Category Archives: Love and Kindness

The Letter Incident

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a long and detailed letter to my daughter, A. She’s 22, living at home, and working instead of schooling. It’s all good stuff, but the day of the letter I was a little incensed by the state of her room; in particular, the number of water bottles accumulating beneath her bed.

Listen, the pandemic has done a number on our kids. I get it. I understand that it upended her college life–no more sleeping through classes, no more stumbling home from the bars, just boring, day after day, school from bed. A tends to be a little inward to begin with, so the forced exile from normal life has been a trial.

But seriously, why were there so many empty plastic water bottles under her bed? Had she forgotten where the trash can was? Was she sick in some obscure way that would cause her to defy the customary placement of used water bottles? I mean, wtf was I missing? I had to be missing something, and if not, it was simply rude.

Spinning. That’s where I was when I wrote the letter.

I like writing letters when I need to confront someone about their bad behaviors and offer a plan on how to fix them. It’s much easier than sitting down for a talk. I tend to get flustered during the conversation part. I guess I prefer dispensing wisdom to debating differing opinions.

So the letter. After a loving introduction to some of the problems (water bottles under the bed among them) I wanted to address, I offered up a five-point plan. Five detailed bullets I believed if implemented into A’s life would find her healthy, happy, and on her way to fulfilling spring and summer. I was rather proud of my work. A 54-year veteran of this confusing old world, I had so much good advice to to offer.

I immediately attached the letter to a text message and got back to work. I figured we’d have a lovely discussion when I got home–that we’d dive further into some practical tips to help A cultivate better habits. She’d be grateful and I’d be graceful. We’d sip cherry blossom tea and later we’d take a walk in the late afternoon sun.

She wasn’t happy at all. She didn’t want to drink tea and congratulate me on my well-thought out and easy-to-apply advice. Not one bit. In fact, she said, “You’re my mom. Not my doctor or my counselor.”

She went on to explain that the water bottles were not a sign of some unknown illness, but a symptom of laziness. “When I finish drinking one, I just sort of toss it over my shoulder and it falls behind my bed,” she explained while flipping her hand back to physically show me what that looked like.

“We’re all fucked up, Mom,” she said. “I mean, you drink too much. Dad’s got the pot thing. C only eats fast food. You’re right. I shouldn’t throw my water bottles under my bed. I’ll stop that, but don’t write me letters telling me all the things you think I should do. It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel like I’m NOT okay.”

I got hung up on the “you drink too much thing” for a minute (is a bottle of low-cal wine a day too much?). But then I thought about it for a minute.

Anne Lamott does this thing she calls WAIT. WAIT stands for Why am I talking? She says she uses it with her grown son. I think it’s a good one. I’m going to start using it too. A doesn’t want or need a bunch of unsolicited advice. And when I ask her a million times a day if she is okay, what else would she derive from that than I don’t think she’s okay.

She doesn’t need fixing. She’s not broken.

And there’s a silver lining to this story. I was talking to a dear friend about the letter incident, and she laughed and said, “The next time you feel the need to write A a letter filled with your precious advice, go ahead and write it, and then please, please, please, send it to me. I’m 54 years old, and I can appreciate a letter full of wisdom about how to live a better more fulfilling life. In fact, I want it.”

We laughed and laughed and laughed.

She didn’t know she’d be getting a letter the next day.

The Easter Vigil

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“Every day we have the chance to resurrect [compassion].” ~Juli Stewart

Easter morning, I am sitting in my bed wondering, is resurrection possible? Merriam Webster’s online defines resurrection as 1) the rising of Christ from the dead, the rising again to life of all the human dead before the final judgement, the state of one risen from the dead; 2) resurgence, revival; and 3) Christian Science: a spiritualization of thought: material belief that yields to spiritual understanding.

What does it really mean to bring someone/something back to life?

***

The night before, Eric and I went to the Easter Vigil service at the Catholic church we sometimes attend. Sometimes because I have not been a good or regular attendee for a while now. You probably know the drill–I have trouble overriding what has become a dominant narrative in my head about the Catholic church–it’s a patriarchal institution dying a slow and painful death due to it’s refusal to accept responsibility for its sins and to fully love all people. And I’m embarrassed too, to claim such a corrupted faith as my own.

Nevertheless, we did Easter. The Easter Vigil service is long for those of you have never attended one. Saturday’s mass was no different. The cantor, a lovely young man with an even lovelier voice, drew out each note he uttered. The exsultet, a hymn sung at the beginning of the service last 13 minutes. That’s a long time when mass begins at 7:30 on a Saturday evening. It was, in fact, so long that Fr. M who has bad knees nearly went down. You see, the pastor stands at the front of the church holding the immense lit Easter candle during the entirety of the song. When Fr. M’s hold on the candle began to slip, C (the lector for the evening) leapt up from her seat in the front row and in what would perhaps be the moment that resurrected my heart, gently took the candle so Fr. M could unlock his knee.

C’s relationship with Fr. M is complicated as are most relationships between men and women in a church committed to inequality. Those complications did not, however, unwind the web of humanity connecting them.

Resurrection.

The service was long. But instead of bearing it, as I expected to, I was cracked open. The vulnerability and kindness played out in the opening moments of the service, a reminder of compassion’s potency. A reminder of love’s capacity for resurrection.

A Few Ordinary Things I Like: An Alphabet

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Last week, before it became unseasonably and delightfully warm, I took a few blustery winter walks. The air was cold, the wind ruddied my cheeks and my ears burned. I felt so alive. Is this a little over-the-top? I mean–I’m talking about a couple late November walks. Most of the time when you hear, “I felt so alive” the speaker is remembering skydiving or mountain climbing–some perilous and exhilarating adventure that reminds a person just how small and tenuous our lives are.

I’m not likely to engage in many extreme activities–never was much of a dare-devil–so maybe that’s why an ordinary walk or two has that affect.  Or maybe it’s the holidays which render me more than a bit sentimental. (I’ve cried more than once listening to the letters written by the late George H.W. Bush.) Why is decency so compelling when coupled with death?

We don’t talk about death very much, do we? Oh sure, we memorialize and re-humanize famous folk. We publicly mourn for those we don’t know, but the truth is we are all dying all the time. (not any time soon, as far as I know and hope) And it might not be a bad idea to remember it.

This is new to me, believe me. For the better part of my life, I tried not to talk (or even think) about death–terrified that mentioning it out loud might give the universe, god, or the goddess a big idea. In fact, for years I practiced a nightly counter-measure.

When I was a child, we prayed every night:

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

WTF is that? I was terrified. Every time I prayed that prayer out loud with my parents, I had to do a little backstopping with God when they left the room, “And dear God, please don’t let Mom, Dad, Carol, Michael, John, or me die tonight.”

Whew.

Well, now I’m 51 (almost 52). And death is everywhere. I have friends who’ve suffered the tragic loss of a child with an indomitable courage. Every one of my cousins has lost at least one if not both of their parents. My parents have lost all of their siblings and their parents and many friends. My children have lost friends and so have I. We are, all of us, on a high wire all the time. And no, we can’t remember this every moment, or we would just wobble there, suspended in mid-air, too terrified to move.

And yet, (and here I go) life in all its beautiful complexity demands of us an attention that remembers how brief it is. And I think that sort of attention probably begets gratitude in its truest form.

***

This morning, I plucked Encyclopedia of an Ordinary LIfe, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, from the shelf in my office. There is no book, in my life, that pays homage as well to the ordinary things we all take for granted. And sometimes I need a little reminding. 

Under the heading Returning to Life After Being Dead,Rosenthal writes:

“When I am feeling dreary, annoyed, and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful, or mundane. Oh there’s a light switch! Ihaven’t seen a light switch in so long! I didn’t realize how much Imissed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look–the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello, cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And there’s my neighbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I’m saying? Why did that used to bother me? It’s so . . .endearing.”

And I thought, what would it be like to spend December looking at the world in this way? Is this a silly exercise? I don’t know. A part of me thinks, shut up Pollyanna! But the soft, tender side of me says, Go for it.

And I’m going with tender. So for the next couple of weeks, I will post here in an alphabetical order of sorts a few ordinary things I like. And we’ll see what happens. And if you want to join me in the comments, I would love that.

So here we go.

A Few Ordinary Things I Like

A

Angles of Light: The sun filtered through the wall-length window in my kitchen, warming the light blue walls and the cool gray cabinets. The blue sky through a canopy of green leaves. The ripples of shine on yellow Gingko leaves like cold fleck beneath a just bare tree. Clouds quilted with patchy light.

Apples. In particular Honey Crisp apples because crisp is the aspect of the apple most important to me. I used to be partial to Granny Smith–also crisp, but I find that as I age, sweetness has become more important to me. The Granny Smith is a tiny bit too tart, a little too edgy. 

B

Bingo: I don’t get to play very often, but I love it. I went through a bingo faze when I was 28 or 29 and also working on my bachelor’s degree. My daughter, Sydni, who was about three thought the school and the bingo were the same thing when she told a crowd of people proudly, “My mom is going to school for bingo!” (I was perhaps playing a little too much.)

Blustery days: I like the wind. I like the chill on my cheeks. Leaves skittering across the road, trees bending and squeaking. 

Books: Old and musty, new and crisp, broken spines, hard covers and soft covers, words, and lines and sentences, poems and stories and histories. I love holding them in my hands. I love sleeping with them alongside the bed and under the cover. I like the way a book meets you where you are. I like it that I can hate a book one week and adore it a year later. I have hundreds of favorites.

C

Carpet: I don’t have carpet anymore, anywhere in my house, and sometimes I miss it. The reason carpet is gross is exactly the reason I miss it. It hides a multitude of sins. I have two pugs, and if I had a rough beigey carpet, you’d never see huge tufts of dog hair peeking out from beneath the couch.

Okay–that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day with a few more.

On the eve of the midterm elections.

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Two elections in the past 18 years didn’t break my heart into a million little pieces. In 2008 and 2012, we elected and re-elected Barack Obama for president. I can’t help but speculate, two years after we elected donald trump, that white people just got scared.  But that sort of lets white people off the hook, doesn’t it. To just say we’re scared. We got scared that a black man was the face of the US.

And now, we’re scared of a group of brown-skinned men, women, and children who are fleeing unsafe conditions in Central America. I’m not going to pretend that I know very much about immigration. I am woefully ignorant of the difficulties migrant families face in their countries of origin or of what they will face when they make it to the US border.

Here’s the thing. While I don’t have all the knowledge I should have–it’s my fault I don’t–about immigration, I don’t watch FOX news. Ever. So I’m not afraid of the migrant families trying to make it to the US for asylum, for a better life, for protection, food, the alleviation of grinding poverty.

In fact, I want to help. I believe that is what we’re called to do. As citizens of the world and as citizens of the United States and as citizens of our states and as citizens of our communities. We’re human, for God’s sake.

I’ve got a LOVE MORE sign in my front yard. And you know what that means to me? That I love those people moving towards the United States. People who understand that our president doesn’t want them and, in fact, is sending troops to the border–and they’re still coming. Because, I suppose, they believe in our better angels. Our better angels, folks.

I live in a small, very Christian, very white community in Southern Illinois. That LOVE MORE sign in my front yard–I see it all over town, and I believe people mean it.

So what’s the problem?

Sanctuary.

It’s the resolution on tomorrow’s ballot here in Richland County. It’s the gun sanctuary resolution:

“Shall Richland County become a sanctuary county for law abiding gun owners to protect them from unconstitutional gun laws passed by the Illinois General Assembly?“

What it means is that if our general assembly passed laws prohibiting in any way our “god-given” gun rights, Richland County would welcome all persecuted gun owners in for safety and protection.

It doesn’t mean a damned thing. A resolution is a piece of paper. Being a gun sanctuary county is just a way of saying, “We Love Our Guns.”

I’m going to be blunt here, I think it’s dumb, but whatever.

I just think it’s ironic, that in Richland County people believe it’s important to protect gun owners while at the same time our president is going out of his way to do the opposite to a group of people who are in great need of sanctuary. Why the hell else would you travel on foot to the US border? N. E. E. D.

Breaks my heart and makes me mad.

***

You see, I want to believe in tomorrow–that people will vote. I want to believe in the so many people who’ve already voted. I want to believe that we can undo some of the horror (yes, horror) implicit in donald trump’s election.

But I’m worried. Because I never, for one minute, thought he would win. It didn’t occur to me that he could win. People were too decent.

I’m worried, friends. I’m worried about tomorrow. I’m worried that too many people of color, too many people without addresses, too many people working minimum wage jobs while trying to secure decent housing, too many people won’t vote–because we’ve made it too hard, because because we’ve made it impossible, because they don’t have the time or don’t believe it matters because it’s never made a difference in their lives.

I’m worried that the voting machines are rigged.

I’m worried that even if Democrats win, the government will step in and invalidate the elections.

I’m worried we won’t win enough seats to make a difference.

I’m worried that so many of the people I love are going to keep voting for lies and cruelty.

It’s been a long, hard journey with my eyes on LOVE MORE. Because that night in 2016 when I realized donald trump was going to be president–well, it destroyed, a little bit, my faith in people.

I’m working to build it back up.

I hope tomorrow helps.

I Smelled It

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I smelled it.

Every time I got close to my daughter, Audrey, I smelled fingernail polish remover.

I smelled it for a week, on her breath and on her skin. I sniffed her for a week while she slept—and she was sleeping a lot—while she ate, while she watched TV. Every time she turned around, there I was with my nose in her hair, or trying to get a whiff of her breath.
I knew something was wrong.

 
There were other symptoms, sure. She was dropping baby fat which could be explained away by her age—14. Maybe she was hormonal. Maybe her body was changing. Maybe things were shifting as she grew taller. She ate strange things like Frosted Flakes and Snickers bars, and she started gluting soda and lots and lots and lots of water. She peed all the time.

Of course, I attributed the peeing to the water drinking and I attributed the water drinking to the weight loss—I thought it was a strategy, one I had used my entire life; drink more water in order to fill up, in order to eat less food.

It wasn’t a strategy.

 

The night before the diagnosis, the fingernail polish remover smell rippled around Audrey like a gas leak, and so I asked a others to smell Audrey’s breath and still no one smelled it. Normally the lack of accord would have consoled; however, it did not console because I COULD smell it; at this point, I could see it.

I didn’t sleep that night because I was busy shuffling into Audrey’s room to smell her. Did I really smell it? Each time I leaned in for another sniff, I answered the question. Yes, I still smell it. In the morning before I woke her, I smelled her again, and knew I would have to do something. I woke her, took her to school, and then googled this: “Breath that smells like fingernail polish remover.”

 
And there was Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz and diabetes.

Now most of the time, I’m okay with Oz. He’s familiar, a friend of Oprah’s a purveyor good health! But the doctor had bad news. He warned that the fingernail polish remover smell was ketones, and ketones might mean diabetes.

I called the pediatrician, related to the receptionist my Google sleuthing and that I suspected, but wasn’t sure, of course, that Audrey’s blood sugar might be high. “Could she have a glucose test,” I asked. She’d get back to me, she answered.

And then I took a walk. You see, there was a part of me that knew Audrey had diabetes and there was a part of me that refused to believe it. Disbelieving Bridgett went out for a nice walk and saw some things that seemed like omens–a couple of big crows, a sky smudged gray, and a tree full of starlings.

I walked for a bit, and soon my phone jangled and the receptionist encouraged me to retrieve Audrey from her 8th grade classroom and bring her in for a blood test.

I called ahead to the school.

Audrey sat pale and drawn in the school office. I explained that we were going to rule out diabetes. Or maybe I didn’t say diabetes at all. I was toying with the slight chance that I was a worrywart with a tumor that caused me to smell strange scents on other people. Can’t tumors cause you to smell strange scents?

At the clinic, a lab tech drew blood, and then Audrey and I went out for lunch before I dropped her off at school. Within ten minutes the doctor called.

 
“Audrey has diabetes,” he said.
“Her blood sugar is over 300,” he said.
“We will need to transfer her to Children’s hospital in St. Louis,” he said.

“Okay,” I answered.

That’s when he paused, “Bridgett,” he said, “go get Audrey right now, take her to the ER, so they can stabilize her for the ambulance ride to St. Louis.”

“Stabilize her.” he said.

I remained calm, but I repeated his words.

I said to my husband who was home for lunch. “Go get finished up at work while I pick Audrey up and take her to the hospital, so they can stabilize her.”

I called my parents, “I’m taking Audrey to the hospital. She has diabetes, and they need to stabilize her.”

I called the principal and told her, “Get Audrey out of class, I’m on my way to get her. We have to go to the hospital, so they can stabilize her.”

Stabilize her scared the shit out of me. Stabilize her is not something you want others to have to do to your daughter.

It took four hours to stabilize Audrey, and when they did, they rolled her into the back of an ambulance, and my husband and I got into our van and drove to St. Louis.

 

The nice people at children’s hospital told us we were lucky Audrey was diagnosed on a Friday because diabetes education was unavailable on Sundays. We’d have one extra day to learn about taking blood sugars and giving injections and dangerous lows and Diabetic Ketoacidosis. And when we left on Monday afternoon after finishing our education, we didn’t think we were lucky, we didn’t think we knew enough, and we were very worried all the time.

Five years later, that hasn’t changed.

You know, people, as far as I can tell, like a good illness narrative where the main characters learn big lessons about life, love, and living. I can’t say it doesn’t happen. In fact, I’m sure it does, but mostly diabetes stole Audrey’s childhood and robbed me of the handy delusion that I could keep her safe.

As delusions go—it was a hard one to lose.

Today it’s been five years. We’ll mark it the way we always do—with story-telling. I tell Audrey’s story because stories connect us. We tell them to make sense of what we do not understand—and even when understanding remains elusive, we keep trying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Book Hangover–Kelly Corrigan’s TELL ME MORE

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Whenever I finish a good book, I often feel out of sorts, a little heavy, worn out, peckish, hungover.  I never feel this way when I’ve finished a bad book although to be honest, I rarely finish a bad book these days. My attention span for bad writing is markedly small. It is interesting though, isn’t it. Why would a good book unsettle me?

I suspect it’s a sweet little concoction–a dollop of joy, a swirl of connection, and a healthy dose of fear that I will never myself write something so tender, honest, and moving.

Last weekend, I read the final pages of Kelly Corrigan‘s brave, giant-hearted, open exploration of what matters in a life, Tell Me More.

Gobsmacked. Agape. Enchanted.

Enchanted while reading and still when I shut the book Sunday afternoon. Agape a day later, when I started copying quotes into my quote journal. Gobsmacked. Yes Gobsmacked from the time I dove into Tell Me More until the moment I swam out, a little out of breath, a little disheveled, a little in love.

That’s how a good book works.

***

The impulse at the heart of Tell Me More’s 12 chapters is, I believe, a reckoning with love. I say reckoning because it is impossible to love deeply and to be deeply grateful for and invested in that love without also being deeply and wholly vulnerable to devastation and joy, hope and fear, grace and grief.

If we want to love and be loved we must reckon with imperfection–in ourselves, in those we love, in our families, in our relationships with others, in the whole damned world, damnit.

Brené Brown calls this being wholehearted and defines wholeheartedness as : The capacity to engage in our lives with authenticity, cultivate courage and compassion, and embrace — not in that self-helpy, motivational-seminar way, but really, deeply, profoundly embrace — the imperfections of who we really are.

Tell Me More is a book about wholehearted living. Corrigan embraces these truths–

I just showed my ass, and (not but) you still love me;

You died, and it hurts like hell, and (not but) I wouldn’t give up one measly minute of loving you;

Dogs eat shit from toilets and back yards, and (not but) still we hold them in our laps;

Life is short, and life is short, and life is short.

Tell Me More is a road map of sorts. Both an examination of and an assertion about what matters–and the answer is love. And if love is what matters, then the 12 hardest things Kelly Corrigan is learning to say are a guide to cultivating, celebrating, and accepting love exactly as it is and where it is offered.

***

28 years ago, I married my husband with very little knowledge of what marriage and parenting would require of us. I grew up in a loving household, and because my parents were skilled practitioners, I didn’t know how hard love could be. I’m still learning.

In the first chapter of Tell Me More, Corrigan writes about teenagers fighting, and beautiful clothes not fitting, and heads aching, and lives ending–loss. She asks, “Shouldn’t loss change a person, for the better, forever?”

Who knows? Right? What we do know is that loss doesn’t sting without love. As my good friend, Lia, would say, “It is what it is.”

Kelly Corrigan writes, “It’s like this,” when she writes about love and loss …

“It’s like this . . . This forgetting, this slide into smallness, this irritability and shame, this disorienting grief: It’s like this. Minds don’t rest; they reel and wander and fixate and roll back and reconsider because it’s like this, having a mind. Hearts don’t idle; they swell and constrict and break and forgive and behold because it’s like this, having a heart. Lives don’t last; they thrill and confound and circle and overflow and disappear because it’s like this, having a life.”

This one, I’m going to remember.

 

 

 

Why Walk–an Alphabet

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I just returned home from an hour-long walk with my newly-retired husband, Eric. It’s a beautiful winter day–cold but sunshiney with little dark-eyed juncos hopping about beneath the bare-branched bushes and brambles.

Yes, I said newly-retired. My husband and I are navigating this new course hand-in-hand as well as alone. I’m taking on more regular writing work to sustain us in this new venture while he enjoys the freedom to follow his own creative pursuits while doing a bit more laundry, vacuuming, and grocery shopping.

We’re taking walks, watching movies, and spending a lot more time in conversation. He’s there when I wake up in the morning which is kinda nice and kinda weird. It’s a lesson in never-ending, always-changing swirl of the world. Everything changes and everything stays the same–who said that?

(I actually looked it up and the saying goes–the more things change, the more they stay the same, and it’s attributed to a French dude by the name of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr writing in 1849)

Anyway, all of this to say I’ve been so busy negotiating this retirement deal that I’ve already broken my promise to write everyfreakingweek here at the 49th Year. There is; however, something to say for failing early. It’s liberating. I can see that the sky didn’t fall, the earth didn’t open up a big sink-hole and swallow me, the roof didn’t cave. I’m still here, dammit, and I can write a blog post this week EVEN IF I didn’t write one last week.

So there, committee!

***

I’ve been walking daily, thousands of steps–thanks Fitbit–for years. My writing life could take a tip from my walking life, so today I’m answering this question.

WHY WALK?

ASS–I walk for my ass–my biggest (and maybe most hardworking) body part. I walk to use it and I walk to reduce it.

BE–There is no better way to simply be, than to take a walk in your world.

CATS–I like these crazy creatures, and love to watch a stray cat skulk across a lawn or dart under a bush.

DARK-EYED JUNCOS–These little gray sparrows show up in Olney every winter and hop about until spring.

EMPATHY–Walk every day, and you will deepen your capacity to experience the vast wonder and mystery of the natural world.

FLICKERS–this list is bird-heavy, but if you ever scare one of these largish woodpeckers from the ground, you’ll gasp at the beautiful patterns on her wings.

GREEN/BLUE MOMENTS–My favorite author, the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal delightfully dubbed those moments when you look up at the blue sky through green leaves, green/blue moments. If it’s gray today, you can look through a gallery of these moments at textbookamykr.com.

HOUSES AT NIGHT–There is something intriguing and comforting about warm light shining through the window of a house on a dark night–if you see people moving about, all the better.

ICE CREAM–Stop in at your local ice cream parlor for a sweet treat on a hot day, and lick the ice cream off your fingers all the way home.

JOURNEY–If nothing else, walking illuminates the well-trod truth that the journey is more important than the destination.

KILLDEER–Memorize this bird with its black-banded neck running across a newly shorn cornfield.

LOVE–the green spring grass, the white streaky skies, the puddles and pine needles and Cardinals against the sticking snow, one leaf turning and falling and twisting in a slight breeze, the tap and slap of feet against wet concrete, the slurp and gurgle of an overflowing creek.

MISCHIEF–Keep your eyes on the squirrels.

NUMBING, NOTICING, and OBLIGATION–Walking aids in our obligation to notice the natural world. We only come alive when we begin to truly notice.

PLACE–I’ve been walking around the same block since I was 14 years old. What was it old Jean-Baptiste Karr said–the more things change, the more they stay the same.

QUIET–Except for the birds.

RHYTHM–Breathe, Step, Pause, Notice, Repeat.

SYCAMORE TREES–White branches against a blue or gray sky.

TREE TRUNKS–at eye level, gnarled or smooth or flaking away like paper, white, dark brown, covered in moss or lichen, cracked and oozing, struck by lightening, glistening in rain and bending in wind.

UNDER–rocks, branches, piles of leaves, clear-as-a-window ice, mown grass, wind-blown cattails.

VINES–twining around and dancing together to the very tops of trees.

WIND–breath for the trees’ songs.

X–look up, you’ll see one.

YELLOW–black-eyed susans and wisteria and dandelions and feverfew. Tickseed and goldenrod and Gingko leaves like gold coins in the fall. Daisies and moonbeam coreopsis and fennel and zoysiagrass and sunshine flickering through heavy clouds.

ZIGGING, ZAGGING, ZIPPING, ZITHERING–hummingbirds.

 

 

 

 

Spending the Day with Wonder

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Wonder is my grandson. He is a running, talking, eating, sniffing, grabbing, singing, lunging, throwing, two-legged, two-handed, two-year-old with a seemingly boundless supply of both energy and curiosity coupled with a an imaginative and fearless questioning of everything.  I mean everything.

Spending the day with Wonder is an education in how to live. Everyone is his friend. He doesn’t know how the curly-headed little girl at the playground voted and he doesn’t care. He can create a rousing game of PJ Masks with almost everyone, and they are all on the same team–interconnecting to “save the day.” He delights in a Charms Blow Pop for lunch and left-over pumpkin pie for breakfast, but he also gobbles eggs, butter-topped bagels, and barbecued pork with equal vigor.

He notices everything, that one.

So yesterday morning, I noticed everything Wonder-style.

We sat on the sidewalk and traced orange stripes marking power lines. We slapped the corresponding orange and yellow flags on their spindly wire posts.

We threw sticks in the creek behind Pat’s house and kicked hundreds of leaves up into the air.

We ran. And ran. And ran. You see Wonder taught me yesterday that it doesn’t matter how dorky you look if you run, running feels good.

We pulled a thick dead branch from underneath the leaves and stood it up well over our heads and let it topple over the side of the creek.

We held hands. Wonder’s hands are small and warm.

We tossed squirrel-halved walnut shells into rippling water.

We sang silly made-up songs because that is a specialty of mine.

We talked about white cars and blue cars and Cat Boy (Wonder is a huge fan) and Po’s 1990s era red Ford Ranger and Christmas and the way leaves sound when you crunch them into the ground.

We noticed Cardinals and Robins and Dark-eyed Juncos and Sparrows, and did I mention the leaves–they were everywhere beneath our feet and in our hands and still floating down from the trees or hanging onto stark limbs waiting for a big wind.

We found a very old stone deer in a pile of leaves, and before I knew it, Wonder took a ride! Continue reading →

Is hope the thing with feathers?

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Yesterday morning, I sat outside while it was still cool and the air was full of song–I wish I could approximate the warbling trills, the notes and the way they quavered in the whispering trees. I sat there long enough that I began to see the birds, hopping from one slender limb to another in the still full lilac bushes.

It’s funny how that happens isn’t it. First you hear the song, full and expansive, and then you hear the single notes, and finally you begin to see. It takes a while. It takes a certain sort of stillness, an attention to the moment at hand.

Anyway, I had my eyes on a tiny little bird I thought might be a chipping sparrow. To tell the truth, a friend mentioned a chipping sparrow to me one day, and I fell madly in love with the name–chipping sparrow.  I love the sound of that word–chipping. And while I never looked the bird up, I imagined I saw her everywhere. Anytime I saw a little bird, I thought to myself–I wonder if that is a chipping sparrow.

So I watched this little bird flit around in the green of the lilac bushes and I thought over and over–chipping sparrow.  It’s likely that I even greeted her in my own sing-songy attempt at morning glory, “Well, hello chipping sparrow,” I probably said because I have taken to speaking to birds and trees and even rocks and cicadas and worms trying like hell to make their way across the massive concrete slabs we call sidewalks.

At some point during this birdsong/cool air/ sun-shining-through-the green-tops-of-pine-trees series of moments strung together in what almost seemed like a prayer, that little bird flew up from the lower branches of the lilac bush and lit on the chair directly across from me. I could have touched her.

I didn’t try. I still remember the day I ran around my grandmother’s yard with a salt shaker because my father told me if I could salt a bird’s tail, I could catch him. Let’s just pretend that only happened once.

“Look at me,” she seemed to be saying as she gingerly danced her teeny little bird feet on the chair’s back, giving me a full view of her chunky little body, her long beak, her warm cinnamon-colored back, “do I look like a chipping sparrow, lady?”

I’m not a birder, but I’ve had wrens in my hanging baskets before, and I knew this little chirper was a Carolina Wren. And as soon as, not a moment before, the knowledge came to me, as soon as I felt that delight and wonder at being able to name such a delicate and wild thing, Ms. Carolina Wren flew off (no, I do not know she was a she, but it’s my story). She didn’t fly far though. She flew to the ground beneath the lilac bushes, and she rustled around with a sister or two in the pine needles foraging for wren things, I suppose.

I sat there for a very long time or for a few minutes. Time slowed down or perhaps it sped up or maybe it did just what time does and kept marching on and soon I found myself mired in the day at hand.

And the day turned out to be a doozy. Last night, my daughter, Peanut, received some very sad news–two of her childhood friends were involved in a tragic accident. I sure would like to bring this essay around, to bring the little wren back, to illuminate the harsh wonder of the world we live in, but I can’t twist the story to my liking, can’t stitch it up all neat and fine.

All day long, after my encounter with the little wren, Emily Dickinson’s poem was in my head:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

 

*****

I have always loved that image–of hope being a winged thing–but this morning I am wondering if we do hope a disservice by imagining it thus. Hope isn’t ethereal at all. Hope is dogged and rough and resilient. Hope resides in the dimmest doorways and the darkest corners of our lives. Hope grows up from the disaster and the dirt, the fertile floor of grief.

Hope demands of us, we would-be-practitioners, determination. As Vaclav Havel wrote, “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

I would contend that hope is in that late night knock on my door. My daughter reaching out for comfort when there is none to be had. That’s where hope settles in, that is where hope begins the growing of wings.

Beckoning Lovely–St. Joseph School Style in Memory of Amy Krouse Rosenthal

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I made a video.

Actually I compiled the hard work and love the staff and students of St. Joseph School shared with me and other folks who live in Olney, Illinois last May. So I made the video, but they made and then gave away beauty, love, and joy.  In other words, they “beckoned the lovely.”

Let me back up a minute. “The Beckoning of Lovely” is a project Amy Krouse Rosenthal initiated on 8/08/08. Hundreds of beckoners met Amy at Millennium Park’s Cloud Gate (the Bean) sculpture in Chicago and participated in an event where they made and beckoned the lovely. It resulted in this video and in subsequent events in later years.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal died this year of ovarian cancer on March 13, 2017. She left behind a loving family–read her New York Times “Modern Love Column.” If you have read my blog, you will know that even though I didn’t know Amy, I consider her a mentor. She continues to mentor me with the books she left behind.

Amy called herself a “person who likes to make things.” This is a simple way to describe a life of creativity, a life devoted to making and giving away beauty. In a world where good and bad people are devoting great chunks of their lives to the acquisition of stuff, I’d say that Amy’s way of being in the world was and can be revolutionary.

I don’t know what sort of revolutions are in our future (I fear that there might be one or two), but I know that this is one I can get behind. Make things, make beautiful things and give them away. When you do this, you “beckon lovely.”

***

So the video.

Well, here’s the story. Last May, the staff and the students of St. Joseph School in Olney honored Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s life by “beckoning the lovely.” They chalked messages of encouragement on the sidewalks in town. They painted stones and left them around as gifts. They created signs of love and encouragement and sat along the streets and waved them to passers-by. They created bird-feeders out of peanut butter and seeds because they didn’t want to forget out birdy friends. They walked to local business, singing on the way and then serenading employees. The littlest ones blew bubbles. Bubbles! I think that is genius! At the end of the week, they held a dance party/ band concert/ sing-along on a public lawn.

So yeah, I made a video with a little help from 200+ friends.