A Day’s Work

From the looks of things, it’s going to be the Year of Apples and Mulberries. I lost count at fifty mulberry trees last year (the rabbits of the arboreal world) and have already cleared a patch in the freezer for the jam and barbeque sauce we’ll make in a few months. The trees that give us apples are a mystery in variety and origin, remnants of a working orchard that rimmed the meadow where the former residents’ dairy cattle grazed their afternoons away. The fruit is an impressionistic red streaked with lime-ish green and face-puckering sour. We have yet to turn them into anything beyond a quick trail snack, tossing the cores onto the walking path for the deer if they want them. Everywhere we look is food in raw form and if we didn’t have day jobs, we could easily make a life of gathering, preparing and storing the land’s bounty to get us through the seasons. It’s time to get out the “Edible Wild Plants” book and dog ear the “Spring” section. For as long as we live, there will always be work to do.

If one of life’s prominent themes is motion, another must be contrast. We wouldn’t appreciate warmth so much if we didn’t know what cold fingers and toes felt like toward the end of a winter walk. Silence is that much more blessedly soothing when it follows the cacophony of the neighbors’ 4-wheeler slicing through the air on a summer Sunday morning. Sweet plays with salty in a dark chocolate almond bar where flakes of sea salt land on the tip of the tongue in that first bite. I’m not thirty anymore (or forty, or fifty…shall I keep going?) and I know it, as evidenced by how much less weeding I can do in an afternoon without noticing any aches in my fingers or knees. Tending to the land spreads out over several days now. When did gathering fallen branches become a full day’s work instead of the warm-up for the after lunch gardening marathons of my youth? Hundreds of thousands of people with whom we share this planet work much harder than I do, no matter what my aching knees say. It’s all relative and I get it, but it’s good for the soul to consider another’s life work, the rhythm and rocks that a fellow human must move in order to survive, to solve a problem, to eat.

For the past thirteen days, first responders, engineers, tugboat and barge captains, transportation officials in Maryland and workers at the Royal Farms convenience store near the entrance of the Francis Scott Key bridge have put their shoulders and hearts to the work each of them must do in the aftermath of a disaster that left empty chairs at six families’ tables. How do they awaken each morning since March 26, knowing—or not knowing—what will be asked of them in the day’s waking hours, and how do they put it aside, if such a thing were even possible, when they finally reach their own driveways and dinner tables? In the days following the September 11 attacks, it was someone’s job to figure out where to transport the debris from the Twin Towers so that it could be sifted, examined, sorted and piled up, one truckload after another, day after day, week upon week. Who bore that burden and finally decided, in a moment of karmic irony, that the Fresh Kills site on Staten Island, the world’s largest open-air dump, would be the most suitable place for such a heavy and unfathomable purpose? Twenty-three years and 600,000 tons of debris later, there are still fragments of lives amid the dust, no closure within reach. No matter what I was tasked with during my time at the American Red Cross in the days and months following that horrific event—receiving volunteer interest phone calls by the dozens, directing a steady stream of blood donors at our doors and guiding community businesses wanting to feed us as we worked ‘round the clock—none of it came close to the weight on the shoulders of that one person who directed the truck traffic at that Staten Island dump-turned-graveyard and crime scene.

Getting up at 4:30a.m. twice a week to catch a bus downtown and support those who advocate for nursing home residents isn’t easy but it’s manageable compared to the hard labor required to harvest sugarcane in India, coffee beans in the mountains of Central America, or direct air traffic in a tower high above the runways of the world’s airports. I have little to nothing to complain about given my circumstance and privilege and I’m aware of that, deeply, for the majority of my waking hours. We all do our part, with a grounded commitment to the outcome, and that mustn’t be minimized or overlooked. It’s just hard not to compare my day’s efforts to someone else’s, a someone whose home has a dirt floor and sheets for windows. Looking globally to my left and right, I humbly acknowledge that I work on easy street and pretty much always have, every day of my employed life.

Let the mulberries fall in showers from the trees. I am up for the job of sorting and washing them, picking off the stems and crushing them into their next life as sauce and jam and who knows what else so that we can enjoy them in the chilly days of winter.

In Baltimore, there are three more bodies to find beneath the wreckage and a bridge to rebuild.

First Things

It starts before I even open my eyes. A cascade of tasks tumbling out in no rank order, rolling over the edges of my just barely awake mind, jockeying for top spot on the to-do list while I try to remember where I put my socks. Laundry, fresh batches of granola to be made, finishing up last night’s dishes left with good intentions in the wash basin by the kitchen sink and don’t forget to pay the gas card bill online. Kitties will be hangry and batting their claws-out paws at each other, what’s clean and presentable to wear to work? Speaking of work, did I send that project update email or just imagine I did and is there enough card stock to print a round of motivational meme cards for an upcoming meeting? Right about now, it’s clear that if I don’t tend to my morning ablutions and soon, I’ll have something else to add to the list.

Does anyone else start their days like this?

A life of continuous motion awaits us on the other side of the womb and doesn’t show any signs of letting up until we transition over to the Big Stillness where finally, I’ll get some rest. It’s not the richness of activity that unsettles me at times as much as the need to figure out which tasks are urgent, important or both. Prioritizing one’s life is a complex load to carry and it doesn’t help that the baggage keeps shifting around. As young-uns, much of this work was done for us by taller and more responsible folks (parents, teachers, elder siblings on power trips while mom and dad were out grocery shopping on Friday nights) but they eventually stepped aside as we demonstrated a budding ability to mange things on our own. When we screwed up, they would helpfully rearrange the chaos and hand it back to us for another go. But there’s no playbook for getting it Right All The Time and so…we unspool a life of trial and error and here we are to tell the tale.

Somewhere beneath the surface of all this internal activity imposed on external circumstances is a persistent nudge of what matters most in any given moment or situation. Let me ask you, dear reader and fellow traveler, at what point do you remember developing those core nonnegotiable values that helped you find your true north and apply it to some of your more nettlesome brain benders over the years? When did you learn that people are more important than things (we actually had a family friend create a lovely banner in classic 70’s burlap and felt style with that quote on it. It hung by the front door for years, guiding our out-the-door thoughts at the beginning of the day and offering both reassurance and admonishment when we returned. I think I claimed it when it came time for the family goods to be distributed), that being honest might not always feel good in the moment but, when practiced again and again, knitted together the strong threads of your own integrity? How did you learn gratitude for the smallest of pleasures and wonder and awe for the incomprehensible ones? Who taught you to love and presume good intention in front of all evidence to the contrary?

I still have wise people (some still taller than I am) in my life to help guide some of my stuck moments (I keep my personal board of directors on their toes) but it’s these hard-won and indelible conscience-framers that filter the choices I face daily. Easing Patrick into a hectic workday by having his coffee and lunch ready will always be more important than getting two trays of raspberry birthday cake granola baked and cooling before my morning walk. All living things not human who rely on us for food will be fed before I sit down to my own bowl of oats and in a stretch to make coming home from work just a smidge calmer, I’ll make the bed and be sure most of the kitchen floor is swept. It’s not a grand affair to tend to such details but I’m of the mindset that anything I can do to make future Liz and Patrick less stressed is worth the effort up front. Before I put my bare feet on the cool floor, I try to say thank you for even having a bed and floor in the first place.

I know life doesn’t move in a linear no-circling-back sort of motion, where what was first today will always and forever be first from that moment forward. I expect a shifting sands existence where what anchors me is what matters most. In those fresh waking minutes of a new day where tasks, like energetic toddlers, tug at my sleeves for all my attention, I’ll try to receive them with kindness and a thankful heart rather than a nerve-straining pressure to get everything right.

In a world of first things first, I choose to lead with gratitude.

In the Presence Of...

At the market last Saturday, someone tapped me on the shoulder as I was taking care of two lovely customers. I reached back to grasp the fingers responsible, patting only air. The space behind the table is narrow, making it impossible for anyone to slip past me unnoticed. I finished up with the customers, returned credit cards to each smiling face and turned around. Just me and a wall of totes holding the day’s inventory. In the softest of realizations, I understood that I had been Visited.

Sometimes on the walking path parallel to the north woods, I’ll catch a whiff of cinnamon or pipe tobacco or freshly brewed coffee. The neighboring farmhouses are too far away to waft such delights across the acreage. I inhale it and register that in all probability, I am not alone. Another curiosity: at the south entrance to the meadow just below the ridge is a hole dug by unseen hands or paws but it sports no collar of dirt removed. In that place, the ground just sunk into a perfectly round depression, carefully exposing the thinnest taproot of a nearby sapling. It hasn’t gotten bigger in the year it’s been there. Leaves collect in it and sometimes water during a heavy rain. I step carefully around it each time I walk.

I’m not sure that noticing these occurrences is in the “skill” or “gift” categories. This isn’t something I plan to add to my resume anytime soon unless I can really spin it (“observant”, “aware of details”, “sensitive to the presence of others”). I have come to expect that when I walk the land, the chances of my meeting someone I recognize are thin on the ground but…I almost always encounter others. Some are wrapped in fur, some adorned in smooth feathers that look painted on, some noisily scuttling through the dry and tattered leaves with their tiny paws. And some are faceless, shapeless, but unmistakably present.

As I get older, the ranks of cherished family and friends on the Other Side is swelling, as is only natural. I’ve always wondered if and how often they might make a return trip just to see how things are going for the rest of us. Maybe Dad is checking out the state of our Osage orange trees, whose bumpy green fruit keeps roaches at bay (he was convinced of this and collected them off the ground whenever he’d come out for a visit. He also swore by deer whistles attached to the front bumper of pretty much every car he owned). Or maybe my sweet friend, Jeannie, who died eight years ago (has it really been that long?) is making sure the walking stick she gave me several birthdays ago is still up to the task. There was always talk when I worked in hospice care that surviving family members would experience “The Dream” shortly after the funeral, in which their loved one featured prominently and gently, offering reassurance that they were doing fine. There are two sides to that farewell moment—whispering to the dying that they can go, that we’ll be fine after they leave, and them returning the favor by showing up in our REM sleep to ease our grief-furrowed and anxious brows. A spiritual symmetry that is both karmic and kind.

I suppose it’s easier to understand these encounters when they happen in the vast expanse of land and trees and rushing creek water, all of whom we’re still getting to know as the seasons keep unfolding and collecting in our memories. Mystery lives alongside the evidence-based here and we’re left with endless options that include trying to figure it out and sitting silently at its feet. But who’s at the market behind the table, playing tricks on me while I’m selling granola? Who stopped by during one of my massage and acupuncture treatment sessions, calling out a troubled “Hello?…Hello?” as I sank deeper into the healing effects of the needles’ placement in my skin? Naive of me to think our tiny pocket of land-locked paradise is the only place souls can wander about freely. I’m sure they can go wherever they choose, no visas, no traveling tickets needed. And if it’s important to their agendas that they seek me out, I can’t imagine anything that would stop them. Not even a crowded indoor market stand.

For all kinds of reasons, I tend not to walk the land at night. Mostly it feels intrusive to those with whom we share this space. That is their time and I’d prefer we not meet in a startled or unexpected way that would understandably lean toward violence. I’m fine to sit on the porch in late August long after sunset as the Saw-whet owls call to each other from their perches in the sycamores that line the creek. It would be an honor to see them in those moments but it’s also enough to hear their song and be grateful for the miracle of hearing aid technology (It is important to note here that they have never been found sitting in our deck chairs or resting on the car’s side mirrors, suggesting a sort of mutual understanding born of instinct on both sides).

All this to say…there’s still so much I don’t know. Maybe my life’s teachers include the ones I can’t see but still sense when they come around at moments unbidden. I’ll take comfort in that. That, and in knowing that respectful curiosity will most likely be stronger in me than fear. For now, I’ll keep that door wide open.

Before It's Gone

I stepped into the bathroom last night to wash my hands and there it was on the other side of the window—a coppery full moon ascending against the backdrop of a navy-blue sky turning midnight. Handwashing would have to wait while the moon and I gazed at each other for uncounted minutes. I rested my chin on the window frame, my breath fogging the glass. What did I come in here for? Right—clean fingernails. In a minute…

I collect moments like that every day and, at the risk of sounding ungratefully greedy, they’re never enough. There lives within me a perpetual hunger for beauty and mystery as only the land can give. She seems to understand this and keeps the firehose rushing in our direction in all directions so that no matter where we look, there she is in all her ever-changing splendor. The sunrise was easily seventeen different shades of pink, orange and grey this morning before I even made it up the Hill to the west of the field-turned-woods (it’s a trick to keep walking in a straight line while your head is set at a perfect 90-degree angle looking at the sky instead of your feet or the path ahead. Try it sometime and let me know how you get on. Maybe I’m not doing it right). For safety reasons, at some point I need to pay attention to where I’m going; careening into a tree at full walking stride is a bone-rattling event and I listen for the sniggers of rabbits watching from the brambly thicket as I recover my pace and shake bark dust from my hair. Glad I can be their morning entertainment, as I’m not sure how much they get out there, being so low on the forest food chain and always looking so nervous. How they manage to combine that with cuteness I’ll never know. It’s a skill I’d like to master someday.

Until then, I try to show up every day for the wonder that exists all around us and sink into it for as long as I can. We’ve discussed this before, haven’t we? The impermanence of things and the importance of at least acknowledging that, if not actually accepting it. In my head, I know Patrick and I will eventually Move On and this place that we’re so much a part of now will be transformed into something Else, as will we. I cannot begin to imagine how that grand exit might look (there are so many scenarios, from outrageous to frighteningly plausible) so I simply don’t and save that kind of brain energy for the projects awaiting me in the studio, glad for the chance to step outside my brain box and into a more soothing spot where colors and scissors and PVA glue all work together without a single care for the future. It works wonderfully for a while until I wander into the kitchen for something to eat and noodle back around to the day when I no longer get to live here and then I’m melancholy for the better part of an afternoon. Even art has its limits in the respite department.

So what is it, then…this unquenchable thirst for experiencing what the land has to offer? It’s not a volume or quantity thing, there is no ledger tracking every coppery moon sighting or first cabbage of the season or deer tracks close to the back door (though such events do find their way into my other journal meanderings now and again). It’s much bigger and goes deeper than that, into the caverns of our relationship with the living things that move and have their being next to us, with us and around us. Everything is in motion all the time, including us (except for when we’re sleeping) and there are places on the land that still don’t know our footprint, literally, after twenty-five years. I’m fine with that, feeling most days like a benevolent intruder here. Whatever secrets the land holds onto are hers and most days we are happily distracted and delighted by what’s right in front of us or wiggling just millimeters away in our peripheral vision. What’s hidden is hidden and we’re none the wiser. That’s the arrangement for now.

I think I just get wistful now and then because I will miss her when the time comes to part ways. I remember my childhood, growing up in the suburbs and walking on concrete to get to school or church, but those images are fading at the edges, replaced by clearly framed views of the black walnut and crack willows on the ridge holding our spring orioles gently in their leafy foliage while I refill the feeder cups with more strawberry jam. This life I live now is the life I know and it matters immensely to the two of us and the hundreds of thousands of us who inhabit this tiny slice of paradise. I want to live attentively for as long as we all can before it’s gone. Because gone it will be someday.

Strange that those words are both heavy and comforting in one swipe. That I got to be here, was trusted to care for the grass and the mourning doves and the wild grapes for what feels like both an eternity and a smidgen of time is a gift without end. Tonight, I will be grateful for the view out the bathroom window and will pull up a chair so that the coppery moon and I can consider each other once more.