Powering Down

A row of volunteer sycamores guards the eastern border of the place we call home, their many-fingered hands high-fiving the sky as the horizon settles itself in a soft ombre of pink becoming the palest of blues. The leaves they once wore now lie in rain-flattened circles on the ground at their feet; there is nowhere for their bones to hide and they seem silently proud of making it to this point in the cycle of their lives. I long for their resolute steadfastness in the face of who knows what kind of winter will blow and swirl around us all.

The seventeen or so acres of once-glowing goldenrod have softened to a deer-camouflaging russet and I wish our hooved companions safe travels as gun season begins tomorrow (local school children get an extra day added to their already long Thanksgiving weekend, for which they are giving thanks whether they’re shivering in a tree stand with their uncles or tucked in snugly, no alarm clock in sight). For the next few days, I’ll put the thick sleeves of my blue and grey plaid flannel jacket through the overlarge armholes of a bright orange vest before stepping out the back door to wend my way back to the woods for the most soul-nourishing and nonhuman part of my day. That vest, paired with my unicorn head wrap, should make it clear that I’m not a hunter’s quarry. Twenty-four gun seasons in and I’m still here, so at least the vest is working (the head wrap didn’t arrive on the scene until a few years ago). I’ll do what I always do when I walk—listen for other signs of life around me, rest my right cheek and temple on the refreshingly cold, smooth trunk of a young musclewood sapling and whisper my thanks to each and every leaf that gave us shade during the sweltering weeks of August. It’s just the neighborly thing to do.

The land’s slow and sleepy shift into winter has me swaying sometimes on my feet and I want so much to kip down on whatever bed she offers, stretching for one last time the full length of my 5’ 2” frame until it’s time to curl up, chin to knees and arms wrapped ‘round my shoulders in a surrender of all things conscious. I’ll hang my cares on one of those many-fingered sycamores and let the north wind take them where he will. Doesn’t that sound heavenly? Where we live, heaven is this kind of real one season to the next. I’ve long since given up waiting for the land to be anything less than achingly beautiful. She shows up every day, gorgeous and stunning and we stand in the middle of it all, speechless but cheering. Another reason I’m glad for my hybrid remote work schedule. Just to earn my living amidst the subtle changes that unfold from dawn to dusk is reassurance enough of luck’s embrace.

Tonight, we have friends old and new taking in ceremony while a drizzling rain spits itself through the pines that encircle the sweat lodge. Chunks of wood tucked under tarps are dry and keep the fire going, amber flames dancing gently to a rain-soaked wind. I tend the soup on the stove, set out bowls and spoons and carry-out containers of chocolate no-bake cookies (mom’s recipe), brownies and gluten-free blackberry jam muffins to end the meal on a sweet note. When the small band of pray-ers troop in the back door, they’ll be greeted by the warm breath of the furnace and dry towels aplenty, a fresh pot of coffee gurgling its last brewed gulps into the carafe. We’ll talk about what they heard and felt (one friend is new to this form of prayer), who else joined them in the lodge, and then send them home with hearty hugs and leftovers. They’ll leave behind good feelings and footprints in the wet grass. Tomorrow morning when I walk, I’ll step where they stood, glad for their lingering company and the sweat towels hanging on the clothesline, reminders of time well spent.

This is the rhythm of our life nearing winter. We may put on a few more pounds and spend more time in our comfy clothes, but we do so without regret or apology. It’s as close as we can come to hibernating fully like some of our other furred relatives do Out There in the meadow and where the field meets the forest. We’ll venture out when we need to (heading to work to pay for the propane that keeps our feet warm, picking up a few cans of black beans and some onions for soup, inhaling the sharp air of a sub-zero snow squall just to remind ourselves that we’re alive!) and return to the soft security of couch and blankets, holding each other’s hands as we nod off with books in our laps.

It’s a pause in the action I welcome with a full-faced yawn and a well-earned exhale. Like the sign says, please do not disturb. At least not for the next three months.

Bookended in Darkness

The southern Taurids are a true test of a sky-gazer’s patience, promising fireball spectacles in an inky black autumn sky but…only one or two in five hours, and that’s if you’re looking in the right direction. With a promise from all the Experts that this celestial show would peak on November 5 around 8:47p.m., we had nothing to lose by stepping onto the front deck after dinner (no telescope or binoculars, just sharp, hungry eyes raking the heavens). Meteor shower dress code: light jackets, ball caps and something to cover the feet (we chose slippers). Patrick was struggling a bit with end-of-the-day back pain; I didn’t expect we’d stay out there long.

Our necks in craning position toward the eastern sky, we stood close to each other against the evening’s early chill, my arm around Patrick’s waist to hold him steady. The moon wasn’t due to rise for another four hours. The sky was ours, save for the faint glow of the Duke gas station four miles up the road, anticipation keeping our minds off how cold it really was. Then, soundlessly above our heads at the exact moment we both shifted our gaze an inch to the right, there it was—a long-tailed shimmering streak slicing through infinite darkness, leaving no evidence that it had even appeared at all. In less than five minutes, we got what we came for. My arm still around Patrick’s waist, we moved as one across the dampening grass, up the front steps and back into the warmth, trusting that the show would go on merrily without us (as I’m sure it does most nights). Dear Diary, our first Taurids meteor shower checked off the list.

We are trudging reluctantly forward into the season of minimal light. In the record books for all time, November 19th, 2023 will have known only 9 hours and 31 minutes of sun before the night sky gulps down that last morsel of soul-nourishing illumination, and I’ll try for all the world not to head upstairs to bed at 5:30. I’ll stop longing for summer sunsets well past 9:00pm and (eventually) happily accept the coziness of a kitchen warmly lit with an overhead fixture and an antique lamp atop the tea cabinet, dinner bubbling reassuringly on the stove. Slippers and quilts will be within arm’s reach and I’ll bake more than I usually do, freezing the surplus. Coyotes will come closer to the house, singing through the meadow beneath the sycamores where the saw-whet owls call back and forth to each other in breathy whistling cadence. Every season requires an adjustment period and I’m up for it, truly, but the move from summer through fall takes a bit longer than I’m ever prepared to embrace. Even so, I wrap myself willingly in the long darkness that bookends my days, packing all that I can into that narrow sliver of light we get in shrinking increments until winter’s solstice. What’s left in the garden to tuck in for the approaching winter? Where on the land haven’t I walked yet? Is there enough time to tidy up the woodpile by the sweat lodge before locking up the chickens for the night? I get some of it done and make a promise to the land that tomorrow’s another day, if that sun comes up again (no guarantees, just hope and gratitude). Last Sunday was the last time I expect to cut the grass before spring and I lingered over the six or so acres we keep trim, jostled by patches made bumpy by our industrious and hidden mole neighbors, the mower spitting out a stray black walnut now and then. A squirrel in the branches of the mulberry tree to my right saw where it landed, I swear, and made note of it.

I know that day and night each have their gifts and their glory, and neither is without its respective challenges to a modern lifestyle that insists on less romantic ways to mark and pass the time (I find no comfort in the blue or red digital display of a nightstand clock and so, don’t have one. I barely tolerate the round wall clock in the kitchen with its time-honored Hindu-Arabic numbers telling me to get a move on). Living in the land’s rhythm, we try to follow her lead most days, to the point where we check the weather apps on our phones less frequently to see what we need to wear for the day. It’s enough to open the door, take a deep breath and dress in layers. For as long as it keeps working, we’ll stick to that practice, envying our hibernating relatives who get to sleep in their furry pajamas for months with no one calling them lazy. They trust that spring will come, in infinitesimal increments of light, and we’d do well to mimic them.

Until then, the night sky will keep beckoning us outside to stand in her chilly air, our feet on the damp grass, our heads tilted back in wonder and humility. When the sun comes up again, we’ll be glad we did.

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…