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.”
it was one of those and-the-light-goes-on moments.
i was just scrollin’ along on social media and came across a meme that said this:
“if someone treats you badly, just remember that there is something wrong with them, not you. normal people don’t go around destroying other human beings.”
amazing where you find illumination.
and, battling back my own fuzzy remnants of hurt, i could see it. through the cluster of experiences, the middle of confusion, the unanswered questions, the mind-boggling chaos, i could see it.
and – like you – in any circumstance wherein you found yourself equally as astounded at the behavior of another person or other persons – i could see the rational logic in this simple statement.
we are all capable – and guilty – of hurting others at some point. we would not be human were we to be above this.
but the other-level-ness, unequivocally deliberate poor treatment – is another story. and those among us who have been privy to this sort of thing need remember this meme.
because – in plain language – normal people are not super mean like that. normal people are not agenda-driven like that. normal people are not pushing others under water. normal people don’t lie to substantiate their actions.
normal people choose kindness. normal people appreciate each other. normal people consider what is best for all, recognizing our interdependency. normal people lift each other up. normal people hold each other up. normal people are honest and transparent.
i grew up on long island – which is, quite obviously by definition, surrounded by water. i spent the vast majority of my time outside at the beach. winter, spring, summer and fall. pebbly beaches along the sound, sandy dunes along the ocean, beach grasses and willowy reeds dominate the vegetation and, so, seeing cattails is like seeing home.
the next time we go there i’ll spend a good bit of time at those beaches. it will be time to reclaim them, to reclaim that place.
it is no surprise to learn that these plants that pull at my heart – cattails – are resilient and adaptable, persistent and resourceful, able to flourish in all kinds of circumstances and under adverse conditions.
spiritually, they symbolize peace and tranquility – the very things i always felt at those beaches back in the day, the same thing i feel as we hike through portions of our trail where we are dwarfed by the cattails surrounding us.
i slow down in those sections, soaking up the denseness of these stands on both sides of the trail. seagulls and red-winged blackbirds elicit the same when i spot them – they zip around and i stand – transported back in time to the marshland on my way to crab meadow or the dunes surrounded by sand fencing on fire island. i stand in memory. no wonder i love this trail.
we arrive back home after hiking – a tiny bit sunburned, our legs tired. the grasses and daylilies in the front yard greet us as we pull in. they are robust and their greeting is in chorus. and i realize that these, too, are the plants of the island. these grasses, these daylilies, spilling-over hydrangea, the ferns in the back, the hosta, sweet lavender…they are the plantings of the waterfront; they are familiar.
we surround ourselves purposefully – and sometimes unintentionally – with things that help us, things that feel good, things that ground us. we sink roots deep and move in the wind like the reeds in marshes, like cattails in a summer storm. we are resilient and flexible, making do with workarounds and chutzpah. we survive and have unlimited ability to thrive.
we have a front seat to the meadow. each time we hike, we are witness to the lace and humbled by powerful nature, its resilience and rejuvenation.
the lace is tightly wound in the spring, fresh, straining to burst. we watch it as it then gently opens to the sun. we watch it embrace full sky. we watch it as it folds in on itself in the fall, storing energy. we watch it as it releases seeds for next.
the lace is transcendent. it does not push back against this progress. it somehow knows that moving through phases are, indeed, all part of the journey. and nature’s lessons are clear. life is not linear. there are cycles. there is next. there is much interdependence in the meadow to sustain all life there.
and through it all, the lace is empowered. to trust the process, to keep going, to stand strong, to gracefully be open, to share in the synergy of all – all the wildflowers, all the underbrush, all the weeds, all the trees, all the insects, all the wildlife – in the meadow. to survive.
the last thing i expected to see – when we left the building – was anything of beauty.
and yet, there it was. just a little down the hill. growing out of a crack on the city sidewalk, a prickly thistle – with all its thorns – in full bloom.
the flowers were dynamic and dimensional. spiny. seuss-ish.
the plant stopped me. it stopped all thought. it stopped all manner of anything. it was that unexpected. and suddenly, i was distracted. and it was all about the musk thistle blooms. the mystery of prickly and stunning co-existing, a plant that can grow where others cannot.
and for a few moments, i was lost to texture and color…fuchsia and pink, purple and maroon, my heart lifting.
it is said – in the celtic tradition – that the thistle represents resilience.
it doesn’t take a lot of hoopla or rigamarole or pomp-and-circumstance or hullabaloo for us. though it works for others, we are not pinky-out-martini-sipping-country-club-types or fancy-car-driving-cruisers or retail-zealots.
we sat yesterday – for the longest time – on our deck – in a perfect-temperature-world-morning with my sweet poppo’s old binoculars, watching the crows tend to their young in the high nest a couple yards over. we were enchanted with this sweet fledgling moving about, hopping on its nest and pushing the envelope of independence.
the day before, there were three turtles on our path. we hiked the long out-and-back trail, not intending to finish it. but the day was glorious and we were alive and we kept going. we stopped at each turtle to photo-shoot and have a little conversation. the message seemed clear…over and over. “patience and endurance”…from the bob marleys of the reptile world. “every little thing is gonna be alright,” they snap when we question them. “ok, ok,” we retort hesitantly. and then they line up another turtle further on down the path to try it again…“eventually,” the turtles think, “these dense people will get it.”
and mostly, we do.
about time – the movie – has an inordinate number of tenderly-wise moments. it is a mash-up of the-best-enjoy-life-lessons. it culminates with a quote from leading character tim who has the ability to travel back in time, “the truth is i now don’t travel back at all, not even for the day. i just try to live every day as if i’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.”
every time it makes me weep. really, both of us.
because dark chocolate chips (which morph into strawberry bark), turtles, bob marley and tim in about time don’t get it wrong. they clearly all get it right.
friends of ours asked if we had cicadas yet. they live a short distance away in illinois and their friends – in another close-by illinois town – have so many cicadas that they cannot sleep at night. we haven’t heard a one. at least not yet.
instead, our nights are quiet. we can hear the gurgle of our pond, maybe a little wind. seems about right for the sweet phase.
dogga wakes us early – this morning his first attempt was at 5 – jumping on the bed for pets and snuggles, he encourages us to get up and put the coffee on. but in those exquisite minutes between slumber and plugging in the cuisinart we can hear the birds greeting the morning, the spoon stirring in a mug through our dear west neighbors’ kitchen window, the quiet strains of symphony as the sun streams in through the window and spills onto our quilt. it’s a tender beginning to a day.
last night was warm – we sat out late after we ate dinner on the deck. sans air conditioning it was warm when we went to sleep. i woke up numerous times through the night…always trying hard not to start thinking – because once i go down that road – the thinking road – i have no real chance at going back to sleep. nevertheless, i went there.
it seems – most times – when you end up on the thinking road it is on autopilot, as if you have no ability to steer. last night, though, i tried to stay in control of the steering wheel. and each time my mind wanted to veer off and ruminate over something else, something of concern, i tried to gently bring it back to my breathing, to the sounds of quiet night, to the feeling of d laying next to me, to the gentle snores of dogga.
i’m pretty sure the cicadas will arrive. i hope so. i don’t know if they will be so loud that i cannot sleep. i’m not too worried. there are plenty of other reasons i don’t sleep. and i have actually been a cicada fan my whole life – i love the summer night sounds of crickets and cicadas and miss those when they disappear in the fall. i try to memorize the sound – until the next season of them. i find both reassuring and pointedly centering – “you are in summer,” they seem to say, “relish it.”
the sweet phase. it’s begun. every day. every night. we are fortunate, no matter what. because we are here. period. this is the time to remember that.
when we sit on the deck – which we so often do – we look out onto our backyard. it is serene most of the time, a sanctuary for us – like a cozy private courtyard.
breck is growing by leaps and bounds. once again, we are surprised by this aspen tree’s response to spring. it is the happiest little aspen, filling out and getting taller. it practices quaking every day in the breezes that come off the lake or come in from the south or west. but sometimes, there are winds that are coming out of the plains states with much more power. and this young resilient aspen bends in its path. it worries us as we watch, wondering if we need to somehow stake this sapling, to help support it. we will likely go ask the good people at schwartz nursery – because they know. in the meanwhile, breck bends to the east when the gales come. we sit on the deck and, from that vantage, see it point to the right, nodding its trunk – “ahead, ahead,” it seems to say.
the almost-monochromatic of this photo appeals to me. there is more than meets the eye – these tones, movement in the background. i stopped to take a picture off-trail. i found the small green meadow strikingly beautiful. and there it was again – the response to the wind – bending, listing. “ahead, ahead.”
the messages come whether or not we notice them. they are all around us, tiny universe sticky-notes that flutter and attempt to attract our attention. we can ignore them if we wish. we can be too busy, too distracted, too engrossed, too stubborn, too riddled with our own schtuff.
or we can look at all the ways we are offered wisdoms. we can listen carefully as the sun rises or sets. we can see the greens in the green, the movement in the steady. we can rustle around in the world – aware of the air we breathe, the sun on the top of our heads, the cottonwood as it passes on the draft.
we can nod our heads in response to the wind – whatever the wind is for us – and whisper, “yes. ahead, ahead.”
i have sixty-three recent photos of our peonies. to say i love them would be an understatement. they have endeared themselves to me and i’m craaazy about them.
the other photos are more “normal” – they are taken at eye level with the peony or a photo of their generous flower – they are moments capturing raindrops on fragile hot pink petals. they are pictures of tightly-wound buds and sunlight escaping from an early blossom. they are peonies in full regalia.
because i have so many photographs of them it seems obvious to look for a new perspective. “the real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (marcel proust)
so i knelt down and put my iphone on selfie mode, held the camera under the peony flowers and clicked peonies in the sky. because our world tends to be a from-the-top-down, house-stage world, it seems prudent to look from the bottom-up sometimes. it changes things.
the juxtaposition of color is intense. it takes away the denseness – and the greenness – of the whole plant. it focuses on the individual flowers, on their stems.
i’m not really fond of this photo shoot so much. i prefer the other 57 i took up-close-and-personal with my precious peonies. but it’s a good reminder to step back and look at peonies from many aspects. they will look a tad bit different depending on the surroundings, depending on the background. they will blend in and they will stand out. they will be one-of-many and they will be the star-of-the-show. each peony may be appreciated in different ways, in different contexts, for different reasons. with new eyes.
we waited until the really torrential rain stopped before we drove on to aspen. the forested slopes, sagebrush-dotted mountains and an amazing canyon are just too much to miss in driving rain. the marmot, the bighorn sheep and the mountain goats were all out on our way there – the reward of patience and not rushing. they grinned as we went by, slowing to gaze at them, all pretty close to the shoulder of the road.
we were gifted with a herd of elk lounging in a meadow on our way back from the ditch trail. it’s not to be underestimated – the size of an elk. they grinned at us from the field and told us that the real hulksters – the moose – wouldn’t be making an appearance that day.
and then, back a couple hours on the other side of the canyon, right in the middle of breck, this tiny family of foxes. momma fox watching over her kits, the incredibly adorable curious little babies romped around the old building, scurrying from one plaything to another, scooting under the foundation. none of them seemed fearful and we were grateful that people weren’t chasing after them like the nincompoops in national parks seem to be doing these days. they were grinning at their audience, just happy-go-lucky-living life and momma fox was watching over her brood carefully. we were enchanted.
we saw them a few times while we were there. each time we laid back, quietly watching, enthralled at their courage and delighted at their zeal.
this is always a hard place to leave – these mountains. we try to make the most of the gloriousness while we are there. every breath here counts.
and i wonder if someone is watching from some other planet or galaxy or dimension. they can see us – david and me – romping and scurrying, playing and scooting – just like the baby fox. they might think we were just happy-go-lucky-living life. they might be enchanted.
reverse threading 