you know who you are. we have connected in life and we will never be the same. a few seconds, a season, a lifetime. it’s all eternal. you just know. wherever each of us may roam, no matter where any of us reside, we stay connected, we stay woven into the fabric of each other. you have blessed me with time spent and i have given you deeply invested moments. we are human beings on this good earth. we are creatures on this good earth. in this vast universe, not to divide, but to join together. we lead with love. we are kindred spirits. close. or away. it matters not. it’s the same.
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the lake wakes up different every day. our little bay is moody and this pensive morning was not willing to add much color. water morphed into sky which morphed into water and, were it not for hog island and two birds, it would be hard to tell where they each started and ended.
every day we are on island i will take a picture of the morning lake. its hues, its movement, its message for the day.
today, as i look at this photograph with two birds and an island, i am quieted into thinking about the day. in looking at the date, i note that 27 years ago today i lost my big brother. i wonder if he is gazing out at this morning lake with me. i wonder if he looks out on the day, its hues, its movement, the message of this good earth’s day. i wonder if he has snapshots of every morning from heaven.
every time you think you have it all figured out, life has a way of poking fun at you, pulling the rug from underneath you, making you re-evaluate, maybe roll your eyes, maybe cry out and push back, maybe giggle in abandon.
the island players performed a short at TPAC from spoon river anthology (e. l. masters), a collection of epitaphs spoken as monologues by the deceased residents of the fictional town called spoon river. it is gripping. a not-so-subtle reminder of our brief time on this earth and the absolute into-thin-air-ness of our lives. perspective-arranging, yes, as you listen to the tales of each person, ephemeral, transitory, all fleeting moments in a deep milky way of vast time.
one of the characters, a finely and properly dressed older woman, brags of renting a house in paris, entertaining the elite, dining at fine restaurants, taking the cure at baden-baden, a spa town in germany’s black forest. she returns to her hometown of spoon river, only to realize that no one really cares about where she dined or what she ate or who she entertained or if she took the cure at baden-baden. a sobering moment for her and, if you let it in, another one of those lessons. the kind where you realize that what you do and what you have is – not – who you are.
instead, the dust of us will later snicker, laugh, out and out guffaw at how invested we all were in the things of life that didn’t really count, the things that will disappear into the outer atmosphere of the universe, never to be retrieved. instead, we should chuckle now, realizing that indeed the best-laid plans are only that. plans. that doesn’t make them life. life has its own ideas. perhaps we should just remember that, cut ourselves a bit of slack and recognize how funny it really is that each of us, formed of zillions of random cells, somehow ended up here, right here, right now. for this time.
my sweet momma had a painting of a modestly nude woman hanging in her master bath. she was proud of this painting and of its location. it traveled with them from long island to various homes in florida, an item that made the keep-it cut time and again. now, this painting was not a brilliant work of art, for it was actually a paint-by-number that she had painted at some point before painting her own abstracts. (more on paint-by-numbers at a later date.)
but momma’s painting was meaningful to her and i suspect it represented a powerful statement – the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown. perfection. i think it resembled her in her youth, and in later years reminded her of earlier years, an earlier body before babies and emotion and injury and surgeries and wrinkles and time changed everything. changed the shape and the look of body but added strength and wisdom that only life lived can add. momma was indeed a woman before her time.
CLASSIC is such a painting, but is exquisite art. the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown.
momma would have loved this painting of david’s and, probably, would have convinced him to hang it for her in her own home. it would remind her of how much she loved being a woman. of how she taught her daughters and granddaughters to embrace being female and yet, not to stand by meekly or idly or retreatingly. to revel in the beauty of having a body that is female, but not to tout or compare or compete. to move with grace as best as you can, for in that movement grace will be found. to show and expect respect for your own body, in all ways. to recognize perfection. in all the times of life.
we watched the movie ABOUT TIME three times this week. it’s one of those movies. well, that and we have no wifi, internet or tv, so movies we borrow from the little island library are our late evening entertainment. even then, we don’t usually watch things multiple times during a one-week span. but this one drew us in.
how many times have you been reminded to live life like this? to live a day like you have come back to live it – the way you should have lived it the first time around….enjoying it, making it full, recognizing its brilliance, knowing that jewel of day will never again actually be repeated. too many lessons along the way teach us these things.
if i could wish upon a star and know that it would come true, it would be to live each day the way i would live it if i could do it over and “fix” anything that might have gone awry. to live it with absolute certainty that it was extraordinary, particularly in its ordinariness.
days. there are none to waste. during those days with moments of angry words, minutes are washing out to sea. in those times of drudgery when you are hoping for time to pass quickly, the hours vanish into thin air never to be lived again. in those times of grief, when pain washes over you and the minutes seemingly creep by, the chance to find any iota of joy co-existing with anguish passes by as you crawl into the next day, exhausted, depleted from losing the day before.
ABOUT TIME was a reminder: live each day like it was the full, final day. how would we choose to live on the full, final day? how would we treat people around us? what would we say to those we love? what would we do?
i remember my dear friend richie at the end of his life. each day he spent on this good earth he was a shining example of this. like all of us, he woke up never knowing which day would be the full and final day. and yet he woke up knowing it was close. people asked him how he did what he did, how he lived his days without regret. he just said, “everything’s going to be ok.” and he believed it. extraordinarily ordinary. every day.
she was born in 1921 and saw everything change around her. she stood in a world that saw the great depression, world war II, telephones and cars, movies, televisions and news shows reporting on more wars than she could wrap her head around. her husband was missing in action and then a POW shot down over bulgaria, all while she was expecting a baby. she gave birth to their first child while my poppo was still a POW and stood in faith that he would return as that little girl died.
momma built a life with my dad, all the while navigating veteran-ptsd that hadn’t yet been labeled. but she figured it out. she held her ground, both supportive and snapping to action or to “words” as she would call arguments between them.
my sweet momma wore stockings and pumps “to business” and had housecoats with snaps, long flowing mumus and finally, at long last, blue jeans and keds for relaxing. momma drove a mean stick shift and, because they were a one-car family for the longest time, walked to the king kullen and dairy barn for groceries and milk. she turned her very green thumb over to my dad after he retired, likely to keep him out of her hair for a bit of time.
she volunteered as the girl scout president and in aarp alongside my dad. she loved wood and glass; she loved to paint with oils. she loved lists and calendars and math and writing and doing the laundry any time she was stressed. she wrote old-fashioned letters with pen and paper. she adored her word processor and then the computer and finally, her beloved iphone. anything to stay in touch. she texted, she called, she facebooked, she mistakenly took pictures of the ceiling and sent them on errant trips out to the ethers. momma loved to coffee sit and have english muffins or crumb cake or danish or chocolate chip cookies or pie. and she made extra homemade french fries every time she knew I was visiting so we could sit, drink iced tea, eat cold french fries and talk.
she didn’t let fear overtake her. she was strong in every way. she credited being from new york, but i credit just her – she just went with the flow and sort of ignored anything that got in the way, including any physical challenge that presented itself. two days after a double mastectomy at 93 she sat on the side of the hospital bed and, in good humor, sassed everyone around.
she loved that everyone called her beaky. and i mean everyone.
her journey was long, her experiences rich. she was an exclamation mark in life. she celebrated people and love and moments and I miss her. so much.
but it is part of my journey to miss her.
each of us bring to our journey our own punctuation. sometimes i think i am an ellipsis, but i realize that applies to all of us. we go on…
if i got to choose what singular punctuation i would want to be, i would want to be an exclamation mark, just like my sweet momma. for this part of my journey. for every part of the journey.
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“wherever you are, that’s where i will be…” the framed needlepoint hangs next to my dresser. every day i see this message, a message of unrelenting connectedness.
life has a way of taking us near and far, to and from the people we love. children grow and fly free. siblings scatter around the world in pursuit of their dreams. parents age and leave this plane of existence. friends are close; friends move far away. i can speak for those of us who are particularly extra-ordinarily thready – these are tough challenges.
on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART, this piece CONNECTED follows the piece i composed called MISSING. it was a self-reminder when i placed the track order that way. the connection between us eclipses the missing. our connections guarantee that they will surpass missing and wrap around us like soft blankets right out of the dryer. we have to just stand still and feel them.
we had the blissful opportunity of being together with both My Girl and My Boy under the same roof at the same time for a period of days. my annoying-mother-ness took lots of pictures and memorized moments, from hilariously funny to touchingly heart-full to painfully real. the first moments i saw each of them deplane at the tiny island airport will be indelibly sketched in my mind. pure joy.
we are connected. despite our proximity, despite distance from one visit to the next, despite time between, we are connected. i will – comfortingly, reassuringly, lovingly, supportively, annoyingly, and yes, unrelentingly – always be there for them. always.
that is what connection is.
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lists. we have lists of things to get done today, this weekend, next week. so.much.to.do. “…it’s not just romance, it’s not just spark…it’s not just passion, it’s not just flame…” (lyrics)
we are not alone. real life requires lists. and lots of hard work. together. we lean on each other for the challenges. we hold each other through the really tough stuff.
we just came back from being on an island where we heard a story about the recent high school graduation. there were three (3) graduating seniors. (the school has about 72 students, k-12.) most of the people on island went to this graduation. it lasted two hours, with speeches and personally-chosen-songs played by the graduates and a recessional. it is amazing to think about how many unrelated people watched this ceremony, taking time out of their lives to witness this very important moment in the lives of these young people. it takes a village to raise a child. yes.
but everyone knows everyone there, indirectly if not directly. deb recommended to never say anything negative or derogatory about anyone because they are likely related or best friends to whom you are speaking. she added, and i agree, that “we should always live like that.” there is a shirt in her sweet bookshop that already has my name on it and reads:
as we plan our lists and our calendar for this next crazy week, we can see, ever so clearly, that our own village is here to help us. we lean on each of them for the challenges. they hold us through the really tough stuff. it does take a village. it takes each other. together. that is the stuff of real life.
colorado to wisconsin. with a stop in columbia, missouri. the first day is long. twelve hours give or take. we drive out of colorado into kansas, which has to be one of the wider states in the journey, and head for wendy’s. she and keith are tolerant of whatever-time-we-get-there, knowing the challenges of a long drive. this time, it was different.
this time we weren’t in our littlebabyscion toodling along, huffing and puffing up hills. this time we were in Big Red, a giant ford F150. she hadn’t been driven this-far-at-one-time in years. we were high up and felt like road warriors.
columbus gave us a couple cassette tapes to play in the player and, in planning ahead, i had brought a dozen favorites from years past (ok, the 70s are many years past.) we played each of them, singing along. and then switched to the radio. it only seemed right that country music be blaring out of the speakers, so we obliged.
although we blasted cassettes of john denver, loggins and messina, alabama, england dan & john ford coley among others, i have a few favorite radio songs of the journey east and north. one direction’s what makes you beautiful, lady gaga and bradley cooper singing shallow, toby keith’s i wanna talk about me and my new fave, billy currington’s good directions and turnip greens. a sweet country-music story.
we were talking with jen and brad last night in their kitchen, lingering over our potluck together. we talked about compromise and life and decisions and chance. like everyone, david and i have had our share of each of those. decisions sorted and pondered, and compromises, bending to the things that make life meaningful, balancing reality with idealism. and then there’s chance. we could relate to the story of turnip greens…happenstance changing life. a choice, one direction taken, a turn, one click…and everything changes. what comes is predicated on what was and what is this very second. we second those lyrics – thank God for good directions and turnip greens.
we turned up the stereo in Big Red and opened the windows with the AC on. somewhere along the way, we decided it was a she, for she had gently mothered columbus as he drove a bit more gingerly in recent days and she sturdily and protectively lumbered us across the country. laughing and certain of everything and absolutely nothing, we turned this beautiful big old pickup truck toward home.
i cry when i first see them. i cry when they are disappearing. those mountains. my last long look at them as we drive east out of colorado. those billboards and tshirts and bumper stickers that say, “the mountains are calling and i must go” speak to me. they have ever since i was 18 and first experienced them. john denver’s rocky mountains have been a lure for decades now. and i can feel the pull, even from a distance.
if you look past the horizon in this photograph you will see what i last saw as we drove away a few days ago. you won’t know that tears came to my eyes or that i turned in my seat to watch the vista fading away at 70mph. we didn’t even get into the mountains this trip and i could still feel my heart stretching, reaching to hold on.
they are in the distance now. so much so that i cannot see them.
but i carry those mountains with me and know we will one day, again, be there. i will catch my breath when they loom suddenly into view. we will drive deeper into them, surrounded by forest and canyons and soaring beauty. we will hike on adventures and we will sit and gaze in wonder. and then, when it is time to leave, i will crane my neck and watch them disappear. into the distance. no dry eyes here.
reverse threading 