by hand

I heard from a friend, who is downsizing her home in preparation for a move to a retirement complex, that the antiques we have been cherishing all our lives are no longer in demand!

This astonishes me.

What happens to the next generation? Will they no longer want the puddled-softness of hand-stitched quilts, the dry-sinks glowing with late 19th century oak, the fragile china passed down from grandparents' dinner tables?

I don't understand.

For me, the excitement of a room's décor, is the blend of the most recent technology and the past's memories in whatever dimension.

Are we just shedding, shedding, shedding and not replacing with anything that doesn't require a password?

I think of the hours of visible work that went into the things I cherish most and sigh for our cyber world.

look around

When I think back on our childhood home, I think of a large house with front and back porches, a large kitchen, a front room, a living room, a dining room, five bedrooms and a bath, plus a few "wash houses" connected to the kitchen. Sounds big, right?

Oh, so wrong! Upon a visit many, many years later as I stood outside in the back, my mind spun. How had these new owners shrunk the house???? Truly I was speechless! And inside the rooms were tiny - only the kitchen had room to swing a cat! 

I guess as our minds and bodies grow, our environment shrinks! Even now, in our current small kitchen, I realize that we used to store the boys' bikes in the kitchen because we had no garage and they would have been stolen off our stoop. Now we have a lovely little table in front of the window where the bikes leaned and I can't imagine it any other way. And I was an adult both times! Yet it seems like another lifetime/place.

So maybe its just our environmental scans that change! I know that because I am basically not tuned into detail, I adapt very quickly to my surroundings on general feelings, not specifics. I guess that's why when time passes and I return to once well-known places I am nearly always astounded!

I am such a cheap date!

moral compass

Moral compass.

How often we hear that combination of words. But defining that concept is much harder. I wonder if one puts aside all the religious patter of whatever ilk, and narrows it's origin down to a person(s) who was influential to you as a child -be it mother, father, grandparent, neighbor, cleric, teacher - and showed you how to get along in the world. From the earliest lesson of sharing toys to the larger world of social accommodation. Doesn't it all boil down to compassion? What interpersonal relationship whether within your household or between nations wouldn't be bettered with simple attitudes of compassion. That monstrously easy/difficult task of seeing the other person's side.

I will never forget the times around our supper table during childhood and I would be spouting off about some "injustice" that happened to me from the teacher and Mother telling me to think of how difficult her task is to keep all those boys under control as well as teach all those classes, etc., etc. Was I grateful for this sage insight then? - not on your life! But looking back, I see how the molding took place. Bit by bit we try to smooth the pugnacious  edges of our children as they grow.

But that is our privileged background! Suppose you never had that mentor playing devil's advocate and were allowed to pursue your own ego-driven sensibilities?

Is that why these loners - be they in ordinary neighborhoods or the White House - operate in such a vacuum?

the parlor

Grandma's parlor was a place of mystery.

Well, actually, the whole house was somewhat off limits. I remember as children when we went to aunts and uncles houses we would rollick through the house, not wrecking anything, but moving with ease. Grandma, never in the best of health from my earliest recollection, was a woman of principle and woe to him who breached whichever one in question! I didn't exactly fear her, but distance was the prudent thing. So there never was that exploration abandonment within her house anywhere.

But the parlor - the mere word isn't used anymore. let alone the concept - from this perspective 60 + years later remains a dark, dark place, with dark, stiff furniture and a need to pass through quickly or not enter at all! I remember only one time when the adults gathered there with Grandma and we were told tightly that she was having one of her "spells." To this day I don't know if that was heart related or asthma attacks. We were told just to go and play.

And play we did outside in the creeks and meadow, throwing indoor caution to the winds and frolicking to our hearts content.

Yet the parlor still looms.

chemo

chemo

I quite accidentally spilled
a bucket of dirty water
all over the floor.
I hadn't noticed it
sitting behind me
and backed into it.

I will try to 
clean it up.
But you know
its hard to get 
rid of 
every single spot.

Every swipe of my mop
Improves the mess.
But I don't know 
if I got it all.

Hope is,
sunshine
and fresh air
will poke into 
the dark corners
and erase what I
can't reach.

At the Market

I was concentrating on buying apples, tomatoes and humus. Then the lady called to me from another stand at the Farmers Market. Seeing there clearly was no produce, I groaned inwardly thinking politics. But then she said, "I'm from the library."

Magic!!

"So am I, " I said.

The link. We chatted for the next ten minutes. I learned she was new to FCPL as opposed to my recent 35 years, but that she was started at the same library, in the same position as I had all those years ago. And, she was from Reading, PA! What are the chances two ladies from Reading and Lancaster would end up in the same position in Reston VA and meet at a Farmers Market many years later?

 Whatever they are, the chance encounter lit up the gray morning with a lovely light, small-world tap.

At the tone

Frost alert!

What! Wasn't I just wading in the ocean a few weeks ago?!

Yes and yes. Somehow, retirement has added to the speeding up of time, when I anticipated just the opposite. I thought I would sagely ponder the changing seasons, fully extracting the measure of each in a thoughtful manner. Not exactly. Right now I feel as though I'm sliding down into the holidays and my feet are really digging for purchase!

Time now really has few markers. My husband and I constantly muse aloud, "what day is this?" No, we are not addled or dotty, it's just that while working our jobs marshalled the days into place. Your days were carved out by specific tasks or schedules. Now there is this beautiful amorphous blob of time to shape as you will. Heaven, but nothing to do with knowing what day it is!

pick up that broom

Sweeping the front stoop is rather like making one's bed in the morning. Endless. But as some naval commander recently wrote a book about, making one's bed perfectly every morning is a small, but important course correction for the day! It's taking one simple task, performing it well, and off you go - Bob's your uncle!

As your broom sweeps away debris of all kinds from the steps and walk, metaphorically you are sweeping away the night fog from your brain perhaps. Simple movement. Not profound. And yet, when you look at the cleared area, satisfaction smiles within!

I remember my mother sweeping endlessly - that broom cleaned the kitchen, the wash houses, the porches and the walks. And I remember her smiles. Simple task, big dividends. 

Order out of chaos. A walk, a day, a life.

The ride

All through this day I had this nagging feeling, I must get back to my book! And yet I couldn't quite identify what novel I was reading in these phantom flashes - something about prep schools and privilege! And of course the reality would dawn - that's not a novel, that's current political events!

But I kid you not, the space between lots of novels I have recently read and  the political TV of the past 48 hours is razor-thin. But real life has been more riveting than all the fiction rolled together.

But what happens on the last page??

the sssssssun!

What a difference the sun makes!

After weeks of almost unremitting cloudiness and rain, Saturday dawned sparkling. As I started on my four mile walk it was almost comical to see the explosion of people and activities. I passed a pick-up volleyball game in noisy competition, several teens shooting hoops, a tiny pink-helmeted girl on a scooter nearly knocked me off the path, a foursome of tennis whacked balls back and forth, an organized baseball team with grandparents, parents, whoever, in the bleachers cheering where usually I walk by an abandoned silence, paddleboats splashed through the lake, two markets - crafts and farmers were hawking their wares, a country music trio had people on the plaza dancing, and laced between all the activities were walkers, bikers, dogs strolling the paths - a cacophony of living!

The day apparently called out to the child in all of us and recess never felt better!

happy as kings

I read an article the other day where parents are trying to schedule outdoor time for their children. That's right, schedule time outside - to of all things, play!

As I read, I closed my eyes on computers, I Phones, I Pads, TVs and I was hiking down through the corn fields to the edge of the languid Conestoga, or climbing the willow tree whose forked branches made comfortable notches to view the summer day, or biking down the dog-less country roads, or rounding up the usual suspects for a rousing hide-and-seek game come twilight, or playing baseball, tennis, badminton, croquet - or just hanging out, plucking buttercups and whistling through grass stalks! 

And mind you, no play dates arrangements were required.

Not only do I think the lack of outdoor activity is amazing, but the spontaneous individual effort to create. We are producing very smart technically oriented kids, but what about that whole internal muscle of private initiative, space and time? 

I wouldn't trade my unfettered country childhood for fame or fortune of any degree.

The wealth is internal and endless.

by their fruits

I cannot tell you how sick the phrase "boys will be boys" is beginning to make me. In an earlier time, I think I found it mildly annoying, thinking it was asinine from the start. Hopefully one rears their children to be kind people, regardless of gender. The above expression increasingly just seems like a catch-all disclaimer for men's bad behavior.

I was reared in a loving family where the acts we have been hearing of all week, nay all year, are so foreign to my brothers as to make them a completely different species! One doesn't just become a predator without encouragement of some kind - whether by example, tacit consent or overt denial. Sexual misconduct doesn't just fall off a tree - apple or not!!

I am horrified at the statistics coming out now about the number of assaults and the number of complete cover-ups because, well, you know, "boys will be boys."

How is this abasement going to be fixed?

I have no ready answers.

But this I know, if you say you are a Christian, and you are not even willing to explore the current national situation and determine the truth because you are willing to sacrifice every other moral principle to get a person on the Court who will reverse Roe v. Wade, contempt is far too polite to describe what I feel for you.

Talk about sanctity of life!

Awake

I was reminded anew how little control we have of the universe. One can eat healthfully, exercise, eliminate harmful habits, do it all and one day, have one's eyelids open to an advanced cancer prognosis.

 I still can't quite get a handle on that.

Though its not in my body (that I know of) it's in the family body and that is equally distressing. It's all old hat to say each day is a gift, blah, blah...… but truly, each day that you rise up from sleep and are functioning soundly is an extraordinary, blue-ribbon day.

Now begins the task of nurturing - of bringing medical, emotional, organic, spiritual, social forces to bear upon the intruder in our midst. I know there will be benefits from this exercise as it peels back the business-as-usual and forces us to look to another level of being.

But meanwhile, there are tears.

Mother

"She had that forthright nature I have always loved in women who knew themselves well."

That was a line I copied from somewhere, sometime. ( How's that for explicit!)

But I think I copied it not only from my now extensive life experiences, but from my earliest days, because that was my mother. She wasn't harsh or bossy, but she spoke her mind; she moved ahead; she got the job done - maybe not always neatly or precisely, but she got to Point B, no questions asked.

And I think it was because she felt very comfortable in her own roomy, expansive, loving-life skin.

it''s raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Can there be such a thing as too much rain?????

Seriously, the mind is dripping. And when I look ahead and see raindrops on the next 7 + days, I feel mold setting in. Rain is miraculous in decent proportions, but I think in the coming days, there may be indecency setting in. I'm trying to be thankful.... like trying to think of the starving children in China when asked to eat your spinach. You know on some level that because of an insufficiency somewhere, your plethora should make you happy. 

It's not quite working.

bearing witness

We're hearing a lot of talk about child abuse these days - and perhaps the most horrifying of all the accounts is the church's orientation. To associate these deplorable actions with God must be the greatest betrayal possible. From the overall accounts of abused children, there are always people in authority involved - older brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, older neighbors - whoever, it seems there was always a higher authority to bow to. But to be told that the intimacy was part of God's plan surely is go-to-the-head-of-the-class evil. Of the few victims I know, the shattering of trust has permanently skewed  their relationships - on all levels. Some obviously adapted better than others, but the damage cannot be overestimated. 

And the haunting soul-echo down through the ages is "Why me? Did I do something to allow this to happen?"

With every breath we must reassure the devastated, and work for the severest of punishment for the monstrous offenders.

the grove

The word "grove" was in my morning crossword puzzle and immediately there bloomed on my inner eye our beloved patch of lawn and ancient sycamores overlooking the Chesapeake Bay at Red Point, MD. My family has vacationed  there since the 1950's - so that is many years of grove gazing!  In later years, my cousin renovated the old cottage overlooking the grove to include a comfortably furnished screened-in porch to accommodate this pastime! And truly, as age limits the endless energy we had as kids, sitting and watching the sun dazzle the Bay as boats speed or loll along the channel is truly the best kind of vacationing! And while the sun-lit moments are the Cadillacs of memories, the cicada nights with the lone boats shining their way home and the faint sparkle of lights on the far-away shore are just as vivid. Granted, the view is overlaid with golden memories of decades. The true meaning of vacations is a break from the normal and the Chesapeake Bay was definitely a vast change from the Pennsylvania farmlands.

 It was close to home by miles, but continents away in the imaginative playground of our young minds. Our rather carefully ordered lives opened up to water and sky. 

We were transformed into the boundless.

"No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day, or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today - or we will always be out of step." - Lisa Wingate from Before We Were Yours

 I think it is so easy as we age to look back on the past with possibly rose-colored glasses and long for a simpler time. Or we may dream of all the things we still may do. But it is the music of today, that takes a keen ear, and even more willing feet to step to the beautiful rhythm of now.

jars of springwater

"Jars of springwater are not enough
anymore, 
Take us down to the river".... Rumi

Rumi was probably alluding to wider renewal or loftier goals, but the word springwater always takes me back to my mother and her stories of the springhouse - her growing-up refrigerator. And the few memories I have of Grandma Weaver's springhouse were of enveloping quiet, liquid, stone coolness. Another world.

On my trips to PA along Rt.15 there is a farm with a springhouse that I have been greeting, coming and going, for three decades of traveling. And there is a small rounded-arch stone bridge on the other side of the road. Those two echoes from the past, catch my attention every time and I smile and hug my heritage to my heart.

so let the new sun shine in

I heard the weatherman say that we could be looking at a rain pattern for the next 10 days! That got my attention! I suddenly realized what a gift all these days of sunshine were! The world looks so much different in sun-shot blue than lowering gray! And while I really don't want to believe my spirits are dependent on the weather, I really believe they are!! Not really, of course, but the sunlight releases, impels, illuminates all the colors of the world - and to some extent, the heart. 

So buckle down, soul-mates and dig for a new source of inspiration for a bit!

Last month my book club tackled Tender is the Night and if you haven't ever read it, it's worth the effort.

In the summer of 1925 along the French Riviera, amid the flounce of flappers and smooth wail of jazz, a party of Americans and Europeans gather on the beach to lick their idle wounds. Hosts Dick Diver and his wife Nicole entertain old friends and garner new ones, their charm radiating to the edges of the group, illuminating all in their merry orbit. To this scene, Rosemary Hoyt arrives, fresh from the Hollywood success of her new movie, Daddy’s Girl. The presentation of her beauty, prestige and youth tilts the gathering – accentuating both their insecurities and her naivety. At 18 she naturally falls in love with the charismatic Dick, envying his social graces while woefully unaware of life’s realities.

For behind the shining wall of manners, all is not well.  Born into a wealthy family, Nicole lost her mother to illness at a young age and was left in the care of her father and sister. Unfortunately the bond of father and daughter which had been lovingly supportive turned sexual and nothing ever was the same in Nicole’s world.

 Dick, on the other hand, had grown up in rural New York, his father a clergyman, his mother of modest inherited means. He had excelled academically and eventually majored in psychiatry, ending up in European Freudian environs at a colleague’s clinic where he meets Nicole, a schizophrenic patient. Through a series of meetings and letters they become acquainted and drawn to each other – Nicole fascinated by his assurance and charm, he intrigued by her beauty and vulnerability. Despite much trepidation of friends and family, they marry and thus begin their golden arc of gaiety.

Fitzgerald splashes his canvas with color – physically and metaphorically. Through the soft, tropical breezes and champagne haze, his characters dance themselves in and out of each other’s lives, incongruously littering along the way a murdered Afro-American shoe- shine maker, an early morning duel at 40 paces where both men miss, several rounds of assaults and consequent bail requirements, a masquerade party, a speakeasy deadly beating and a trail of social bigotry.  All the while the participants rollick and play, assessing each other with the wily, searing dread that the measure of their lives is short.

Throughout their marriage, Dick’s interest in other women, particularly Rosemary, whether real or imagined, triggers episodes of ranting illness for Nicole and always there is a suppressed fear of complete collapse. Yet Dick somehow balms her way back to sanity. Their co- dependence volleys back and forth until suddenly the balance shifts and Nicole begins taking tentative steps to independence unsettling Dick, who consequently begins to assuage his new discomfort with alcohol. And thus the seesaw of wholeness tips the other way until finally we see Nicole in a shaft of sunlight and Dick merging into shadow. And all the other players “strut and fret their time upon the stage.”

Sometimes Fitzgerald strokes his golden people forcefully, sometimes with a feather’s touch. For below all that lovely wealth and dissipation beat hearts that break, heal, love, despise, envy, regret, and hope.

Rather like you and me.

Redemption

“What redemption there is in being loved: we are always our best selves when loved by another. Nothing can replace this.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, This Must Be the Place

So to all of us who have ever been loved by son, daughter, father, mother, spouse, friend - revel in the moment. We are blest.

freedom

This morning's walk yielded
 pink hollyhocks tucked into the greenery beside the lake,
 great blue heron waiting,
 geometric splashes of gold on the leaves beneath the trees,
 a man and his dog curled into the morning at a lakeside bench,
 and bolts of blue sky overhead.

 Once again,
 I gave thanks
 for nowhere else
 to be.

one step at a time

I have lived in Reston since 1979, but at that time the boys were young, I soon worked full time and life spilled over at the edges. Much later, empty nested but still employed by the library, about five times a week I walked around the lake before breakfast. That jaunt was about 1 1/2 miles and certainly a great boost to mind, body and soul as a start to the day.

But since retirement I have been walking 4 miles faithfully each day - with a few exceptions here and there of course. But suddenly with this investment of time and space it has become abundantly clear to me how beautiful my surroundings are! Now I feel as though I am almost literally consuming the birds, the trees, the sun-laced shadows, the pools, the stone walls, the wooden architecture sprinkled through the parks, the flowering hedges, the splash of day lilies, the lakes, the poised heron, the inscrutable blue sky. I can't believe it was mine all along for the taking!

I hope if I lived elsewhere that I would be dedicated enough to walk on hot sidewalks past belching cars if I had to, but praise all that is holy, I don't need to test that option!

So I say with Gerard Manley Hopkins:

"Glory be to God for dappled things….."

and Reston trails to walk.
  

While meandering back country roads last week with my sister, we passed a small home where we both immediately recognized it as being the childhood source of peaches and watermelon in the summer. The man, Walter, had some kind of growth on his face that drew a wanting-to-be-polite child's eye like a magnet. I didn't want to stare, but it was inevitable to peek continuously! 

The other fascination of a trip to this fruit market, was that he had a walk-in freezer and coming from a typical PA summer day into that freezer that breathed gusts of icy air, clashing with steamy July- August, we stepped gratefully - for a minute. Soon our bare legs (we wore dresses of course) were shivery and what had seemed so welcome quickly became bone-chilling. Good for the watermelon, but not so good for small bodies!

But after sixty plus years of chin-dripping juices from the peaches and watermelon, I still harken back to that Walter wart-thingy.....um....how did that come to be and why didn't he move heaven and earth to get rid of it? Inquiring minds still want to know!

he did right

A childhood friend of our boys posted a note on Facebook that his father passed away today and in the midst of his comments was this line, "although it was complicated, he did right."

I smiled. And then reflected that perhaps that sums up life for a lot us, "it was complicated" but it seems the highest accolade to put that with "he - you - me - we did right."

Amen.

scent of meadow

Sometime in my childhood, my father bought a rustic cabin near the Conestoga Creek down at the bottom of our village. The cabin as I remember it, had one room and a porch, but the glory of it was the location. We would go down on holidays - and other weekend days too - and have a meal outdoors on the wobbly long wooden table and wooden benches. We'd bring lawn chairs and after some luscious meal - I mainly remember potato salad and chocolate cake! - the adults would sit and visit and the kids would clamber through the meadows and into the creek. Tall glorious trees shaded us from the summer's throbbing heat, and always the scent of meadow tea (mint) on the breeze. The cabin was less than a mile from our house, but in that change of scenery was a real change of pace. A break. A bit more air to breathe. Endless chores momentarily shelved. 

Today is one of those days when I'd give a lot to hear the babble of the creek as it rushed along through the grove. Air-conditioning is great, but I miss the green cool smell of meadow.

1950 hits

This morning I linked up to Spotify and the 50's as I was doing my morning crossword puzzle. It took me forever to complete because I had to get up and dance every second song! Those wonderful, catchy-tune/ridiculous-lyric songs!! As each new one popped up I could feel myself being transported back to the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen of our Hinkletown home!

Saturday morning's Your Hit Parade really messed up my cleaning procedures which were sketchy at best and very distractible. Mother's instructions were to dust and sweep the living room and I recall a very superficial interpretation! But the music soared and sweetened the chore. Love yearned for, achieved, lost, mourned, warned against, and sought all over again!

And the living room never really did get cleaned.

Jumping rope.

The two words evoke all kinds of images to me. I guess mainly I think of recess at Hinkletown School when we would stream out of the oiled floored classrooms and grab that rope. It had to be heavy enough to swing perfect arcs providing safe, predictable rhythms to enter the dance. It was one activity that our "modest" dresses didn't produce a show of underwear for the ever vigilant farm boys eyes! Recent attempts at rope-jumping have revealed to me that it is utterly exhausting! But still in the early days we lined up, two or three jumping at one time and the rest waiting their turn. Fifteen minutes of cardio before we returned to our desks. 

But the big guns in rope jumping happened at events like farm sales - I remember one in particular where a big rope was put into action on a wide wooden barn floor. I can't even imagine that the girls could turn it, but that rope was lethal! I remember one girl misjudged her entry timing and that harsh, prickly, huge rope neatly snapped her glasses in two! Not to mention the "brush-burns" resulting from the rope hitting a too-slow arm or leg!

No one told us it was good exercise, it was just good fun! Different accounts take its origin back to ancient China. The Dutch seem to get the early credit in America - maybe that's why we called the simultaneously swung ropes Double Dutch! In any case, it is lovely to think of children all through the ages delighting in this simple, exhilarating event. A rope, an arm, two agile feet. 

No wifi required.

Break!

Yesterday was the first visit to the pool for the summer - for me. It struck me how that I have been using Reston pools for 38 years and while the externals change, updates in pool furniture, personnel, accessories, some things never change!

First, the inanity for the ice-cream truck's tinny song that cranks on forever and ever, The Entertainer's endless monotonous calliope tinkle, luring in the kids as surely as moths to a flame. The there is the lifeguard's incessant whistle for swim lane invasion, hanging on the ropes, "NO RUNNING" orders, and the perpetual game of Marco Polo that manages at some point to push you into the teeth-grinding mode.

All distractions.

But other than that - the first time my hot, flushed body ducks under the water, swimming across the bottom through the aqua, sunlit water, and surfaces with a sigh, I know I'm home. 

Summer and Reston  pool-time. Such a far cry from the Conestoga Creek!

walking along

Walking along,
I picked 
an early morning bouquet
of snowballs, 
sheeting fountains,
blue skies,
swaying day lilies,
swooping swallows,
dancing lakes,
- and tied them all up 
with a cool breeze bow. 

Monday,
may I present
a small token
of my profound appreciation!
.

and away we go

Our library's summer reading program's theme is "Reading Takes You Everywhere."

And the first time I saw that I went flying back - mentally - to Nancy Drew and her adventures! As a child I may have lived in a sleepy little village in Lancaster County, but with ND's help I was exploring spooky passageways that led to cobwebbed attics, or tracking down a gang of counterfeit swindlers in caves, or following malicious doctors into private hospitals where patients were being held prisoners - the world's oyster had cracked wide open!

And thus one of the greatest pleasures of my life began.

Think of the gift of reading - mere words on a page transporting you far beyond the limits of your world wherever it may be, however old/young rich/poor, ill/healthy you are.

And for a little while you are completely and gloriously lost. Amazing.

Now, back to Magpie Murders.

faith of our fathers

Another postscript to Father's Day -

I am reading Tender is the Night and came upon this gorgeous passage as Dick Diver kneels in the old cemetery by his father's grave:

"These dead, he knew them all, their weather-beaten faces with blue flashing eyes, the spare, violent bodies, the souls made of new earth in the forest-heavy darkness of the seventeenth century. 'Good-bye, my father, and all my fathers.'"

Sometime I think we fret that the world as we know it will simply implode from all the deadly news.

But those who have gone before us have left deep, hopeful footsteps for us to follow.

Or ignore.

father's day

Father's Day.

The more books I read, the shows I watch, the programs I listen to, the people I meet and hear the father accounts, I want to blurt out my story. But my background tells me that would be bragging - although I had not the slightest thing to do with being my father's daughter.

As I think of my childhood, Dad is always there, physically, spiritually, morally, socially - name the way. He was our rock, our staying point, our refuge, our background color, our protector, our benefactor. I scratch the years for faults and of course there were short-comings of day-to-day living - sometimes being late for something, sometimes taking too much time for someone else, but you see what I mean-its really vague. He did have expectations of behavior and beliefs, but they were so in line with all our friends, neighbors, church members, relatives that they didn't seem onerous.

He was quiet, gentle, long-suffering, charitable, forgiving, but never dull. He had an adventurous spirit that pushed him from the earliest days to travel. He would get "wild ideas" according to my home-loving mother, and after much persuasion, she'd relent and join him on the open road.

I don't know what he would have accomplished with formal education because he had his own business at the end of his teens and when at last he retired in his sixties, he took a realtor exam and sold houses at his leisure. He was never wealthy, but always comfortable and shared his bounty with us, the neighbors, the extended family, the world.

And when he died suddenly at 71 we knew that our mother thought that until that day she had been the luckiest woman in the world. Ditto his children.

So, on this Father's Day, I don't want to brag, but I walked with one of the great ones - for 38 years.

And I cherish each in his presence and in his memory.

feet

I came upon this quote - clearly in my handwriting on a random scrap of paper - " You are the place I stand when my feet are sore."

Love it. Have zero recollection of where it comes from. Have zero recollection of writing it! But never mind, I have lived a few years.

Back to the quote - if someone said it to me I doubt I could feel more honored. Balm for sore feet. Bliss.

 I once had a friend who would pay his kids 50 cents for a half- hour foot massage!

I love pedicures for all kinds of reasons, but that warm, currented soak before anything begins is the portal to heaven. Yes you can soak your own feet and rub them but that somehow is not the same. You want that external pampering.

Now, feet washing as a kid in summer was a nightly affair as daily showers or baths were unheard of in our house with limited water. And never mind the spa waters or the gentle gelled massages. A basin or bucket of water was plopped down somewhere and said, dirty feet were inserted. Feet that had clambered over fields, stream, driveways, grasses, barns, oiled floors and gathered all the dust of the centuries were summarily dunked and cleansed. Or at least the first coat of grime fell away! With a houseful of children, you didn't linger for the spa treatment!

Feet. So much depends on their happiness.

slippery slope

Wax paper.

It used to be it was an item I remember from the way-long-ago past. And its uses were many, although I cannot see a roll of waxed paper without thinking - sliding boards! We would sit on a piece of wax paper and slide down whatever slope we had - ending up with quite slippery ("slippy" as we said in those days!) surfaces. Down at our summer cabin by the creek there was a long metal sliding board that required years to build courage even to climb the huge ladder steps.

But earliest use of said wax paper was on our cellar door. We would apply enough wax paper to get a decent quick slide - all of about five feet, probably! And of course there were skirts to deal with - and consequent splinters. And in the case of the cabin's long slide, that metal could get mighty hot for bare legs on a fine summer day!

Nowadays, I tear off a sheet of wax paper and cover my items to microwave. 

How utterly boring. This is progress?

strawberry wine

Strawberries.

The word, in addition to activating my salivary glands, elicits the smell of earth, early sunshine on the long rows, and stooping or squatting to pick seemingly endless strawberries to fill the endless wooden, slatted quart boxes - none of this cardboard stuff then! Our reward - a nickel a box! and many strawberries in said bellies! Our neighbor raised strawberries and seven daughters and come May/June - those two entities went head to head. A pleasant retrieve from picking was tending the strawberry stand artlessly set up on a card-table in front of the house which was situated along a busy highway. It seems to me the quart boxes may have sold for 50 cents a pop! Car after car pulled into the narrow stony space in front of the walled yard to scarf up the early summer goodies. I bought a quart of strawberries for $6.00 this morning at my suburban farmers market.

Yes, I want to support the local farmers.
No, I don't want to support larceny.
Yes I want to relive the burst of childhood culinary sweetness.
No, I don't want to resent paying what I can, but feel is craziness!

Now if I were in Lancaster, PA, I would drive way out in the country, by the plowed fields, rushing creeks, and rambling barns and farmhouses, and would buy the earth's goodness at a God-fearing price!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Recently we were in Pittsburgh and we revisited the Heinz Museum which housed the Fred Rogers exhibit. He of course was a native son of Pittsburgh and the recreation of the TV set is excellent. I was talking to a guard and he sat the Mr. Rogers section of the museum is one of the most beloved. I was in tears, just listening to the familiar, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...." as it took me back to our sons and how they loved the soothing, comfortable show. Sesame Street and the Electric Company and others were on in the same time frame, but they had completely different effects on the boys - and me! At first I found his deliberate repletion of actions and words strange. But gradually I realized that he was reinforcing every concept of parenting I was attempting to convey - particularly of kindness. "Please won't you be my neighbor." And the consistency that we tried to practice in terms of behavior, health, sleep, conversation - all of these Mr. Rogers did in a short program each day, essentially saying to me, "I got your back."

That is why I think thousand of adults stand before the reconstructed Mr. Rogers Neighborhood with eyes and hearts full of tears.

Have we ever needed his message of gentle civility more as a nation?

let the merry sunshine in

A cardinal whistled right into my window as I sat down to my computer! Cheeky thing! I particularly love the chatter of the birds in the morning. It feels like all of creation is on the same page and we all seem to be saying - new day, new possibilities. The cycle of darkness and light surely overlays our very beings. The night never lasts, but neither does the light. We have to cherish each.

But right now, open all the windows, open all the doors! And whistle back to that saucy cardinal!

modeling

At the edge of the surf a young mother was sitting with her baby. The child was probably 6 months old - crawling, not walking - but more importantly, definitely not afraid. The mother sat really close, but wasn't holding her and she played with the sand and surf happily as wave after wave crashed near her. A sudden big wave engulfed them both and while the baby blinked and gasped at the dunking she didn't cry. I was astounded.

Later as I passed them back further on the beach I stopped and said "You are raising a fearless daughter!" And she laughed and said that she was a swimmer all her life and didn't want her child to have fears of the ocean. She said, "I figured she would take her cues from me." To which I replied, "She will take her cues from you in everything." and she agreed in some surprise.

We are so molded by our parents' attitudes early in life. Yes, we can change, alter, correct, backslide, whatever. But that first instinctive response is pure Mother or Dad. 

Another reason to give thanks today.

early morning delight

When I heard the forecast for 90 degree weather again, this third day of May, I decided as soon as my eyes were fully open to get up and walk. And once inertia was conquered, I was so delighted I did because the early morning walkers are different. Either they are dog walkers intent on getting it done so that work schedules can be met, or they are the disciplined walkers who know the early hours are best. When I stroll out mid-morning the people I meet are leisurely ambling.... all the time in the world! It is really astonishing the undercurrent of resolve I encounter early and the generosity of moments later. But it doesn't matter early or late, I embrace my fellow walkers as warriors against the march of age, disease, boredom. 

Because who now could be bored with the throaty purple iris against the gray boulders?

the roars of the crowds

I was at a party sitting next to an ex-marine. Everything about us was different probably - lifestyle, religious background, education, career paths and for the first few minutes I know my armor was hoisted firmly in place. But as the conversation continued and the night progressed, I discovered to my delight, that I was thoroughly enjoying the interaction. Guns were like extensions of his arms. He had seen more of life's raw terrors than I could conjure up in my wildest dreams and guns had definite meaning to him. But since I had also seen his intelligence, humor and kindness, I was willing to think about his guns.

Perhaps people on the extremes all these issues should try sitting down at a party with each other and listen. Discovering the humanity beneath the noisy rhetoric greatly gentles the conversation.

family

Family. We all belong somewhere.

In my library years I heard thousands of stories about families: parents with Alzheimer's, grandparents who became caretakers of their grandchildren, estranged siblings, families who rented fire halls for their holiday gatherings and cooked/danced/sang their way into the night , deaths, illnesses, abuse (yes, one chic woman had escaped from a locked house and came to the library), divorce, graduations, marriage, birth - all of life's roller-coaster moments. As surely as they trusted me to choose their next book they shared their joys and sorrows. I was honored to partake in a much larger family.

But, narrowing it down, if you belong to a small group that when you get together you touch warm buttons of remembrance that can produce chuckles or tears, and you realize you share a nest of habits, a banquet of stories, a tic of reactions that are unique to only your family - you are indeed blessed!

I am one of five now, as our parents have passed away and the jigsaw pieces of our lives still fit snugly and happily as the times in snowstorms when we gathered around the kitchen table, honoring the unexpected time of play that fallen from the sky.

when a young man's fancy lightly turns

Yesterday I traveled home to Lancaster County via the Catoctin Mountains, through Maryland until the PA sign, "Welcome to Pennsylvania, Pursue your happiness"...and pursue it I did!

The day was dazzling. I know we have Bartlett Pear trees here, but in that stretch of country there are myriads of pear trees - like a string of pearls from VA to PA, like a bevy of brides gracing the highways. Add to that the fine tracery of pink, red, and apple green that was scarcely more than a breath along the highway and you have a ride that just broke your heart with promise.

And all through the day wherever my sister and I wandered over the back roads of the county, spring was pushing through in colors and textures of delight.

May I never live in a place that doesn't have the four seasons - particularly springtime. It makes the snow and ice worthwhile. Almost.

oh the wonder!

While visiting with family over the weekend, a brother-in-law was recalling music in his school days and spontaneously burst into a stirring rendition of "There is a Tavern in the Town." I joined him on about the third note and we sang lustily through the whole thing! The wonder was not the song, or our voices, but that: 1) at least I hadn't thought of that song in about five decades; 2) I don't know where/when I learned it; and 3) how could those words just have been sitting on a dusty shelf for possibly sixty years just waiting to be cherished once more!! I find it endlessly fascinating how not just the idea of a song, poem, ditty pops up unbidden, but that the whole cloth of it is there. In terms of hymns sometimes I can recall two, three verses.

Doesn't it seem that the memory space accommodating that could be more wisely used??... say like remembering the title of the book I just finished two days ago?

When words fail

This morning after a leisurely spell with eggs, coffee and newspaper, and morning TV news chatter, I silenced everything and turned to Vivaldi to wash away the debris of the news. And as the rills of violins sang through the morning sunlight, I thought of how his Spring has quickened my heart for at least six decades - through houses in Hinkletown, Harrisonburg, Carmanville, Oberlin, Saranac Lake, Lawrence, Sioux Falls and Reston. My life was completely different in each setting, yet his lithe music always made my heart dance.

Who would have thought Plato felt the same?...."Music is a moral law, It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."

Amen, brother.

beating the clock

I was typing a letter when I checked the weather  on my phone and saw that a storm was heading our way. Rather than wait to do my four miles later when hopefully the sun came out I scurried out with the grey clouds deepening all around me. I kept one eye on the sky, one eye on all the glorious daffodils, magnolia, jonquils, cherry blossoms, one hand on my hat and both ears on my book! It was a race against the drops..... and the first burst of rain pelted upon me just as I turned my key! A teeny, tiny victory over the elements!

I felt like I grabbed those 4,000 steps right out from under the storm! Will Spring ever just come and abide peacefully?

blowing in the wind

It just occurred to me today, that being retired is rather like being a kid again! I compare my current state to the days in Hinkletown, so long ago, when our two-roomed school was dismissed for the summer! The vision of all those free days essentially just to play was overwhelmingly joyous. Sweet liberation melting on one's tongue like Sunbeam bread slathered in butter and sprinkled with sugar!

I really think that defined spaces in your heart just for play are critical to serenity. Our family played pretty much all the time interspersed with hard work on our parent's part, but for us kids, incidental chores barely pricked our free time. My husband grew up on a farm and his school time was freedom in comparison to his daily work during the summer. An enormous difference!

In our summertime we played, dreamed, created, biked, swam, traveled, cavorted in sun and shade, dandelion fluff blown by soft breezes. 

Even so, come sweet retirement!

practice makes perfect - or at least a dent

In the flurry of retirement, I got four different journals as going away gifts! It is a message I take with honor, laughter, and a slight stirring of fear. Before this when people urged from different directions, "why aren't you writing more?", I would always dodge the bullet and say, " I will when I retire."

Now what do I say?!

I get so inspired throughout the day and as quickly as the thought comes, it flits away unless nailed to something concrete like paper or screen. Yes, one can have native talent, but the art comes from discipline and practice. 

I'm pretty sure I'll start next week....! I have four journals to fill!

Marching on

Again the world is stirring.

The magnolia buds are ready to shout and the forsythia has been singing for days. Three days ago when I was walking in a blinding snowstorm, I knew the crocus and jonquils were huddled below the whiteness. I hope we have finally untangled the reins of winter/spring and glory is just around the corner.

How could it be this exciting year after year?

Freedom

Retirement.

It has such a ring of finality to it.

But I would like to say, I am not retired, I'm enlivened!

Everything is redefined.

Each first moment of the day -what do I have to do?

Each last moment of the day -what did I get done?

Not much.

Hallelujah!

chicken corn soup

Today I am making chicken corn soup. And yes, it is merely the act of stewing a chicken, adding noodles, fresh corn, onions, celery, herbs and sitting down to a delicious meal. But it is so much more!

To me it is celebration of county roads, corn shocks, winding creeks, fields of grasses and wild flowers, freshly-plowed furrows, and most especially, fun times. Whenever there was a gathering of any sort - like an estate auction, a church picnic, a school gathering, the Farm Show -  if you couldn't find a booth with some women ladling out chicken corn soup it wasn't much of a party!

Other people look with mild indulgence on this delicacy, but if you're Lancaster County born and bred, a steaming bowl of chicken corn soup will slather a whole lot of sunshine on no matter how dark a day!

Aren't we?

Over the weekend along the drenching trail of Florida students tears, I find hope as they are speaking out. They aren't politicians, they aren't partisans, they are heartbroken children saying, "Enough." I have no illusions that dramatic changes will happen immediately but who is the person who can completely ignore their agonized cries. This is not a political issue. This is a question of the literal survival of our nation. Assault rifles used in Vietnam readily available to a troubled youth of 18 who wasn't even of legal age for most things? Seriously we are better than this.

heritage

I have a framed photo in my bathroom of my father doling out coins to my siblings and I at an outdoor school fair. We attended a country 2-roomed school and the fair at the beginning of the year was a huge event that drew in pupils, their families and the larger community for a patriotic beginning to the school year - with of course hot dogs, ice cream and all the accompanying goodies. Dad was giving us buying power and we waited respectfully, eagerly for our share.

I have to think on this Valentine Day, thank you, Dad, for the way you doled out love, safety, support, trust to us each day as surely as those nickels and dimes. In terms of life, you certainly provided us with buying power, each day. And still do.

the news just beyond our door

Sabbath morning
swirling with flurries
of snow
and birds.
We enlarged our eyes 
and saw the startling red 
of robins
and the yellow
of cedar waxwings
against the grey-white
winter morn.
Fellow travelers
passing through,
made us
soar.

Mr. Rodgers got it right

I think most of us deal with people who look fairly much like ourselves on a daily basis. And basically everyone is polite. And everyone is civil. But what is going on behind that façade.

Just take a grocery store - there may be fifty customers there - or more or less. Do you ever stop to think - that person maybe just got a raise, that one may just have been fired: that person may have just gone through a death, a domestic dispute, an accident; that person may be newly married, just engaged, just gone through a break-up - all kinds of human drama has to be swirling between us as we choose our Cheerios and broccoli! But we disguise it all and go our quiet way.

I'm not saying we should revert to our two-year-old selves and scream, stomp, kick, laugh, dance, sing, yell at will.... but wouldn't we come to a better understanding of the world at large if we could somehow glimpse who really lives in our neighborhood.

bonds

Yesterday on the desk I was stymied by a technology question about an e-book and called on my new colleague for help. She came from the back room immediately and was able to show both me and the patron how to solve it.. And it was not that she solved it but what she said afterwards just to me that I loved. She told me that she had just been shown that trick a short time ago and has used it various times since. Now, I have no idea if that's true or not or how long ago she learned it, but in any case it was so kind, so gracious, so not in-your-face- superior that I made a big mental note. Remember this. This is how good relationships are formed in marriages, family, neighbors, nations. We're all learning together.

those elusive moments

I remember thinking longingly of January in the throes of December's holiday crunch. January with its long, cold days to snuggle and read and do little. What happened?? January is in the books! And I feel as though I spent very little time doing little! Is it the case with aging, that time speeds up - rather than slows down. Mother always told me this and I laughed! But each month, regardless of the varied activities or lack thereof, zips right by and I just want to put on the brakes! I think with each day as I hop out of bed and jump on the scales, I must remember - each moment is sacred, embrace, lengthen, cherish, enjoy it!

amaryllis

A member of my book club gave me an amaryllis kit as a Christmas present. And I thought, "how sweet" but truthfully, how much beauty can come from a box?? 

And the answer is - A LOT!!

Flaring scarlet trumpets of color have burst upon my dull January days! I watched the green stalks shoot higher and higher with interest, but dear God I was not prepared for the day when the buds shook off their snug green jackets! What brazen glory!

Now I know a gift that is truly a gift in the bleak mid- winter.

the fathers

Another quote I happened on recently was "My father was broken as a child. As an adult he never got fixed."

 My heart broke for him and his son. 

And once again, I give thanks for a father who was whole, strong in his gentleness, quiet in his wisdom. I know there were things in his background that could have broken him, but he somehow chose a path of understanding. 

His legacy smiles through my days.

sleep on it

"A computer lets you make mistakes faster than any other invention in history with the exception of hand guns and tequila." 

I laughed when I read this one morning when I was perusing my journals of old. I don't know where the quote comes from, but if you apply it to emails or now the pervasive Facebook postings it certainly is true. How often was something misstated or without the context of personal interface misinterpreted? That is not to say, the same errors couldn't occur in slower forms of communication, I think the current world of dashing off comments in the moment of anger, laughter, disappointment, hope, disapproval  is a slippery slope!

if winter comes

Last night when I was driving home from work shortly after 5, I rejoiced in all the ambient light that lingered from the day! It seems just a short time ago when I left at the same time it was almost completely dark! Wherein - joy! It is just another reminder to hang in there - whatever the slog - because the rhythms of life continue to roll and this too shall pass! Now, obviously I will have to chew on these words next month as I am struggling through the stormy streets of February!

Still, hope springs eternal -literally!

Not of this world

"I've come to think that's what heaven is - a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on." - from Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline.

And truly the memories of loved ones was the wind that lifted the lives of the characters above their wretched circumstances. The ghosts hovered above them in the cold, hunger, abuse, reminding them of the goodness in the world somewhere. And the late words of Anne Frank, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart..." It is that compelling tenacity that somewhere there is goodness because they once have experienced it and it enables survival.

I have no horror to deal with in life by comparison and but as surely as the sun rises I, too, feel the angels of my parents resting lightly on my shoulders, bringing a little bit of heaven to the day.

on the banks of the Conestoga

The Conestoga Creek was one of my childhood playgrounds. We could ride our bikes to it along the busy highway or hike down at the edge of the cornfields. Usually we opted for the latter. But the creek held such treasures! As our whole family was into birdwatching that was always a destination. But it was also a mecca for spring flowers and cool shade. From the high rocks way down the creek, a pure spring flowed that we actually drank from. A mysterious tin cup that we always assumed belonged to the wandering tramps of the area dangled invitingly from a nearby branch - though we didn't dare touch it and drank only from our cupped hands.  There were trees whose branches curved out across the water providing lovely nooks to rest on and view the world flowing by. Best of all was the swimming provided at the top of the dam - muddy water and all! As for the dam itself, covered in slippery moss we did our best to try to scale it, buffeted by the swift current, always succumbing and sliding down into the bubbly, churning base. How did we not crack our heads?! There was always the double-dare-you aspect to those steamy August days when summer had just about run out and boredom reigned! And on the rare winter days when the cold stayed long enough to freeze the flow, we skated happily along its winding curves.

The creek was our mother, father, sister, brother - an eternal, familiar presence throughout the seasons folding us into its silent pleasures, accepting, delighting, entrancing, entertaining.

No WiFi required.
 

moments

"Do not dwell in the past,
Do not dream of the future,
Concentrate on the moment"

says Buddha on the first page of my calendar.

That shouldn't be hard.
But it is.

It's really hard not to rehash old stuff - whether good or bad - and it's equally hard not to hoist baggage of any kind into the future. But to say, this is what I have - this present moment - is an enormous responsibility. 

I still remember a poem that our "upper level" teacher made us copy for penmanship class (what a present day joke!) and it went like this :

"I have only just a minute
Only sixty seconds in it,
Didn't seek it, didn't choose it
But it's up to me to use it.
It's only just a minute,
But eternity is in it."

Hmmmmm. Buddha and Mrs. Martin in cahoots!