Visitors

On the day we turned our clocks forward at that ungodly hour of 2:00a.m. the weather took a step back into the early days of winter, dressing the trees in snow-chalked crime scene outlines and I got to walk among the evidence that I’m really not in charge around here.

Stepping into the pristine silence, tiny flakes of snow clung to my flannel jacket and eyelashes, filtering my view of the fields and softening the edges of our wise maples and black walnuts, their bony fingers still bare but thinking about donning something green. The leaves of our brave and sturdy tulips were just above the soil line, weeks away from blooming but clearly determined to make good on their promise to cheer me in late May and June before Patrick heads out to Sundance. I’ll have dug up their generous bulbs before he returns and have them drying on old newspapers until October when I’ll tuck them back into place like I do every fall. Fall?? Slow down, sister. Let’s take these seasons one at a time.

Twelve days in and March was so far living up to its Ojibwe name of “Snowcrust Moon”. Who am I to complain? The sweat fire was crackling, family had gathered to pray and share food and pour out other acts of intentional kindness while the furnace kicked on at reliable intervals to keep us at a balmy 67 degrees inside. Somewhere upstairs, one of the kittens was napping. Paradise, truly, and not lost at all. I put together a sheet pan of turkey sliders on sweet Hawaiian rolls smeared with spicy mustard and horseradish pickles and waited for the others to troop in the back door, their faces shining with the release and hope that any good prayer leaves behind. They did not disappoint, and even hung their mud-caked towels on the line out back.

That was two weeks ago and whatever they prayed about has lingered around the edges of our lives, catching and holding us tenderly at the end of some pretty rough workdays, smoothing the worry from our tired brows. Now, Sunday morning, in the starlit darkness of what would have been my mom’s 91st birthday, totes of product and supplies are stacked by the front door for a pop-up market later at a nearby brewery. Seven years ago, I could not have imagined we’d be pairing our vanilla chai granola with anyone’s IPA or cranberry mule on a Sunday afternoon, but here we are, six or so of these pop-ups under our belts and the good patrons of this family-run farm and gathering place keep our ovens and mixing bowls busy. When the sun sets on our labors, we’ll gratefully put away the remaining inventory and fill our plates with food they helped us purchase. Yep, the equation is that simple.

Mom and Dad both had birthdays in March (Dad’s was a couple weeks ago; he would have been 93), and I wonder what they’d make of our hectic and cobbled together life here in the middle of nowhere. Up until their tandem declines nearly two decades ago, they cheered us on and marveled at how we kept it all clicking along. Folks from their generation were more likely to have some farm experience in their childhood, so they slipped easily into the scene here when they visited, taking walks with us and letting their gaze settle knowingly and without judgment on our many and varied unfinished projects strewn about the landscape. It was pure joy to see the delight on their faces when the peacocks would stroll up to the front porch where we were sitting, or Patrick would bring them one of the newest goat kids in his arms, all bleating and adorable, eager for the inevitable cooing and head rubs that would follow. Whatever my parents talked about on their way home those days, I’m certain it was wreathed in smiles.

Sometimes it’s helpful and necessary to pause and think how you arrived at your current life’s iteration, noticing the choices you made and turning them over carefully in your mind, looking for clues that will shape your next moves. Patrick and I do that regularly as the future looms all fuzzy and unopened, reassuring ourselves that we’ll figure it out somehow. We have so far, and don’t take the kindness of family and strangers for granted; they’ve featured prominently in our story over the years and show no signs of slowing down. Yesterday, a friend from the market came for an afternoon of art and food, and just as we were hauling out the paint and other supplies on a folding table in the living room, the power went out (is it just me, or has it become windier lately?). A call to the electric company revealed that we were one of several thousand temporarily off-grid due to the storm, which meant it was anyone’s guess as to when we’d be able to flush the toilet again or wash the lunch dishes piled by the sink. So we turned our attention to the paint pouring and bookbinding in front of us, getting happily lost in swirls of wet acrylic color and gentle conversation punctuated by Patrick’s humor. The wind pushed the clouds out of the sun’s way, brightening the space and giving the kittens warm patches of light to nap in on the cat tree by the window. When the gas grill went tumbling down the ridge, tank and all, we rushed out to right it back into place, falling branches from the silver maple out back missing us by inches and random chance. Our friend rolled along easily with it all, her first visit here giving her memories to unpack on the ride home.

Author Hugh Prather once wrote “Letting people in is largely a matter of not expending the energy to keep them out.” For as much as we love our privacy here, we also know deeply the magic and gift of a visitor’s touch on the land, the welcome trod of their footsteps on the front deck, through the living room into the kitchen and out the back door into the mouth of the walking paths that lead to even more wonder. Those kitchen walls have held the whispered secrets of people we love, nourished their triumphs and given them a safe place to be unfinished (as we all are). I might wish I’d taken the damp rag a bit further into the corners to remove the last dangling traces of a years-old cobweb but quickly realize I’m the only one who noticed them in the first place and turn my attention back to offering drinks and setting out placemats for the feast that awaits (forks on the left, a hand stitched cloth napkin beneath). I’ve been lonely before and I’ve known soothing solitude often enough to distinguish between the two. As Patrick and I both collect more days and years, my money’s on the company I keep, opening our door to visitors and letting the land we all stand on transport them away from the troubles.

As our friend left, carrying a crate of her paint-poured creations and leaving us to predict when the power would come back on, we were already planning the next gathering, graced by the presence of others who have as much to gain as we do by spending time in each other’s company.

What can I offer you to drink?

Moving Parts

I’ve given up trying to describe the colors of the morning sky; no dictionary can even come close to what I see. Words like “pink”, “orange”, even “periwinkle” fall short and land on the page as an insult rather than the tribute I want them to be. At this moment, a copper disc of moon is slipping into the wide embrace of the west and it’s hard to concentrate on writing.

Miles from my spot on the couch, a friend is hurting deeply and almost nothing can touch it, yet I’m imagining a small basket of tea things and a comforting mug of some sort, a gesture from a helpless and caring heart.

My right arm is injured and it’s my own fault. I tried to shift a stack of market supplies in the back of the car (two folding tables beneath two packed and heavy totes of product) on the strength of two fingers and felt the tendons in my forearm stretch and tear. Patrick massaged in some capsaicin cream ever so tenderly after we’d unpacked and settled in for the afternoon and that carried me through the night. But it’s morning now and I’m hoping I can grip the handle of my walking stick before I head out to the woods to survey the wind damage from a couple nights ago.

Over-easy eggs sound good for breakfast, the way my mom made them—butter melted in the skillet, then slide in the eggs yolks with their opaque and clingy whites, let them just set before adding a splash of cold tap water and hurry to put the lid on while the bread toasts. Ten seconds in, remove from the heat, keep that lid on and don’t peek until another thirty seconds have passed. Magical, because the water loosens the whites from the pan so there’s no wrestling to get them out with a spatula and risk breaking those golden and perfectly set yolks. If you’re feeling indulgent, mash some avocado on that warm toast, drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and nestle the eggs in close (a little white hanging over the edge of the plate adds curb appeal). Sit wherever you’re most comfortable and fall into it all with anticipation and gratitude.

We’re noticing lately at the market that folks are lingering past the point of sale to talk. Sometimes it’s rather weighty and important, not granola-related at all, and we’re humbled at the outpouring of trust that accompanies their heartbreaking stories. We listen carefully and remember their names as if they were family (which they are, in a way), make note of what they bought and wonder how we might be more helpful. It was never about the money when we began this whole market venture; more about connecting with community and offering something relevant and uplifting, with a side of crunch. We think we’re there on the granola end of things; the rest is pure gift and grace. Who are we to be the guardians of their troubles, giving them our undivided attention and abiding reassurance that they’re safe with us, even in the open air of a bustling and friendly market filled with nourishment of all kinds? Sometimes the ride home is quiet.

Mind you, I’ve not done the hard research but it seems our bright scarlet cardinals (the birds, not the clerics) have found their voices again and insist on telling me and everyone that the days are slowly getting longer so why are you still sitting inside? I don’t recall them being this excited when there was a thick comforter of snow on every walking path. I do plan to look into this a little more, but for now it’s enough that I’m not singing in the morning by myself. You don’t even want to get me started on the return of the spring peepers, who made their audible appearance yesterday afternoon under and alongside the narrow bridge that gives us safe passage over a tumbling creek. Hypnotic doesn’t begin to touch it.

If we are the constant thread that connects this busy hive of a life we live, then well done us. But it’s not a mantle we wear with arrogance or self-importance. Sometimes I marvel that the deer and muskrats even let us walk the land with them and most days I feel like a respectful intruder (if those two qualities were to ever team up). When the creek breaks its banks with the greatest enthusiasm and then, days later, it all recedes to a manageable flow, I get to stand where the water combed the young spring grass flat on the rich soil. I see evidence of a deer’s less-than-graceful slide down the Hill to the west and wonder if other deer nearby snickered as they observed the spectacle on their morning run. What’s left to our imaginations here is vast and it’s not like we’re wanting for topics to discuss over dinner, but what does go on in the meadow after we’ve turned off the porch light? Somebody snarling over shared territory or hunting privileges, perhaps, or one of the kittens almost meeting one of our skunks and wisely deciding to leave that relationship for another day.

For the past several weeks, our work-life balance has been in a chaotic free fall and we’re working on finding our surefootedness again. We know we have choices as to what we set our hands and hearts to but…what to set aside or pause for a while? Not the morning walks, for goodness’ sake—they’re my sanity and without them I’d be intolerable and the opposite of helpful. The granola business? Not if we want to pay off the truck early. And this year’s garden is well on its way to stocking our pantry, plus it’s great exercise and grounding. The kittens are economically soft therapy within arm’s reach and somewhere down the road is a place I get to go every weekday to work in exchange for health insurance and selfless colleagues who companion the dying.

Guess I’ll keep doing what’s been working—stay in motion, sit for a while when it’s necessary and wake up tomorrow in the lap of another chance to get it right.

The Constant

The view of the Freewill Baptist Church’s steeple some sixty acres away was swallowed up long ago by the random and burgeoning stands of a arborist’s dream collection: sycamores, black walnuts, blue beech, box elders, shagbark hickories, cherry, silver maples and myriad varieties of oak that we’re still identifying. In the early days of our tenure here, from the top of the Hill on the western edge of the walking path, I could stop and cast an unobstructed gaze across our own seventeen acres of once-employed cornfield, catching my breath after a steep ascent and exhaling into the glorious open space of the greatest responsibility Patrick and I would ever embrace. The cross-topped triangular spire rested comfortably against whatever backdrop the sky offered up that day, creating a postcard scene that we transplanted city dwellers found charming one sunrise after another.

Standing there this morning, my boots planted firmly yet gently on the leaf-covered soil, I peered through the bare branches of a young forest well on its way to mature and have to take that steeple on faith, much like its praying congregants do as they round the curve on the road leading them to their weekly inspiration. I can barely see the far eastern edge of the field line where our responsibility ends and our agronomist neighbor’s begins (not sure how he prays or what path he walks but it’s reassuring to see his white pick-up parked in the gravel driveway leading up to his home). If one is looking for a retreat from the world, hidden from view and not a billboard for miles, this is the place.

Did I ever tell you about the time one of those young and faithful Baptist congregants decided right there in a Sunday service that he wanted to be baptized? The pastor and all the faithful drove down to the narrow bridge at the end of our driveway, plunged his eleven-year-old body dressed in all his Sunday best into the frigid waters of the creek that cuts through our little agrihood (it was February, snow on the ground, thin shelves of ice along the banks), and brought him all clean and renewed and wrapped in dry towels back to the church to finish their collective prayer. I came upon the joyous scene after an early morning run to the grocery store and our neighbor, Jean, invited me to watch it all unfold. It pays to get up at dawn. Just sayin’.

That memory and so many others live alongside regular musings about how this place has changed since we took up residence nearly twenty-four years ago, how we’ve changed because of our touch with and connection to a place whose generosity has no expiration date. We made promises at a land blessing that first summer, most of which we’ve kept, a few of which we’ve had to revise with heads bowed in regret. From any position on the land, be it Hill or field or next to the compost bins, we look out across the paradox of reliable married to continual change. The Old Man tree with its tractor tire swing still dangling, the thick rope now a part of the branch around which it was looped some eighteen feet above the bustling creek waters below…how a heavy rain fills the low spots in the grass along the driveway on both sides where once I saw a little beaver swimming with two branches clenched fast between its teeth…two chicken coops still sturdy and capable of keeping out foxes and raccoons while the girls slumber and dream about whatever chickens dream about…the gentle soothing slope of a secondary walking path through the meadow framed by well-established mulberry trees that toss their fruit to the ground in alternate seasons, turning the bottoms of our feet purple when we impulsively take off our shoes to feel the soft feathery grass between our toes.

Where did my 30’s go, and my 40’s, followed quickly by every last minute of my 50’s? By some deep and mystical agreement, I handed them over willingly to the rhythm of a life lived by and with so many relatives, human and not, two-legged and winged and some with no legs at all, until our respective boundaries ceased to matter. Lines of existence blurred beyond care and recognition, we are forever intertwined, fused and growing older together. The steady hum that vibrates just beneath our shared skin is what wakes us up in the morning, pushes out buds that unfurl into the most gorgeous of leaves in every shade of green Crayola has yet to copy. I know exactly where the tiny snowdrop bulbs live just at the feet of the majestic silver maple out back through the mud room door and isn’t it sweet that there are twice as many blooms this year? I can rearrange the bird feeders hanging from shepherd’s hooks on the ridge all I want but the raccoons living in mysterious places down in the meadow will still pull them down every spring when the night’s temperatures soar past 55 degrees. Branches fall, we pick them up for sweat fires or the burn pile, then toss the ashes onto the composting shreds of spent coffee grounds and salad greens gone all slimy until it’s time to shovel that into the soil of this year’s raised beds where we’ll grow salads for this summer’s dinners. It. Never. Stops.

There’s a bend in the creek where one year’s heavy autumn rains carved an island surrounded by rocks that carry the laughing waters down a jumbled staircase on the way to a distant river beyond our sight. The music is exquisite and almost too much to bear. On my morning walk, I stand on the banks just below a towering black walnut tree, pull off my head wrap and whisper “Hello, constant”, listening as she adds a new verse to her never-ending song. Whatever was weighing heavy on my mind crashes and tumbles and dissolves on those rocks and I step forward into my day, all clean and renewed and wrapped in the reassurance that the heartbeat of this place is shared between us. No matter what happens or how we change in the days to come, we will always know each other.

That’s something I can count on.

With Dignity

This morning’s walk was more of a lumber as I coaxed my bones and their companion muscles to make the seventeen-acre lap around the field and back to the woods. A week’s worth of more physical activity than I’m used to landed me in the mosey mode as I turned the corner down the path to the west and stepped over frozen deer tracks and mole tunnel speed bumps (I try to look up and around when I walk but find I’m more about minding my steps one at a time, head bowed as if reverently contemplating where my foot lands next. I wish I was that mindful but it’s more about avoiding a hard face plant on that frozen ground).

Rounding another turn on the path that runs along the western edge of the field, a young doe and I startled each other and she leapt over the bordering thicket into the neighbor’s sleeping cornfield, disappearing into whatever magical ether protects the wild things in their encounters with us two-leggeds. Peering through the gaps in the tree line, I saw no sign of her and got to musing if she had even existed at all. When you start your walks before the sun’s full face has even crested the other neighbor’s 80 acres of spent soybean stubble, it’s easy to give your imagination free reign over your senses. I trudged up the steep slope we still call “The Hill” and felt my heart settle into non-climbing rhythm as the path flattened out between the woodsy jumble of slender sycamore saplings reaching across the sky to shake hands or do their best arboreal impression of DaVinci’s “The Creation of Man” over my still-bowed head. In full summer, it’s a cathedral ceiling that has me bent-necked and enchanted as I trust my feet to stumble me forward across the exposed tree roots. I’d trade a skinned knee for that view any day of the week.

I don’t check the weather app most days before I walk. I just open the front door, inhale whatever the air is giving and arbitrarily count to six before hazarding a guess at the current temperature. I layer up accordingly, topping off the whole mismatched ensemble with a snug knitted head wrap sporting a large unicorn face on each of the ear flaps. It’s thick and muffles most sound (blessedly, the morning rush hour traffic a mile away and, regrettably, most woodpeckers’ persistent tapping and the sweet trill of an early-rising Carolina wren). A steady wind had been blowing all night and continued its blustery dance, gusting now and then, picking up speed as I followed the curve of the path away from the western edge of the property line and headed northeast. Five, maybe seven yards forward and I heard it: a stilted cry of an animal injured or trapped, just on the other side of a thorny thicket patch. It faded and then repeated, stronger this time and mournful. I stepped off the path and followed the sound upward, wondering what kind of help I’d be if something was hurt and hiding way up in those blue beech that offered no lower branches to get a leg up. Pulling off the headwrap, I heard a stiff creaking sound and realized it was the wind pushing the branches of a black walnut stand into each other, the slender cold wood of their leafless fingers rubbing together in the cold. I stood still, listening as they groaned like I do when I get up off the couch after sitting for more than an hour and thought I get it, sister. It was at once eerie and reassuring, to find kinship among such sentient beings who spend their winters taking it on the chin, whatever comes, and still have the grace and dignity to sprout leaves and keep us cool in the hot weeks of July. Will I ever come back from a walk without lessons in my hands? Oh, I hope not…

Last Thursday night I took my 6-month-old hearing aids to a live performance of the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine and soaked up each note, each thundering boom from the timpani player’s well-aimed mallets. I adjusted the volume up and left it there, no regrets for the full body symphonic experience. Pre-hearing aid existence, I doubt I would have wondered what I was missing and, in some settings (rock concerts, movie theaters where the sound tech has the speakers on full blast), I’d even put in earplugs to soften the audio assault. But when getting older gives you the gift of volume control through an appliance so small it’s nearly undetectable, it’s fun to experiment with the variances in sound. Thank you, reader, for tolerating that “step out of the woods for a moment” tangent. It’s connected somehow.

As I collect more morning walks (moseys, lumbers, stumbles, whatever…) and add them to a growing cache of Life’s Memorable Moments, there’s a promise I make to a few select trees I stop and visit in the woods. I don’t know how I picked these particular ones out of a forest of thousands, but we do meet up most mornings and I breathe my thanks into their grooved or smoothed bark (black walnut or ash, respectively), telling them “as often as I can, for as long as I can”, and walk on knowing that we both understand what that means. Tomorrow isn’t anyone’s guarantee (certainly not mine) and too often I’ve chosen a warm bed over wind-chilled cheeks and fingers, regretting it instantly and always. But with that promise, there’s an elastic amnesty that allows for the unexpected, without judgment or guilt. And I’ll cherish, revel in and be enchanted by whatever the land shows me on a given day. She is beautiful always, come hail or mud or crocuses peeking out defiantly through the snow. She’s older, I’m older and we’re both dealing with it.

Sometimes, you’ve gotta slow the walk down to a measured mosey to see what matters most.