it is rare that grocery shopping delivers such gloriousness. really, i would say, it is never. even though i celebrate the tiniest things – like a minimally-loaded cart that doesn’t add up to over $100. rare, like i said.
but on this day – walking out of woodmans market – into the early evening, ten minutes before 5pm on the first day post-time-change – we both stopped in our tracks.
there was another guy standing there as well – frozen – like when you used to play red-light-green-light-one-two-three as kids.
i instantly reached down and pulled the phone out of my purse, my eyes never leaving the stunningly radiant sky. we all oohed and ahhed together, incredulous at the sunset.
the horizon and the sun stared back, wondering at how this sunset was different than any other they performed.
and we…well…we remembered that – in addition to all the relationship woes this time of great division and angst brings – we could still stand with a stranger and acknowledge beauty that eclipses everything.
there are 6186 photos on my phone that – in some shape or form – are photos of the sky. there are 2400 that are of clouds. i’m pretty sure there’s some overlap there. but that is a lot of photos looking up.
with yet another storm watch in the state – on an unusually warm late april night – we sat out on the deck with 20 watching the sky. i took pictures. it felt like a summer night – minus the mosquitos – and we adirondack-chair-sat for quite a while, intermittent conversation and laughter punctuating the quiet.
as i’ve previously written about, we pay attention to storm watches and warnings. we use our weather app to track the arriving front systems, to watch the hourly forecast. we depend on it to make good decisions for our safety.
i remember a roadtrip – crossing through the state of wyoming – trying to outrun a giant dark greenish sky that seemed to be chasing after us. littlebabyscion has never zipped along as fast as it did that day. i remember d carrying dogga downstairs to the basement, with supplies and important papers, all while the tornado siren was sounding outside. i remember – way back in the day – laying in a ditch in the middle of rural illinois somewhere while vacationing at my big brother’s, his vehicle parked on the grassy shoulder of the county road on which we had been driving. i remember – not too long ago – just last june – sitting in littlebabyscion literally tucked up against a brick restaurant after-hours as we tried to evade the tornadic wind that had lifted us up off the open parking lot.
each time we made efforts – to use caution, to think-it-through, to be reasonably safe – and we took action. each time survival was the end goal. the storms of climate change are becoming apocalyptic – severe, with devastating consequences. we do our best to be knowledgeable, alerted, constructive.
the gale force winds of corruption are whirling around us. we must use caution, must think-it-through, must be reasonably safe, must take action. survival is the end goal. the collapsing of democracy is apocalyptic — severe, with devastating consequences.
in these days we are waking very early. our old dogga is hungry, maybe a little stiff, needing to get up and get us moving. and so we do. we open blinds and let the sun rise through our windows. we sit with our coffee against pillows in a bed we have now lowered closer to the floor for dogga. we listen to the birds and our pond gurgling. it is quiet. really quite exquisite.
we wake to the beautiful barebones of this universe – and sit in appreciation, silent as we listen and absorb the dawn of this next day. we are both very, very aware of this gift of time, this gift of stillness. we revel in the simplest of things for it is the simplest of things with which we surround ourselves; our budget is squishy-tight and we try our best to abide by the premise of ‘less is more’.
and it is in those moments – the moments of rays across our quilt, coffee in our hands, dogga at our feet – the moments of listening – that i can’t understand.
i can’t understand how anyone – particularly any person in any influential position of leadership – can wake up in the morning with evil-agendized intent in their heart. i can’t understand the superficiality of wanting-it-all, needing-it-all, having-it-all. i can’t grok the indecency of plotting against persons, peoples, missions, goodness.
i wonder how it is that one can wake so conversely differently, full of dreadful scheming. i wonder how it is that those people are of the same humankind. i wonder what twisted them, what broke their connection to morality, what tore the silken filaments of the recognition of unconditional beauty from them. what maelstrom enveloped their souls and trapped them in an eddy of cruelty.
we sit on the deck and look to the sky through the mixup of branches above us to the north. dogga lays nearby and the sun is sinking lower, the dusk sky an ombré canvas.
and – like many of you, i suppose – i still can’t understand. and it still doesn’t feel real.
but it is. and there are those – waking up yesterday, today, and – with nothing stopping them – likely, tomorrow – the textures of our woven universe unimportant, their own needs driving corrupt obsessions of power and control, their view of the world – this country – dark, their actions ruthless and cavalier, each of them impervious to the exquisite.
and the barebones of the universe sigh deeply, grief spilling into the technicolored chiaroscuro sky of dawn, the ink of dusk.
like you, we are shifting gears often. one project to the next, one challenge to the next. we prepare, we research, we make decisions and then move to the next. it is all in constant flux. gazillions of molecules hurtling around all at once. many plates spinning all at once. anxiety and fear and thrill and peace and bliss all coexisting. it’s truly a wonder we are not so burdened by the constancy of too-much that we don’t bend under the pressure of it all.
i step outside the back door – onto the deck still basked in a haze of frosty dew – and look up. the slice i can see of this-house-i-love grounds me. ”stand still,” it says – this house loving me back, “just look at the sky.”
and so i do.
and somehow i can feel the quivering slow. i can feel my feet firmly planted on the old wood of our deck. i sink into the blue sky and look around for rays of sunlight i might stand in. i release the (metaphoric) clutch and the gear-shifting stops – for these moments.
and – for these moments – i am centered back in right now.
i breathe in deeply. and slowly exhale.
and i thank the blue-blue sky and the slice of house – the reach of love – before i go back inside to spin more plates.
the flock of cranes were above – heading south – their bugling loud in a blue day still of rushing wind. we stopped on the trail and looked up, expecting to see one or maybe two sandhill cranes flying by, from one meadow to the next. instead, there were two distinct v’s – in the ancient pull of migration.
we stood there – still – watching…until craning our necks for the cranes was too much. i lowered my gaze and felt the earth tilt a bit in the headrush of returning to terra firma. a gorgeous sight – in my eyes and ears.
it is delicious – that sky. it is magnificent – that sky. in the day and in the night. i have been astounded and humbled. i have counted the stars and imagined the clouds. i have been soaked by its rainstorms and reveled in its snowflakes. i am fortunate to have felt the sun and the moon.
i have stood under that sky and i have realized that it is – yes – the same sky that the others i love are also under, despite any distance between us. in my mind i migrate to each – seeking the intuitive connection to their places in the world.
in tasting the sky all is possible. and, in my looking up, i feel grace and hope dizzying down on me.
reverse threading 