Into the Fire

The cats are flat on the front deck, stretched out waiting for a breeze that hasn’t come yet. Last week’s heat dome has lifted slightly with some brief and intermittent downpours, and if the weather app is correct, we’re in for an unbroken chain of sunny days that will push the temperatures back into the high 80’s. Late to every party, I finally bought some blackout curtains for the living room and wow, they work. I was surprised; the cats were grateful.

On a day last week when the humidity was unbearable, I relented and turned on the window AC unit downstairs and let it run for about an hour. It was welcome relief until I headed outside to water the chickens for the second time (not complaining at all—their eggs are worth all the care and tending required); the oppressive heat grabbed hold of my lungs and pushed against my face while I changed my expectations about breathing and made my way down the slope of lawn to the coop. It seemed smarter to forgo the AC and just let my body adjust to the thick climate around me. If I kept relatively still, it wasn’t too bad, really. Confession: I do have a small window unit in the bedroom upstairs and turn that on for a couple hours just as I climb into bed. It’s enough to help me fall asleep and then, when I wake up for my customary 2:00a.m. trek downstairs, I turn it off and the room stays cool for the rest of the night.

I haven’t met many folks here in central Ohio who enjoy the heat or at least don’t complain about it. I recently posted photos of that 14” snowfall we had back in January in an attempt to balance the weather reaction equation but to no avail. We’re living in the present sweaty moment and for some, it’s miserable. I keep my head down, since I live in a place with more shade than ought to be allowed and enough sunny patches on the walking paths to make one’s appreciation of said shade deep and genuine. And, as I tell my city friends, it’s nearly always ten degrees cooler on the farm than in the suburbs or downtown (all that concrete sure does absorb the heat and release it mercilessly throughout the afternoon). My heart is gladdened when I see the COTA buses with their digital “cooling bus” banners, followed quickly by “no fare”. If you don’t mind being in continuous stop-start motion for a couple hours, these big-wheeled roving air conditioners are sweet relief for anyone trying to get somewhere without heatstroke.

The discovery of fire and it’s bone-soothing heat was a game changer for our species. We cooked and kept predators at more than arms’ length, warmed our caves and huts and tipis, and somewhere down the evolutionary line, a genius invented s’mores. We made it portable so we could carry it in our pockets and light up a cigarette wherever we wanted (until the whole smoking ban thing came into play at our favorite bars and restaurants). We understood its sacredness in an abiding and sometimes respectfully fearful way. Walking across hot coals, taking glowing red rocks (often called “grandfathers”) into a sweat lodge, the smoldering finality of a funeral pyre—all called us to admit that much of life is bigger and deeper and more powerful than we are. “Be humble”, the poster says. “A lot happened before you were born.” Indeed. The tiny spark that starts our cars’ engines, or the furnace downstairs…we forget their primal fiery origins.

Poets and preachers draw on fire’s inherent metaphorical nature, with awe as the ultimate goal, and it works. We listen and connect the dots between the crackling, snapping flames and those times in our lives when we’ve been burned, blistered, purified, and transformed. In my work with hospice nurses, aides, social workers, and chaplains, I’ve noticed out loud how they walk into the fire of someone’s crisis, grief, the difficult questions that only the poignant and rough-edged end of life moment offers, and they give the gift of their presence and undivided attention without fanfare or reservation. So many helping professions do this, and I wonder where and how they find cooling relief from the unbearable heat of someone else’s pain. I know that sometimes, they don’t…and the flames consume them in the form of too many drinks after work, broken marriages, estranged children. Fire, any manifestation of it, isn’t a toy or a mere mystical fascination. It must be respected. Starting with the embers in our own hearts.

It’s summer in Ohio, so sticky days and breezeless nights are to be expected. Just remember—it’s not the heat, it’s the humility.

This Is Where I Live

Three adolescent raccoons have been tidying up the area below the bird feeders because the blue jays and the red-bellied woodpeckers are a tad enthusiastic when it comes to cherry-picking the sunflower seeds and bits of peanuts from the mix. They fling millet and quinoa everywhere and these little ring-tailed rascals set to cleaning up the mess every afternoon around 3:30pm. I’ve got the perfect view from the kitchen sink (for as long as the dirty dishes hold out) and yesterday, I scattered some stale Cheerios and cornflakes amid the fallen seed, a raccoon’s idea of Christmas in July.

The unbearable heat dome seems to have shifted a bit, but I still wait until after 5:00pm to cut the grass, in manageable three and four-acre sections at a time, because most of it is shaded by then, the towering and fully leafed-out sycamores and black walnuts filtering the late day sun into thin rods of sliding board light. Groves of Osage orange and those prolifically rabbit-like clusters of mulberry saplings become studies in the nuances between emerald, Kelly, shamrock, and mint. Get the folks at Crayola on the phone; they could do a whole box of greens from just the meadow and ridge alone, surpassing the usual 64-count and giving their Ultimate Collection of 152 (which includes the metallic and glitter variety) some serious monochromatic competition. I want naming rights (“late afternoon mulberry leaf”, “lemon-lime sawgrass”, “drooping Genovese basil”).

As I wrap up the end of a two-week post-op recovery period, I’m wistful about leaving this place for the heat-holding concrete of downtown, where even the carefully curated trees that surround the statehouse look like they’re waiting for a better offer and would relocate in a hot minute. I’ve had a rare and continuous front-row seat to the land and all of her daily evolutions, from quiet sunrises to the chickens’ proud and noisy midmorning egg-laying announcements (that sound, I swear, exactly the same as their “Help!! There’s a hawk circling!!” squawks, that pull me off the overstuffed chair in the living room and racing down the slope to the coop…only to congratulate the girl who just gave it her all and left the evidence in a belly-shaped hollow of straw), all the way to the hypnotic and mystical rising of the fireflies from the grass, just before the sun disappears below the tree line that holds the winding path of the creek in its finger-roots. In my middle of the night trips downstairs, I stop long enough to ease the front door open and step onto the porch, into slightly cooler night air (even a heat dome needs to power down a little) and listen to the richness of a silence only darkness can hold. If there’s anyone reading this who would like to subsidize this generously sacred life rhythm of mine, please private message me.

The relentless humidity has filled the sky with towering and pillowy columns of clouds that make me want to become a lifetime member of the International Cloud Appreciation Society (yes, that’s a real thing) and I’ve spent the past week braving the heat to stand below what can only be described as the largest skyscape oil painting I’ve ever seen. To be fair, the view from the 21st floor at the downtown office doesn’t disappoint, offering unmatched panoramic views of storms making their way across the tops of the tallest buildings, and I get to see what raindrops look like long before they flatten at gravity’s bidding on the sidewalks below. But it’s at least eight degrees cooler on my front porch, where the nearest stone is the walkway of 16”-square pavers I arranged in a curved path on the grass last month, guiding visitors to the welcome mat below the screen door. And no streaming subscription’s menu of new and bygone movies or vintage sitcoms could ever compete with the entertainment value of a laying flock and four young cats. Grab a cold LaCroix from the fridge, pull a deck chair into a shady spot and enjoy the show. If you’re lucky, the adolescent raccoons will arrive early and take wildlife-meets-domestic hilarity to new levels.

For all that I’ve written about this slice of paradise that is truly home to me, it’s still hard to describe its wonder, its magic, and its mystery adequately. It must be experienced, over time, to be understood, to be believed, to be loved. During thunderstorms that put me on respectful alert, when a days-old deer looks me square in the eye from its safer place by mama’s side across the creek, and how the trees’ uppermost branches groan and clack softly into each other while a strong wind pushes through…I live and move and have my being here, with all the gratitude and humility I can summon. “Luck” doesn’t begin to cover it. This is about a relationship, the likes of which I have never known.

Home.

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Touched

Surgery went well. Pretty much textbook all the way.

Much of last Monday morning’s experience is blurry around the edges, but I remember the anesthesiologist telling me from far away to “take five deep breaths”, and someone slowly stroking the back of my right hand and wrist in the most soothing way (almost like they knew I was a bit anxious). I woke up in a small recovery bay, curtain drawn, throat scratchy from the intubation tube, my inhales shallow and ragged, and my sister, Jane, holding my hand through the bars on the bed’s safety rail.

I felt reassured, safe, precious, loved.

On the way home from the hospital, she stopped at a small market and bought me chicken and wild rice soup, dill pickle potato chips and nitrite-free turkey. I was looking forward to a light lunch and a heavy nap when we got home. I don’t remember getting out of her car, walking up the porch steps, or changing my clothes. But when I woke up from that heavy nap, she was still there, sitting in our great-aunt Louise’s platform rocking chair just outside the doorway to the kitchen. Her gentle presence touched my soul. Indelibly.

That was one experience of thousands in my short lifetime of being touched, at all levels, from all dimensions, and the key moments that stood out. I accept that the rest will be blurry around the edges, retrievable at some later and final hour, perhaps. The significance of touch is well-researched, and the findings consistently reaffirm this primal need of ours, to be in contact with each other, closely and regularly, to the benefit of our health at all levels, from all dimensions. Social convention still silently requires us to offer apologies for accidental contact—bumping into someone in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store, or at the concessions stand at a concert venue, but hopefully, we wrap our “sorry” in smiles of reassurance that we meant no harm. For that infinitesimally tiny connection, we are given the chance to remind each other that proximity matters and can see those brief encounters as a portal to the simple understanding that we’re one family and, for the most part, are good and decent members of the same tribe. We lean more toward kindness than violence, no matter what the headlines say (for evidence, please see the footage from the rescue efforts in Venezuela, or go to any local farmers’ market).

Blessedly, this power of touch and connection spirals out to include all living things. Several times each day, I register the comfort and softness of my cats’ fur and can tell, just by touch, who is who, based on their fur’s texture and length, the shape of their spine, size of their paws, and how Bumper has a notch in his right ear. On my morning walks, I reach up to feel the velvet-like side of a new sycamore leaf (more established leaves are smooth) and on my fingertip, I catch a single drop of dew hanging securely from a slender branch. It feels cool as I rub it into my cheek. Baptisms come in all forms.

The grass beneath our bare feet, the solid wood of the family dining room table, the reliable arms of a parent holding their sleeping child, a firm and friendly handshake from our new supervisor, an unbreakable embrace with our one true love… We need this stuff on a daily basis, no holding back. In those reels of the survivors being pulled from between the cracked concrete walls of collapsed buildings in La Guaira, Venezuela, I watch all the hands that pass a dusty litter along a human tunnel of support, carrying someone’s 12-year-old son and placing him carefully, joyously, into the back of a waiting ambulance. I think, “this is what community looks like”, while a packed crowd, standing shoulder to shoulder, no space between them at all, claps and cheers. It’s who we are at a cellular level—caring, eager to help, hungry for the kind of celebration that only true human connection can offer. Disasters bring that out in us, of course, but it isn’t necessary to wait for tragedy in order to feel the urgency of our need to touch and be touched. We were made to fasten ourselves to each other’s benefit, well-being, and deeper purpose. We need only pay attention for the opportunity to do so and accept—or extend—the invitation.

I know it’s hot this week, and the idea of being in someone else’s personal space might seem pretty low on the list of desirables. But the heat dome ain’t gonna last forever, and maybe in a few days, you’ll find yourself standing next to that living invitation to connect, if only for a small moment of your life. I know you’ll be kind, and reassuring, and sincere.

And better for saying “yes” to the opportunity.

In Between

I love how the morning fog makes the air look soft.

From my customary perch on a massive fallen black walnut tree just ten yards in from the walking path, I sit silent as a rock while the mist mutes the rough edges of a shagbark hickory and pulls me into all sorts of imaginings and stories, as only the a fog-draped forest can do. A crow overhead laughs his way across the canopy, joined by his sisters in cackling merriment. It’s encouraging to hear the songs of those early returning bird relatives and my heart feels softened too with the promise of another spring just behind the curtains.

Winter still has us clutched in its chilly fist—who knows what that cagey ol’ March will bring?—but we know we’ve turned that corner just an inch. If you haven’t started tomato and cabbage seedlings, better get a move on. And those fingerlings, they can be pushed into the cold soil in a few weeks; please don’t let the mud put you off. They love that (you can always hose off your boots later, like…in October when you’re done with the harvest). The garlic bulbs my sister and I pressed into small holes of dirt last fall are still sleeping but, I suspect, with one eye open in anticipation of that “go!” trigger that will send their best shoots upward and on their way to being garlic scape pesto for our early summer pasta dishes. Sometimes I walk ‘round their raised bed just to cheer them on. Over my shoulder, the patient volunteer mulberry tree that claimed her spot smack in the middle of the garden holds herself in readiness, dreaming, I’m sure, of the loads of fruit that will bend her branches toward the thin grass in the first weeks of June. I’ll be ready with that berry juice-stained white sheet I spread at her feet to collect them all.

Living in the space of not-yet, the in between of two stark and generous seasons, it’s hard not to anticipate what’s next, what could happen, what might make itself known, and suddenly, winter will melt the last of her icy-fingered grip on our souls, giving spring all kinds of room to charm and delight us once again. I’ve welcomed this transition 60+ times in my short life and she always catches me by surprise with her birdsong and flowing creeks and slippery mud. Moles push mounds of crumbly rich earth through last year’s matted old thatch, dotting the slope down to the old goat barn like chocolate sprinkles on an elaborately decorated farm-themed cake. The mower is in the shop for its annual tune-up and my dreams are filled with the scent of freshly cut grass.

I suppose we’re always in between something, aren’t we? This season or that one, last year’s birthday and this year’s Christmas, sunrise and dusk, beginnings and endings (whether we know they’re coming or not). And it’s in that middle place where life happens—to us, through us, and with us. The weather just makes it a little more real and stirs the longing in our hearts toward a future that isn’t promised to anyone. Sitting in the old red chair from the lake house, the one I happily inherited when Mom and Dad could no longer spend their summers there, I am here, now, pulling words into sentences and grateful that two of the four kitties are romping outside beneath the stars. I’m in between hours spent in the studio and a clean, comfortable bed waiting to cradle me off to sleep. I need nothing more than what I have in this moment, and the next, and the next. My lungs work beautifully, I fed myself a wonderful dinner, my teeth are brushed and there’s a stillness surrounding me that only the house can give.

If now is all we have, I can live with that. So can the robin perched in the uppermost branches of the silver maple sapling behind the house, singing as if she never left. And the creek, filled with last month’s melted snowfall, gurgles its way over the rocks and fallen branches-turned-bridges, knowing only her need to keep moving. Funny, isn’t it, how the space in between moments is so darn full? As if it isn’t “space” at all.

In so many ways, spring is already here.