in the middle of the middle of the chaos that is this world right now, the thing that seemed the most real was last night’s pizza.
with a new pair of garden snippers, we went out to the potting stand and snipped off some fresh basil for our homemade pizza. the oven was preheating while we sous-chef-ed. we poured a glass of red wine and reveled in the cool breezes coming in from the back door and windows. we dined al fresco on the deck with plates of pizza, arugula spilling out of salad bowls and dogga at our feet. ohhh, what a day.
our old door – leaning against the house on the back deck – is not high in the himalayas. it’s not at everest base camp or, for that matter, on any scaled summit. but, like the space in which our other prayer flags fly, our deck provides a place from which to release prayers and mantras into the wind, to hope for compassion, peace, strength, wisdom, and good will.
the cracked-paint white door leans against the white lapped vinyl siding of the house. walking sticks – mostly from mountain trails we have hiked – lean nearby.
our colorado prayer flags have faded and shredded to nearly invisible. i imagine many, many prayers blown far and wide, the wind pulling at the string on the northeast side of the house, a place of distinct breezes off the lake.
i decided to make our own. they do not have the words of prayers on them. they are not specific in a colorful palette. instead, they are black-and-white, save for one white-and-black flag. sewn of thin bandanas and seam tape, i was pretty excited to string them up.
and with them, as they are beginning to catch the breeze, as they begin to get tattered and worn and sunbleached, they will begin – just as the others – to send wishes of goodness and positive energy into the world.
we aren’t going to get all hung up about color or what is printed on the flags. for us, in these times, it’s all about the intention.
we were the only ones. the only customers in the grocery store with masks on. there was one employee we saw wearing one, but we didn’t see any other shoppers with one on. the other day, at a different grocery store, we were the recipients of a few dirty looks. but heck, we have tougher skin than that. mostly.
we sat outside while the light waned, before the mosquitoes had rsvp’d they’d be there. torches on, flame dancing from the fire column, we had a few hors d’oeuvres and a glass of wine and talked about these times. there is a wistful dividing line between before and now. the pandemic has shot a chalkline in our calendars and even now, not quite after, we can see the difference.
the books arrived in the mail. it was one of those rare days when you open up the front door and see a surprise gift parcel on the doorstep. the books, memoirs of raynor and moth. the salt path, the first, a viewmaster of days during which, through the necessity of impossible challenges, raynor and moth were hiking the south west coast path in the united kingdom. “i think they are your people,” she wrote about this couple.
we opened the first paperback. i am reading it aloud and we have a voracious appetite to keep going in between all else. i read and we digest, this tale of backpacking without the reassuring fallback of retreat or going home in the end. it’s breathtaking and stunningly candid.
monday night i read aloud the sentence, “being separate from people for large chunks of time had reduced our tolerance levels.” it was not a statement of pandemic; it was a statement of wilderness camping. yet, it hit us – it was a statement of pandemic. so relevant.
if we are all honest with ourselves, we find now that the pandemic has most definitely divided our circles into before and now . . . and hopefully, one day, after. people who are absolute, people we have stayed in touch with or who have stayed in touch with us, even spottily, people who have fallen away. people who have shown true colors, people who have been generous and compassionate. people who have jumped at the chance to help others, to abide by recommendations to ease this pandemic, people who have chosen to be cavalier, go-their-own-way, to scoff and ignore, to not be any other’s keeper.
the season/reason mantra applies, we pondered aloud at the table, talking about past friendships and working relationships. some people, there with us at some point, are just not to be dragged into now. we appreciate their presence at the time they were present and we learn we must let go. they have become woven into who we have become and those threads remain somewhere in the interior of the quilt. but, in the way that time moves on, so do attachments. and even beyond the natural attrition of relationships – just like raynor and moth, though not on a wild trail – the simplicity of who we have become, what we have seen or done, where we have gone or not gone, how we have lived through these times, of pandemic, of loss, of challenge, of grief – this simplicity has changed us and, it seems, has changed our tolerance levels. as if they were on a cmyk or rgb profile – empathy, compassion, masks, vaccines, distancing, research, critical thinking, kindness, questioning, learning, truth, transparency, loyalty, generosity, inclusivity, gentleness, agenda-ridden-less, fairness, decency, basic dedication to not being mean…a wide spectrum of color levels in humans that surround us.
we were quiet as we sat and thought about people in our lives, what has changed, what has remained the same, people we yearn to see, people we, frankly, perhaps sadly or resignedly, don’t care to see again.
we gratefully looked around at flames in torches, food on our table, the dog on the deck, the old screen door to a comfortable beloved house merely steps away. the simplest pleasures have been, are, the pleasures. we cannot think of a reason that this is not a good thing. though we shed a few tears, we held hands as we spoke, together not separate.
the mosquitoes found their way to the deck. we blew out the torches, snuffed the fire column and carried our plates inside.
reverse threading 