purple has been her favorite color for as long as i can remember. so every single time i come upon a purple flower i think of her. this time – this downy wood mint – was no different.
i don’t always send a picture or a message that says i’m thinking about you but maybe i should.
because in these days i’m realizing that people really need that. people really need to hear that you are thinking about them, sending them good wishes, holding them close at that moment. because these are not normal times.
we are sticking closer to home, closer to our dogga. we don’t want to miss any moments with him, don’t want to not be there if he needs us. it’s not too much to ask from a beautiful being who has loved us unconditionally from the first. and so we hang out at home, out on the deck, on the patio.
sometimes we go to the store to resupply and sometimes we go for a hike. we ask 20 for help when we have to be gone a little longer, to stop in and keep an eye on dogga.
we won’t be going on vacation – away – this summer. it’s just not the right time for that. our priority needs to be this amazing pooch who has stood by us in every moment.
and so we tend our little garden – herbs and vegetables and flowers. we make suntea on the deck and move our adirondack chairs from sun to shade and back again. we are grateful for the littlest things – the house sparrows taking dirtbaths in the holes our dogga digs. the squirrels scampering across the wire and down the spruce to get a sip of water at the birdbath. the intermittent hummingbirds at the feeder, the cardinals on barney munching on birdseed, the baby raccoon trilling from the maples behind us. nothing extraordinarily exciting, but it all feeds our souls on this daisy path.
and – as we chat – planning or reminiscing – we pick up our phones every now and then and let someone know we are thinking of them. at that very moment. knowing how good – how reassured – it makes US feel, we try to do the same.
i don’t honestly think that john lennon’s song needs much explanation or needs me to go on and on about my own yearning for a peaceful, compassionate world.
supine (adjective) 2. failing to act or protest as a result of moral weakness…
the example given – of this word used in a sentence – was this: “they remained supine in the face of terrible wrongdoing.”
though there are many other adjectives (and nouns) i can think of to describe what is currently happening while this administration attempts to destroy this democracy – the complicity, the evil, the negligence, the capitulating, the out-and-out lawlessness – the word “supine” seems mighty relevant.
it is impossible to even know what to say about this.
every day i wake up. the sun has not yet risen, the window is open; i hear the birds singing close by and in the distance. dogga stands and shakes in the adjacent sitting room where he likes to sleep at the end of the night, his collar making that tiny clinking sound from the attached tags. he comes in and jumps on the bed, his wagawag wagging.
and then – somewhere between the delicious unconsciousness of slumber and the first sip of coffee – i remember.
and, in all honesty, i cannot believe where this country is at.
it is beyond any wildly-imagined scope of shameful.
every single day. the insanity, the chaos – it is all exhausting.
there is nothing beautiful about the goings-on in this america-the-beautiful as it is led by cruelty and bigotry beyond belief. we are inside their sickness, a violent extremism that is gutting the heart of this democracy.
it makes me lean on a card i have in my studio. i received it from a dear friend in 2012, shortly after my sweet poppo died. i’ve quoted it before, but it certainly bears repeating. it reads:
“life is slippery. here, take my hand.” (h. jackson browne, jr. )
now, it seems, is a good time to take one another’s hand.
we’d get on our bikes early in the day and just take off. susan and i would bike hike anywhere – we’d plan our journeys and make sure there was a carvel or a mcdonald’s somewhere on the way. as long as we were home by dinner no one worried about us. and we had the freedom to roam around our neighborhoods or anywhere we could reach on the island.
it should be this way.
back in school, in the fall – after the ultimate freedom of our summer – we practiced getting under our desks at school but the likelihood of any bombing actually happening to our school was a mere mention on a fire-drill-bomb-scare just-in-case checklist.
every year d and i talk to each other about “the wistfuls”. it hasn’t happened yet this year – neither of us has felt it descend on us. but we know it will.
there’s fall – the changing of the guard moving toward fallow. my favorite season of jeans and boots and flannel shirts. and there’s fall – a recognition of summer ending, of the sun and long, hot days and freedom and a lightness of spirit coming to a close.
and i wonder – in these gorgeous fall days, the lower sun intense, the breeze cooler, the colors more vibrant with the humidity pushed aside – what that wistful is about.
is it about those days growing up? is it about a yen to have little to no responsibility, no concerns, a time of fiercely following curiosity, of grasping the tiny adventures of childhood with both hands, believing they were huge explorations? is it about painfully remembering a time when my whole extended family seemed to be on the same page, supporting each other, caring for the world and its inhabitants?
is it about a yearning for when my own children were little? when their backyard playing was the everyday joy of looking out the kitchen window? when the dining room table was the gathering place for school supplies and backpacks? when the summer freedom slipped back into a schedule of school and homework and lessons and sports practices? when, after dropping them off or seeing them onto the bus, hoping that they ate their packed lunch, remembered their spelling words, weren’t bullied by anyone were my worries?
although there were occasional bomb threats issued at the schools and 9/11 was a profoundly terrifying day, there was never an actual shooter on the premises (that i knew of).
but there had been moments in our town. and the moment i heard a loud inner voice direct me – vehemently – to NOT stop at the mcdonald’s i was about to pull into on my way home from the mall with my two tiny children – the day that minutes later a shooter entered that very mcdonald’s through the back door, killing the people at the table where we always sat – the one at the very back opposite the door, where the smoking-allowed-smoke didn’t reach our happy meals – that moment reached inside me and raised up the fear i had carried with me since my own earlier life, the time after bike hikes and carvel and fireflies in the neighborhood.
it shouldn’t be like that.
i just watched an instagram reel during which a mom instructs her little boy – who is five years old – about following his teacher’s directions during an emergency at school. between reading the circumstances about her little boy, his physical challenges, and the thought that his tiny – tiny! – self following directions could mean the difference between life and death made my head want to explode.
it should not be this way.
and is it any wonder that i wonder what the wistful is about???
oh, i imagine that when the wistful hits, it will be with some degree of force. for everything is changing – not just the leaves. and we are suddenly thrust into a world – a country – where freedom and rights are being usurped, where the administration is upholding the secrecy of sexual predators, where school shootings – with children and adults dying – dying! – elicit merely passive thoughts and prayers, where xenophobic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic leaders wish to eliminate – eliminate! – actual people they consider superfluous, unwelcomed, expendable, where the premise of warmongering seems to be a sport and the propensity to further lethality and offensive actions on those they perceive as disposables runs rampant, where healthcare and the ability to have enough food is considered elite, where having more gets more and having less doesn’t matter.
john pavlovitz wrote, “if tens of millions of people get up every day and do a small something, that’s a pretty damn powerful something.”
his wise words suggested to “leverage your life where you are” and that we are each gifted with “the proximity to need and the agency to alleviate it“.
his wise words helped the paralysis that we were feeling.
in these times of extreme chaos, it is easy to be overwhelmed and we have felt that just like many around us. it helped to be reminded about the power – the moving of mountains – of leading with the intention of good, of choosing even simple acts of kindness. doing something.
tens of millions of people could get up every day and do nothing. tens of millions of people could be complicit with the state of the country. tens of millions of people could be cold-hearted, could not care, could place their own needs first and foremost and singular. tens of millions of people could look away from the chaos and the cruelty, the lawlessness and the devastation upon others in their community. astonishingly, tens of millions of people are doing just that.
but there are other tens of millions of people who believe in something different, who are showing up, who are cutting through the noise, who are helping, who are trying to make a difference, who feel the imperative to do something.
in true escapism fantasies we are either touring around in a tiny rv or we are hiking the pacific crest trail. both speak to us.
there is an obvious difference – the physical nature of the PCT is a tad bit more taxing than pulling a little rv around behind us.
in my dream, we do both.
and we never look at the news.
ever.
we just ride – or hike – off into the sunset, toting the minimum of stuff we need. we write, we paint, we compose, we take photographs. we drink coffee made over tiny ultralight stoves by streams and sip wine in canyonland blm sites. we hold witness to day in and day out.
we remember what is good, what is gloriously beautiful, what is real.
with a beaucoup of wishful thinking, i’m thinking we are there. at the lowest ebb. at the tide turning.
but the reality is that there are lower and lower ebbs – abyss-ebbs – inescapable rock-bottom ebbs – nadir-ebbs – and it appears that this administration is headed there.
i am holding onto henry wadsworth longfellow’s words. i am looking for – counting on – wholeheartedly relying on – desperately clinging to – the turn of the tide.
for surely we – as a nation – are better than this.
reverse threading 