our out-of-town guest had never been here before. not to our state, not to our town, not to the shores of lake michigan, not to our home.
staying at the local hotel right on the harbor channel, she sent photographs right after arriving, stunned by how beautiful it was. she repeatedly expressed this – along the lakefront, on the channel, by the rocks, in the gardens, in our neighborhood, in our old house, on our patio.
through her eyes we saw Home.
this week i passed through my 37th anniversary of living in our old house. more than half my entire life, it’s longer than i’ve lived anywhere else.
sometimes – no matter where you live – you stop seeing it…really seeing it.
and you get caught up in every everything else.
and you miss the sweet creak of the floors, the breeze off the lake, summer sunlight streaming in all the windows, the fresh basil in ball jars in the kitchen, the dogga-holes in the backyard, the giant pots filled with flowers in the parks, people out sidewalk-walking together, the birds lined up for grape jelly, sunset’s eastern sky over the water, the sound of children giggling in the surf at the beach or an amplified live band drifting over from by the harbor.
it might benefit each of us – even for just a few minutes – to just follow the advice of this chalk artist:
no matter what someone wants you to believe about something, facts will stand the test of time, they will rise to the surface like a bobber on a lake, floating in incandescent shine into the air, ready for discovery. facts will – and should – lead the way, speaking loudly, burning down all the detriment of machinated false narrative, twisted stories that serve no purpose to truth.
they will come back to grind out the stump. the crew said it will likely be a few weeks before the grinders get around to it, but eventually they’ll come and remove the last vestiges of our sturdy old tree.
after that we can get on a list for a new tree, the cost partially underwritten by the city. there’s a list of tree varieties one might choose from, depending upon availability. we’ve printed the current list and have begun studying trees – like one studies refrigerators or washers and dryers when you need one – immersing in photographs and information and reviews.
when we are officially on the list we will request our tree; we are actually hoping – with all the space out front – we might be able to purchase two. we’ll see. and then, maybe in the fall (or next year?) it (or they) will be planted in our parkway and we will start a new relationship with our tree or trees. it will signal a new time, a new era. and, in the way that these things go, it will also mark time. a new tree for both of us in this time of daisy-pathing.
there is something about a fresh start, something inviting, even compelling. a chance to write new narrative, from a different starting gate.
i can feel it – that fresh start – peeking out from around the corner. it has showered me from time to time with its freeing grace. and when it does, it is euphoric, a buzz of sorts – intoxicating like dopamine. releasing all harm that has been tightly held – stored – a toxic i did not choose but which has stayed with me through all the silent times.
and i hope – against hope – that soon i will also be a new tree. soon, there will be a sapling i can nurture. soon, there will be new growth, new branches and leaves. soon, all manner of the old pain-inducing stump inside will be gone.
and our new maple – or honeylocust – or ginkgo – and i will freshstart together.
we can’t wait for this evening. we will drive the backroads with hundreds of thousands of others in wisconsin – all out on a friday night.
we can’t wait for this evening. we will join with fifty-thousand others in milwaukee attending one of the three days of PRIDEFEST.
we can’t wait for this evening. we will be with the tens of thousands wandering the summerfest grounds for the friday evening shows.
we can’t wait for this evening. we will stand in the dance pavilion – out in front, in the house, or backstage – either place – with over five thousand other people in that same pavilion and gathered all around its edges – and we will watch our son perform.
we can’t wait for this evening. we will have the moment of his first downbeat, the moment he raises his hands in the air, the joy on his face under spotlights and between pyrotechnic fountains of sparkling stars and confetti releases. we will likely be standing and dancing and cheering with a group of his friends, a group of deric’s friends – deric who shares the stage with craig as they perform together as EDM artists DOGGPOUND.
we can’t wait for this evening. we will hug him after his performance, ecstatic with him on this day, on this journey. our own pride will be bursting and he will absolutely know it. just as he has absolutely known – since the very moment he came out – that he is loved and – with-no-exceptions – completely accepted, embraced and supported.
we can’t wait for this evening. we’ll watch him and a large contingency of friends and fans as they all go on their way, celebrating peaceful coexistence at this celebratory festival. we will walk around, buy rainbow trinkets, happily ensconced and feeling a sense of belonging.
we can’t wait for this evening when we drive home on those same backroads and talk about the night. we will be exhausted and exhilarated. we will be thrilled to have spent such amazing time with our son – we will be looking forward to the next.
and then, we can’t wait for chicago’s PRIDEFEST when we’ll take the train down and spend an afternoon and evening in the streets of boystown. we’ll stand with the setting sun on our faces and – again – watch our son perform. there will be many hugs – his friends will surround us and make us feel at home. and at the end of that day, getting back on the train, we will again feel exhausted and exhilarated, both. we will sit back and talk about the day and the people – the people – all of whom are there to just simply honor each other and their very important place in the world – peacefully together.
we can’t wait for a day when all the world is a continual pridefest, when all the world honors each other’s place in the world, when all the world feels that kind of love for one another, when all the world lives in peace.
it is with great anticipation that i wait for the peonies. it’s a long process, from the ground up. from the tiniest maroon sprouts to buds just waiting to burst furth into the world – it’s glorious and wonder-full, and each year now i am thrilled to see the arc of these beautiful blooms.
my son said something in a social media post the other day that really stopped me. i went back and listened again. and again. he said that music waits for you…it waits for you to “come to it on your timeline”…it waits for you to come back…”it waits to accept you, ready to understand you.” it’s “never gonna go away and it’s always going to be there for you.”
and in those words, he brought tears to my eyes. not only because what he was sharing in that post about himself was vulnerable, not only because part of what he was sharing made me very sad to hear. but because his joy in the journey back to music – his music – was so clearly buoying, so very triumphant, a mighty trajectory of his creating.
i’ve been turning on the salt lamp in my studio lately. it’s like i want it to stoke up good energy in there.
standing next to my piano, i held the crystal divinatory pendulum in my hand, thinking about what questions to ask it…understanding that my subconscious would likely dictate what the answers would be. there are times that one is not really sure of one’s own subconscious thoughts or biases, the ability to translate from desire or idea into reality, into do-ing. times when pain pushes aside artistry.
i purchased this pendulum in a cool hippie store in northport, my hometown. on purpose. i thought it was striking – even in its simplicity – but i also wanted to bring home a bit of the internal-intuitive-wisdom and lighthearted belief-in-the-universe i had lost in that place decades ago. in these days of falling back in love with that harbor town, i wanted ways to surround myself with what i remembered about myself from the olden days of being in love with that water, that sand, that place. twelve dollars wasn’t too much.
and so, the other day i took it out of the small suede bag and held it first in my hand, reminding it who i was. and then i held it up and asked it to show me yes – it circled around. i asked it to show me no – it moved in a straight line back and forth.
and in the following minutes i asked it – words to the effect because sharing my exact words is just a bit too much right now – whether i would return to the music that was waiting for me.
it was still and then – i suppose after accessing my heart, the wistful tendrils of hope, the very tentative wisps of maybe-it-can-be-so, it circled wildly.
i thanked it and quietly put it away, not wishing to go any further right then. it was enough. we’ll see. the arc is not closed. the peony is going to bloom.
“music…it’ll be waiting there, ya know,” my wise son said.
we’ve gotten a few plants now. a couple sweet potato vines, a couple licorice plants. we also have our basil, chives, parsley, cilantro, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes and lavender. in the last few days we transplanted them into clay pots for our potting stand or their new home on our deck or patio.
our first day at the nursery was completely about reconnaissance. the second – at a different nursery – was to be wowed and make a few purchases…four to be exact. we were directly behind someone who had ridiculously-loaded carts of plants and flowers, along with a ridiculously-loaded price tag. we were just as excited as she was, only our joy was about our four plants, not a multitude. there is a reality to budgeting and we try to plan our purchases wisely, particularly in these times.
our third day out was crowded with people, the nursery was messy and the plants were picked over, but we still managed to find some herbs and tomatoes, lavender, salvia and sweet purple flowers whose name escapes me. our fourth day we filled in the gaps. the nursery had resupplied and we picked up the mint, jalapeños, and little white with purple flowers to contrast with the purples we had already gotten.
d lined up all the pots and planters on the patio and i took out my gloves from the old cabinet we had placed on the deck. and then it started.
from individual elements – these small (though not inexpensive) plastic pots of baby plants – turning into our own backyard sanctuary, filled with potential of beautiful flowers and edible produce. exquisite. each morning we look out the window – in the earliest morning light – to see these new residents of our home. each morning they are enchanting.
one day – over a century ago – all the pieces of barney were put together into an upright piano. where he went from there is unknown, but we found him in the church’s basement boiler room, not exactly a prime location for this musicmaking instrument.
after we managed to have him delivered to our backyard instead of to the junkman, we were thrilled with his presence. his aging might have been preserved by some marine wax, but we chose to go organic with barney. he’s way more of a granola piano than a botox piano.
through the years we have now had him, he has become more and more gorgeous, more and more a part of our backyard, offering shelter to the wee critters, a landing pad for those who fly or scamper. barney’s higher-purpose presence is grounding and part of the peace we feel when we step out our back door.
it’s hard to believe that it is almost june again. already. summer is at the edges.
the last two nights we have had dinner outside on the deck. as the sun just begins to slightly wane – to fall off into acute angles with the horizon – we sit and chat while the garden lights reflect in the pond. we wait for hummingbirds to zoom to our feeder. we watch breck quake in the breeze, marvel at the play of birds and squirrels, adore our dogga laying on the deck in the shade. it is all enchanting.
as the dark begins to settle into the alcoves of our yard – the ferns breathe deeply, the peonies stretch – we yawn and make our way inside. as we settle in under our quilt we talk about our day. we talk about the delights of new plants, marvel at the perennials we are astounded to see again. we are grateful for plastic adirondack chairs, a tiny bistro set, two old gravity chairs and a couple round rugs – the trappings of our deck – a place we truly find enchanting.
as it turns out, we don’t require much to be enchanted.
the snow on the mountain groundcover creeps under the fence. it tries to take over the ornamental grasses, winds its way around our peonies, fills in spaces we didn’t necessarily need filled in. it’s invasive dressed in pretty. it has even given the wild geranium a run for its money. fortunately, the geranium – particularly under barney – has survived the overbearing groundcover and its sweet pink flowers are getting ready to bloom now.
i saw a post the other day that was a gut-punch. the words on the post read: “it’s illegal to feed wildlife at national parks because they get dependent on handouts and forget how to survive. it kinda sounds familiar, doesn’t it?‘ the photograph with the post was depicting minority moms and children in line with shopping bags and grocery pushcarts.
it literally made me ill. because it was posted by a neighbor with a comment that read, “hmmmm.” just despicable. and downright hard to believe that there are people who really feel that way. haughty. sickening. overbearing. uncaring. bigoted.
creepy and invasive.
that kind of bullshit post enrages me. it’s unconscionable. the hatred is just exhausting. how dare he/they be so righteous, so pompous, so entitled? with clearly no heart at all – no empathy – no love-one-another in their soul, no we-are-our-brother’s/sister’s-keeper. the judgment and demeaning attitude.
i could go on.
but i won’t.
because i am hoping that most of us in this country will be like the intrepid wild geranium. that we will bloom despite the invasive stuff that purports to be pretty.
that we will be able to spread goodness and kindness and compassion.
that we can possibly be the nation we were destined to become in a world that needs the caring interdependence of all people.
that we aren’t dreadful people who believe despicable things and then share those extreme racist views with the world, hoping for “likes”.
snow on the mountain is “incredibly invasive and will spread indefinitely if not restrained.”
*****
sorry about the language. but sometimes it fits. 🤷♀️
a few yesterdays ago we were at the apple store, asking questions, learning, dreaming, stoking up on what new technology is “out there”, what we might eventually need to replace my no-longer-with-us hand-me-down 2008 crashed computer, this 2014 mini ipad, etc etc etc.
in a remarkable three hours or so – that we stood and talked to mike and then nate – we jogged our braincells into grokking new information, new terms, new device potentials and we entertained dancing with visions of artistic sugarplums. it was a joyous time, filled with others teaching us, punctuated by laughter.
toward the end of our visit at the store, a couple – a bit older than us – walked in. both were dressed to the nines (in direct comparison to our ripped jeans, flannel shirts and hiking sandals).
the woman walked over to the table with ipads and pointed to one as an-even-older-than-them-and-us saleswoman looked on. she asked what it was. the evenolder saleswoman – let’s just call her “dreamdasher” – immediately said this while body-guiding her away from the very tablet that was inviting in the customer: “ohhh. that’s verrrrrry expensive. it’s fancy. it’s an ipad proooo. it’s for proFESSionals.”
i was taken aback and stared at them. since we were just across the table from this debacle – about three feet away – i said aloud, “did you just hear that? what on earth was THAT??” our nate – who we have now adopted because he was young, bright, informative, told great stories, was pretty adorable with great hair and tolerated our three hours worth of information-gathering – said, “everyone has their own approach, i guess.”
i continued to rant – about assumptions, about dashing someone’s dreams, about ageism (which was funny because the salesperson was perhaps older than the customer!), about did-i-mention assumptions. who was to say that the customer wasn’t a professional? who was to say that the customer didn’t have goals to be a professional? who was to say that the customer wasn’t buying for someone else? i was flabbergasted that a woman (dreamdasher) would be so rude to a woman (dreamingperson). it is truly amazing that i did not walk over to dreamdasher and quietly ask her where her generosity went, how she could just dis-count dreamingperson’s curiosity and possible purchase, how she could – in the instants since that couple had walked in – put them in the tire-kicker category and body-guide them down the row of ipads to a lower level of tablet.
i went on and on in big red for a while too. it did not sit well with me.
because we were there to dream, to imagine. we did not look the part of people who could slap down some cash and purchase the row freaking row of tablets. we were clearly behind the eight ball on device capability and terminology. and yet nate – and mike – were generous and careful teachers, on point with what we described as possibilities, lifting us – and our visions – up, not trouncing on them.
wow.
still a little miffed, as you can see.
as human beings – particularly in a time when our very country seems to want to drown every floating dream – isn’t it our obligation to lift others up, to not make unfounded and discriminatory assumptions, to be kind? isn’t it our responsibility to feed others’ creativity, to encourage and bolster their life goals as much as we can, to hope for the best for each other? is it not in our nature to wish to elevate other humans, to boost them up, to animate their dreams, to delight in ambitions and initiatives of goodness? to make a difference in the lives of others – no matter their fortune? to say “i believe in you”? to be light in the dark?
“a ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” (john a. shedd)
i daresay that any artist understands this. there is no pursuit of artistry without the taking of risks, the exposure of vulnerability, the stepping out of one’s comfort zone. our job – as artists – is to seek growth, to encourage growth, to open up vast space of potential instead of squeezing complacency.
our trip back reminded me of this. the sailboats, the cruisers, even the skiffs in the harbor are protected…from the challenges of the elements and any stormy surf. but these boats will not stay in the harbor. people will take them out on the sound, perhaps around the island to where the sound and the atlantic meet, perhaps further into the ocean. they will explore and adventure; they’ll follow a star they alone can see.
we followed the star here. this is my chance to reclaim it all, to find the 19 year-old i lost, to hold her and assure her that she is now safe and that i have taken on that which attempted to squelch her forever. ships weren’t built to stay in harbors.
i have found my way home – intentionally. and in that finding, i have found her. and in that finding, i hope that the so-many-years lost will come rushing forward – music in every star i can see, in every star i can capture.
and the ships in the harbor will bear wings and, all together – with me at the helm – will sail into next.
for reasons we will not elaborate on, we are writing these blogs ahead. and, in true fashion of the times we are living in, there are zillions of things that have happened or are happening between now – as i write this – and now – as you read this. in the chaos in which we now exist, it is impossible to stay afloat of all of it…
because we care about the littlest creatures around us, we have several surfaces we line with birdseed, in addition to our birdfeeder. barney, the upright piano in our backyard, is one of them. another is our potting stand, these pieces of barnwood that stretch beyond our deck, sitting on metal piping, waiting for planting season when it will sport our basil and jalapeño, dill and chives, rosemary and cherry tomatoes.
our birdies love dining on these flat surfaces and gather together on the piano or the stand or off to the side, waiting their turn. the squirrels are zealous about these flat surfaces, as the birdfeeder gives them a tiny run for their money, a small challenge that is, however, most definitely not insurmountable. either way, they fill up to run off and provide food to the others.
we try to keep these surfaces with food, replenishing them to help these little creatures, particularly through the winter. we want them to feel abundance, not lack.
because helping others – people or creatures – to feel abundance seems like goodness, kindness, the right thing. and, in a world where we all unintentionally do things that are right and things that are wrong, it is a good thing to intentionally do some right things.
last week the administration of this country declared in unconscionable screeds that he was going to obliterate an entire civilization. that he was going to make them live in hell. there were moments – after that particular weekend of his screed – that i could not breathe.
in a really stunning opening to his show the night that the administration decided on a two week reprieve before reconsidering his big obliteration, lawrence o’donnell called it what it really was – an obliteration of OUR nation – THIS place – every ideal for which we have EVER stood. i could not agree more.
we sometimes intentionally do things that are wrong – start an argument, go over the speed limit, fail to put recycling in the correct bin. we sometimes unintentionally do things that are wrong – step on someone’s foot, push the grocery cart into the back of someone’s ankle, cuss in the wrong situation, cough suddenly without covering our mouth. most of these things are presumably forgivable, solved by apologies or decisions not to do it again. sometimes there are wrongs that are bigger, that require grace, true humility, olive leaf amends.
we sometimes intentionally do things that are right – give a bigger tip than recommended, donate money or food or other staples to a person, an organization, a pantry, help our neighbors, friends, family without being asked, pick up trash on the trail, listen when someone needs a listener. sometimes there are rights that are bigger, that are stunningly altruistic, that set examples.
we wish those around us to feel that we are generous in those things – the right things – that we hold abundant love and care for those around us.
we watched the rescued hearts film. it is an incredibly moving piece about the heart that horses hold in space with humans. with abundant love, these big, beautiful creatures reach across any boundary of language to extend love – in heart-opening abundance. these horses are catalysts for healing. it is not a film about control – it is a film about connection. it is a film about transformation. it is a film about sheer potentiality of what we – with all of nature – can provide each other.
this film is the antithesis of the threat of obliteration. it is not about lack. it is the epitome of abundance.
the rescued hearts film and this squirrel on our potting stand also make me catch my breath. because goodness is all around us.
and how anyone could not choose goodness over the worst cruelty is beyond me.
reverse threading 