if it were possible to feel like a pine tree, this would have been the day.
in the vastness of this bryce canyonland, we stood on the edge – like this pine tree – and gazed over an incredible expanse. it was not merely beautiful. it was beyond words.
and, once again, i felt it in my heart – that wobbly feeling you get when you realize – truly realize – how utterly small you are in all of thissssss.
we celebrate our anniversary today. there is so much more to explore. there are many more adventures to be had. there are more uphills and downhills. there are more learnings and experiences and times to hold.
and there are more moments like this – where we are reminded of the tiny morsels of being that we are and the sheer gratitude for the chance to be here, to share this.
years ago now. it was almost inky night, clear, a bit brisk but not windy. as i moved from the bank into the middle of the flow i noticed it. the moonlinefollowed me…everywhere i went. despite all the time i had already spent at water’s edge and on the water, it was the first time – in my memory – that it became apparent to me – this moonbeam shadow of mine.
and i think of you – my love, my children, my family, dear friends – next to me or somewhere else in this world – looking at the night sky as well. this same moon. with your own personal moonbeam shadow. and i am heartened by our sharing of this. for if we are looking at the same moon, then certainly we are not too far from each other. under the same sky, the same stars, the same blanket of galaxy.
so as i stand on rocks next to lake michigan i am reassured by this season of the full moon. and as i think of you, i whisper along the beam, hoping that the moon will deliver you my words.
“…when the moon dances in your hair, i will be there…for all the days of your life, for all your life …” (kerri sherwood – for all your life)
“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.
“whatever a house is to the heart and body of man-refuge, comfort, luxury-surely it is as much or more to the spirit.” (mary oliver)
we’ll travel a bit soon. a trip that’s been semi-planned – and postponed – for some time. even before setting out, we know it will be great fun, adventuring with friends, moseying the country with them. there is a sweetness to anticipation.
and it’s funny. every time i get close to going away – anywhere – i have a distinct appreciation for our own home. there is something that rises up for me before a trip – a reminder of how really dear home is to me – our old house, our backyard, this amazing lake just a bit to our east, our dogga, our life here. we take walks in the days before leaving and mother earth does her very best at impressing us – a showcase of unparalleled beauty, a display of what’s-right-here.
and it’s no different this time.
even the unexpected worn-gasket-water-pipe-union spewing water into our basement cannot change this feeling. even d’s all-day wet vac duty, carpet that was soaked, stuff that needed to be moved out of the way, the unplanned cost of an expert plumber – even all that didn’t dim this appreciation of home.
we have traveled a lot together and i have become aware of how true it is that you carry home with you. we’ve taken home – together – overseas and all over our nation. this trip will be just the same – a great exploring – while holding home between us.
we are excited to go, to be fed by new places and new experiences, fodder for our muses, our spirits expanding with the time away.
and, at the same time, here i am – smitten by our own home, my spirit filled before we even leave.
“…let’s live like mountains: two worlds rooted together but each cutting its own shape into the changing sky…” (james a. pearson – the space between us)
the sacred space between us.
when david proposed – over a decade ago – he gave me two rings. identical in style, they had textural differences. both sterling silver, one had a textured band with a smooth round globe and the other a smooth band with a textured round globe. he spoke words to the effect that we each brought similarities and differences into this space we would now share. to him it – our marriage – was best represented by two different rings worn together, side by side.
in the years that have gone by, i have watched these two rings become more alike – time is wearing them down, has minimized the textural differences as this sacred space between us has grown. we mountains have rooted together – like aspen trees in a forest – and, standing next to each other, though we cut our own shapes into the sky, we are becoming a mountain range.
in the way that time carves lessons and learnings into our hearts and minds, time has gifted us with the fire and flow of good relationship – both – that rubber band of intimacy that holds tight and stretches and snaps back like a bungee cord – eager to find center once again. fusion and fission, elements of the canyoned valley we share between us. we hold it gently in our joined hands.
and i wonder if the rings will become so similar that the difference in textures will be impossible to see.
what i do know – no matter how texturally identical they are or become, they started as two and carry two worlds with them. we – like all in relationship – bring different gifts with us. these gifts of the other help us evolve – they add to our sedimentary bedrock.
it is my instinct to seek words of wisdom about this space – this sacred space – between us. the union, the adapting, the transitions, the growth, the times of storm and times of calm.
but, instead, i will just watch my rings. and as they wear and change, i’ll keep renewing our roots, grounding us in center somewhere between our mountains in a meadow of wildflowers under the sun.
i want to hold onto the sound. cicadas and crickets on summer nights. it’s a locating sound, and, as i adirondack-chair-sit on the deck listening, i am immersed in it. i can feel it.
we’ve been watching the series “alone” lately. our binges have taken us through to season five, where ten people have been dropped off in desolate mongolia to survive as long as they are able. the sounds are completely different – wolves are howling, deadly snakes hissing, bears rustling through the woods – unnerving sounds. it is beyond my wildest imagination what these people are doing, how they are assimilating into and feeling a part of this environment, how they are sustaining. i would absolutely fail out there.
it does make me think that – indeed – we all have our strengths. as we hiked the other day we talked about how fascinating it is to watch other people and the random abilities they’ve been blessed with. we are simply spokes on the wheel…a giant wheel of universe proportion.
i came across this cicada in our driveway. i was immediately saddened, for it was wandering in a circle and i knew it had little time left on this earth. its beautiful coloring, its giant alien eyes, it captivated me and i gently placed it into the bushes next to the driveway, offering a few words of gratitude for its existence.
one less cicada to sing its nightly song, i know that too soon the night will be quiet and i will miss the sounds i have always associated with the white noise of summer.
i woke up this morning to the sound of walter and irma in our backyard. these are two cardinals that frequent our feeder and hang out on the wires of the garden happy lights or on the top of the fence that stretches across the yard. they are as much a touchstone as our cicadas, but i know they will stay through the fall, through the winter and hopefully will cheerily greet the spring again next year. they have a hard time with our bird feeder because the rim is not big enough for them to perch upon – and because the squirrels do gymnastics emptying it.
we have promised walter and irma a flat feeder – the kind we understand that cardinals prefer. and every time walter flails around on the edge of our current birdfeeder, we imagine that irma is reminding him that someday we will have a different feeder, to hang in there and to stop being overly-dramatic.
i think that someday has arrived.
sometimes it is the simplest of things that bring us the most reassurance. somehow the loss of one more cicada makes me want us to extend to our backyard birds something that will make their ability to sustain a tiny bit easier. they are spokes on our wheel – giving us the grand pleasure of watching them, slowing us down, grounding us.
in the days that we feel like we are in the wilds of mongolia – for we all have days like that – we find things that bolster us, we find things that give us perspective, we find things that make us feel a part of the whole, we find ways to sustain.
i know i will soon miss the cicadas and crickets. i recorded their nightsong on a video and saved it. just in case – in the middle of winter or the wilds of mongolia – i need to feel it.
fall has cracked the door open. and, though it may tiptoe around a bit in this teeter-totter season, it will not backtrack. it is on its way.
and nature – in its wisdom – is doing the work, prepping for cold to arrive, stoking up, storing up, guarding its ability to survive, seed heads readying to spread far and wide.
she asked me if i would be recording again. I wasn’t sure how to answer. i don’t know. it has been some time since my last project. recording is expensive and – because of today’s world of streaming – not particularly financially rewarded, making it a kind of skewed investment…heavy on the cost, extraordinarily light on the payoff.
yet, every independent artist knows recording is not solely about the financial reward. it is the expression of what’s inside, just waiting to hit air. it’s doing the work, prepping, stoking, storing, guarding – all for the seed heads to fly.
she asked me other questions as well – how i compose, if i hear music inside. her questions cracked open the door to a conversation I haven’t had in a long time, a real conversation about my music. i felt grateful – not only for her inquisitiveness, but for her obvious support of what i have already produced. it was a sort of balm on a wound that was just lingering, lingering.
I don’t know when – or if – i will produce another album. i’ve teetered-tottered just like the waning of summer and the rising of fall, just like daisies struggling to stay vibrant, open, to stave off utter fallow. i’ve wondered through these last few years if, after fifteen albums, i was “done”, wondered if, at 65, i was no longer relevant, wondered if i still had the necessary chutzpah.
i miss the stage, a piano and a boom vocal mic, a wood apron beneath my boots. i’ve missed telling the stories of songs and the gestures of instrumental piano. i’ve missed eye contact with an audience, finding resonant bits, making people laugh or reminisce, the moment you know they are right there with you.
the daisy seed heads are getting ready. it’s pretty certain they will proliferate gardens again in the spring after their fallow through fall and winter.
maybe – somewhere in here – i am getting ready too. i guess we’ll see.
“all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. all things wise and wonderful, ’twas god that made them all.” (cecil francis alexander/edwin george monk/george mcbeth mcphee)
the striking thing about this song – a hymn in the united methodist hymnal i played from for many years as a minister of music – is the use of the word all.
whatever deity you may subscribe to, whatever you call a greater power, whatever your heart-faith attaches to, all things count, all creatures great and small.
i glanced up while at the sink washing a few dishes. and there, on the white trim next to the window, was this katydid. she didn’t seem to feel in peril – and she wasn’t. my first reaction was surprise. my second reaction was wondering how to safely remove her and place her out in the garden, where she might find leaves or flowers to munch, maybe drink from a fallen raindrop.
“each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings. he made their glowing colors and. made their tiny wings.”
it is not our first inclination to eliminate that which is different, that – because of size difference – which is helpless. we try – in most cases – to help the tiniest find its way. this katydid was lost in our house and likely would not have survived if we hadn’t found it and if we weren’t helping it along. it somehow feels like the same story as us – here in the universe. we are but tiny specks of dust, floating, floating, in a galaxy of stars and planets, lost and found, lost and found.
“the purple headed mountains, the rivers running by, the sunset and the morning that brightens up the sky.”
it is up to us to take notice, to care for – across our land, around our world – the extraordinarily large and the astonishingly tiny.
we are all here together.
and i hope that if someday we are lost, someone will gently pick us up and carry us to the garden so that we, too, might munch on flowers, drink raindrops and breathe fresh air available to all creatures great and small.
i had never been in a butterfly house before. the chicago botanic garden has such an exhibit right now and we saved it until last – after all the beautiful gardens and fresh air had zenned us out. if it is possible to sink further into zen than being enfolded in gloriously intentional blooming, this butterfly garden is it.
it isn’t a huge screen enclosure – and they allow limited people in at a time – but it is complete immersion in the magical. enchanting. for two artists who draw inspiration from the outdoors and its gorgeousness, we felt like we could have stayed there for hours.
butterflies were literally everywhere…on the plants, on the screen, on the path and – most delightfully – on us. the first moment a butterfly landed on us felt like you had been chosen for something uniquely special – this fragile creature with wings of scales and chitin (a fibrous protein) supported by a system of veins. nature, indeed. how is this kind of iridescence even possible?
only one other time – that i can remember – did a butterfly land on me. it was shortly after my big brother died and, as this butterfly flitted around me out front in an adirondack chair, i was convinced he was sending me a message. until it landed on me and hung out. then i was sure it was my brother, having converted his life energy temporarily into that of a butterfly. i was astounded and ever so grateful.
this time i was just in complete awe. i felt chosen as a few butterflies lighted on my hands or my arms, one at a time. i spoke quietly to each of them, thanking them for this incredible moment in time…a moment when i was reminded that we are all – butterflies and people – on this good earth together. we are all doing life the very best we can. we are all capable of gorgeous and of making another feel singled out and exceptional.
butterflies in this sanctuary just have to fly around and then land, their visit a thing of softness…a mica moment.
we – as people – can also lift someone, transport them into nirvana … in so many ways. we need remember that. our goodness is not winged, but – with our loving encouragement – others may fly. it’s all pure magic.
there was a period of time in recent years during which i obsessed over this color. i distinctly remember an ipad cover that was this color, up in the apple store in milwaukee. i didn’t even have an ipad but i stood and stared at its vibrancy, telling d that were i to have one, i would buy this cover – in this color.
eventually, i satisfied my desire to haaaave this color and bought a cloth handmade drawstring backpack from an artist seamstress. this gorgeous poppy-coral color is the background color in the floral fabric. i call it my happy bag.
this pink. it’s a spectrum of happy. it brings me back to tiny bibbed overalls and ruffled dresses, hair pretties and polkadot shorts. it is watermelon in the bowl, the strawberry juice stains on tiny t-shirts, sippy cups, the flowers in the lush gardens of dear ones. it invites me to pause, to remember, to have a very personal inward moment.
color does that.
which must be why – at a time when most of my shoes are black – boots, sandals, sport clogs, flipflops – i really love wearing my girl’s old pink converse hightops abandoned in her closet upstairs. circa 2006 maybe, they always make me smile to have them on my feet, they always make me think of her, they are my happy sneakers.
though if someone asked me my favorite color (i would respond green), these pinks are most definitely feel-good. curious, i looked it up.
“pink can be a sign of hope, can inspire feelings of warmth and comfort, and alleviate sadness and jealousy. pink is thought to represent unconditional love in a soft, nurturing way. it can also cultivate awareness of deep emotions and feelings, by instilling the sense that everything will be okay.”
“coral can evoke feelings of warmth, comfort, and coziness. it can also symbolize acceptance and positivity. coral’s warm hue can suggest playfulness and can indicate vitality and growth. coral’s vibrant quality can foster feelings of optimism and hope.”
it would seem these are exceptionally good days for pink and coral.
affirmingly positive, warm, nurturing. colors of movement, of forward-thinking, of not going back.
reverse threading 