“only when a fire sweeps through, melting the resin, do these heat-dependent cones open up, releasing seeds that are then distributed by wind and gravity.” (national forest foundation)
one by one we fed ten lodgepole pine cones into our small solstice fire. one by one we silently whispered a prayer, a wish, a hope for each one. one by one we watched them ignite, slowly burning off the resin and sending off invisible seeds into the universe.
it was a perfect summer night. the wind had shifted off the lake and it was at least ten degrees cooler than it had been. we sat on the back patio for hours. it was quiet, peaceful.
it seemed a good night to look to something new, to celebrate the light of the solstice, the potency of life. it seemed a good night to lean into the lodgepole’s protection from unwanted energy, from evil influences. it seemed a good night to embrace resilience and renewal.
we have saved these pinecones, ever so slowly choosing them for release from a boxful that had been gifted us by a dear friend for our wedding. her words about fire and light and rejuvenation were truly soul gifts and we hold closely these precious lodgepole pinecones.
this morning i read that pine is “generally associated with longevity and wisdom, instilling courage and optimism.”
in the coincidence of the universe, these were a few of the words i held as i watched the pinecones i added to our solstice fire burn.
“peace has not broken out,” said marcus noland, executive vp of the peterson institute for international economics.
now there’s an understatement. no. peace has not broken out here in these un-united united states.
now, had they been priced a tad bit lower – ok, quite a bit lower – we might have liked to have added a metalwork alien to our backyard. but our purse strings did not allow for it and our backyard has enough stuff. besides, it’s not really our style. so we kept walking.
but the addition of the peace-loving greenguy would have been a hoot. it was rather tall and a place on our deck would guarantee visual impact for houses – and people – around us. maybe the antique flea market find would have made a positive impact on everyone around. ahh, wishful thinking. maybe not.
peace.
over the weekend we chose one day during which we did nothing. literally, just about nothing. we tended our gardens, adirondack-chair-sat and watched dogga and our birds. it was absolutely necessary. we did not scroll. we did not browse social-media. we did not read articles or newsletters. we did not watch videos or news footage. we deliberately tuned out. instead, we just simply sat.
it was a very quiet day – none of the neighbors were out – it easily became one of my favorite days lately. lots of sun, a very gentle breeze, a good throw pillow behind us, a few snacks.
because peace has not broken out, it is kind of imperative to take some – even manufactured – time of peace. we are all so immersed in the crazy, the chaotic, the mean-spirited – to separate ourselves out for a bit of time is necessary. we simply won”t endure if we walk 24/7 in the maniacal sickness of this administration.
so, with the memory of our greenfriend-of-the-market, we sat. and imagined the rest of the weekend and what all we would do with it. we drank in the stillness, reveled in our hummingbirds. we marveled at our dogga and dreamed dreams about vw minibus campers and backcountry excursions on foot.
peace was in our backyard for a bit. it had broken out with the sun and we were grateful. for just a little bit, all seemed ok.
“we come in peace,” the greenguys insist.
if only that were what they would find here on earth.
there are about 200 seeds in a single dandelion fluff. even in the gentlest of breezes, the dandelion field scatters everywhere – seeding, seeding – more dandelions, more dandelion fields.
oh, the mayhem.
88 keys.
the clusters of piano keys that might be in any piece of music. consider just a three-note composition. in the simplest of equations, assuming once the first choice is made you must move on to the second choice and then the third choice, one has 88 keys to choose from x 88 keys to choose from x 88 keys to choose from – merely 681,472 options for any given composer on any given day working to write just the first three notes of a melodic gesture.
oh, the mayhem.
choices.
for the painter and a canvas, a writer and a pad, a dancer and a wood floor, a potter and blocks of clay, a blogger and a computer keyboard.
it – the imperative to mayhem – calls us. to make something out of it all. to birth something out of the raw materials, to use our tools to create, to choose direction, to express artistic vision – what we see or hear or feel – a passion – that might – or might not – touch others.
there is no guarantee, no real proverbial “if you build it, they will come”. it doesn’t just happen that way. it is an imperative nonetheless.
the imperative to show up, to engage in the mayhem.
i’ve done much of my composing in-between other things, stealing time – minutes even – to write something – anything, something that might be universally understood, something that gives air to a thought, an emotion – something in my internal or external world. scraps of melodies, bass line roots, ideas only until i might make them airborne.
mayhem steals my imagination and lifts it past the stuff-of-the-day. it pokes and prods me, not allowing for passivity, foisting ideas and snippets of muse upon me.
it’s a bazillion seeds in a dandelion meadow, a bazillion pianos, a bazillion pencils and pads, a bazillion brushes and a bazillion paint pots.
i have always been drawn to notebooks. composition books, spiral notebooks, journals, graph paper pads, legal pads, pa-pads – really, i guess, any kind of bound group of paper. blank paper.
it all represents a beginning. “begin anywhere,” john cage urges on a piece in my studio.
but sometimes there is a paralysis. sometimes there is something – some quirk – that stops me from starting – it stops me from putting pencil or pen to the first page. i feel this very big responsibility to the new blank paper. sometimes it feels like what i might write, compose, jot down may not be worthy of the first pristine sheet in a new paper vessel that could – ultimately – contain hundreds of writings, compositions, jottings. i haven’t yet gotten over that.
and so i dig out old spirals that my children used in elementary school – with wide rule lines – or high school – with college rule lines. their names are on the front and i can – delightedly – still find scribblings inside the notebooks. lab results or math problems, vocabulary words or drawings or paragraphs of tiny stories they were creating – it’s all thready for me and so this stack of old spirals and folders speak to my heart – in so many ways. i can easily write in these.
but there are those really delicious new books, new pads, new journals. and i glance at them, wondering when i might think that anything i might pencil in them would be worthy of their newness.
just staring at the beach was zen-full. it was quiet. almost pristine.
the beach had been combed – stunning horizontal lines – raked, perfectly clean but for a few sets of footprints walking – along the horizontal and taking the hypotenuse to the water.
the orderliness was just a tiny bit interrupted. and the orderliness was waiting for more disorderly. the disorderly would mean people – walking and running, children playing and building castles in the sand, seagulls clamming, dogs digging, sand flying.
even as i write this, i think about pulling out one of the brand new notebooks. taking my ever-present mechanical pencil to the first page (or maybe the second – to leave the first page clean and blank).
it makes me think that maybe the disorderly – the walking, running, building, digging, sand-flying – might actually be the real joy.
it makes me think i just might walk the hypotenuse across the college-ruled page. and wreak a little havoc on some clean paper.
every time i turn a shampoo bottle over and empty the remains into a new shampoo bottle – each upside-down tap of the bottle, drawing the last vestiges of shampoo to the top, makes me think of her.
every bird in the backyard, every endcrust of bread, every leftover dinner, every time i do laundry or make lists, merry morning sunshine.
every time we use the wire cheese slicer, every time i pass by the snake plant, every time i tend our houseplants, every time i thank someone who has generously served us in some way.
every time i see a dachshund or a hosta, every time i think of Long Island, every time i write in my calendar, every area rug on a wood floor, sweet potatoes, math.
every time i make do, every time i save something for ‘special’, every time i turn a few specific phrases or use a coupon, collect rocks or driftwood, every time i make – or have – french fries or iced tea.
every time i see liverwurst or have rye toast, catch the aroma of roast beef in an oven or see a jar of ragu sauce.
when i see beets, when i have onion dip, when I devour crumb cake or chips ahoy, when i coffee-sit, when i repurpose things, when i think about baked ziti or darning socks.
when i defend how to pronounce “sauna”, when i see the “sisu” sign in my studio, spiral notebooks and scrap copies, when i hear “wowee!”, when i stood at the edge of the grand canyon.
every time. i think of my sweet momma. and I wonder how it is possible that she left this world ten years ago today. ten. ten years without her. ten years of not being able to pick up the phone and call her. ten years without mom hugs. ten years without a mom who would listen to any story i told her – any number of times i told it – knowing that my biggest fan was this woman, who was ahead of her time in so many ways.
i wonder how she is feeling now about the turn of all she left behind. i wonder if she has that certain stink eye she’d get, wishing to admonish this country’s current leaders and those following in lock-step. i wonder if the public deflection and distraction of some – avoiding the truth of their choice, avoiding taking responsibility for that choice, literally cheerleading this horror, loudly or silently – i wonder if seeing all that makes her crazy. knowing my momma – and her humanitarian and political leanings – i’m fairly certain she is pretty “irked” – as she would say. she is likely fired up and giving someone a piece of her mind somewhere on the other side. as high-road as she was (and, probably, is) she is not one to put up with the destruction of the country for which she and my dad sacrificed.
and so, every time i speak up or speak out i think of her. every time i voice absolute protection of the rights of members of my family. every time i express horror for the dismantling of this democracy and the cruel disenfranchising of people of the populace. every time i see another nail skewering women. every time i read about the dumbing-down, the elimination of history, the blunting of truth, the big-time grift. every time i stand up for what she taught me about kindness to people. every time. i think of her.
and every time i see the print “live life, my sweet potato” i think of her. and i miss her. yet again.
many, many years ago – when my children were little – they used to play a computer game called bugdom. it was based on perspective from – well – a bug’s life. the actual plot – as i recall – is way too contemporaneous now for comfort but the graphics – at the time – were fascinating and the mac version of this game was amazingly realistic. winding your way between bits of vegetation and rocks, you could feel immersed in bugdom as you – playing the part of a rollie pollie – try to save other bugs – like ladybugs – after an evil and tyrannical ambush of the bug kingdom. like i said, too close for comfort.
i often think about what things look like from a different perspective. it is essential as artists. the trying-to-stand-in-someone-else’s-shoes thing is important to me. things that are affecting bugdom are not just the things that are affecting me. since all of bugdom is interconnected, anything that is affecting one is, therefore, also affecting me. we try not to be so isolated – or cavalier – as to think that the plight of the ladybugs will not affect us rollie pollies.
so i get down on my knees to shoot photographs from a vantage point swinging on a snowdrop or a wild daffodil leaf. i sit on the ground to shoot pictures through the may apples. i take videos of caterpillars on their plane of existence, practically laying on the ground.
because everything changes when your perspective changes – when you allow for a shift in how you are looking at something, when you entertain empathy and compassion – when you stand in another’s shoes.
somewhere in the old romper room do-bee song i’m guessing there’s a line that says “do be a good rollie pollie.”
were my momma still alive, i would purchase this for her. she would have loved the bright colors, the sweetness of it. mostly she would have loved the message – be kind. she was not a complex person, not really. she had a basic approach to living. be kind pretty much encapsulates it.
were my momma still alive, i would bring it to her and we would plant it in a garden she could easily see or, more likely, plant it in an indoor pot, maybe with a snake plant or aloe.
were my momma still alive, we would chat about things. we would talk about how the illustrator of this garden-art post depicted happiness. we would talk about color and folk art and hearts and simplicity.
and then we would talk about right now.
were my momma still alive, she would be appalled at the state of this country. she would be gobsmacked by the outright cruelty and lack of attention – shall we say – to the law, to decency, to morality. she would be devastated by the rifts in her own family. she would be sickened by the rapid dismantling of our democracy and the descent into hellish authoritarianism. she would remind me – though i need no reminding – that my poppo fought against fascism, risking his life being taken prisoner of war – all to keep this country safe from the exact sort of thing that is now rampant.
were my momma still alive, she would weep. and i would try to console her, wrapping my arms around her in a hug, holding her just as she used to hold me in times that i was inconsolable. she would be tired then. she would lay down in exhaustion, wringing her hands in intense worry, fear across her brow, tears on her cheeks.
my sweet momma died ten years ago now – on the 29th of april. i still feel the loss of her in every fibre of my being.
i might go get this garden-art post. because – though it would cost money we are big-time reticent to spend – it would be like my momma is physically here. at least just a tiny bit.
we try to resist. these days it’s nearly impossible.
i mean, we don’t have a whole heckofalotta vices but these dang chips – well – we have succumbed.
we do try to avoid them by keeping them out of the house. if you don’t go to costco you can’t buy them. if you go to costco (a store we adore for their staunch support of diversity, equity and inclusion) but don’t costco-mosey and don’t go to the wall-o-chips, you can’t buy them. if you go to costco and actually buy them but don’t open the bag and leave it on the top shelf of the left side of the pantry in the kitchen, you can’t eat them.
yet, even with all these avoidance techniques, we have failed – numerous times – miserably. and then we think – eh – so what – it’s just a bag of chips! it’s not like a crime against humanity – which we can identify because we are seeing plenty of those these days.
so we eat chips.
my name is kerri and his name is david and we eat chips.
we commonly talk for our dogga. we talked for our babycat as well. we talk for wildlife in the woods. we talk for other drivers on the road. i talk for my toes. d talks for his knees. we pretty much animate anything.
including this veiled chameleon.
we rarely go to pet stores. but when we do go to a pet shop, it is with our hearts on our sleeves. this time the chameleon captured us.
i realize that he is being fed and watered (hopefully) properly and that his environment will be changed as he grows, but i couldn’t help but feel a sense of sadness as i watched him clawing at the glass of his terrarium.
as if he could understand what was happening in this chaotic world – sensing it perhaps – we stood with him, inches away, and interpreted the look on his face.
and in the strange way that all of us inhabitants of this earth somehow align, i was feelin’ it too. rejecting the idea that i was projecting my thoughts onto this small reptile, i told him that we were on the same page – with our shock, our dismay, our pointing fingers, our plea for a plan to make the chaos stop. we were one for these moments – cammy and me – and, in these same moments, i was reminded – once again – of how all the creatures – interconnected – human and critter – on this good earth could care about each other.
it’s been balmy the last couple days and we have been out on the trail, immersed in the beauty of the whole tapestry. i would bet that all of the people involved in the destruction of this country aren’t outside much. they have little to no perspective about how small they really are. somehow the almighty dollar has usurped any sense of camaraderie with the beings of the universe, somehow the climactic high of power has decimated their hearts and consciences. somehow they have lost it all while trying to seize it all.
we visited cammy again before we left the store. i whispered to him that i wouldn’t forget him. he whispered back the same. we exchanged a “what-now???” look that doubled as “get-me-outta-here”.
we walked toward the double doors that opened as we approached just as cammy went back to clawing the glass.
we spoke quietly to them as we hiked. they seemed to be everywhere that day…on the trail, in the brush, by the river. they watched us; we watched them. we told them they could trust us, that we would not hurt them in any way. they didn’t flee, instead, aware of us, grazing a bit, snuffling in the snow. it is my hope that they felt no danger from us. when we hiked on, they moseyed, unhurried, beautiful innocence graceful through the snowy woods.
no danger. it was not that long ago when we did not feel impending danger.
all that has changed. rapidly.
and suddenly, we are thrust into a country where all is at peril. we are standing and staring at the unchecked mob taking over our democracy, at the purely evil intention permeating the administration that is destroying every vestige of the american constitution.
we watched hgtv the other night. there was a couple looking for a house in north carolina, specifically in rocky mount – where martin luther king, jr first spoke his “i have a dream” speech. as they visited houses, they remarked excitedly about one, “this is the american dream!!”
i grimaced. for what – exactly – is now the american dream?
is it destroying the foundation upon which this country was built? is it the annihilation of civil rights, of freedoms, of the helping programs in this country? is it stripping opportunity-for-all in favor of opportunity-for-only-a-very-few? is it adding to the income of a few billionaires, while decimating the lives of billions of ordinary folks, undermining any stability they might have had? is it aligning with authoritarians around the world, ignoring long-time allies and neighbors? is it gleefully watching people die in wars, in famine, in disease while shaving aid so that the wealthiest among us might not participate in paying taxes? is it deporting millions of innocent people who have been seeking a better life, contributing to our communities? is it living inside – and capitulating to – the maniacal sickness in the soul-less minds of the new administration? is it standing by, silently applauding your own bigotry? what exactly is the american dream?
if you are not deeply embarrassed by what is happening in these un-united states, i have no idea what is in your heart.
we are all at risk. there is impending danger.
“every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.” (lyman abbott)
we are watching you – those of you who voted for this desecration of our country, for the scourge running the show.
reverse threading 