Christmas Presence

It’s Christmas morning.

Soggy matted leaves underfoot make for a quieter walk as I head deeper into the field where the sycamores live. Shrouded in an east-coast-like mist, I can hear last night’s thin coating of ice melting in random and singular drops from the branches of trees that line the path; if I close my eyes and forget that I’m wearing two layers of everything except socks and boots, it could be an early summer rain shower. A red-tail circles and screeches overhead, skimming the tops of the black walnuts and mulberries in the meadow. I shift my listening from the melting ice drops to its cry, and wish I was more fluent in hawk. I shall tuck the sound away in my soul for later study and meditation.

Just about the time I reach the corner where the field meets the western edge of the woods, it’s apparent that Santa gave one of the neighbors a new 4-wheeler. I followed the revving motory sound as it moved from the road I couldn’t see at the end of our driveway some eighteen acres from where I stood, and headed east through the back roads that wind through our little agri-hood. The sweet morning silence ripped clean through, I still suspended judgment and criticism, imagining the rider’s happiness spreading across his or her chilled and rosy cheeks, and let the engine’s roar fade as I pulled my attentive ear back to the hawk-song and ice-melt. It’s a skill I learned back in the 90’s when I was hard-of-hearing and heading toward deaf. Whenever the audio around me was too mumbled and indistinct, I could easily retreat to the silence within and stay there for moments or longer, until someone invited me to return to the conversation I’d just left. A couple of surgeries in 2004 slammed me back into a noisy and cacophonous world, and I’m not complaining, mind you (the first woodpeckers of spring still top the list of sounds I cherish when winter’s snow-muffled peace gives way to the party that IS new life on this land we love), but I emerged from the post-op experience with a new appreciation for one sound at a time, and a volume control in the capable hands of nature. I remember asking Patrick to stop by the gun store on our way home from a surgery follow-up appointment so I could get some earplugs. The look on his face…we just spent $60k (a grand and humorous exaggeration) to fix your hearing and you want to muffle the sounds?? He’s a patient soul; even got me a little plastic carrying case for them.

In the twenty years we’ve been here, I’ve noticed and willingly surrendered to my hunger for silence and solitude. Of course nature will do that, if we’re out in it long enough and often enough. I’m not the one to say, but wonder how that inner evolution has changed the way I carry myself around other humans. I’d enjoy hearing that I’m calmer, more respectful, patient and a better listener (please feel free to use the Comments feature on this blog to confirm that; private message me if you think I’ve got more work to do), or that I’ve at least moved the needle on a couple of those.

There are so many good teachers who share the acreage with us. A red tail hawk will perch unmoving for hours on a branch above the creek bank, its head bowed in almost-prayerful concentration as it waits for some future nourishment to crawl though the grasses. The cottonwoods to the west stand straight and towering as the wind sets their leaves to a dangly dance, and I notice the contrast of movement alongside stillness in the same living being. Much like us, I suppose, as our thoughts spool along in random noiseless travels while our hands rest quietly in our laps during a meeting, a sermon, or that cherished pre-dawn meditation practice that will shape the hours of the day ahead.

For reasons that are not my story to tell, I spent this Christmas morning alone with the land’s teachers. No gifts to unwrap, no holiday brunch around a table with others. And not much noise (the 4-wheeler’s intrusion now forgiven and nearly forgotten) save for melting ice dropping onto soggy leaves below my feet and the morning song of a hungry hawk above my head. This year, the best gift the land gave me was a lesson about being, not doing.

My heart is already writing the thank you note.

Why Today is a Great Day

I’m making a more deliberate effort to pay attention to my morning first thoughts and first “self-talk” of the day, and it’s been an alarming wake-up call to action, a clear invitation to soften the inner verbal blows I land on my own chin.

I don’t know how common (normal?) this tendency is; perhaps I’m in the small group of folks who awaken to mostly negative thoughts and a short list of self-critical observations, most of which consist of an age-appropriate checklist of what hurts, what aches, what needs to be stretched, and admonishments to exercise more and longer, eat better. You can see how this might not set the best tone for the day ahead. A now-deceased but at the time older relative used to call this her own personal “organ recital”. In my youth, I laughed at her choice of words. I’m not laughing now, and at a loss for a better way to describe it.

But this morning, after a few weeks of mostly nonjudgmental “noticing” what I think and say to myself at the start of each day, I interrupted the monologue with these equally-valid and more encouraging observations:

I can get up and out of bed without assistance.

My sinuses are clear.

Not one of the cats missed its aim in the litter box last night.

I cut an apple for breakfast without injury. I fed myself.

The faucets in the bathtub worked predictably again, and the water was pleasantly warm.

The nine-year-old kitchen remodeling job still looks fresh and cozy. There is simple and edible food in the fridge.

My husband loves me and is faithful still, 26 years and counting. We kissed goodbye this morning and said “I love you” to each other. Again. 26 years and counting.

I have gainful, meaningful work, good health benefits and nurturing relationships with most of my co-workers.

The furnace works. So do the heaters in both of our trucks.

I didn’t back into the used trailer Patrick just bought and parked at the bottom of the driveway.

The full moon shining through the bones of the trees was stunning on my way down the porch steps, and through the bedroom window before I even rubbed the dreams out of my eyes.

No near misses on the commute into the city for work. I wished my fellow drivers a good day doing whatever they needed to do, instead of seeing them all as reckless competition for lane-changing privileges.

Due to a technical glitch, I wasn’t able to get into the office using my key fob, but had a warm vehicle to sit in until help arrived.

My back doesn’t hurt today.

The north wind isn’t harsh and punishing, but crisp and refreshing.

I can still remember the sound of my dad’s laugh, and the shape of my mom’s mouth when she smiled.

I can hear, and see, and food tastes good, and my hands have finally warmed up.

The septic repair wasn’t as extensive as we feared (truly—Feared) it would be.

My socks are dry and clean.

I actually enjoy flossing my teeth.

Thanks to two humble parents, I have lived the bulk of my life in the “it doesn’t take much” column. And while it’s not my call entirely, to describe myself as easy-going, I do check that now and again, and ask for input from those in the Inner Circle whose opinions carry the most weight. So far, they’re on board with my self-assessment and love me enough to tell me when I’ve overstepped the mark. Let’s add that to the list: I have people in my life I can trust to tell me the truth without doing damage.

I have no idea what you’re doing or where you are in your life’s challenges as you read this. I can only hope that your inner dialogue is more kind than critical, more gentle than punitive, and more curious than resigned. Life is challenging enough without our piling on as if we could handle a heavier load, or worse, deserve it.

Leave the judge and jury behind today. They could use a day off. And so could you.

According to Plan

I could have sworn my dental appointment was at 10:30. I built my entire day around it:

6:45am: leave home for meeting at Columbus office.

8:00am: meeting at Columbus office

9:55am: leave Columbus office for dental appointment with Morgan.

12:00pm: return to Columbus office. Work all afternoon (meetings at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:15).

8:00pm: home to feed the cats, lock up chickens, and play the last free Tiles game in the New York Times’ puzzles section on my phone.

8:10pm: brush and floss because, you know, make Morgan proud.

I made it as far as the middle school about twenty minutes away and realized I wasn’t wearing my glasses. That’s pretty much a deal-breaker, so I turned around in the parking lot of the school’s bus garage and swam upstream in the dark against a long line of fellow commuters who clearly had their stuff together that morning better than I did.

For a flash of a moment, it felt like I was about to play hooky, heading home to all the comforts I’d just left behind (couch, cat, plush fleece throw draped over the arm of said couch) while my neighbors and all their friends dutifully zoomed forward as one on the two-lane country road that fed an ocean of city-bound wage earners.

Another flash of a moment: October 2016. My sister Peggy and I, driving from the condo we were renting with our husbands on Tybee Island into Savannah for scones and tea from The Pie Society, to sit at a white cast iron bistro table just outside the entrance while the good citizens of Georgia’s coastal jewel scurried across the bricks of City Market to clock in at the bank and the tourist information booth and Mrs. Byrd’s Cookies shop. We’d planned this trip for months, and particularly, this insane get-up-early-on-a-weekday-while-you’re-on-vacation breakfast with the express purpose of watching other folks go to work.

I know—not our most mature hour.

We knew, though, in a week’s time we’d be back in that flow of responsible grown-ups, punching our own clocks and setting our minds and shoulders to noble work. So, we enjoyed our scones and that delicious moment of pausing the routine of our lives, trying hard not to neener-neener too much.

Meanwhile, back to the day I thought I had planned so well: I pulled up to the house, left the truck running, and snatched my glasses from the end table on Patrick’s side of the couch (that’s where everything went wrong—I never put them down on his end table, since it’s the farthest away from the front door. I always set them on the edge of my end table so it’s a quick grab-and-go. When I go all senile in some unknown decade to come, my routines will either make or break me, I’m sure). I took the deck steps in one leap on my run back to the truck and had just shifted into reverse when my phone chirped with a text from my dentist, who was looking forward to seeing me that morning at 8:30. 8:30? Are they sure?? What madness is this? My appointments with Morgan are always at 10:30. Apparently not. It was 7:05; if I left now, I’d be 45 minutes early. That didn’t seem wise, even if they do have a massage chair just off the waiting room. But back inside the house, there weren’t really any 45-minute projects that needed doing, so I sat with my foot on the brake, still in reverse, considering my options. Tea with one of the cats? A short walk through the meadow? Anything to sew or a book to read? Tea with Xena on my lap won the toss, and on the other side of the dentist, I headed to the office with a lingering taste of raspberry tooth polish on my tongue, rehearsing apologies in my head for the meeting I missed.

I run a pretty tight ship in the morning when it comes to the unfolding of my day. Edges as sharp as a road map, and just as fussy about being re-folded properly, there’s a train schedule-like precision to what awaits me on the other side of the warm blankets of a bed too comfortable for description. When something occurs out of step, the rest of the day slides sideways along with it, and against my organized mind’s best intentions, unravels into a free-love-in-the-60’s rearrangement of meetings, projects, deadlines and late lunches. I try my best to go along with this new scrambled but mostly-harmless flow, whispering promises of “back on track tomorrow” to the anal retentive that makes her home in my soul. I wonder how she’ll do during our first week of retirement (which is still several years away, or so my financial advisor says). A co-worker recently retired after 26+ years, and I rejoiced for her on that uncharacteristically snowy day in early November when she didn’t need to go anywhere beyond her robe and slippers, while I scraped 1/4” of ice from my windshield as the flakes of these efforts fell down my coat sleeves. Sometimes I crave an existence with a looser agenda; most days I’m grateful for the pull of structure and purpose and bi-weekly paycheck security. But driving home to retrieve my only pair of functioning spectacles that morning, I started to have second thoughts of the wild and work-free kind, and even let myself imagine being comfortable with an income that didn’t have forty hours in front of it. As my late father-in-law used to say, “retirement, Liz, has nothing to do with doing nothing.”

He’s right, of course. When the time comes, I’ll change up the content of my days. That’s all, really. They will most likely be just as structured and scheduled and filled with purpose, interrupted by pauses to just be, to receive the moment that’s been placed in my aging hands (that resemble my mother’s with each passing year) until it’s time to bake the bread or bag up this week’s batch of coconut sugar-sweetened granola for the weekend market. I’ll remember where I left my glasses and get on with my day.

For now, I sit in gratitude for the lessons from a day that didn’t go according to plan but worked out the way it needed to. I made it through the x-rays without gagging, and my teeth are clean for another three months.

I’m cool with that.

Three Rainbows and a Deer Blind

It was 6:30am, and strangely darker than I thought it should be.

I’m always the first one up on the weekends, and kept that tradition going this morning as I made my customary pre-dawn walk through the living room to the bathroom (no lights on, but no tripping or stubbing of toes either. I consider this one of my superpowers). I mentioned this strange darker-than-it-ought-to-be observation out loud to one of the cats (couldn’t tell which one because it was dark and I didn’t reach out to touch her fur—that’s how I tell them all apart), who made no comment as I pulled my gaze away from the east-facing bathroom window and picked my way back through the unusually dark living room and into bed. A couple of short dreams later, I opened my eyes to a square of gray light framed by the window and guessed the time to be around 7:15. Checking the clock, I was only off by twelve minutes. Not bad.

The skies were a turbulent mix of dark gray clouds with random cottony tufts of white, all moving at a terrific speed as if being pursued by something dangerous. I love watching such drama in the 360-degree amphitheater that surrounds our house; from each window, there was a different weather vignette unfolding into the one next to it. The living room windows face the west, the kitchen has three views to the south, west and north, and the first floor guest room has west and south-facing windows with views of the mulberry saplings and old old goat barn respectively. The bathroom’s only window looks east across the field, as do the windows in the mudroom. Following the path of a storm from inside the house is fantastic exercise, dashing from one side of the house to the other, and we haven’t even talked about the upstairs vantage points (all we’re missing there is a window with a view to the north). Sorry—way too much detail about the layout of our house, but it’s an important context for a good many stories. Well, we think so anyway.

I was putting away a stack of clean towels in the bathroom when the sun pushed its way through a bank of thick clouds, it’s light reflecting off the mirrors of the medicine cabinet. A light rain had been falling and quickly became a downpour. Rainbow, I thought, as I raced out the bathroom door into the living room. And there it was in the west, a sunrise band of colors against that backdrop of slate-colored skies. I crossed my arms and rested them on the window frame, whispering “a morning rainbow…in the west!” as its colors faded and returned and arced across the meadow. Most of the rainbows we’ve seen here have been in the east, near the end of the day as the storm made its way out of town. To wake up to one is a rare and remarkable thing indeed. I took it for the gift that it was, and moved forward with the next tasks on my unwritten to-do list—granola, more laundry, reorganizing the leftovers in the fridge.

Patrick woke up a couple hours later and I suggested we go for a walk out to the woods. Our burgeoning granola business has kept us inside more than outside these past several weeks, and I felt achingly guilty for not walking the paths as late summer yielded to the chilly air of autumn. Strong wind gusts a few nights ago would surely have changed the landscape; we were both curious about which trees had fallen and where.

As we walked the path parallel to our eight acres of woods at the northern-most edge of our property, I noticed someone had set up a deer blind in one of the black walnut trees just a few yards in from where we were walking. They did some pretty deep trespassing to strap the contraption tightly around the trunk, and even though we hadn’t been out this way in a while, it looked newly-installed; gun season starts this week. We understand the hunting culture in these parts, and have had both pleasant and tense encounters with those who saw our land as theirs to roam. We appreciate the ones who practice proper etiquette: request our permission and, when granted, leave nothing but their footprints behind. We struggle with anyone who doesn’t ask first.

We needed to run a few errands, so we walked back to the house, changed up our clothes slightly (walking clothes on a Sunday are not quite suitable for going into town. Yep, even where we live) and headed north to pick up a prescription, buy some birdseed and, now, some new “No Hunting/No Trespassing” signs. The skies continued their shifting sunny-to-stormy demeanor, until suddenly but gently, the second rainbow of the day ribboned across the two-lane road, the clouds covering parts of the arc here and there. I was driving this time, so Patrick had the rare treat of gazing about, drinking in the scenery with more than a quick glance. The west end of the rainbow was huge and bright. We were both convinced we’d be parking beneath it in just a couple of miles, it was that solid.

An hour later, as we walked out of the store with birdseed, suet and signage, a third rainbow planted itself firmly, both ends visible, over the Wal-Mart across the street (the weekend after Black Friday, that might just be some kind of sign from the retail fairies). The woman walking out next to us stopped to take a picture, and other fellow customers exiting the store ooohed and ahhhed along with the rest of us. Made me think of how many times I’ve had the privilege of experiencing rainbow sightings with others. Not many. It was cool.

Patrick and I shared a latte on the way home, and couldn’t remember a three-rainbow day since we’ve lived here (Dear diary…). We also spent a little time wondering uneasily who was in our woods and what they were thinking.

Before the sun slipped down past the Hill to the west, the deer blind was no longer strapped to that tree.

I’ll leave you to your own conclusions.