reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: waning


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nonetheless. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

mid 80s, late 80s, the 90s – it was a thing. posies of dried flowers everywhere you could find a spot. on indoor trellises, tucked into cornices, hooked onto doors, gathered in bowls, in wreaths and vases and garlands, in frames and potpourri vessels. so many dried flowers.

and it wasn’t that they weren’t beautiful. next to the quilts on quilt racks and the doilies on the side tables, old silverware windchimes, painted wooden tchotchkes and cross-stitch anything, the dried flowers complimented the style of the times – this nod to nostalgic country-ish.

there was a day – years ago – when, having been surrounded by dried flowers for decades, i literally walked around my home with a big garbage bag and tossed all the dried flowers i had managed to hang, tuck, hook, trellis, gather, weave, drape, frame or potpourri-mix. it – this decorating obsession with things-dried – was suddenly done.

(now, to be fair, currently, there’s a posy of lavender from our garden in a small glass milk pitcher and a couple reeds from a hike. oh, and a few hydrangea from out front. of course, there are two big branches in our house now, not to mention driftwood from long island and an aspen log from the forest in breckenridge, but, in essence…for the most part…in theory and almost-all-application, the dried-flower-dust-accumulator period is over.)

instead, as we hike along the river and in the woods and walk in the ‘hood, we watch the flowers of the meadows and the gardens changing. their waning beauty draws me in – even more than their mid-summer blossom. there is something about the fading flower, something about the button left after the petals fall, something about the curve of the wilting coneflower or a tired black-eyed susan, the almost-fluffless dandelion, the loves-me-loves-me-not petal-less daisy. i stop and linger with them, always curious how graceful it is they go into fallow, this period of rest, how they so readily give over to this change in appearance when humans seem to resist so vehemently any visible aging.

the 1980s/1990s dried-flower-hanger/tucker/gatherer in me rises as i admire these beautiful nods to autumn’s arrival. but i leave the flowers in the meadow, in the garden, in the marsh next to the river, in the woods.

and, instead, i carry their beauty – and the moments i was witness to it – with me, knowing that diminished beauty is – nonetheless – beautiful.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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on and on. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

the daisy might have thought no one would notice it. that it was past being noticed.

but i was drawn to it as we passed by. nestled in the grasses on the side of the trail, it spoke to me.

“i am not done, though look past my prime.

i am still in the sun, still standing in time.

though shrivelly and dried,

i don’t need to hide;

i know i am beauty and am very alive.”

i was surprised to hear a daisy speaking in rhyme, but not surprised at its expression of beauty, its yearning to be poetic.

i’m finding more and more – in my time in the sun now – that it is the poetry that makes me linger. it is the waning moment in the sun, the flower post-bloom, the cracked plaster, the weathered peel of paint. it is the imperfection that is attractive, the slowing gait, the putting-down of ladders, the simplicity of less.

like the daisy – i don’t know what’s next. i am steeped in the here. biding in the meadow.

but right now daisy’s yellow disc florets are in symphony – in a song to the sun and everyone else under the sky – whether or not anyone chooses to listen. it will continue on and on, weaving through the underbrush and the woods, past the river and up, up floating in clouds. it won’t cease…it is not done.

my song to the sun is gathering up energy. it, too, is not done. though nebulous, i can sense it wakening. though slightly beaten and weathered, i can feel it rising. though slower, i am aware of its resilience. though tentative, i recognize its imperative. the downbeat waits patiently.

a poem. a symphony.

like daisy.

on and on.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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as long as. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

we will be there as long as the sun is at our backs. and then we won’t.

and the we-there – on that bridge – will first get longer and longer and we will appear taller and taller – more long-legged and spindly – and then we will flatten and distort and eventually disappear into the lack of distinction of color and shadow and water.

it will be over the course of a short time – not a long time. and if we stand there, we can watch the whole process, intrigued by the morphing of presence to absence.

i suppose – in an over-simplified way – life is like that. here as long as the sun is at our backs.

which means we have some stuff to do.

as daylight wanes – for it is none too obvious now that we are more waning than waxing – we each peel back layers of comparison, false imperatives, losses – and we expose the vulnerable – and exquisite – more-of-who-we-are. we pay attention to the tenderest of touches – literal and figurative, to the tiniest of blessings, to the most evanescent moments. we look back – with more forgiveness than we could ever muster before. we look ahead – with more optimism than we allowed before.

we begin to sort and see more clearly – even in our shadows in the water.

the sun is at our back. and we have some stuff to do.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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this side of the corn. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

fall is coming on. there is no denying it. everything is starting to wane.

the sky is starting to gray. the corn will be soon plowed under and, one of these days, the cabbage fields will have to turn over, the yield from their crop slowed to a stop. the colors are changing.

george winston recorded an album called autumn. you listen inside his wistfulness as he toys with the emotions of the changing. the album was released in 1980 and, for me, that was a distinct time of heading into fallow.

some fallows last longer than the seasons and the tilted axis of the earth seems to evade warming sunlight. the seeds gather strength in the ground – centered in us, even without us nourishing them. and eventually, ever-so-slowly sometimes, the earth tilts back toward the sun and the orbital horizon is rebirth, spring.

it seems to happen fast – the waning. the ebb and flow of the cold. there is nothing as constant as change and, so, we need remember that in times of fallow. the tide – like the corn and the cabbage – will come and go, come and go. an ancient story.

we join hands with others on our path – they are quite possibly on the same ebb and quite possibly will be in the flow with us as well. they stand with us, they encourage us, they surprise us. the shapes of others appear – like revelations – from out of the mist of our fixed frame of reference. everything looks different.

standing on this side of the corn, gazing into the grayness of sky, the dance of color as it fades, i am finding – with much gratitude – that there are others standing right there with me, gazing as well. the wistful tugs at us; gravitational effect far from the sun but with promise of the pull. we stand still, roots under our feet, steadfastly hand-holding, looking at the horizon as it shifts.

and time passes and the seasons flow and flow and, eventually, the axis finally – at long last – tilts and the fallow ends and the seeds that were planted so long ago break through the frozen ground and we know that we have – together – affected even the tiniest change.

and winter comes as we stoke up, readying ourselves for the riches of spring.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

FLOATING acrylic 48″x24″

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in the turning. [d.r. thursday]

we passed the stand of coneflowers – so beautiful in waning as summer wanes – the passage of time barely a whisper, yet it is august and a new season will soon be upon us. the side of the trail – the underbrush – told stories of summer’s heat, of the successful eradication of invasives, of new growth, of the turning – always the turning.

we walked back to where we had parked big red, this old truck that has now passed through twenty-five years of turning. barely seventy-thousand miles on its odometer, it seems happy to be driven, to have adventures, to be out and about.

we have had big red for the last four years since columbus gifted it to us. unable to drive any longer, he passed it to david and we promised to care for it as he had. every single time we have driven it, we have wondered why the rattle…loud rattle…from both sides of the truck. we determined it was the running boards. the bolts were tight but the metal steps shook and rattled, nonetheless.

so, on this day of waning time and everyone and everything getting older, we decided to bring it somewhere to see if we could possibly make a difference in the ridiculously loud sound and jarring shake the running boards were causing. we don’t know what put us over the edge this particular day. we wondered how columbus put up with this for the first 60,000 miles. for me, in particular, anything that has any kind of rhythm – and then is juxtaposed with a different rhythm close by – say, on the other side of the vehicle – simultaneously(!) – makes me crazy. it’s torture! let’s just say it interrupted the ride and ford’s slogan “go further” sounded less and less appealing. i mean, we are “ford tough” but c’mon…!

we googled who to take it to. picked a shop. and drove to it, a tiny bit fearful of the price tag of this fix. particularly right now. we knew we could get an estimate and walk away, if need be. what’s a little rattle for a little longer?

the guys at line-x took maybe 75 seconds to decide what to do and scheduled us for later in the week. merely thirty minutes after they began to install a steel anchor bar on each running board, our problem had disappeared.

because we have hyped-up sound and muscle memory – reinforced by four years of sound and bouncing, we could both easily imagine the noise and the jarring we were now missing. big red drove smoothly down the street, still driving like a big old ford f150 – in a big ole truck kind of way – but minus the runningboard imax symphony.

surprisingly, it was an easier and less costly fix than we had imagined.

i suppose as we watch other things around us age and wane – our house, littlebabyscion, our fridge, our stove, this very laptop, my iphone, our bodies (ouch!) – this would be a good lesson to remember.

no less beautiful, no less a coneflower, the turning just requires a little care.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

EMBRACED NOW acrylic 48″ X 36″

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older-agers. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

in junior high i wrote a piece which i titled “old age is not a disease”. i was the child of older parents; most of my friends’ parents were at least ten years younger than mine, some fifteen. many of my parent’s friends were also their age and my grandparents were significantly older, so i was surrounded by elders.

i’m not quite sure what compelled me to write this piece, but it was written with fervor and i was passionate about my assertion. though i’m certain it’s somewhere in a bin downstairs, i’ll rely on my tenuous memory when i say i backed it up with facts and a great deal of emotion. always thready and emotional. from the beginning, i suspect.

so i guess it should come as no surprise that i am drawn to things waning. i find the flower on trail past its prime, bowing to the forest floor, petals wrinkling. i find the fallen tree, nurselog to a little community of new trees, striving. i find the dried grasses, glowing in late autumn. my photo library is full of these older-agers.

i keep the daisies until it no longer makes sense. but it seems that is way past when others would keep them. their curling petals no longer crisply open, instead shrinking and closing. they are beautiful. all stages.

daisies are kind of important to us. i was holding a daisy when i met david in baggage claim nine years ago. the second time i met him with a whole armful of daisies. and then, daisies walked with us down the aisle. i suspect they will be with us all along.

so, like us, i recognize their allure in every stage. even in waning.

this past weekend the father of my beloved children, my first husband, turned 65. i wished him a happy birthday and texted that i was astonished that we are the ages we are.

the time between back then and now has flown by and, were i to be defined as a daisy, i am grateful the petals and that yellow center of joy are still present, though a little crumply and a spectrum of many flaxen shades.

i know i don’t look like the daisy of yore. but every stage of a daisy counts.

“may the light of your soul mind you,

may all your worry and anxiousness about becoming old be transfigured,

may you be given a wisdom with the eye of your soul, to see this beautiful time of harvesting.

may you have the commitment to harvest your life, to heal what has hurt you, to allow it to come closer to you and become one with you.

may you have great dignity, may you have a sense of how free you are,

and above all may you be given the wonderful gift of meeting the eternal light and beauty that is within you.

may you be blessed, and may you find a wonderful love in yourself for yourself.”

(john o’donohue – “a blessing for old age” from anam cara)

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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even in waning. a firework. [two artists tuesday]

“do you know that there’s still a chance for you
’cause there’s a spark in you?
you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
just own the night like the 4th of july
’cause baby, you’re a firework
come on, show ’em what you’re worth
make ’em go, oh
as you shoot across the sky
baby, you’re a firework
come on, let your colors burst
make ’em go, oh“

(“firework” performed by katy perry.*)

even as it wanes, it is clearly beautiful. stunning, really. the 0230-pantone-chart-heading-toward-rhodamine-red bloom is attracting attention, its droop the stuff of grand success. as its petals drop to the ground, one-by-one, it feeds next and next. and the flowers nearby sigh, “ohhhh.” and they know, despite anything – age, health, roadblocks, lack of nutrients, overabundance of tending worry, calendar of blooming-period – that there is still a chance for them.

artistry never stops. no matter. its imperative – to bloom – to shoot across the sky – is ceaseless, a perpetual poking, an unfaltering urge. the chance is never gone, never erased, never doused-left-with-no-embers.

i listened to a guided meditation a few days ago. it was merely four minutes long. “the mountain”, it – in only four minutes – made surprising tears stream down my face. its message…to be grounded and solid – rooted – just as a mountain – in all that is going on around you, regardless. to stand in it all. like a mountain. those four minutes were profound.

there are things i would choose to be different right now. many things. this season has been somewhat fraught. yet, there are reasons to be grounded, rooted, to stand here and just wait, to ride it out, to hold on.

all around us were orchids in shatter-the-silence gorgeous bloom. all around us was greenery, textural and rich. all around us were beginnings, closed buds with pent-up energy waiting to burst onto the stage-of-earth.

but this leaning-to-rhodamine caught my eye, in its waning no less, no more than the others. and it whispered, “baby, you’re a firework too.”

“even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
it’s always been inside of you, you, you
and now it’s time to let it through
’cause baby you’re a firework
come on, show ’em what you’re worth
make ’em go, oh
as you shoot across the sky
baby, you’re a firework
come on, let your colors burst
make ’em go, oh“

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

*songwriters: katy perry, mikkel s. eriksen, tor erik hermansen, sandy wilhelm, and ester dean