it’s that time of year when the wistfuls arrive. school has just started, a little bit – albeit, the tiniest little bit – of fall is in the air, notebooks and filler paper and mechanical pencils fill the supplies aisles, the lakefront is quieter.
i sort back to my own growing-up and how northport harbor went from bustling to a bit sleepy, how crab meadow beach went from crowded – the smell of coppertone lingering in the air – to deserted with a few people walking its shoreline. things reorganized and people got back to it…structure.
even so, even knowing about the impending wistfuls, i had trouble understanding what was happening when i spent the day close to tears.
i knew i had written another blogpost about the wistfuls – last year – and i just looked back at it. i’m not sure i could say what i said in that blogpost more succinctly:
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.
it’s been 38 years since i’ve moved here. thirty-eight. it even takes me by surprise. when we moved here, the deal was “three to five and then we move on”. uh-huh.
but it’s where we bought this old house, where the children were born, where life was lived – good and bad, happy and sad – and time seemed to fly by. truly. and now it’s 38 years later.
in the time i’ve been here – this place where i was transplanted – i cannot remember weather that has been as ornery as this spring and summer.
yesterday, while trying to keep up with yet another tornado warning coming from the west, i was on jake’s weather page on facebook – a local and much-appreciated meteorologist. he was reporting on the progress of the storms heading in our direction, with his predictions about them.
i read the comments on his latest post and totally agreed with a few, particularly:
“good grief! not again!” and “i can’t believe these storms this year.”
exactly.
because climate change is real and our extreme weather is directly related to it.
because global warming is real and our extreme weather is directly related to it.
because ecology and green sustainability are real and dealing with our extreme weather is directly related to both.
because caring about our resources, our natural environment, our atmosphere, our forests and seas and aquifer and pollution control and this good earth is real and we should care about all of it, protect all of it, invest in all of it. our extreme weather – and the extreme weather around our state, our region, our country, the global world depends on us and what we choose to do.
the survival of this place we call home – whether it’s wisconsin or any other place on this planet – is dependent on us to make good choices.
there is no way around it, despite any twisted misinformation that the current administration wishes one to believe.
make good choices. time flies by.
our world becomes our childrens’ and then their childrens’. our home becomes theirs.
“preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” (carl sagan)
the ferns are curly-cuing their way up – out of the ground – taller and taller every day. they are spectacular, these fiddleheads, coiled fronds answering the beckoning of the sun.
this particular photo of our ferns in our fern garden strikes me as very maternal…as if the momma fern is looking out for the young ferns following suit – the one with tilted head, the one not yet fully unearthed. i am reminded of one of d’s paintings…mother-daughter…the never-ending inclination to protect, to hold close, to comfort.
but unfurling-life doesn’t provide us with the never-ending opportunity to physically hold our children, to physically protect them, to physically comfort them. instead, they scatter – like wildflower seeds – as they must – as they should – and we parents are left to watch over them from afar, to celebrate their successes and hold fast their hearts when they are mourning. we have not given up our connection, but it is stretched out far and we find we must also rely on the grace of the universe to protect, to hold, to comfort them.
as our own beautiful children – now in their thirties – move about the world being who they are, i miss them, the preciousness of their presence.
i sometimes miss the days when they were reliant on me (and their dad) for most things. those days were intense, busy, skewed mostly in the direction of making sure their needs were met, that we provided for them the best we could, that we offered up opportunity as well as critical boundaries, that we cheered their journeys.
i sometimes miss the days when they had new freedom…those days they were in college and littlebabyscion was the moving van again and again, taking them to and fro, witnessing year by year their growing independence.
i sometimes miss the days when they were newly out of college, when they weren’t quite as established as now, when home still kind of meant wisconsin.
in going-through the basement, the attic, the closets, all the rooms of the house, i try hard to remember that the things of those times will not help me hold onto those times. i try hard to remember that their baby clothes, their early toys, the old trinkets from their rooms, their junior high notebooks will not keep those times at hand. i try to release all that as i go, my heart trying to just gently hold the memories i can remember, my heart trying to tenderly – empathetically – hold my heart. i try to be a good fern in a big world of fern gardens.
and now, as the frond that burst out of the soil first, the frond that unfurled first, the frond that aged first, i glance at the verdant fiddleheads following. i could not be more proud. i could not love them more. and i will never not miss physically holding, protecting or comforting them as they answer the beckoning sun.
though i haven’t worn them out-out yet, i have new boots. with a rubber outer, they will keep my feet dry and, hopefully, warm. as i write this – ahead of the calendar – i’m not sure what i am saving them for or why i am saving them – it is a quirk – this save-it-for-good-thing – i’d like to give away at some point – but, since it is still mine, i am still saving them – at least at the time of this writing (way ahead of today).
it seems it will be a white christmas. at least partially, with bits of snow. though it has warmed up a tad since the polar vortex came through, there are still the ever-present piles of snow in parking lots and along the edges of daily living.
so far, we haven’t walked in the snow as much this year as in past years. i’m guessing the combo-platter of the frigid temperatures and the fact that we have been consumed with – guess – yes! – ice-damming have taken the zeal out of our zealous hiking-in-the-snow. i am hoping that more mild temperatures both melt the rest of the ice and rejuvenate our outdoor juju.
last weekend – when the vortex was at its most vort – we stayed in. we wrote, we researched, we read, we decorated, we made soup, we overplayed george winston’s december and hans christian’s door county christmas albums, and we watched the denver broncos squeak past the pack. it was – frankly – too cold to go out. plus, big red had just gotten home from its new fuel-pump-installation and we were less than anxious to test it or our confidence about not having to wait for yet another tow truck. littlebabyscion was way too pleased about staying in the driveway so that iced the cake on staying in, so to speak.
and as i went up and down the stairs, picking through holiday decorations and sorting through stuff, i fell into the unavoidable review of time and life.
the viewmaster of my mind’s eye threw me back: into ice storms and nor’easters on long island, crab meadow beach in the snow, footie pajamas, my parents’ living room, the den fireplace and my growing-up family, eggnog and krumkake, midnight christmas services, caroling, luminaria around our block, open-one-present-christmas-eve, christmas in florida for a few years, arriving in december ’88 wisconsin without a winter coat, being warmly-adopted by linda and bill, our tiny babies, christmas cantatas, a donkey in the church, christmas tree lots, sewing and crafting presents, plates of cookies for santa, 3am gift-wrapping, running the videocamera on christmas morning, wrapping paper and boxes in the fireplace after chopper-dog tore them all up, toddler stocking glee, noisy morning-of mayhem, recording christmas albums in NYC, shipping gifts, shipping albums, concerts, christmas eve brats, choirs, teenagers, santa-lists, cranberry-orange relish, greenbeancasserole, too many decorations, non-stop christmas radio, and then – christmas-tree-on-a-stick, tiny trees, happy lights, more cantatas, more choirs, ukulele carols, more pipe organ, turkey roulade, luminaria and bonfires, more shipping, facetime, quieter mornings-of. and so many other things mixed in.
it has seemed to be a time of some review, a time of serious thought, pondering and ruminating, wistful rising every so often.
looking back – far and near – the long view and what-seems-merely-seconds-ago – and i step into an array of emotions that change like iridescent bubbles in the sun. held by all the memories of before, i glance in front of me, in front of us. i look forward to what’s next – even to this holiday when we are just the two of us on the morning-of, when our grown children celebrate elsewhere, happy for them they are with their dad and stepmom on this day.
if we take a walk – and if there is snow – i will turn around and photograph our prints – steps at a time we have discovered is fluid like all the rest.
the world isn’t stopping. the axis keeps spinning. the moments arrive and then quickly disappear into the eddy of our memory bank.
there’s just so much. there’s just so little. it’s all sooo fast.
in a really rare moment, we had the amazing chance to have our children and their partners gather around the dining room table with us. to say i was thrilled would be an absolute understatement. it had been six years since we had actually been together – my two children and us. it was a giant gift and i am grateful for it.
plates, pasta, wine, bread – all were merely props as i gazed around me, watching these beloved faces, listening to laughter and conversation. i tried hard to memorize all of it. these brilliant, creative seeds of tomorrow, bright lights of real humans, of good people.
the next day we hiked, just d and me, after everyone had left. we talked about our blink-of-an-eye time with our adult children, about the fun chaos in the kitchen the night before, about the teasing and the ribbing. and i found myself holding onto the filmy threads of each moment before they flew away.
the photographs will help, of course. they will be posted in our kitchen and i will pass by them, often looking at them and smiling. but inside, i will hold onto the way it all felt, the heart-stopping hunger i had felt longing for a moment together, the breath i could exhale as i sat at the same table with my children and their partners or as we all clustered together in photographs.
but i know i won’t be able to hold onto all of it. time tugs at memory like that.
and the clustered fluffs of seeds will be tugged out of the pod by gentle breezes and fierce winds. they will swirl about and land somewhere, planting. another milkweed.
and i hope there will be another table-sitting somewhere soon – all together – as these brilliant humans go about their all-grown-up lives, swirling about with gentle breezes and fierce winds at their backs.
with what seemed a millisecond between seasons, it is – clearly – fall now.
i had a list of places to go, places to show d. but the tropical storm/nor’easter put a crimp in all that. planting fields, millneck manor, blydenburgh park, hecksher park, every beach on both shores, out east – it was all on the list.
but the reality was that both time and good weather were limited. so in tiny bits of time, we went to the most important places. the other places will have to wait.
grateful to be home, we went to our favorite loop trail and immersed in the turn of the season, appreciating all the little and big ways it had changed in the week we had been away – a week that felt infinitely longer.
i readjusted the smart lights and the old-fashioned timers. d pushed the garden lights earlier. we refreshed happy lights and, and just a few days ago, i turned on the heat for the first time this season. i love autumn, but the waning light is a bit challenging.
any store we enter now is decked out in full holiday schmalz. that – i have to say – is too much for me. though i am completely aware this works for some people, it just seems too soon and it seems a bit tone-deaf to me, considering all that is actually happening.
as i think about the holiday season – knowing our adult children will not be celebrating here with us this year – i wonder about our own celebration. i have some seriously mixed feelings about it all. though being surrounded by lights and cheerful reminders of merriment and joy would be helpful, i also know that there is a tipping point – at least for me. too much of that might be like closing my eyes to the painful changes taking place right here, right now. it will be important to balance the hope of a season of light with reality. some of the merriment, the decorations, the glitter and ribbons and wrap might have to wait. just like millneck manor and planting fields, the beaches and parks of the island. sometimes just a bit is also enough for the moment.
in the meanwhile, we touch this season. we take cuttings of our plants to propagate for next year. we miss long, lazy light as it slowly disappears. we start to wear boots.
the time of fallow is coming.
fallow.
and then?
i truly hope that soon we here in this country are able to – driven to – resume the cultivation of kindness and humanitarian goodness, to regenerate respect and care for each person here, to break the toxic infestation of these days, to recover a nation of integrity, equality, generosity and democracy for all.
the universe has a way of knowing what you need – even when you don’t.
twelve years ago – in the middle of a budget truck move from seattle to this town tucked into lake michigan’s shoreline – we passed a sign that would change our lives.
the sign was hand-lettered. and it read, “aussie pups for sale”.
in odd moments of being the passenger in a vehicle, i read it aloud as we passed. and then i asked him, “what’s an aussie pup?” he told me about australian shepherds and how they are quite beautiful, intelligent, loving dogs – usually merle in color…patches of white, cocoa, black, caramel.
we had talked about wanting a dog – someday – that should be in capital letters – some day. we were just at the very, very beginning of our time living together – literally the first moments – his rocking chair and paintings and clothes and various other scaled-down paraphernalia were in the truck. i had a cat waiting at home and a dog just wasn’t in the mix envisioned for the moment – at least not that very moment. plus, it was simple: we wanted a black dog. so these aussies wouldn’t present any existential problem.
and i know you’ve heard the tale: we decided it could do no harm to look at puppies on our verylongdrive and we turned the truck around on the windy mississippi great river road, drove into the farm driveway and up the hill, parked at the top and got out. farmer don met us in the dirt driveway and we asked him about the puppies.
farmer don told us he only had one puppy left – we’d have to follow him over hill and dale to go see it at a kennel, for he was waiting for a beeper to alert him for an emergency surgery he needed to undergo.
we lumbered along, following him in our budget truck, curving around bends and up and down hills. we arrived at the kennel where we were greeted by a few energetic and gorgeous dogs. he went to get the puppy and carried him over to us. “he’s on sale. i just need to home him. he needs to be adopted. no one wants him because he’s black.”
cue the existential crisis.
we were instantly in love with him – this bundle of black fur and enthusiasm and kisses. instant decision limbo. the timing. the added responsibility. a puppy!
after an eternity of loving on this amazing little dog, we gave farmer don a small down payment and said that we needed to drive on home and decide. we told him we would call him in three days and that, either way, he could keep the deposit.
we went back and forth about a million times. dog/no-dog/dog/no-dog/dog/no-dog.
we drove back, still not knowing the answer but figuring we could decide on the way or at the moment we got there and saw the puppy again.
silly us.
of course he saw us when we arrived and ran as fast as his four short little legs could carry him. he stopped just in front of us where he sat down, ready for his new life adventure. we hugged farmer don and put this obvious blessing from the universe in littlebabyscion for the almost six hour drive back home.
dogga is 12 today, this adorable puppy who refused to answer to the names we had picked out for him and would first only answer to “tripper”. he is 12 today, this beautiful creature we were somehow gifted, whose best friend in the world became babycat, whose every move is based upon our moves, whose well-being is central to all that we do – even more particularly now that he is older and a homebody. he is 12 today and we go slower for him, make allowances for him, keep his needs in mind. he is 12 today and we have spent our entire time living together – in the early days and in our marriage – with the exception of three days – with him in our lives.
and i cannot – for the life of me – imagine it any other way.
happy birthday our precious dogdog. we love you forever. ❤️
and nature hung chandeliers all over the woods. shooting star chandeliers in celebration of warm spring days – tucked next to majestic oaks, stars flying across the meadow. but not for long. as summer heats up these will fade. everything has its time.
aging is a funny thing. but it is not in the way of the enchanting shooting star – for those will come back the next spring, ever-resilient, perennial.
instead, aging is a bit more like an annual. periods of growth followed by fallow. uncertainty. we struggle with what is ours to do – we struggle with how that changes – we recognize endings and, thankfully, beginnings. but our time as chandeliers is not limitless. and, as we process that, we are less devoted to the zealous striding of our younger selves and more to the mission of the expression of ourselves.
i have thousands of cds in the basement. all cds with my name on them, ready to be shipped. smack-dab in the heyday of my career-with-a-much-delayed-start, writeable cds became a thing and streaming became rampant. it changed everything. dramatically. suddenly, the tens and tens of thousands of cds i was selling – which merited the thousands in waiting stock – dropped in numbers. streaming and download reports showed hundreds of thousands of hits but merely tiny slices of a penny for each one. it is stunningly gut-wrenching to look back at the shooting stars as they burned out.
people ask me if i am still “doing music” when they see me. because it is who i am i always say yes. and then i think about the boxes of cd stock in the basement and any latent desire to record more. it is hard to justify. very.
but the call of a piano and a boom mic on a stage or in a studio is ever-present. they are part of my chandeliering. and – like wishes on a shooting star – i wonder if one day pale purple flowers might bloom out of the fallow and i might give myself to the astonishing and to the illusion of the standstill of time.
every single bit of the dandelion that is you is unprepared for the flight of the fluffy feathery pappus of the puffball off and beyond.
though the flight of these filaments is your ultimate goal – to give lift to these children who have merely been loaned to you for a time – their jet-stream-like flight takes you by surprise, leaves you a little breathless and a little astounded as you watch them fly, dispersed by the wind. your hearts – the extra ones that were birthed in you at the time of their arrival – clench a little in the moment of their departure, wonder at the very, very big change in how you are then defined in the world.
and you realize, perhaps, that you suddenly understand how your own sweet momma (and dad) felt. the moment they retired and moved. the moment you moved away, likely to not return to live in their locale again. the moment you no longer stop by at any old time. the moment it required more planning, more travel, more arrangements to see each other.
and you try to adjust – your little dandelion heart works hard to put it all into perspective, to recognize the natural order of things, to grok that this is the way of the universe – birth, growth, independence. it is the way of the dandelion. as beautiful as it was, the yellow flower was not the pinnacle; the puffball is essential for these amazing children to go, to become, to make their mark on the world, to change things for all time.
but that same little dandelion heart sometimes just aches a little – for the days they were satisfied with lap-sitting and book-reading together, or the days you endlessly shopped together, or the days you sat on the sidelines of their game or their match or their race or their concert or their recital, or the days you simply were together – sharing space and time – sharing time in the same space.
i knew my own momma was my biggest fan – despite any disagreement we might have had along the way. she was the cheerleader of my life in the same way that i carry pompoms for my own children, in all their sharing of steep summits and challenges and bliss and angst. they will always be the first thing i think of in the morning and the last thing at night as i tuck them in with whispered prayers i poof to them like blown kisses or – maybe – like dandelion pappus in the breeze.
time will keep moving and i can feel it now.
“it’s friday again,” i look at d.
“and it’s june,” he replies.
wow.
and my grown children keep growing – in their own physical, concentric worlds. and i keep going – in mine. and when those two worlds meet – when they bump up against each other and sit still for a spell – my dandelion heart is ecstatic.
because we started late – not in our 20s or 30s or even 40s – much stuff was already in place – things like couches, tables, cozy chairs, cabinets, dressers, lamps, appliances – and we didn’t have to start from scratch.
but – as our time together has moved on – in our adding and deleting – we have chosen certain pieces to bring into our life together and we have celebrated those pieces in the space we share.
this past summer we added this handmade metal piece, placing it in the garden with the grasses, loving the way it played with light and shadow. much like the chunk of concrete in our living room or the vintage suitcases scattered in our home, it was a small purchase but it was something we knew would spend some time with us, tracking through seasons.
it’s foggy this morning. dense fog, i imagine it has invisibilized the lake. it’s pulling us.
today is a day to walk…outside. the quiet will envelop us as we hike in the woods and process these days – days for which we all make so many preparations, days that go by so quickly, seasons that carry those we love through and through into next and next, ever so swiftly. time does not stand still, does not wait for our witness, and the moments slip through our fingers much like we will slip through the fog.
we sit, under a blanket and not yet ready to go out, marveling at the perfection and the evanescence, the yearning and the satisfaction of time. we hold onto this moment of this minute of this hour of this day of this season – where we are warmed by a quilt, where can see each other typing, where we can hear the deep sleeping breaths of dogga right here. i try to memorize it.
and as we look out the window, to our barney aging – one moment, the next moment – we can see he is still grinning from the eve bonfire gathering, as only an aging piano in the backyard can grin. we are happy to see the ring of adirondack chairs and the vestiges of luminaria. and we admire the fleeting beauty of just a bit of snow left on top the coneflower.
reverse threading 