because we really needed to, we went for a hike that day. we went to the trail where we have processed much life. because this was a day in which we needed just that – a place to process.
the first snake we encountered was motionless, but in the dirt of the path. we gently lifted it and placed it in the trailside vegetation, out of harm’s way. the second and third snakes were also in the middle of the trail and we moved them as well, for there were several bikers zooming their way around and we were worried these snakes wouldn’t be visible in time.
and then there was the praying mantis. there it was, just waiting for us as we rounded the bend. it allowed me to get up-close, taking several pictures of it – its forelegs folded as it watched for prey. it looked at over at me and i talked to it, a tiny bit envious of its ability to remain zen-like in such an uncertain moment.
repositioning the praying mantis would have been much more difficult than the snakes, so we didn’t move it and we hoped that it would nimbly move on – with its impossibly delicate, needle-thin legs – across the trail in its quest for food.
we looked for our mantis the second time around our looped trail but it had disappeared. it left us with its memory – a rare sight for us – and with affirmation, symbolic meanings that were, indeed, timed well.
for praying mantis encounters symbolize things like good luck and stillness, spiritual guidance and courage and strength. we read that it also can be indicative of divine protection, a messenger.
praying mantises are masters of disguise – blending in. they are still and patient; their camouflage in nature – looking like twigs or grass – helps them find prey. this graceful green creature – showing up to us on the anniversary of the day of d’s dad’s passing – seemed serendipitous.
to be mindful and still, patient and strong and courageous…in the middle of uncertainty…all the messages we needed on that very day.
“i go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.” (john burroughs)
my sweet poppo and i would go out to get a “real” tree every year – sometimes as late as just a couple days before christmas. together we would pick out the one that seemed the most right. they’d wrap it in netting and he’d strap it to the top of the car with rope. decorating it meant also watching him meticulously place each strand of tinsel – individually – on the tree. because we placed the shinybrites on together after he first wrapped the tree with lights, it seemed like we needed to be a part of the tinseling too.
now, tinsel – real tinsel (and, well, even the newfangled plasticized tinsel) requires a special skill set of patience. one piece at a time, stepping back, looking at the balance of tinsel, placing another, repeat. but, when my dad wasn’t looking – thinking many of you might admit to this as well – i would back up with several strands in my hand and launch them high into the air so that they would fall on the tree, scattered and perfectly placed. eh. not so much. they would land in clumps, impossible to disguise as meticulously-placed.
tinseling was not my forte. and, once christmas trees were my own, they ceased to have tinsel.
but tinsel has always had a warm place in my heart and always-always makes me think of my sweet dad. i didn’t realize it back then but later it became obvious that placing each of these strands – one by one – was both a generosity of his for others – to lift them into festive – and perhaps a way for him to immerse into the heart of the holiday as well, to arrive. when it was time to take down the tree back then, my dad would – again – ever so slowly and carefully – remove each piece of tinsel, protecting and preserving as much as possible to be used again the next year.
and so i have a bit of tinsel in the box of decorations – just to simply look at it brings my dad here.
many years ago i added this tinsel tree to my tiny-tree collection. each year, i place it where it is seen and this year, well, it got top billing placement, seen as soon as you walk in the front door.
the holiday itself has passed and the frenetic has somewhat slowed down. it’s time to look ahead – there is a new year arriving.
this new year will have many challenges…it’s already presenting itself that way. i am hoping to meet them with presence of mind and fortitude and meticulous patience – like my dad tinseling the christmas tree – slow and steady, one day at a time, one challenge at a time.
the shinybrites remained tucked away and silver and crystal ornaments took over this holiday. soon – in a week or two – these will also be packed away, ready for next year, save for a few to keep light in the living room even on the darkest winter days. the tiny trees will go into the bin, though i can see one or two staying on for a bit, also lingering to bring light into the darker months. i’ll place the tinseltree in the bin with the other decorations – happy to have had its company, happy that it places my dad in our living room.
and we’ll gear up and turn toward the new year. much as i’d like to avoid it, i know the only way to the other side is through.
and so it’s time to tinsel the new year – to find as much light as we can and to carefully place it around us so that it might be something others can see. to carry love and generosity past these holidays and into next, a reminder to participate in that which lifts others, to protect, to preserve, to be meticulous.
i’m thinking – in the way people hang signs or posters with messages or have daily calendars full of positivity – that i will place a piece or two of tinsel on the frame we have in our room. maybe that way – each morning when i wake and sip coffee under the quilt, david and dogga by my side – i will be reminded of light and reflection and every one of my dad’s silent tinsel lessons.
maybe tinsel – like sprinkles – will make me a better-equipped person in these fraught times than i would be without it.
“first, my child, remember that there are truths all around us and within us. they twinkle in the night sky and bloom upon the earth. they fall upon us every day, silent as the snow and gentle as the rain. the people, clutching their own truth, forget that it is part of all the small and lonely truths of life. they no longer see these truths, no longer hear them.” (old turtle and the broken truth – douglass wood)
the turtle waited on the side of the trail. in no hurry and seemingly unafraid, it stayed put during my photoshoot; i was carefully moving around it so as not to frighten it. in one moment, it would peek its head out; in the next, it would retreat and just patiently wait. we stood with it for some time. it was there in the perfect moment. i wondered at the wonder of that.
on our next loop through the forest there was no sign of the turtle. it had done its work, appearing at just the right time. it must be the nature of turtles.
in the story of old turtle and the broken truth, truth fell from the sky and broke into two pieces. the people held onto the piece they found – despite that it was incomplete. “you are loved,” it read. clutching their truth, these same people became angry toward those who did not have this piece-that-had-fallen-from-the-sky and they became arrogant – righteous, even – and began fighting with the others.
a little girl who yearned for change, yearned for peace and transparency between people, set out to find old turtle, to seek wisdom. old turtle told her that the truth-piece that the people held had been broken off and that the other piece of truth needed to be found to make the world whole again, to complete the truth.
together they sought the other piece of the truth, the other half of the incomplete “you are loved” message, the piece that had vanished, to which the people paid no heed.
old turtle led the girl to the other part of the incomplete truth. the other piece read, “and so are they.”
“half-truths are not the same as whole truths,” a reader writes.
we waited until the really torrential rain stopped before we drove on to aspen. the forested slopes, sagebrush-dotted mountains and an amazing canyon are just too much to miss in driving rain. the marmot, the bighorn sheep and the mountain goats were all out on our way there – the reward of patience and not rushing. they grinned as we went by, slowing to gaze at them, all pretty close to the shoulder of the road.
we were gifted with a herd of elk lounging in a meadow on our way back from the ditch trail. it’s not to be underestimated – the size of an elk. they grinned at us from the field and told us that the real hulksters – the moose – wouldn’t be making an appearance that day.
and then, back a couple hours on the other side of the canyon, right in the middle of breck, this tiny family of foxes. momma fox watching over her kits, the incredibly adorable curious little babies romped around the old building, scurrying from one plaything to another, scooting under the foundation. none of them seemed fearful and we were grateful that people weren’t chasing after them like the nincompoops in national parks seem to be doing these days. they were grinning at their audience, just happy-go-lucky-living life and momma fox was watching over her brood carefully. we were enchanted.
we saw them a few times while we were there. each time we laid back, quietly watching, enthralled at their courage and delighted at their zeal.
this is always a hard place to leave – these mountains. we try to make the most of the gloriousness while we are there. every breath here counts.
and i wonder if someone is watching from some other planet or galaxy or dimension. they can see us – david and me – romping and scurrying, playing and scooting – just like the baby fox. they might think we were just happy-go-lucky-living life. they might be enchanted.
in the same way this peony bud waits – tightly budded – absorbing the sunshine and the rain, glomming onto every gift nature offers her – i write this ahead, in great anticipation of being in the mountains.
i am a peony bud – wrapped up and waiting to unwind. ready to stand in the sun, soak it in, my breathing a little off as i adjust to altitude, weeping at the first sight of the range in front of us.
and in the same way this peony will soon glimmer in blossoming, i can feel it in anticipation. i can feel standing on a crest or tucked into the aspen forest along the trail or sitting in the brook on a rock. i can feel the petals relax, unwind. i can feel the air brush past me. i can feel my heart beating.
“i am here now,” i will remind myself, “stay here in each moment. don’t go anywhere else but here right now.”
and all that will come – all that will happen – whether ants or good weather or bad – i am nevertheless a bud that will open, unfurling petal by petal. nature and time will have its way. no matter. unconditionally. like goodness and love.
and i will stand today in the mountains – grateful – for peony lessons, for patience and fortitude, for all things unconditional.
that would be everything except the fact that i can no longer view any reversethreading wordpress blogsite images on my laptop. any. there is an “empty-alt-attribute” problem – in every single one of my images in every single one of my blogposts. all 1899 of them. i see a problem.
a while back i loaded chrome as a browser because – all of a sudden – firefox would not host the writeable portion of my blogsite. it wouldn’t even open it. one day, after having no issue every single other day – for years and years – it just refused to go there.
so i started writing my blogposts on chrome. now, that soundsss like an easy fix – except for the fact that chrome would not allow me to preview the completed post – it says that there is a “privacy error” and that my “connection is not private” and that there are those out there attempting to steal information from me.
sooo, i would write the post on chrome and then open firefox to view it. and then, suddenly, firefox decided that was also an issue and will not take me to the viewable preview of my blogpost. but i can see that on my iPad mini, so i can open that up and view the preview, even though i cannot size any images on that device.
but now, i cannot see any images whatsoever on my site – in chrome (where i can write) or in firefox (where i can do nothing at all). i have read much commentary on the “empty-alt-attribute” debacle – and i have attempted fixes – but to no avail.
everything is not figureoutable.
but i sense that the problem is not the fault of wordpress.
what i believe is happening here is that my handed-down-handed-down laptop – which is from 2008 – is reaching the end of its rope. it can’t handle updates and – because it can’t handle updates – there is less and less i am able to do. it’s time for a new macbook. with all the imagery i fuss with and our smack-dab (and other) cartoons on photoshop, with a six-day-a-week blog, i need to figure out a way to get a new laptop.
some things are just not figureoutable.
some things are just obvious. impossible, but obvious.
right now i am typing on my mini, which is from 2016.
because i know you want to experience this as firsthand as you possibly can, here’s the sordid story:
first, i emailed the image from my iphone to my email and downloaded it to my laptop desktop (because my devices are not capable of talking to each other). next, i loaded the image into wordpress on my laptop (even though i can’t see it, i know it’s there when i check on the mini.) i am unable to size or position the image (remember, i can’t see it), so my sensibility is knocked off by that. i write on the mini so that i can refer to the image (which i can see, but not size). and – because i cannot preview in chrome or in firefox, i can preview the post on this tiny mini ipad screen – with my dollar store readers. when the ipad suddenly balks, i panic a little and take a screenshot with my iphone6s of my post so that i don’t lose it entirely. the attachable keyboard to the mini loses power so i attach the cord and an extension cord to continue writing. i transfer to the laptop to do all my tags and such on chrome – but i have to switch to firefox to grab the link for kerrianddavid.com and to check the melange tab of our site because chrome won’t allow me to go there – another “privacy error”. i grab the link and go back to chrome, insert the link and schedule the post. i can’t see the other images i place within (like website boxes and qr codes), but i trust that they are there. when d isn’t using his laptop, I borrow it, sign out of his blogsite and into mine and size my images so that they are not obnoxiously large on my post. then i sign out and give him back his computer, trusting that the process (which used to be inordinately smoother and required far less patience) is now complete – even with all its figureouts. and it only took two laptops, two browsers, an ipad mini and an iphone to complete. and some laughter. definitely some laughter.
i guess things are figureoutable. sometimes a big pain and ridiculously workaroundish, but figureoutable nonetheless.
eh. i’m thinking that i need to figure something else out.
birds are singing at the crack of dawn outside our open-at-least-a-slit window. the bunny is out and about in the backyard and there is a new softly-padded divot under the ornamental grasses where she made her nest last year. bulbs are sprouting and the postal delivery folks are starting to wear shorts. it will soon be spring in wisconsin.
it is tempting to go outside and trim back the grasses, rake all the debris from the gardens, pare down the sedum. to unplug the gutter warming cables, to put away the snow shovels right outside the back door, to drain, clean and refill the pond, to bring out the table and chairs, to consider much-needed replacement rugs for the deck. it is tempting to get ready.
but that would be premature.
and, ultimately, we know better.
so we will wait.
patience – at this time of year – with the sun shining and temperatures ranging from the twenties to the sixties – is most definitely hard to come by. we just have to stoke up and be zen in this liminal time.
but all good things do come in time. and eventually, it all plays out. even if it doesn’t really look that way. what’s that expression…? a watched pot never boils.
and waiting is hard.
but i have watched pots in my life.
and i know – for a fact – that – eventually – they do boil.
in the great pause we are experiencing, things have risen to the top.
they are the cardinals on the fence, the house finch sipping from the dogdish, the hummingbird at the feeder, dogga sleeping on the deck, the smell of sauteing onions and garlic, ice water in a glass, the sun rising out the sunroom window, the play of first light on our quilt, the sound of the trail under our feet, the mayapple flowers tucked in and peeking out from the canopy, the piney scent through the stand, the repeating arvo pärt on the cd player, photographs, the gurgling pond out back, bunbun and the chippies, glass doorknobs, the basil plant on the potting stand, the first coffee, a hot shower, lavender soap, open windows, butterflies, five-year-aged cheddar and sips of wine, writing next to each other, repeated ritual touchstones in our week, unrushed hugs, the squirrel highway, the sound of a text on the phone, anticipation, generosities, idiosyncrasies, the peonies, sunny days of little humidity, the feel of old wood floors under bare feet, hagstones, smooth worry rocks tucked in our pockets.
and with these things of absolute greatness, we slow down and – in the way of centripetal forces spinning, spinning, around, around – we center. and wait.
“step confidently,” the stio catalog reads. there is an ad for boots – winter boots – and gorgeous pictures of snowfall and mountains and terrain where confidence could be challenged. we were just talking with 20 about those yaktrax you strap on your shoes to instill a bit of chutzpah as you walk on icy trails. anything to keep us outside. cause stuff happens.
yes. stuff happens.
and it happens fast. without warning.
a couple days ago i was walking from the kitchen to the sunroom – sans yaktrax – to let the dog inside. holiday music was playing and i was busy thinking about my next task as i approached the step down to the tile floor by the back door. i did a little math. i’ve successfully navigated this step – only one – at the very least – one-hundred-twenty-two-thousand times. but, somehow, and i have no idea how, i missed the step and fell flat – kerplunk-kind-of-flat-like-in-cartoons – on my knee. the one time i didn’t reach out my hands to stop myself – i guess those two other falls taught me something – but my knee took the entire brunt of the trip-fall.
i’m not sure the first thing out of my mouth was pretty or anything i’d be proud to mention here. my reaction – as i laid on the cold floor – was incredulous, thinking i was running out of appendages, wondering what vortex in the universe we had fallen into or if mercury was in retrograde or just what was happening here.
the xray technician told me that’s why it’s called an accident – because there is no real reason, but i was about as amused by that as other people to whom i have said those words. no real reason. she said, “stuff just happens!” uh-huh.
the nurse practitioner at the urgent care told me she concurred with the radiologist and – thank goodness – there was no fracture. geesh. she said a few days and we’ll see how it goes.
patience is now in order. time to spend with my knee horizontal doesn’t fall under “my favorite things” column. i’ll be hobbling around and sitting and trying to get things done, in a slew of time i can only label as “fraught”.
spring has peeked in, shook its head, and retreated.
it snowed saturday. all day. it was a really wet snow, and, though it did stick a bit on yards and roofs, it was not shovel-worthy. but it did bring out the restless.
we took a walk in it. in the olden days (not too long ago) we always took a walk while it was snowing. here it was – april 2nd – and it was snowing. so surely, we should not be freezing and i would not need my miracle mittens to enjoy the soft flakes landing on our faces.
not.
the snow pelted us as we walked along the lakefront. literally pelted us. it stung our faces; we had to keep looking down to the sidewalk. and, not wearing my miracle mittens was really dumb. this is wisconsin, after all. what was i thinking?!?
i tried to take photographs of the snow as it fell. i think i was really trying to take a picture of our restlessness, of the yearning for sun and warmth, of willing spring to stop taking its sweet time, to actually arrive and not linger in the green room off the stage of winter.
in a desperately intentional cup-half-full approach, we noticed grass that had greened, with snow on top. we noticed buds on trees, with snow on top. we noticed tiny sprouts of plants, with snow on top. we noticed that the streets were not really holding the snow, that the sidewalks were not snowy, that water was running next to the gutters to the drains. these were good signs.
the year my daughter was born – 1990 – it snowed the day before the first whisperings of her grand entrance into the world. it was may 13, mother’s day that year, and in one day i would go into labor and in two days i would be a mom.
but – may. snow. yikes.
after everything, simply every thing, i’m not sure hardy wisconsin souls would be able to take that this year. i think that, perhaps, mother nature might cut us some slack. perhaps a little more green and a little less white. perhaps a little more 50s and a little less 30s. perhaps a little more sun and a little less cloudy.
perhaps i need to get a grip and just ride the roller coaster that is spring in a great lakes state.
i’m guessing the tickets are free for residents.
i remind myself that patience is a virtue and other blah-blah positive, lofty adages. sigh.
i’m going to go hide in the green room with spring and discuss that.
reverse threading 