Life in the Cracks

I feel sorry for the freeway trees.

Those patient and stalwart sentries who never know true darkness, never really sleep. They inhale the dust and diesel of round-the-clock traffic, their leaves in a state of constant flutter from the downdraft of semis and buses.

And they still turn green each spring.

I see them through bus windows dulled and smudged with fingerprints and they seem determined, yet resigned. And there’s no safe way to touch them reassuringly on my twice-weekly commute to the city of concrete and steel.

My Wednesdays and Thursdays put me right in front of the paradox of living things growing out of concrete and I give thanks for those tiny green spaces, surprising and resolute, as indifferent footsteps rush past insistent sprouts by inches or less. There are trees lining the streets, sapling size, in carefully curated pots surrounded by wrought iron fencing but…where do their roots go? The metal sewer lid nearby suggests an underworld of dangling woody tentacles reaching for soil that doesn’t exist above tracks of clay tiling that channel all manner of waste to, eventually, the river that snakes its way through the city’s finest stacked architecture. When folks leave the buildings to take their lunch on the statehouse lawn, where precisely placed older crabapples, red buckeyes, northern red oaks, star magnolias, sugar maples and baldcypress hug the outer edges of the meticulously landscaped grounds, they might be gladdened to see signs of life that resemble a hiking trail they once visited. It is important to note that the trees listed are all native to Ohio, evidence of thoughtful planning decades ago. Occasionally, a white squirrel makes an appearance in the branches of a crabapple closest to the bus stop. Those of us waiting to climb aboard and head home point and smile.

Things continue to grow worse and there’s no looking away or pretending it’s not happening. Alaska, for the first time ever in its history, is under a heat advisory, joining the majority of the lower 48 as we sweat through the next week miserably together, and still we scroll past that horrible reality in search of a better headline, only to find that the US unconstitutionally bombed three nuclear sites in Iran yesterday while Gaza speeds toward a deeper level of its own humanitarian crisis. If it weren’t so hot upstairs, I’d be under the bed right now, praying in fierce desperation. But I’ll stay put here on the couch, with a view of the trees on the ridge and the luxury of a large fan oscillating its relief across the living room. Our house wrens and orioles seem blissfully unaware of any human turmoil and for a few moments, I close my eyes and join them in their daily quest for survival. I want to live too. And thank the heavens, prayer is infinitely portable.

How do we cope with this? There are myriad options, many of them encouraging and effective, others more indicative of our darker side as a species. Our ability to choose wisely hangs taut in the balance, a knife’s edge of informed intention and childlike “just make it go away” terror. In the absence of my own parents, I look to those slightly older than I am for even a spark of hope. In their presence, I feel safe for a few moments and that’s enough. They are my green sprouts, daring to come forth in the midst of all that hard concrete of evil and despair. Children too (thinking of my great-niece, Nora, who knows only comfort and her parents’ cheerful deep love and how it feels to be held and fed) bring this measure of reassurance and I fling it all outward so that it lands on others who are at their wits’ end. Litanies and supplications are now an intricately-woven tapestry of protection, strength to endure and resilience, the Ask to End All Asks. Somehow, beauty finds its way in there and nestles itself right next to the weariest part of my soul, sending down roots and pushing out buds that I know will bloom. I just don’t know when or how.

Our garden is loving this heat, following a long stretch of episodic showers and downpours. Weeding one of the raised beds yesterday resulted in an unplanned red onion harvest and now our salads and sandwiches will have an extra tanginess that we love. Oven-roasted and put atop black bean burgers, we’ll eat them in grateful silence as the cats lay flat on the coolest floors of the house, not moving at all.

Dear friends, I’m clinging these days to whatever grows up and out of the concrete, those ambitious sprouts and buds that didn’t read the rulebook on ideal germination conditions. Life and love are the only “once and for all” I understand in my short time on this planet we share. They keep showing up, keep coming back with lessons and guidance and renewal in their open and generous hands. When I look to my left and right, over my head and to the earth beneath my somewhat steady feet, they’re all I see that fits the definition of “forever.”

I choose them. Again. Today, and in whatever arrives tomorrow.

Busy Signal

Why do the multiflora roses have to smell so heavenly? Pruners in hand, the morning walks have become a conflicted trespass of beauty mingled with unfortunate purpose as I try to ease the thorny burden on our newest maple, shagbark hickory and oak saplings. I’ve heard the laughter of brambles before—a deep and derisive shrillness—and still I trudge on with my agenda amidst the echoes of futility. Perhaps, akin to the starfish on the beach story, it matters to this one (tiny red maple, brave little oak, innocent shagbark hickory).

Please forgive the gap in reflections (has it really been two months since I put my fingers to the keyboard?); I’ve been outside on my knees in the garden, mulching, hilling up the potatoes, running my fingers through the tender leaves of this year’s first radish crop (five varieties!) and slowly shrinking the pile of wood chips that our nieces hauled and offloaded next to the raised beds, spreading it on the narrow paths that wind their way through our future groceries. I have plans for refinements to the whole enterprise—reinforcing the south side of the bean and vining tomato trellises with welded wire fencing, filling in the trenches that Patrick dug for potatoes and closing off that area with the remaining wood pallets currently leaning up against one of the more established mulberry trees. It’s good and honest work that will probably take the better part of a morning and I’m up for it, thanks to a good massage therapist and a most pleasant bathtub that makes me forget those knots in my shoulders.

A while back, I mused about tending to living things as a remedy for the frightening State of Affairs that currently engulfs us all and it’s working, like a couple of Tylenol taking the edge off a pounding headache. A church up the road is holding its annual “yard giveaway”, accepting donations of anything and everything that folks can pick through at their leisure on a sunny Saturday. Our barn will gladly give up its detritus to this cause, finding new homes for three antique school desks, half a dozen wicker lawn chairs, a woodchipper in need of a carburetor, a white farmhouse table and miscellaneous light fixtures. I fully expect to hear the whole structure exhale as it watches the truck disappear down the driveway, it’s tottering pile of memories wobbling precariously over the ruts and potholes left by the last round of soaking rains. We’ll stop for ice cream on the way back home, sitting on the tailgate like a couple of dating teenagers.

We’ve been busy since we arrived here twenty-six years ago and for as long as the land keeps asking for our time and muscle and effort, we’ll gladly oblige. What the seasons give us is more than ample compensation; it is, in fact, a sacred contract of trust and good medicine in both directions. For the next three months, the trees on the ridge will wrap their leafy arms around us protectively as our flock of orioles, in their smart orange and black tuxedos, play hide-and-seek between sips at the jelly juice feeders. We need only sit on the couch and be delighted; they ask nothing else from us. A mama raccoon tidies up the area below the seed feeders around 6:30pm each evening and we expect to see her young-uns in tow before too long. If you’ve not had the opportunity to observe any animal showing its offspring how to survive, you’re in for a treat and may never watch TV again. Living things saving us from ourselves once more.

In a couple hours, I’ll walk down the driveway to trim back the honeysuckles that want so badly to scratch the sides of our cars and have the weed whip in the other hand to lay down the hip-high saw grass and bedstraw threatening to tunnel us in forever. Maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of the stunning pileated woodpecker who frequents the grove of buckeyes that hug the creek banks and he’ll let me just gaze upon him in awe and appreciation. I don’t want to be greedy (feeling small as I stand beneath towering cottonwoods is enough, truly) but it’s no crime to hope, is it? In three weeks, the branches of nearly all our mulberries will be loaded with fruit and we’ll shake them loose onto a sheet spread out on the grass below while one of us tries to remember that recipe for mulberry barbeque sauce our niece gave us five years ago.

It’s my best intention to sit here on the couch a week from now and unspool another collection of thoughts but if that doesn’t happen, at least you’ll know what I’m up to.

The Heart of the People

Halfway through the morning walk, just past the Hill to the west, it started to rain. No leaves yet on the black walnuts, sycamores and red maples filling in where the corn used to be two-plus decades ago, so the branches and buds catch the drops with soft tapping sounds. In just ten yards, I’ll turn the corner into the mouth of a secondary path Patrick cut a few years back and I’ll hear the gentle downpour fading behind me until I get to the woods.

This place knows magic, every day.

There are few things more soothing than walking in intermittent spring showers, unless it’s being tucked in on the couch afterwards with the morning oats (blackberries, blueberries, maple syrup and honest-to-goodness butter that’s white, not yellow), writing about them. I’ve not been sleeping well, nerves rubbed raw with uncertainty and each hour’s headlines worse than the ones before. Didn’t I just share two weeks ago about the hope of tending to life and growing things? Where’d all that go? The garden’s coming along, as gardens do with proper love and attention, and we hope to be eating radishes in our salads soon, but the rest of it seems to have evaporated, retreated into the temporary protection of the heart’s warren, where all smart rabbits hide when the hawk’s shadow darkens and blots out the sun. I’m safe and dry for now, in the company of a few others who, like me, need a break from the onslaught of hopelessness and fear. We’ll emerge in a bit to take up the mantle of love and justice again but give us a minute to catch our breath (I have plans to clear out what’s underneath the bed later today, just to have another place to go if I need it). In the meantime, I sink into the rain as it washes away the worry. A little.

Out running errands yesterday afternoon following a flurry of final tax preparation, Patrick and I drove through a packed demonstration on the street where a Tesla dealership stands. Pro-democracy supporters were six rows deep and around the block, numbering over 500; a small group of their pro-fascist counterparts sprinkled in here and there, flashing middle fingers and shouting insults across the two-lane road that divided the crowds (physically, for a start). No violence beyond the anger in the faces of those on both sides whose fears lurked just below the surface. I noticed one calm gentleman holding his hand over his heart, nodding with his eyes closed. It was warm and breezy, flags of all sorts snapping and unfurling over the heads of everyone standing up for what they believe. I honked loud and long as we circled the block and 500+ people cheered their thanks.

I don’t ask how we got here anymore and it’s neither helpful nor therapeutic to keep asking. The more urgent question is “where are we going?” If I let fear alone answer that one, I’ll be under the bed more often. Most days, though, I’m not that short-sighted, and thank the Maker for that. The rhythm of life, for me and maybe Patrick, at least, is a back-and-forth motion between unsettled and determined, with the land wrapping us in rain-washed comfort and wisdom round the clock. The last two weeks have leaned more heavily toward the “unsettled” side of things. Morning walks, work and studio art projects distract and soften the rough edges for a few blessed moments. It’s the nights that take me down, hard sometimes, as my thoughts are left to spool unchecked and unhopeful. Sunrises have been harder to believe in lately.

Sometimes I imagine an actual conversation between me and someone whose views and convictions are completely on the other side of my own. Is such an encounter even possible? I find that generous portion of my heart that wants to really listen, not just react, and I wonder where we’d land in those pockets of silence that pepper all challenging discussions. I’d like to think I’m compassionately curious about what goes on behind the clever slogans and yard signs, in the privacy of one’s own living room. Is there any common ground among humanity anymore? Anything we can agree on and somehow move a foot (heck, a toe) forward together? It wasn’t evident on the street yesterday, far as I could see, but we didn’t stay long enough to find out. Looks like I’ll need to go back and try again. Maybe.

My late mother-in-law often shared this insightful nugget in times of trouble and doubt: “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift—that’s why it’s called ‘the present’”. At 2:30 this morning, it struck me that the current Situation pushes me to stop and live in the gift of whatever my present moment is, until the next one comes around, and the next…and the next. Now I’m four minutes into a future that looked bleak an hour ago and I’m still here, still married to the man of my dreams and still determined, if only even a little bit, to do what I can to help push that bleakness back a few yards. Is that enough? Not against the backdrop of a future built by my—and our—worst nightmares, it isn’t, but…on the bus with strangers, heading downtown to work? Ok, sure. Or thanking the man in the MAGA hat who just held the door for me at Kroger? Um, yeah. Teachable moments are surprisingly everywhere and most don’t involve a monologue to a captive audience. I rub my forehead, a little confused by the grayness of it all when my heart—and maybe the hearts of others—wants black-and-white, linear and clear assessments and solutions. Communities are messy and evolving, our fellow humans in a continuous state of growth and awakening (darn it all, on myriad different time frames and schedules, too) and yes, intransigence. Patience is required while we’re also painting slogans on the signs and banners we’ll wave in the streets. The good work of love and justice must continue.

All I know is that I want peace. And I can’t be alone in that. I’ll do what I can, as best I can, one moment to the next.

Join me.

She's Here!

Spring has arrived on our doorstep, her suitcases bulging with 70-degree days, the faint shrill of tiny peepers in the swampy depressions of the woods, steady soothing rains and the occasional thunderstorm with its strobe light lightning. Bonus this past week was a total lunar eclipse that generously shared the night sky with an applause-worthy meteor shower (those middle if the night trips to the bathroom downstairs do have their merits). Yesterday, I saw a house sparrow tugging at a piece of straw five times her length, trying to get airborne with it to build the base of her summer home. I offered to break it into smaller pieces for her but she declined. The first shoots of our beloved snowdrops and crocuses are bravely above ground, unaware that the weather-guessers are predicting a few more hard frosts before we can comfortably trudge outside barefooted and unfettered. I’m not worried. They know what they’re doing (the snowdrops, not the weather-guessers).

In a burst of “it’s almost-spring” antsy-pants-ness, I cleared the remaining dead stalks and last year’s tomato vines from the raised beds before continuing down the path to the woods, imagining the all-blue and red Pontiac potatoes we’d plant later this week along with radishes, chard, kale and spinach that will fill our salad bowls until the lettuces start sprouting. The garlic we nestled in the ground last October got the party started a couple weeks ago, along with a narrow bed dedicated entirely to my grandfather’s tulips from the Netherlands. In the far end of our overlarge and warm bathroom, we’ll start the tomatoes, cabbage, seashell cosmos, snap peas, dragon’s tongue beans and some Mexican sour gherkins that will be no bigger than my thumb when we harvest them. Oh, and bell peppers in all colors—green, yellow, red, orange and purple (do I have to go to work tomorrow?).

I am overly ready for the season of laundry on the line, hearing aids on the morning walks to catch every bird call and deer snort, turning compost by the shovelful, sitting atop the zero-turn mower for those luscious six-hour stretches of meditative grass cutting and eating sun-warmed pink bumblebee cherry tomatoes right off the vine. The weeds will bring us to our knees, we’ll give mammoth sunflowers a try in a loving nod to our sisters and brothers in Ukraine and the chickens will welcome another six layers to the flock so we can help feed our family, neighbors and coworkers. I don’t know how things work in your soul, but planting and tending to life is my best insurance against the despair and division that currently threatens to poison us once and for all. A tiny seed that will give us ground cherries in August says otherwise. My hope is in her. Unreservedly.

As if all that over-the-top unstoppable new life jubilation isn’t enough, I also got to hold my great-niece for the first time last Sunday. Eleanor arrived on Valentine’s Day just before her mother’s birthday and has no idea how much joy she brought with her on her passage from the womb into her parents’ tired and excited arms. She is wiggly and sweet, a sponge soaking up the sights and sounds around her and I think I may not see my sister Peggy for the next seven years at least. Her first grandchild has a claim on her heart and her spare time; I hold no grudges for such bliss. It’s just more life in a cute little package to keep us focused on what matters and how we can be helpful. Isn’t that what we’re here to do, after all? Tend to life, give our undivided attention to the Important Things and lend a hand (or a dozen eggs or a basket of freshly-picked salad ingredients).

When spring shows up with all of her most welcome baggage, it’s a good idea to make room wherever you can find it. She doesn’t take “no” for an answer, just keeps pushing life forward and upward and smart folks hang on for the ride.