reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


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moonglow. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it was late night on the train platform. though we had walked from the station when we arrived, our boys dropped us off for the way back home. the train was a wee bit late and there were a few people on the platform waiting, some a bit impatiently. we were tired but not impatient, grateful to not be driving home from the city.

the clouds and the moon got together, plotting a bit of choreography. nearly full, this waxing gibbous was extraordinarily bright, backlighting the cotton balls of clouds passing in front of it. with wildfire smoke particles catching the light, an orange glow encircled the white moon peeking out, the glow much like the salt lamp emits in my studio. we stood on the platform, waiting for the train, completely captivated by the sky above us.

in recent days i have been reading old journals. journals almost fifty years old. these were the days when i passed through teenage years. when my days and nights were long and full of adventures: dancing at discos and early sunrise photo shoots, beach-camping and scuba diving, fishing and arboretums and county parks and apple-picking, skiing and my red round transistor radio on a picnic blanket. they were days of my little blue vw bug and growing-up-nuclear-family time, guitars and poetry, climbing trees and frisbee and term papers, bike hikes, the mall, my dog missi and a plethora of friends. i was often writing in my journal at 2am, wide-awake, reviewing my day, waxing poetic, loving life. it is a pilgrimage into the innocent.

my late-nights are different now, indeed, than way back when. sleep is now something i really adore, much more so than when the most minimal amount seemed – maybe – necessary.

because i am reading and reading and reading, i am feeling somewhat immersed in back-then.

these days i turn on the salt lamp that sits on the chifforobe. i don’t do it every day, but right now seems a good time for it as i hold space for the going-through of things of the past. from this vantage point – looking back – i know the shatter of innocence comes. the voice in my journal changes.

the glow stays with me as i pass by the studio door.

and now, as sleep eludes me at night, i lay under the quilt and gaze at the moon illuminating the blinds.

*****

IN THE NIGHT © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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the glow. [d.r. thursday]

even on a foggy, overcast day, looking down from the ridge the glow was unmistakable. the everciduous beech trees stubbornly held their leaves, dying the brown woods a shade of cantaloupe or hard-to-identify pantone.

the forest floor below our feet was shuffling-full of leaves, oaks and maples and a variety of brown county timber. vines curled their way around trees in attempts to find the canopy. on this winter day, were it not for the marcescent beech, we could see further than any other season in the woods.

marcescence, i’ve learned – for this is not a word that sprang to the forefront of my mind – is the retention of leaves through winter. it isn’t until the leaves are completely brittle and wind takes them that they drop. and in the meanwhile, new growth – new leaf buds – have been protected and had access to nutrients and moisture, a sort of still-on-the-tree mulch.

it occurs to me that marcescence is like changing jobs. one generally holds onto a job until retaining the next, the security of employ feeding confidence and necessities while new awaits. it’s always a little disconcerting to leave before next is there, a leap of faith, sometimes, a premature leap, with regret.

yet sometimes, it is absolute. we drop our leaves. we stand naked in the forest, tall and exposed, willowy trees waiting for spring. sometimes we shed all that protects us and take risks and go fallow in liminal and shiver in cold winds. we gaze around and see everciduous folks nearby, confident, predictable, stalwart. we dig in, deep roots of belief in ourselves despite weather that tests us. we draw from the ground, are fed by what we know, what we have learned, what we have created. we hold onto tiny bits of light. we protect the glow. we push on.

and new buds show up. spring always follows winter.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY