in the column under the word “detest” i would place mosquitoes.
anything that can be minutely tiny and, really, barely visible, but can instantly wreak havoc on any summer evening or afternoon hike or, geesh, morning coffee, really has no right to be on the “well-loved” list.
that incessant buzzing you hear – in the bedroom – when you are trying to go to sleep…you just know it’s headed for you, it’s looking for you, it will bite you. mosquitoes own big stock in sleeping aid companies, i’m quite sure. they are just – in the voice of my former mother-in-law (who i can still hear in my mind saying this) “MIZZZerable!”.
wisconsin is among the states that has informally declared the mosquito as the state bird. it’s an effort to be humored by these pests, to take them in stride, to share space with them. yuck.
i picked a slip out of the jokes and riddles bowl, sweet mementos of cherished helen. “mosquito – an insect that makes you like flies better.” considering what i know about flies – all the disgusting stuff – in general one would be hard-pressed to like flies better than anything. but – relative to mosquitoes? i guess they aren’t as pathetically-unloved. unless they are the horse flies of the beach or those black flies in new england or midges or biting gnats or the dreaded no-see-ums. none of these deserve much adoration and one has to wonder what their true purpose might be. i know, i know. the whole food source/pollinator/composter thing. (i can hear elton john singing the circle of life now.)
i’d have to agree with this slip of paper. mosquitoes make me like many things i detest – more. and, despite the bats that fly in the summer dusk sky above our ‘hood here near the lake, i still wonder about their self-esteem and self-actualization. i’d be happier to support their life goals if i wasn’t one of them.
mostly, this slip of paper from this tiny-but-powerful 95-year-old is a good reminder about one’s perspective in life, one’s point of view. i’m betting the flies appreciate it.
we don’t always get a rotisserie chicken. we are eating waaay less meat and waaay more vegetables, often choosing a meatless dinner or a plant-based alternative. costco, however, does make serious down-to-the-wire-budgeting a little less painful with a $4.99 rotisserie chicken that we can literally turn into three evenings of dinners.
the other day, we pulled up to the chicken-line, jostling our way past other shoppers who were vacillating “chicken-no chicken-chicken-no chicken”. there was a young woman with half-a-cartful eyeing the chicken-line, not in and not out.
i asked her, “are you in the chicken-line?” she responded, tentatively, “i think so.” she had a little bit of a lost look on her face so i asked her, “is this your first time in the chicken-line?” to which she responded with an emphatic “yes!”. i told her that it really is quite the experience, almost cult-like – to which she looked uncomfortable. i hastened to add that there are many chicken-line things to ponder – ie: the way the clocks on the ovens work – giving you false hope that it’s almost T-I-M-E and then realizing it has numerous cycles and countdowns. i didn’t tell her how much i think about the chickens. i didn’t mention the guilt. i welcomed her to the chicken-line, parallel parking our cart behind hers. then we waited. quietly.
the costco chicken-people extracted the roasts from the oven and – incredibly deftly – containerized them for the chicken-warming-station-counter. we moved forward.
the young woman was waiting by the packaged quinoa salads, straight ahead, about ten feet further down. as we passed, she looked at us, catching our eye, smiled and said, “thank you for sharing that experience with me.”
with the string you tie around boxes of cakes and pastries from a bakery or sweet patisserie, small bundles of dried lavender hang around my studio. from the big old black window frame that sits on the chifferobe i use for supplies to over by the djembe in front of the turned-off radiator by the window. bundles of lavender.
i used to have a lavender garden out back, started with cuttings divided out from the same bed these bundles were from. then the snow-on-the-mountain snuck under the fence from my neighbor’s yard and, despite my best efforts, took over the lavender (and anything else in its path). snow-on-the-mountain is like that. it barrels down anything in its way and takes much effort to eradicate. it’s aggressive and a tad bit bullying, not unlike some people i have known. i didn’t invite it into my yard, but there it was, anyway. i’ve tried to – now – incorporate it while still somewhat controlling it – the new normal. sounds a lot like the stuff of life.
each year we plant a big pot of lavender. each year, it is a slightly different strain of lavender. last year, our daughter chose the plant, as she was here at the time and we visited a nursery. it exploded into a gigantic plant – the bees seemed to love it as much as we did. this year, we chose one that seemed unique, it’s purple petals growing out the top of the stalk – french lavender, with butterfly-like narrow petals.
lavender is known for bringing serenity, for its calming soft scent. for me, it’s a balance plant. it is – without any real effort – growing in its giant pot.
i walk over and, with the slightest of touches, am caught in a whirl of its beautiful aroma. i think about tying some branches and hanging them to dry at the end of the summer season. or maybe making small lavender sachets. anything to keep it going.
i can add some to the gifted lavender in my studio. bring serenity in. and push out the ghosts of invasive snow-on-the-mountain.
in the category of fruit, you can kind of draw a dividing line. there are the people who love peaches and the people who love nectarines. it’s a more distinct line than you might think.
for many years, i solely bought nectarines. the smooth skin of this sweet fruit was preferred in our house back then and so, respectful of the tactile-lips-to-fruit-skin-touch-aversion, i skipped over the fuzzy peaches and went directly to nectarines.
it’s taken many, many years of nectarines, but – just the other day – i bought my first peaches in a very long time.
it did not go unrewarded.
sweet peach juice, the perfect ripeness. it was an exquisite peach. it reminded me of the scene in cityof angels where meg ryan is trying to describe – in words – what a pear tastes like to nicholas cage. maybe, were i to describe the peach if would be too intimate, too descriptive. instead, i’ll say it was glorious. it was a reawakening. the next time, i walked past the nectarines.
in a time of feeling a little bit fragile, a little untethered, somewhat insignificant, the peach brought me instantly to the moment. with no guarantee of next and with the dissipating condensation of the bursting bubble from before, it was – a moment of standing in gravity on a spinning-spinning globe – an arrow pointing to right now.
nectarines provide more vitamin a, vitamin c and potassium than peaches. but the up-and-up present sweetness of a peach will stop you in your tracks. savoring. it will make you think of every sweet thing in your life. it will possibly drip down your chin while you reach for a napkin, willing the drip to stop before it hits your shirt. it will astound you.
and i wonder what could be better than being astounded on an ordinary 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.
my son shares his name. it’s his middle name. wayne.
it was in the middle of my second pregnancy we lost my vastly-loved big brother. my little girl was two; my little boy not yet arrived. i had lost grandparents before that. but, somehow, despite our sadness in these losses, in their older-age, it seemed a natural part of the life cycle. my brother was different. it was today, 31 years ago. and he was merely 41, which is twenty-three years younger than i am at this moment.
though my brain somehow grasped the details of his cancer, my mind couldn’t wrap itself around how it was possible that the world could go on if he could no longer feel it. i still struggle with this. i am not naive enough to think it all ceases because of one – but the lack of the act of feeling, the passion of feeling, the tactile, the visceral of feeling – all this – it felt – no, feels – inordinately complicated to me. the full-stop. surely, in the moments i ponder this is when i realize how utterly futile it is to try and control anything, to be utterly absorbed in stuffff, to not stop and notice the tiny delicate flowers on the path.
we are reading a book together. though the actual book has nothing at all to do with this post or my brother or pausing on trails in the woods, the title – for me – is relevant: i have some questions for you.
i do, my big brother. i have some questions for you.
i know you know, bro, how adored you always were. did you take it with you? can you feel it on this other plane you are on?
i know you loved coffee ice cream, hot cups of coffee, birthday cake. are your senses as vibrant? did you smell the peonies in our backyard? can you now catch a whiff of the lavender, the mint, the basil? can you feel the sun? are you aware of the breeze – or – are you the breeze itself?
i know you loved to hear neil diamond, loved to play guitar and sing, loved to feel your hands on projects of wood. do you float in and out now, catching snatches of song, feeling the pick in your hand, hearing the scroll saw start up?
i know you loved. are you right here – loving – right now? are you right next to your wife, your beloved children and your grandchildren, and, if we could touch incandescence, the full spectrum of color, translucent gossamer, could we touch you?
i know you are not in a physical form on this earth. but are you simply unseeable? are you, in turn, coffeesitting with our mom and dad and then swooping in to somehow steadfastly drop wisdom or strength onto the rest of us?
i know you probably don’t have any questions. but i do. and, as my big brother, you will need to find a way to answer them, as i am counting on you to explain all this.
i’ll stop – wayne – at the delicate flowers in the woods. i’ll slow down and dance on the deck. i’ll try not to worry about the angst of the day-to-day. i’ll feel and i’ll drop into pause.
there are times i know you are here. there are times i know our sweet momma and poppo are here. i wish it were easier to see you.
in some kind of trust – right smack in the middle of grace and not-knowing – i do believe you are the wind.
the sink is clogging. the fridge is leaking. the hall needs to be painted. the dishwasher stalled years ago. the sitting room floor needs refinishing. the doorknob fell off the bedroom door. there are deck screws to tighten and weeds to weed from the patio blocks. the window sash rope is broken. the mailbox needs repainting. the front rail needs sandblasting. the hydrangea needs to be tied for support. the garage needs to be cleaned, the basement storage culled. the vinyl siding needs to be washed, the gutters emptied, the chimney redone.
all in due time. like everyone else’s houses.
slowly but surely we get it all done. we are not brilliant masterminds of DIY home repair. my reticence to start a project has less to do with laziness or procrastination and more to do with grokking this lack of savvy. i utter, “i don’t think we should do that,” to his “and then i’ll just….” and we stammer through a few ridiculous heated words about manhood and ability and blahdeeblah till we start laughing because – really – we rarely have any idea what we are doing in these repairs – even with youtube at our beck and call.
i try to channel my daddyo; he was the king of repair. at least he seemed that way to me – always invoking in me confidence and trust that things were not going to get worse. my big brother was like that too.
but – the two of us? well, not so much. it’s all guesswork. sometimes it goes well and sometimes….? well, suffice it to say the sink is leaking now too.
before they moved, the neighbors around the corner had windchimes that were about three feet long. we’d stand on the sidewalk and listen to them, particularly when the wind was off the lake. gorgeous, deep resonant voices, each of the chimes. shortly after the house sold, we noticed that the spot where they hung in the old tree out the back side yard was empty.
these tiny bells hang off the garden fence in the back, attached to a metal heart that is also rusting. when my children were growing up, this heart with its bells hung next to the door into the kitchen. as i would walk into the kitchen holding my children when they were very little, in particular, they would reach up and jingle the bells. now the birds light on them and, though they don’t jingle, they seem to know.
i’m not sure the handbells are played anymore. we had three octaves and a dedicated choir of players. it was the last rehearsal of the night – after choir, after ukulele band. by the time we got to handbells everyone was a little bit giddy. many of the bell players were also in ukulele band, so these amazing volunteers spent quite a bit of time in the choir room.
playing handbells requires a bit of hand-eye coordination. you are reading music while you have this bell as an extension of your gloved hand…counting, counting and then…you thrust your wrist forward, allowing the clapper to strike the bell, hoping it’s at exactly the right moment. there are many evenings when laughter was the music we produced. as the director, i was always grateful for the generous collaboration of this group. and every time we played – from old hymns to gospel songs to contemporary pieces – it was beautiful. the bells would ring out into the high-ceilinged sanctuary and, i suspect, each player would marvel at their own contribution to such beauty, to such a particular lift of melody, of harmony.
if the handbells are silent now, i am sad. handbells harken back to the late 17th century and early 18th century and are considered percussion instruments. their sound is particularly unique, meditative in isolation, exuberant in chorus.
were i to have a bell to ring today – and perhaps we’ll use the metal singing bowl – it would be for jonathan. one ring without damping. his light will go on forever and we are eternally grateful to have known him, to have made music with him, to have broken bread with him and sipped wine with him. he was – and i suspect, continues to be – full of wisdom and love, and the world was a better place with him in it.
just like the sound of the bells on the metal heart on the kitchen wall and the large windchimes in the tree of our neighbor’s yard, handbells, too, are now a thing of my past. each, however, resonates on and on in the album of my memory. in times of quietude, i can hear them.
bunbun et al seem to love the new hosta. we added them to the back garden – along the new fence – last summer. and then bunbun’s momma added her family to the backyard.
it’s not that we don’t love hardy purple-flowered hosta. they are the hosta of my youth, the stalwart souls of shady gardens everywhere. they come back, despite pretty much anything.
but those white-flowered hosta – big solid-colored blue-green leaves – and the waterfall of white flowers bent under the weight of their blooms. i’d see them in nestled in mulch on our walks. i’d see them in peaceful garden center strolls. ahh, i was in hosta-desire.
most of our yard – prior to last summer – has come from others. plantings, cuttings, full transplants from people dear to us. so it has been less about landscape-planning and more about gratefully accepting gestures of friendship and generosity.
and then, when it was time for a fence, it became about planning.
our fern garden is tucked into the back left, over by the garage, under a canopy of many big old trees. we dug up and transplanted all the hosta from along the back fenceline to over by barney – kind of a vintage garden, old-fashioned flowers tucked in next to each other, next to our almost-100-year-old piano. it’s where our sweet peonies are and all the daylilies.
along the back fence, though, we now have various-sized ornamental grasses. switchgrass and zebra grass, blue sedge and a big piece of driftwood that tiny birds seem to love. they perch and linger, eyes on the birdfeeder, waiting their turn for the birdbath. we added three of the darker-leafed hosta. these are the ones bunbun loves. tiny bites of leaf – evidence of bunny snacktime.
each day – with the coolest watering wand and hose gifted to me by my niece – i wander slowly around the backyard, taking note of new growth in each of our plants – the gifted ones, the carefully-researched, chosen ones. it’s simplicity at its best – a slow walk nurturing all the living things back there. we fill the birdfeeders, knowing the chippies and the squirrels love them too. we clean and refill the hummingbird feeder and late dusk watch the hummer fly in to do its feeding circuit. we scrub out the birdbath daily, refilling it – just as the woman walking through the parking lot told us to do when she enthused about our purchase on the rolling flatcart and i asked her about things we should know.
it’s a slower summer. because of circumstances, we don’t know if we will be able to travel much. but that makes dogdog happy. and, in my imagination, i can hear the house wrens and the cardinals and the robins and chickadees and sparrows clapping. and bunbun’s ears perk up too.
his legs wrapped tightly around the garden fence, the cicada gave in to his time of transformation.
i found him when i was watering. i bent down to pull a weed by the low fencing and there he was, clinging with all his might to the thin metal frame, following his call of nature, nymph to adult. the transition is recognizable. the two creatures look remarkably different, so it is easy to tell which is the mature cicada.
it’s the second time we have been witness to part of the cicada’s metamorphosis. the first time the cicada was clinging to the deck and we watched the whole fascinating process. this time, we came upon the cicada after it had shed its old skin, the outer exoskeleton having molted off into the dirt. both were profound for us. the giving over, the trusting of transformation, gaining wings, going on into next as something quite different.
“life is not so much about beginnings and endings as it is about going on and on and on. it is about muddling through the middle.” (anna quindlen)
and in the middle, the holding on. legs – and arms – wrapped around the garden fence of our lives, clutching for dear life. to be in the middle – sorting and pondering, full of wonder and angst – we can only trust that each next will arrive, that the on and on will not betray us, that we will not betray the on and on. the cicada surrenders, relinquishes any worry of what is to come.
and then, it wakes soon after, having pushed its way through the deadened shell. with wings. wings! exuberant noise fills the summer air. i know i will listen for our garden-fence-cicada on hot nights when the sun is setting and dusk is on the sky.
and we – in our metamorphosis from one day to another – sorting and pondering on our fence – begin to know that wings are possible. we learn that we have had them all along. we untuck them, test them out, flex a little, grow stronger. and we are astounded to learn – like the cicada – that we can fly.
“i want to be light and frolicsome. i want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though i had wings.” (mary oliver)
reverse threading 