white flowers in the forest. with delicate petals – like the wood anemone – or the three sweeping waxy petals of the great white trillium – these white flowers dotting the underbrush of the woods are stunning, really beautiful. these seemingly fragile white blooms in and amongst a landscape not quite green, a landscape still rummaging around, waiting for spring’s full chorus.
we stop sometimes – just to take it all in – past ourselves, our thoughts, our conversation, our footsteps on the dirt. it gives us pause and slows our breathing.
the landscape design is immaculate – perfection. downed trees, leaves naturally composting, the canopy towns of mayapples bursting up through the ground, enchanting purple phlox, flowering pear trees. it is a slice of heaven.
in these days – when mosteverysinglething we read in the news makes us despondent, it seems that we must balance out our equilibrium a bit. for us, as you already know, that is the trail. the dirt paths in our area help us thrive as we all live in the shade of the current political chaos and the wreckage of our democracy. tiny bits of dappled light get through, but the challenge is to still keep going, despite the vast amount of dark.
white trillium prefers shade. these exquisite blooms find their home to be best in part or full shade. they are slow-growing, but long-lived – a combination that seems to push back against threatening negative influences, that rises out of deep winter, that sustains despite the odds, that shines in beauty. trillium live in colonies, interdependent on all the shrubs, trees, composting soil, insects, bacteria and fungi around it. its brilliant star shines alongside those it shares space with, symbiotically life-sharing companions.
pause for thought. yes. it gives us pause for thought.
“sometimes you have to listen harder to hear it, but the music is always playing.” (rob shaver – the life we have)
there have been plenty of times i didn’t listen hard enough.
i wonder. maybe it’s different if music is what you do, what you are. maybe sometimes it’s harder to hear because i have so much invested in it, because it winds around everything. maybe sometimes it’s harder to listen to because it sits heavier on my heart, with imperative and expectation. maybe sometimes it’s harder to hear because it is mixed up with cellular strands of pain, with the memory of the painful, with reinvigorated pain. sometimes i choose not to listen.
in those times it is quiet i seek. there are no melodic gestures that invite me in, no harmony, no beat pattern of rhythm. it is blank staff paper. skeletal. it is silence.
and then – like now – i begin to discover – rediscover – that it was there all along. it was the thing that carried me from one measure of rest to another. it was the beast of burden that enabled me to rest in the rest, to climb when necessary. it was the universe that offered it up – always playing – as breath. healing. not a bandaid kind of thing, but a gut-punch of adrenaline, a reminder of melody-flits in my mind, a few keys on a piano i can feel in my fingertips – prompts for an intuitive artist, shoulder-taps, a wistfulness i can’t avoid.
and every sound becomes a symphony, ready for my own ovation. every chance at a riff, an arpeggio, a singular line of potentially-exquisite melody is the divine. it plays always – off to the side, in the wings of our individual stage, just waiting for the curtain call, for the downbeat, for the crescendo, for the fader to bring up the volume.
sometimes i have wished that my work was left-brained, measured, predictable, with less of a low-tide-tidal-wave spectrum. but the spectrum – the kaleidoscopic roller coaster – is my continuum and i know – particularly now – when one note arrives at a time – that i wouldn’t trade it.
tiny parachutes – white filament – catch the breeze and lift the seeds – about 200 of them or so – from their home – the head of the dandelion – scattering them about in the world. the dandelion plant is left behind to generate a new flower head, more seeds, more parachutes. it is not singularly connected to any of these. its job is to simply be prolific, to produce more flowers and, thus, more seeds which will germinate more plants. and the beat goes on.
i would not be a good dandelion. i could not be so disconnected, so cool-y aloof. it is not in my nature to let go so easily, to ride on the wings of apathy. my children could tell you differently. my thready connection with them hangs on, even with all their efforts at asserting their independence. my thready connection – sans parachute – will never cease. motherhood – as i experience it – is like that.
fistful of dandelions is now kind of an old song – recorded in 1999 – which is 27 years ago. i hesitated a moment before i sent it to a newer friend – someone who i doubted had ever heard any of my music. i wasn’t sure if it was the best song to send her way, since it is only the second vocal recorded professionally in the second phase of my artistry – the phase that started in 1995. i know – in my library – there are better-sung songs, better-sounding songs, better-written lyrics, better-performed tracks.
i sent it to her anyway.
because i have found that this song speaks to moms and she is a mom. because it was more raw – desperately honest – an earlier piece sort of buried on an instrumental album, whereas other vocals are more readily accessible, easier to peruse if you wish. because – maybe, hopefully, we’ll see if possibly – someday i may record others and, just as time keeps moving on, so does style and relatability and such.
and so i sent it to her.
i haven’t heard anything back, which is always a tad bit disconcerting for an artist – any artist. we all know that it is how a piece of music, of art, of writing hits another that gives it life, gives it lift, sets its parachutes in motion so that it might float and swing on a breeze, setting seed in yet another place, with other people, new gardens to receive it.
i bent way down on the trail to capture this particular dandelion. its job was not yet done – there were more seeds, more parachutes; there is more possibility.
the same is true of my children.
and i will hang back at the flower zone, in the garden, while they fly around the world seeking rich soil in which to experiment and grow, in which to continue to grow their own wings, those stunning kaleidoscope wings of color and texture and challenge and success and brilliant brilliance – those iridescent shimmers – a myriad of sheen – though invisible to the naked eye.
and i will be astounded.
“…it overwhelms me what i feel, this heart outside of mine/is walking in another person, in another life…”
wearing a traditional scandinavian jumper, i danced around the maypole. holding a ribbon tethered to the pole, i danced to and fro with other young girls also holding ribbons. it was an ancient spring festival – at an arboretum on the island – and my sweet momma happily got us involved in taking part in it.
may day – the first of may. it seems impossible that we are already at may. time has a way of zipping by while at the same time taking-its-sweet-time. langsam – slowww – one of the few german words i remember from six years of studying the language.
but the return of spring it is and we are both grateful for it, despite its exceedingly stormy arrival.
we wake in the morning even earlier now, the sun streams in on our quilt, the breeze through the open window. everything is greening…gorgeous new-green crayon tones against easter-egg blue sky…tiny buds bursting into leaves, stalks of peonies growing taller before our eyes. the aspen is filling out, the ferns are unfurling, the daylilies are daylilly-ing – they require no help whatsoever.
and the birds and squirrels and raccoons are taking full advantage of our zeal to keep the feeders full. they linger on the top of barney, on the top of the potting stand. they gather in the pine tree next to the birdbath, waiting turns at the water.
and we can hear the call of the cardinals – beautiful song punctuated by sharp chirps. they stick around during the winter; their presence is always reassuring…a sign from the universe reminding me that my sweet momma and poppo are nearby, just on the other side, having slipped from this dimension to the next.
we’ve sat on the back patio a few times now, on the back deck in the sun. we’ve watched these creatures of our yard, narrating for them as they move about. wanting a photo of the cardinal at the birdbath, perched on its side, getting a drink, i grabbed my phone. but i was, regretfully, too late and he took off as i snapped the picture.
it wasn’t until much later – hours, really – as i looked at my photos of the day when i saw this photograph, the cardinal taking off, flying away from the birdbath.
so much better than a static perch photo, the cardinal taking flight – its may dance – its own celebration of the arrival of spring, of renewal, of new life.
we sit in our adirondack chairs and plot out our spring. we talk of our gardens, of an annual flower or two we might choose, of the herbs and vegetables we will grow on our barnwood stand.
it is hard not to feel passion for our very earth watching it come back alive all around us. it is impossible not to take deep, cleansing breaths, to turn our faces to the sun. it is time – for all good things – to dance around the maypole, to take flight.
“a ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” (john a. shedd)
i daresay that any artist understands this. there is no pursuit of artistry without the taking of risks, the exposure of vulnerability, the stepping out of one’s comfort zone. our job – as artists – is to seek growth, to encourage growth, to open up vast space of potential instead of squeezing complacency.
our trip back reminded me of this. the sailboats, the cruisers, even the skiffs in the harbor are protected…from the challenges of the elements and any stormy surf. but these boats will not stay in the harbor. people will take them out on the sound, perhaps around the island to where the sound and the atlantic meet, perhaps further into the ocean. they will explore and adventure; they’ll follow a star they alone can see.
we followed the star here. this is my chance to reclaim it all, to find the 19 year-old i lost, to hold her and assure her that she is now safe and that i have taken on that which attempted to squelch her forever. ships weren’t built to stay in harbors.
i have found my way home – intentionally. and in that finding, i have found her. and in that finding, i hope that the so-many-years lost will come rushing forward – music in every star i can see, in every star i can capture.
and the ships in the harbor will bear wings and, all together – with me at the helm – will sail into next.
this place. these shimmers of light. these sounds. this air. this salt. this place. this magic.
in the days we are there, taking it all in. i am reminded – once again – of owning it all – in the days of my growing – in the days when anything felt possible and nothing was necessary.
in the days we are there, reconnecting to plank under my feet, waterfront air in my hair, soft ink falling on the dock, clanking masts.
in the days we are there, the pride of where-i’m-from returning, the tethers of heart, sand in my shoes, salty waves at my horizon.
in the days we are there, revisiting, reclaiming, restoring, recognizing the waters of before and after and – then – in the same way the waves of the inlet and the sound meet, allowing it all to mesh into one.
in the days we are there, standing in the sun, standing in the dark. it is night and it is day. and this is my town and i am wrapped in it.
in the days we are there, i become the wake – following all that has come before, choosing to ride the triangle of waves behind the rest of life. and i discover – it’s all one.
and then.
i am shimmering too.
***
night dock (jan 12, 1977)
clanking of metal-rigged sails / politely interrupt the still evening. /
the water below is soft, shadowed chasms away, yet close and quiet.
orange and pink hues fade from the night / and are enraptured by the hushed harbor.
faint strums of a guitar revolve in the mind / and in the silence of dark.
for reasons we will not elaborate on, we are writing these blogs ahead. and, in true fashion of the times we are living in, there are zillions of things that have happened or are happening between now – as i write this – and now – as you read this. in the chaos in which we now exist, it is impossible to stay afloat of all of it…
because we care about the littlest creatures around us, we have several surfaces we line with birdseed, in addition to our birdfeeder. barney, the upright piano in our backyard, is one of them. another is our potting stand, these pieces of barnwood that stretch beyond our deck, sitting on metal piping, waiting for planting season when it will sport our basil and jalapeño, dill and chives, rosemary and cherry tomatoes.
our birdies love dining on these flat surfaces and gather together on the piano or the stand or off to the side, waiting their turn. the squirrels are zealous about these flat surfaces, as the birdfeeder gives them a tiny run for their money, a small challenge that is, however, most definitely not insurmountable. either way, they fill up to run off and provide food to the others.
we try to keep these surfaces with food, replenishing them to help these little creatures, particularly through the winter. we want them to feel abundance, not lack.
because helping others – people or creatures – to feel abundance seems like goodness, kindness, the right thing. and, in a world where we all unintentionally do things that are right and things that are wrong, it is a good thing to intentionally do some right things.
last week the administration of this country declared in unconscionable screeds that he was going to obliterate an entire civilization. that he was going to make them live in hell. there were moments – after that particular weekend of his screed – that i could not breathe.
in a really stunning opening to his show the night that the administration decided on a two week reprieve before reconsidering his big obliteration, lawrence o’donnell called it what it really was – an obliteration of OUR nation – THIS place – every ideal for which we have EVER stood. i could not agree more.
we sometimes intentionally do things that are wrong – start an argument, go over the speed limit, fail to put recycling in the correct bin. we sometimes unintentionally do things that are wrong – step on someone’s foot, push the grocery cart into the back of someone’s ankle, cuss in the wrong situation, cough suddenly without covering our mouth. most of these things are presumably forgivable, solved by apologies or decisions not to do it again. sometimes there are wrongs that are bigger, that require grace, true humility, olive leaf amends.
we sometimes intentionally do things that are right – give a bigger tip than recommended, donate money or food or other staples to a person, an organization, a pantry, help our neighbors, friends, family without being asked, pick up trash on the trail, listen when someone needs a listener. sometimes there are rights that are bigger, that are stunningly altruistic, that set examples.
we wish those around us to feel that we are generous in those things – the right things – that we hold abundant love and care for those around us.
we watched the rescued hearts film. it is an incredibly moving piece about the heart that horses hold in space with humans. with abundant love, these big, beautiful creatures reach across any boundary of language to extend love – in heart-opening abundance. these horses are catalysts for healing. it is not a film about control – it is a film about connection. it is a film about transformation. it is a film about sheer potentiality of what we – with all of nature – can provide each other.
this film is the antithesis of the threat of obliteration. it is not about lack. it is the epitome of abundance.
the rescued hearts film and this squirrel on our potting stand also make me catch my breath. because goodness is all around us.
and how anyone could not choose goodness over the worst cruelty is beyond me.
i try to imagine people – nowadays – existing solely on landlines of the past. it makes me giggle thinking about it. though we still have a landline, even i would have trouble with it.
growing up we had a phone on our kitchen wall, by the table and just off the laundry room accordion door. it had a long curly cord on it, so that you could actually move away from the sound of the washer and dryer or change seats to get as far away as possible from others nearby. it wasn’t terribly satisfying.
so we also had a long cord from the wall to the unit on the phone in my mom and dad’s bedroom. once again, sitting in their room didn’t really afford you much privacy, but pulling the phone behind you as far as the cord would allow helped you escape a bit.
no texting. no email. no social media. no gps. no google.
just the phone and the limitations of the cord.
of course back in those days my mom and dad would talk about the party lines they were subjected to – where people could actually listen in to your call if it wasn’t for them and they stayed on the line. ewww. so i guess we had moved ahead in some way with individual – and singular – phone numbers and connections.
i was talking to an old friend the other day – we hadn’t spoken in 46 years, since the early days of those big answering machines with cassette tapes that collected messages from people who missed you when they called. a bit of progress by then.
he mentioned that we all just sort of lost touch. and it was true. it was much harder – back then – to maintain contact with people. you had to sit down and write a letter – and then wait for a reply – or sit down and call, still connected to the wall. i didn’t have a cordless handset until the 90s, so there still were a lot of cords in our lives in the 80s.
my friend and i talked about a road on the shore of long island, where one day – very late at night coming home from the recording studio – i was being followed by a drunk driver, swerving all over the road. i pulled over where there was some swale on the side and this person followed me off the road and slammed into the back of my car. it was late, it was dark, i was alone. it was actually fortunate that the person hit and run, for i was pretty unnerved out there and had no way to get in touch with anyone. the olden days. not necessarily all better.
fast forward to now and i can’t imagine life without our cellphones, without texting, without the ability to email or google or check the weather or scroll the news or social media sites, without the safety of being able to reach someone pretty much anywhere from pretty much anywhere.
but there is a downside as well, it now seems.
the other day we talked about toasters. our toaster is barely a toaster these days. it’s had a good life – a long life – likely about 18-20 years. so, sitting in our sunroom, we had a little chat about maybe – possibly – getting a new toaster. we laughed because we thought if a new one lasts as long, we would be looking for the next toaster in our mid-eighties. wow. that’s bracing. but i digress.
shortly after our little toaster-chat, i went on social media. lo and behold – and like so many other times and examples – there was an ad for toasters. it was a miracle!!
only it wasn’t.
and that doesn’t even begin to describe the nefarious stuff that our government has installed or is planning to utilize – between our social media, the cameras that are literally everywhere, the information provided on voter rolls, in our social security, health and tax records, on our doorbell apps, on our measly telephones.
yes. our measly telephones. our link to everything these days. to our parents, our kids, our friends and family, our plumber, our electrician, our mechanic, our sewer guy and all our contacts, the photographs we take and cherish, our appointments, our reservations, our train schedule, our insurance cards, the maps to the-places-we-go, our favorite stores, our streaming portals, weather predictions, notes of the things we wish to remember, our health and fitness, our music, our banking, our shopping, our inquiring minds. everything. accessible.
seeing the old phone in the antique shoppe stopped us both.
turns out maybe there was a lot more privacy – and, quite possibly, safety – when we were connected to a wall.
we ordered small plate tapas. later, they brought birthday churros to our table. there was a candle – lit – and though the server was a bit shy – he seemed really happy to singto me. it was totally delightful. we dipped our churros into the melted chocolate and sweet powdered sugar, sipped our homemade sangria.
there was just one thing.
i found myself grimacing at the blue candle with the stars. it felt a bit too reminiscent of the stars and stripes of this country’s flag. right now i, like many others, have a complicated relationship with that flagand what it supposedly stands for.
because birthdays are like that, my mind zoomed backwards to standing in elementary school classrooms reciting the pledge of allegiance.
“i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, with liberty and justice for all.”
and here we were. in the walker point neighborhood of milwaukee – a wonderfully diverse community – diverse in race, in gender identification, in economics. i was welcomed and, just as every other time we have spent in this community, we felt at home. one nation, under god.
sometimes, in our elementary music class, we would sing the patriotic ballad:
“my country ’tis of thee / sweet land of liberty / of thee i sing/ land where my fathers died / land of the pilgrims’ pride / from every mountainside / let freedom ring.” (samuel francis smith)
sweet land of liberty. with lyrics written 195 years ago, a children’s choir first performed this song. what would those children be thinking now?
trying to slough away any negativity, i tried to think of the stars on the candle like stars-as-in-stardust. but the blue of the candle got in my way and as much as i loved having a birthday candle with my churros, i couldn’t help not being able to push back against the other realities right now – the realities that this country – at this time – is not a sweet land of liberty and freedom is not ringing from every mountainside.
as i am writing this – ahead of when you are reading it – i just now read that the supreme court has ruled against a ban on conversion therapy aimed at lgbtq youth in colorado. read that again: against a ban on conversion therapy.
and as i am writing this – ahead of when you are reading it – the “god squad” panel of the cabinet has voted to disregard decades-old laws about endangered species in the gulf in order to make.more.money drilling, the GOD squad?! ewww.
and as i am writing this – ahead of when you are reading it – the administration has decided to dismantle the united states forest service.
and as i am writing this – ahead of when you are reading it – the epstein files continue to languish in secrecy and the administration is doing everything in its power to keep it that way – including even more blatantly personalizing the efforts of the justice department.
and as i am writing this – ahead of when you are reading it – the supreme court has taken up considering the continuance of the 14th amendment of birthright citizenship. “…granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States…” ” no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
and as i am writing this – ahead of when you are reading it – this country – without permission of the congress or support of the populace – is destroying another – using bracing descriptor words like “decimating” and “decapitating” and “lethality” and “back to the stone ages“.
but, well, i guess when you are cavalier and righteous – and corrupt – you do what you want to whomever and whatever you wish. no questions asked. no answers given.
that doesn’t seem to be the right answer for a republic with liberty and justice for all.
i sometimes save birthday candles. to remember. but i need – and wish for – a new relationship with the flag – a revival of the celebration of diversity and majesty of this place on the globe – so this particular stars-on-a-blue-field candle i chose to remember with a couple photographs.
one lit – with light.
one after i made a wish and blew it out.
we ate several churros and our server gave us a box for the rest.
we brought them home and – having our leftover tapas the next day – celebrated this little bistro in our very big land, longing for its healing.
“light of the world / shine on me / love is the answer / shine on us all / set us free / love is the answer…” (john wilcox/roger powell/kasim sulton/todd rundgren)
the honeysuckle has an early arrival on the trail. it makes me want to sit and write poetry about pioneer honeysuckle growing in the forest, along the edges of the path and deep into the underbrush, right on the heels of winter. poetry about a hopefulness that comes with early forward-peeking signs of spring, promises of growth, a nod making the past distant.
we have a way of holding onto the past – a metaphoric rope, if you will – with people and circumstances strung along it – holding the knots like tiny toddlers in a preschool line hold the knot of a rope to which their teacher is attached. in the case of the toddlers it is for safety. in the case of all of us – who drag along with us all the most toxic of our lives – it is not for the purpose of safety.
the day before my birthday i consciously chose to drop that metaphoric rope that dragged all the yuck with me everywhere i went. i have decided that there is no more good that can come from dragging the worst with me – every recollection of betrayal or hurt or time when healing was impossible. i decided – on that day – the day before my 67th birthday – that i was worthy of putting that rope down and leaving the past distant.
now, don’t get me wrong. as a thready person (and clearly, the use of the word thready must be deliberate) nearly everything is on some sort of connective tissue that stretches back to my heart. a compendium of threads and tissue and rope. some of those i will cling onto and hold dearly – that would be the ones with love and learning and success and hardship, a balance of life’s goodness and challenges, people i hold dear, filmy threads that don’t include people who have been intentionally mean-spirited or who have hunted opportunity to be demeaning or to exploit. those? those heavy loads will have to stay behind. i have finally realized – at long last – that i owe those people nothing and my choice now is laying down the rope with the rope-knots they are clutching – weighing me down – taking up space in my brain and heart. it’s way past time.
and so the honeysuckle’s appearance is like balm. new green. renewal. rejuvenation. a new season. a new cycle of growth.
it is a pioneer in the earliest spring, courageously greening when winter can still dash it, pummel it with ice and snow. but it has the promise of its history – when it has survived even with the change in season, even with threat of the challenge of weather. it both brings forward what it’s learned about survival and puts down the pain it has carried from past ropeknot instances in its life in the woods.
someone – just shy of five decades ago – told me i was dirt. it was meant to belittle me and scare me and it did.
i’ve just realized that i am. dirt. an honorable and basic part of this earth like every other living being. but i am also honeysuckle – and morning glory – and daisies – and peonies. i am house finches and black-capped chickadees and cardinals and march robins. i am poetry floating on the breeze and notes in sequence not yet captured. i am sun and moon and the horizon and the tide.
i am stardust on the edges of the trail, forward-peeking.
reverse threading 