in a really rare moment, we had the amazing chance to have our children and their partners gather around the dining room table with us. to say i was thrilled would be an absolute understatement. it had been six years since we had actually been together – my two children and us. it was a giant gift and i am grateful for it.
plates, pasta, wine, bread – all were merely props as i gazed around me, watching these beloved faces, listening to laughter and conversation. i tried hard to memorize all of it. these brilliant, creative seeds of tomorrow, bright lights of real humans, of good people.
the next day we hiked, just d and me, after everyone had left. we talked about our blink-of-an-eye time with our adult children, about the fun chaos in the kitchen the night before, about the teasing and the ribbing. and i found myself holding onto the filmy threads of each moment before they flew away.
the photographs will help, of course. they will be posted in our kitchen and i will pass by them, often looking at them and smiling. but inside, i will hold onto the way it all felt, the heart-stopping hunger i had felt longing for a moment together, the breath i could exhale as i sat at the same table with my children and their partners or as we all clustered together in photographs.
but i know i won’t be able to hold onto all of it. time tugs at memory like that.
and the clustered fluffs of seeds will be tugged out of the pod by gentle breezes and fierce winds. they will swirl about and land somewhere, planting. another milkweed.
and i hope there will be another table-sitting somewhere soon – all together – as these brilliant humans go about their all-grown-up lives, swirling about with gentle breezes and fierce winds at their backs.
this year – because i guess we are somewhat behind the gardener-curve – we fell in love with sweet potato vine. we planted a small lime green starter-plant in a pot on our deck, placing it on top a vintage stepladder. every single day we stand in awe out there, marveling at its growth, drinking in the color, peacock-proud of “our” accomplishment – which, as you know, only entailed transplanting it into a pot with some good dirt. mother nature did the rest. we were merely barely-consequential conduits in the process. we vow that next year – and i’ll put this on the calendar – we will get more lime-vines, for lime-joy is not to be underestimated.
because we – silly us – thought that there may be more of these – still – at the gorgeous they-grow-it-all-there nursery we go to, we had a little adventure there the other day.
we could – and do – spend hours wandering in and amongst the aisles and winding paths of this nursery. we are sponges – trying to learn a bit more and a bit more as we go. we ask the attendants there questions. we get answers rich in information and planting advice; it is a lesson in the gift of receiving lessons, of still learning.
we found a dark purple vine to put on the tall upright ladder on our deck and a licorice plant to go on a garden table, both on sale. we took note of what we might like to plant next year.
our front gardens are filled with switchgrasses and hydrangea, day lilies and sedum. our back gardens of ferns, grasses, daylilies, hosta, clematis are stalwart hosts of our herb potting garden. it’s really our deck and our patio that have room for a bit of creativity, annuals that captivate us.
we sat on the deck in the waning heat and light of day and talked about maybe adding a small raised bed next year – one of those galvanized metal planters. we deliberately veered away from current events. we rolled our eyes and vehemently shook our heads, not willing to ‘go there’. we are both aghast at the state of things – so many things under so many umbrellas. so, in our best wander-women-how-many-summers-do-we-truly-have-left-and-how-do-we-wish-to-spend-them mindset, we planned and dreamed and lived – for those minutes – in the small space taken up on earth by our deck, our house, our front yard and backyard. we bragged aloud – to each other – about the explosive growth of everything out back (including weeds). we know that this year we know a bit more than we did last year. i vow to write it all down so that we might draw from our new this-year knowledge next year.
we sigh and settle back in our old gravity chairs and watch the squirrels sip water at the birdbath. a breeze picks up off the lake and i close my eyes to memorize it all.
*****
we are trying to regroup, rethink and refocus our melange blogpost writing a bit. we – like you – know what is really happening in our world and do not need one more person – including ourselves – telling us the details of this saddest of descents destroying democracy and humanity. though we know our effort will not be 100% successful – for there is sooo much to bemoan in these everydays – we have decided to try and lean into another way – to instead write about WHAT ELSE IS REAL. this will not negate negativity, but we hope that it will help prescribe presence as antidote and balm for our collective weariness.
as i write this – this very minute – i am …yes… sooo excited!! when your beloved adult children live far away, even a mere moment of a visit is cause for celebration! and so, we’re celebrating!
the lists kept me awake the last few nights. everything i wanted to get done before she arrives, before they arrive. most of it will go unnoticed, i know. and most of it is probably unnecessary. but for me, it’s all important. and pretty impossible. there is no way i will get it all done beforehand. but i will give it my best momma-try.
because there is nothing more profound than seeing your child when you haven’t seen them in a while, nothing more comforting than hugging your child when it’s been a longwhile since you have hugged them, nothing more sustaining than gazing at them – in real life – and memorizing it all until the next time. ❤️
“wherever you go, go with all your heart” (confucius)
this is not hard in the quiet bow of a canoe on a pristine dark aquamarine lake under a baby blue sky. my heart is all in.
from one time to the next you forget a little how the paddle fits in your hand, how it easily skims through the water, how it rubs that spot under your thumb. you forget the sound of water droplets hitting a quiet surface as you raise up the paddle, the swoosh of the oar back into the water, the peace. no real destination. just point the bow and paddle.
if we have a thought in the world, it is only about beauty and fresh air and a breeze in our favor. we pass water lily pads and, every so often, a lily gracing them, pink pondweed above flat vases of gathered rhododendron-looking leaves. it’s serene. it’s quiet.
there is no race, so set time limit. we simply go, aware of how full our hearts feel. we paddle back only when it seems time.
the walkie-talkie crackles, “happy-hour-snack-time-tchk.” we laugh. and turn the canoe. no pressure.
we make our way back past the fisherman, the floating mats waiting for kids and splashing and laughter, the island created by the rising lake level. past the place we saw the porcupine, past the place the turtles were swimming, past the place someone caught a giant bass some time ago.
they wave from the dock and tease over the walkie-talkie that there is nothing left.
we paddle to shore and climb out.
part of my heart stays – quietly – for a moment – in the bow and memorizes the way it felt. until the next time.
1977. graduation. yashica fx-2. my most-prized possession and my constant companion was the 35mm single lens reflex camera my momma and dad gave me when i graduated from high school. it went everywhere with me and i made every reason to be out and about with it, capturing sunrises, sunsets, beaches, state parks, roadtrips, lighthouses, birds and other wildlife, my nieces and nephew. i loved this camera and still have it, although i haven’t used it in years. i learned about f-stops and aperture openings, film speed and depth of field – all with this camera.
somewhere along the way, automatic cameras began to reign supreme and i joined the ranks with a minolta that made taking pictures of My Girl and My Boy easier, faster, somewhat brainless. as they were little and moments passed in lightning speed, this camera made moment-seizing more possible, although one still had to wait till the film was developed to see if you were successful. sometimes it was the blurry photo, the funny face, the i-wasn’t-trying-to-get-that-picture photograph that are the prizes. they are the ones we couldn’t erase, delete, photoshop, filter. they were what they were.
i remember roll after roll, walking in to rode’s camera shop and taking advantage of their double-print deal, always sending photographs to grandparents, family and friends who were afar. having sorted through every one of the prints in recent years, i can honestly say that i have literally thousands of photographs of my children when they were growing up. perhaps this is the reason they roll their eyes at me now when i want to take pictures of them?
i can’t help but think of what i might have captured on film had digital cameras or cellphones with the exquisite-cameras-of-today been around back then. video without having a gigantic vcr camcorder on your shoulder or even a smaller, still cumbersome 8mm camera, instant photos that you can preview and take over, every photo or image or video ‘fixable’, ‘changeable’, ‘alterable’.
i have to say i am a little envious of the ability of parents today who are able to document their children, their travels, their, well, every move, not to even begin to mention selfies, and instantly facebook-post it, email it, text it, snapchat it, instagram it, tweet it, snapfish or shutterfly-book-it, sharing it with the world. it’s so simple. their documentation will be so much more complete, the phone-camera a constant companion with no real added burden of weight or case or extra lenses or film or a flash. the rise and ease of amazing technology.
it was with a sense of uh-oh-we-really-are-getting-olderrrrr that we happened upon the display of cameras and movie cameras in the antique shoppe. i wanted to pick each one up, look through the viewfinder, compose a photo or two. i was instantly transported back to crabmeadow beach with susan, climbing the fence to snag a few sunrise pictures. i was in the boat with crunch, cruising long island sound lighthouse to lighthouse. i was on the floor with my babies, catching their moments.
there was something magical about waiting for that old film to develop. something that made it sometimes easier to put the camera, the device, away. something that made it paramount to memorize -for your very own mind’s eye- the most precious of events, the most intimate details, the agonizingly briefest purity of a perfect moment in time.
reverse threading 