Seven Deer

The hammock spinners are back.

On a warmer than usual morning last week, the sun rose over their gossamer village, silken cups of arachnid architecture slung and hanging motionless from the dried tips of last year’s goldenrod stalks, the ones the winds couldn’t smack down. Thin cottony tufts of fog (known to us as the breath of God) move imperceptibly across the field, shape-shifting their way into the soft golden light of this fresh day. I move among them in silence, caught in a web of wonder.

Making my way to the southeast corner of the land on a diagonal path smoothed by Patrick’s skill on the mower, I headed toward the site where we buried what was left of the goat barn that burned to the ground one humid July while we slept. We call this spot '“the Grave” and it lies exactly opposite another memorial to the land’s pain, “the Wound”, in the far northwest corner some seventeen acres away. The previous owners leased this acreage to a local farmer who had cobbled together a patchwork of fields from different neighbors, growing the usual corn and soybeans on alternating annual rotations. We met him that spring we arrived on the land, shook his hand to continue the lease and got about planning our land blessing ceremony, not realizing he would cut down several mature trees along the property line so he and his farming equipment could access our field from the neighboring one. We discovered the damage during the land blessing and ended the arrangement the next day. It was a hard lesson in city-kid assumptions about rural handshakes and leased acreage, and a reminder that not everyone lives by the creed to ask permission before taking something. In the twenty-three years since, no trees have grown in that spot.

Somehow, though, between these two points of reckoning, a thriving and vibrant bowl of life has emerged and carries on; we get to traverse its expanse as often as we choose. The field is turning to woods one season and one section at a time as thick stands of rapidly maturing sycamore saplings fill in where the corn used to grow. Mockingbirds have made their secret nests in the uppermost branches of the black walnuts and blue beech and beneath their leafy canopies, the walking paths are a spongy carpet of moss I could easily nap on top of without a care (the minute the paths are dry, I promise). How does Spring still surprise us with its familiar newness each year? In January’s dark and bleak embrace, we wonder if we’ll ever see a hummingbird again and now here they are, buzzing us as we walk from the front deck to our car, demanding to know when the feeders will be refilled. Can the fireflies be far behind?

We need surprises these days. The shock and horror of the world’s ongoing wars and violence parade in front of our sickened faces each day and it’s impossible to look away as our sisters and brothers live through nightmares in their waking hours. If we really are all in this together and for the longest of long hauls, we need a season like spring to distract us even for a moment with her raucous avian symphonies, riots of color and warm reassuring breaths from the south that give us renewed strength for whatever will come. We cannot survive without beauty, spontaneity and moments of wonder. We rightfully hunger for spring’s generosity and kindness because we need to remember our own and then fling it in all directions.

I think that’s why I prefer to walk in the morning, just as the sky is shredding the darkness with shards of new light. I hold dawn’s hand and we step into what’s possible, what’s spread out at our feet to pick up and offer to someone else. I chase ideas through the woods, listen for new and returning winged relatives tapping holes into dead trunks and wonder what will be asked of me today. It’s anyone’s guess and I plan to show up for it, like those deer did last week…

There were seven of them and they were just ten feet away on the other side of the bathroom window’s wavy glass pane, browsing for new grass among the dead ironweed sticks. I saw them from the upstairs east-facing window first before racing down to get a better look, hoping not to startle them (need to do more research about a deer’s eyesight, how they register motion, what’s their peripheral vision like—all that stuff) as I went about my morning ablutions. Even more graceful and elegant up close, they slowly picked their way from one patch to the next, lifting their magnificent heads now and then when they heard or saw something I couldn’t see at all. A young buck was among them, seemed to be leading them farther south with his velvety antlers when it happened. I moved just one step closer to the window and all seven heads raised up, fourteen eyes on the movement they saw through the glass. As one, the herd leapt high, white tails pointing upward in near-perfect formation until their hooves found the path to the Grave, leaving me once again silent in wonder. Within minutes, I was dressed with walking sticks in hand and out the back mud room door to follow them, or at least find where those hooves met the soft chocolate earth.

Spring…it never gets old.

A Cautious Spring Unfolding

The avian air traffic over the meadow has increased delightfully and exponentially in the past week. I know that birds returning to the area are not tethered to the calendar like we are, but they did arrive exactly on the day of the spring equinox, leaving us to wonder which of them had the planner cued up as they made their way from anyplace south of the Ohio River. The soundtrack of my morning walks is now a rich symphony of robinsong, finch calls and woodpeckers who take their role in the percussion section rather seriously. In the swampier areas that line the footpaths by the woods, the spring peepers’ high-pitched chorus slides easily over and around the cardinal’s insistence that warmer days are coming, adding a literal and poetic spring to my step as I move from the field into the creek-blessed meadow. When I arrive back at the house, I’m soaked with the music of all things living, grateful for the season tickets and front row seats we’ve been given (and the mockingbirds aren’t even in the mix yet. Oh my heart…).

Getting to know this land (and she getting to know us) has been a sustained and evolving dance through eighty-nine seasons so far where the somewhat predictable is interrupted by the occasional “what the heck was that ?!”, in the form of a mid-February lightning sky show or a late June derecho that yanked once-sturdy cottonwoods from their sentry positions along the creekbanks and plastered the west side of our house with leaves on its way across the eastern field. Over the years, we’ve tilled and planted, built barns and placed lawn furniture at strategic spots along the walking paths in case we need to sit down in the middle of a morning’s mosey to contemplate the delicate emergence of spring beauties or estimate how many batches of garlic mustard pesto we’ll make between May and July. In the usual lopsided shape of the human-and-natural-world relationship, our side is clearly marked by humble deference (what human can stop a straight line wind with her hand? I mean really…) while Hers is all showy abundance and mystery and a gentle tolerance of our absent-minded and distracted tendencies. I have no intention of trying to balance the scales. Such folly is best left aside and in its place, deep wordless respect, the kind that leaves one’s mouth agape while starting upward into the inky black space above. That, and a promise to return the garden tools to the shed is about all we can offer most days. She seems to understand, or else what was last night’s grand sunset all about?

This morning, she’s dressed in browns and grays, with tiny pearls of early spring snow gadding about in a stiff north wind. A handful of robins march in stop-and-start fits across the just-greening grass, stopping to turn a hidden ear to what might be crawling beneath (at least, that’s what it looks like from the bathroom window) while the green tips of those family heirloom tulips my uncle gave me last fall stand bravely in a line as if guarding the living room windows. Should I wrap them in little tulip plant scarves to ride out this week’s colder temps, or leave them to it and trust, once again, that they have what they need, no help from me? It’s so hard not to intervene.

Inside, the space heater hums warmly with two of the kittens jockeying for the best spot in front of it while Patrick reads next to me on the couch. Breakfast dishes are done, and we’ve committed to a walk later, no matter what the predictions say about where the thermometer’s red line is going to land before it’s time to tuck in the chickens for the night. At day’s end, we’ll lay our heads on the pillowed reassurance of a tulip bulb’s intuition, keeping hope alive for the season that’s only just beginning.

The Relentless Pursuit of Stillness

So one morning I’m racing to get to my massage/acupuncture appointment on time (I’ll just let that sentence sit there for a moment, so you can take in the pure absurdity of it), tapping my fingers impatiently on the wheel as I miss the first of five traffic lights between me and my therapist’s office. I’m not in the proper mindset for this at all but how exactly does one prepare for an hour of lymphatic cleansing and the rebalancing of one’s qi? Should I arrive all chill and relaxed? She’d have nothing to do. It’s like brushing your teeth before you go to the dentist (which I do, religiously, including a double-round of flossing). I arrive all keyed up and unsettled. Now we’re talking noticeable impact when that hour’s done, right?

I’m glad you’ve stayed with me this far.

I’ve been taking massages regularly for the past 20-some years (not counting a pause during the first few months of the pandemic) and credit much of my energy, outlook and general good health to that discipline. I added acupuncture to the menu once my massage therapist completed her training and licensure in that practice several years ago (Patrick tried it first, my little canary in the coalmine) and could go on for days about the difference it’s made. Those bi-weekly treatments are the reason I’m fairly tolerable as a wife, friend and party guest. But it’s not a magic trick. Like any good healthy lifestyle component, I’ve got to pony up some effort to the equation and keep my eye on the desired outcome. Driving pell-mell through our rural area into a small-ish town’s morning rush hour traffic (that means two dozen cars and a solid handful of trucks) on the way to a place that promotes and encourages calm isn’t helping. Thankfully, Nicole knows me well enough now to reassure me that I won’t cancel out the good work she’s about to do for my muscles and that high-functioning lymphatic system of mine. I settle in on the table, exhale and disappear into her skilled kneading, looking forward to the thin needle she’ll insert in the space between my eyebrows and know that whatever was ailing me will be remedied soon.

At the risk of prying, how much time do you spend at rest? On average, and not counting sleeping? What does inertia look like for you? I’ve taken to noticing lately just how constantly in motion my life is, wondering how it got that way and how I’d cope if it came to a screeching halt. Most days I wake up refreshed and ready for what the day is offering, see my energy levels dip a bit after lunch and then rally about thirty minutes before the commute home. Once there, I shed the work clothes and slip into something more “farm work comfortable” before heading out to the garden or down to the chicken coop for egg-gathering. Along the way, there are downed branches and sticks to collect and carry over to the burn pile just north of the barn, and as I pass ransom piles of this and that, I make a mental note of projects waiting for the dryer days of mid-summer. I swear, we’ll get the rest of the antiques out of that barn and into good homes, somehow and finally, finally turn that old wooden headboard we trash-picked into a lovely sitting bench under one of the meadow’s finest and shadiest mulberry trees. Back in the house, in a laundry basket next to the washing machine, is a jute hammock I bought when I was in Nicaragua and it’s never seen the light of day in the thirty-four years since then. If I did put it up between the two black walnuts down by the creek, would I even take an afternoon to recline in it? Only one way to find out.

I dance in the tension between a life with ample moving parts and a desire to settle in for a nap with no expiration date stamped on it. I don’t recall feeling that when we lived in the city/suburbs. Lawn care was easier, we didn’t even think about having chickens and our trees at the time held onto their branches. What is it about the open space of a meadow or the secrets of a black swamp woods that shift our agendas over to a never-ending list of chores that are truly anything but? I welcome the sweet aches that follow a morning’s work planting tomato starts and mulching around their tender green ankles, then putting the fence around the raised bed to deter any ambitious rabbits or climbing groundhogs. On the days when I do wake up earlier than I’d like, the morning walk always—always—sets me straight, erasing the temptation to climb back into bed and snuggle down further beneath the blankets. I’m vertical, the sun is pulling on the day and if not now, when? I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Stillness in our lives is elusive or fleeting at best, and I’m learning to be fine with that. During the week, I sit in on meetings where my clinical teammates—hospice nurses, social workers, chaplains, aides—provide details about the people in their tender care who are bedbound, unable to assemble a complete sentence that makes sense and eat mechanically pureed food, if that. Their weight is barely in the triple digits while my lunch waits patiently chilled in the stockroom fridge, all three containers of it. Sure, I could stand to lose some pounds and would feel better if I did, but I’m not as hell-bent anymore on reaching a goal and posting the results on Facebook. The bathroom scale sits still most days, episodically employed like a consultant. We take its digital data under advisement but haven’t changed our policies and procedures just yet. As dinner winds down to the last few peas on our plates, we tend to a little scrolling to make sure we’re not missing any of the Big News and then call it a night. We do sleep, of course, but our bodies are still at it, making repairs at a cellular level, moving toxins through our livers into our bowels and bladders while our minds unspool the most vivid and unrelated images from our daytime interactions with others: the quick glance at a candy apple red Corvette that whizzed past us on the way home, a song hummed by a coworker as we passed each other in the hallway and the blurry silhouette of a raccoon bumpitty-bumping its way toward the compost pile. How all those become knitted together behind our eyelids is still a lovely mystery I have no intention of solving.

Once every two weeks, I get to lie down on a warm table under a cool sheet and give my very bones over to a settling down that has ripple effects for the days that follow. Maybe that’s all I need for now. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.

Outpouring

I was kinda dressed like my Dad last Friday at work. After he passed, I inherited one of his comfy button-up (button-down? What’s the difference? Direction? Does it matter? To someone, I suppose) cardigans and paired that with a soft black V-neck shirt, brown twill pants and a cool pair of red velvet Van’s that look like slippers. It nudged the line between “business casual” and “way too casual to leave the house”. No one noticed in a way that required remark or dress code reprimand. Welcome to the new workplace tolerance.

Dad’s been on my mind a lot these past two weeks. Mom too. I’m registering a strong need for their comforting presence, like I used to feel as a child when I’d have a bad dream and would wander down the hall in the middle of the night to crawl into bed with them (always on Mom’s side. She’d let me in; Dad was too sound a sleeper). Dad’s been gone ten years now, Mom seven. I’ve had good dreams and bad since then, but nothing like the nightmare we all have access to via scrolling and flat screens since February 24. And there’s no waking up from this one anytime soon.

In the two-plus weeks since then, I’ve felt an uncomfortable detachment from all illusions of safety that had held me prior. Walking the land in the morning, numb not from the cold around me but the chill within me, I blow on a fragile ember of hope that the fighting will just stop, mothers will come and pick up their young soldier-sons to take them home and feed them, wherever home might be. We’ll wake up to headlines of sanity and began planting the tomato and cabbage seeds for this year’s garden. I’m hungry for the comfort of any parent—human or earthly—whose lap is large enough for us all to crawl into and settle for a long, long time. In the meantime, I adjust the sleeves of Dad’s sweater to cover the burn marks on my left arm (a bread-baking incident from last Sunday), pulling the buttoned and buttonhole sides in closer to wrap me tightly, cocooning the ache I can’t shake. Somewhere in my fabric stash are some summer shirts Mom used to wear. I’ll cut them up and make them into a quilt this week and curl up beneath it. Maybe that will help, a little.

It’s taken me two-plus weeks to even find those words. Nothing I think or attempt to write can touch this present horror and so I’m going to stop trying for eloquent or inspiring. Strong talk for an introvert with perfectionist leanings but where else can I go? The war in Ukraine is everywhere I look, even when my phone is dark and we’re temporarily distracted by Corner Gas reruns on Amazon that we watch while we eat dinner. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to sleep in a subway with sirens going off or carry on my back what I could grab on a last frantic run through the apartment and still hold my squirming toddler child in my arms, walking for miles to cross into a country I’ve never even visited on holiday. Stay or leave? I’ve never faced that decision in moments of relative calm, much less the chaos of relentless violence. At the market yesterday, patrons were subdued and kind. We exchanged pleasantries and currency, and once or twice I’d hold onto someone’s gaze just a few seconds longer, as if to say, “I know…I feel helpless too”. Yellow and blue ceramic hearts dotted our table’s display, with colorful cut-out sunflowers for anyone to take, free of charge. I wanted people to know and remember what was happening over there, just for a pause in their shopping. And it still didn’t feel like anything near enough. We were all safe and warm, had money in our pockets and homes and families more or less intact. Paradise.

Whatever I might have considered an inconvenience, even on the mild end of the scale, has evaporated, transformed into a desperate and piercing gratitude my bones cannot forget. The biting wind cut through our coats as we loaded the car with totes of granola and our two folding tables, our noses running but no spare hand to grab a tissue. This morning, the chicken’s watering pan was frozen, so I carried two gallon jugs of water from the house, one hot, to loosen the ice and one cold to refill. Our living room floor slants in places, bows in others and we know the joists below are not up to the task of supporting the whole structure much longer without some help; repairs will be costly and require some significant heavy lifting—literally. And I recently learned I have a hole in my right eardrum, so surgery is somewhere on the horizon. It all still adds up to nothing in the face of millions whose lives are now unraveled and dangling above the gaping hole of the Unknown, torn and bleeding. Whatever used to matter to me has been reorganized, with no expiration date or a return to before-the-war thinking. Rightly so.

Like so many others, I’m reaching for what I can do that will help, though whatever I imagine feels like tossing bricks into the Grand Canyon. But beneath that is a persistent voice insisting I not talk myself out of the modest and the small. I must believe that all acts of kindness unite to push back against the evil that roams about the earth, seeking the ruin of souls (to paraphrase an old Catholic prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Mustn’t discard everything from our past…). I must trust in the fact that I’m still repulsed by violence, that this ache I’m carrying, cocooned in my late father’s sweater, means I have a heart anchored in peace. I must do what I can with what I have for whoever is in front of me or all will be lost. Maybe some of that will make its way across the seas, through borders and fences and reach a fellow weary soul who just can’t go another step. I don’t know how such things work exactly but I’m going to send it anyway. Love knows what to do and does it, against all odds and cynical advice.

The Mom and Dad I miss and long for taught me that.

(The painted egg in the photo that accompanies this post was a gift from my late friend and mentor Mary Merrill. Her daughter, Ann, has spent the past seventeen years in Ukraine working with nonprofits and more recently as a self-employed English-Russian translator/editor. She shared this link a few days ago, a list of reliable and trustworthy organizations helping Ukraine and Ukrainians. I encourage you to do what you can with what you have where you are. Your love and support matter. They always will.)

https://ukrainewar.carrd.co/