left better than thousands of scouting leaders found them. indeed, baden-powell would likely be horrified at this tragic twist in the organization he created, necessitating a $2.46 billion settlement for sexual abuse victims left worse than before their time in the boy scouts. and here we are.)

*****

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

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obvious. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

well, THIS seems obvious. obviously an epidemic of monumental proportion.

so unbelievably twisted, so devastatingly sad, and so incredibly dangerous.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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sweet potato sprouts. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

we are sweet potato fans. and it was in recent research we realized we had been storing our sweet potatoes incorrectly – in the fridge. no wonder they were going bad sooner than we expected. so we moved them (and the russets and the gold yukons and the vidalia onions and the garlic) to a hanging basket in the stairwell which seemed to exponentially lengthen the life of this store-bought produce.

and then there was this day.

david – laughing – said, “ya gotta go look at the sweet potato in the stairwell!”

to say that i was surprised was understating. hot pink shoots were growing out of our sweet potato…sweet raspberry-colored, tiny-leafed shoots of a plant…right there in the basket hanging over the stairs, over the bin with dogga treats, next to the angle-broom and the swiffer, adjacent to the bag-o-bags hook.

and a science experiment was born as, suddenly, we were farming sweet potato.

we put some good potting soil in a planter and – just guessing, with no research – we planted the entire sprouted sweet potato tuber in the dirt. we watered it and stood back.

now, we had no idea what to expect. we truly did feel like we were in junior high – with a science fair project report due in a few weeks.

instantly, i was back in ninth grade, typing my lab reports on thin erasable typing paper. i loved typing and used any excuse to type. my earth science teacher – everyone’s favorite – charlie – graded our lab reports on a check system. check, check-plus, check-plus-plus, check-minus. i pretty much always got a check-plus-plus because, well, that was the kind of diligent student i was. he never wrote any comments on my lab reports, which was disappointing, so i began to wonder if he was really reading them. i decided to experiment a bit. i started to include the words of nursery rhymes – randomly – in my lab reports. i kept getting check-plus or check-plus-plus and he never said a word, convincing me that any genius lab report i might have written had gone undetected. years later we crossed paths on some social media and i reached out, asking him if, perchance, he remembered me. his response was classic: “of course! you typed nursery rhymes in the middle of your lab reports. how could i forget you?” but i digress.

in just days our little sweet potato’s tiny leaves leafed out and it has begun a growth cycle that will force us to reckon with what to do next. we are considering a metal trough planter, but also recognize that there isn’t long enough for the sweet potatoes to develop into sweet potatoes. it is a conundrum. but a truly sweet (no pun intended) reminder of the amazing turns of life and growth and actualization.

in a time during which so much is grabbing at our attention, a country and people disappointing us beyond belief, more corruption than we can wrap our heads around, we are grateful for this hot pink attention-grabbing sweet potato slip.

“live life, my sweet potato,” my momma always told me. i think i feel some sprouts comin’ on.

*****

GRATEFUL © 2004 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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