I have this habit of reacting as soon as I hear something. You know it always merits a second look.
It takes me time to shoulder a new habit, policy, or anything involving change.
I find when I stop and look at something from all angles, I usually come away with a different perspective…especially in dealing with people.
Most people are good when you finally see them. Atticus Finch; To Kill a Mockingbird
The phone rang at 12:30 am.
Two rings. It jolted me upright. But when I picked it up, there was only a dial tone.
Probably a wrong number. Maybe someone grabbed the caller’s phone and shut it off, exclaiming, “Good heavens. Don’t call them at this hour!” Maybe.
Possibly, it was bad news. A heart attack. An accident. My mind flits to a friend. When her uncle died at 3 am, her husband took the phone away from her, saying her uncle would be just as dead at 9 am; why make folks fret about it in the middle of the night. Let everybody get some sleep.
I rooted back down in my covers, making a nest out of sheets and pillows, getting it tucked in just so at the sides.
The phone rang again.
My arm shot toward the receiver like a yo-yo.
The raucaus laughter of teenagers sounded from the other end. Then “shh’s” and giggles. I hung up without saying a word.
My sleep is a fragile thing, like a shadow that I can’t catch. My mind spiraled to my juvie phone pranks. Like calling the National Gambling Association and telling them, “I bet 50 bucks I can end my gambling problem by the start of next week.” I was glad I wasn’t 16 and hilarious anymore. Half and hour passed.
I could hear a barking dog. I wondered how far away he was. What was he grousing about? Images of skunks and raccoons on night raids filled my mind. An hour winked away.
I got up and padded outside, wrapped in a blanket.
A full moon reigned over the sky. The earth like a stage, lay waiting in silvery-blue light. The faintest breeze carried star song from the passing constellations. Fine white crystals spider-webbed across pumpkins and leaves. The first frost of fall.
I smile. Maybe it wasn’t a prank call. Perhaps it was the signal to let me know intermission was over. The second act of the seasons had begun.
by Zest-pk
Yes, even though I haven’t posted for most of the summer, I’m still laboring while others are sleeping.
Tonight the kitchen is abuzz with activity.
A three-layered metal contraption called a steamer is percolating on the stove top. The Swedish genuis who designed it created a method to split open the cells of fruit with heat, and siphon their juicy goodness.
I’ve beaten the wicked deer to the Concords this year. 5-gallon buckets of grapes line up next to the stove, awaiting their turn in the steamer. I drain the boiling purple juice into big half-gallon jars and listen for the lids to “Ping”, indicating they’ve sealed. It takes about an hour for each batch.
Even though it’s 2 in the morning when I finish, I trek the stems and collapsed grape skins outside to the compost pile. (Fruit flies…blah)
The air is crisp from the first chilly snap of the season. Leaves litter the ground. Orion has returned to the sky after his summer vacation. The faint light of a half-moon illuminates curlicues of steam ghosting off the pot of spent grapes I carry.
It’s a night to remember. Late nights are like that…when you think no one is awake, and you have the stars and quietness all to yourself.
Just as Dandelion wine evokes images of long sunny days, each jar of grape juice, will fill my cloud-ridden winter with crisp autumn nights and the waning moon of summer. I’m really canning moon shine.
Family visits are never Silent
A good friend of mine told me he hadn’t ever read this blog. He didn’t have time.
He probably doesn’t have time. He takes care of his elderly mother 16 hours a day and works the other 8 hours. His life is full of all the little things that make living possible.
Have you ever taken care of some one who is elderly, ill, or broken? What astounds me is how much time it takes. Even just to visit. Or if you do a bit more, it takes even more time to make meals, to provide transportation, take someone on one of their many trips to the doctor.
Then I realize it’s not just the ill who might appreciate a good story or a listening ear. There are the folks who are grieving. Others who are lonely. And doesn’t everyone have a nutty relative who needs a visit, but you have to force yourself because their house has pathways through their collective years of newspapers and magazines.and the place smells because they never open the windows?
What would happen if instead of surfing, answering e-maills, or reading blogs, folks were spending time with real people.
Wouldn’t it be great if one day cyberspace was quiet, empty, deserted….. like an abandoned world you see in sci-fi movies because everyone was busy spending “face-time” with others.
How much could we accomplish? How many wounds could we comfort? It’s something to hope for.
Who will you visit this week?
I just came in from the garden. I graveled potatoes.
That’s what my grandmother always called it when we prodded the dirt around the plants, looking for baby potatoes, but left the plants intact so they could make big spuds, too.
“C’ mon” she’d say, “Let’s pick a mess of greens to boil these with.”
She never stepped outside without a bonnet. Never. Her arms were leathery and spotted, but her face was white and smooth like baby’s skin.
Since it was a hardscrabble farm, the only lawn she had was a patch fronting the dirt road that went by the house. The rest was trails through weeds, feedlots, and pasture. We’d wander around gathering a few leaves of dock, and as much Lamb’s Quarter as we could find. We never could find a lot.
“I guess we’ll have to use dandelion greens for the rest,” she’d say. No matter how dry it was—even when there were cracks in the earth—there were dandelions. We’d only pick the small ones. The big ones were too bitter.
I suppose they were medicinal. I have no idea what they were supposed to do, except remind me that in hard times, you make do with what you’ve got.
So now my taters are boiling along with a few sprigs of chives. (I figured Grandma wouldn’t mind if I spruced it up a bit.) I’m sitting back, staring at my lawn, dotted with golden flowers, and wondering how many dandelions I’d need to make wine? As Grandma always said….
“Make do with what you’ve got.”
The Long Road by WVS
I was on a walk a couple days ago when I met up with The Scoutmaster. About five years ago, this seasoned outdoors man taught my family how to do a 50-mile hike through the mountains and make it fun.
We’ve been hiking ever since.
He showed us how to pack our backpacks and trained along with us so we could endure.
Even though he tried to prepare us, one of the things that we had to discover for ourselves was that a hike is as much a mental task as it is physical.
My pack weighs about 40 pounds. I remember being about halfway up a mountain slope, when I stopped, cursed and yelled, “I quit!”
Of course, I felt pretty stupid when the echo of my voice came back to me because the only way to get off the mountainside was to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Even though I’ve done lots of short and long hikes since then, I’m still amazed at how far a person can go when they simply keep walking. Our progress shouldn’t be surprising because there are so many examples around us. A jagged rock will smooth into a boulder under the constant drip of water. A solid stone wall will become an arch with the drilling of unending gusts of wind. To keep moving forward will allow us to finally reach our destination.
It seems that the same truth applies to life. If you keep pounding away at problems, you’ll get past them. Sure there’s blisters, and dry spells, and maybe even some yelling, but the biggest battle is the mental stamina to keep pushing on.
Hope is a long road. It’s not always straight, but thank the Lord, He put folks in our path to help along the way.
Thanks to all of you who’ve helped me along the path. And thank you wise Scoutmaster for showing that the journey can be fun.
By Bob Jagendorf
While visiting the wise and wonderful woman of the Nursing Home, I heard a woman down the hallway crying out…
“Help me… Help me.”
She often cries out. Sometimes she’s in pain. Sometimes, she’s frightened. Sometimes she just wails and no one can figure out what’s wrong. Today was one of those days that she couldn’t be comforted.
It brought up discussion. If Jesus checked into a Nursing Home, do you think he’d heal everyone in there?
The wise and wonderful woman of the nursing home shook her head. She believes that pain is part of life. It teaches us character and to count on something other than ourselves. “He’d help the soul, but not necessarily heal every body,” she says.
Now that I think about it, there’s pain with birth. Unavoidable pain that comes from simply living, and many times pain in death. Perhaps cutting the cord on all pain, keeps us from the opportunity to grow. Hopefully there is a hand to hold when it becomes too much. We learn to be there and link to each other to slog through the pain.
Perhaps it’s a cord we bind instead of cut?
I went to the beach with a friend. I tried to only listen to her stories and not throw in a bunch of my own, but it was hard. It makes me realize how much I talk about myself, so I’m still working on cutting that cord.
The picture above was taken at a tomato festival in Chile, and made me think of an intereresting event at the beach. With the morning low tides, folks would wade out in the shallows in green muck up to their knees to go clamming. Some dug on exposed sandbars, but even that was pretty squishy. I just couldn’t do it.
“It’s fun,” my friend proclaimed. “You’ll forget about the goo and the get busy raking clams out of the rocks and seaweed.”
“Now I know why I don’t care for clams,” I said. “I wondered why they had that chewy texture.”
I confess. I like a good bath or shower. Even on a backbacking trip, I plunge myself into a cool pool of water each evening.
There have been a few times along the trail that the water has dried up. The only puddles left were foamed with bloated algae. Even after filtering and boiling the water (for drinking and cooking), it had a green tint to it.
Sometimes you have to make do with what you have. Now that I think about it…I bet I can wade in tidal goop and rake out some clams.
Perhaps HOPE is discovering that with necessity— we can change priorities.
Photo by CarbonNYC
Caps, gowns, and sitting in bleachers until one special person walks across the stage is a popular activity at this time of year.
I have several graduation announcements all begging for perfect gifts. But what are they?
But I would like something more enduring. Something that would inspire hope in a dark period of life, because when you’re first starting out on the adult trail, you can expect that around one of the bends is a shadowy passage.
It made me think about what I received for graduation a million years ago. I could have really used luggage, but I didn’t get any. I did get pens and money. And I remember a thin, golden book called Apples of Gold. It was full of quotes and words of wisdom.
I didn’t read it until I was in graduate school. I probably didn’t think I needed it until I hit one of those dark nights of adult life.
Lisa of Tao of Webfoot says she still remembers a version of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If,” that had been adapted and given to her.
So maybe when we’re in grade school “Sticks and Stones may break our bones….
But when graduating into life…..
The gift of words have the power to inspire, heal, and give hope for a very long time.
What do you remember about your graduation gifts?
