pull up a chair

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.

it is holy time again.

well, it always is. especially on these honey-dripping days, when the september sun warms us with its deepest amber drops. and the nights turn where’s-my-sweater chilly, and the morning’s dew is enough to make you curl your toes.

it is holy time in any autumn hour.

but never holier than on these the days of awe, now mine as much as my beloved’s.

i do believe, long, long ago my irish peoples were not the ones who’d once been druids, worshipped rocks and stones.

i’ve an inkling that maybe my people, once upon a time, understood the rhythms and the seasons of the hebrew moons and stars.

i believe my people might have been among the wanderers, wandered right up and settled down on that island to the north, far north. the one where craggy rocks erupt from mossy meadows. where sheep graze and clog the country roads, stop the motor cars from motoring. might as well turn off the petrol, for there is no shooshing along a sheep. not one with munching on its mind.

oh, i am catholic through and through.

(though lately i’ve been longing for a drop or two of anglican, what with all those women making noise up on the altars, and a world view that’s maybe looser with the rules, a bit more inclusive in at least a few departments. why, i muttered not too long ago, i could even be ordained. but the one i married will not have it; one thing, he laughs, to have married a catholic, whole ‘nother thing to be married to a priest.)

and, yes, too, i am defined now by the rise and fall of sun, the turning of the moon, the seasons of the planting and the harvest. i kindle lights at sundown on shabbat. i inhale the spices at its close, cling all week long to the sharp, sweet notes of clove and star of anise, allow my nose’s memory to whisper through the weekdays that holy time will come again.
the pause of shabbat is God’s command to put down toil, lift up holiness. marvel at the simple gifts of consecrated quiet. it is God’s promise, too, to fill the holy chalice that is us, leave us thirsting for not a single blessed drop.

oh, there is much poetry that pulses through my heart these days. passion, too. and much of it is stoked by the prayers i read while i sit in synagogue, turning pages, lost in my own reverie.

it is, to me, all a spiral. the geometry of climbing. the ladder of a soul that reaches toward the heavens.

it is time to turn and return. so says the prayer of each shabbat. and, the ones for rosh hashanah, too.

even the bread, the challah of these holy days, is freed from its ordinary flat-planed braid, and lifted into ever-rising spiral.

we are told, in prayer and golden-crusted foodstuff, to come back to where it all begins–to turn and return–but take it up a notch. don’t be satisfied with status quo. don’t let dull the sharp-edged hope.

the days of awe begin tonight, when the sun slips down beyond the curve of earth, and the stars turn on, lighting up the nightsky.

it is time here in this house that is ours to turn again to page 82, the lamb-spattered page, the page where cinnamon has fallen, and kosher salt has settled in the gulley of the binding. it is lamb-stew time, the one single recipe upon which this union was begun. upon which it will, God willing, always rise.

just home from honeymoon, 18 years ago, encamped in an upstairs apartment in a tiny blue-framed house, the man i’d just married opened up the book i’d given him years before, before i ever dreamed i’d be his wife, and settled on the stew that would become our touching-stone. that will be stirred upon our stove, as long as there are arms to hold the long, wooden spoon. to sprinkle leaves of thyme. to cut up apple into chunks. to dump in raisins by the cupful.

it is, as we grow year upon year, a sense of coming home. we stir and we remember. we set the plates and pomegranates on the table, and we bow our heads in prayer.

we turn and we return.

it is all about the spiral. the holy coil that lifts us on our journey. that brings us back, again and again, but never to the place we’ve been before.

there is, we realize with every passing year, unparalleled beauty in coming round again to that moment in the days, the weeks, the months–the season–when all the world echoes: we’ve been here before.

and here’s your chance to savor it again, to learn again. or maybe for the first time.

it is holy and sacred, this spiral-marking, and it comes at the moment when my heart is ripe to bursting. when every pore of me wants to slurp up the molasses light that’s pooling all around.

i am inclined in these days of awe to walk wherever i must go. i want to feel my soles slap against the earth, feel the bumpy acorns, catch the light as it pours through golden-turning leaves.

it’s almost as if i can’t get enough of the gift: the gift of the spiral, the coming back to the essence–the joy and the beauty, the pure holiness–again.

it is time, now, to close my eyes in prayer. to inhale the holy vapors from my stove, my plate, the spice box.

it is hard not to want to leap into the holy rushing waters of this sacred river passing by. it’s an upflow, i am certain. and an updraft too.

i am soaring here, on a spiral fueled with cinnamon and cloves. these are the holy blessed days, the days of awe.
and i do as i’m commanded: i stand in awe, turning and returning….

may these most holy days enwrap you as they do me. may your every pulsebeat skip to the Divine that’s draped around us–from the branches of the trees, to the ever-dwindling slant of the sun, from the mounds of apples, to the holy prayers. may awe come to you, as you turn and gift it to the world in which you dwell.
your prayer for the blessed new year?

we’d been talking for a long time about carving out a day, he and i and his pruners and loppers.

that’s garden talk for some very sharp edges.

my friend david knows what to do with a very sharp edge.

so he drove up today in his truck, dumped all his blades at the curb. gave me a hug.

can’t say i didn’t peek over his shoulder, made sure early on the blades weren’t part of the hug. that’s when i noticed the sharp edges dumped. squeezed a bit tighter there in that hug, once i knew the blades weren’t entwined with us, too.

david is one of my teachers. i tend to acquire teachers in the subjects i most love.

i’ve had teachers who taught me–still do–how to be a mother. and teachers who’ve taught me a thing or two about words, especially the art of cobbling them, one banged up against the next, making sharp edges with those strung-together alphabet letters, crisp corners. a snatch of poetry, too, here and there, every once in a while. or, well, trying at least.

i’ve a whole faculty when it comes to my garden, that holy sacred place that’s as close as i come to religion these days. like being in church, or a pew, or a temple on any shabbat.

dappled light in my chamber of prayer comes in, not through stained glass, but through deep-veined leaves, and the cracks in the fence.

preacher comes in the wren who warbles so clear and so true she makes my heart shiver. and my knees, too.

of all the heavens i know, the one place i most want to be on these golden-drenched days of september is out where the sun warms the earth that runs through my fingers.

it’s the one place where i hear the words of my soul rising in whole-body grace.

and, since tackling the woods and the weeds of my overgrown chapel is enough to knock me down flat, well, i reckon i could use whatever learning i’m offered.

and david, the son of a dairy farmer. david, a painter. a classical music freak. a chicago cop, for cryin’ out loud. david is a teacher i’ll take any day he’s free from the beat.

he’s one of those rare souls who, in between milking the cows and belting out arias, soaked up the latin and common names of just about every growing thing that ever there was–at least on the rolling prairies that stretch from just north of the illinois-wisconsin state line, clear down to the south side of chicago.

he knows where to plop a bush and make it look like it’s always wanted to be there. knows which way to turn a weeping, gnarled-spine hemlock, so you swoon when you come round the corner and your eyes rest upon its S-shaped parabola. knows which ferns like it dry, and which will tolerate a wee bit of wet under their toes.

so david came by today. spent the whole day, he and his loppers and pruners. i worked right beside. soaked in every bit of the lessons. and plenty of wisdom besides.

why, he started the day talking philosophy, launched right into how the underpinning of all gardens is the urge to control nature.

talked about how he particularly admires the english romantics, who understood from the start that it was all about the control thing. had no pretense whatsoever that a garden was in any way a natural endeavor.

“the post-modernists,” he continued, deadheading a daisy, “they like to think we’re returning to something, returning to nature. we’re not.”

he spewed stories everywhere we stepped in the garden. when he started in on the arbor vitae–that flat-branched evergreen that, in a semi-circle of five tall trees, like ladies lined up in big-skirted ballgowns that all these years have shielded our backyard from the brick house next door–he asked if i’d ever heard his no. 1 favorite garden tale?

i shook my head no, scrambling behind him, cutting up into sticks the long branches he was starting to pile high on the bricks.

he crunched up a fistful of the greens. told me to sniff, asked what i smelled. i started to guess, “pineapple,” not really sure why. but before i could sputter out the wrong answer, he told me the right one: “lemon,” he said.

only then, tipped off by the teacher, did i pick up on the citrus-y notes of a branch full of lemon.

he told me how back when the french explorers–jesuit priests, he made certain to note–back when they were trekking through the forests near the great lakes, and the winters were hard, and all sorts of illness was thinning their ranks, the native americans came along and taught those priests how to make a very fine tea of the evergreen branches. and how, because it turns out it’s higher in vitamin C than just about anything that grows in the woods, all the ailing explorers got better, and the jesuits, being big on latin, named the evergreen, arbor vitae, “tree of life,” because the trees and the teas had kept them alive.

it was that sort of day in the garden, where all day long i learned at the hand of david.

only the biggest lesson i learned, the hardest one too, the one that made my heart pound, and made me take a deep breath two or three times, was what he did with those very sharp edges, and the stand of arbor vitae, the ballgowns, that until today had spilled thick and deep onto the brick terrace out back.

he cut away at the branches down low. cut back the limbs only barely alive. the trees i’d thought were fat and full of crannies for all of my birds, he snipped away the skirts at the bottom. showed some leg.

the shaggy-bark trunks, strong-limbed architecture, really. he bared it. gave back a good two yards of terrace.

only i gasped at first when i saw what he’d done. nearly blinked back a tear when i noticed the pile. branches, bare, nearly bare. branches with plenty enough green to make it hard there to swallow.

but as the minutes wore on, i warmed to what i saw. discovered the beauty behind what turned out to have been false fronts; in all the nearly seven years i’ve lived here, i’d never seen that possibility before.

by day’s end, i realized just what david had done: he taught me, boldly, the essential lesson of life and pruning, cut back to bare essence. expose what’s at the heart of the matter.

only then do you discover the canvas for true beauty to bloom, to be planted.

as i drift off to sleep tonight, i’ll be deep in my woodland cathedral. imagining the dappled light. and the tender shade-loving creatures that i’ll tuck and tend there, where i never knew the space existed before.

it’s what happens when you wholly trust your teacher. when you don’t argue, don’t balk. but go with the lesson as it’s unfolding.

you discover the beautiful right before your eyes. where you never imagined it before.

the day has been long, the cutting deep. i have scratches all over, and plenty of scrapes.
i almost thought of not writing today, on this 11th day of the 9th month, the day none of us will ever forget. i walked out into the deep quiet of this morning. heard a plane overhead. couldn’t help but shudder. the man i married, when i told him i was thinking it might not be right to write today, maybe i should keep the silence, he said, ‘no, you have to keep living.’
so i cut and i learned. and now i wrote. day is done.

who are your teachers? and what are the subjects you love most? what lessons have you learned at the hand of a master?
p.s. dear david, profoundly: thank you.

we are inept most of the time.

unable, really, to leapfrog into the lives of the ones we love, make things right, stop that boy in the next desk from kicking under the table. stop the teachers from piling on 200 pages of reading. per class. on a wednesday night, due thursday.

and so, we–the ones left behind when the school bus rumbles away, when the car door slams and the tall man-boy lopes down the sidewalk, back into the gaping mouth of the high school, where we sometimes fear it could swallow him whole–we take in deep breaths, and we get to work where we can.

in the kitchen, often as not.

heck, it’s the one room in the house where when you mix and you pour, and you blend and you play like a chemist, it’s the one laboratory where maybe, as you yank open the hot metal door, step clear of the 400-fahrenheit cloud, pull out a pan or a tin, you’ve something to show for all of your worry and stirring.

so it was, as this school year, this ominous school year in our house where the tall one is buried under the weight of AP this and AP that, and the prospect of college is not too far away, so it was that i got down to the science of shaving off seconds from the pre-dawn rush out the door, while calculating maximum protein-load per bite.

this year, i sighed, the soggy bowl of cornflakes will not suffice.

i imagined those brain cells, the ones that once upon a time i’d studied so breathlessly just after an ultrasound when all i saw was cavernous black in the space where i thought a brain ought to be, and thus by the end of the weekend i’d convinced myself that maybe the brain–or surely a lobe of it–had somehow gone missing.

yes, i imagined those brain cells, all right. thought hard about all the late nights they’d be putting in, the teeny-tiny letters on the thousands and thousands of pages they’d have to make sense of, the never-ending calculus equations that just might drive those brain cells to send up red flags, call for the coast guard.

i imagined those cells and i got to cookin’.

which at my house begins on the bookshelf. and often gets stuck there for long days on end.

i had decided, in that way that mothers and other crazed caretakers do, that if i could come up with a particular formula, i could bulk up those brain cells, make ‘em smoke all through the morning, and late, late into the night.

why, i imagined my quixotic muffins might hold the holy grail of what every hard-driving junior in high school longs for, minus the steroids.

i invested prestidigitous powers in whatever i’d sift, blend and stir into that cheery red mixing bowl. i pictured popeye, ‘cept i’d swapped out the spinach for super-pro muffins.

i tell you if i could have poured whole cans of straight-up protein and brain-stoking elixirs into that batter, i woulda done so.

in a jiffy.

as it was, i stumbled over page after washed-out page of what amounted to little more than starter muffins. brain food for dummies, heaped deeply in sugar. not nearly what was needed to get a 6-foot-2 bleary-eyed boy up and out the door, 50-pound book sack in tow.

so i futzed and i figured. subbed out a half cup of this, for a big scoop of that. in the end, we believe–my subject and i–we’ve arrived upon something quite fine, a muffin worth sharing with you.

along with the muffins, which i’ve vowed to bake every sunday, to store in the fridge, for two or three at a 6:50 gulp, smeared deeply in almond butter, i hard-boiled eggs.

learned a trick there, too, from my old friend mark bittman, he who teaches me “how to cook everything.” (psst, that’s the name of his bible, all 944 pages, many of which are splatted and smeared at my house.)

take a pin, sterilize (which means light a match to the pin and let burn till the tip turns red). poke into the rounded, not the pointy, end of the egg. slowly–lowered down on a spoon, as if a queen going for a swan ride, with that much dignity, please–immerse into a pot of gently boiling water. all this poking and tenderness results in an egg that boils perfectly (10 to 15 minutes’ll do it) and sheds its shell with nary a tussle (dunk in a cold bath for a minute or two, just after lifting from the boiling swirls).

so there you have it: brain-stoking muffins, hard-boiled eggs, a banana if needed. washed down with a big swig of milk. all you need do is open your mouth, dash out the door, and mama’s hard labor takes care of the rest.

here’s the recipe, should you too have a brain that needs building.

brain-building muffins
adapted from quite a few places
yield: 12 muffins
5.4 grams protein per muffin, only 92 calories apiece
ingredients:
• 1 1/2 cups oat bran (swap out 1/3 cup whey powder–meaning subtract 1/3 cup of the oat bran and replace with equal amount whey powder–if you are inclined to super-bulk the protein)
• 1 cup egg whites (from container) or 6 egg whites
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup applesauce w/ cinnamon
• 2 Tbs. almond or peanut butter (all-natural is best)
• extra dash of cinnamon & nutmeg
• 3 tablespoons (or 2 long squeezes) of honey
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1 cup frozen blueberries
• extra almond or peanut butter (to spread on top before eating)
1. preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. mix all ingredients together until well blended. add the blueberries at the very end so they don’t get too mashed up.
3. bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. let muffins cool on rack. slather with nut butter, if so inclined, before eating. store in fridge.

run out the door, brain cells hummin’ along.

so there’s my breakfast homework for the week. what’s your secret-formula high-potency mind-builder? what are the ways you boost the ones you love?

see you below.

the rat-a-tat of the rain stopped. and that of the week as well.

at long last, i listened. heard little but the last of the waterlogged drops, rolling down from the leaves and the stems and the petals.

plopping.

the world out my window is soggy. so am i, from the back-to-school week.

but these are the sacred hours. i’m alone in the house. the boys, at long last, are tucked into desks. the clock ticks. the coffeepot occasionally gurgles.

i have nowhere to be, and nothing to do. except to be here. where, like an old scarecrow who’s lost all his straw, i tuck myself back together again.

which is why i went out to the garden.

i’d looked, as i puttered and put things away, at the old cracked milk pitcher, the one that sits squat on the old maple table.

i looked at its blooms–spent, stooped, so very tired. the hydrangea, and a limp stalk of phlox, both looked as if someone had let out their air. wholly deflated. and the black-eyed susans, they’d lost their wink. mostly were crinkled.

so i reached under the sink, pulled out my pruners, and set out to where the breathing begins again: out in my waterlogged garden.

i shook a few daisies dry. tried to help a sodden anemone stand. i tiptoed back to where the black-eyed susans were tangled and wet, bent down in yoga repose.

then i started to snip. took some weight off their limbs. snipped and watched them spring back to upright. became like a game. making the blooms boing back to life, instead of the way that they were, fallen and flimsy.

i snipped and they boinged. and that’s when i realized i was holding the prize: i’d gathered a fistful. a fat fistful, too.
now, let me just mention this one little thought: there is hardly a balm–at least not at my house–so soothing, so calming, as the pure joy of gathering blooms for the kitchen.

a good quarter hour outside, time enough for my toes to get muddy again, and my cuffs to get soggy, i turned back to the house, my boinging all done.

i gathered a whole host of pitchers and jugs and wee little vases. stood by the sink, stripping off leaves from the ends, the parts that would drink in the water.

and then i tucked in stem after stem. composed whole bouquets. a shooting-out yellow thing here, a floppy purple thing there. rounded out with daisies, and mint that grows wild.

felt something like embroidery, only with stems instead of fine threads. anemones instead of french knots.

when i was finished, when each of my pitchers and wee little vases were filled, i took a deep breath and realized that i too, after all this snipping and tucking, had taken some weight off my tired old limbs.

oh, i’d still not gotten nearly enough sleep. remembered reading the clock at 2 and at 4. thought back to the long week of lists. the getting up early. going to bed late.

i thought about all of the worries, the ones that come at the start of the school year. the ones when you pray your children are whole, and ready to take what’s ahead. when you pray that they’ll bob on the in-and-out tides. and the waves, too, that crash to the shore.

and then i just stood there. took in the tick of the clock. the rustle of breeze through the cranberry bush, just out the door.

i delivered my pitchers and vases back to the places they perch, the table, the sill, and right by the door.

then i sighed. and whispered the launch of a prayer.

if only a stroll through a water-soaked garden could fix all the bent-over limbs in our lives.

if only the lull in the rain brought peace to all the places too sodden to stand and soak up the rays of the sun, the sun that’s sure to break through the clouds. one of these most blessed hours.

it hit me like a bulls-eye this week: the job i love most in my life is the one where i make this house a sacred place, a tranquil place, and where it’s my job to be the emotional rescue for the ones who dwell here. oh, sure, i love my story-gathering gig, but the job that fills me up the more i pour out, it’s my mama job.
gathering blooms after the rain is but one manifestation of that holy endeavor, soothes me, maybe even soothes the ones who will bound in here at the end of the day.
what are the holy tasks you stitch into your life to smooth out the wrinkles all around you?