Life – Page 3 – Grongar

Thanksgiving truisms

There will be cheese. And sausage. And crackers. And olives. And candied jalapeños.

The kitchen windows will be steamy and there will be two turkeys and stuffing and mashed potatoes and sweet potato souffle and creamed corn and collard greens and brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce and gravy. And leftovers for a week.

The pie to human ratio must be no less than 3 to 7. One must be apple.

The Michigan contingent will bring snow.

Everyone is welcome to the table. But not necessarily on the table.

Games are sometimes better when you make up your own rules.

Traditions are necessary.

Time will expand in strange ways so that 24 hours will bulge to contain a week’s worth of conversation, laughter, beer, games, food, football, hugs, YouTube videos, dog cuddles, goat cuddles, and cheese glorious cheese.

And time will shrink in strange ways so that 24 hours will fold into a tiny envelope that contains your guests’ arrival and departure in such a brief moment.

And time will shift in strange ways so that those who aren’t with us are still with us, and eight chairs become twenty, and the past is on our plates and in our mouths, and ten years backwards is ten years forwards. And the thing we’ve waited for all autumn suddenly appears, bright and red, in our own backyard.

Thursday November To Do list with Seamus Heaney

Wake up at 2.30 am. Again.
Flip the pillow to the cool side.
Fall asleep. Again.
Dream you’re in a long, dark room (a bar?) that’s crowded with people wearing grey overcoats.
Through the knot of grey, see Seamus Heaney (not in grey).
Poke the shoulder of the person next to you and point out Seamus.
Get excited when your friend says she (? he?) knows Seamus and will bring him over to introduce you.
Dream there’s an explosion of some sort and the next thing everyone is in the street and Seamus is gone. No blood, no wreckage, no evidence of a bomb. Just no Seamus.
Wake up in the Thursday November darkness.
Blink in the bright bathroom light.
Brush teeth.
Feed the dog and cats and girl.
Wave goodbye to the man and the girl.
Think, “Now what? The bills?”
Spy the pan of brownies.
Shave a thin slice as if to even out the crooked cut line. This is a service. An act of straightening. You should be thanked.
Strictly avoid the news.
Consider a nap.
Think about Seamus. Was he wearing a red coat like the little girl in “Shindler’s List”? Was he a sign? A warning?
Look at the brownie pan again.
Go outside to get logs.
Converse with the goats.
Start the fires.
Read reviews about smoke detectors.
Remember that no one can agree on internet reviews.
In an act of faith, order new versions of the same brand of smoke detectors you already have.
Check things off the list.
Add things you’ve already done to the list.
Check them off.
Consider a nap.
No really. Consider it. You didn’t sleep much last night.
Blame Seamus. Or the fact that you didn’t get to meet him.
Tell the dog to stop licking himself. Again.
Think about “The West Wing” as a political fairy tale.
Do bills.
Chuck more logs onto the fire.
Straighten the brownies out just a bit more.
Wonder where Seamus went when the explosion happened. Was he killed? Did he just leave through the back door? Did he set the explosion off?
Take a dreamless nap.
Avoid the radio.
See the note on the counter. The one the girl wrote before she could spell, that long ago.
Imagine time as a spiral, where you’re always in reach of the last loop, revisiting concentric circles of your moments, but each pass takes you just a little further from the last.
Admit you’re not fooling anyone about the brownies.
Apologize to the dog.
Wonder if time spirals intersect. When Seamus traveled his spiral, how close did his come to yours?
Make dinner.
Watch night come in.
Think about writing a poem.
Watch a movie.
Go to sleep.
Wake up at 2.30 am.

Many hands, many hearts

Entirely without planning for it, last weekend was one of community and that was exactly what I needed.

Community events for me are like exercise: I know how great I’ll feel after doing my part and pitching in, but I still feel reluctant to go. I want to help, I want to participate, but I also want to be home (this is pretty much our family’s unofficial theme song).

But the constellation of events this past weekend, following so closely on the heels of a really difficult week, made it seem obvious that we needed to go out into the world and be small cogs in a machine for good.

On Saturday, we attended a fundraising auction for H’s lovely little elementary school, and did our part by socializing, eating, and buying a couple things we never intended to but are happy to have. And even happier knowing those dollars went to a place that makes a difference for kids who really need it.

On Sunday, I helped a friend move to a perfect little cottage of her own. And as we returned to her old, unfriendly apartment to do the final vacuum and clean, I remembered vividly a day long ago when I moved from an unfriendly place in a single afternoon and evening, with the help of friends and family who were willing to drop everything and hustle to my rescue. These are things you don’t forget.

And also on Sunday we spent time with old friends who have suffered an unfathomable loss. When we all asked, “What in the world can we do for you?” they said, “Come over and help us stack firewood.” So that’s what did. We formed two long curving lines, stretching from the woodpile to the woodshed, and we handed logs to each other, bucket brigade style. We stood shoulder to shoulder and talked, or listened, or joked, or thought as the logs flowed from hand to hand and the woodpile melted while the woodshed filled.

It wasn’t hard work. It was hard being there, in the midst of such grief, certainly, but it felt so good to be able to do something tangible, practical, helpful. It’s not enough. It never is enough, but just because you can’t fix it all in one fell swoop doesn’t mean you can’t pick away at it bit by bit, log by log, hug by hug.

On our way out, I told our friend that we were always here for her, and she said she knew, and the one thing she asked is that we not forget the one she lost. And I promised that.

I’m saying his name now in my head, and will add his name to the song of names I soundlessly hum some days when I walk, reminding the universe that they existed, stood on this earth, helped friends, made ripples in the atmosphere.

There’s only so much we can do, but doing anything at all is the way to get through it. Sometimes you just have to wake up, put your feet on the cold floor, pick up the day’s work, and get on with it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Yrit1Da1I]

Thoughts in the cosmic dark

I’ve been taking my time to write this because I needed to think quietly and for a long time before I understood how I feel.

I needed to put aside my sadness, anger, and frustration. I needed to go out in the woods with a dog leading the way and watch him bounce across the field, nose to the ground.

On election day, my sister and I watched the results from Canada. All day I’d felt optimistic and maybe (if I’m honest with myself) a bit smug. So when the result became more and more obvious, I slid into a dark hole I’d dug for myself.

I felt a bottomless disappointment. Grief for dashed hope. Hate colored with fear.

I scared myself by how sharply my anger was pointed, how envenomed.

But the small voices of my conscience came to my rescue. Hate is hate. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on or if you feel your cause is more righteous than someone else’s. Hate puts blinders on, handcuffs you to an immovable post of unreasonableness.

I can’t live that way. We can’t live that way. Living that way is what got us to this place, this vote. There’s a lot of hate out there. Intolerance. Anger. Mistrust. Name calling. Fear. There’s also a lot of hardship. Lost jobs. Dead children. Exhausted, hungry, cold people.

Abused people. Hurt people. Disenfranchised people. Scared people.

We did this. Every one of us, and there’s no use denying it.

But we can also undo this. Slowly and with purpose. We can start listening to each other more, particularly those we disagree with (I’m as guilty as anyone). We can start thinking better of others, start being better ourselves.

I’m not being naive; I’m being open. I’m not saying be tolerant of hate; I’m saying lighten the load for someone who needs help. I’m not saying be complacent; I’m saying watch for evil like a hawk, but watch for goodness just as carefully. Be on your guard, but be willing to reach out. Be good. Be creative. Be kind. Share what you have if you can. Accept help when you need it.

Vote. Protest. Petition. Speak out.

Make art. Make noise. Make right.

It’s a complicated dance and I don’t know all the steps yet. But I can’t stop wondering what I could have done, what small act of kindness or courage I could have offered, that might have made someone else suffer less.

I’m not telling you what to do. I know that humans have battled humans for as far back as our history is recorded. I’m just musing out loud, I suppose. But I really believe there has to be something good that can come from all of this anger and hate, the chanting and the posturing. There has to be a way that we can fix this.

We’re all in this together, riding this pale blue dot in space. Our fates are bound up together. We thrive or shrivel together. There’s no other way.

https://youtu.be/p86BPM1GV8M

The everything

This has happened before, I remember.

We sang our way along the pre-dawn length of Massachusetts, over the fog-draped Hudson river, through the rain battered New York thruway, then followed the curve of Lake Ontario from Niagara to Hamilton to Toronto.

Along the way, we made necessity into rituals, stopping at our favorite service areas with names only a mother could love: Blandford and Clarence. We ate breakfast sandwiches and oatmeal, then gassed up the car and let more miles glide out behind us.

How many times have we made this trip before, and how many more times?

I’ve been in this hotel room before, too, or one just like it. And here, at the keyboard, I know I have something to tell you, but the breadth and depth of the day has wrecked me a bit. I’m weary. My eyes are closing, my fingers light on the keys, my thoughts winging back to long ago car trips, us kids in the back seat.

It’s night and I see the angled reflection of the dashboard and my mother’s profile in her window. I’m looking past the actual mother to the window mother and I can watch her for hours as the miles tick along. She doesn’t notice my gaze. It’s dark and the world is a rolling feeling and nothing bad is happening. I notice that the moon is following me. No matter where we go, which turns we take, the moon stays with me, my own puppy dog.

I’m forty years from that memory, and I can’t recall my mother’s face as clearly as I can recall her reflection and the moon’s silent affection. I’m losing her voice, but I have her profile in my heart. I’m in a hotel room in the country where she was born. I’m looking at her brother’s face, and I see hers. I’m close to remembering something, but my eyes are closing. I’m thinking of a song.

This has happened before. This is happening now. This will happen again.

Here’s a scene
You’re in the back seat laying down
The windows wrap around
To sound of the travel and the engine

All you hear is time stand still in travel
And feel such peace and absolute
The stillness still that doesn’t end
But slowly drifts into sleep
The stars are the greatest thing you’ve ever seen
And they’re there for you
For you alone you are the everything

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e-LF21yFWM]

On the bus

It isn’t easy going cold turkey.

For months on end I made a practice of not writing. It became a habit. Now, all of a sudden, I have to stop not writing? Every day? Not only that, I have to stop not thinking. Stop not observing. Stop not daydreaming and not making connections.

It’s a lot to ask for. Especially while I’m sitting on a bumpy bus rattling down a headlight-lit highway from New Hampshire to Boston. The movie “Eddie the Eagle” is being shown on the six overhead screens scattered around the bus and I can’t help getting absorbed by the story. I can’t resist a good going-from-zero-to-hero montage. Besides, it’s so much easier to watch Edie achieve his dream than for me to write a sentence.

So instead, on the bus, while I watch, I’m thinking about things I could tell you.

For instance, I’m thinking about the poet I saw walking down the street in Hanover; the one wearing a t-shirt that said “Neruda.” That guy, he knows who he is.

And I’m thinking about the college student who raced up the sidewalk on her bicycle so fast I thought she might smack into the building behind me, but instead she swooped like a swallow right up to the brick wall, and then, with the most elegant and practiced grace, she dismounted, looped her bike lock around the front tire, and slipped through the building’s door, all in one motion.

And I’m thinking about the Mini Cooper that drove past as I waited for the bus, a skeleton sitting in the front passenger seat, its skull angled so it could look out the open window, its eyeless eye holes watching me.

And I’m thinking that Lin-Manuel Miranda is a cruel genius and today, as usual, I have one of his “Hamilton” songs stuck in my head.

And I’m thinking that I learned today that the word “rowen” means the second crop of hay in a season. And that it also means aftermath.

And I’m thinking about the milkweed pod I saw in the hay field earlier this week. A slow motion explosion of fluff in the shape of a heart. The aftermath of an invisible process of light, temperature, and time. Something a writer could conjure for you in a slow burst of words, if only she could think of the right ones.

November surprise

The sound in my head is a creaking, oil-less sound. Or more a rustle of dry leaves. If you unscrewed the top and looked in, you’d see grey drop cloths, cobwebs, a bouquet of bare stems, a doll with a drooping eyelid, a water stained book, a fine layer of dust settled evenly over everything.

Wait, was that something moving in the shadows in the corner?

Did you feel a chill?

The wind whips up out of nowhere. Dust is in your nose and eyes. Beneath the dust is more evidence: old ticket stubs, something dressed in fragile tissue, a wing, a carved heart, a leather glove, a walking stick, a pair of scissors shaped like a swan.

There’s some ancient memory here, too. A remembering that has something to do with a cooing laugh, and the shurring of runners on snow, and the crinkling of a sheet of paper as it goes up in flames.

This bony box holds every part of the universe. Everything in it is old, worn, nearly beautiful in its decrepitude.

This box has been sealed shut for ages. It’s high time we opened it.

And nothing but

The truth is, for lunch today I had a leftover biscuit from an order of Kentucky Fried Chicken we had last night.

The truth is, the last time we had a bucket of chicken was 10 years ago February, when we were moving our worldly goods from a frozen shipping container back into the house, during a snow storm, while I had a cold, during a very bad month. A neighbor, taking pity on us, delivered the seasoned, greasy sustenance and we were grateful.

Did I tell you that story then? Likely not. Which is weird because, through all the mess and hurry and cold and worry and excitement of the day, it’s the one detail I remember strongly: frozen, weary hands shoveling warm, salty bits of chicken and fried potatoes into hungry mouths.

I’ve been thinking about things like this recently. Not fried chicken (well, some of that), but about these little online windows we open to each other. How we tell each other some things and not other things. How we cultivate a view, the person we want to be, showing what we believe to be our best sides. Not necessarily intentionally to deceive, but, really, who wants to post a picture of the (yet again) clogged toilet?

The popular term for this picking and choosing is curation, a term I like because it makes me think of museums, store rooms full of long-hidden masterpieces, wooden crates of artifacts, a candy store of beauty, age, and mystery just waiting to be picked through, selected, displayed.

Honestly.

Every single thing that I tell you here is the truth, at least the truth as I see or understand it. But I don’t tell you the whole truth.

Sometimes the truth is not mine to tell. Earlier this spring, for instance, a thing happened. It’s a thing that stopped me writing here because it was a very big thing, a difficult thing, and it took my full attention and sapped my energy. This thing was medical, and it happened to my darling M. And he’s better now. We came through it and things are going to be okay.

But I stopped writing here because, really, what was I going to say? It wasn’t my story to tell. I couldn’t write about the biggest thing happening in my life, but I couldn’t blithely go on writing about goats or dinner or spring turning on her green light.

The truth is, I lost the desire to write, and I kept our truth close to us and cared for it like a small, tender thing.

The truth is, I wanted to be invisible, to have the world disappear for a time, and still I missed being here, sharing stories and thoughts, because this is often the place where I figure things out, make connections between ideas and the world and you lovely people who read and comment, or just read and think.

The truth is, while I was not here, life spun on. The toilet did, indeed, get clogged. Those darling baby goats were born. We filled the refrigerator, emptied it, then filled it again. The dog and I rambled the valley. The car’s check engine light came on, went off, came back on. No one can figure out why. The lawn mower died mid-mow, but M brought it back to life with a $1.50 spring. The bees made honey and baby bees. The cherry blossoms bloomed, then faded. I started some new projects. I learned to knit (poorly). The school year ended and H became a senior facing her last high school summer.

People wrote beautiful songs. Geese came home. Ambulances arrived at accident scenes. Rain drenched roots. Politicians squabbled. Seeds germinated. Chickens were slaughtered, sold, and fried. We forgot things we were sure we’d always remember. Norma Desmond came down her glorious staircase, ready for her closeup. Stains blossomed. The earth turned. Voices carved songs.

Writers took up their pens and wrote the truth, as they understood it.

On beeing

So, Sunday was moderate and sunny, snow still in patches and piles on the lawn, but the sharp of winter was noticeably dulled and there was no more delaying the obvious: it was time to see if the bees had survived the winter.

We suited up and entered the bee yard and saw no obvious signs of life, but, as with so many of the very best secrets, sometimes the obvious is the noisy camouflage of the quietly wonderful.

I rapped twice on the south hive and put an ear to the hive’s side: gentle humming and then a single scout flew out to see who was disturbing her afternoon nap.

I did the same on the north hive: gentle humming and then one loud buzz practically next to my ear.

We lifted the outer covers for each hive just to confirm with our eyes what our ears knew without disturbing or chilling them. When we lifted the covers, we saw the plexiglass covered hole in each inner cover packed full of lively bees. We quickly put the covers on, and did our own little waggle dance right there in front of the hives and the confused goats.

Huzzah! Life!

Then we scampered back to the house to report the news to H and to study up on what happens next.

The next is what we did today, the warmest day by far of 2016. We returned to the hives for a more in-depth examination. The bees tolerated us so very well, placidly going about their business. In each hive we saw a good-sized, healthy colony. They had eaten much of their honey, but there is still plenty left to see them through the next month until spring begins to blossom in our part of the world.

Even better, we saw eggs, larvae, and capped brood in each. Two busy queens (still, as always) hidden from us, doing their work in the late winter darkness.

Yesterday, in anticipation of finding little or no honey, I cooked up a batch of “bee candy” (also known as fondant): a sugar syrup cooked to soft ball stage, then whipped into a moldable, rollable dough that we can place in the hive, just on top of the frames. They appear to have enough honey stores to see them through, but we gave the fondant to them just in case. They seemed appreciative of a new menu option.

The goats watched while they chewed their cuds. Ephraim’s never seen us in our bee get ups; he seemed unfazed. By the end, Wellesley, Darcy (looking pregnant, I really do believe), and Ephraim were lying in the yard like goat loaves, baking in the warmth of an early March day.

The hives are all closed up again. We’ve still another month to go until we can remove the insulation and really welcome spring. In between, there’s the threat of bears, and swarming. Nothing is certain, but it sure is wonderful when your heart is happily surprised by things not going wrong every now and again.

Now my hair is smokey and my hands smell like goats. Spring, with your baby bees and baby goats, I can hear you calling gently and calmly. The ice is clearing.