she said it so often i wanted it to become a part of my own everyday vocabulary. borrowing from the french, “vis-à-vis” means in relation to or compared with or refers to a counterpart.
finding hearts – everywhere – merely stepping into the hall – a tiny tissue heart – and a quiet reminder: love one another. it prompts me to think of my relationship vis-à-vis the world. do i lead with love?
by the time you are reading this, the third no-kings protest rally will have taken place over the weekend. we will all publicly acknowledge our tolerance or intolerance of this administration’s regime-like policies and cruelties. we will publicly show our feelings about the current state of our country. we will push back on corruption, on explicit authoritarian advances, on extremism, on downright mean-spiritedness. we will stand for goodness and the republic this nation was meant to be.
my vis-à-vis and i will express ourselves vis-à-vis this country and its subverted stance vis-à-vis democracy.
these aren’t my favorite. i don’t regularly wear my favorite jeans, wanting to keep them “for good”.
but this pair is the runner-up. pretty distressed, these ripped jeans aren’t just a bit frayed. they are downright holey.
ai says that “ripped jeans are best for people with slim or skinny body types”. goodness gracious! i mean, who asked you? i would venture to say that if one wants to wear ripped jeans, one should just wear ripped jeans – without a pretty-little-head thought to whether ai thinks it’s appropriate or not.
i’ve been wearing these for years. decades, actually. some of the time it has been by accident. my jeans just got old and worn. some of the time it has been by design. i’ll never forget – and always cherish – the days at abercrombie with my then-teenage daughter, ferreting out the best ripped jeans on the sale rack.
i have worn ripped jeans to unimportant events and important events, to beautiful places and grocery stores. i have worn ripped jeans on high mountain tops, in midwest meadows, in paris, in the canyonlands. i have worn ripped jeans in recording studios and i wore ripped jeans at my wedding. i have performed on the smallest and biggest of stages wearing ripped jeans.
so, here we are, on my 67th birthday and it is likely i will be wearing my fave ripped jeans to go and do whatever it is we will go and do – unless it is hiking – because, as you know, i have to save my fave jeans “for good”. some other destructed denim will have to do.
there have been moments when i have looked in the mirror and pondered my jeans. (and yes, also, my genes, particularly as they are aging.)
i’ve wondered if mid-sixties was ‘getting there’ – there being a place where ripped, distressed, fraying, holey jeans might be better retired.
and – after some wondering, some pondering and a little bit of googling with downright obnoxious results – like this video narrated by a twenty-something guy – guy! – informing me that “women after 40 should not emphasize imperfections” – i have decided.
just like the amish leave a slipped stitch here and there in their quilts – to allow spirit in – and maybe for the same reason – i will continue to subscribe to the jeans i love to wear. perfection doesn’t exist and each quilt is an expression of beauty-in-that-moment, of artistry, of someone’s very soul, of the chutzpah of spirit. ditto my jeans.
so…if you don’t like my ripped jeans, don’t look at them. they are me and i’m just out here trying to emphasize my imperfections – especially now.
the seedheads stay present all winter. thimbleweed is ready. eventually the wind will carry it, dispensing it, seeding new growth, spreading it far and wide. the wooly tufts are evidence of nature taking care of nature.
the concentric circles are all around us. in reminders we get every single day, we are prompted to remember that even the tiniest of our actions will impact the next and then the next and then the next and then…
it is what makes me feel so utterly disheartened with what is happening here and now. it is not just the cruel actions of others that ripple out. it is also the mindbogglingly complicit inaction.
once again – and over and over – i see the absolute transience of this moment. once again – and over and over – i see the silky filament that exists between am and am not. once again – and over and over – i try to take in – to make part of my being – the presence of mind to be present, the ability to be stopped in my tracks, a nod to wondrous, utter gratitude for breathing.
to be amazed by the tufts of thimbleweed, to carry a sunrise or sunset, to drink the sun into our bodies, to hold one another.
and once again – and over and over – i wonder how it is that there are so many who would choose cruelty over kindness, who would choose corruption over goodness, who would choose marginalizing others over lifting others up.
how are we taking care of each other? what are we spreading in rippling concentric circles from our very center? how are we carrying, dispensing, seeding, spreading life – living – far and wide?
look to thimbleweed. its resilience, its anticipation. the seedheads seem to be ever-looking forward, planning for its survival, anticipating its continued beingness.
maybe – just maybe – nothing less than what humans should be doing.
my sweet momma was at the grocery store the other day.
well, ok, she wasn’t.
but as we turned to walk down the aisle near the candy section – cutting over to the aisle with the green olives we needed for our mediterranean dinner recipe – there she was.
it was a huge display of peeps – those colorful marshmallow chicks and bunnies – i could feel momma’s glee.
this was the very first year i didn’t include junior mints in my grown children’s christmas gifts. the very first year. they didn’t seem to miss them. at all. i, on the other hand, had to deal with the grief of not including this box of mints that i had included in their stockings – in person or shipped to them – for evvver. it was not easy to let these go; my thready heart struggled.
but it explained why – even though i do not like peeps, really at all – every year my sweet momma would send a box in spring and always – always – she would include peeps.
it wasn’t about me.
it was about her – continuing a tradition she had started, a ritual that meant something to her, sharing something that was a precious memory – an unwavering, ceaseless thread – part of family tapestry, even in its obvious inconsequence.
each year when i received the box i enthused to my mom – not because i loved peeps, not because i even understood at that point. but because i loved my mom and i loved that she thought about me enough to pick out whatever color – or shape – peep she wanted for me and then she set about sending it. that was the part that counted. even though i didn’t really know the part that counted. until much later.
so turning the aisle while heading for the olives i stopped abruptly…so abruptly d plowed into me. i pointed at the big display and we both laughed.
and i blew a kiss to my mom who i knew was right there – on the other side of this plane of existence – blowing a kiss back.
when i was growing up, the time approaching my birthday was certain to be weather schizophrenic. but by the time my birthday arrived – the end of march – i was often pictured outside in a sweater, standing by the yellow forsythia bush in our front yard. on long island spring had arrived to stay.
here it is another story.
we just passed through fierce winds, sleet, a pummeling blizzard. as i write this it is supposed to be 70 degrees by late this afternoon. my birthday? a forecast of 38 with much colder windchills. now, were i in the high mountains of colorado, it would be about 72 degrees on that day. ahhh. but there’s no such thing as climate change, eh?
the old brick wall out front seems to hold the accumulating warmth of the afternoon sun. a couple days ago i went out there with my camera and was surprised to see tiny shoots of daylilies cozying up together in the leaves of fall we left there for insulation. even the little cabbages – sedum – in the front garden are appearing, tightly-wound and tucked into the dried stalks that remain. crazy.
however crazy, though, it made me insanely happy to see these tiny greens. the rising hope that growing things elicit…
it appears that we have made it through most of the winter. though i am certain not to be all cavalier about it – it can easily make several more appearances in snowstorms or ice or windchill – i can feel my spirit lighten – even the tiniest bit – thinking of spring.
we had to change the timers on all the lamps in the house that were on autopilot. we had to change the outdoor happy lights. every few days, i scoot the “on” time back a little later. each day as dogga wakes us early-early it is a little bit lighter as we sip coffee, watching out the east windows.
we now have two adirondack chairs that sit stacked on the deck. we’ve sat in them a few times now – on the patio, in the sun.
this is a time of renewal, nothing short of a bit of miraculous.
and we know – even with the green shoots and the sun and the light – that it may not be an easy spring. we have much to face – those of us in this country. and we each have our own stuff as well. so much dank darkness to push back, so much truth to let into the air, so much light to shine, so much fortitude needed to get there from here.
the hawk didn’t move even as we rounded the bend in the trail. it stayed in the tree – watching – its clear vision taking in all that was below it, the lay of the land, so to speak. not swayed by anything other than what was true, it quietly watched, consciously aware.
it is what is striking about these times in our world. the amount of conscious avoidance – the ignoring of what is happening – the lack of question or research even in the face of the obvious – acting with eyes wide shut.
it is reprehensible that so many people deliberately ignore all of which is destroying this country, closing their eyes, not taking any responsibility for their inaction and for their complicity, their lack of seeking to learn the facts, their willful blindness.
it takes my breath away to know that people i know and love are consciously avoiding the truth and, thus, supporting the immense chaos that is now this country…even though every – suspicious or otherwise – single thing that has happened or is happening would confirm the existence of that very chaos.
we went around the bend and stopped. we looked back at the hawk and i took a few photographs, wishing i had a stronger telephoto lens.
and then the hawk – which had remained relatively motionless as we approached and stood underneath the tree in which it was perched – took off.
flying over the meadow and marsh below it, it was clear to us that it had set its sights on something, its focus zeroed in as it flew.
the hawk landed on a branch across the marsh from us. still laser-focused on its prey and the ground below, it had the tenacity that comes from clarity of vision.
with wisdom and power, this hawk had an instinctual plan based on being aware.
how is it that there are a plethora of people in this country who fail to function even at the level of a bird?
i’m having a chance to renew my relationship with the harbor town. a tiny spurt of time here, a tiny spurt of time there. one of my favorite places on earth – the dock, at night, clanking masts, the sound of small fishing boats and soft troll motors – it is a good thing for me to revisit all this at a new time.
i didn’t know how much i needed to re-create this tie, to heal it. i didn’t know how much i needed to walk the pebbled beach, to scout for rocks and shells and driftwood, to sit and stare at the waves coming in.
when we left the last time we brought home this driftwood garland. we hung it in the place in our sunroom that seemed to be waiting for it. we sit next to it every day. and in the night that was draped in darkness from the storm, we sat next to it in candlelight.
we’ll go back. we’ll maybe pick up some more rocks for our rock garden. we may find a shell or two. we may bring home a piece of driftwood or other sea treasure. we’ll see.
the thing i do know is that each of these times i find another piece of me there. i rejuvenate another memory, process another bit of it all, feel affirmation.
somewhere on that beach, on that dock, in that town are pieces of my 19 year old self. the girl with the dog who climbed on the jetties and danced on the sand, who ran on the boardwalks and soaked in the sun on big old beach towels. there are pieces of me to reclaim, to go pick up in the corners of my memories, to re-empower. there are truths to release into the air of the world – finally. there are notes poised, floating in the air to compose, words in peripheral vision biding time to be written. i can feel the vibration of it all – that flutter in my chest.
and, though it is now a fancier bistro, the next time we’ll go – this place that was a pub where i’d fill up on baked clams and salty air. we didn’t go the last time because we knew it would be expensive and we are careful about our budget.
but the next time – yes – we will go.
because there is no price that you can put on the restoration of power, the retrieving of juju, the butterfly-net-capture-and-healing-release of muse that had been muted, stalled from trauma. to sit on those stools – even if they are different stools – is to sit on the sacred ground of yesterdays ago. it is something to celebrate.
the driftwood next to me in the sunroom taps my shoulder and my heart. it tells the story of ebb and flow, of survival and resilience, of transformative renewal and of a metamorphosis into something that has ridden the waves of the sound and – ultimately – emerged stronger.
there is nothing like fierce winds, torrential sleet, and a blizzard to get your adrenaline going. it’s been a minute since a bit of quiet.
so monday morning – as we gratefully sat under our comforters and quilt and sipped coffee – the sound of red-winged blackbirds in our pine tree was like a symphony – significantly even more moving, at this moment, than listening to the ode to joy finale of beethoven’s 9th symphony.
we were in the aftermath.
even with the bits of destruction we experienced and unexpected – but necessary – expensive repairs – some already made and some on the ever-present maintenance docket – we felt the change and we rested in the sound of birds who had essentially disappeared during the chaotic weather.
the sun came out, we saw a bit of blue sky.
we took a breath.
there will be other storms.
some will be weather, some will be personal challenges, some will be directly connected to the state of this country.
and for any of it – for all of it – we need to gear up.
so – for right now – the sun, calm winds, melting snow, a few comforters and a quilt, coffee and the birds of our backyard will all help. they stoke up the fortitude, endurance and resilience we all have and we all draw on, the fragile crossing from destruction to recovery.
there was little light. without power we had tealights and candles scattered about the house. a small ikea lantern my poppo gave me years ago lit the way to the bathroom. and i put fresh batteries in a few small flashlights. both of us – and our dogga – have had plenty of time in our old house that we can find our way around in the dark, so bright light wasn’t an imperative. heat – yes. bright light – not so much.
the far-reaching effects of the lack of power are striking. we were at a standstill in some dramatic ways. no power. no heat. no stove or oven. no internet. no home phone. no cable. no inside phone charging. a lot of waiting and not a lot of doing. pacing.
we sat at our little bistro table – with this candle – and talked. we spoke about people overcome by the ravages of war, people in crumbled cities destroyed by hatred, people trying to live in rubble in the dark, in the cold, in sickness, in hunger. we were silent as we both became overwhelmed. quite certain that we had more in this cut glass candle, we were downright appreciative for the promise of our power being restored at some point, even if that timeline didn’t fit our preferred plan.
we watched the shadows play off the wall and dance on the ceiling. i took photographs. we put a frozen baguette on the grill to thaw and heat up. we cut up cheese from the fridge, prepared a small charcuterie in a hobnail server. we made lemonade. it’s easier to make lemonade when you know that all will be well again.
i would imagine it’s nearly impossible to make lemonade when nothing will be well again. that kind of spirit, that kind of chutzpah, that kind of fortitude is hard to muster in desperate situations. we – once again – felt humbled by the destruction felt around the world, our own immediate problem less than a mere blip in comparison.
there are many lessons learned from perspective. much humility learned from knowledge. a realization of interconnectedness – we-are-all-brothers-and-sisters – learned from even the smallest degree of empathy. and the stunning acknowledgement that fighting, the subjugation of people all over the world, cruelty beyond compare continues on and on and on as we burn our candle.
it was early when we tucked in under an extra comforter. snowflake flannel sheets, two comforters and a handmade quilt – even with mighty cold house temperatures – were cozy and we fell asleep, exhausted and knowing the next day would bring both the hope of reconnected power and the beginning of the blizzard.
post-nightfall, standing in the living room – bathed in light – we looked at each other not sure what to do next.
reverse threading 