Lessons I Need to Learn More Than Once

It’s a quiet Sunday morning, five batches of granola lined up in a pre-dawn baking marathon (lemon blueberry tahini, if you just asked) as we prep for another busy double market three-day weekend. Tink is kittening around, having found a dried blueberry that escaped one of the bags and landed within paw’s reach. To a feline foundling, anything is a toy. I need to borrow that wisdom the next time I think I’m bored and an opportunity presents itself.

In the morning calm, I’m thinking back to a moment I had during lunch last Tuesday at the small round table in my office and it’s stayed with me, gaining momentum these past several days. A week prior I’d made an overlarge pot of sausage kale soup (we just can’t cook for two) and it was sublime. Chicken sausage wrapped around tart apple bits and smoked gouda, kale grown locally and the last of this year’s crop on the final day of the outdoor farmers market, pride of a produce vendor just behind our stall in the Grater’s Ice Cream Parlor parking lot. In a rich tomato broth dotted with corn cut straight from the cob and flash-frozen, chunks of organic carrots and pinky-sized green beans, it was a meal for the gods. We paired it with roasted banana squash one night, turkey-and-cheese melts the next and ended up freezing the rest, a white flag waved over the landscape of potential meal monotony. I stopped counting at four containers stacked on the top shelf of the old Montgomery freezer we bought at farm auction some twenty years ago. Not knowing what the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday would yield by way of leftovers, Patrick and I dedicated ourselves to clearing a patch in both the fridge and that freezer. We feel it’s just as important to prepare for abundance as it is for disaster and lean times.

So there I am at work, a repurposed black carryout container before me, steam rising from its thawed and reheated contents and I’m digging in, Downton Abbey cued up on the Amazon app for a little “lunch and a show” entertainment. I’m making my way through and realize I’ve pushed the chunks of sausage aside, saving them for last while I spoon up the humble and colorful vegetables in some attempt toward delayed soup gratification. I performed the exact same ritual as a child with my mom’s vegetable and meatball soup (the meatballs were tiny, barely an inch around, and sparse in the bowl as she masterfully stretched a pound of ground beef to feed seven people, five of them youngsters, a flock of baby birds with our mouths open nearly constantly) and it’s quite simple—those little meatballs were delicious and I wanted to end the meal on a high note by eating as many as the ladle had given me, putting an exclamation point on the whole proceedings. Mom would smile when she observed this, having just been thanked and praised for her cooking skills as only an eight-year-old can do.

Fast forward to a workday lunch, mom on the Other Side, perhaps still smiling and me pausing for a moment to contemplate how I carried that eating ritual around with me all this time. Did the sausage taste even better for the waiting? Were the vegetables some culinary second-class ingredient that I needed to muscle through? Was I overthinking the entire experience and would do better to turn my attention back to the family Crawley? “No” to the first two and an all-caps bold font “yes” to the last.

But it did get me wondering about the unexamined rules in my life, where I learned them and how many I’ve tried to unlearn over the years as their usefulness wore thin and irrelevant. I turned off Downton Abbey and reached for my notebook and pen, letting a small but persistent carpe diem moment wash over me. Each one tied to a back story, a period of growth and self-reckoning, fodder for future reflections…

What am I waiting for? Use the good linens and table service now.

Let others go first.

You’re more than the sum of your scars.

Anything resisted persists. Don’t resist resistance.

You wouldn’t worry so much what others thought of you if you realized…they didn’t.

Remember to breathe.

Do something that your future self will thank you for.

Later never comes.

People can change their minds. They often do. And you’re people too.

I’m curious, dear reader and I hope not impertinent when I ask you what lessons you’ve needed to learn more than once? If you’re even a shred like me, you’ll notice that some new encounter, conversation, life-changing moment will carry forward something familiar in its hands, asking you to stop a moment and reconsider what you think you know and repack your luggage differently for the next leg of the trip. What have you left behind and what remains in your toolkit, worn and well-used but also quite sturdy for the tasks ahead?

All this from a bowl of soup.

The View of Forever from Here

Exactly twenty-nine years ago this morning, I woke up married.

Twenty-seven years ago, it was beyond my imagining and nowhere on my to-do list.

I’d been happily single for the better part of the mid-80’s, rounding the corner into the 90’s with an almost evangelical approach to the Unfettered Life. I enjoyed (yes, you read that right) paying my bills on time or earlier, taught myself some next-level culinary skills and set bread dough to rise every Friday morning while I cleaned my two-bedroom Tudor-style townhouse rental from top to bottom. My job at the university’s progressive-minded town-and-gown Newman Center Catholic church as a member of the pastoral staff guaranteed rich and diverse discussions about All Things Theological and Philosophical, accompanied by endless pots of coffee in the lounge after Mass. A nearby bike trail along the river within walking distance of my apartment pulled me into a 22-mile daily trek through woods and the edges of old neighborhoods from the early 20’s. Squirrels occasionally pelted me with buckeyes as I rode beneath their lofty leafy nests and I’d playfully shake one fist at them as I pedaled along, all of us fully aware that this ride-by admonishment would have zero effect on their behavior. I dated and had my heart broken a few times, but most days I was more or less comfortable in my own skin, allowing for the customary push and pull of inner growth that marks the young adult developmental stage of one’s life.

Enter Patrick.

A mutual friend (and coworker of mine at the church) suggested we’d have a lot in common, that we should meet on the premise of adding the Newman Center to a list of faith communities willing to house homeless families on a rotating basis (Patrick headed up this program for his own parish) and laid the groundwork for what is now the central and anchoring relationship in my life. We met on August 11, 1992, at 8:38 p.m. following a prayer service I was leading on the need for social justice to be intentional reflection as well as action (the name of the gathering escapes me but I assure you, it was much shorter than what I just wrote). He introduced himself and the friend who was with him and we made plans to meet for a more thorough conversation about the logistics attached to feeding and sheltering families within the church building’s walls. I had no reason to think it was anything more than business.

But as with any trip you plan and the way it actually unfolds, the chasm between expectations and reality is filled with that alchemic blend of emerging information, data analysis and spontaneous combustion all wrapped up in love’s penchant for chaos theory. Sheltering homeless families evolved into our sheltering of each other, taking great care to respect our respective stories and pasts while we eyed a future with each other. Plus, he wore a bow tie and pink Oxford shirt to work on Fridays, paying homage to a long tradition held up by the men in his family tree. Standing there in the Newman Center’s kitchen that indelible Friday in September, pink shirtsleeves rolled up as he unpacked the tuna salad and mixed greens he’d brought for both of us to eat while we talked, his agenda was looking less like “business” and more “let’s see where this goes”. I felt that internal swaying one often has when going all dreamy in the presence of great joyful possibility and steadied myself by placing my hands on the stainless-steel countertop, casually so he wouldn’t suspect I’d fallen off the edge of all logic and propriety. I think I got away with it but what does that matter now? We talked overnight volunteer support, safety and menus, cots and drop-off/pick-up times for the church’s future guests and set up a tentative launch date (for the program, not our wedding). We’d have to see each other quite a lot in the weeks ahead, which neither of us minded at all.

We’ve seen each other for 1,508 weeks since then and stand at the start of the 1,509th one with a beehive-busy to-do list of humble work that will slide us nicely into Thanksgiving. There’s recycling to drop off, a coop that needs cleaned out and re-fluffed with fresh pine shavings, granola to be bagged and stored for an upcoming three-day holiday market and a chicken in the fridge waiting to be spatchcocked and grilled for dinner. I’m in charge of dessert—a gluten-free dark chocolate salted almond olive oil cake best eaten just after it’s cooled a bit on the counter, accompanied by a steaming cup of honeyed rooibus tea to sip in between bites. Paying bills has long since lost that mid-20’s thrill of independence (anyone want to subsidize these two hippies’ rural artist colony lifestyle? PM me for details) and I’m quite content letting Patrick take lead on all things culinary, no matter how he employs every last bit of silverware and all the cooking utensils in the process. I’ll clean up any kitchen mess he makes with my head bowed in gratitude.

Of course I’ve skipped over mountains of details and stories that built the framework and foundation of who we’ve become as Liz & Patrick. I’m not sure I’d know where to stop and a simple weekly column on my website isn’t the place for such an epic love story as ours. But as the sun shines from a backdrop of pure cloudless blue on the place we call home, I can’t remember what I thought being single would look like when I reached the age I am now. Guess I didn’t plan that far ahead, and I’ll certainly need to sit for more than an hour to figure out just how we got here.

Come sit with me, Patrick and let’s tell the stories of our days and weeks and years together while we keep gathering more.

Happy anniversary, honey.

Oh, the Possibilities

It’s 5:20am, 32 degrees outside and the top step of the front deck is coated in a thin crust of snow. With the heating pad’s setting on “2” and the closest soft throw tucked snugly ‘round my lap and legs, I’m ensconced in my place on the recliner couch as I look into the last inky blackness of the night framed by the living room windows. Xena is all smoothed and settled into her mousy dreams to my right and Tink, the newest addition to our clowder, makes a vertical leap from the footrest, ricochets off the blanket chest-turned-coffee table into the antique platform rocker near the entrance to the kitchen, connecting hard with the carved curved arm of the chair before sticking the landing. A six-week-old kitten has turned our home into her own private pinball machine. One more toppled lamp and its broken compact florescent light bulb scattered at our bare feet, and it’ll be Game Over.

When it’s just light enough to the east, I’ll layer up and walk the paths like I do, finish up the last of the fall planting (garlic, the rest of the heirloom tulip bulbs from my uncle and three Russian sage plants still showing some promise, even this late in the season) and tuck in again, this time sitting at the work table in my studio, stitching glass beads and chips of lapis lazuli semi-precious stone to a piece of soft wall art I started at the beginning of lockdown. Time will slow down or stop completely, and I’ll be lost in that sweet spot of untethered Imagination, letting my mind wander through the landscape of possibility. It begins with “What if…?”

What if…one day, on the morning walk, I just sat on the left side of the curb-gleaned dark pine green antique wicker loveseat that I hauled home in June, nestled just off the walking path into a thicket of blackberry stalks across from that bend in the creek, and stayed there for most of the day?

What if…I didn’t talk myself out of asking someone for help?

What if…that last hedgeapple hanging from the very top of the osage orange tree on the ridge didn’t fall, even in the strongest gale-force winds, all winter?

What if…the Black Strawberry tomato seeds I saved on a piece of paper towel in August actually sprouted and grew stems and leaves and bore fruit next July?

What if…the Downton Abbey series had never ended?

What if…I actually slept straight through the night?

What if…the gentleman who stopped by our booth at the market two weeks before the midterm elections and monologued for thirty minutes about his own stance had asked me how I felt about things…and then listened?

What if…Patrick had followed through on his bottle rocket desire to become a chimney sweep in the late 90’s?

What if…I knew how to operate a chainsaw?

What if…that laughing crow who is always hanging out in the meadow lands on my shoulder this morning with her satiny ebony wings and accompanies me on the rest of the walk, down to the coop to let the chickens out, back up the slope to the ridge to fill the suet feeders and out to the potting shed to gather up the garden tools I’ll need this afternoon?

What if…the leftovers from last night’s dinner of huckleberry barbecue-sauced chicken breasts just kept replenishing themselves in the darkness of the fridge while we slept?

What if…we could join our favorite film or television show as one of the characters but retain our own identity and selves throughout?

What if…our haircuts never grew out?

What if…we could tell our stories honestly and be given acknowledgement that they’re still being written?

What if…Tink just stayed little?

What if…snow fell thick and fast, as large flakes that filled our cupped hands and didn’t melt on contact?

What if…we really did put things back where we found them, closed what we opened, washed what we dirtied, finished what we started?

What if…mystery was simply allowed to be mystery, far from the prying and prodding fingers of “I must figure this out”?

What if…I let people into my life as it is, didn’t feel the need to tidy it all up first?

What if…I didn’t argue with myself about what “wasted time” really is?

What if…there were no clocks at all?

What if…uncertainty and imperfections were valued more than their opposites?

What if…Sting finally wrote back?

I’m going to need more beads, I think…

Seeking Shelter

A pale autumn sun sipped at the night’s last stars and while my back was turned, swallowed the moon’s sideways smile in one soundless gulp as I made my way back to the woods. On the other side of a marathon market weekend (three events in two days—a lot for us), I welcome the softer start to my morning and the chance to get reacquainted with something other than parchment-lined baking pans and the aroma of cinnamon. No matter how bone-tired I am, or how challenging the elements, I never regret the decision to walk the land.

It’s a color carnival out there this year and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Each tree is vivid and unstoppable. Everyone’s talking about it at work, posting views from their front windows and driveway aprons on every social media site within hand’s reach, displaying an ombre of oranges and reds, deep rich mustards and translucent saffrons from the silver maple out back, edged in a crimson bleed. Somebody get Crayola on the phone—they might wanna update their deluxe box of sixty-fours, or at least dedicate a collection to the season.

I like how nature seems to have arranged for the trees to shed their leaves on some sort of rotation schedule—the sycamores first, all crispy brown caramel and milk chocolate, then silver and red maples taking their time dropping a leaf here, five there. The black walnuts shimmer their golden dresses down to the ground the minute a good breeze comes through, and I watch the kittens jump to catch them in the driveway, unable to resist all that twisting movement and sideways fluttering. And the sweet gums with their calicoed tunics, one tree sporting a deep beet-red collar at the top of its canopy while the rest of its leaves move from orange to yellow to pale celery. If rainbows were trees…(much gratitude to friends Deb and Mike for sharing about 50 young saplings from their place one day after Thanksgiving, getting them all tucked into our waiting landscape. The butternut squash soup and homemade bread we shared wasn’t nearly enough of a thank you).

What a shock it would be for the leaves to all drop at once without warning, no gradual easing into the cold exposed months of winter. This slow and measured transition feels kind and motherly and we receive it as gift for spirits already raw from the abruptness of life’s other harsh about-face moments. But I still stand beneath them all and wonder where summer went. Just six weeks ago, they gave us respite from a stronger and more determined sun as we plucked errant bindweed and thistles from the garden’s raised beds. Now their bare arms and fingers reach for a cooler sky about to go brittle in the span of another six weeks. Good thing I’m romantic about the views that surround me. I’ll try to remember that when I’m schlooping my way through the slush and ice on my way to the coop to see if the girls even want to leave their cozy pine shavings-fluffed bed and peck at the grain scattered in the morning’s snow.

Friends, life has been even heavier lately. In a staffing restructuring at work, I lost my admin and am working with my other teammate to take on the duties left behind, most of which we haven’t touched for four years. She took another position in the company, so we’ll still get to see her, thank goodness, but the gap in our team is a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I haven’t been able to shake yet. I’ve taken to fretting again about how Patrick and I will age (it’s an episodic theme that surfaces this time of year as our bodies slow down and we walk reluctantly into the shrinking light of the next two months). The headlines continue to test the elasticity of one’s heart with the brutality of Russia’s war against Ukraine, cholera plaguing the good souls of flood-ravaged Nigeria and just last night, a crowd surge at a Halloween event in Seoul that left over 150 young adults trampled to their deaths. I know I should stop scrolling, and I do, but there are still too many unnecessary empty chairs at tables these days whether I’m reading about them or not.

So I suit up and head outside, walking sticks in hand and beg the trees for just another day of their comforting shelter, understanding that we’ll need to face the bare days of winter together, looking for grace and beauty wherever we can find it. When I wonder if I’m up to the task, Patrick greets me at the end of a workday with a pot of vegetable soup simmering and steaming up the kitchen windows. He smiles and pulls me in for a “how was your day” embrace and I reshape my definitions of shelter and protection, instantly and deeply aware of what I have, resolved not to take it for granted. It’s within my grasp and influence, this posture of humility and also my moral duty. I’ll keep asking “what else can I do?” and quiet my worried heart to hear the answer. Meanwhile, there’s a mulberry in the meadow, still shaking her green branches at us and I wonder what she knows that her ash and cottonwood neighbors don’t. She guards the creek as squirrels run up and down her trunk and across the grass at her feet, saying “not yet, not yet. When I’m ready.” Teachers are everywhere here.

So I’ll keep taking my tires bones out to the woods. I’ll remember the colors across the fields, throwing all my trust into a spring that so far keeps coming back to dress our trees in reassuring garments of hope and growth.

That’s what “what else?” looks like from here.