each morning now, as dogga awakens us or we just mosey out of sleep unprompted by a cold nose snuffling us, i can hear the birds. in the middle of every everything, it is the birdsong that gives me joy as i wake.
when i was growing up on long island, my birthday was serious spring-cusping-time. no longer were winter coats or down vests necessary. the forsythia was blooming and the sweaters were out. i can still hear the birds in the woods behind our house.
i’ve been watching the weather, hoping for a nice day. it’s supposed to be cloudy with a high of 54. surprisingly, though there is a definite absence of forsythia, it will be warmer today than in my old hometown. we will likely go for a hike somewhere – one of our familiar – but loved – trails. because it’s a thursday we’ll have dinner with 20 and we will probably play rummikub together.
and sometime during the day i will sit and ponder turning 66. I’m not sure what 66 is supposed to look like – physically, emotionally, spiritually, economically. i know that many people around me have had different journeys to 66, some of which are much more predictably stable than my own.
nevertheless, i plan on being in wonder. i’ll put lack of perfection aside, next to disappointments and failures. instead, i will look at abundance and think about what would be blue-notebook entries – the mica moments that glitter, the blooms that are ready to blossom, the things that can’t be contrived or spun – all those shiny times and matte times that just simply happen so that we might notice, pay attention and embrace them for all the rest of time.
no matter where i am there comes a point when this happens.
when i was little – and everyone else went to sleepaway camp – i tried it on for size. twice. the first time it was ok. we went to camp koinonia in upstate new york and i was with my best friend susan. we stayed in a screened-in cabin with bunkbeds and there’s not much else i remember, save for the lanyard-making. the second time it was another upstate sleepaway camp and, again, i was with my best friend susan. that time did not go well. it rained a lot that week and that contributed to my wistful homesickness. i remember kickball and crafts and i remember a bit of weeping. i didn’t try it again.
i guess – as much as i now love going away – traveling and adventure, immersing in new places – even my favorite places – i am also kind of a homebody. i miss our house, our routines, my feet on our old wood floors, our dogga.
paradoxically, i feel fortunate to have gotten away from home. we needed a little bitta time out of town, a little bitta time away from the usual stuff, a little bitta time near family, a little bitta time in the mountains.
i think even a short stint of time away interrupts us. it grants us fresh air. it pokes us to not take loving our home lightly. it stirs up the wish-we-were-closer proximity yearnings. it gives us fresh eyes to return to our routines and the projects and challenges on our plates. it makes coming home sweet.
i am really, really familiar with the view out the front door of our house. this tree has been there the entire three and a half decades i have now lived here. and i have seen the sky and the seasons change through the arc of its branches.
the trees next to the sidewalk on our road have been aging out. one by one we wake up or arrive home to the roar of heavy chainsaw sounds. it makes me worry about our tree. it would be tough to see that tree removed.
going away and exploring – meandering around – is good for the soul. it’s invigorating and can take you out of your comfort zone. it’s rejuvenating. it gives you space.
coming back home – after going away and exploring – is also good for the soul. it affirms the everyday, the mundane, everything you consider ordinary, the very-familiar. and it elevates appreciation of all of it.
my tree. i found a photograph of my tree. the one i sat in for the years i was growing up on long island. i wrote poetry and tinkered with lyrics and sorted out the pinings of teenagehood. in that tree.
things are never as big as what you remember. the maple tree wasn’t huge – but it provided solace and a quiet, private place for me. i’d climb up and sit on one of the limbs, my back against the sturdy trunk, sun filtered through the leaves, my bedroom window within view. it wasn’t in a thick forest. and it wasn’t a giant old tree. it was a younger maple, just old enough to wisely offer me space, fill the place in me that needed it.
we walked into the silo. it was silent and tall. like a tiny round cathedral, it hit us both as a place you could sit, meditate, think, pray. a place to go to when you need to get centered again, when all else is spinning, when blustering winds or words are pummeling you, when you feel you cannot stop.
as we stepped in, damp cool gentle air wrapped around us. everything slowed down – hushed slow motion in a cave. had we had a chance to sit, we would have folded our legs beneath us, closed our eyes. leaned back against the trunk … oh, wait, it was cement…
quiet spaces are like that. inordinately remarkable, uncannily ordinary. but they share something. serenity.
guided imagery meditation ushers you to a quiet place. in belleruth naparstek’s meditations she invites that space to be anywhere – the forest, the shore, the desert, the canyon. places that have brought you peace. places you hold in your mind’s eye. places that are sacred to you.
even without guided imagery we find our own corners and crannies. they are the porches of our hearts – a spot to rest and rock.
i suppose the gift of these places is the unexpectedness. the silo was unexpected. the log on the side of the mountain stream, the jetty jutting into the sound, the edge of the canyon. i guess the first time so was my tree.
it’s all in recognizing it when you feel it. and you’re forever changed as you carry that place with you.
ordinary. perennially ordinary. hostas are intrepid, robust, shade-tolerant, adaptable plants. they are patient with human-planting errors and magnanimous with dogs who run amuck through their early sprouting. these plants seemingly have boundless energy to reproduce and spread and fill-in gardens in shadow. with low maintenance personalities, they happily populate yards and our hosta garden out back is an easy joy.
right next to the hosta is a garden of ferns. these are a different story. they are, indeed, more particular than hosta and, in our experience, much higher maintenance. they are beautiful, willowy and tall and a gorgeous green that changes in the light. still pretty ordinary but with a little more sass.
there are a few peonies in our backyard gardens. they are more specific about their needs. they like the sun and well-drained soil. they like a little space. they have a short-lived flowering season, but their wafting scent is remarkable. they are still ordinary plants, but need a smidge more attention than the ferns and quite a bit more attention than the hostas.
they all, however, live in community and, were we better garden-planners and were we not to have an aussie running circles in our backyard grass, would present a lovely picture. despite our lack of garden design and despite dogdog’s propensity for a bit of ruin, we are grateful for each of these living plants out back. the extraordinary of their ordinariness doesn’t escape us. they are there, they are steadfast, even without us worrying about them, fussing over them, micromanaging them. they seem to know what to do.
i recently interviewed for a job. it didn’t require a masters degree in the field, but i have one. it didn’t require experience in the area of expertise, but i have forty years. coming away from the interview, i noted to myself that it also didn’t seem to require a sense of humor or a sense of who people on either side of the call really were. is this ordinary? i’ve read many articles recently about leadership and management. the best of the best leaders and managers are human, appreciative of those they work with, looking for potential and collaboration, leaning on a bit of community warmth and pushing back at haughtiness and agenda in the workplace. the best of the best remember we are all extraordinarily ordinary, together.
i suspect i was too old for this job. that thought takes my breath away, but, these days, it seems to be true. i watch as garden centers work in our neighborhood and others we pass through. they carry in plants of great variety, design architectural gardens of varying heights and species and colors. i wonder if these gardens will require owner-vigilance or if they will propagate and grow toward their potential with the freedom that years of gained wisdom and savoir-faire and insight have granted. or if, perhaps, it will be a respectful collaboration, a chance to, in community, laugh at the breeze, bask in a bit of sun, cool off in late afternoon shade, soak in the rain and grow leaps and bounds. ordinary extraordinaires.
we watched the movie ABOUT TIME three times this week. it’s one of those movies. well, that and we have no wifi, internet or tv, so movies we borrow from the little island library are our late evening entertainment. even then, we don’t usually watch things multiple times during a one-week span. but this one drew us in.
how many times have you been reminded to live life like this? to live a day like you have come back to live it – the way you should have lived it the first time around….enjoying it, making it full, recognizing its brilliance, knowing that jewel of day will never again actually be repeated. too many lessons along the way teach us these things.
if i could wish upon a star and know that it would come true, it would be to live each day the way i would live it if i could do it over and “fix” anything that might have gone awry. to live it with absolute certainty that it was extraordinary, particularly in its ordinariness.
days. there are none to waste. during those days with moments of angry words, minutes are washing out to sea. in those times of drudgery when you are hoping for time to pass quickly, the hours vanish into thin air never to be lived again. in those times of grief, when pain washes over you and the minutes seemingly creep by, the chance to find any iota of joy co-existing with anguish passes by as you crawl into the next day, exhausted, depleted from losing the day before.
ABOUT TIME was a reminder: live each day like it was the full, final day. how would we choose to live on the full, final day? how would we treat people around us? what would we say to those we love? what would we do?
i remember my dear friend richie at the end of his life. each day he spent on this good earth he was a shining example of this. like all of us, he woke up never knowing which day would be the full and final day. and yet he woke up knowing it was close. people asked him how he did what he did, how he lived his days without regret. he just said, “everything’s going to be ok.” and he believed it. extraordinarily ordinary. every day.
reverse threading 