i wasn’t sure how it would feel to stay in the car on the ferry. i was leery of the windy, rainy day and how that would play into how rough the crossing could be. i’m not fond of motion-sickness taking over my day, so i was prepared…bonine: check, motion bands: check, ginger chews: check, water: check, salty chips: check, window open: check. i was ready. but still leery.
in the small harbor it was calm, despite the wind. but out there, beyond the jetty…
when people want to impart words of wisdom about motion sickness, they tell you to keep your eyes on the horizon. these words are partially true; keeping your eyes inside the vehicle or plane or boat doesn’t do you any favors. but there’s more to it. and i was worried about out there, beyond the jetty.
we so often stay protected, inside the harbor. predictability and security are seeming keys to our happiness. they are the indicators of serenity. we venture on small protected side trips, curious to see what we might find.
i am guilty of this as well. a homebody in many ways, i love the safety of the familiar harbor, the one near and dear to me. beyond the jetty is unknown, maybe rough waters, maybe difficult to traverse.
but it occurs to me that beyond the jetty it might be calm as well or perhaps more navigable than i thought. serenity doesn’t stay put in the harbor. it comes with us. out there, beyond the jetty.
when i was in junior high i wrote a piece for an english class titled “old age is not a disease.” i’m pretty sure if i searched high and low for it i could find it in a bin somewhere, but, suffice it to say, i have other things on my docket to get done and, heaven knows, i don’t want to even attempt to go near those bins.
when i was in junior high i’m quite convinced that i would have thought 60 was “old age”. as we know, it’s all relative. you know, “60 is the new 40” or (i’m hoping) some such faaabulous idiom.
when i was in junior high i’m betting i thought that life slowed down at 60, that people did less and rested more. little did i know.
when i was in junior high i would think i, errantly, believed that getting older also meant less engagement with unknown things, less learning, less involvement. perhaps i assumed that getting older was a time for fewer challenges, more relaxation, less thinking, less new. little did i know.
when i was in junior high maybe i thought that most people who were older thought inside the box; their lives and their activities were conservative and tight, protected and quiet. little did i know.
when i was in junior high it would be my guess that i thought most older people were secure, maybe retired, with essentially predictable lives and not much to really worry about. little did i know.
when i was in junior high i’m sure i, like most junior-highers, looked at people who were 60 and thought, “wow! that person looks old!” i probably never considered how their spirit played into their look, how life experience added to their wise eyes and kind smile. little did i know.
“…it overwhelms me what i feel…this heart outside of mine….is walking in another person, in another life…” (lyrics)
there is something mysterious and knock-you-to-your-knees-powerful about feeling like you have a heart walking in another person. i know – now – how my sweet momma felt. each time she asked me to let her know i arrived safely while driving cross-country, each time i shared good news, each time she checked in on me after any sort of gritty life-drama, each time she sent cards with messages of encouragement or congratulations, each time i saw her try not to weep upon my leaving. i get it. she could feel her heart – out there – moving around in the world, just outside her sight view.
motherhood is not for wimps. it is, by far, the most gratifyingly-toughest-most-important job i will ever know. i have had to grow two extra hearts and then let them go, wandering and exploring this good earth, finding themselves and their happiness. i can feel it, these hearts – out there. but, with the exception of the time i can actually put my arms around My Girl or My Boy, it’s all just outside my sight view. overwhelming. yes.
and, although i have told it before, here is the story – again:
we walked The Girl to kindergarten. it was spring and sunny and warm. dandelions were everywhere. on the way home, The Boy dropped my hand to toddler-zigzag around a yard where dandelions > grass by far (kind of like ours.) he bent down and picked yellow flower upon yellow flower. until he came running back to me. he held up his sweaty-dirty-little-boy fist, full of bright yellow and green dandelions and said, “woses for momma.”
wendy has a halo. i’m convinced of it. she is the best-in-the-family at expressing thanks, birthday wishes, words of encouragement, stories of her own life in cards and notes and photographs and letters and all digital methods of communicating. we try to stay in touch and know what is going on in each other’s lives. we have agreed that in all our texts, our snapchats, our chats, we are “sharing life” and there couldn’t be anything more important.
one of the things i absolutely know about wendy is that she relies on the power of prayer. she names people she loves and lifts them up. she thinks positive thoughts. she sends positive messages. and she prays.
i have had many a time on my knees. searching for answers. asking for guidance. hoping for grace. lifting up people i love.
were we to all be like wendy, perhaps we would all have halos too. mostly, perhaps we would all have everyone else’s best interests at heart. perhaps our world would be more compassionate; perhaps it would be kinder.
with or without a halo, i want to participate. to pray for goodness, to be kind, to share lives.
i did not inherit good teeth. were i to be a horse i would not be running in the derby or any other horse race (which, right now, sounds like a good thing.) anyway, i blame my sweet momma and my poppo; i’m not actually sure who gets the lion’s share of the blame, so i will just blame them both (and all the ancestors before them who did not have great teeth – we might as well make this a class-action-blame-suit.)
when i was a child growing up, my parents were quite a bit older than most of my friends’ parents. this is because my sister is sooooo much older than me. i was born soooo much later and, so, had parents who had some, maybe, backwards ideas.
drumroll, please. my sweet momma – adorable as she was – and my sweet poppo – equally adorable – never ever EVER had novocaine when they got fillings. for some unknown reason, they just toughed it out. now, i am quite sure you are cringing at the very thought. those drills. that hook thing that tries to pull your tongue out of your mouth. the sounds alone are unnerving. anyway, they seemed to reach deep inside, thinking they were getting extra points or something, and they endured the pain throughout drilling/filling procedures.
this brings me to me. because that is what they believed in, i was subjected to the same torture and did not have novocaine until i was well into adulthood and realized it was a thing. having had two children without the benefit of anesthesia, i can honestly say now that i would rather have more children than go through any more dental work without novocaine or some such numbing agent.
so, this is a long preamble to my story.
i broke a tooth during lent. you would think things like that wouldn’t happen during lent, but, alas, it did. my dentist, who is a saint, was out of town and i waited for his return. because of my ptsd from childhood dentistry, i cannot go alone to an appointment like this so david went with me. he always does. we try to be there for each other in each of our doctor/dental appointments; it’s part of the i-support-you-in-everything deal.
my favorite moment when we walk in (my REAL favorite moment is when we walk OUT) is when the dental assistant says to david, “you can sit on the tooth.” it is pretty funny to see a grown man figure out how to sit on a tooth. it’s even funnier to watch him not feel awkward. he handles his tooth-sitting with great aplomb, alternately cracking jokes with dan, the dentist, and holding my foot, since he can’t reach my hand from the tooth.
for this dentist who has all the patience in the world for my terror and for david’s presence there on the tooth, i am eternally grateful. i would totally sit on the tooth for him.
you have to admit – the first set of stripes is way more interesting than the second. the first set. in the woods. the color combinations. all alive with hue and subtlety. the second set. static. no air. no depth. no variance.
this weekend, on a warm-day hike along the expanding des plaines river, the colors were spectacular. the blue-purple of the water late in the afternoon. the fresh-baby-grass-green of the small island across the river. sky blue, white clouds, golden sunlight. it wasn’t capture-able on film. you just had to stand there and breathe it in. stripes, patterns, shadows, delicate light, elusive dark.
by hiking often on the same trails, we can see the minor changes along the way. we take note of them, commenting on a felled tree or more water in a pond or a new nest high in some branches. there’s more mud, there are goslings, the daffodils are in full bloom, the groundcover is rich. the earth coming back out of fallow. winter’s rest is over; spring’s explosion has arrived.
for us, these winter-spring-summer-fall hikes are necessary. they allow us to see, outside of ourselves; they allow us to process good earth growth and change and color. for us, these hikes are like a security blanket. they soothe worries, sort problems, wrap gently around us.
my sweet momma was an optimist. growing up, she’d wake me up in the morning with a cheery, “good morning, merry sunshine” and she would happily start her day. she would jot everything on her desk calendar (the kind with the base, two metal rings and sheets for each day that were replenishable yearly.) for her, everything counted. she would write down all of it, in her personal shorthand. to read her calendars now is to see all parts of life – the magical parts and the painful aspects. but momma? she just had a way of listing to the magical side.
we drove down to florida nine to ten times in the last couple years of her life. we’d visit and laugh and listen to stories and catch her up on our life. she was in assisted living then so we would listen carefully if she mentioned something she clearly wanted from the home she and my dad had shared. her finnish wood carvings, a certain sweater, a jacket, a movie in the entertainment center…all things back home. we all worked to be sure she was surrounded by things that meant a lot to her.
one day momma started to recollect another of the rich stories she and my dad had experienced on their trip to europe decades earlier. she spoke of the brand new vw bug they ordered ahead and picked up in germany. she spoke of roadtripping for six weeks around the countryside. and she spoke of a red notebook in which she wrote down all her impressions, all their doings, all the adventures during their trip. she wrote of tender moments and of the simplest of pleasures. she wrote of what made that trip magical and painful challenges they had. she didn’t write of the grandiose or the impactful tourist spots. she wrote of what made that trip theirs and theirs alone, a deeply personal account. and as she spoke of it, you could feel the presence of my dad by her side. these were cherished stories and precious time she spent with her beloved husband. clearly, she pined for this notebook – written memories of that magic.
we went back home that evening to my parent’s house with a mission – find the red notebook. we started in the office, scouring the desk and the closet, going through bins and boxes, our eyes searching for a red spiral. defeated in the office, we moved on. every nook. every cranny. we opened every bin and box in the house, rifling through, trying to find it.
we moved on to the garage. tall filing cabinets stood against the wall (for basements are somewhat inconceivable in florida). i started pulling out drawers. david headed for the stacks of plastic bins, piled in another part of the garage.
we kept at it. determined, but losing some hope.
david opened the last plastic bin, the one on the very bottom of the piles. he shuffled through the papers in the top; his eyes fell on a brochure. a travel brochure. from europe. his pulse racing, he continued to dig through the bin.
and then he saw it. a BLUE spiral notebook. on the front was penned the word EUROPE.
the last time i saw my momma – ever – was the very next morning. when we left her, she was clutching the blue notebook to her chest, tears in her eyes.
with the sun not yet up over the farmlands, the hot air balloon lifted. we slowly sailed over fields and stands of trees, watching the world wake up. as the sun rose over the horizon, we could hear what was going on below us. we weren’t that high up and any conversation in backyards and barns, on patios and decks or driveways was easy to hear. we weren’t intentionally eavesdropping; you just can’t help but hear clearly up there in the wind. it’s an amazing vantage point floating low in the sky, sharing the sunrise with the earth, an endless horizon. a little wary, i had asked the pilot if he had any anti-motion apothecary suggestions. he responded by telling me that none are needed, that you are “part of the wind.” we were. we are. part of the wind.
when we go antiquing and wander around in vast collections of other people’s lives, we pass by paintings on the walls and in stacks against cabinets, displayed beautifully and piled haphazardly. we stand in front of bins full of records and 45’s, stacks of CDs not even alphabetized, the vinyl and polycarbonate/aluminum blend all beckoning us to sort through and remember songs or moments in time. and we, artists of the canvas and of song, draw in our breath. it’s an amazing vantage point floating here in time, sharing this day with the earth, contemplating.
and we wonder if this is where all of our paintings and cds will end up one day…in an antique shop where browsers will pass by, exclaiming, “wow! look at all those paintings!” or “wow! look at all those cds!” we wonder if they will stop, page through, recognize a track or two, an image or two, or if they will be curious or spellbound and buy something to bring home. perhaps we will remain part of the stacks, the bins, ever-growing, the horizon endless.
either way, we are part of the wind.
download BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on iTUNES or CDBaby
one of the cool things about living in kenosha is the ability to easily get to two major cities – milwaukee and chicago. we drive up to milwaukee to putter around, go to the art museum, walk along the river in the third ward, go to antique shoppes. we usually take the train to chicago, driving south a couple towns for more frequent schedule choices. we walk the streets of the city, find places for coffee or glasses of wine, attend national geographic live events or a play or concert, visit with friends.
but we are actually less city people than we are outdoors people. and so, more often, we will head out – west of the i – and take a drive out in the county. in next-to-nothing we are surrounded by farmland, breathing in the scent of rich dirt in fields that are turned over for planting, some yielding early croplings*.
in also next-to-nothing time, david whips out his sketchbook and pencils to capture the really gorgeous patterns in these fields of green. (these words make me think of the stunningly beautiful song fields of gold. if you haven’t ever heard it, please take a few minutes right now and click HERE. you will be glad you did.)
just a sketch, but a reminder of the moments we passed these fields, talking or listening to music, singing along or simply silence in the car. a breath of fresh air, a drive to rejuvenate, maybe a hike on a trail to restore us – all west of the i.
a burl on a tree is caused by the tree undergoing some form of stress. indeed, if this were true for humans, we would be loaded with burls. instead, our burls are inner-burls. they don’t generally manifest as growths on the outside or present as small or large bark-covered lumpy warts. instead, our worry makes us lose sleep, have intestinal issues and headaches. it makes us eat too much, pour the glass of wine a bit too early, seek medicinal solutions or drugged numbing. it makes us argue and lash out, insist on our own way, slam doors both figurative and literal. it causes sickness, physical exhaustion, loss of relationship or work or time in our lives. we become afraid to share our burls with the ‘outside’, scarcely making headway, fearful of the opinion of others, confused by the wart in our lives.
we should be like trees. the burls cover with bark, insulating from the outside yet evident to the outside. they grow in response to the stress of disease or injury or insects, but a tree may continue to live with these burls indefinitely. actually removing the burl exposes the tree to infection. the burl wood is prized, with swirling grain patterns. often, burls are harvested (both legally and illegally), with stunning furniture and wooden bowls the goal of burl-wood-turners. these trees stand tall and mighty, growing from seedlings, co-existing with disease, injury, insects and, even, together with trees more beautiful sans burls. they wear their wrinkled protuberances with grace. they don’t rid themselves of the evidence of life amid stressors, seeking botox to hide irregularities and minimize affirmation of living. instead they continue on, growing and growing and growing – despite a few warts.
reverse threading 