pull up a chair

that slip of paper, long of my wallet, now stashed at the back of the drawer beside my bed, somehow slipped into obscurity, somewhere over the years.

it’s expired, they tell me.

while i was busy chasing crooks and fire trucks, a lifework i picked up along the way, that license to practice what i love, that stamp of you’re-okay from the state board of declarations, well, it got dumped by the wayside.

all those long nights in the library, all those hours at the bedside, washing the dying and the newborn, depending on the day’s assignment, it’s washed away. or at least on paper, it’s no good.

except for days like today, when all the pages and hours and hopes come rushing back. when i might as well sling on my cape and cap, haul out that ol’ stethoscope from the drawer.

i swing into nightingale action when the ones i love go down.

no board of examiners, far as i can tell, is hiding in the wings, keeping watch on how i do. long past are the skill tests on how to fold a bedsheet with hospital precision (though i still make a mean tri-fold corner).

i am left to my own deep sense of tending to my firstborn, who any hour now is going under, to have his four wisdoms taken out. those would be his teeth, of course. the only wisdom he’d ever relinquish.

and i, as the resident nurse on duty, i am armed, already, with prescriptions, ice and popsicles, the holy triangle of recuperation from oral surgery.

mostly though it’s the rare chance to once again slide into a calling that still calls out my name.

i am not ruffled, much, by blood or body fluids. comes with the territory. comes with reaching out and taking the hand of the one who’s hurting, or afraid, or losing hope. comes with saying–most often, without words–i won’t leave your side, i’ll get you through this valley, back to where the sun does shine, and where your mouth, your head, your tummy doesn’t throb.

i have counted, over the years, whole flocks of children who were mine to care for. children with terrible horrible cancers. children who died. children who writhed in pain. children who fell to the floor and lay there, shaking.

oh, i cried a lot. i held hands. and whispered prayers. i gave meds. hung transfusions. sat down on the edge of beds and talked the night away. i walked long halls with parents. shared cold cups of coffee, poured in styrofoam cups.

i drove to small towns for funerals. went to dinner with grieving fathers whose tears would not end.

i loved those years, those hard, hard, inconceivable years.

and now the children i’m left to care for are my own. don’t need a license. curiously. don’t even send us home with instruction manuals, when they are newly born, for crying out loud.

we are, all of us, left to what our mothers taught us about how to cool a fevered brow. how to hold a child retching in the toilet. we know that rubber bands go on glasses of a child with a cold. and ginger ale is the surest cure for a rumbly tummy.

but those of us who’ve walked through nursing school, we’ve got an extra edge: we rise up when our babies go down. we swell our chests, feel that thump again in our veins. we were schooled on how to heal the wounded, how to soothe the pain, and dash the rising fever.

it’s in our blood: we swoop on the scene, we make it right. or at least we do everything we can think of to try and do so.

and so today, any minute now, i’ll never mind the folks who say that i’m expired, who say my license doesn’t count.

i’m armed, and ready, and we are heading off to surgery, my firstborn and i. i get to be a nurse today.

not exactly the post-prandial walk in the woods, we were hoping for, but my man-child’s gums started throbbing, so i peeked in, and saw the stumps of wisdom teeth. and the ol’ doctor said he’d yank em out. today. all four. impacted. egad. not quite the soothing post holiday agenda. but we’ve readjusted, lined up movies and popsicles and plenty of ibuprofen. i’m dashing this off, and will be back for adjustments. in the meantime, hope your turkey day was calm and filled you to the brim. one way or another……

the arithmetic of november is a fine tally indeed. it’s the month where we begin to add up all the wonders of our year, the graces large and small.

the ones that make our hearts go whoosh, as if niagara falls (see delicious cupcake above), and the itty-bitty whispers of holy hallelujah (as when we catch our little one, say, giving us a backrub, just because he sees the worry on our brow).

when you pause for just a minute, maybe long enough to grab a pen and paper, for this accounting-in-the-works, you can, if you give it half a chance, get swooshed right over, for all the goodness that’s come round.

oh, lord, i know, there is heartache plenty. there were days and nights, perhaps, when you thought you couldn’t breathe, what with all the drama in the wings. and there’ve been bedtime pillows, too, soaked with tears. and hours spent on knees, praying for holy miracles to dash away (fill in your blank).

but, here, on the brink of this national time-out for cranberries and thanks, i find myself, in slow moments, in the breaths between the thoughts, beginning to accumulate a swath of holy blessings…..

i begin with the very girl i’d spent a lifetime dreaming of, the one whose arrival woke me in the star-lit cloak of an april’s night, a night when tears and dreams-come-true came rushing, when over a phone line and millions of miles away, i heard her rustling, peeping, squeaking, in my brother’s arms, and felt my heart take flight.

oh, it aches to be so far away, but as i trace her every leap and bound, as i stockpile frequent flyer miles, i know we’ve years together down the road. we’ve tea rooms, and walks in the woods. we’ve story books, and some day, long long talks. if i’m as blessed as i hope i’ll be.

speaking of endless hours deep in conversation, there is the blessing of watching my 16-year-old turn to his beloved uncle david, the one who once took him from dawn till way past dusk on the el (that’s chicago’s elevated train), with no destination other than adventure, and who over the years has opened windows for him all around, from thelonious monk to qi gong, from homer to sartre to music made from water dripping in a pot.

oh, lord.

be still, my most humbled heart.

i count, too, the blessing of my cottage garden, the stubby little tree, with arms outstretched, who grows just beyond my window.

i count the bluestone path, the one that meanders, slows me in the way of ancient zen walks where each stone is placed to accentuate the pause. and so it is with my wiggly, sort-of-wobbly bluestones. more accident than art, but still, the effect is the same, you move slowly through my meandering garden, the one where blueberries and roses ramble side-by-side.

and what of the fact that i live in a creaky old house, a house that over the years we’ve nipped and tucked, stitched with windowseats and bookshelves in nearly every single room (save the bathroom, but hmm, there’s a thought)…

and what of my holy blessed friends who pull up here to the table, nearly every week, or only once a season? oh, thank God for them, for they’re among the closest to my heart, here in a world where we build bridges through words and shared story, where the village we carve is less one of geography and more one of common heartbeat.

and i’d be missing a whole chunk of my life if i didn’t say i’m thankful, so thankful, for the job i do most days (paid or not so very much). the one where i ask a zillion questions, poke around in places others rarely get to see, then sit before a keyboard and let the story spin. just this year, i’ve spent the night with a saint in a hospital kitchen, i’ve watched another genuflect on a city sidewalk to save an injured bird. i’ve worked with editors and writers who’ve leapt to my rescue and stood firm behind me, and i’ve cried hard and long as i watched some of the very best exit the newsroom, told to leave for good, after packing lifetimes into cardboard boxes.

before i move onto little graces–the wren who sang his heart out, the over-watered tree that didn’t die (yet), the cloudy days that brought me comfort–let me sweep my arms round the boys who put meaning to my days.

the tall one who lets me in his heart, through long and winding hours of seamless conversation, and nothin’-else-like-’em belly-bustin’ laughs, sitting side-by-side (often, these days, that would be as i ride shotgun and he’s the one behind the wheel, steering down the lane, er, oops, that was a stop sign, honey…).

and the little one, the one who takes my breath away each and every time i glimpse his tender side, the one stoked by his papa, yes indeed, and whenever i catch him, nearly always, leading with his heart.

there’s my mama to thank, too, for making every tuesday and thursday work like clockwork, even when i’m far away. and, on both those harried nights, for getting dinner to the table, and not just any dinner either, grammy dinner–stews and meatloafs, potatoes mashed, and peas frozen in a pouch, comfort foods, foods like mama used to make. oh, that’s right, she is my mama and she is, after all these years, still making weeknight dinners. all that’s left for me to do, those achy tired nights, is scrub the pots and pans, and sometimes she does even that.

oh, there’s more and more, the ones i love around the continent, from jersey shore to sunny california, from maine to arizona, with stops along the way.

there’s the bones that hold me up, at least for now. a word i learn that takes my breath away. an idea that’s new and even better.

i thank God for pillowcases crisp, and socks that don’t have holes. for books on tape that hold me rapt. and ones with pages, too. the ones i race to bed to read, but then, dag nab, i cannot stay awake.

i thank God for pomegranates and popcorn. for old jeans all full of holes, and the leggings worn beneath them, the ones that keep me from being charged with indecent exposure.

i thank God for gloomy moods that lift, and i’m sorrys from the heart. i thank God for friends who make me laugh so hard i fear i’ll, well, you catch that drift.

i thank God for the sky at dawn, and the quiet of the house at night, when all there is is my breathing and the tick-tock-tick of the old fine clock.

i could go on and on in this holy sacred litany of thanks. there is much, especially for those of us who take the time to add it up, as if a census of the heart.

my forms are filled, and i’ve only just begun.

for all of this and so much more, dear holy God, i thank you and i thank you.

all right, you blessed souls in all the chairs, pull in close and let it pour, the thanks with which you fill your heart….

sometimes, holiness is the absence of flutter.

so it was the other morning when, as i always do, i bounded out the back door, coffee can in hand; called out, “mornin’, babies,” to all my flocks.

crossed the chilly bricks, tiptoed into grass, the not-so-vast terrain that stands between me and my seed troughs.

right then was when my bare toes curled; i looked down, saw right away, the blades of grass were crusty white. the morning’s frost had robed them, made them downright furry.

but i had work to do, was on my morning rounds. i had birds to feed, and a crust of fragile frozen mist was not about to stop me.

after all this time, you see, after all the awe as i stand and watch the winged ones dart and peck, as i catch a scarlet ribbon flash before my eye amid a drab brown world that screams for color, after waking up to bird song, and watching babies dare to leave the nest, well, i’ve come to think of all those birds as mine. we belong to each other, the birds and i.

or, at least, so i fool myself.

my coffee can, of course, was filled with breakfast for those birds. not the oatmeal i’d be bubbling back inside. this day, a blend of fruits and nuts was on the menu.

and while i stood there, sizing up the frost, determining to add a little zip to this trip to the feeder, i noticed something else that stopped me in mid-pace: papa cardinal hadn’t flown away, was mere feet away, gobbling down the seed from yesterday.

now, every single other time that i’ve stepped outside that door, to haul a hose, to haul the garbage, to go inspect a rose, i’ve been met with the popping sound of wings in sudden flight, the darting of each and every bird, lurching off to camouflage and haven in all the boughs and branches.

but not this time.

the scarlet wings stayed still.

and in that absence of haste, the morning’s calm unbroken, i felt a cloak of heaven falling down on me, cascading over my shoulders, warming my bare arms.

it is a holy thing, for certain, to be nearly eyeball to eyeball with a wild thing. especially when the wild thing has wings, could fly away at the wisp of a breeze.

he carried on with his chowing down, that red bird did. and i, now frozen, just stood and stared.

i put down the foot i’d been holding in mid-air.

the cardinal didn’t flinch.

i picked up my other foot.

no flinch.

put it down.

no flinch.

and then i stood and marveled: this bird seems not to mind me, i realized, not consider me a wild-haired bother.

why, he’s gobbling as if at a diner counter, and i’m just another hungry soul sliding onto nearby stool. plunk down my elbows, take a menu. order up a coffee, tall and black. ask him how his day looks, here in this small town.

geez.

i tell you, he might not have been too ruffled by my being there, the very picture of cardinal nonchalance, but i, well, i was wholly tingling.

it’s not every day you discover you’ve crossed the line, and what a line it is. the birds no longer see you as a stranger, threat, or alien.

the birds don’t even bother.

for all they care, you’ve sprouted wings.

well. yes. indeed. i’d say so.

i felt as if heaven’s gate had swung wide open, whirled me right inside.

there i was out there where i shoulda been shivering, but instead i was hot inside. barely breathing. heart pounding, too.

so THIS is what it feels like to be at one with holiness. this is how you know you’ve come to be so synchronous with that you love that your being there makes no wave, does not disturb the peace.

makes me think, suddenly, of old married couples who whirl around each other in the kitchen. she, splashing at the sink the way she always does. he, burping, pouring coffee, smoothing down the pages of the news with the same exact precision as he’s done for 50 years.

to co-exist. to be breath-to-breath. to not feel one bit afraid in each other’s holy presence.

that’s what papa cardinal seemed to tell me: i was someone safe now, a title earned through months and years of grace. (and good stock in bird seed, maybe.)

it’s a trophy only i would ever know, not one to perch on any shelf. which makes it the best sort, really.

that drawing in of sacred breath, discovering a truth of who we are or who we’ve become that no one else needs know.

but as we carry on, we carry forward this: the gentle quiet honor bestowed on us one chilly autumn’s morn, when the red bird didn’t flutter. considered us at one with the whole of winged creation.

and now i’m dreaming this: some day that bird will rest upon my shoulder.

or in the open cup of my outstretched hands.

be still my stirring heart…

i know there are those among you who’ve been at one in the woods, with the wild things. maybe your peaceful co-existence came with another human soul. or maybe you too carry unspoken, unheralded trophies in your heart. my point here was not to share mine, but to nod to the truth that we all have rich unexposed artworks deep inside. mine was bestowed by a red bird, gobbling day-old seed. do you care to whisper yours?

and while at it this lovely friday in november, keep in your hearts the lovely pjv, mother of the bride in just one day….tis a blessed, heart-stretching moment–i can only imagine–to watch your little bird fly the nest, robed in bridal white. peace and love and joy to you, dear pjv, and the lovely, lovely em.

they’ve tiptoed back, those november skies, the ones that wrap me and cloak me in their charcoal-gray-with-tint-of-violet wonder.

i am safe inside the nubby folds of such a sky, when simmering smoky gray heavens sink low down to the earth, the place where i walk and trudge and hope and dream and too often feel the heartache.

i like it when the limbs go bare, when we see the bones again, when sky presses in on us. when we feel–or at least i do–less far away from what’s above.

it’s not that i’m so melancholy. not really, i’m not. it’s just that sky the color of eeyore, that somber donkey with the pinned-on tail, the one who walks the woods with pooh and dear, dear christopher robin, all through the enchanted pages of a.a. milne, it’s just that such a deep rich palette calls to me, whispers to the curled-up places in my heart, gives them kinship and room to unfurl.

i never know if it’s about to snow, on days when the deep dark gray comes in. i hold my breath and hope, though.
first snow is sacred. and the clouds, so full with something that their white is turned to sooty gray, they whisper promise. something’s coming.

or else it’s just plain a gray day. a day that beckons for a blanket and a cup of tea. it nudges. tap-taps at my shoulder: sit down. be still. soak in the oversotted sky.

it’s turning-in time.

all around the world is doing the same. the bulbs, i’ve tucked deep down into their sleeping places for the winter. the birds, mostly now, have skittered off, the ones for whom these chill winds are far too chilly. but all the stalwarts stayed behind, the squawking jay, the scarlet flash of cardinal, the sparrows and the hatches, they’re all here, loading up on seed, the seed i pour each morning at the feeder, in my unending bow to st. francis of the woodlands.

even the squirrels, i see, have packed thick wads of leaves way up high in nooks of branches. they’ve made chambers l.l. bean himself might envy, what with their storm-tested knack for blocking out the cold. and not a bad perch for chomping acorns either, blithely tossing out the not-so-chewy caps that rain on passersby.

my little one and i were walking to the bus just now, talking all about the sky (and dodging acorn caps that rained at quite a clip).

i asked him if he, too, liked a sky that wasn’t full of sun, that gave you reason and permission to wrap deep inside your thoughts.

well, first he looked up in that way that children do, to check to see if their mama’s sprung a leak, gone cuckoo. but then he let on that he too didn’t mind a dark-sky day, when the traffic jam of clouds hint that something might be in the works in the bring-on-the-weather department.

as we shuffled through the leaves, the curled-up golden maples that bring crunch and light aplenty to a gray november morn, i asked him what color he would pick to draw the sky today.

he looked up and answered, simply: “squirrel.”

i looked up too. and sure enough, i saw. the curds of cloud are gray and grayer, not unlike the furry famished rascals who aim to raid my feeders, who dig up my bulbs soon as i turn my back, who might walk right in and take a plate of dinner, were i to forget to slam the door.

and so it is, a squirrel-sky day.

a day when all of us might see fit to gather up a wad of golden leaves and curl down deep inside. and while we’re at it, toss out acorn caps to pelt the passersby.

if only i could climb a tree.

oh, goodness. dashing here today. a long day’s newspaper writing lies ahead. by now the sun’s peeked through and my gray day is all but blown over the lake. sunny days do have their golden-drenched virtue, but given a choice, i fear i’d take a gray november day any day. anyone else all for curling up and staring out the gray gray window?

let us all kneel down at the altar of george renninger, that long-ago willie wonka who back in philly in the 1880s dreamed up the tri-color corn that, back in milwaukee in the 1970s, fueled many a night’s study in my tucked-away nook in the college library, dotted the trail from my little one’s bed to his pumpkin this morn, and generally suffices for vegetable this time of year.

in fact, in that parade of national days of this-or-that that never seems to cease, today, we are told, is national candy corn day.

so be it.

have a handful.

while you’re letting the orange and the yellow melt in your mouth, whirl over your tongue, get stuck in the tight spots there in your teeth. chew on this:

ol’ george, who was working for the wunderlee candy company at the time, musta been pluckin’ ears off the stalks when suddenly it struck him, oh, jeepers, this might work in high-fructose form.

so he strolled, yes he did, to his candy laboratory and had at it. poured in some straight-up sugar, added corn syrup, and honey to boot.

poured it into itty-bitty teepee-shaped molds, first the globs of yellow, then orange, and finally the tidbit of white (which, for anatomical correctness, i’ll note is actually the bottom not the top of the confectioner’s glob. ahem. apparently i can now add this to the long list of kernels of knowledge i’ve managed to turn on their heads).

the corns, we are told, were a hit. especially with the new england farmers. who likely found it tastier than the stuff straight from the cobs.

over the years, we’ve gone gaga.

i know for a fact (cuz i’ve watched with my very own eyes) i’m not the only one on the planet who cannot stop once i get started. (perhaps it’s genetic since it’s my firstborn who cannot keep from scarfing in fistfuls.)

does it help you to know that there are a mere 3.57 calories per kernel?

or that a cup of candy corn has fewer calories than a cup of good-for-you raisins?

does it matter to you that some 9 BILLION pieces are gobbled up every year, enough to circle the earth 4.25 times, candy corn triangle tucked up to triangle?

perhaps, you’d like to whip up a batch all on your own, brach’s be darned.

well, then, here’s how:

d-i-y candy corns

• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup white corn syrup
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• several drops food coloring (optional)
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup powdered milk
directions:
Combine sugar, white corn syrup and butter in pan, bring to boil stirring CONSTANTLY. Turn heat low and boil 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat and add vanilla and several drops food coloring (optional) Meanwhile, combine powdered sugar, salt and powdered milk Add all at once to mixture in pan. Stir until cool enough to handle. Knead until stiff enough to hold its shape. Shape into triangles, or any shape desired.

i’m dashing right now to a halloween parade, followed by bowling for 8-year-olds, followed by bowl after bowl of that renninger special, the corn that fueled my college diploma.

be back with more substance. for now it’s all fluff.

anyone else as mad for the stuff as i am? if not, what’s your sugary downfall?

i was stumbling out the door, as is often my woopsy-daisy style, when there in front of me i noticed the coil of gray-with-red-stripe. i followed that serpentine thing, traced it along, to see where it snaked, that long-throated gullet of gray.

and that’s when i noticed it limp by the tree.

dripping by the tree.

days and days by the tree.

the little tree. the new-enough tree. the tree just aiming to steady itself, sink in its bearings, there in the earth that was mine to tend, to watch over, to keep from harm’s way.

uh oh.

quick as i could, i flipped back through the hour-by-hour day-keeper that is my life, tried like the dickens to recall just when i’d last put a foot in these parts, all the while lurching like nobody’s business toward that slow-dripping maw, that hose that had been, um, watering my tree since lord only knows when.

oh, dear.

call the flood insurers. call the priest. might it be time for last rites for this poor little crabapple sprout, drowned at the hand of a scatter-brained gardener?

far as i could count, it had been no less than 72 hours of gulping down drink.

poor little tree. somewhere late monday’s eve it must have been starting to slosh, gurgling there in the so-sodden garden, crying out in diluted distress: “yo, wouldya mind corkin’ the tap? gettin’ kinda squishy out here.”

alas, i wasn’t listening. had long forgotten the hose, the tree, the slow-dripping attempt to quench a deep-autumn’s thirst.

had gotten lost in the trials of a high schooler who studies, routinely, till 3 in the morn, and the woes of the third-grader kicked in the groin. and the mate barreling toward a book deadline, all but vanished from our midst. and don’t forget laundry and dinner and life. and taking the train, to and fro work.

by then it was wednesday.

then thursday.

bring on the lifeboats.

yes, indeedy, while i carried on with my days and my ways, that ol’ tree got more and more and more of what maybe, once, long ago, it had lifted a limb and politely asked for, would you, uh, mind sharing a short juiceglass of water, please.

not two bathtubs full.

not enough h-2-o to turn dirt into bubbling brew.

egad.

don’t know about you, but i never take kindly, nor gently, to discovering–nay, rediscovering–the soft underbelly of my swiss-cheese cerebrum. my brain with random and occasional holes so roomy a maze-loving mouse could have quite a heyday.

slapped myself upside that noggin. reached for the phone, the confessional of choice in a telecom age. nope, did not call my priest; called my mama, an even better confessor.

when i blurted out that i’d um, left the hose running for days, then asked if maybe i might have killed the poor tree, she wasted no time beating around this wet bush. why, she turned the hose right back at me, and asked, “why would you do that, what with all the rain in the forecast?”

well, thing is, said i in hopes of defending my sorry old self, i, um, obviously haven’t a clue–not a one–as to why in the world i would force-drink my tree, my innocent tree that’s done nothing at all, not a thing, to deserve such an over-drenched fate.

still in search of consolation, i dialed yet another number.

i put in a call to one of my fairy gardenmothers, one who could not have been kinder, nor gentler, nor more forgiving.

“look out the window,” said she, “you might notice that mother nature is doing the same, letting loose gallons and gallons of water, in preparation for a long dry winter. fear not, you merely gave the ol’ girl a head start. all will be well with your tree.”

and so we pray here at the home of the spigot that won’t be quelled.

while musing this waterlogged state of soggy affairs, it got me paying attention to the notion that maybe my tree stands (well now it might be leaning) as testament to the fact that i oughtn’t be galloping quite so breathlessly through my days, panting from weekend to weekend, just praying not to fall flat on my face.

it’s the occupational hazard, i fear, of working so hard to get through the days.

it’s all one big heart-thumping gasp. the trying to not miss a deadline, not starve the children, not overlook a third-grade reading assignment.

to say nothing of remembering the kisses on the forehead at bedtime. the cups of tea delivered to the study carrel at 2 a.m. the lunches packed with love notes.

with all it takes to stay afloat, it’s a darn miracle more trees aren’t drowning just beyond my door.

come to think of it, maybe i oughta look into ark rentals. just in case we stumble on an unbroken wet spell.

for now, i’ll assume my tree will make it through the long dry winter, and come back next spring to teach me more in the slow-it-down department.

if not, i’ll pray for resurrection. a prayer that never dies.

what signs have you stumbled on lately, signaling you might be dashing at break-neck speed? too fast for your own good, or that of those you love?

so much for that grand notion.

the one that had me climbing, all alone, into bed on a chilly, drizzly autumn’s night. the one that had me hauling along a stack of books, turning pages till well past the midnight hour.

alone.

with my night thoughts unbroken.

the big boys, you see, are far away. were rumbling–as i climbed the stairs, climbed into bed–cross the countryside, on the rails, headed off to university, the first of many college visits for my boy who’ll soon be shipping off.

well, summer after next anyway, and in a mother’s heart that is soon all right. sooner than i’d ever thought it would come.

i’d known for weeks that this one rare weeknight would be mine. alone. (or did i already say that?)

had played that most seductive game of duck-duck-will-it-be-a-movie, a weepy girl flick? or will it be a pile of books and magazines?

the latter won, in large part because i’d been feeling achy all day long, hadn’t made it to the little shop where all the films are stored like cracker boxes on a grocery shelf. you walk the aisles, eye the labels, decide which brand makes your tummy growl the loudest. then dash home to swallow whole, fast as you can tear open the wrapper. movie or cracker, it’s often much the same.

and so, in anticipation of this rare bedtime treat, the adventure of keeping the bed lamp burning till i darn well wanted to click it off, not just till i get elbowed in the flank by a grumpy, sleepy fellow with pillow pulled atop his head, i did all that needed to be done:

i scurried the little one up and under the sheets. kissed him twice, once to seal the deal, next to paste him into place, there where he belonged, drifting off to dreamland all on his own.

then i tiptoed back down the stairs, gathered up my night’s diversions, clicked off the lights. bid the quiet house good night.

heard the cat meowing at the door. let him in from all the nasty drizzle.

headed back toward the stairs. brushed my teeth. alone. savored sharing neither sink nor toothpaste.

slid beneath the puffy covers. piled the pillows, all just so.

hauled my books onto my stretched-out, pajama-covered, oh-so-tired legs.

heard the sound of footsteps, padding cross the hall.

saw a little face, smiling, peeking round the corner.

felt my heart go limp, in that way it does when plain old love washes over you.

when the face you see is one you often can’t say no to. certainly can’t turn away, when the words that come from that perfect little mouth are ones that softly plea: “can we have cuddles?”

and so, i made some room. told him he could stay, long as he didn’t mind the sound of me turning pages.

wasn’t long, not a paragraph later, that we then both heard–the midnight cuddler and i–the pit-a-pat of cat paws, coming closer and closer, up the stairs and round the bend, somehow knowing where the cuddling was, in a house with just one light on.

and then the pounce, which made the bedsheets shake.

and suddenly, it seemed, the night alone was lost.

reminded me of some children’s tale, where all the sleepy folk, and barnyard critters too, piled in one bed. until the bed collapsed, and down did crash the whole darn napping house.

if we’d had a cow, i suppose she too would have been mooing right on top of us.

oh, goodness me, i gasped, here in my very own four-poster bed, we had quite a slumber party going on, complete with giggles and meows. and all i’d hoped for was no more ruckus than comes with a mad dash of words inhaled one atop the other.

so much for mama time.

so much for all those minutes spent weighing one morsel or the other.

so much for the unbroken count that now continues, the long, long stretch of nights since i’ve had time alone. (staying up till three, for the mere sake of being the only one awake in a crowded house, certainly doesn’t count, for that is a torturous way to arrive at solitude.)

but i suppose that’s the shift i’ve signed up for here. that unfettered reality of motherhood that time to yourself comes not on your terms, but on rare colliding circumstance that might, maybe, if you’re really really lucky, find you home alone in the middle, perhaps, of a tuesday afternoon. when there’s little chance that you’ll get to make the most of it, because well the dryer is squawking, and the school bus will rumble by any minute, so why plop on the couch because you’ll have to pop back up any nanosecond. why sink into a long and winding sentence because it will end, abruptly, when sneakered feets bound in the door, with plenty to tell you all about the school day.

if there’s any truth here, in the land of motherhood, it’s that selfishness gets shoved aside, nine times outa 10.

because little faces look up at you. arms reach out to you. words come, plain and pure: “can we have cuddles?”

and so, you fling back the covers, you make do with cat hair on your pillow case. (thank God there is no cow.) you drop your pile of books onto the floor, with a declarative thud.

you click out the light.

you wrap your arm round the warm soft little someone curled up beside you.

and you dream the sweetest dreams.

but, before you too slip off to dreamland, perhaps, you console yourself with this scant hope: hmm, there’s one more chance tonight.

that ol’ train won’t rumble back till tomorrow, so perhaps, by the slimmest of possibilities, you might pencil in a date with that ol’ pile of uncracked books. and those thoughts that won’t be broken.

but, of course, you’re smart enough to know: don’t count on it.

how do you steal time for you, and you alone? do you, like me, daydream about the day when what you do from dawn till bedtime will be dictated by nothing other than your very own whims? hmmmm….

when the sun slips down tonight, and it promises to do just that at precisely half past the hour of six, we too will slip away, slip outside.

we’ll kindle lights, bless the passage of sunbeams giving way to moonbeams, anoint the cusp of sukkot, the jewish festival of joy.

we’ll take to the domed cathedral, the one whose holy sanctum arcs beyond our reach, the one papered every night in stars. itty-bitty, far, far away points of shining light.

it is God’s command, on the 15th day of the seventh month of the hebrew calendar, to take to the world beyond our sturdy shelters, the ones of doors and windows, floor joists and heating vents and taps that spill water with no more than a twist of the wrist.

it is the season of holiness in this house that draws from all the holy wells.

and so, we do as it is written in leviticus, chapter 23.

we take to our dwelling in the harvest field. we take to our rickety, not-so-sturdy shelter, the one meant to remind us that wherever we dwell, God is our shelter.

at our house it means that, for eight nights beginning tonight, we will take our evening meal out in the screened-in porch, tacked onto the garage, tucked beneath the pines.

it’s not quite living up to the levitican prescriptions. not quite roofed with twigs and branches, hung with plants that can’t be eaten.

but then i’m all for extracting the essence, not getting tangled in particulars.

and the essence here is breath-taking, once again.

we are being commanded to step beyond the comfortable, the heated, the not-so-drafty. we are commanded to immerse ourselves in the world of night, and all its bright and shining wonder.

stripped of all that we take for granted the other 357 nights of the year, we carry platters and pitchers out to where the chill autumn air runs shivers down our spine, where we twist our legs one over the other as if braided beeswax and do a little warm-up bounce, where we thank heaven for the invention of knitted socks and levi strauss’ blue jeans.

we watch the flicker of the candle-flame dodge and dart upon our flaky-painted, old-door table. and, come the full moon in just two nights, we’ll indulge in no shortage of moonbeams to light our way.

it is this tight-stitched seam between our own bare selves and the whole of creation that draws me deep and deeper into the hebrew calendar, the calendar of so many of our roots.

i hear its echoes through and through my soul.

i am a child of the earth and heavens. i find myself at once skipping like a schoolgirl full of wonder, and hushed in awe, something like the monks whose vespers follow the unfolding of the holy hours, and the turning of the globe, away and toward the sun.

i am humbled by this call to take in the autumnal majesty. to sit beneath the wind-blown boughs, to listen to the acorns plonking on the roof above my head.

and as the stars come on, as one by one, as if the dimmer switch is turned, or the caretakers of wonder travel through the heavens, sparking all the star-wicks with their long-necked matches, i am rapt.

it is no less than a commandment of sukkot that through the roof–called a skhakh in hebrew–we should be able to see the stars.

the point, i do believe: do not dismiss the divine sparks of light scattered all around, in this case the ones painted on the black cloth of night.

and that’s a point that fills me with wonder.

it’s too easy in a world of megawatts and street lights so bright they wash the city sky in amber glow, to forget to look up. to ignore the constellations, the sky-markers that over the centuries kept sailing ships on course, and that to this day whisper to the flocks of fall’s migration just which way to flap their wings and fly.

yes, i stumbled on that latter bit of holiness just the other day, and it’s one that hinges wholly on the stars that shine above.

i learned, talking to an esteemed author of many books on birds, that scientists have proven the uncanniest of celestial wonders, one that, like october’s winds, gives me the shivers.

it seems that in the springtime and early summer, when the baby birds are still tucked safely in their nests, they awake at night, not unlike the squawking species known as baby humans.

only, bless those feathered things, the baby birds are transfixed by night shadows and the stars above.

they are hard at work, those nestlings, stamping in their mind’s eyes the patterns of the nightsky.

indeed, they memorize the constellations, fix their inner compass to the one lone star that never shifts.

somehow, within their every fiber, they align their position with the northstar, and evermore are guided in their migrations, fall and spring, away or toward that shining beacon.

that’s how a wee bird, just hatched the spring before, can find its way–untried, untested–from the boreal forests of the north, clear down to where the sun shines warm.

all in cloak of night.

all because of one star, fixed at the center of it all. one star guiding the whole rushing river that is the winged migration, flowing north to south and south to north again.

and to think that most nights we don’t even bother glancing much beyond the treetops–if at all.

and so it is that we are commanded, drawn beneath the night sky, instructed to mind the shining stars.

as if a whisper stirring us, reminding: the divine is here and there and everywhere.

sukkot beckons: were we to step into the holiness of bough and birdsong and rushing wind, we stand to be washed over with a saving grace.

and so it will be.

at nightfall, i will leave behind my sturdy house and go to where the winds blow and the starlight flickers on.

i will take a seat at the table in the breezy, chilly place where God, sure and steady, is my shelter, and my peace.

have you stopped to count the stars lately? have you, like the baby birds, memorized the nightsky? could you find your way home, knowing only where the polestar burns?

not so long ago, i was poking around the back shelves of a dear friend’s flower shop, back where vases teeter tipsy-topsy, and vast pots are stacked so high they scrape the pressed-tin ceiling, when suddenly i tripped upon her.

oh, no, not my friend.

the new little darling i shove onto every counter, every corner of the kitchen table, every nook and cranny that will have her.

heck, i’d plop her by the bathroom sink, if i could, perch the toothpaste on her flat-planed saucer, her offering plate, her dish that coos, “come try me. i waft above.”

let me attempt here to convey her loveliness: she is old, very, very old. and she’s cracked right through the middle, a crack i didn’t notice till i got her home. but i loved her by then, so she’s here to stay.

she’s all cut glass, with–ta-da!–a DOME, a see-through bell-shaped lid, with little knob, that makes ceremony of the mere act of lifting. and down beneath, the part that puts her in a class above any old cake plate, is the oyster-pink perch upon which she pirouettes.

oh, she’s a looker, all right.

she makes me swoon.

and i am hoisting everything i can think of onto her raised-up parts: cookies from a plain old bag, the kind cranked out in some ho-hum factory, not even the ones you stir and slide into your very own oven, the only kind you’d think were worthy of such elevation; muffins, ones i make, or ones i don’t; even apples sliced, laid out in fan decks, one crescent wedge of granny smith nestled up against a sweet pink lady. under glass, always under glass.

i must confess: i think i might have crossed another one of those invisible lines here, the ones that whisper in our ear when we’ve gone a little loopy. a bit beyond the beyond.

i am mad, it seems, for foodstuffs with altitude. even when it’s only measured off in inches. i am, perhaps, a tad too keen on the launching pads that raise up what we nibble on, the kitchenware that might as well be a drum-roll: the cake stand, thank you very much.

i could–if no one kept close watch on my wallet–acquire them in droves. i’d slide them here and there throughout my house. like imelda marcos, i fear, only without the stiletto. and not in pairs. my obsession stands on just one leg.

but here’s how i’d defend myself in the court of odd fixations: there is, your honor, something inherently proud–downright generous, i’d posit–about a serving piece that doesn’t cower in the corner, one that steps right up and preens. stork-like, on singular appendage.

it makes for yet another one of those wee small moments in a day when the ordinary stands to be transformed. when an inch, sometimes, goes the mile.

we are, every one of us, here but for a spell. and with the gift of each and every day, we have this choice: we slog through, or we pick up those feets and skip along.

we toss food on paper plate; we call it fuel. get by.

or we stitch, one thread and needle at a time, regard for the holiness into everything we do.

okay, so maybe everything is stretching it a bit. maybe three times outa ten we pay attention.

maybe when the ones we love, or even our little own selves, come panting ‘round the bend, we meet them there with what amounts to gracenotes: cookies on a cake stand. under glass.

parsley tucked beside the scrambled eggs (because it’s growing just beyond the door, darn it, and why not snip it off, take it up a silly notch, make for the beautiful instead of plain old pedestrian).

maybe my altitudinal tendencies, at heart, are all about the knowing, through and through, that what we do here in the places we call home, that the itty-bitty barely-noticed tweaks and joys, are all but a part of the sacred vow we put to task each day: to live out our earthliness with an eye, at every turn, on high.

and to shine that holiness on those we love.

even when it’s just a store-bought cupcake. one that finds itself up off the counter, and under glass.

not so shabby, a life’s work for a cracked old cake stand.

not so shabby, not at all.

what are the itty bitty ways you lift up your humdrum days? make ceremony of the simply act of living, and loving? i wait to see who wanders by this week. p.s. let me know if you too have a thing for any odd kitchen ware…..i’m wondering.