List of things I don’t want to miss this year in nature

 

Tree limbs etching the pale sky, 

arms reaching to embrace birds, clouds, the moon at night.

 

The first blush of pink and gold at dawn.

 

The dance of sunlight on pond water, 

dark shadows emerging as geese in the newborn light.

 

Sunsets – Every. Single. One.

 

The first glimpse of a violet, the burst of a lilac bud, 

new green spears of daffodils emerging.

 

The delicate tendrils of pea vines climbing a bit of string.

 

The first blush of new leaves, every tree offering 

a paler version of its future glorious autumn self.

 

The silvery whisper of leaves before a storm, 

the darkening of the sky, thunderously purple, 

black, roiling clouds split with shards of white light.

 

Strings of water droplets along tree branches after a rain, 

a chorus line of bubble-trapped rainbows.

 

Lying in deep meadow grass, eyes closed, ears open.

 

Sitting quietly among the cornstalks, 

listening to the leaves whisper.

 

Looking up at night to the stars that stretch forever 

into the dark.

 

 

I moved house three times in the past 14 months. I am hoping the next move at the end of February will be the last for a long time. It’s an exciting prospect. The place I am in now (pictured above) is a fully furnished 150-year-old farmhouse tucked off the town’s main road, a safe haven for both my eldest daughter and myself to recover from a series of misadventures. It has served its purpose, but I am anxious to be in the newer, newly renovated and unfurnished rental so that I can surround myself with my personal belongings that have been stored this past year. 

Here there are benedictions everywhere. Our large, treed yard is a haven for birds, chipmunks, and squirrels, all of which are currently entertaining us at the two hanging feeders. In the summer, the yard was full of flowers and birdsong. Now, at the very end of December, birds of every color - gray and white juncoes, flashy blue jays, brilliant red cardinals, brown and white striped sparrows, rosy breasted finches and gray-brown doves peck at the scattered seed spilled on the ground by the perching birds and the feisty squirrels who rock the feeders with their acrobatics. The neighborhood cat appears now and then to disperse them all. He sits, puzzled, under the feeder, wondering where all his prey has gone.

Snow and ice are thick on the ground and the cold outside creeps inside through ill-fitting windows and doors. We keep snuggly throw blankets in every room, wear insulated slippers and several layers of clothing. Christmas has come and gone. We will dismantle the tree after New Year’s Day has passed, packing the tinsel, the baubles, and decorations away in their boxes ready for the move. Slowly, over the next two months, I will gather the items we’ve brought here to make it more homelike and replace them with the things that were here for our use - silverware, pots and pans, dishes. It’s amazing what one accumulates, even in a furnished let!

The wind is picking up as I write. Though it chills me, it feels somehow appropriate that the wind should blow just now. I need something at my back to push me forward through all the machinations of moving - sorting, packing, arranging for the movers, the flurry of small deliberate acts like alerting the Post Office, the DMV, and the numerous organizations that must be informed of our new address. I count up all the times I’ve moved in my nearly 80 years, totaling 15 moves over the past 60 years starting with a husband, a new baby, and not a stick of furniture! It is time to settle down again, to make a home in a new place, to find peace and safety in the company of family members and friends yet to be made. 

 

 Reality

I cup the morning in my hands -

the sun rising on the back of the rooster’s blare,

the grass growing straight out to the barn

where a black cat explores the known world.

 

I hold the whispery sound of wings overhead

and the silly dither of earthbound hens.

Crow feathers slip through my fingers.

Red leaves, and orange,

green leaves and yellow crowd my fingertips.

Wisps of soft air float free.

 

My hands hold the smells of wood smoke

and damp earth, of dried grasses

and fallen leaves. I bury my nose

and inhale the universe as it turns,

 

loosening summer, setting autumn free,

welcoming winter. All this is here

in my cupped hands, holding one morning,

holding them all.

Pure Pleasure

 

I sit and watch the finches at the feeder thinking first that I am glad I thought to replenish the seed, then notice the sheer beauty of the birds themselves, the soft blush of red on their breasts, the way their feathers make black and brown patterns on their backs, the small perfectness of them, and as I watch, the noticing falls away and I am left with something so much larger than a wee feathered finch, a recognition of what Eckhart Tolle calls “naturally arising moments of pure pleasure.”

 

The sun backlights the yellow leaves on a maple. You can get lost in that light, let it shower down over your shoulders, fill your eyes, wash you with color until you are the yellow leaf and the sunbeam and the very air you breathe.

 

You can nestle your hands deep in the fur of a dog, gaze into its eyes until you fall in, lose all your senses except how your fingers feel, and your palms, until you are the dog and the hands and the otherness and sameness at once. 

 

If you lie on your back in a meadow and stare at the sky you can fly, rising up from yourself and floating down to yourself simultaneously. You become sky and earth until the sheer weighted weightlessness feels like home. 

 

Naturally arising moments of pure pleasure can be sought but I like them best when they descend without warning, when my hands are deep in the hot sudsy dishwater and my mind has wandered away from itself and into a place where soap bubbles are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, or when I’m holding a sleeping child and the weight makes my arms tremble but my mind stills itself like the sleeping babe and we breathe in tandem, sharing waking and sleeping dreams.

 

HOPE

Expecting to be settled as I aged and relaxed into retirement, I have been, instead, shuttling from one place to another, boxing up my belongings, depositing them in a storage unit, and moving three times in the past two years. I am temporarily occupying a 150-year-old farmhouse, that, in an odd twist, was once inhabited by a distant ancestor of whom I knew nothing until moving here and delving into the house’s history. The house is furnished so my personal bits remain in storage until I can find a more permanent home. It is a place where I can rest and recoup. I have fallen in love with the solitude, though I am not altogether alone.  

A mourning dove, sleek and slender with a long, narrow tail and feathers that appear painted on has built a rather tall, messy nest just under the roof line of the side porch. Untidy bits of twig, twine, and feathers droop over the edge of the capital that tops a supporting pillar. The bird squashes herself into the nest, her tail protruding from one side while her head ducks at an uncomfortable angle opposite. She watches me with one dark liquid eye as I climb the steps, broom in hand, to sweep the porch floor. Occasionally she flies to the rooftop of the small shed at the edge of the property or sits on a branch of the apple tree in the front yard. Most often I see her perched on the telephone wire that runs past the front of the house where she converses with friends who also cling to the wires and speak in low, plaintive tones. 

 There are other birds in the yard—robins, catbirds, cardinals, wrens, and a variety of finches—some of which will soon fly south as the days shorten and cool down. Blue jays and crows make most of the noise in the mornings now, the dove adding her mournful coo to the sunrise salute. They scatter when I open the door to the front porch to see and feel what the day is like. Mornings are cooler than they were a month ago, though on sunny days the daytime hours between ten a.m. and three in the afternoon are pleasantly warm. Crickets still chirp in the grass and the rabbits, so shy in the bright sunshine, hop out from the underbrush as I take my evening walk. 

There are numerous shade trees about the house, but I need walk just down the road to find open meadows that roll their green carpets to the edge of the woods. Deer feed there, and I know there are raccoons and most likely foxes about. There are bears, too, though I haven’t seen one, just a large pile of scat under an apple tree in a nearby orchard. I have no garden space of my own, so I’ve purchased a share in a local farm. Every week I choose from bins piled high with beets and carrots, spinach and chard and kale, sweet corn and tomatoes, filling a basket with produce and a canning jar with flowers I cut myself from their vast gardens. I am content to live in this quiet poem of a life for a while, teaching myself anew about patience, perseverance, and hope.

Ponderings

 

I came into this world naked and helpless, bearing the genetic structure composed of elements that stretch back to the origin of our species. I'm a chaotically organized crapshoot of characteristics from my ancestors that got molded and modified by nature and nurture. Depending on the capacity of my brain and my physical structure (which, by the way, I did not choose any more than I chose the geographical location of my birth), I learned how to identify and navigate my surroundings. I am no more nor less important than any living thing around me. I am naturally different as well as simultaneously the same. And my purpose is simply to perpetuate life itself. I make up the rest as I go along. Life on this planet may be just one way in an unending number of ways to exist. Thinking these things helps to keep me sane in a seemingly insane world.

 Dinner Disasters

 

Dinnertime is usually pretty tame at our house. One of us cooks, all of us eat, and we take turns cleaning up. Occasionally a magnificent effort will produce ooohs of appreciation but on the whole, mealtime is pleasant and uneventful. There are times, however, when things get out of hand and dinner gets (literally) turned upside down. Take Saturday night, for example. My sister, Jeanne, came for supper. She brought a roasted chicken and some fresh fruit for a compote. While I scrubbed and wedged some potatoes, she spread a rich crumble over the fruit and the two dishes went into the oven to bake.

 

Daughter Cassie was setting the table on the porch and I was in the yard when, from the kitchen, we heard a screech followed by a great crash and clattering, and then dead silence. Then came the moan. Uh oh.

 

Cassie and I stood in the kitchen doorway surveying the wreckage. Jeanne was toe deep in fruit slices and potato wedges. Purple juice splattered the floor, the cupboards, the refrigerator, the walls. The three of us looked at each other, horrified.  “I was pulling the oven rack out,” explained Jeanne, “when whoosh! Both pans came flying out of the oven like greased pigs. It was as if they planned it. You know, one dish said to the other, ‘When she opens that door, make a break for it.’ ”

 

This was greeted with more silence. Then one of us giggled. Giggles led to guffaws and finally we were all hooting as we tried to salvage what we could of the food. “You scoop,” said Jeanne, handing me a spatula “and I’ll spoon.” 

 

As an afterthought she said, “I hope your floor is clean.” 

 

“It will be when we’re done,” I told her.

 

This was not the first time I had to scrape dinner off the floor. We spent the next hour picking grit off the potatoes and telling tales of other dinner disasters. “Remember the porch-chops?” Cassie asked, recalling the time I turned a whole pan of pork chops upside down on the porch floor. “The dogs sure loved that dinner.”

 

That reminded me of another pork chop peccadillo. There were ten hungry guests gathered around the table, sniffing appreciatively at the spicy aroma of pork chop pizziole. We heard the oven door open. There was a scraping sound, a grunt, and a tremendous, squishy thud. Investigation showed us what had become of dinner. Pork chops, tomato sauce and cheese lay in a puddle on the floor. Sauce slid down the walls and some of the cheese hung from a doorknob. “Ah,” remarked one of the guests, sizing up the situation. “Pork Chops Linoleum!”