we were waiting in the examining room. i had a doctor’s appointment.
we were surrounded by beige and all manners of brown.
i said aloud, “if i had a doctor’s office, it would not be decorated or appointed in shades of beige and brown. it’s all rather flat and depressing.”
i suspect – for the same reason i said that about the office – you might say that about this photograph. you might even say that about this trail – for much of it is bathed in beige and brown, the reeds along the river, cattails, leafless trees, and dry underbrush populating the trailside.
but it’s different.
these shapes and textures are completely engaging. there has been a giving-over to nature, an organic timewornness that has taken place. and in this flower’s stead has been left a stunning sculpture, full of light and dark. you just have to see it.
in the new eyes i have since going slower, i feel drawn to each of these. i could be completely happy lingering on the trail, photographing one after another of these dried flowerheads, each distinct, each stunningly beautiful. the tall and stately, the rounded, the wishing seeds clinging to the rough edges after floating on the wind. so much life in so much fallow.
my sweet momma – at 93 – would look in the mirror to apply her lipstick. she’d frown and grimace, “i look like an old woman!” i’d assert the obvious – “well, momma, you are 93!” and then, looking into her blue eyes i’d tell her – “a beautiful old woman”. for it was those very wrinkles, those spots of age and wisdom and experiences, those eyes that told a million stories of love and pain, summit moments and disappointments that gave her the actual depth, the texture, the light and dark to BE beautiful.
i look in the mirror, glance down at my hands, get on the scale at the doctor’s office – i am a changing sculpture. i frown, i grimace.
and then i remember my sweet momma. and i remember the flowerhead on the side of the trail.
every time we drove past we wondered what it was going to be. the farm field had been sold and something was being built.
up north in wisconsin are farms with structures that – at the beginning of this build – look somewhat similar to what was happening here. there are ginseng farms up there. we wondered if maybe that’s what was being constructed.
what we really hoped was happening – right next door to another farm that had posted numerous maga-loving signs – is that ‘they’ – whoever ‘they’ was who had purchased the large acreage – were building a solar farm.
we were thrilled to see the metal structures and underpinnings for this solar field as it became obvious to us that – indeed – it was a solar power generating site. we cheer each time we pass it.
it is truly beyond the scope of my ability to understand the utter lack of responsibility it takes to undermine the handing-down of a healthy planet to our ancestors as the administration gutted the environmental protection agency’s endangerment finding – an agency created in 1970 to protect “clean air and clean water and open spaces as the birthright of every american.” (president richard nixon)
“an EPA that ignores science and dismantles the tools designed to protect public health and the environment cannot fulfill its mission.” (protect our winters)
with 31 deregulatory actions on the cusp of being implemented, clean air, clean water, stable seasons and public lands are all at risk. this is the potential loss of public health and environmental stability, escalating climate impacts on the world. where – on this good earth – is accountability?
when you continue south on the road with this new solar field, turn right on the county highway after passing a few more farms, and drive about a mile further, you find yourself at another construction site.
another solar field.
cheering again, we couldn’t be more proud.
the solar development of these lands is looking forward – not back. it is not mired in the self-serving profiteering of cronies’ fossil fuels. it is not ignoring the plight of the environment – this beautiful earth – and those who follow us.
instead, this solar development is part of an initiative that seeks to support the state of illinois’ goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050. renewable energy…hydro, wind, solar, biomass.
bravo, illinois.
as a country – planning for a future that can be healthy, sustaining – a country that will care for all its inhabitants – we have a long ways to go.
dogga stands on the frozen pond out back. it is covered with snow and this is the first time – the first winter – he has not still avoided it. he’s not a water-dog so – as an aussie that circumvents it when it is an actual pond, it is surprising that he is choosing to traverse it, dig in its snow, stand on it.
winter is his favorite. it is his beach-weather. it’s his bliss.
now, i’ve heard many people lately complaining about this winter. “sick of” cold, snow, grey skies, biting winds, they crankily bemoan winter – like it’s a monster dedicated to making them miserable.
i don’t feel that way.
it’s winter, i think to myself, and winter is supposed to be like, well, winter.
the last few wisconsin winters have been easy on us, moderate temperatures, little snow, no real winterish hardships or challenges. maybe that’s made some of us less tolerant of what winter really is. but this winter feels about right, as far as i’m concerned. i think you are supposed to want to linger inside, nest, cocoon a bit. i think you are supposed to rest and maybe clean out a bit, readying yourself for spring and new growth. i think you’re supposed to take stock of it all and appreciate the change in seasons as the spinning earth revolves around the sun. i mean, maybe that’s just me.
i find great beauty in the almost-monochromatic that is winter. i find a storehouse of rejuvenation in its fallow. i find anticipation in the slowly-lengthening days, the slight uptick of temperatures. i find a little bit of hope – even in the midst of the darkness that is this country right now.
when spring comes – after the temperatures level out a little bit – we will cut these grasses down so that new growth will have room to burst through the soil. in the meanwhile the tracks around the grasses show that there are tiny creatures taking shelter in them, warmed by the fronds into which they are nestled. the snow is gorgeous – so bright out back i cannot comfortably look out the window.
it’s february. i don’t know how long winter will last. i suppose it could stretch well into april, maybe a bit into may. whatever. i am just here – me, d, dogga, our new gutters and warming cables – riding the coaster. studying the milder weather where family and friends live, i wouldn’t mind a few days in the 60s, but i kind of need the seasons to be what they are.
we watched the birds in the birdbath yesterday. there were at least seven birds splashing and drinking out there. i guess the sun was strong enough to melt the snow that had accumulated. they seem elated. they’d fly away and then return, waiting their turn on the edge of the bath together. they know where the birdfeeder is and they frequent it. their chirping and birdsong in the morning reassures me that – yes – it’s just winter and this is what winter is like.
i don’t want to race through. i don’t want to wish for months from now. I don’t want time to go by without my acknowledgement of some sort, my appreciation.
why wouldn’t nature – in all its magnificent glory – wonder what in the hell is going on?
why wouldn’t nature – in its most minuscule and its most vast – its most discreet and its most deafening – stare down humanity, shocked at the impunity?
why wouldn’t nature – in its chugging-chugging ability to keep on keeping on – shake its head as the people, living within its generosity, destroy it?
why wouldn’t nature – working around its infinite challenges to maintain a healthy and centered balance – be infuriated at so many unresolved conflicts, so much bigotry, so much extremist agenda?
why wouldn’t nature – in its symbiotic synergy – be aghast at such lack of cooperation, such disregard to interdependence?
why wouldn’t nature – in its innate ability to BE love – drown in tears of devastated sadness?
i’d say that each time we see it, it looks different.
the des plaines is not a raging river. it is not a major water thoroughfare. it bubbles out of the ground a little north and west of here and flows south, through the rest of southeastern wisconsin and into illinois where it eventually – through joining with the kankakee and the illinois – becomes a tributary for the mississippi. its origin is from glaciers long ago, a heritage it carries in its current, in each bend.
it is a treasure, this relatively unknown river. we have hiked many of its miles, getting to know it in all its different seasons, its river-ness unflailing even in drought.
a place of solace, the trails that have developed around this river must be wrapped in the magic of the flow – for it is there we go (as we have written time and again) to sort, to ponder, to laugh with abandon and to cry.
and even in the moments when it is frozen, when all appears still and fallow is on the calendar, it is still moving. it is a living and breathing river – a body of water that continues.
i suppose that could make me feel the slightest bit less panicked about this country. this is a living and breathing democracy. though it appears frozen and at inordinate peril, i suppose there are tiny streams of constitutional law that are still bubbling up, pushing their way to the surface from aquifers deep in the earth. i suppose that the river’s origin 14,000 years ago should speak to me about tenacity through challenge – both natural and manmade. i suppose that the import of this simple river on the places through which it flows should remind me that every single impact counts, every effort to eradicate invasive species makes a difference.
and so, with no small measure of hope, i honor the uprisings of those who protest against the cruelty being dealt to the people of this country. i applaud the efforts of those who push back against the authoritarian rule that has surfaced in plain sight. i acknowledge that under it all – flowing underneath the vileness of this administration – are steady, solid, compassionate, reasonable voices. the people who stand firm on the principles upon which this country’s democracy was built – not silent, not still.
as i write this, it is a feels-like of -41 degrees outside. the actual temperature is -14. we are staying inside.
this is one of the bends in the trail i really love. as we come around this outer perimeter of the trail – a section beyond which we have explored with good boots and warm weather – i know that the stand of pines is coming. and with those pines, the scent…
we stocked up before the big freeze. going to the supermarket is astonishing each time we go, so this time was no different. we had a list – and shopped to the list – though we did buy a small bag of cape cod chips not on the list – but it was still a small fortune. we didn’t want to have to go out to resupply in the frigid arctic blast.
not to mention the fact that this time – this time in this world – oddly and horrifyingly suspended – feels overwhelming.
it’s a little bit risky writing a post ahead of its publish date, particularly now. anything could happen, it seems. and we don’t want to seem – or be – tone-deaf.
in the moments of stepping away from all that is happening – and they are merely slight moments – we seek any source of reassurance, any source of comfort, any source of grounding. we try to get good sleep, eat well, drink water, exercise. we try to find things to laugh about, things that take us away from the chaos. we hug the dog. we listen – still – to george winston’s december album. we hike when we can. we plan distractions.
but we’ve cancelled some meaningful plans, things we had on our calendar for months. things we’d been looking forward to. it was disappointing to do so, but we recognized our limits – physical and emotional – and decided to be adult about it.
yesterday, sitting on the old deck glider in the living room, looking out the front window, i tried to reason with myself about it. cancelling plans and tickets and such is not just a nod to the weather or to our personal limits.
it is a deep sigh of the exhaustion we feel as we navigate – with the pummeled populace out there – the current world, the devastation we feel about our country, the shock our hearts register each and every day as we stay as plugged in as we can manage about everything that is happening – rapidly, with no brakes.
sometimes, i guess, one just has to stay still, to sit still, to stare out the window.
and sometimes the trail comes to us and wraps us in it, hoping to assuage our fears, to calm our hearts, to stoke our courage.
when i came across the green plastic ant farm stashed on a shelf in the storage room in the basement – between two stacks of books – just innocently sitting there – i couldn’t help but immediately feel like it could be a metaphor to how this universe – in the biggest sense of the word – is now looking at us.
through a plastic shield, the universe stares at the goings-on on this planet – and let’s make that even more specific – in this country – and – without describing all the horror that meets the eye, the horror that is happening below the surface, the horror that is intended and about which we can only guess – so let’s cut to the chase – the universe groans in utter dismay, shocked beyond belief that we have screwed up OUR ant farm so appallingly.
because instead of ants – relying heavily on the importance and responsibility of connected community, with unselfish dividing up and equal sharing of work, with patience and problem-solving skills, their committed and unrelenting devotion to a positive and generative end result – we humans here on this earth seem to shun the values of equality or connectedness in community, lead with narcissistic and immorality-driven agenda, devote ourselves to divisiveness, cultural, status and caste, racial, gender, religious, nativistic dominance, drive toward a brutally suffocated powerless populace.
to think that an uncle milton’s giant ant farm could show us humans up is preposterous. but it’s absolutely true.
we recently saw a car of this color. it was a small vehicle, so it wasn’t an extraordinarily loud splash of chartreuse, but it was bracing nonetheless. i’m pretty sure this person has zero difficulty finding their car in a parking lot. kind of like people with hot pink rollie bags or wild print suitcases – as these bags come down the baggage claim ramp onto the carousel – along with hundreds of indistinguishable black suitcases – the owner happily swaggers up to the conveyor and – without a single doubt – claims their bag. maybe the owner of this car has a rollie bag like that.
no matter what, i remembered seeing this vehicle and maybe that was the point.
littlebabyscion is kind of a car like that. it is different and sticks out. not because it is fancy, not because it has any – really, ANY – bells and whistles. but because it looks different. despite the fact that it is black – i could have gotten it in copper or various other colors – it has a personality unlike other vehicles i have owned or driven. as this vehicle ages and rapidly approaches the 300,000 mile mark, i have some anticipatory grief about its tenure in our life.
big red – our 1998 ford f150 – is big, guzzles gas and doesn’t really zip around town in the same way as LBS. one has to be ever-conscious of its size, particularly in parking lots. one has to be ever-conscious of its lumbering, particularly when crossing traffic or entering highway on-ramps. zero to sixty is not its forte, so we allow a lot more space and time. big red’s personality is a bit cumbersome, a bit ungainly, but well-loved nonetheless, though every now and then it painfully surprises us with some of its 1998 parts parting ways.
even as we know we are in no position whatsoever, we find ourselves pondering what might be next. and that brings me to chartreuse.
as two artists we have always poked at the envelope. we’ll wear jeans and boots when no one else will. we’ll ride the edges of economics when most would shudder to even skirt them. we’d rather have a carried-in pop-up dinner on a trail than dine in haute cuisine. it’s a way of life to be vulnerable.
i stopped under the tree out on the trail, reveling in the color of its needles against the sky. it felt like spring – like an early march day – with only vests on instead of coats, my gloves carried in my pockets.
in the middle of the chaos that is this country right now, it felt good to breathe in some fresh air – damp with melting ice, on the edge of brisk but not quite there. it felt rejuvenating – this color. it felt hopeful.
we came home from the trail and listened to a podcast, watched a couple of updated news videos. i could feel the tiny vibration in my chest start back up again. we shook our heads at the impunity of this country’s leaders. i could feel tears welling up.
i opened my phone to look at photos i had taken on the trail, out in the forest, to look at this photograph.
and i reached out and tightly held hands with chartreuse – not just the color, but the whole notion of it.
i am – truly – not quite sure how we would survive without this trail.
it offers sanity in a world that seems to be losing its very center. it offers quiet in a world noisy with horrific news. it offers peace in a country that doesn’t seem to understand peace any longer.
we breathe on this trail.
we talk about other things – projects and dreams.
we get lost in our own thoughts.
we – know – in the way nature makes clear – we are simply two tiny parts in a big whole.
blogsites supply some analytics about your blogposts. wordpress can tell us which posts are viewed, how many views, how many visitors we have, their countries of origin. the site, however, is not totally protected against bots, so some of the information – when the numbers seem exponential – is obviously generated by non-human sources. there are moments i laugh – or sigh – and say things to d like, “wow. like they have nothing better to do in name-a-country than to sit around reading reverse threading, eh?” i know better. my words are not likely to assuage – or even be the vaguest bit interesting – to people in dire circumstances, in countries full of upheaval or war, in places where trying to find just a bit of food is paramount. i am humbled by people who are in such drastic conditions or situations.
we have a thing about our shadows. and our feet, too, truth be told. there are many photographs on my camera that depict our shadows or our feet in a wide array of places. “we’ve been here,” i feel like these say.
it’s like a footprint. though the prints and tracks around us in this picture will fade with snow or rain or other prints and tracks, they will never really go away. the imprint will always remain part of the texture of the path, a part of the fabric of the trail.
i feel like our shadows are the same. though the moment the clouds move across and block the sun, the moment the sun dips below the horizon, the moment we move on – our shadows seemingly disappear. yet, something in me feels that they actually remain. our shadows – like the shadows of deer crossing the path to find shelter in the bramble, the shadows of hawks and a bald eagle or two above, the shadows of squirrels scurrying or horses elegantly cantering through, even the shadows of fuzzy caterpillars making their way – they all remain part of the many layers of what has existed, what has passed by, what remains in the energy of that place.
there are people imperiled in every corner of our world and there are people honing cruel skill at the denigration of others. there are people thriving in closely-held self-actualized dreams and there are people burdened with feelings of failure. there are people who are always the helpers and people who hostage-take others’ well-being. we all add to the energy of the world.
i feel like i really would like to do my best to make sure my shadow adds even the tiniest bit of goodness to the vibrating atoms of this world. being outside reminds me of the evanescence of it all, the transitory of us.
the trail was a mixture of ice and mud. in some spots – where the woods doesn’t let in as much sun, there was still snow…with evidence of hikers, horses, some kind of atv tracks.
we needed to get out on the trail. it had been several days since we’d gotten there.
this trail, as I’ve shared before, is the place where we do much sorting. it is the place where we re-center when we feel disoriented. it is the place where we speak of celebrating, where we acknowledge grief. it is the place we can talk or be silent – and either way – in both conversation and silence, we are fully communicating.
so, pulling up our turtles and foregoing any imperative to keep our boots mud-free, we started walking.
in the quiet of these woods, the pastel sun sinking lower in a slowly-graying sky, stark trees as sculptural interruptions with the horizon, thoughts have a way of making their way to the forefront, unimportant stuff drops off, existential takes the limelight.
it was a couple days after this country we live in invaded venezuela, a couple days after a citizen right-around-the-age-of-my-own-children was shot three times in the face and killed by a government agency, which then went on to demonize her.
there are moments when i literally cannot imagine what it must feel like to believe – absolutely and without a doubt – that you are the most powerful person in the world, you are the smartest person on the planet, you are better than anyone else – anyone, anyone, anyone, ever, ever, ever. this kind of exponential narcissism is beyond anything i can comprehend, a complete and utterly ego-driven attitude beyond the pale. the callousness, the cavalier mob-boss certainty, the self-devotion is revolting. being witness to this is living inside this person’s sickness – and, as contagious as it is if one is a sycophant – to which, indeed, we bear witness – for me, it is nauseating, incomprehensible. appalling doesn’t begin to cover it.
we hike because it helps us sort to clarity. even with all the innate complexity of the forest, the ecosystems present, the symbiotic relationships in place, there is still not much that is complicated when you are hiking through. it is all there – surrounding us with beauty and simplicity, the goodness of planet earth.
to juxtaposition that with the hideousness of an administration that is warped beyond comparison is to walk in some sort of unreal reality. this place – these woods – make sense. in the way that winter falls upon the land, the leaves have fallen, the underbrush is in fallow, the land is simply waiting. this place – this nation – makes no sense. in the way that this winter falls upon the land, cruelty has beset us, goodness as-a-country is nowhere to be found, the land from-sea-to-shining-sea is waiting…for its soul to return.
for right now, the clarity that is evident, the thought that i literally cannot imagine but is ever-creeping-forward, is clear-eyed and colored with the horrors of democracy being dismantled – right before our very eyes.
and i wonder about those who find this worthy of cheering. i wonder about those who are aligned with the miserable, vile nature of people in current leadership. i wonder about those who believe in the mass deportations of their neighbors, the abject sadistic horror inflicted upon the populace, the removal of medicaid, of childcare, the endangerment of the LGBTQ community, the loss of affordable healthcare, the unemployment, the cost of living day-to-day, the loss of absolute sanity regarding actual medicine, actual research, actual science, actual healing, the dissolution of international agreements for safety and peaceful coexistence in the world. i wonder how it is that their brains – and hearts – have bought into – hook, line and sinker – this vacuous, ill-intended, dangerous administration.
many of these people were one-topic voters. their immaturity – and their ignorance – are evident. it is shameful that they did not look beyond their one flag-in-the-sand to seek actual clarity about the bait-and-switch in which they were participating.
because now – the thing they can say – as their country teeters dangerously close to falling to authoritarian fascism – is that women have no choice about their own bodies or that we don’t have to succumb to “socialist” healthcare or that we are cleaning out the “dangerous criminals” and, mind you, everyone else with skin color they don’t like or that they don’t have to worry about government oversight over or taxation of their big money and that air will be clean – only it won’t – and it will be deregulated and filled with fossil fuel particulate, and that water will be clean – only it won’t – and it will be deregulated and continue to be vulnerable to pollution and long term harmful pfas, and that crops will be clean – only they won’t – and deregulation on pesticides and fertilizers and sustainability and public health protections will add fuel to the dangerous fire and then – my personal favorite, surely the heartbeat of a healthy country – that their froot loops will soon – in 2027 – finally, finally, finally be safe.
these people – clearly – need to take a walk in the woods.
reverse threading 