June | 2024 | pull up a chair

June 21, 2024

of darkness and sunlight in shifting proportion

night was on my mind this week, as the sunlight upon us stretched to its longest shift of the year, the apex of the solstice on thursday, and now the night grows longer minute by minute till winter’s solstice takes its turn, a doh-si-doh of celestial bodies. the interplay of light and shadow is eternal, has been, according to genesis, since the beginning, day one. and it was good.

it might seem counterintuitive to contemplate night when the day is at its longest, but it’s often through the paradoxical that insights are gleaned. a wise and soulful priest pointed me toward considering the illuminations that come in darkness, at a saturday morning retreat in the great gothic-revival church that so often stirs me these days.

and then through the week, i kept stumbling on poems that made me marvel, made me think deep and deeper of the hours of darkness. here are two:

The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.

––Night in Day by Joseph Stroud

Night Ferry
by John Burnside

Had I been less prepared, I would have left
in springtime, when the plum tree in the yard
was still in bloom,
the windows open after months of snow,
one magpie in the road
and then another.

I could have slipped away, late afternoon,
while everyone was busy somewhere else,
the fish van at the corner, children
dawdling home from school
in twos and threes, a porch light
lit against the dusk on Tollbooth Wynd.

Give me these years again and I will
spend them wisely.
Done with the compass; done, now, with the chart.
The ferry at the dock, lit
stern to prow,
the next life like a footfall in my heart.

it’s the last stanza of burnside’s that spoke to me most profoundly. “give me these years again and I will / spend them wisely.”

and then, with celestial bodies on my mind, i stumbled onto john burroughs, the naturalist whose wisdoms and poetries never fail to stir me.

“If I had my life to live over again, and had my choice of celestial bodies, I am sure I should take this planet, and iI should choose these men and women for my friends and companions. This great rolling sphere with its sky, its stars, its sunrises and sunsets, and with its outlook into infinity — what could be more desirable? What more satisfying? Garlanded by the seasons, embosomed in sidereal influences, thrilling with continents — one might ransack the heavens in vain for a better or more picturesque abode.” — John Burroughs

but mostly this week i indulged in the sunlight of one of the oldest, dearest friends i have on this planet: my roommate in college, my roommate after college, my maid of honor, godmother to my firstborn, and my heartmate and soulmate through life’s most scouring hours. she’s a california girl, blond still (naturally so), and more beautiful than ever, and she married a man who might be the twin separated at birth from the one i married. not only do they both wear the exact same spectacles, they both dress in old-line khakis and oxford-cloth shirts, and think deeply about the subjects they love (film for the one from LA; bricks, mortar, and marble for the one i married) as well as the ideas that animate the life of the mind. we played, the four of us, at being playful: took long walks through woodsy ravines, gobbled ice cream from cones, motored downtown to see georgia o’keeffe at the art institute, and before we got there stumbled into one of the world’s great symphony orchestras rehearsing schumann’s piano concerto in frank gehry’s bandshell with someone billed as one of the world’s greatest pianist. all for free. and all in the sunlight.

and tomorrow, my firstborn marks another spin around the sun at the center of it all. there are not enough blessings under that sun for me to wish and hope and pray for my boy, but i wish every last one for him and his heart and his soul and his dreams. happy blessed life, you who made me a mama.

how did you mark the solstice, the day when the sunlight shines longest?

18 Comments

June 14, 2024

settling in and summer serendipities

clippers, shovel, trowel. those are the implements of my tranquility. of returning to my roost and sinking in my roots.

i’m back from travels far and farther. old home seeps into all the crags and crevices. knows me as intimately as any living soul. the familiarity of this old house’s creaks and cracks, the way the one floorboard at the top of the stairs whines its arthritic whine (you too might whine if, for a good 85 years, you’d been underfoot to the clumsiness and weighty soles of so many), the way the light falls in at the same afternoon hour day after day and casts a halo on the old clock that never chimes the proper hour, it all is home to me. and it all comes rushing in, as if a tide pool filling once again, oozing into hollow parts now on their way toward sated.

i loved the adventure of my travels. loved being nursemaid to my boy. but coming home is, in deep down ways, where i belong. it’s in this old house that i finally found my peace. and, every time, it soothes me, quietly awaits me.

the garden, most of all, is living breathing companion. more than just a place to dig and poke, it almost speaks to me in whispers. delights me. returns the favour of my attention with its unfurled petals, its landing spot for bumblebee and butterfly and red-breasted robin. as one schooled in the storybook pages of tasha tudor, kate greenaway, and the norton anthology of children’s poetry, i honed early on my imagination’s muscles (thank you, mama). i spy a delphinium in bloom, a bloom as cobalt blue as neptune is thought to be, and i am certain an elfin soul will soon be stretching out a hammock from stem to stem down there where ladybugs and caterpillars roam. and so the garden to me is endless canvas of delight, whimsy, and unfolding tale, as if i’m something of the puppeteer to my plantings.

i relish sinking back into the rhythms of my chores: the way i stack the mugs, the wee bouquets i tuck around the house, the shopping list i know by heart.

all of it serves to cradle me. tells me i’m home where i belong.

the world and its adventures will be mine again, should i choose to wander. but for now, the summer––and the cicada––are upon us, and the tempo’s slowed, and my tank feels very much in need of filling.

i intend to surrender to summer, and let the whimsies steer me. i might not write each friday. i might write wednesdays instead. i might go a spell in silence. i might write in the middle of some night.

the point is, summer plays best in serendipitous tones. and i intend to listen. and to play along.

what will you do new this summer?

14 Comments

June 7, 2024

that inextinguishable instinct

post-tonsillectomy children’s memorial, january 2000

dispatch from 20037. . .

two dozen years ago, a little guy I loved, a little guy of six, was wheeled down a long hallway to have his tonsils plucked. i walked the whole long way beside his gurney, straight into the OR, where they let me hold his hand till they were ready to send him off to dreamless land. and then, back I walked to wait, eyes awash with tears.

just now, that same kid was wheeled away again. and I, the nurse who flew in from chicago because I couldn’t imagine being even a mile away, was by his side. This time, though, I skipped the long walk, and no tears.

I seem to have been born hardwired to not stay far away, not when someone I love is being wheeled down long hallways, and the day begins at 4:45 a.m.

It’s an urge as irrepressible as anything I know. So much of mothering comes to me instinctively, without the synaptic pause that populates most thought. I leap before I think—leap into the fire, into the deep end, into wherever is the urgency. I don’t know how not to. And, yes, maybe sometimes I’m too much. And maybe I’m unnecessary. Or redundant. But where is there room for redundancy or un-necessity in the chambers of the heart?

Among the breaths of my life that I relish most, being by the side of the ones I birthed will always, always, be my most precious, most savored.

And so, in living my days with all I’ve got, this blessed day, being plopped in this hard chair, in this cacophonous waiting room in downtown DC, is one I will always hold so close to my heart. Truth is, I pray for as many of these sorts of days as time will give me. And as long as I can be there to plant one last kiss on the forehead I have loved since the hour of his birth, I am going to board all the planes, trains, and automobiles to get me here.

And now I’m signing off to keep my holy vigil.

xox

No need for any worries; all will be well here in the nation’s capital. Trust me on that.

PSS my uppers and lowers are a jumble today because I’m typing in my wee phone and can’t stop the gremlins from insisting on at least some proper capitalization.