there is always time. nothing we do is more important than the time we spend together. all of us.
my sweet poppo always said, “you can’t take it with you!” and was referring to money. but it generalizes to pretty much everything. in the end, you can’t take your possessions, your achievements, your investments, even your failures, with you. they will stay behind and it’s love that will carry you on, love that you will carry with you.
so even in the middle of important checklists of chores, work tasks, more achievements and more failures, more, more, more anything – cars, clothes, houses, boats, snowblowers and appliances, shoes, hairdos, all the fancypants trappings of “made-it” – there is time. to walk and talk and be silent and swish your feet through crunchy fallen autumn leaves.
cause you can’t take the other stuff with you.
my dad’s last words to me were, “i love you, kook.” my last words to him were, “i love you, my poppo.”
he’s watching us swish our feet through the leaves now. and smiling.
the midterms are rapidly approaching. the rhetoric is amping up. the tv ads, the phone calls, the billboards, the texts, the email messages, the political mail in the mailbox – all dedicated to sway our vote.
i realize that this is the way to raise money, that this is the way to get one party ahead of the other. many voters will elect to vote a straight party ballot. some will vote without asking any questions. some will vote without any information at all. some will vote for vapid minds, choosing the rough edges of spewed anger, covert scheming. they are voting on a bandwagon – with truth obscured – and haven’t looked past the exterior of the candidates.
i was chatting quite some time ago with a college professor. he was teaching a class three days a week and was talking about his experiences. “anybody can be brilliant for an hour and a half,” he quipped. i laughed, thinking how true that is.
but it’s the long haul that counts. it’s what’s at the crux that counts. i wonder what is in the center of what motivates the candidates we are considering. what is past the exterior, what are the things they affirm, believe in, wish to move forward?
anyone can look pious, even righteous, in brevity, for short spurts of time. but these same pedestalized people can bring to the table masked and unmasked agenda that is riddled with inequality, marginalization, discrimination, divisiveness, violence, a thwarting of social, racial, gender, financial equity all under the auspices of brilliance. it is our responsibility to peel back the layers, to poke through the season-of-midterm blahblah, to examine the intentions, the integrity, of the people we choose – truly, in every arena – to represent us.
how these people manifest in their communication, their compassion, their fairness, their steadfast evenhandedness, their actual brilliance – not the hourandahalf variety – should tell us something important. if a person does not represent the values we uphold ourselves, the ones we would lay out to each and every one of those we love, why would we elect that person to represent us, to reflect us? if our vote was revealed to our loved ones, our children, our family, friends, community, colleagues, would we take comfort, would we have pride, in what was revealed?
for it is in our vote that we truly show what is beyond the exterior. it is in our vote that we truly show what is in our heart.
pre-gluten-free-diet we would eat english muffins every morning for breakfast. every day – every single day – an english muffin. jif natural peanut butter and (back then) smuckers simply fruit jam would fill the nooks and crannies. heavenly! we were creatures of habit.
every morning now we have potatoes and one egg, a halo and half a banana. every morning – every single morning. and i know you know about the coffee. steeping mugs of bold black coffee. there is nothing more comforting than our breakfast for starting the day. we are justalittle thrown off the days we don’t have Our Breakfast. we are creatures of habit.
and so it comes as no surprise that we have another new habit. our new Thing is painting rocks. more and more and more rocks. i’ve blogged about this – sitting together with our paint pens and rocks we have gathered at the beach down by the historic beachhouse where we held our bonfire-foodtruck-hulahoop-cupcake-dancewithabandon wedding. it is as much a joy to hide these rocks as it is to paint them and we giggle like little kids as we place them in the crooks of trees, on stumps, on a curve in the trail. we just finished placing the last of the painted rocks – this fish included – so we know we’ll be at our tiny canvases again soon. it’s predictable. like english muffins or potatoes and eggs.
i suppose that we can think of other things to do. outside of work or chores there are infinite possibilities. but i am not unhappy that our choice – more often than not these days – is to sit and chat and paint rocks together…preparing folk-artsy positive messages to leave for other people to find.
i remember a day in the woods – some time ago – when i really, really needed a positive message. and then we passed this one particular tree in the woods – a place we love to hide our rocks now – and on the burl at the base of the tree was a rock that read “imagine!”.
it’s like a romper room book – from the back but not turned over. upside down.
or like i had stood on my head to click. which, of course, i didn’t.
a tree – full of leaves reaching, reaching. no shedding here. no drooping. no waning into the pull of autumn. instead, golden leaves – almost brilliant orange – standing on their stems, stretching, dancing.
perspective rearrange. it took me by surprise skimming through the photographs i had taken. a close-up of the leaves – just one other photo – was also flipped.
perhaps there were just a few minutes there – out in the forest – when the world turned upside down.
maybe we just don’t know. maybe that happens all the time…little smidges of time when all is flipped. maybe that’s good. especially when right side up is pokin’ at us a little. reminders to stand tall. reminders to stretch. reminders to dance.
i cannot get diana ross’ fabulous voice out of my head, “upside down, boy, you turn me inside out and ’round and ’round…”
it is most astounding to me. each and every time. it doesn’t matter the shining of the sun or the drizzle or the misty humid air or dusk falling around us. and though it is familiar – oh, so familiar – it is new when we visit, our footfalls on the path erased and lasting as we walk. i’m comforted by this trail. and it teases me – into truly wondering about thru-hikes and exquisitely ordinary days that explode into extraordinary just by entering them.
this is an easy trail. we have hiked many others. easy trails, moderate trails, difficult trails. elevation gains, a little scrambling here and there. but when – and it is often – we need an old quilt of a trail and time to be quiet, to think, to talk, to sort, to sink into astounding beauty, stillness and ever-percolating life, we hike here, close by.
my camera is ready. i try to capture it all to remember. the trail is full of linear lines now as the underbrush succumbs to the season. a bounty of astounding. even in transition.
i believe – as we enter the woods – that it greets us back.
and as we leave – filled up – it waves and whispers, “see ya.”
“have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives — tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?” (mary oliver)
when i was choosing seats for the elton john concert in north carolina, the – predictably – least expensive seats were the ones with an obscured view. a pillar, a speaker, a wall…something was in front of the seats, not allowing you to see. or maybe the seats were behind the horizon line of the stage, the apron, making elton basically invisible.
clearly these seats – still dang expensive – weren’t right. i mean, if you can’t see him perform and you can’t really see the jumbotron why not just sit and listen to ej cd’s instead? clearly, that’s not the point.
so i stayed away from the obscured-view-seats and chose seats from which we could see all the action. high up, yes. but we could see it all.
we passed a sign in the chicago botanic garden, posted by a tiny trail. “by screening out views and creating hidden areas, this garden entices you to explore just beyond what you can see.” we couldn’t see into the garden…so we took the little trail in. it was beautiful and a little magical. a little secret garden. not obvious. beyond sight.
the work of an artist – of any medium – is like that. find the places just beyond. find the line of melody that tugs, that urges, that compels. bring those places to others so that they might explore them as well. past the horizon. past the stage. you can still hear elton from the obscured-view seats and you can still feel the energy.
in a thirty-plus year career as a minister of music i always felt that it was my job to introduce the obscured secret garden to others. for faith – regardless of denomination – is that which we cannot see, that which we cannot touch. my mission was simply to open hearts through music to see beyond what you can see, to explore beyond sight. grounding in the most basic of tenets – love, kindness, generosity, peace, embrace of all others, support, truth, fairness, equality, grace – i felt it imperative to offer music that might viscerally touch a person who might not otherwise be touched, to hold it all out there gently so that a soul could easily grasp it, hold it, be wrapped in it, be comforted by it. faith in something bigger in this universe is found in a river of changing times and circumstances and staying steadfast is like the path a leaf takes on that river, both raging whitewater and lazy currents. we open our hearts to explore, even though we cannot see.
it might be time to play my piano again. maybe. it’s been a long time – a couple years now, save for a few moments a few times. i haven’t been able to play it – the magic has been obscured from view – since, well, since i felt blindsided. but now…maybe now…finally…i can see the trail into the studio. maybe now the black and white notes lifting into the air – will heal hurting even just a little, will allow exploration and sight beyond the obvious tangible horizon, will open a heart again.
we can’t decide between the kind you drive and the kind you pull.
i mean, if you drive it, then you have to drive it everywhere, unless we tow littlebabyscion behind it, in which case it would be a really-really-big rv and neither of us can picture driving that kind of lumbering size down the highway. but if it’s the kind you pull, you have a vehicle. but then you have to pull it. and back it up. and fit it into parking lots. and juggle it around to get it into camping spots. that brings me back to the kind you drive. the small kind you drive.
the imperative?
a bathroom. and, preferably, a shower.
with a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, a shower and wifi we can go anywhere; we can rule the world. every other day i talk about this. because who doesn’t think about this, i wonder…
the wander women have figured it out. of course, they planned with great intention and are retired, so access to wifi on all workdays is not a sink-or-swim. for us, right now, we need to just-keep-swimming and wifi is the life preserver as we continue to work on our own plan.
i keep transferring visiting the rv place from one weekend to the next. probably because my rent-it-now signature pen is itching, the brochures are stacking up. ahhh. plan….
but really. it’s just delicious to think about all those backroads, all those mountains and canyonlands and seashore beaches at our disposal, dogdog hanging out with us, a tiny fridge filled with good food to make on our tiny stove, grilled on our tiny grill. music and art and wordswordswords created on an adventure Out There on-the-road-again.
the birthday of my big brother passed quietly. he would have been 72. as always, it was a day fraught with a mix of sadness and memory, a recipe for some light-stepping, a sobering reminder that the things i was angsting about that day – and there were many – were truly of little consequence.
the river trail greeted us at the end of day. we needed a walk in the woods.
“i only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, i found, was really going in.” (john muir)
our breathing slowed down, despite our best efforts to bring the layers of anxiety with us. it would be better to just be silent, i thought to myself.
nature hung up prayer flags on our route and i’m now sure that i should have hung prayers on each one. i think that is why they are there…to mark each and every soul on this good planet, alive or floating…to give us a place to put our worries, like a clothesline of hopeful…to take our breath away with color and life.
the officer was in the parking lot as we approached littlebabyscion. somehow the sun had fallen all the way past the horizon while we were on the outskirts of the trail and darkness filled in the gaps. we know the trail well and kept hiking, followed the baby fox for a bit and, then, the sounds of wildlife in the forest accompanied us the rest of the way. he told us that others might have cited us for being there past sundown. but he didn’t. we thanked him and apologized, saying it was a surprise how quickly light became dark, how we had become lost in time.
i’m sure that the prayer flag leaves clapped, fuchsia burst into laughter, green grinned. the woods – the sundown – had done their jobs well.
my nephew called. i guess technically he isn’t my nephew now but neither one of us cares about the technicality of it. we talked a couple years ago but not since. no matter. he was ironing and he thought of me. he described how ironing makes you just kind of slow down and lets your mind wander. and so he followed his instinct and dialed. i told him i was glad he wasn’t thinking of me as he was washing the floor. he agreed and said that a washing-the-floor conversation wouldn’t be as whimsical.
whimsical.
i loved how he used that word. we slowed down our hiking, shuffling our feet through the leaves on the trail, david encouraging me to chat. my nephew and i laughed and told stories, asked questions, laughed some more. later, in some text-reminiscing, he asked me if i still had the beer cap earrings he had bought me when we were together up-north many years back. he said, “you’re one of my favorites.” i walked slowly into flashes of another time of life. it was a gift.
from the deck it looks like a chicken. suddenly a chicken leaf fell from the maple tree and landed squarely on our little curlicue-fence. i stopped at the top of the steps and drew d’s attention to it. “look at the chicken back there!” i insisted. we laughed at the chicken on our fence. ok, not exactly. but imagination is a funny thing. we make castles out of refrigerator boxes and gazelles out of cumulus puffs. we create out of thin air.
“have you noticed that autumn is like a yellow cow?” (pablo neruda) “have they counted the gold in the cornfields?”
we are not alone in our imaginings. pondering leaves, clouds, swirls in the lake’s surface, rocks on the trail, i wonder what it would be to not ponder these things. i feel like i might laugh a little less, like there would be a little less whimsy.
i’m not sure how autumn is like a yellow cow, though i am sure that is valid for pablo. it’s all good. it makes the world go round with a little more pizzazz. there is gold everywhere.
right now i’m just wondering where exactly my beer cap earrings are.
there is a vintage mailbox in our bathroom. it’s over on the wall under the window and current magazines and catalogs live there. it was the first mailbox we had after this old house was sided and the mailslot was covered over. there is still a little door inside the foyer where the mail used to wait after delivery, but it hasn’t been used in recent years. for a while i would keep treats in there for piano students as they left. one student, in particular, loved this tiny door and would check it every time after his lesson. if i had grandchildren i would most definitely keep surprises for them in there. a girl can dream…
when i walked into the bathroom the other day it just so happened that the way the magazines were stuffed into the mailbox revealed one word – sense. sometimes the universe has a sense of humor. no pun intended. for “sense” was what i was seeking at that moment. a layer cake of sense.
predatory lending in the student loan arena began around 2000. the arrow of the poison bow hit david in graduate school. it has not let go since. navient – one of the big student loan lenders – took part in subprime loans, private loans, misrepresented loans, aggressive forebearance-steering, sloppy accounting, the list goes on. and people’s lives – real people in the real world trying to make a real living and pay off real debt – have been skewered forever. crushing debt…in story after story in which interest is principalized, in which families aren’t given income-driven options, in which the debt rises instead of falls even as diligent efforts are made to pay down this farce of lending.
i walked into the bathroom – inbetween phone calls with navient during which they were unable to even supply the simplest of information – how doesn’t this feel like withholding while deadlines loom near? i’m gobsmacked by the murkiness of it all. dysfunction rears its ugly head.
“student loans were never meant to be a life sentence,” (united states secretary of education miguel cardona)
2001-2022. that’s a pretty long sentence. predatory indeed.
and now, as we – in our sixties – join in hopeful song with millions of others – of various ages – who have been – thisisnotanexaggeration – victimized by student loan lending malpractice, more than a few things happen. there is a mysteriously quiet change made for privately-held FFEL loanholders, a screeching halt. and then, there is an uprising putting the whole kitnkaboodle on hold.
to which naacp president derrick johnson said, “the very people blaming this administration for inflation are coming after the policies that will ease the pain of inflation on those most impacted.” he adds, “this is hypocritical. when we bail out billion-dollar corporations, it’s never an issue. but when it comes to lifting people who need the help most, including pell grant recipients—51% of which go to students whose families earn less than $20,000 a year—somehow it becomes an issue.”
so many stories. so many we-the-people. so many families. and their general welfare.
but that’s what predatory is.
i rolled my eyes as i walked into the bathroom. “sense”
so much of it all doesn’t make sense.
thinking that it actually might, makes me sad.
i’m going to check the little mailslot in the foyer for a treat. a girl can dream…
reverse threading 