i used to know someone who really despised redundancy. this person would interrupt and say, “you already told me that” or “i heard that already”. ask them about their day and they would reply, “same-old-same-old.” it was hard for me – a new yorker – born into repetition and long-story-telling.
d and i sat on that iowa porch only four days, but it doesn’t take long to grow fond of something beautiful.
in front of us – facing east – were two trees. beyond the trees were fields. before they were mowed down, the fields were wildgrasses green with sunny yellow flowers. in the distance – quite a ways off – was the road. a country highway, it was populated by many pickup trucks, an occasional sedan, rarely a semi and, at one point, more booming harleys than we could count.
the light changed during the day. no surprise there. the sun rose to the left of the trees and burned its way into the sky. the trees glimmered and reappeared through the early morning thin layer of smoke from wildfires in canada, jetstreaming its way into the heartland. it was bright in midday and then the sky took on the echo of the western sunset. at night, the trees were still a presence, silent, rooted strength.
i took many photographs of these two trees. they were somehow very comforting and reassuring; it was a time of memorial for columbus and emotions were all over the place. and the trees stood there, steadfast.
they watched us all gather and eat and talk and reminisce and play bags and run with oversized bubble wands. they watched us hula-hoop and dance in the grass and drag chairs following the sun and escaping the wind. they watched us wander and take pictures, play with gracie-cat, pour wine. they watched – as trees do – and we watched them back.
i love each of the photos of the two trees on the east side.
barney’s nails are popping, its layers are peeling back even more, rust is gathering on surfaces subjected to air and moisture. this is not a surprise. barney has been outside in the sun and the rain and the snow and ice and wind and humidity and drought for almost ten years now. a decade has a way of peeling things back. i wonder what barney might look like in another decade or maybe two. its soul will be intact; its boxy exterior will be falling away, opening strings, hammers, soundboard to the world. and always, its soul, present, true.
barney is no less beautiful now than the day it arrived in our yard. in fact, as it changes, its transformation is a metamorphosis into an aged piece of art sans any expectations. it stands as a stalwart symbol of constancy in our backyard. it reminds me that soul is resilient, fluid. no matter the weathering, the chippies and bunnies nesting, the birds stopping off to rest, the squirrels sitting and taunting the dog. no matter only eleven white endpieces of keys are left. no matter the line of popped nails in a row along its upright top. its soul – exposed – carries on, aged and stronger than before.
“this is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing i know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” (mary oliver)
if barney needed to express itself, tell stories of its past, the narrative of a life of a hundred years, it would merely stand and speak – firmly planted. time and nails have loosened its jointed wood and the container of a million tales, and have – figuratively – unlidded the top of the shoebox under the bed or on the top shelf of the closet. every story counts and, as we sit in the backyard, we pay attention. we listen to barney, giving credence to its voice, glad that even in its aged appearance – and its agedness – it is not silent.
in ways i can’t explain, i can feel the nails popping.
i haven’t stopped. since march 2020 when my son – at the beginning of the pandemic – in an effort to help me feel connected to him and my daughter – suggested we have a shared text with photos taken in our day. a picture-of-the-day. and every day, not-failing, i have sent one since. i am in absolute delight when they now share a photograph on this thread; i know busy-ness and work and life have picked back up some time ago and picture-of-the-day is no longer on their radar. but, because i am a mom – and i know moms everywhere can relate – it’s still on mine. i look for something that somehow represents my day, every single day.
i have to say – this has been a good thing, this intention to seek and snap the picture-of-the-day. i take lots of photos, so some days this is easy. but there are others when my photo is of mashed potatoes or chicken soup or the accuweather tornado watch or glasses of wine at the end of the day. some days are just life. normal, regular, not supersized, life.
the trillium placed itself in front of the fallen log, clearly, on purpose. ready for its photo shoot, its bud profile at this stage resembling a mighty tulip, the toadshade waited for someone to come along and take its picture. and there i was.
that very day i ended up using a graceful fern in our backyard as my picture-of-the-day. the composition was just a little better, the curve of the fern beautiful. but the trillium knew it would end up featured. i had whispered thank you to it after my baker’s dozen shoot. it stood proudly as we hiked away, knowing.
paying attention – to the littlest details of a day – requires intention. i know i could get lost in the other details of our life, the more pressing, the more complex, the minutiae and nuances of moment-to-moment adulting.
but one text from my son changed that and offered me a continuing reminder to find something – any thing – big or little, positive or disconcerting, dreamy or a little bit scary – that was a real piece of my day. it also offered me a chance to physically let them know i was – at that very moment of sending – thinking of them.
i know there are days – i don’t want to think about how many – that my grown children look at their phones and – in unison from 1400 miles apart – roll their eyes as my picture-of-the-day drops in.
it is likely the heron’s. we have seen a couple together out there – gliding through the marshland, standing regally by the side of the pond, walking sedately. we hiked past the downy feather, that had likely fallen from where down is hidden beneath the heron’s outer feathers, and i went back, the talcum powder white capturing my attention on the trail. sometimes i pick up feathers – to keep them, beautiful signs of divine and freedom and flight. i left this one on the trail, tucked between the pine and the cone, its texture begging notice.
under the outer layer of my straight hair is an unruly curly layer. the days i do not blow-dry my hair, i am banana-curled, little-orphan-annie-curled, a combo-platter-no-real-sense curled. i personally have found it annoying. most women desire hair which they do not have – a different kind of hair – a different color – a different texture, thickness, bounce, volume. it is the way of this society.
instyle magazine did an entire month of articles on women and their hair. i read the initial article from 2018 and, frankly, found it somewhat entertaining. the most common uniting hair complaint is frizz, which, i must say, i have complained about a time or two. d has trouble understanding frizz as he is a non-frizz-haired guy (incidentally, with better hair than me – which doesn’t seem quite hair-fair). regardless, hair has become a tool of empowering for women, especially in this nation.
according to what i read, we can be flushed with excitement or nervous as all get-out, challenged beyond our perceived limits or drudging our way through the day – but, if our hair looks good, we feel good, no matter.
i wonder if the heron – in its elegant wisdom and intuition – has concerned itself with its feathers. or has it just simply concerned itself with its basic needs, its instinctual movements and rituals, its patterns and place in nature. is it thinking about its frizzy down feathers? i suspect not. compare that with the reported 81% of human women who feel more confident if their hair looks great.
according to the majority of human women – none of the hair products out there reeeeally work. everything promises to de-frizz, de-curl, celebrate the curl, straighten, give volume, grant sheen, untangle, combat thinning, retain moisture, eliminate split ends, make it bounce, make it stay still, give a hairstyle hold. but nope, none of it really works.
if you add perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause to the hair equation, you are faced with a variety pack of even more hair concerns. for me, that means that – despite all my deliberate blowdrying intentions for straightening my hair, the instant a hotter-than-hot hot flash swings by, i am frizzed. drippy hot, frizzed and curled – definitely not a jennifer aniston hair look.
“in order to cool their body temperature, great blue herons will partially extend and droop their wings and open their mouths while fluttering their throat muscles. much like dogs panting, this helps cool their body through evaporation. this behavior is called gular fluttering.”(nps.gov) the innate wisdom of the heron – gular fluttering. who knew?
so…if you see me – curly hair askew sneaking out from under a few straightened hairs trying to hold on to their straight – fluttering my throat muscles (is this synonymous with talking too much in humans???) – you will know i am post-yet-another-hot-flash and am channeling my internal great blue heron. please don’t comment on my hair.
there is a plethora of information about contrails. and when i say a plethora, i mean a lot. you can glean all kinds of knowledge – the kinds of planes that emit contrails, the weather necessary, specific atmospheric conditions, the altitude likely for formation, the effect on climate, additives to the engine that preclude the emission of a contrail. three kinds: short-lived, persistent non-spreading, persistent spreading. tons of information about something to which we pay scant attention.
sitting on the adirondack chairs on our back patio sipping wine early in the evening, we both leaned back against last year’s pillows. the sun streamed at us through the gap between our house and the garage and we gazed at the blue blue sky at this end of an unusually warm early spring day.
contrails.
it’s not unusual for us to see planes – our home is located between two major airports. milwaukee’s mitchell airport is to our north and chicago’s o’hare is to our south. the only times i truly remember the skies being quiet were right after september 11th (2001) and in the earliest days of the pandemic (2020). otherwise, we regularly have planes on final, planes circling, planes practicing aerobatics, helicopters big and small, air ambulance helicopters, helicopters transporting dignitaries, helicopters doing rescue maneuvers over the lake, news helicopters. add in drones and it’s busy airspace. because we are who we are, we always ponder who might be flying over, where they are going, what they are thinking as they look down, where home is for them.
there was this one day – years ago – when we were walking along the lakefront. we looked up to see a fiery flying object moving at a fast rate of speed over the lake. very high in altitude it made an abrupt turn to the east and disappeared into the distant sky. to this day we talk about that, wondering. we have absolutely no idea what it was; it seemed propelled with this fiery exhaust. we googled, but to no avail. who were they? where were they going? what were they thinking? where was home?
in 1986 i was living in florida. if we stood on our driveway and looked up in to the eastern sky we could witness the space shuttles as they were launched into the atmosphere. the contrails were fiery, smoky vapor, and the anticipation always left us marveling. it’s astounding to think about taking off into space. the day of the challenger space shuttle dawned just as thrilling. we planned around the launch so that we might again bear witness to this scientific achievement, these explorers. but, as we stood on the driveway and peered at the sky, it was obvious – even to us 130 miles across the state – that something was amiss. the contrails were wrong. and, in those moments, breaking down into tears, the contrails told a different story.
there isn’t a contrail that goes by now that i don’t have a throwback to that profound day late in january in 1986.
we are all explorers. we have varying tasks of courage, summits that require us to trust ourselves, to trust others. i can’t help but think of this every time i board an airplane, every time i drive a car on a road with rules for all drivers, every time i partake in a community, every time i try something unknown-to-me or dream a new dream.
we all leave contrails behind us, though the vapor trail itself is not necessarily visible. what will the answers be when people wonder who we were, where we were going, what we were thinking, where our home was. were our contrails fiery or short-lived, thin-lined or ever-spreading? were they full of hot air and blather? were they generous, kind-hearted, remembered with a softness?
i think i would choose to be a persistent spreading contrail, eventually a lacy cirrus cloud. floating out-out-out.
it sounds like you should grill it and have it with rice pilaf, some sort of midwestern whitefish.
it’s not.
crunch’s stripahs, back then, in the day, were striped bass, so these tiny blooms would not truly bear his nickname.
it’s these “invasive” flowers that are decorating our yard these days, paving the way for the dandy dandelions. they are actually quite beautiful. “puschkinia” in plural, which sounds like an americanized-botched-spelling plural of a mini version of those ridiculously yummy sweet-filled polish paczki donuts. everything sounds like something.
for me, peering for spring in the front yard, they are a sure sign of hope. early arrivers these early stardrift, they signal that maybe-just-maybe the snow is over and maybe-just-maybe warm sun will take over where cold march days left off. they are harbingers of open windows and adirondack chair time and basil sharing space with cherry tomato plants and flipflops. so much anticipation in tiny flowers.
these days are unseasonably warm. we are not sure why the jet stream seems to be blessing us with this gift but we are elated to walk in degrees that are in the sixties and even seventies. spring in wisconsin has never – in my experience – been a season of warmth. i remember too many soccer and baseball seasons huddled under blankets tucked into my bagchair. but this one is different.
next week is supposed to be back in the fifties. but even those temperatures are happy for us. maybe-just-maybe i’ll get a glimpse of forsythia one of these days, a sure sign of spring on growing-up long island.
in the late afternoon, the sun streams in the west windows and lights up the sitting room. it is the coziest of cozy rooms with the comfiest old slipcovered couch, smushy fur throw pillows, sherpa blanket. good lamps, happy lights and no television make it the perfect place to share time with a book. we love sitting there.
the sitting room had history as a cozy room. many years ago it was the only room in the house with a tv. when my children were little-little they watched mr. rogers and thomas-the-tank-engine and sesame street in there. my son lined up matchbox cars on the rug and my daughter sang and danced with barney and the gang. the little mermaid and the lion king and sing-along songs were on regular line-up. a small room, it was a hub of activity for small babies and toddlers. we danced for hours to the grapevine song and woke up the household on saturday mornings to brother band’s bagpipes.
the giant tv went to the curb and someone picked it up with a wagon and toted it away. the camelback rolled-arm loveseat, much worse for wear, took its own turn at the curb and the old couch from the living room donned a slipcover and – with great effort by my son and me – made its way into the cattycorner.
then, there was a period of time it was a little bit ignored. more of a pass-through than a room, it begged attention, some of our time.
and now, the rickety old farm table is next to the couch and holds an antique clock that magically stopped at 11:11, some dried flowers and charlie – the heart-shaped philodendron who clearly loves being the star of the room. beautiful paintings and an old screen door. and the sunlight greets us every afternoon and each time we walk from the hall into the bedroom or vice-versa.
it is easy to sink down into the couch and close one’s eyes. we know this from experience. it’s a really good nap couch. i wonder how it would have been for two toddlers on the move. i suspect it would have been a good addition back then. funny how cozy takes over somewhere along the way.
loveseats are good – and quite lovely. but couches – the kind you can sink down into – read a book together on opposite ends leaning back on fuzzy overstuffs, under a blanket – are better. looking back i can see that now. smushy > camelback. this would have been a better couch back then. hindsight. sigh.
lounging on the sofa the other day i closed my eyes, but not in sleep. for a moment, i could hear the tiny voices of my children – decades ago – as they played on the rug and sang along, “it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…”, “under the sea”, “i love you. you love me”, “colors of the wind”. wistful moments. time flies by. our home holds us, ever-watchful.
i looked at the changes of the sitting room. a serene spot in the house, a place to think back and re-relish earlier times. times of barbies and baby dolls, stacks of books, matchbox cars and balls of every sport. growing children, dogs, a cat. it was a hub back then. it’s a different kind of hub now. and i’m eternally grateful for both.
we have been – knock wood – quite lucky lately – knock wood – during a period of time that tornado watches have proliferated weather apps across the country, including here. the words “tornado watch” make me uneasy. ok, truth be told, i find them slightly terrifying. i am not one to take these watches and warnings lightly. i plan ahead…important papers, phone and laptop cords, keys, wallets, purse, dogga leash…all in a safe place. and then i listen – intently – to the wind.
i didn’t use to have this kind of reaction to storms, but since the flat-line-windstorm of 2011, i have turned into a wuss. yes, wuss. period. somewhere around 750-800 trees were felled in that storm in our neighborhood, pulling roots from the ground, heaving sidewalks, falling wherever they fell. all in a matter of minutes. it was scary. and yet, i know it was not the destruction that a tornado can leave behind.
we have read each article about the tornadoes across the country, our hearts sinking for the loss of life and home and property. the weather is more extreme than i ever remember it. and it is not getting better. climate change is here – not a amorphous thing of the future. and, with the ocean temperatures rising, i suspect that this will not ease up. these storms are here to stay.
and so i wonder the best things we can do to pay attention to this good earth, the best practices, things to avoid. we are all in this together – despite the warring of peoples on big fronts and little. there will be nothing to celebrate – or fight over – should we ignore these signs. we’ve been relatively lucky as a world so far – knock wood.
they chopped down, chainsawed, mulched, chemicalized, burned. they decimated the whole forest to eliminate the invasives. and – in the way of oncological medicine, of environmental eradication programs, of corporate and organizational ousting – the good cells may somehow survive, burned edges and all.
to be a tree with burn marks is to be human. one cannot traipse through this life without them. we all carry with us whatever balm has helped us get through the fires. we lean on the surety that spring will come, eventually.
as we hike the trail, we know that it is not one hundred percent that only the good will keep on. it is not a certainty. instead, it is a risk, a gamble, that there may be cells that escape treatment, there may be invasives that escape annihilation, there may be people-in-power-with-ill-intent who either escape the pointed fingers or are the ones corruptly pointing them.
and in those cases, the worry is that those cells will reproduce, those invasives will take over and choke out the organic, those people will destroy the place. a ravaging burn. devastation. and the good cells, the good plants, the good people will be left to fend for themselves, to remain upright – stalwart – to grow despite the odds.
it is good friday for those who are keeping a religious calendar. a day of destruction following betrayal and many burned edges. as this sacred story goes, three days later there is a resurrection. and the targeted jesus rises.
as we hike the trail, we notice the green shoots growing out of the ground, their top leaves still blackened. we marvel at the tenacity of these plants as they garnered energy best-as-they-could, regardless of the burn. the good xylem and phloem somehow survived.
there are naturalists who are watching closely, tending to the native plants best as they can. there are doctors and nurses and researchers and clinical trial experts who are watching closely, tending to patients and health and life best as they can. there are, therefore, it would seem, allies who are dedicated to the truth, to transparency, to the best parts of an organization who are watching closely, tending to the burns of the sacrificed.
“i want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.“ (oriah mountain dreamer)
shrinking back will allow the devastation. standing in the fire – the center of the fire – will allow the resurrection.
*****
“and you were there in all of my suff’ring.
you were there in doubt, and in fear;
i’m waiting on the dawn to reappear...” (you were on the cross – m.mayer, k.butler, a.assad)
and today – despite the dirt and the dried stems, vestiges of life-gone-past – despite the cold and the snow and the ice and the rain and all the elements that have torn into this plant and the critters that have refuged under its branches – despite the sun and the drought and no added nutrients and almost no attention whatsoever – small clusters of brassica-like buds have sprouted out of the ground.
they have persevered, they have sought rebirth, they have wiped away their tears of disappearance and their underground fallow and they have risen up, one tiny millimeter at a time, unnoticed until now, shoots of green in all the brown.
they have not been considered marvelous. they are not rare. they are not exquisite blooms, fragile petals, filmy tendrils connecting them to their lifesource. instead, they are curled cabbages, tightly wound and unwinding.
they are a little bit haughty at the spring and its sweet-time-taking. they are persistent, resilience at their core, hardy, paying no mind to the rules of march or april or, really, any season. they wait for no one to move the leaves and debris of winter. they are independent.
this new year of growth, this new season of their sedum-lives is pushing out of the good earth – despite all odds. they keep on keeping on, mustering up next and next, pushing aside all doubt, surely panting in their phoenix.
reverse threading 