sprigs: Red leaf thou dost betray me

Red leaf thou dost betray me,

Summer’s pleasures now are o’er

For me no cheery fire waits

or steeping pot of tea.

I must be south for months to pass

where stronger sun will warm me

with seasons' cycle I'll return,

to flowers, heat, and grass.

I get downright poetic out in the yard sometimes. 

Recipe for Giving Thanks

last Thanksgiving with family

Thanksgiving is in four weeks. Before you ready the menu, shopping list, and call the guests, prepare yourself for the holiday.

Recipe for Giving Thanks

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: Ready instantly, but improves if simmered all day.

Number of Servings: The more you share it, the more there is.

Ingredients:

solitude

paper

pencil

a handful of memories from 2014 

cup of tea or coffee 

Instructions:

1. Sit down in your favorite chair. 

2. Close your eyes and think back on some highlights from the year. Don't forget celebrations, difficulties endured, travel, problems solved, favorite relationships.

3. Jot down short details from each: names of people, places, events, laughter.

4. Keep working until you have 5-10. The longer the list, the more you have to be grateful for!

5. Read the list quietly to yourself. Recapture the feelings: joy, relief, satisfaction. 

6. Give thanks out loud. 

anticipation, worry, relief

 awe, 17" snow

laughter and friends

travel: Whidbey Island

summer adventures in Washington

summer adventures here in NC

the jellyfish 

Grace and Sharp Corners

The military service for my father was dignified and respectful.

I was sitting very close to the Marines who unfolded the US flag, then refolded it with great precision: straighten the edges, tug, fold diagonally, crease, tug, fold, crease, continue until the end, tuck in the hem.

While I watched the resulting triangle flip over and over along it edges, I flashed back to another folding ceremony.

My father supervised as my sister and I each knelt over one end of a faded cotton sleeping bag. I guess he was tired of sloppy bundles that fell apart when he lifted them onto the upper shelves in the garage. We were going to learn the "right" way to roll and tie it. 

So we practiced folding the bag in half lengthwise, bringing the edges together evenly. The developing cylinder would only hold together well if we started at the open end. At the same time, we had to exert enough pressure to keep it tight and tidy. Once we'd reached the foot of the bag, we straddled it and tied the cord around the middle. Then we carefully wrapped its cover around it, snapped it in place, and pulled the draw strings together at the sides. It was like calf roping, only it was a fat green tootsie roll. 

I never did care about the sleeping bags, but the lesson stuck. 

My first summer job required I make beds in a nursing home. At that time, both sheets were flat, not fitted. I had to position the sheet, wrap it under  the mattress top and bottom. Then I made sharp, 45 degree angles and tucked the tails around the side corder, like wrapping a gift. If the sheet wasn't taut, it would get sloppy, and wriggle uncomfortably under the sleeper.
Six corners per bed, repeated over the course of the summer, I got pretty good at it. 

Since then, I've expected every bed I sleep in to meet that standard. That's okay for beds, but unfortunately, I also think people should meet my  standards. Inflexible expectations cause more relationship wrinkles than a slack sheet and more restless nights, too. 

It's proper to be persnickety about the flag.

But people can't be folded, tugged, and creased into perfection. People need

to be handled gently.

People need  grace. 





 

Sprigs: Autumn Chores

While I wait for everything to just go ahead and die so I can pull it up, I've been looking around for some productive time outside. 

Recently I cleaned half of our shed, tossing trash and sorting the hazardous waste to take to the county's special collection day. I reorganized the tools on the peg board. Then I swept the floor.

I came across the scrap of chicken wire I'd been saving and seized the opportunity. In wet weather the ramp on my potting shed gets slippery and I don't want to risk a fall. With my handy heavy-duty stapler I attached the wire to the bottom half.  

Thank you, Martha Stewart, for a great idea. 


 I've been meaning to do this for two years, and it only took 15 minutes.



What little chore have you tackled that yielded an extra measure of satisfaction? 

Art as Holiness

I had a professor who walked into the bare room, sat at the front table, unbuttoned his suit jacket, folded his hands, and asked our English literature class when we'd last had an aesthetic experience. 

Perhaps that was the moment I began marking my intimate encounters with art:


An exhibit of Van Gogh's paintings revealed his passion in the thick texture of the paint.

Aaron Copland conducted his composition Fanfare for the Common Man.

Mikhail Baryshnikov danced with strength and agility.

Temple University Anthropology Lab

Nineteenth century Native Americans bartered for cheap glass beads, and transformed them into vibrant floral designs.






Dave Brubeck played the jazz piano in his Christmas cantata, La Posada, and I was part of the small orchestra which accompanied him.

Those memories shine brightly.

Recently, I heard Yo Yo Ma perform with the Winston Salem Symphony Orchestra. My thrill-o-meter spun sharply to the right into the "awestruck" range.  

The music was superb and watching Mr. Ma dazzled me.  

Although he may be  the premier living musician, he was a democrat. (Small "d", he behaved as an equal, not a superior.) He played as one of twelve, not a soloist, in a cello-only piece. ( Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1)  In orchestras, etiquette requires the subordinate musician of any pair to turn the pages of sheet music. That allows the superior instrumentalist to continue playing and not interrupt the flow. In his pair of cellists, Mr. Ma turned the pages.

He never postured to draw attention to himself. Waiting for his musical entrances, he concentrated, still smiling, eyes closed. His body and cello swayed as if they danced.  He gently lifted his left arm, getting ready to place his fingers in exactly the right place on the cello's long fingerboard, and poised there until ready to join the orchestra.

His body language serenaded the other musicians, appreciating their contribution to the whole. When the violins introduced a section of the Dvorak Concerto, he turned his body toward them, and his face beamed, celebrating the beauty. When he and the first violinist shared a short duet, they were seated closely enough to lean towards one another. Musically speaking, he flirted. And her face shone in response.

 Playing or listening, his face expressed glee and wonder. I imagine he thought "Listen to the miracle of the beauty we create together!" 

The concert, particularly his solo with the orchestra, was forty minutes of intense joy. Joy for him, for me, for the orchestra, for the audience. 

We clapped until our palms were red, and Mr. Ma practically skipped back and forth from the wings of the stage. And he always shared our adulation with the musicians and conductor.

When he announced his encore the audience sighed in anticipation. 

The arts, executed superlatively, have enriched my soul. What a privilege it is to have the opportunities to enjoy them deeply. 

Frederick Buechner says " Literature, painting, music--the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things."

Yo Yo Ma's performance felt holy. 




  

   

Sprigs: Fall at my Front Door

Fall crouches at my front door. 

The small stone-bound container off my porch overflows with its energy. The once scrawny nasturtiums that suffered through the summer now fill the space left by other plants past their prime. The potato vine sprawls in all directions  and its neon color pops next to the orange of the pumpkin. 

It won't be long before frost nips them all back, but in the meantime they shout out "success!" every time I pass by. 

Sprigs: Last harvest

This is my last harvest. 

Saturday I went out to the garden before a potential frost. I hoped there might be a few peppers large enough to pick.  Once again I was surprised and blessed by the bounty.