barney has been stalwart, steadfast, unwaveringly standing in the garden through every infamous weather challenge – the rain, the sleet, the snow, the ice and the wind, the extreme heat, the drought.
it is one of the most gorgeous things in our backyard. we have watched it age, its wrinkles, its furrows, its jowls. we have watched it struggle to stay young, fresh, shellacked. we have watched it give in – to time and the elements. and, in that giving-in-ness, we have watched grace in real life.
in this insane world, i have thanked our old house and its painted-wood countertops, its old floors, its cracked plaster, its doorknob-less six panel doors. i have admired the tile floor in the bathroom and the way light streams in through the double-hungs. i have relished the paintings on our walls and the fabulous chunks of concrete that serve our living room. i have whispered to our house and i have thanked its familiarity and its comfort. i have taken refuge in its security. i have reveled in our comforter, our dogga at our feet, coffee by our side, happy lights. i have simplified need and put want to the side.
in this insane world, i have patted littlebabyscion as i get in and out, stroked big red as i have walked past it in the driveway. i have noted with great appreciation the wild geranium and the day lilies pushing up through cold dirt, the buds on breck. i have sat on adirondack chairs on the deck – still a bit bundled up – watching birds and squirrels, sipping wine and eating maybe too many chips. i have been grateful.
and i have gazed at barney-the-piano, over there, in the garden. i have felt it steadying me.
in this insane world, i have thanked barney.
“pardon my sanity in a world insane.” (emily dickinson – and barney)
“sometimes hope is a radical act, sometimes a quietly merciful response, sometimes a second wind, or just an increased awareness of goodness and beauty.”(anne lamott)
he burst back in the front door exclaiming, “you have to go see!!”
for good reason.
the day lilies had poked through the leaves and dried stalks and, in the middle of all that brown – tucked up against the old brick wall – there was green.
the brick wall holds the warmth of the southern sun. nestled in that garden, the day lilies – an ordinary plant with nothing froufrou about it – were encouraged and nurtured. and so, even in the cold temperatures and the occasional snow flurry, the day lilies responded. gleefully. and their rising out of the dirt, their bright green of newness, gave me – us – hope. spring is here.
it would seem that people are not much different. there is a spring for ordinary people – with nothing froufrou about them – who are encouraged and nurtured. there is hope.
this country – filled with ordinary folks – has generally prided itself – congratulated itself – on its stance on human rights, on altruism, on its generosity of safety net programs. the melting pot that is the populace has been supported by a democracy that upholds humane values of fairness, equity, legality, goodness, kindness.
but it appears now we have been congratulating ourselves on something that was ticking its way out of existence, being usurped by intense greed and corruption, shallow conscience and deep-seated hatred. this source of our national pride is disintegrating right in front of us – being poisoned and stifled and ripped to shreds – and now it seems demolition is seconds away.
and there is nothing that the sun, the warm bricks, the insulating dry leaves and brush can do.
what will happen to the day lilies?
“hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. you wait and watch and work. you don’t give up.” (anne lamott)
it’s still there. at the bottom of the deck steps – stepping onto the patio – it is still there.
i don’t know where it came from, but suddenly this white heart appeared. it was at the end of a week when i really-really needed a heart to appear.
it is snowing right now as we work to write blogposts ahead. snowing! i honestly cannot think of anything i would like more at this moment.
tucked under a quilt, gazing out the window, the snow’s quiet is extraordinary. like after yesterday’s intense wind we just needed the blissful silence of a soft snowfall. it is calming my heart. the little vibration in my chest i can feel sometimes is absent. i know that any accumulation of this snowfall will be gone in a day or so – as the temperatures are expected to warm up – but for right now, it’s perfect.
while sorting through and cleaning out file cabinets and the attic upstairs i stumbled upon the binder of music i used for two of my recordings – let me take you back volume 1 and 2. they are both solo piano recordings of songs from the 60s and 70s. i put it aside, surprised to find it – particularly in that drawer – but continuing to work on the reorganization/purge.
but later – when it was time to go back downstairs i brought it right into my studio. i called d, flipped the binder open and started to play snippets of well-loved songs from our teens and twenties. i have this feeling that we could spend hours going through those songs, singing, reminiscing. and we might just do that. it was a balm to actually play – play!! – it’s been sooo long!! – and thinking of us singing along together makes me happy. maybe it’s a good snow day thing to do.
i will eventually bring the white heart inside. it will go with other heart rocks we have – or – maybe – it might go into my studio.
it is like a trifecta of goodness – the white heart, the snow, the binder.
i won’t question any of it. maybe divine intervention is just that way.
it was a stunner of a day. brilliant sun, azure blue sky, wisps of clouds, hardly anyone else on the trail. we were in heaven. we needed to be outside, to go move, to see the beautiful river trail coming to life. they were easy miles to hike – we had to stop ourselves and turn around or we would have gone way too far.
the wind just arrived. just now. like a switch, it went from stillness outside to the swirling of wind, the noise of wind, the worry of wind. writing this ahead, it is saturday and extreme weather has and is taking its toll on the country. we have had a wind advisory and wind warnings now for days. we have been alerted.
i laid awake last night for hours. the rain and wind woke me up, but the state of things kept me up. the trees falling are only one of many things on the current angst-list.
i know that it is important to keep things in somewhat of a balance – to shimmy over to the side of seeing beauty, feeling peace, being present, particularly during these obscenely chaotic times here. but the things that are happening to this country are real – they are actually happening, and, as a citizen of this country, i wonder where it is that there may be an outer limit. my fear – one of the nightmonsters – is that there is no outer limit. cruelty knows no bounds and as noam chomsky is quoted, “…evil doesn’t even begin to approach it.”
if it gets too windy as we write we will move into another room, for right behind our pillows is a very tall pine and my imagination is working overtime. i can feel the vibration in my chest vibrating, so i know that i am on alert. this is an all-too-familiar feeling these days. we are all often in fight or flight mode now, it seems. acute stress.
the day after this day of brilliantness we had another hike, though shorter. we sat on the deck and soaked up the warmth, sipped wine, talked about inane topics that kept us strayed away from current events. we had a couple other days of early spring weather before the in-like-a-lion kicked in. i’ve always been heartened by the out-like-a-lamb and, each year, pretty much depend on it…full-fledged counting on this idiom.
i wish the same were true for the state of our nation. that even though march – less than two months into this corruption – came in like a lion – it would go out like a lamb.
but you can’t count on folklore for the weather or politics. both are chaotic and neither is haphazard. one is natural, and is a result of the interactions of scientific systems; the other is deliberately machinated, a result of amoral strategy and self-serving intention.
one has the potential to be a lamb. the other is just aggressive, with high kill rates.
in researching it is curious to me to read – now that we are talking about aggressive creatures – that the deadliest creature on earth is the mosquito. i’m guessing that many people are not aware of this and, to them, sans any research or factoids, the mosquito is merely a noisy nuisance. in reality, the mosquito – as a creature – poses the most mortal threat to humans.
sounds like this new administration. and i’d venture the same guess – that many people – particularly those who – with fox-jacked-up anger – threw their votes onto the dysfunctional red bandwagon – sans any research or factoids – are not aware and, to them, the noise is just that – noise.
the tree lit up as the sun began to sink. oranges, reds, it was golden, the moon next to it, hanging out in the late just-sprang-forward afternoon sky.
we were sitting on the deck in our adirondack chairs – on an unexpected beautiful, warm day. it was the first time we sat outside in the sun since november.
on the same day, we took a hike in the woods, our spirits lifting with each step taken without cold wind in our faces. though we hike on very cold days with very cold winds, this was a glorious day. golden, for sure.
and nature is the only essence with which to credit this golden day. nothing else. no one else.
though the White House et al credit themselves with “the golden age of america [is here]” it is beyond delusional and a disgusting display of fealty from the capitulating folks this prez placed into powerful positions. stripping rights, freedoms, safety from the populace, putting the economy into chaos, hunting down immigrants to whisk away into oblivion, cutting helping programs that aid people so that 1% might get richer, turning our nation into a pariah no longer trusted by the world…newsflash…this is not the golden age.
we are not the elite. we are those people who wish to collect social security, who wish to have healthcare through medicare or the affordable care act, who wish to afford groceries and housing, utilities and upkeep, who wish to have income-based repayment plans for the criminally predatory decades-long student loans that have been reigning our finances, who wish to have economic stability, who wish to travel without fear of stigma, who wish to live in a country with principles based on equality and compassion, who wish our gay adult son and our childbearingyears daughter to have rights and freedoms for their own decision-making about their relationships, their health, their bodies, any children they may or may not choose to have. i’ve said it before – we are the masses. we feel this.
but, just as the moment when an olympic athlete climbs atop a podium to collect a gold medal for this country and you can feel it down to your toes, we can also feel all the vile program cuts that hurt others, the deliberate and aggressive bigotry directed at others, the loss of trust, security, and safety, the absolute betrayal of members of the populace by this cruel administration. it is the darkest of times – for each of us, for this country. light is sinking lower, deep into the horizon. we are heading into the sunless rule of authoritarianism.
it is not just what affects us that affects us.
so how do we collectively influence the actual color of these days? how do we actually golden up these times – this “age” – for real? what magic wand do we wield as a people, together? what steps – pushing back – do we take – for those we love and – in the biggest and most inclusive picture of this nation and this world – for people who will never know who we are?
maybe our collective empathy and our raised voices will help. every step we take forward – speaking up, speaking out – even against the coldest of winds – is a step – a goldening step – taken for democracy.
it seemed to trust us as we approached on the trail. this sweet opossum calmly stayed where it was even as we got closer. eventually, it ambled into the brush nearby, but, still, really close. we spoke to it in hushed tones, trying to reassure it that we meant no harm. i took a couple of photographs as it slow-blinked at me from under some grasses. it was a wonderful start to our hike, grounding us and pushing worries back.
“get outside!” kristy always ends the wander women video with this directive. she and annette have created a lifestyle of activity, of the outdoors, of community, of simple values. i’d venture a guess that we could be fast friends. they do not concern themselves with fashion or decorating trends or competition or vast material possessions. instead, their living is based on the certainty of mortality – of doing the best they can, the most they can, exploring and tapping all the goodness out of each day.
we were at REI the other day. we pored over backpacks and all-things-trail-friendly. we studied sunshirts and sleeping pads. i purchased two pairs of toe socks for hiking – my toes have issues with each other inside my hiking boots so we are hoping that these will help – in lieu of bandaids and walking funny. we are dedicated to our trails, even the local ones. tapping as much goodness out of each day seems a good plan, particularly in light of all the uncertainty that surrounds us.
i’m not sure how we could handle everything going on in the world if we did not get outside. even cold wind in our faces makes us feel more alive, more centered than anything else might. these days of beautiful weather have been gifts and – for a few minutes here or there – have helped us to set aside our worries and angst about the direction of this country.
i happen to know – really – that the sweet opossum did not have the same fixation on the state of the nation. it merely had basic needs to be met…safety being one of the most basic.
i suppose we are much like this critter. from somewhere high above – looking down at us – we probably look much the same. cautiously watching as others approach, trying to discern whether or not they are safe or if they pose a threat. retreating to the underbrush, slow-blinking at the intruders – still trying to discern their intent, whether or not they will interact.
it sounds a lot like going to the grocery store these days.
we made our way up the mountain pass, snow-covered pines lining the sides of the two-lane, our road winding its way to the summit of mount rose. after the peak we started down the other side. and then, there it was – peeking through the trees in the distance – lake tahoe. “…so terrestrial yet so openly spiritual.” (john muir)
mountains make me cry. and the vision of lake tahoe nestled further off was sheer beauty. a place i’d never been before, i had anticipated its allure. but – even after traveling at 35000 feet over a large swath of our nation – gazing down on unspeakably gorgeous land – i was still stunned by the incredible breath of fresh air offered by the lake, this largest lake in our country.
“as it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface i thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords,” mark twain.
to say that we needed a breath of fresh air would be to totally understate what it has felt like to be in this country at this time.
it has been madness. like sitting on a rail while the freight train is barreling toward you with no real ability to control it.
how there is any one in these united states not feeling a sense of horror is beyond me. every single day there is new malfeasance. every single day more shocking news. every single day we see it all driving toward the authoritarian state that they wish it to be. yet, the people discounting it continue to discount it. and we continue to barrel toward the falls – in this case, the fall – poised to go over, plummeting to the death of all we know.
it was as we were flying i turned to d and said, “can you imagine the ego trip it must be for the two men in the powerful position of president to know that they are in charge of everyone? every single person we are flying over. every single person in every single corner of every single place in this entire country?” i shudder to think of how this feeds their agenda and how insatiable their hunger for all control, unstoppable.
i ran down to the boulders on the side of the lake and stared at the view, tears coming to my eyes. the pure air, the cold breeze off the water, the rustling of wind through the pine, the looming mountains…all so refreshing, rejuvenating, restorative. we walked on the beach at water’s edge and i didn’t want to leave it behind.
but lake tahoe – this lake that has been this glimmering jewel about two million years – through thick and thin, abundance and penury – whispered to me…“when you need a moment to ground your feet, to still your breath, to slow your wildly-beating heart, go inside and stand by my shore. and i will meet you there.”
because sometimes you need a gentle reminder that you are not all-that and, for that matter, neither is anyone else, there was this moon.
we are the tiniest.
and out-there is the most-vast.
our tiny lives will someday be but a fraction of a fraction of the smallest division of time itself. there will likely be no one in the time-down-the-long-long-road (if there is a time-down-the-long-long-road and we haven’t destroyed our planet first) who will remember us or refer to us, pine for us or credit us with anything.
as i stood in the kitchen, tears streaming down my face – grieving for this earth, this world, this country, this community, this extended family – i slowly – very, very slowly – calmed down enough to breathe. and when i breathed i could feel my feet. standing on the old wood floor of our old kitchen in our old house.
and even though my grief was still there – the ache inside my heart palpable – and all that had happened – long ago and not too long ago and the very day my feet were planted on the floor – was still the truth of what happened, the ugly cry that had taken over my body started to ease up.
and i could feel d’s arms holding me and dogga nudging my leg and i was back from that place where nothing feels right.
there is much to grieve. we all have burdens, sheer disappointments, heartbreak, things that frustrate us out of our gourd. we have been hurt and we have hurt others. we share these commonalities. there are none among us who skate through life unscathed and not-scathing. it is humanness. there is no human who may escape this, no human gender or race or ethnicity or religion or ladder rung or any other identifying characteristic that is above this, that is impervious, that is best.
for any one of us to be cavalier about hurting another, to be flippant about minimizing others, to be complicitly silent in the face of malfeasance, to cheer on immorality or a lack of decency is to forget how very tiny we each really are. to distort what being alive is.
this extended family, this community, this country, this world, on this earth – our time is finite. perhaps we should spend it in goodness and not evil. bound together by that which we all have in common:
we all breathe in and out the same way standing here under the sliver of moon in the vast sky of the vast galaxy of the vastest universe.
i’m not sure that i can point to the moment when i realized – with every fibre – that the truly holiest moments were not the ones in buildings called churches.
it is a moment for which i am grateful, perspective-arranging and a welcome addition to my secular vocabulary – the word “holy”.
i spent many decades creating the atmosphere in churches where people might tune in to the emotional of faith – that which they could not palpably touch but which they could feel, they could intuit, they could impart to others. through music that i specifically chose – after research, after studying the narrative to be used, and after much listening and evaluating if a piece might touch hearts – open or closed – i shaped the music of services – the everyday and the special holidays, the celebrations of joining together and the inevitable release of people to the next dimension – to freely acknowledge spirit as it flowed and to try to gently grace others with it through music. to try and encourage an openness to the spirit that breathed into the place and maybe into them, into a place inside them where they needed the sweet assurance. whether i was aware if it did or not was not my only measure of success. providing the tenor of possibility and holding space for holy and their experience of holy was my job. there were moments when the last strains of a song or piece of music lingered in the air over the congregation, moments when a choir of singers, paused in a rest between notes sung with dedication and commitment to each other that you could almost see holy in the hush – the sun shining through, its rays touching each person. but over the course of these decades of time spent in these buildings, i was inordinately disappointed – even stunningly – time and again – by the hypocrisy to which i was privy. true faith is as true faith does, holy is as holy does, i was reminded, over and over. disillusionment was – and still is – a repeating theme.
out on the trail, as the clouded sun shined through the winter landscape and reflected onto the river, i could see – once again – how holy turns up in the purest of moments, the simplest, the least contrived. we have been gifted by the universe – and whatever deity we each individually feel or – perhaps – in which we might believe – with the extraordinary: a world full of beautiful.
beautiful is a descriptive word – easily understood as describing something of beauty. and that is all around us. the reaching of people to people in times of abundance and in times of need, kindness to and embracing of our neighbors despite differences, the love between any and all, regardless of anything, nature and its astonishments. our holy is all around us.
for those of you who are invoking your – supposed – religiosity to validate your vote – and your support – for the cruelest chaos that is this new administration, those of you who are spouting righteous religious drivel to prop up your bigotry, i would venture to say you may have missed the point. sheer hypocrisy has taken over your holy.
holy has not only left the building, but it has clearly left your soul.
our sansevieria is called “a perfect houseplant“. it doesn’t require much tending, much light, much water. it is hardy and healthy and has grown immensely since we brought it home, filling the window nook.
it makes me think of my sweet momma, since she is the one who first introduced me to sansevieria – the snake plant. she had several and called them by their scientific name.
our sansevieria seems unconcerned that it is referred to as an “old school succulent“. and, according to the miraclegro website, they are “almost comically easy to grow, so chances are you’ll encounter few problems with them.”
the other day d and i were talking about trends. neither of us is particularly trendy nor aware of the trending trends. we reminisced about growing up with parents who also weren’t trendy and didn’t try to keep up with pop culture. we wondered about whether that was a detriment but decided that it was likely helpful since staying on trend requires a financial investment and real-life artists are generally not in that sort of position.
i’m thinking that we are both sansevieria.
perhaps we all need to be succulent sansevieria. easy to care for, ruthlessly growing despite all odds. we need to be hardy and healthy, comically easy. maybe that will give us the strength we need to prevail through all the chaos and uncertainty we are experiencing.
the one thing that we don’t have in common with our snake plant? the part that reads “chances are you’ll encounter few problems with them.”
it’s our job as artists – and, let’s face it, as humans – to push back on cruelty, on injustice, on betrayal, on marginalization, on stupidity. so…you may encounter a few problems.
yeah, we’re mostly sansevieria. but definitely watch for a few prickly cactus spines thrown in for self-preservation and for the protection of others.
reverse threading 