i wouldn’t say it’s completely autobiographical. but one has to get one’s idea nuggets from somewhere. and – since our lives together have some really ordinary moments – truly ordinarily-ordinary with a smidge of extra as frosting here and there – they are somewhat easy to pull from.
day-to-day living has enough funny stuff. really. stuff happens. big stuff. little stuff. silly stuff. stupid stuff. hard stuff. poignant stuff. goobery stuff. one just has to notice, to pay attention.
and then – in the case of of a sort-of-autobiographical-sort-of-construed-sort-of-vulnerable-sort-of-stand-up cartoon – one has to be willing to share.
the perils and the summits of middle age. there are plenty.
i think about the turtles. they are there in the warmer months, sunning on logs and rocks that jut out of the river. but, when it dips below fifty degrees or so – and stays there – they disappear. apparently, they dive down to the muddy bottom, their metabolism slows down, they require less oxygen. their mucky homes keep them safe as they bide time, these wise, long-lived creatures of the water and the land.
from time to time on the trail we look for them. we know where they hang out and have watched for telltale signs of small snouts poking out of the water. but then it got cold and we just missed them.
the river is alive with other wildlife. geese and a few hardy ducks, squirrels, deer – we see them as we hike.
but we always talk about the turtles anyway. just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean we forget about them. we know they are there – somewhere – in hidden spots, places they feel sheltered and secure. i think about what they might be doing. they are silent and the fallow is long. i trust they are sorting what is next, kind of like us.
he can tell you i worry about them, despite the fact that i know they are completely capable, totally self-sufficient, quite brilliant actually. nevertheless, i am more comforted by seeing the turtles every now and then – at least – than by wondering how they are faring. time keeps moving, though, and i keep hope that when it warms up and the turtles have a more secure sense of themselves in the world they will reappear, out of the suspension of presence. i’m hoping for an early spring.
i know that the turtles are aware i am watching for them and waiting. and the river freezes. and then it thaws.
i wonder if the tree looked in the mirror and counted rings, pondering the impetus behind each one, the reasons for the wrinkles of years, ever-forming, ever-widening. it is doubtful that the tree gazed, searching the rearview mirror for clues, connective tissue, remembrances of angst or sublime moments. it seems more likely that the tree just accepted each concentric ring, the truth of time. it seems more likely that the tree recognized the steady strength it gained for each ring, the rootedness each ring-wrinkle brought to it.
it would seem that this could be a good lesson from nature for us. the natural, raw, untouched passing of time shown on our faces, each beautiful in aging. we could acknowledge the years and the easy and the hardships. we could bow to the accumulation of moments, time flying by as we gather minutes in our embrace. we could turn toward each other, accepting and without judgment, full of grace and care, measuring only our love for each other, unbiased by wrinkles or rings, color or patina. we could tenderly touch the faces of our beloveds and marvel.
and they dreamed dreams and waited in the woods…winterberries with visions of becoming maraschino cherries in their mind’s eye…actualizing with starring roles in traditional wisconsin brandy old-fashioneds…
no, no. do not put winterberries in your old-fashioned. they are completely toxic. but they are striking and unexpected. and the color in the woods is intoxicating. gorgeous red punctuating a dim brown-grey, save for a few evergreen, they are clustered beautiful.
it had been a while, what with the freezing temperatures and snow. we finally made it out to our favorite trail and it was – truly – a breath of fresh air. there is nothing quite as restorative as hiking, surrounded by stillness and the sound of wind rustling through the tops of trees. we needed to get outside. we slogged through the trails, getting a better workout than usual. the mud splashed up onto the back of our jeans, like when you ride your bike in the rain. we reveled in it.
the deer tracks went across the path. they hadn’t been there the first time we passed through. it was early in the day, early for the deer to be moving around, but we started looking through the brush.
her sweet face was staring right at us, her body blending into the scrub and trees around her. we stood, gazing at each other, none of us moving. i slowly took my phone out to capture what i knew would be hard to discern in a photograph – this deer in the woods, this shared moment of time. she didn’t move, but her tail wagged and her ears pitched forward and back, listening. i was hoping she could hear the words i whispered to her – telepathically, a little dr. doolittle-ish. her continued gaze at us, grace for our presence, her head held high, no obvious fear. unexpected.
she never left the spot while we were standing there. she took a few steps but didn’t flee, as so often happens when you start to move in the forest. we blew her a kiss and continued on, feeling lucky to have seen her and to have spent a few minutes with her.
we passed more winterberry holly as we hiked, laughing about old-fashioneds and marveling at our new deer friend in the woods.
we exited the trail, none too anxious to leave, wanting to just linger.
“sometimes,’ said pooh, ‘the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” (a.a. milne)
ricko and nick could be friends. they are on the same page…that trite-but-true one of potentiality.
in “my big fat greek wedding” nick portokalos quotes dear abby, “don’t let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become.” out in the middle of the arctic tundra, ricko dewilde firmly states, “the best way to lose an opportunity is to believe it’s not there.”
john denver in “looking for space” lyrics writes,
“on the road of experience join in the living day if there’s an answer it’s just that it’s just that way
when you’re looking for space and to find out who you are when you’re looking to try and reach the stars it’s a sweet, sweet, sweet dream sometimes i’m almost there sometimes i fly like an eagle and sometimes i’m deep in despair…”
we are all out there – looking for space. no matter the ladder rung, no matter the age, no matter the skill level, no matter the lifeline of work and education and privilege and lack thereof, no matter the past, no matter what we believe, no matter the matter we are looking for space. the place to stand and breathe and be exactly who we are.
this week i flew like an eagle. this week i was deep in despair. i would guess – were we all to be candid – there were many with me up in that eagle-sky and many with me scrambling in muddy-despair. it’s both-and. life is a correlative conjunction.
and – in that infinitely latent and screaming way of possibility – the space we inhabit on this good earth is full of it.
there’s no telling. no way to know. really anything. any. thing.
the mystery of the new year is enormous. giant arcing things will happen, life-changing. tiny morsels of moments will happen, life-changing. we have no way to truly predict. there is no artificial intelligence that can tell us the spectrum of life that we will experience in the new year. it is hidden in holiday wrap, too much scotch tape, gift tags that have become mixed up, like luggage on southwest airlines right now.
to greet it without a hint of anticipation, without a breath of celebration, without acknowledgement of the brevity of time, is to maybe miss it.
stardust falls on our shoulders as we walk into the turn of the year under the big, big sky.
took everything off every surface. dusted everything. put some things away. moved things around. got rid of excess. hung a favorite print. and – with great care – gently vacuumed the inside of my really beautiful piano, for full-stick is an invitation to dust.
i stood back, stood in the doorway, looking in.
the room was breathing. deep breaths.
i was breathing. immersed.
there is still more to go through. there is more to file away. there is former work-trauma to discard and there are calendars of choir music and ukulele band books and handbell arrangements and contemporary solos to box up. the first pass didn’t get all those and now, two years later, i am still a little paralyzed by all of it. that’s why it all needs to go. this process is taking longer than i would have anticipated. “mind, body, spirit,” she said. “it’s not likely others will understand all the layers. they will expect you to just move on, to get over it. they will not grok the wounds; it is all fraught.”
but there were staff lines in the sky. and the universe prompt is haunting me a little.
it’s always had a purpose – my studio – a direct line from standing or sitting in there to actual work. i’ve not just noodled or played because i was just playing. i’ve stood in there to write – to flesh out an album, to practice, to plan – the arc of music for a concert or for a church calendar, to teach – so many students through the years. it hasn’t been a place i go to without purpose, without an end-product, without a result i could see. as an adult, my studio has represented the potential for income; it has been a professional place. now there are questions. many of them. like living in a blank staff, i live – lost – in the questions.
i played my piano. a few carols.
there is one more day this year. and then 2023.
and i won’t carry carols into the new year. it will be time for something else, something less dusty.
there’s some way to go. it’s not as simple as it sounds.
the staff lines in the sky hold no clues, have no notes.
maybe – instead of reading that as tacet – silent – i might – and “might” is the operative word here – read that as a composition without designated key, without predetermined time signature, without definitive expression markings, sans any direction or boundary.
“the snow began here this morning and all day continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning…” (mary oliver – first snow)
it snowed all day, the wind howling, the temperature careening below zero. a white christmas was on its way. the luminaria, though, they would not make it onto the sidewalks with neighbors and friends. it would be too oppressively cold, dangerously bitter.
wisconsin – right here by the great lake michigan – was not besieged with tremendous snow. there were not depths taller than shovelers or windows blocked by towering drifts. but it was so so cold. severe.
and even in the frigid, the glitter was obvious.
“…never settle less than lovely!…”
the pond gathered the flakes. you could almost see them individually…the gift of a dry and very cold snow. dogdog laid outside, allowing snow to fall on his fur and, from time to time, jumping up and licking big swaths from the deck. he is a cold-weather dog, gleeful in the snow.
some of our plans were changed because of the arctic blast. i regretted that. for a bit. there were so many things to go do, so many lights to go see.
but the dura-fire was lit in the fireplace, the wine was poured, the cookies needed decorating, the ornament game waited. and we looked out the window and spoke of bing crosby and white christmas.
and it was beautiful out there. and still. quiet. and sparkling.
“…and though the questions that have assailed us all day remain – not a single answer has been found – walking out now into the silence and the light under the trees, and through the fields, feels like one…”
and we were home. together. and i can think of nothing better.
the thumb-push-up-puppet collection sits idle in a basket…those characters and animals with a wooden platform and a button underneath the base that you push and they collapse and rebound and dance and, if you practice enough, you can keep the beat with just one appendage without moving the rest – talking from experience, of course. but playing – literally playing – with dasher and blitzen have made me want to unearth the basket and dust those babies off.
there is not much that’s funnier than watching six adults racing wind-up reindeer across a coffee table racetrack. each of us cheered and sneered at our reindeer, watching them spin and go the wrong way, teeter off the table, fall over and race for the finish line. you would think that dasher might have an advantage – with his name and all – but dasher was my reindeer and must not have self-actualized yet. he never won a race. but there’s still time. he will not be limited to holidayseason2022. when it’s time, we will store him away – with blitzen, so he is not lonely – until next year’s festivities. maybe by then he will be ready, his confidence will be restored, his winning juju amped up, his luck turned upside down, like a frown to a smile. oh yes. i still have hope.
more than anything else in this season, my favorite gift has been laughter. the kind of laughter when your ribs begin to hurt and your cheeks are sore from your face in smile-mode. i have loved any play – so generative, so rejuvenating, so rooting, so opening. the reminder to not take yourself so ridiculously seriously. each of these moments of this short and so-fast life count and i’d rather remember laughing with beloveds and family and friends more than much of anything else.
i’m thinking the push-up puppets need to see the light of day.
the music and lyrics of jon mohr and john mays come to mind:
“oh maybe when we realize how much there is to share we’ll find too much in common to pretend it isn’t there
love in any language straight from the heart pulls us all together never apart and once we learn to speak it all the world will hear love in any language fluently spoken here“
lisa signed the song as the youth choir sang it on the stage in florida. i carried the song from youth choir to youth choir, its lyrics positive and the song always a director’s success.
d’s ceiling-fan-poppo-chain-bracelet broke and we had to replace it. we both wear these bracelets 24/7 so we have stand-by ceiling fan pullchain to wrap around our wrists should we have a break or a loss. we know my dad is heartwarmed – somewhere – as we hold onto him and the simple way he loved his family – via lightweight metal chain.
after i wrapped d’s wrist a couple times and secured it with the ball chain connector clasps, i tossed the remaining piece onto the counter to put into a tiny special box that is heaven for beaded chain.
i walked past and looked down.
there on the counter it had formed a heart.
of course.
my poppo grinned.
love…straight from the heart…pulls us all together…never apart.
reverse threading 