Humbled. Again.

Last week was pretty rough at work, so I thought I’d make a few pairs of lounge pants for some friends and my husband.

Why did I think that would help? It didn’t.

Two months ago, I gutted my art/sewing studio in a pandemic lockdown-fueled burst of tidying up, and found a lounge pants pattern I’d used before the turn of the century. I set it aside on the “don’t give this away” pile and plowed ahead with sorting buttons or some other Important Craft Supply. I remember making a pair that was far too big for me, out of fabric with small chickens and eggs on it, and lounged about the house in them for a few years before giving them to the thrift store in another burst of studio/sewing room tidying up (non-pandemic-fueled). Now I wish I’d saved them, because I can’t find the pattern and ended up buying a new one deceptively labeled as “easy” and “ for the beginner.”

I don’t know what skill level comes before “beginner”, but I’m currently in that category (probably all by myself), at least with this pattern, while the ghosts of my more capable sewing ancestors giggle and roll their eyes from their perches on my family tree. It’s embarrassing—must I always make my mistakes in front of a crowd? It would seem so.

Right now there are thirty yards of fabric patiently waiting their turn on the ironing board while I teach myself again how to read a sewing pattern. I made it as far as pinning the frighteningly-fragile tissue paper pattern to the fabric and cutting out the pieces (I want points for that—it’s not hard, but tedious). Then, with “right sides together”, followed the instructions to stitch the “pants front to the pants back along the inside leg seam.” That’s where things went wrong and haven’t corrected themselves (meaning, I went to bed and the elves didn’t finish the job). I’m glad I did laundry Friday and no one is waiting in a state of undress somewhere for me to finish these. At ease, folks. Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. It’s going to be a while.

If you know me even casually, you know I lean a lot toward connecting thoughts and events and circumstances that occur a few miles or days apart. Earlier this week, one of my day job’s to-do list items was rewriting pattern instructions for the good and talented volunteer team members who make items of comfort and dignity for our hospice patients. This team is a solid group of heart-driven individuals whose sewing and crafting skills cover a broad spectrum. My own sewing skills fall somewhere in the “fair to middling” spot on that continuum, and I create my own shortcuts, like every good sewing person does (slight departure—what do you call someone who sews? A “sewer”? I’m not sure I like the looks of that. I’ve seen a growing linguistic movement toward “sewist” in some spots—mostly social media—and it sounds only a bit better. I’ll stick with my commitment to people-first language and use “people who sew”. My apologies for its cumbersome-ness). Writing new assembly instructions for a patient gown or a bone-shaped neck pillow is more daunting than it sounds, since most of this team buzzes right through the process using techniques they’ve perfected over the years. When you slow that process down, step by step, and try to view it through the eyes of a beginner or someone who doesn’t sew at all, there’s a tendency to overthink and overcomplicate the wording.

Now we’ve entered my realm of expertise and mastery.

So there I am on a Tuesday, and a Wednesday, trying to deconstruct the process for making a catheter bag cover (which is a entry-level item on the sewing skills scale), and I’m leaning hard on my gift of overcomplicating the wording. I won’t bore you with the details, but as I continued to wrestle with describing when and how to attach the straps to the bag and where to put the hook pieces of the hook-and-loop attachments, I got a pretty bad case of the cranks, and may have even uttered a few unrepeatable oaths directed toward the yet-to-join-our-team beginner (but honestly, myself): it’s a simple tote bag design, for Pete’s sake! (but…I didn’t say Pete). Just look at the photo of the finished one and figure it out! I tried to put my heart back in a more charitable seat, but failed rather well. Not shy about asking for help, I did just that and now have better instructions without the stink of frustration all over them (thanks, Jo).

I wouldn’t wager much money on it, but I’d put something on the table that a day of internally berating some unknown, well-intentioned future hospice volunteer over the instructions for a sewing pattern, for Pete’s sake! (again, didn’t say Pete) may have come back with its mouth full of teeth to bite me when I saw the word “easy” on that lounge pants pattern and considered myself easily above that. Of course I can make five pairs of lounge pants in a weekend, and a bonus pair of boxer shorts for Patrick! How hard can it be?

Apparently, rather hard. In fact, at the moment, all quite impossible until I put on my factory-made (thank goodness) big girl pants and get back into that sewing room for another round of Liz’s Head Meets Sewing Pattern Logic. I’ve got six people and thirty yards of fabric counting on me not to wimp out.

(Hello, Jo?…)

What the Leaves Know

For all kinds of reasons, or no reason at all, I’m unusually drawn to autumn’s bounty this year, in the form of dry or damp, colorful or nondescript leaves at my feet.

They’re everywhere. And I can’t take my eyes off of them.

I’ll need a good chiropractor to straighten the near-permanent curve in my neck, made so by the perpetual head-bowed position as my eyes rake the ground for these once-a-year treasures. As a former antique dealer, I know how to collect things and I’m not sure the switch ever turned off completely (see “Breaking Up With Stuff”, July 8, 2019), but in the category of Natural Things That Have Fallen to the Ground, I’m bordering on an obsession. Acorns, twigs, hickory nuts, empty and discarded black walnut shells from last year…but I leave the dropped buckeyes alone in the driveway. This year’s harvest is meager compared to years past, and I want to give the squirrels a fighting chance to make it through the winter. If you’ve ever peeled the blond, somewhat spiky and foam-like covering from a freshly-fallen buckeye nut to reveal the mahogany-colored jewel within, you know the importance of keeping that magic going year upon year. Best not to be greedy in our gathering.

This morning, as I rounded the corner on the last leg of my walk and entered the inner sanctum that is the meadow-woods, I watched from a distance as a black walnut tree on the path randomly (or not? I may never know) dropped one of its ovate yellow-tan leaves and some unseen pocket of air wafted it gently to rest atop a flat pile of others, now brown and wet with morning damp. It fell silently, solitary and brave. Has anyone ever contemplated the sound of a leaf falling in the forest, if no one is there to witness or cup an ear to catch its landing? For all that one little leaf knew, I didn’t exist at all. I thanked the meadow-woods for its quiet and stepped forward, my boots slooshing through the wet carpet of fellow mulberry, ash, and sassafras leaves, a few of them now plastered to the toes of those boots, stowaways looking for new adventures down the path.

I don’t want to overthink this, but an intuition deep within keeps bobbing to the surface asking for a moment of my mind’s time. Admittedly, I’m not that good at letting go. Goodbyes are high on my list of what I wish I could sidestep, but I’ve gathered them just the same, going on five or more decades now. You’d think by sheer volume and repetition alone I’d at least be approaching some level of Farewell Mastery. But no. Partings and movings-on still leave behind a wide range of searing scars and wincing scrapes; I lean heavily on the grace of new life, another Spring, and the endless gifts of a creative spirit to help me pick up and continue. Most days I do just fine, until I remember that I can’t call Mom and Dad to tell them about my day or hear about theirs. But this year, I stoop to get a closer look at the dying, the left-behind outer coverings or attachments of the once-living. I look up and in every direction, colorful end-of-life all around me. It’s making me go all quiet and introspective. A tree, any tree, dropping its leaves one or seven at a time, offers both wisdom and comfort. I sit upon her roots, listening for what I need to hear.

Patrick and I have come to understand and accept that something called us to this place of woods and wildness twenty-plus years ago, and the lessons are thick and rich each season. But I don’t recall paying attention to the comings and goings (mostly goings) in my life as much as I have these past several months. There’s an urgency lately to be more mindful than ever before, to notice and cherish and hold close to my heart everything and everyone that has knitted themselves into our lives. It may be a cosmic coincidental overlapping of an untamed global pandemic mixed with a turbulent election year that also happens to be taking place at this point in my developmental trajectory—I get that. Pluck any one of those elements from the others and it would be enough to make anyone seek out the company of a tall and patient cottonwood, its branches soaring 100 feet upward. Surely something that tall (and still here) must know something about life that I don’t.

But what is it about the leaves at their feet, dying and on their way to becoming next year’s compost, that captivates me so? The variety of colors alone holds my gaze and moves me forward seeking the next one that will be even more brilliant, more gasp-worthy (I hope Patrick doesn’t expect me to get any outdoor chores done quickly these next few weeks. It takes me fifteen minutes just to walk from the back door to the chicken coop a mere ten yards away to gather the day’s egg). I consider the possibility that dying leaves contain an element of beauty and poetic comfort while the tree still stands, naked and vulnerable and waiting for Spring. That birds and raccoons and humans receive the shade of a silver maple in the summer and marvel at the architecture of its leafless bones in winter, that season when we’re all in this together as the north winds blow away everything that no longer matters. As my thoughts travel such a bittersweet and balanced path, I find it uncharacteristically reassuring. Someday, I’ll shed colorful leaves of my own, in the form of stories and a modest collection of treasured objects that perhaps the young ones in my life will also cherish.

In the meantime, the child that I still am walks playfully beneath the swaying arms of these gentle giants and I gather their colorful fallen clothing, rationalizing that the red on this one is different than the reddish-orange on that one so I simply must have both. My growing leaf collection is the book I study in this autumn’s classroom, and for some reason this year, I read every word on the page.

(The mask in the photo was a birthday gift from Patrick, made by Rebecca Wentworth-Kuhn. Others she’s made are for sale at Old Mr. Bailiwick’s in Mt Vernon, Ohio.)

Can You Hear Me Now?

Copper, the feline matriarch of our household, circles my feet as I move into the Downward Dog pose. My four-legged yoga coach for going on five years now, she checks my form and balance before settling herself right where my palms need to be on the floor and assumes a pose of her own, Cat Must Groom Herself NOW, showing off a flexibility I can’t even dream of.

Such a scene is, more or less, how I start my days. The sun is still just a good idea and on its way to slowly pushing the dark canopy of stars aside, the house sits a quiet and protective shell around us and everything we’ve collected so far, and except for that one floorboard in the bedroom near the hutch that protests my weight as I step about in the darkness to gather my socks (peeled off and flung out from under the covers hours ago), not a sound pierces the air I’m breathing. Yet another moment I’d like to suspend in time, on the same list as holding Patrick’s hand after dinner and savoring the last sips of a most excellent and rich Argentinian Malbec.

It’s been a rather loud and raucous week (yes, that includes the first presidential debate).

At work, most if not all of our meetings are virtual as we continue to hunker down in our respective offices (some of them doubling as our bedrooms where we sleep). In my work office, I raise my voice and face the computer monitor on my desk, speaking into the screen, though I know the mic is actually located on the laptop anchored to a docking station just off to the right of my desk set-up. I wonder how that sounds to those listening? Like I’m tense or angry or forcefully trying to make my point, persuade them out of their own ideas? Not my intention at all, but I feel as if I’m throwing my full body weight into these discussions and when they’re done, sometimes I need a short walk outside just to shift the energy into a calmer place.

When I do go out in public, mostly for medical or must-be-done-in-person business transactions, I feel like I’m yelling through two layers of cotton, as if that will help me convey more accurately the intended message, and I’ve noticed that I’m forming the shape of the words on my lips more deliberately, even though no one can see the effort. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard to tell someone I’d like those test results emailed to me, or I don’t need a car wash today, just the oil changed, thank you. Pre-pandemic, I’m sure communication was challenging at times, but these past several months, it’s become a real workout. I so want to be understood, to be heard, to have my words and messages land as I hope they will—clearly, kindly, with a good heart behind them. That’s easier without the mask and a six-foot canyon between us, where tone and facial expressions can drop off the ledges and disappear into a craggy maw of misunderstanding. But my concern for the health of my fellow humans is still more important than my interpersonal communicative convenience, so I plod along, masked and far away, wondering if my eyes, eyebrows and forehead can bear the added weight of conveying those meaning-defining nonverbal cues.

Remember when we used to be able to whisper? When we could be that close? When meetings we attended gave us full access to the information we needed and our clarifying questions were minimal? When our throats weren’t dry from breathing in lint and shouting, and we knew what each other’s teeth looked like? (Diastemas, coffee-stained enamel and all. What a perfect time to have braces and not be self-conscious about smiling). This has been technology’s finest hour in so many ways—giving us video chats and helping us sharpen our texting game. But when the internet connection decides to go on vacation in the middle of an online training, or our physician’s audio cuts out during our telehealth appointment just as she’s outlining a treatment plan, we’re reminded that even the intricate wizardry of a motherboard has its limitations. Turning up the volume isn’t going to add anything helpful here, except perhaps draining the pressure valve on some pent-up frustration.

As a species, we’re normally a noisy bunch, and sound-mapping studies before and after pandemic-related lockdowns revealed the impact of not going about our loud business day after day. Birdsong and other natural sounds landed more distinctly on our ears, as global transportation’s relentless hum shrank to almost nothing. It fed both our hunger for silence and stillness and our anxiety about those same aspects of the human enterprise; some of us still navigate the tension between them. If that feels and sounds like your current situation, I encourage you to take a few steps back and let yourselves remember that we’re all still new to How You Carry On During A Global Pandemic. The playbook for all of this is being written as we’re living through it. Perhaps the silence is the gift that offers a chance to hear what we’ve been missing (which may be nothing at all, and that’s not a bad thing), and the stillness an opportunity to give our frantic, ever-cycling minds a healing pause. Unsettling, I know, but good medicine nonetheless.

Someday, dear friends, we will get to stand closer together like we used to, our smiles (laced with braces and diastemas and coffee-tinted teeth) in full view and our entire faces working those nonverbals for all they’re worth. We’ll get to add touch to our conversations, throw our heads back to get the most of an unmasked guffaw in response to a brilliantly-landed punch line, and not look over our shoulders at a cautionary medical finger saying “not yet, it’s not safe”. We will emerge on the other side of this, wiser for having wrapped our arms willingly around the gift of a temporary near-soundless existence, slowing our steps to a more attentive pace.

Until then, morning yoga with a learned feline coach is just one coping strategy.

What’s yours?

Another Trip Around the Sun

Along the banks of the creek, at the foot of the Old Man sycamore tree, the wild asters open their tiny white faces to the east for a fleeting glimpse of the morning sun. Not even two hours past sunrise, they’ll spend the rest of the day in cool shade and dappled sunlight until the last winds of autumn strip the overhead branches bare. I love how they are not a bit bothered or preoccupied by headlines, deadlines, or the ticking of a timepiece. They simply push past the soil’s crumbly top layer, wedge themselves between the sawgrass and the ironweed and unfold their petals without fanfare. I register the tiniest shred of envy in my heart and then let it go. Who knows what they must long for sometimes from my own existence? Chocolate, perhaps, or the ability to embroider?

It’s my birthday (on a Saturday too—how’s that for luck?), and I’ve parked myself on a blanket down in the meadow with a full and grand view of the slope up to the house. I’m sitting in the lap of All Things Sacred, encircled in a leafy embrace and deeply aware that to unwrap this gift, I need only open my eyes. As I sift through twenty years of Naked Acres images collected with those same eyes, I try to remember what this exact spot looked like when Patrick and I first stood here. I distinctly recall watching in silent mouth-open awe as two red tailed hawks circled over our heads against a backdrop of an ice-blue late March sky. In a smooth but quick flash, they suddenly locked talons and spiraled downward in some unseen column of love and air, their spring courtship a clear sign that we would get to unfold our young marriage into this space, gathering our shared stories beneath the ever-changing and always-perfect skies.

I cannot guess how old that Old Man sycamore is, but can tell you that Patrick and I could not clasp hands and fully encircle him. A round and rusty cast iron fence post, from the previous residents’ dairy farming days decades ago, looks as if it’s sinking slowly into the bark at the base of this tree’s magnificent trunk, a strange sort of vertical quicksand illusion. Bits of razor wire hold fast to the cold metal, barnacle-like and crusty, and a coiling vine of determined poison ivy snakes up the length of the post on its way to a branch that hangs over the creek. It all looks excruciatingly painful and yet, there’s a feeling of patient acceptance; this Grandfather has withstood worse and kept on growing. A metaphor of grieving moves across my thoughts’ path and comes to rest: tempting as it is to cut that fence post out from the thick bark in that massive trunk, such a thing would be more harm than help. Best to leave it be. Old Man has made this post part of himself and moved on. So it is with the losses that leave their mark on us. We grow around the hurt and bring it with us on the journey.

Will trees ever stop teaching us? Oh, I hope not.

The cricketsong is nonstop now, in classic symphonic end-of-summer fashion, the soundtrack of leaves falling in random showers and wind-swirls. It will be cold and silent all too soon, so in spite of my tinnitus, I welcome the continuous rhythmic scratchety music of these invisible relatives and send up another bucketload of thanks for the surgeon who fixed my otosclerosis back at the turn of the century. Most certainly a gift that has kept on giving, loud and unmistakably wonderful. I took Friday off, an early present to myself, and spent the morning clearing path through the woods between the fasting site and the trail up the Hill. Lopers in hand and under the tender supervision of a patient tree frog who watched my every move, I cut back thickets of tenacious multiflora rose vines, collected fallen black walnut and sassafras branches and broke them across my knee, and pulled Virginia creeper vines from the trunks of young saplings with my gloved hands. I lost all sense of time and sank into the woods like a fairy creature. It was simply splendid.

That I even get to keep marking this day, year after year, is not a casual occasion for me. I’ve had my share of knife’s-edge moments, and for reasons known and unknown, have been given the privilege of twenty-four more hours over and over and over until I land on this birth anniversary again, looking over my shoulder at a pile of miracles and peering into the mist of a mysterious future not promised to me or anyone else. When I do the math and add up the sunrises, the winters-into-springs and even the trips to the grocery store for Fuji apples, I’m stunned down to my socks at the sheer unrelenting abundance of the life I’ve been given to live.

In the shelter of an Old Man’s leafy and knowing arms, a canopy of history filtering the sun that woke me up this morning, I sit in silent mouth-open awe once more, buckled up for what this next trip will bring. If that sun keeps coming up, I’m gladly and gratefully along for the ride.