as autumn moves into full bloom, it is track-able on our westneighbor’s fence. the virginia creeper vine is fully immersed in the transition of seasons – producing berries for the birds, changing color day by day.
but there are fewer and fewer leaves now on the vine. dark is longer and colder and the cicadas and night crickets have ceased their song. in turning back the clock, there’s no turning back the clock.
and we head full-tilt into this season, knowing that winter’s lull will follow, that a time of fallow will start.
we blink back the wistful for summer, for early fall’s warmth as we head into the colder seasons. and we try to remember what we treasure about this next season, just six short weeks away.
with different eyes we look to the horizon of each day – changing our expectations, sorting to presence and appreciating each remaining leaf.
and soon the fence will be bare, save for the vining twigs.
but under the soil there is a gathering momentum of energy. and one of these days again – in the way that nature continues and continues – in the way that goodness goes on – it will burst open and we’ll see growth again. the vine knows.
it is a tough time to travel. at least for me. i feel – well – safer at home these days. tucked into our sweet old house doing our thing.
but we had an opportunity to visit old friends, see new things, experience a different landscape. and we were fortunate enough to be able to take it.
this place we have traveled to – beautiful. another part of this stunning sea to shining sea. we move about airports with thousands of people – all different – with languages and accents and clothing choices and faces all swimming around us. such diversity. we can feel the riches of this melting pot.
and we miss home. where our dogga waits for us and 20 has dinner hot. where our studios and our pillows are. where no make-up and sweats are a default. where we sous-chef and cook side by side in our old kitchen, nourishing not just our bodies but our souls as well.
it doesn’t take new eyes to see it all. but the gentle reminder is always a good thing.
to go and come back.
nothing like it.
“the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” (marcel proust)
it is hard for me to pass by something this beautiful – this wispy milkweed pod – without stopping. i am fortunate to hike with someone who understands this. we stop and i study the milkweed; i take several shots.
it is not the first time i have taken photographs of milkweed in the winter. i’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. each time i see milkweed – even in the winter – even in its fallow – i feel like it is different – its slant in the meadow, the curve of the pod, the way sunlight plays on it.
this is how i will get through it all, i think. zeroing in on intense beauty, tiny nuances, millisecond moments. i realize that this is the power that is available to me. this is the distraction.
the invitations are numerous from the side of the trail, from the side of life. they beckon to each of us and it is up to us whether to accept those invitations.
i am kind of a detail person…so the invitations are somewhat evident to me, hard to miss. they blur out everything else, if you intend to really take notice.
and, in just that way, we are intending new practices – more intentional meditation, more exercise, more outside. and each time – despite any same-ness, there is the possibility of new. each time we may stop and study or gaze and admire.
“things will not be the same, because we will not be the same.” (anon)
it may be difficult to avoid focusing on the way things will be in these fraught times. nevertheless, we will try to focus elsewhere. to lean into the beautiful and leave the rest of it blurred.
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.
there was this knot-hole in this tree on this trail. i used to stop there each time we hiked – to gaze through it…stand and take in what i could see through the tiny porthole in the woods. always, it was a reminder of the fluidity of time, of ever-present change, of nothing standing still.
the porthole i found in the milwaukee art museum – through one of barbara hepworth’s sculptural pieces – had the same impact on me. bending down, i focused only on what i could see through that porthole. on a different day, at a different time of day, in a different month or season, never static. even minutes from my peeking-through, the wind picked up and the lake’s surface roiled a bit and all from before was erased.
late-late on sunday nights – into the wee hours – we stay awake to listen and watch our son livestream mixes from a club in chicago. he was away for a couple weeks and we missed these late dj nights. they are our porthole – our tree-knot-hole – into what he is creating, producing, learning, feeling. every midnight-hour-sunday we see the changes in the new seasons of his work, his growth, his zeal, his poise at tech controls that evoke curves of mood, layers of sound, textures of music we may not have accessed otherwise. we see his joy.
it’s the same reason i took my first snowboard lesson. at that time, it was a porthole view into our daughter’s life – a peeking window that allowed us to feel the smallest smidge of her professional work. watching her fly down mountains, picking up speed and agility and ever-more skill through our tree-knot-hole on the sidelines and touching her joy-magic with our own feet on a snowboard on a hill.
we can assume things about others. humans do it all the time. broad sweeping generalizations about people and peoples – different because of race or color or gender identity or ethnicity or country of origin or age or disability or socioeconomic status or politics or religion or whatever the prejudice-de-jour might be. we glance over at “them” and form opinions; we claim to be “open and affirming” yet we slam closed the porthole that might give us a true look into their life. we scrub away the transparency of truth and apply the balm of our agenda – totally missing perspective, the possibility of commonality, the gift of community, the connectedness of us all as a species attempting to just keep on keeping on.
were we – perhaps – to notice, to step forward and take a closer look, to shield ourselves from inevitable human failings of assumption and instead to breathe deeply and gaze – we might have a view into the sameness of us all, the things that unite us, the things we need honor and hold in high regard….that we are all one under the sun. that while we cannot walk in another’s shoes, we might learn by looking through any and every tree-knot-hole we can find. that new eyes, new focus may also mean new learnings and new appreciation and new grace. that we should stop and peer through portholes whenever we can. there’s no time to waste.
i’m caught in the onslaught of wistful; fall is here. and the on-and-on thoughts in the middle of the night include a zillion questions, all unanswered.
we took a walk in charlotte, on the way to a pedicure with my girl. i wanted to run to the door of the house-with-this-fence and hug the person who painted it.
where else can we be but where we are? marcel reminds us, “the real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
today is our anniversary. it’s been seven years since we had seven days in a row of parties, were surrounded by family and friends for seven whole days. oh, to relish something like that again! daisies and food truck burgers, heaping plates of pasta and sweet potato fries, cupcakes and gluten-free brownies, bottles of wine from ann’s corner store. we picked pumpkins and danced on the patio and bonfired on the beach. it was a giant celebration and we reveled in it all.
in the middle of middle age we somehow found each other – across the country from each other. we both had been married before – to extraordinary people who have also found a beloved with whom to share life. we often ponder together the “had we been smarter, more capable, wiser” questions, but the “réview” mirror is not where we are going and here – in our 60s – it’s full-steam ahead. we feel fortunate. we are able to share our time together, our growing-old, our foibles and messes and the successes that brought us to now. this time hasn’t been a cakewalk. it sure hasn’t been fancy. coming together in middle age has its challenges and we have had a few extras tossed our way through these years. we sort through the weirds and stand in the wonder. and we know we are where we are supposed to be. maybe there is some sort of design in this universe.
20 gave us a card. like most of his cards, he made it for us. it reads, “love isn’t something that happens to us. it’s something we’re making together.”
tonight we are going to bring happy hour up on the roof. because the very first day of making-this-story-together-the-day-we-met-in-person, that’s where we sipped wine under blankets as the sun went down on a cool may day.
it is our meditation, our respite, our rejuvenation, to hike. so we find trails everywhere we go. our old hiking boots have stories of mountains and deserts, forests and rivers, dunes and sidewalks.
we choose to trek instead of anything else. for we have found that “in every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks.” (john muir, naturalist)
in these times of pandemic, our travel has been of limited scope. we have taken seriously the words of fervent scientists and medical experts to stay close to home, to wear masks, to social distance, to be always aware of putting self and others at risk. and so our spectrum of hiking trails has been reduced in range, the radius from our home none too large.
the river we hike along is well-known to us now. we know the curves in the trail; we know the bend in the river and where the water laps at the bank. we anticipate the small turtles on the rock in the tributary; we expect the butterflies to be numerous as we pass the field of wildflowers. we know where the mile markers are before we see them. we know where the mosquitoes will swarm. it doesn’t change anything for us. we still go. we still hike. for “into the forest i go to lose my mind and find my soul.” (john muir)
each time we start we are aware of how very familiar this place is. each time we finish we are aware of seeing it with fresh eyes. marcel proust’s words, “the real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes” comes to life with every booted step.
the place we go, the haven we seek, are trails that let us be quiet, trails that let us talk, trails that make us tired, trails that invigorate us. they need not be new.
each time we take any of our beloved trails or walks in the general radius of our sweet home we breathe air into anxious hearts, solace into worried minds, we stretch stress-tensed bodies, we are mindful of glimpses of eased souls, we draw inspiration from this good earth, we find the new in old.
there is something about firsts. a novelty. and it was no different the first night – a week or so ago – when we lit the wood burning stove in our littlehouse. the first fire of fall. excited, we watched as the fire got hotter and the bigger pieces of wood started to catch. as it all started to be aflame, the chill, that a grey misty fog, an angry lake and a stormy day had created, left the littlehouse. we sank into the new warmth of the living room, our feet up and grins of satisfied appreciation on our faces, staring into the dancing fire, grateful for its presence. at home we have a fireplace inside, and a chiminea on our patio, but no wood burning stove. it’s a novelty for us.
how many times will it be before getting wood for the stove and starting the fire will not be as gleeful? how many times before we don’t just sit with our feet up and stare into those flames? how many times before we take it for granted, this divine little maker of fire and warmth? how many times before the novelty wears off?
i once read a card i found quoting marcel proust, “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes.”
because the novelty does wear off. in all arenas, i suppose. not just in how you see others, but also in how others see you. suddenly it is forgotten what IT was like before you (whether IT is a home, a relationship, a community, a work environment). instead, the novelty has faded and so has the ‘before’. suddenly, you – in any of those places – are just a bean counter, a placeholder, and the novelty of you, for we are all novel, is no longer a matter of interest or value. instead, all becomes black and white, the relationship of you to those places – a home, a relationship, a community or a work environment. i wonder what we are all missing with our under-appreciative eyes. i wonder what they are all missing with their under-appreciative eyes. the novelty is gone. and you have thus become dispensable, all for the lack of new eyes. wow. ouch.
we need take stock of what is around us and how it all works together. before it is gone. we need remember that -in every arena- we should appreciate each other – as if it was the first fire of the season.
“the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (marcel proust)
sage words.
i once found an unwritten card in a drawer that had this saying on it. i wondered how it had gotten there. i revisited this card from time to time, trying to take in these words of advice in a time i needed words of advice.
in a society that always seeks the newest, shiniest, most chic, it is easy to fall into the trap that new is better, that new will be satisfying. in a society that is seemingly full of consumable products, replaceable employees, expendable friendships and relationships, we need be reminded that the new will not continue to be new; it is not new instantly – the moment – after it was new.
were i to stay in front of this tree and look through the knot-hole in its trunk and only see waning lifeless brown, dried late-fall, believing that my little view was static, i would miss the blink of an eye in which this knot-hole lens turns the scene into rich verdant green, hope-filled.
the same landscape. the same work. the same relationship. the same thing, day in, day out. the same old same old. but is it?
reverse threading 