A Gathering of Souls

His hair was a bouncy cap of ginger ringlets, bob-length with bangs that framed an endlessly smiling face. From my seat on the bench nestled inside the plexiglass-wrapped bus stop shelter, I guessed him for maybe nineteen or twenty, dressed in the customary statehouse page uniform: blue blazer, khakis and light brown Oxfords, his backpack fitting snugly across his shoulders. He gave me a full-on wide smile and I returned it before going back to scrolling the route schedule to make sure my 45 Express to the New Albany Park & Ride was on time. When I looked up again, he said, “I love your outfit—it all works—the pants, the jacket, the earrings—it just looks great!” “Thanks!” I replied. “That’s kind of you to say”, and then filled in the back story on how the pants were a gift from a dear friend (Maria, who wanted me to have bus pants like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) and just so comfortable for late summer downtown strolls. I soon learned that his mother liked to shop at Costco for ladies’ sweatpants and how she felt strongly that the hallmark of an enduring wardrobe was comfort first, fashion second. His name is Jacob and now we enjoy short, cheerful catch-ups most Wednesdays and Thursdays before boarding our rides home.

Getting back into the public transportation groove has been an eye-opening reminder of the urban rhythm I left behind some twenty-five years ago, when I traded concrete for grass and exhaust fumes for field breezes. I’m sharing that space again twice a week with a diverse crowd of fellow humans showing up every day with their backpacks and strollers and between-transfers cigarettes, just trying their best and inhaling a well-earned pause in their life’s constant motion. I join them without pretense or judgment; just infinite curiosity and a willingness to expand my view.

And speaking of inhaling…on my first day back downtown in twenty-five years, waiting at what I hoped was the right bus stop to catch the 45 back to my car parked some five miles beyond the beltway, I sat next to a man who was rolling his own smokes, carefully wrapping the dark thin paper around tightly packed shreds of tobacco. He lit one and pulled on it deeply, exhaling the smoke into curling swirls that drifted lazily in my direction. Catching a quick sniff, it was clear his tobacco of choice wasn’t what they put in a pack of Marlboro’s, and I wondered about my new employer’s random drug screen policy, hoping the open air of the bus stop bench was enough to keep me above suspicion should HR come a-calling.

Each week it’s a steady stream of encounters I couldn’t have imagined on my previous bucolic commute through the hills and farm fields of two counties just east of city life. There was the young man with a Cuban accent who noticed me sitting by myself on the bench and cheerfully asked if I had cooties before launching into his story of how he moved here from California last month and wasn’t looking forward to the approaching chilly autumn. And the older woman who glanced down at my colorful hand-painted leather shoes and smiled (a thrift store score from a few years back, lavender and pale blue with randomly placed yellow stars on the toes, taking my look just to the edge of street performing clown), asking me where I got them. If I time my office departure just right and the elevators from the 21st floor are cooperating, I can lean against the low stone wall that wraps around the statehouse lawn and watch peaceful protests and outdoor ceremonies from a distance, the sound system spooling out the speaker’s remarks, tinny and garbled as it travels across High Street to bounce off the glassy front of the Huntington building’s thirty-seven floors. In the past several weeks, I’ve adjusted my apprehensive posture, dusted off and updated my street smarts and kept a part of my heart open to making new acquaintances. Not everyone I don’t know is dangerous or unsettlingly weird. I’m walking into the middle of movies here, with a string of buses stopping to drop off and pick up more cast members. And it only costs me $4 a day. That’s a bargain by any calculations.

But…speaking of unsettling…this past Monday, I took my usual stroll across Broad Street’s six wide lanes, pulling my rolling carry-all bag behind me on my way to the bus stop shelter when I heard a deep, solitary voice singing loudly, echoing through the airy halls of the downtown building-scape. I couldn’t make out the words nor see the source as it grew louder and closer to where my fellow riders and I stood or sat huddled against a stiff autumn wind. Then, there he was, a tall dreadlocked figure in a thin navy blue skirt, open-toed flat sandals and a zippered jacket, walking down the middle of High Street in the center turn lane, cars speeding past and around him as he gestured wildly, stumbling back and forth between the wide curbs. In between verses of a song only he knew the words to, he made emphatic proclamations on subjects that clearly meant a lot to him but no one else witnessing could understand. His long fingernails sported a neat bright pink manicure and when he paced in front of the bus shelter, he’d start directing both buses and riders to stop, board and “be safe!” I watched as this unscripted drama played out before us all, some in the crowd hollering at him to be quiet, others moving almost imperceptibly nearer to one another for some modicum of protection. I was alone at the south end of the bench, my carry-all, tote bag and purse within reach and my eyes not making contact with his. I had no idea what I might see, or worse, what I do with it once I saw it. I felt vulnerable and unhelpful all at once.

And then he was gone, vanished into the thinning crowd, a troubled angel come to teach us all. When I stopped scanning the area in a 360-degree circle, my eyes landed on a new rider who’d arrived for the 102 to take him north through OSU’s campus, a black and red leather dog mask covering his head, complete with a snout he could unsnap to take a drag off his cigarette.

I looked around for Jacob and his bouncing ginger ringlets but I suppose he was working late again at the job he loved. As the 45 pulled up, flashing the reassuring route confirmation on the digital crawler at the top of the windshield, I climbed in and took my seat, looking forward to the half-hour ride back to my car where, in silence and privacy, I could unpack what I’d just seen, tucking yet another handful of souls into my prayers for the night.

While There’s Still Summer

I last saw her two weeks ago, climbing up the compost tub we keep by the kitchen sink. A wasp without wings, dusty and moving slowly, carrying the weight of a difficult summer on her thin and papery shoulders.

I feel you, sister.

There’s something about August that makes me go all melancholy and pensive as the fireflies wind down and the crickets ratchet up their leg-singing game ‘round the clock. It’s soothing music to my ears and I’m grateful for it, but it also lays bare the truth that days are getting shorter and our outdoor to-do list’s window will close for another long nine months. I didn’t get everything done this summer either. I never do. But wow, do I try. And that’s during summers where we aren’t running two markets and Patrick didn’t have back surgery and I’m not starting a new job and our only bathroom isn’t being remodeled all in one bustling bundle of activity. I still tried this summer, giving myself as much grace as I could scoop out of what I hoped was a bottomless well. I let my eyes glaze over the all-but-abandoned studio where colorful bookbinding paper and board lay patient and still, confident of my return once the silver maple leaves hit the ground. In a fit of optimism, I bought three pillow inserts on Saturday and stacked them on a sturdy promise to update our living room decor by the end of the holiday weekend. We’ll see…

Each of the seasons holds out its generous hands spilling over with splendor and we relish our front row seat to the abundance they bring in turn. We’ll be as barefoot in winter as we are in summer (though for shorter periods of time) because few experiences match the indulgent comfort of putting on thick warm socks fresh from their hook in front of the space heater after walking bootless through the snow to get the groceries out of the back seat of the truck. We keep a watchful eye on the creek during the rainy spring and autumn stretches, and our brows furrow when the creekbed’s rocky bones stick out of the soil from late June to mid-October. But the land never fails to delight, impress, overwhelm and silence us and we let her lead us willingly into the next festival of life and birds and dormancy and fresh basil we grew ourselves.

It’s just that August takes all that project-necessary light and shrinks it incrementally as I race the sun to finish up the grapevine-pulling and thicket-clearing and path-trimming that demands our weekly attention. Turn our backs and a freshly mown yard turns to knee-high quackgrass in a blink. I get all ambitious and over reach on my expectations (I’m not 30 anymore and won’t be again) kind of like when I put too much filling in a tortilla on “make your own burrito” night and then wonder why I can’t eat it by hand. And I miss the morning chorus of sparrows and redwing blackbirds and finches insisting I’ve slept long enough (I don’t disagree) and won’t I please join them out in the woods where all the fun is? Too soon they’re handing over the keys to the cicadas and katydids who clearly have as much to say and not as much time to say it. It’s still music, though, and as welcome in my ears as that first house wren setting up shop on the kitchen windowsill. When it goes all silent in November and I’m alone with my thoughts, I’ll almost forget what they sound like until March and ask their forgiveness for my memory’s neglect.

So I’m holding onto these last weeks of summer with both hands, noticing that the northeast corner of the meadow is packed with wild yellow wingstem and green-headed coneflower and the field to the east can barely hold another tall stalk of purple-topped ironweed. Who doesn’t love a season that begins with wild garlic mustard everywhere (we have three pints in the freezer made into pesto) and wraps up with delicate shade-loving goatsbeard and unashamedly prolific goldenrod? I’ll plant tulips and garlic in October and leave them to rest and feel smart for doing that once they push past their mulchy straw blankets next April, right about the time our hummingbirds (four of them now!) regale us at the feeders with stories of their travels from Costa Rica. The paths back to the woods will still receive my bootclad steps as often as I can for as long as I can when the mercury dips below freezing and I’ll touch the crisscrossed bark of the black walnuts I know intimately, trusting they’re still awake and not really sleeping like it looks.

On the walk this morning, just near the young sycamore sapling I strapped up after finding her bent at the knee from a punishing gust of wind that almost took her down, I saw a single daisy among the Queen Anne’s lace and withering milkweed, shy but resolute in its presence. Daisies had their heyday right up until late June, then dropped their petals and made room for the rest of summer’s floral bounty. How did this one survive? I asked but she kept her secret so I didn’t push. Sacred reminder at the toe of my walking shoe that summer is still with us for another precious twenty days until it imperceptibly becomes autumn on the 23rd of September at 2:49a.m.. We’ll awaken and head to the market, not expecting all the trees to shed their lives in one ambitious drop.

There’s still time…

New Windows

As of last week, I’ve traded my Wednesday and Thursday morning walks for an express bus that takes me into downtown Columbus, followed by an elevator ride to the 21st floor of the state office tower where I can look the city’s pigeons in the eye as they glide by.

I have a new job that is naturally rearranging my previous work-to-life rhythm and I welcome it with no complaints. It’s not my first downtown gig or public transport commute but it’s been a decade and a half since I’ve slipped into the stream of my fellow country-to-city travelers on the main arteries that feed the heart of all things urban. The difference this time is that someone else is driving in rush hour traffic, letting me ease back into my blue bus seat near the front and relish my new role as passenger. My friend, Maria, even bought me “bus pants” (an homage to the Sheldon character from The Big Bang Theory sitcom) and I wore them stylishly on my third day at the office. I expect the novelty of all this to wear off at some point but until then, I’ll ride this wave with the contentment of a magpie tucking something shiny into its nest. New experiences recharge my batteries and I’m grateful that the good people at my new job have welcomed me into their fold, bus pants and all.

There’s an observation deck on the 40th floor that offers a stunning view of the landscape beyond the concrete and asphalt, and I joke that I can see our house from that rarefied perch. Of course I can’t, but it’s strangely reassuring to know it’s out there somewhere, waiting for me and the car I left behind at the park-and-ride just twenty minutes from the land I love. Far below the haze and the remaining 39 floors, homelessness is still as real as I remember it and everything is in motion—traffic lights and crosswalks, people, cars and vehicles of all sizes and shapes, street vendors and shop owners carrying empty cardboard boxes to the recycle bins behind their establishments. Tucked into the alley on the west side of the building are eateries and bars offering up the kind of fare that the downtown locals recommend to us heartily as they wait for their orders. My first lunch was a lusciously marinated tilapia with sides of avocado salad and seasoned rice from the chefs at an Argentinian restaurant that will most certainly see my face and money again. Walk across the bricks and past the big red dumpster and there it is, twelve kinds of heaven on a plate.

The other three days of my work week will be spent at the home office with a second story view of the meadow to the west, peaceful field to the east. On my 15-minute wellness breaks, I can walk outside to check on the chickens and feel the soft grass on my bare feet, then head back to the house to respond to emails and master the new database from which I’ll be pulling monthly and quarterly reports. I’ll probably notice that the windows in the living room need some Windex soon, and lunch will be a humbler plate of last night’s pizza or turkey rice casserole. No matter. On occasion I’ll get to travel around the state, meeting with colleagues and offering my support for their hard work in challenging times, grateful for the feel of the road under my wheels and a windshield view of the world. We’ll sit next to each other at conferences and trade notes on the latest policies that impact how we get our work done.

July was a blurry month of activity that kind of took us by surprise: Patrick’s surgery and recovery, the wild and welcome success of both farmer’s markets, the bathroom remodel and getting new tires for the Kona. We pushed through, remembered to close windows before leaving the house on cloudy days and ate out too much but it lightened the load. August is promising a less frantic pace and we’re settling into new routines with a bit more gracefulness, happy for Patrick’s progress and grateful the kittens are enjoying their summer outdoors (less litterbox maintenance is a gift we don’t take for granted from May - October). The youngest, Tink, accompanied me on my walk this morning, getting lost only once, and I made mushroom, red onion and feta omelets for breakfast. Ahh…the delight and solace that simple acts bring.

I know I haven’t seen all that downtown Columbus has to offer on its Wednesdays and Thursdays; the contrast to a more or less secluded life these past fourteen years will give me plenty to contemplate in the months to come. But no matter the view from whichever window I have, I’m glad for the chance to reframe and inform my outlook. At the end of the day, it’s still Patrick, the land and a life we both chose all those years ago.

Remind me to thank the bus driver this week.

Ten Bricks

Thick heavy rains scrubbed the last of the Canadian wildfire haze from the sky, filling the bowl of the meadow to overflowing and our smoke-weary lungs with fresher air. But I didn’t see the flash flood warning notification on my weather app until after I stood as close as I safely could to the edge of the rushing creek waters that had swallowed our bridge whole. My brother Mike was with us, working diligently on the bathroom remodel, and had just put his tools away for the day. We were lingering over dinner and some much-needed comic relief from “Corner Gas” episodes (a Canadian sitcom from the ‘90s, an un-coincidental viewing choice not at all related to the source of the wildfires) when I went upstairs to close the bedroom windows and caught a glimpse of the brown churning water racing past the trees on the ridge. I ran down the steps, calling out, “You’ve gotta come see this!”, Mike and Patrick close on my heels.

The scene—and the rippling edge of the water climbing the grassy slope to the ridge—stopped us in our tracks. We stood, mouths agape, watching the night’s first fireflies flirting with the blades of grass still poking up from the water and as one, turned our heads to look down the curve of the driveway toward where the bridge was, or might be. The creek had become a river, pushing everything out of its way, tumbling once-solid tree trunks and branches and any unfortunate unanchored forward into a surge of nonstop determination, destination unknown. The bridge was underneath it all, perhaps, either stoically standing firm or randomly missing some of its 6x6 pressure treated planks like a five year old’s first day of school grin. We could only wait until morning to know the worst.

I usually walk at first light, wanting to be blissfully lost in the woods as the birds announce the sun’s rising and the dawn threads its golden fingers through the leafy tresses of the tallest black walnuts and cottonwoods. I’d get there eventually but on this particular Monday after the deluge, I was trotting down the driveway at a pretty good clip, wondering if I’d be calling off work because we didn’t know where our bridge was. Rounding the curve that allowed for a full view of our passage to and from the land, I exhaled at the sight of the bridge still holding fast to the creek’s banks and rocky bed, planks firmly in place where the builders had left them after the most recent upgrade, covered in debris and slick with mud left behind as the waters receded. Bare patches dotted the driveway where once, a thick layer of #4 stones had embedded themselves, giving the illusion of permanence. A good-sized pile of them now sat just beyond the driveway’s sideways slope; it would require a shovel and muscles to return them to their original spot. I pictured myself on some hot day in August throwing my shoulders to the task with a cool bath in our new tub as the reward for my labors. More than a few times, Patrick and I have sent our thanks upward and across the seas to find Mike, now back home and remodeling other people’s houses in Hawaii.

Walking through the meadow, the grass and reeds along the creek banks looked combed as if by some colossal cosmetologist dedicated to directional perfection. Twigs and smaller branches collected halfway up the trunks of sturdier trees, making the resulting wattle-and-daub effect look charming instead of like victims of the watery violence that stranded them there. Three years ago, closer to the base of the ridge near the house, Patrick and I had stacked chunks of cut wood with all good intention of moving it up to the sweat lodge that same week. But I’m sure you understand how life happens and you choose other options besides work, and we left it neatly Jenga’d with a sincere promise to close the deal, soon. The water in its rage must have figured as much and took all but a single column of these wood chunks downriver, leaving a cairn-like stack as testimony to its mercy. I think we’ll keep it as is a while longer. We all need reminders of power and grace.

Equally curious as I surveyed the aftermath was a row of ten red clay bricks I’d plucked from the creek bed one day last summer, thinking I’d use them to edge a small plot of Russian sage near the house. They were heavy—I could only carry two at a time—so I lumbered each pair up the steep creek banks and laid them to rest on the bridge and would get them up to the house later. Post-storm, there they were, random rocks and pieces of punky tree bark shoved up against them, but unmoved by the force that I thought might have eaten our bridge in one bite.

I don’t know how the world really works. How nature and its evolving energy decides what to take and what to leave undisturbed. I know only that when I get to bear witness to the outcome after the fury, it unsettles me in a good way, shaking hands with what is holy and wholly mysterious. If I’m smart, I lower my gaze to my boot-clad feet and find my humble place in the midst of it all, leaving the answers to a Mind that has worked it out far better than I ever could.

For now, it’s enough that I made it to work that Monday morning and had the good fortune to return home just as safely to a bathroom with a working tub, sink and toilet nestled into a new aesthetic that lets in more light.

The better to see things by, I reckon.