Little Signs of Spring #3 (For Mama)

Morning Bouquet-On My Porch (For Mama)

Though she’s been gone for over 22 years, not a day passes that I don’t think of Mama.   Most times it’s the simplest things that trigger my memories—hearing a mockingbird sing or seeing  the dogwood tree illuminated by the morning light.  Or a vase full of the wildflowers I just picked—Mama preferred them over the store bought kind.  Although they never knew her, my children are so like her—dreamy and artistic, yet down to earth and plainspoken.  She would adore them. 

I’ve wondered a lot about where our souls go when we die.   People talk about their loved ones who have passed being in heaven, but really the Bible doesn’t say that we go straight to heaven when we die.  Years ago, on Ariel’s birthday, we were in Duke Gardens when we saw a wood thrush on the path ahead.  It didn’t fly away as we approached, but cocked its head and sang, looking straight at us.  Then it started hopping down the path, looking back at us as though to say Follow me.  So we did.  The wood thrush led us for quite a ways, hopping and looking back, before finally flying up away into the sweet spring morning.  It was a magical moment, made more so by the fact that it was Ariel’s birthday.  I must admit, my first thought was that the soul of my mother was temporarily housed in that wood thrush’s body.  After all, wood thrushes were one of her favorite birds. 

Who can say?  Is it so far-fetched to believe that our souls may reside in many different places before the day comes when our spirits rise to be reunited with our Maker?  And I know, for sure, my Mama would want to spend most of that time flying.  She couldn’t walk for the last five years of her life, so I love to imagine her soaring up far above our earthbound selves or perched singing in her beloved dogwood tree.

So I talk to all the birds I see, just in case, and chase the black cat that skulks about our property stalking birds.   I watch as the birds fly into the firmament, gazing at them until they disappear.  I listen to the wood thrush at dusk, singing its sweet but slightly melancholy song from the highest forest trees.  And I smile, thinking of Mama and relish the thought that she’s singing for us, that’s she’s flying through the clouds.  Waiting for the day that we fly, too.

Happy Mother’s Day to Mama.  And to all Mamas, near and far. 

And to all Mamas in this world…or the next.

Of “Evil Scissors” and “Nobler Modes of Life”

[Are these the "evil scissors" you were looking for?  (For more of this, go here.)]

In my last post, I alluded to the search engine terms shown in my statistics that bring people to my blog.  They are great fun to read and are the main reason I look at my stats.  Lord knows, I sure don’t get any pleasure out of that line graph they show where I often see, in one painful glance, the precipitous plunge of my plummeting blog statistics.

But the search engine terms are quite entertaining—sometimes humorous, sometimes happy, sometimes poetic, and sometimes poignant.    And sometimes, they’re real headscratchers.   For example, this one:  “rat collars; I put them on my rat.”  Now this one gives rise to so many questions.  First, which one of my posts did that phrase correspond to?   Do they really put a collar on their rat?  Why?  If so, do they take their rats for a walk?  Are there little rat leashes too?  If they do take them for a walk, what happens when they meet a cat?  Where do you buy rat collars?  Do rats really have a well-defined neck that a collar would work with?   Really, the questions are endless.

In the same “headscratcher” category, we have “evil scissors,” “snake recipes,” “family tree nuts,” and “babies playing poker.”  “Babies playing poker” certainly brings an immediate image to your mind, doesn’t it?  Can’t you just see the babies, with Budweisers in their hands, cigars dangling from their mouths, poker chips piled high, sitting in diapers around a table?

Then there’s the funny and whimsical—“leaf quizzical,” “money spiders,” “bee collision,” and “quiet stupidity.”  One thing’s for sure—I’ll take “quiet stupidity” over “loud stupidity” any day. 

But my favorites are the poetic ones.  “Nobler modes of life.”  “He treasures her like a poem.”  “The forever kind of love.”   What I like imagining are all the wonderful stories behind these searches.  Who are you, sweet man, who treasures your lover like a poem and loves her, no doubt, with the forever kind of love?  A nobler mode of life you live, to be sure.

But there are two that I get on a regular basis that almost bring me to tears.  One of them is “Mama died I miss her” or “Where are you Mama” or just “mama.”  The other is a single word:  “Alone.”  Or sometimes “Lonely.” 

For any of you that find my blog using that phrase, I hope you have found just a little bit of what you’re looking for.   If you are lonely, I hope that, somehow, reading my blog helps by showing you that you are not alone in feeling lonely.  It’s a universal emotion that very few of us escape.  And I hope that reading the kind comments of my blogging friends makes you feel just a little less alone, as it does me,  by helping you see, as I have, that there is goodness and kindness yet to be found in this sad, tired, old world.  And that I, and you, are not alone.  We are not alone.

“Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New, Ring Out the False, Ring in the True”

 

(Sunrise over the Yadkin Valley)

I can’t really say that Lord Alfred Tennyson is one of my favorite poets, but I guess I’d say that this poem really rang a bell with me.  My prayer for our country and our world is that we may “Ring out…The civic slander and the spite” and “ring in the love of truth and right.”  And that we may “Ring out the grief that saps the mind, ring in redress to all mankind…Ring in…the larger heart, the kindlier hand…ring out the darkness of the land.”

May we all know love and light in 2008.

  “Ring Out, Wild Bells” from In Memoriam    

 Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

                                                                  — Lord Alfred Tennyson 

Thanksgiving

‘Tis the season to be grateful…oh, wait, no…‘tis the season to be jolly.  But I’m still in a Thanksgiving frame of mind.   I feel kind of bad about my post listing what I don’t have…a laptop, a cello, and Niagara Falls.  But the truth is, I don’t usually spend much time thinking about what I don’t have.  Always, my greatest pleasure is in the simple joys that I do possess.

On Thanksgiving Day, appropriately, I had one of those moments of sheer gratitude and joy.  You know, one of those pure moments where you’re not thinking of the bad things that happened yesterday or the worse things that might happen tomorrow…you’re just present in the moment and mindful of the blessing of it. 

I was preparing our Thanksgiving feast.  We actually hadn’t planned to be here on Thanksgiving Day.  We had planned to take a ten mile hike, our backpacks filled with turkey sandwiches and apple bread.   But it was pouring rain (which, these days, is itself something to be thankful for).  So there I was in the kitchen, puttering happily around, checking on the mashed potatoes, the green beans, the smoked turkey…you know, the usual.  The smell in the house was heavenly—oak logs burning in the wood stove, a hint of garlic in the potatoes, and buttery croissants baking in the oven.  Tom (my husband) was reading in his recliner; Ariel and Benjamin (my children) were talking and laughing together on the couch, with Benjamin noodling around on his guitar.  I was standing at the kitchen window, looking out at the mountains in the fog and thinking how fortunate we were to live in this lovely place, to be in this house—a warm refuge from the cold rain outside.

Benjamin began to sing, strumming the guitar, and Ariel joined in, harmonizing:

You—who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye…

For those of you that don’t recognize the song, it’s Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.  I came around the corner and stood listening.  Tom put down his book and began to sing along:

And you of tender years
Can’t know the fears
That your elders grew by.
And so please help
Them with your youth
They seek the truth
Before they can die.

I stood there gazing at my family, beaming, my whole being suffused with happiness.  They sang on, stumbling over some of the words they didn’t know and sometimes getting a little off-key.   But they sang the chorus loud, strong, and sure, especially the last two lines:

…So just look at them and sigh
    And know they love you.

They finished with a flourish, laughing.  I looked at them and sighed with contentment and knew I loved them…beyond imagining. 

And then…the kitchen timer rang.  I went back to the kitchen, taking the bread out of the oven and adding a little more garlic to the green beans.  As I stirred the beans, the tears came, flowing down my face and dropping into the beans.  I let them flow and just stirred them in.  I put all the food on the table and called everyone to eat.

We said a simple prayer of thanks, passed the dishes around, and dug in.  “Mmm,” said Tom.  “These green beans are extra good.”

I smiled and said, “Not too salty?”

“No,” he said.  “Just right.”

Yes, I thought, as I took a bite of the beans and smiled at my family. Yes indeed. 

Just right.

A Bouquet of Bull Thistles

 

I know, I know, I’ve written about bull thistles before.   I really can’t say why I’m so entranced with what some consider a noxious weed.  In fact, if I’d ever had a proper wedding, I probably would have been the first bride ever to carry a bouquet of bull thistles (perhaps with white leather gloves).  

Part of my attraction is the fact that birds, butterflies, and bees love them so.  And part of it is my fascination with how a plant could be so very prickly (and painfully so) on the outside, yet harbor the most silky soft seed.

So forgive me for a last look at my beloved bull thistles.  These pictures were taken back in September.  I was out trying to take pictures of the pods bursting with downy seeds, whose feathery fronds rendered rainbows in the late afternoon light.  But the wind was strong and the pods kept moving, and I’m afraid my little point-and-shoot wasn’t up to the task.  But there was a sudden gust, and scores of seeds flew up around me in a whirlwind of gossamer grace.   I gasped and began to twirl around with my camera held aloft, just clicking in the air hoping to capture a bit of that grace.  Up they swirled, lifting lightly towards the light until I lost sight of them. 

My photos don’t begin to do justice to what I witnessed.  In fact, most of my pictures were blurry.  But here’s some of what I did capture that wondrous afternoon.

Finding Firewood in the Fiery Woods of Fall

 

Fred First of Fragments from Floyd recently challenged his readers to write a description of the smells that evoke autumn for them.  Fred himself penned a lovely piece and commenters also wrote vivid and poetic expressions of fall.  Colleen of Loose Leaf Notes later posted a wonderful fall poem that she wrote, inspired by Fred’s challenge.

At first I stalled, daunted by the task, but then decided to follow through on my recent pledge to not compare myself to everyone else but to go ahead and stick my creative neck out, even when I’m scared.  In the blog world, the writers I admire most are the ones who post their poetry, because I think there is no writing more personal.  In fact, for me, the only thing more intimidating than posting a poem would be to post a picture of myself!

But anyway, in the spirit of being bolder, here’s the poem I wrote (slightly edited).  I later realized that I’d gone off on a poetic tangent since my poem didn’t specifically address the sense of smell.  I apologize, Fred.  This is just what came out when I thought about how our woods smell in autumn.  It’s about my favorite fall chore—gathering firewood for the winter.

Sharp

The chainsaw sings a high keening dirge
For the deadwood it cuts sharp and clean.
Sharp and clean, the crisp autumn air
Burns my lungs as I carry,
Through the glory of
Blazing bright leaf fall,
The tree’s final gift to us
That will come alive again
In our woodstove as it
Burns bright in a blaze of glory
Saving us from the cutting of
The sharp winter wind.

The Couch That Sailed the Ocean Blue

 

Looks like a common, ordinary couch, doesn’t it?  In fact, maybe a little less than ordinary.  If our couch were a person, you’d probably call it down-on-its-luck, down and out, underprivileged.  It has seen better days.

But there’s more to our couch than meets the eye.  With our intrepid children always at the helm, it has sailed on the high seas, thundered down railroad tracks loaded with dangerous cargo, and carried busloads of happy schoolchildren safely home.  It has raced in Nascar, the Indianapolis 500, and in rallies down steep mountain roads.  Its cushions have been transformed into forts to protect our home from the forces of evil and have become nests for tired little baby birds and homes for faithful Teddy Bears.  Our couch has flown in the clouds as an airliner and through the starry night as a magic carpet.  This couch has been places.

If you looked through our family photographs, you’d notice that this couch shows up in a lot of them.  It’s where my husband and I loved to read and where we’d curl up with our children to nurture their love of reading.  It’s where beloved friends and family sat when they visited, including many who have now passed away.  It’s also the scene of a bit of cherished family lore involving a eight-inch long skink that crawled up my arm while we were watching a movie.  Legend has it that I leapt, in a single bound, over the back of the couch. 

I bought it, when my now college-age children were babies, at a yard sale in an upscale North Raleigh neighborhood.  The lady of the house saw me looking longingly at it and came over. 

“You know, that couch cost me $1800.00.  And it has stayed in my living room and never, ever been touched by my children.” 

I smiled at her and thought, That’s gonna change real soon.

And it did.  My children have touched just about every square inch of that couch at one time or another.  And they have traveled many, many miles on it in the oceans, roads, and skies of their infinite imaginations. 

I have a confession to make:  I was thinking of throwing it out, of sending it to the Great Living Room in the Sky. (It’s too shabby to give to Goodwill.)  So, why was I thinking of saying goodbye to such a faithful old friend?  Well, for one thing, when company comes, I have to try to steer them to other seats.  Because once you sit down, you sink to such depths that you wonder if you’ll ever be able to rise again.  It’s a little embarrassing.  And for another, it just looks so bedraggled.  Tom has rebuilt it twice, but it is getting beyond help. 

But when I told my son Benjamin, he was beside himself.  “I love that couch.  You can’t throw it away.  I love that more than anything we own.”

I was incredulous.  “More than the pie safe?  More than the china cabinet?”  Both treasured family heirlooms. 

“Yes, more than those.  Please don’t get rid of it!”

So, thanks to Benjamin, our couch is here to stay.  At least until he gets out of college.  Then, it will sit in his very first apartment. He’ll curl up on it, in his favorite corner spot, where it sags just right for nesting.  I can see him there now, reading, playing guitar, or dozing.  Dozing—as he dreams of the days when couches could fly through starry skies, could hurtle down curvy mountain roads, and could take you anywhere you dreamed of going.

Don’t Hate Me Because I’m…Sensible!

 

I was driving through the parking lot of a local shopping center the other day, when I noticed a young guy in a maroon car with his brake lights on, obviously about to back out of the parking space ahead of me.  Initially, I slowed, but then when I saw him look straight at me, I figured he was waiting for me to pass by.  But just as I drew near, he abruptly backed out, right in front of me.  So I slammed on my brakes and pulled slightly to the right to avoid a collision.  My groceries, which were in the seat beside me, slid to the floor.

I muttered a few choice phrases and stared hard at the back of his car.  He was taking him own sweet time about accelerating.  So that gave me plenty of time to read his bumper sticker. 

“I Hate Your Camry! ”

Despite my irritation, I laughed out loud.  As it happens, I drive a Camry.  I was driving it that day.  But the idea that anyone could hate a Camry was ludicrous to me.  Camrys just seem so innocuous and inoffensive.  How could anyone hate them?  It’s almost like hating…I dunno…a golden retriever.   You know—they’re reliable; friendly; largish, but they don’t eat that much; and you see them everywhere.  Yep, just your basic golden retriever of a car. 
 
I mean, it’s not like I was driving a Hummer or something.  That I could understand.  But a Camry?  Maybe he has some stereotype of a Camry driver in his mind.  Maybe it symbolizes something to him.  But I’m not sure what.  Dullness?  Conservatism?  Thriftiness?  Old age?   Well, I am a middle-aged, thrifty, sometimes dull moderate-leaning-to-the-left, so I guess there could be some validity in that stereotype.

But I bet you’re wondering—what was he driving?  A Civic?  A Miata?  Some other zippy, sporty, little car?  No indeed.  He was driving a… Buick Regal.  Which is basically just an American Camry.   I mean, my goodness, I don’t like to stereotype, but if you were playing one of those match games where you draw a line from a word in one column and its closest match in the second, and you saw the word “Buick” in column one and “Conservative Senior Citizen” in column two…well…would there be any question?

I wish I could have a word or two with that young whippersnapper.  A nice, motherly chat.  I’d talk to him about the futility and folly of hatred, about his lack of driving skills and judgment, and about the fact that it would have been far more prudent to get a Camry.  Better reliability, better crash rating, and an all-around better car.

I would remind him that he, too, will be old someday.  Because I think that what his bumper sticker is all about—he’s afraid he’s going to turn into his dad.  Or his grandpa.  But someday he, too, will be old, thrifty, and a little dull.  And he, too, will love the way his Camry glides along, a smooth and reliable ride, insulating him from young whippersnappers who would hate him just because he’s…sensible.

A Warm Welcome to Cool Autumn

 

(Scene from our deck-the play of light and fog in autumn)

Now that I’ve bid farewell to summer, I thought it would be appropriate to say a happy hello to autumn.  Hello, autumn!

Fall has always been my favorite time of year.  I have never seen it as an ending.  For me, it symbolized a fresh start—the beginning of a new school year, full of promise and new possibilities.  New pencils, new teachers, and a new cold-weather outfit that I always wore on the first day of school no matter how hot it was.  So the start of school for me is forever associated with the smell of new wax on schoolroom floors and the scratchy prickle of wool on my hot and sweaty neck.

And the cool, crisp autumn air makes me frisky as a new pup (even now, as an old pup).  I always feel as though I’ve been reborn in fall.   I love, too, snuggling under quilts piled so heavy you can barely move and the smell of thick soup or stew simmering in the crockpot.

So here is my photographic ode to fall.  I should confess: most of these are from last year.  We had every intention of hiking the hills this weekend and sharing what we witnessed with you, my kind readers.  But I had a small unexpected injury that has curtailed my hiking for a while.  So I hope you don’t mind a recycled, year-old fall!  ( Most of these were taken at our home).  For some really amazing fall pictures, be sure to check out Blue Ridge Blog.  My friend Wesley has some lovely ones, too, at Blue Ridge Dreaming  ( like this one.)

Welcome, autumn.  We’re so glad you’re here.

Our back woods at the end of the day

The great big maple in back of our house

The same maple from a different perspective

Dogwood and a golden tree illuminated

Leaves seen close.

Bright red berries of our mountain ash tree

Yes, the sky really was that blue yesterday!

Farewell to Summer

 

 (Bull Thistles on Our Hike Up a Mountain)

It’s finally beginning to look like autumn here at our mountain homestead.  We pull sweaters from our closet that smell faintly of cedar and draw up the quilt from the foot of the bed, shivering deliciously in the chill night air.
 
So it’s time to say adieu to summer.  And I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go.  It’s become like a loud, obnoxious, oppressive guest who overstays their welcome.  The weather here this year for both spring and summer was volatile and strange.  And oddly, the events of our summer seemed to somehow mirror the weather.

So I’d like to say to summer:  Thank you for coming.  We enjoyed your visit in many ways and hope you’ll stop by again next year.  Are you sure you’ve packed everything?  Can we help you carry your bags to the car?  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

But our family really did enjoy summer’s visit in some ways.  We took some wonderful hikes; we rediscovered the joys of eating orange creamsicles while we sat and talked on our porch after a long, hot walk; and our beloved coneflowers and black-eyed susans managed to bloom, despite the drought.  So,  here, in pictures, are a few of our summer delights. 

Sayonara, summer.

Ariel going down the mountain on our hike

Coneflower in the morning

Monarch caterpillar on milkweed

Monarch on Mr. Hendrix’s butterfly bush

Hiking down the Knob

Maple leaves on our rainy hike

Black-eyed susans in the early morning light

Moss in the dappled forest light

Swallowtail on the bull thistles in my side yard