LIFE TAKES A SURPRISING TURN

On the road to Birdland.

THIS MORNING'S SILVER FOG HAS ME FEELING REFLECTIVE. In the distance I see the tree line and the highway with trucks carrying their loads, but everything is muffled: sound, light, color. In the distance I see the road curving up over the railroad tracks and up the hill. I have let the chickens out, and even they are subdued by the frost that sugars the still green grass. I stand for a moment and watch the last Auracana hen peep out of the coop. She is a little shy. I don't know what I am waiting for, really. I stand here and take a little time to reflect on the past several years. So often I write these letters about my daily activities. I don't often reveal the more personal parts of my life, but some pretty big things have happened in my life, in my marriage.

At first, I thought I would write about the separation, the difficult months leading up to the sudden sadness and loss, when both Michael and I were desperate to find the best path through the despair and loneliness we felt together. I thought, at the time, that I would find the courage to write about the sudden wrenching of our lives, and the decision to seek an answer in living separately. But there was the fall semester to prepare for, eggs to be gathered and a garden to tend. There were sons urging me to keep my chin up, and friends to talk to and many, many reasons to take note of the sun's rising and setting, and flowers' blooming and fading, and the wheel of the year turned and life went on.

 

Maybe we tossed one or two to the wind.

Maybe we dropped some in the river.

As my independence sprouted and and I began to relish my new life alone. I adopted a little black puppy. I thought I'd write about learning to live a life of singularity, of remapping my path, forging the way toward joy, of making decisions unfettered by another's opinion. But there was snow to shovel and fires to light, lessons to learn and bills to pay, and a boy to teach that he has the love of both parents, that even if they have to pass him back and forth like a volley ball, they won't let him drop. And the wheel of the year turned and life went on.

I adopted a little black puppy.

When Michael and I divorced I thought I would write about letting go of a loved one and trying ever to do it with grace and respect, of searching for and finding the surprising gifts of the divorce, silver linings in the heartbreak. But there were seeds to plant and sticks to throw and fires to build and trails to blaze, and a young man to teach to drive so he could visit each of his parents in turn. And the wheel of the year turned, and the river flowed, and the seeds sprouted, and life went on.

And then a funny thing happened.

Micheal and I met up again and began to see that we had each lost some of the burdens that had complicated and encumbered our marriage. Maybe we dropped some in the river and let them float away. Maybe we buried a few in the soft earth to mulch and decay. Maybe we tossed one or two to the wind to ride the jet stream. Maybe some burned to ashes in a bonfire and floated up with sparks to the sky. We didn't lose all of them, you understand, but enough that we could remember why we got together in the first place. We began keeping company, learning new things about each other and remembering the little ways that we worked well together. It hasn't always been easy or delightful, but somehow we have arrived back to love, ready to commit to each other again with a little more wisdom this time, and a lot more support. We are engaged to be married when the peonies bloom.

I notice that the sun has burned off some of the haze while I was thinking. The shy little hen has come out and joined her flock. I lift the lid of the coop and find one brown egg in the nest. I cradle it in my palm. It is warm and full of life. And the wheel of the year turns, and life goes on.

Ready for the next Chapter.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF MEMORY

One lone early bloomer turns her face to the sun.

IN BIRDLAND, THE POPPY FIELD IS READY TO BLOOM. On the end of each curving, hairy, stalk is an olive shaped bud that wants to crack open revealing scarlet crepe. Poppies seem so primordial to me. A simple two part calyx holding the full-skirted petals tightly. They remind me of prehistoric birds with long, skinny necks, sparse hair instead of feathers. One, lone early bloomer turns its head toward the sun, a flamenco dancer waiting for partners. A few buds teasingly show just the ends of their skirts. When we moved out here 25 years ago, the circle of poppies was small, maybe 4 feet across. Each year it expands and now it reaches almost from the Lilacs to the Redbud.

 

 Edging the house, my grandmother's pale purple Irises bloom, scenting my morning walks. Along my path to the barn, though, I have been planting Irises from various sources—friends and a visit to an Iris farm up north. These are a variety of colors and shapes, and I can't remember what I planted where. Some are fall blooming, but this morning two new ones are climbing out of their shells. 

 I can hardly wait to see the blossoms. The one has big fleshy buds, the sepals edged in burgundy, like exotic snails. The other is smaller, the petals beginning to turn a deep purple.

Grandma's Yellow Rose

 We have two new additions to our yard. Last weekend, in a private ceremony of reconciliation, Michael and I celebrated some of the complexities of our long association by planting a Rose and a red Maple tree. We were thinking about how to commemorate our reunion. We knew we wanted to plant something—maybe a tree, and that Malvina Reynolds song started singing itself in my head: “If you love me, if you love, love, love me/Plant a Rose for me. If you think you're gonna love me a l-o-n-g time/Plant an apple tree.” I voted for the Rose, and Michael wanted a Maple—one that would turn red in the fall. 

Iris Bud

 We ended up buying both. The Rose was already in full bloom, and the tag promised blossoms “from frost to frost.” We planted the Rose on one side of my path, and the Maple stands a little away, on the other side, so it won't shade my Irises too much. 

If you love me, plant a rose for me.

 We can see them both from the window. Our dear friend, Pastor Janet, was with us, and we showed her around the yard. I told her about the yellow Rose, blooming now, that my grandmother remembered as a tree when she was a girl, when the Lilac was just a little upstart bush. Now, of course, the gnarled Lilac tree towers over the Rose, which blooms anyway in its shadow.

If you think you're gonna love
me a long time,
plant a maple tree.

 Janet remarked about the importance of stories that connect us with our home. She said that someday our children would tell their children the story of the Rose and the Maple tree. I look around the yard and I find it is full of stories. Ghosts of five little kids greedily pluck mulberries from the tree at the side of the lane. They stain their fingers and their mouths. Over there is a young mother, planting the twigs she bought mail order, now an unruly hedge of Forsithia, Weigela, Rose of Sharon. In back, near the new Rose, my grandfather plants grapes; twenty years later a young father crafts an arbor for them to climb, with posts of Locust and boards of Cedar. Grandpa's twin cherry trees are now ghosts themselves, after living out a long life, generous with pies. A young peach tree now stands in place of the cherries. In the evenings, if we are quiet, we can see the spinney of woods that grew up between the two houses fade. Wait. The field will return and five little kids will run through the waist high grass, chasing the fireflies that rise like wishes to the sky. This emotional landscape, this architecture of memory, holds these stories for us, connecting us to our past, to this land, and to each other.

Remember Beauty; Recollect Peace; Blessed Be.