we drove to the post office, a tiny building about two miles from the ferry dock. when we got there, there were – what seemed like – a million bugs clinging to the side of the building. so. many. of. them.
because it’s what we do, we took pictures of them. and then inquired around about what they were. “may flies”, “bay flies” – apparently they go by different names. and they come in different sizes. but one thing is for certain. they come in mass. the tiny version invaded the island earlier in june. and now, all of a sudden, this bigger variety was here.
they were literally everywhere. tenaciously holding onto the post office, gripping the metal sheeting of TPAC; buildings seemed to be their preferred lodging. they looked like strange dragonflies. they were kind of beautiful, this mass of insects, together.
and then they were gone.
and now we can just look at the photographs we took of these little creatures, wonder where they went and be perplexed about them.
i’m curious – if some day – some other being in the universe will be looking at photograph albums, scrapbooks, shutterfly books, envelopes of pictures, old yellowed newspapers – with pictures of people, all shapes and sizes and colors, en masse and alone – and think, “i wonder what they are. where did they go? how perplexing.”
she was born in 1921 and saw everything change around her. she stood in a world that saw the great depression, world war II, telephones and cars, movies, televisions and news shows reporting on more wars than she could wrap her head around. her husband was missing in action and then a POW shot down over bulgaria, all while she was expecting a baby. she gave birth to their first child while my poppo was still a POW and stood in faith that he would return as that little girl died.
momma built a life with my dad, all the while navigating veteran-ptsd that hadn’t yet been labeled. but she figured it out. she held her ground, both supportive and snapping to action or to “words” as she would call arguments between them.
my sweet momma wore stockings and pumps “to business” and had housecoats with snaps, long flowing mumus and finally, at long last, blue jeans and keds for relaxing. momma drove a mean stick shift and, because they were a one-car family for the longest time, walked to the king kullen and dairy barn for groceries and milk. she turned her very green thumb over to my dad after he retired, likely to keep him out of her hair for a bit of time.
she volunteered as the girl scout president and in aarp alongside my dad. she loved wood and glass; she loved to paint with oils. she loved lists and calendars and math and writing and doing the laundry any time she was stressed. she wrote old-fashioned letters with pen and paper. she adored her word processor and then the computer and finally, her beloved iphone. anything to stay in touch. she texted, she called, she facebooked, she mistakenly took pictures of the ceiling and sent them on errant trips out to the ethers. momma loved to coffee sit and have english muffins or crumb cake or danish or chocolate chip cookies or pie. and she made extra homemade french fries every time she knew I was visiting so we could sit, drink iced tea, eat cold french fries and talk.
she didn’t let fear overtake her. she was strong in every way. she credited being from new york, but i credit just her – she just went with the flow and sort of ignored anything that got in the way, including any physical challenge that presented itself. two days after a double mastectomy at 93 she sat on the side of the hospital bed and, in good humor, sassed everyone around.
she loved that everyone called her beaky. and i mean everyone.
her journey was long, her experiences rich. she was an exclamation mark in life. she celebrated people and love and moments and I miss her. so much.
but it is part of my journey to miss her.
each of us bring to our journey our own punctuation. sometimes i think i am an ellipsis, but i realize that applies to all of us. we go on…
if i got to choose what singular punctuation i would want to be, i would want to be an exclamation mark, just like my sweet momma. for this part of my journey. for every part of the journey.
download THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby
he painted this early on in the days he lived in wisconsin. a big canvas, his brushes moving effortlessly, carefully, intentionally, jars of paint by his side. and JOY came to be. i immediately loved it. equally, i loved being present for the process. i got to WATCH. a creation in the making. beautiful. he stood back and looked at his work.
regardless of your belief, you certainly must acknowledge that somewhere along the way there was a big blank canvas. a divine being named whatever-honoring-name-you-want-to-name-this-presence moved brushes effortlessly, jars of unimagined colors, buckets of stars, clouds full of rain and snow, mountains of hills and mountains, fields of fields and open rangeland, oceans and lakes full of water, gigantic test tubes of atoms and cells that would eventually turn into plants and trees, amoeba, bacteria, organisms, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, people – all by the side of the canvas. this supreme being moved effortlessly, carefully, intentionally. and the world came to be. a creation in the making. beautiful.
we hang this painting and gaze at it, interacting with it daily. we feel the joy of it, the color. we have relationship with the painting; it speaks to us and we listen. we respond to it, respecting it, hanging it out of direct sunlight, preserving it and keeping it beautiful.
we stand in the world and gaze at it, interacting with it daily. we feel the joy of it, the color. we respond to it, but do we respect it? do we have relationship with it? do we listen as it speaks to us? do we concern ourselves with its sunlight, its atmosphere, its water, its land, its living things – all of them? do we preserve it? do we keep it beautiful?
this will become a familiar sight. sunset coloring the lake, an island populated by waterbirds in the distance, jelly jars in hand. we have arrived.
fog dawned this day, which somehow seems apropos, considering. dogdog and babycat are struggling to adjust – a different house – the “littlehouse” as opposed to “home”. we are surrounded by bins and artwork and happy lights and a bulletin board full of photos. we have our picnic basket and our nespresso, office supplies and our peace signs. we’ve hung an old window frame and the chalkboard from our wedding. we have a vintage road-worn black suitcase just waiting to be filled with the stuff of this adventure. we have beach buckets with sunglasses and paintbrushes, kitchen utensils and a bottle of wine. we brought our cloth napkins, jelly jars and a set of our favorite bowls, our hydroflask coffee mugs and water thermoses, our lidded yeti wine tumblers. we have dogdog’s penguin, his lion, his candy cane and babycat’s chase-the-ball-in-the-circle plastic game. we have candles and clipboards, ukuleles, lawn games, and various devices that play music. we have threadied us up.
and it all boils down to this one thing – in my pocket now every day since jen gave it to me – a silver token that says PEACE.
right now, these thready things embrace me. they help with that peace I’m reminded of by this little token.
but this will all become a familiar sight. i know that.
“today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
i remember this on posters, on cards, in songs, in speeches. it was the 70s and recognizing that today was today and tomorrow was fresh seemed enlightened.
we stand, paused – and surrounded by things to pack into littlebabyscion and big red – and glance at what is forward. the adventure. the adventure begins. today is the first day…
we have accepted positions as the co-managing directors of a performing arts center on washington island in door county, wisconsin. we will be on island this summer, settling into the island community and handling the details of this beautiful 250 seat performing arts center. the community seems kind and embracing. the island is quiet and peaceful. our home will be a haven of sunrises across the water and our friends and family will gather there as we do our new work. the deck will welcome loved ones from near and far; the adirondack chairs will tease with invitation on water’s edge. dogdog and babycat will adjust, as will we. and soon, probably before we are ready, the summer will be over and we will be back on the mainland, still managing, but from afar.
there is a special energy in door county. you can feel it; it’s palpable. it’s a creative juju that celebrates the simple beauty of time spent outdoors, time spent with loved ones, time spent honoring the arts. i can’t think of a better match.
the adventure will soon begin. but before that, this ONE-DAY PRE-ADVENTURE PAINTING SALE!
if you are freshening up your surroundings and have a spot in your heart and home or workplace for one of david’s paintings, this 50% off sale may be good timing for you. browse the site and contact us (email: kerrianddavid1111@gmail.com) with questions or to make purchase arrangements. all paintings will ship before week’s end.
plan ahead, you say? well, we thought we did. we wanted a photograph to document our shore-sitting-sipping-on-bold-coffee moment that last morning on hilton head. we carefully watched the waves and placed our mugs in the wet sand. i stepped back to take a couple photos and voila! the tide is a funny thing…something of which we have no control. and so, the coffee cup dance became the moment and our laughter sated our need-for-coffee.
life, i suppose, is like that more often than not. when i moved away from family to kenosha, the conversation went something like this: “3-5 years and we will be moving on.” it is now 30 years later. 30 years! where did that time go? what about the plan? the tide seemed to have its own way and waves of joy and challenge, growth and grief, and simply TIME have washed over me. the tide laughs in glee.
we try to plan. my sweet momma had a great sign. i wish i had it. but it was something like this:
yet, despite our measuring, our strategizing, our calculating, our PLAN, life seems to take unexpected turns. the waves roll in and the tide giggles.
i remember i wore gloves the day i flew to finland with my grandmother mama dear. i was eight and i wore my sunday finest. i even wore a hat with my fancy dress, because that is how you flew – all dressed up. it was 1967 and we were departing for ten weeks together in scandinavia.
i remember lawn chairs in the front yard, my grandparents watching me hula hoop and skateboards with my brother and sister down the driveway. playing croquet with an old wooden set on the front lawn, kickball in the street, s-p-u-d across the neighbors’ yards and chasing fireflies clutching jars with punched-hole-lids so we could capture, watch and release them.
i remember riding bikes all over long island with my best friend susan. we’d tell my sweet momma we’d be home for dinner and off we’d go. just two girls on bikes, riding miles to the beach or a state or county park or each other’s houses, or just anywhere, with stops at carvel or friendly’s or mcdonald’s. no cellphones, no gps, no worries, no fear.
i remember in the mid and late 90s flying midwest express, often. the airline served actual meals on real plates with real cutlery, with champagne or mimosas or glasses of wine, depending on the time of day. they made warm chocolate chip cookies and brought them after the meal with hot cups of good coffee in real stoneware mugs. i dressed appropriately – in clothing that said i respected this lovely flight and those around me, the attendants working hard to make the experience pleasant.
i remember the day i flew to meet david’s family in 2013 the flight attendant asked me if i wanted to purchase water. water! no tiny bag of pretzels, no meal, no freebies, not even water. i had jeans and flipflops on, many people around me in their sweats.
time had passed.
the relics of a simpler time gone by remain. while helping 20 prepare his momma’s house for an estate sale, i opened a drawer next to the bed. in it were gloves – mostly white, but a pair or two of black or brown. there were short gloves and long gloves, cotton gloves and soft leather gloves. gloves with bows and gloves with seed pearls. gloves carefully placed together with their mates, clean and ready for wearing.
i wonder when the last time was that eileen wore these. for that time has passed. and we can only now vaguely remember it – a time when people celebrated occasions with stockings and heels and gloves to the elbow, customer-appreciation-gratis mimosas on airplane flights and kickball in the street.
the studio in our basement is full of beautiful paintings that haven’t yet found their proper home. it is also full of boxes of cds that have been replicated and shrink-wrapped, ready for their new homes. there is no shortage of completed work down there, no shortage of heart projects, no shortage of sweat and tears. there is no shortage of work in progress, canvases prepped, notebooks of lyrics and melodic gestures.
we moved our 20’s father’s paintings last week. today we will move the remainder. as we carefully loaded big red, you could not help but feel wistful about these paintings moving away from their home, to be stored by 20. duke was a prolific painter and his work is stunning; we wondered where and how these mostly large pieces would find a permanent home. where does it go from here?
any artist, thinking about the impermanence of life, wonders that. where does it go from here? who will purchase it, hold onto it, look at it, listen to it, read it, ultimately – feel it? will it matter later on? does it matter now?
colorado to wisconsin. with a stop in columbia, missouri. the first day is long. twelve hours give or take. we drive out of colorado into kansas, which has to be one of the wider states in the journey, and head for wendy’s. she and keith are tolerant of whatever-time-we-get-there, knowing the challenges of a long drive. this time, it was different.
this time we weren’t in our littlebabyscion toodling along, huffing and puffing up hills. this time we were in Big Red, a giant ford F150. she hadn’t been driven this-far-at-one-time in years. we were high up and felt like road warriors.
columbus gave us a couple cassette tapes to play in the player and, in planning ahead, i had brought a dozen favorites from years past (ok, the 70s are many years past.) we played each of them, singing along. and then switched to the radio. it only seemed right that country music be blaring out of the speakers, so we obliged.
although we blasted cassettes of john denver, loggins and messina, alabama, england dan & john ford coley among others, i have a few favorite radio songs of the journey east and north. one direction’s what makes you beautiful, lady gaga and bradley cooper singing shallow, toby keith’s i wanna talk about me and my new fave, billy currington’s good directions and turnip greens. a sweet country-music story.
we were talking with jen and brad last night in their kitchen, lingering over our potluck together. we talked about compromise and life and decisions and chance. like everyone, david and i have had our share of each of those. decisions sorted and pondered, and compromises, bending to the things that make life meaningful, balancing reality with idealism. and then there’s chance. we could relate to the story of turnip greens…happenstance changing life. a choice, one direction taken, a turn, one click…and everything changes. what comes is predicated on what was and what is this very second. we second those lyrics – thank God for good directions and turnip greens.
we turned up the stereo in Big Red and opened the windows with the AC on. somewhere along the way, we decided it was a she, for she had gently mothered columbus as he drove a bit more gingerly in recent days and she sturdily and protectively lumbered us across the country. laughing and certain of everything and absolutely nothing, we turned this beautiful big old pickup truck toward home.
