In My Mind...

Dear Maria,

Well, I can vouch for only 12.5” of rain in the backyard gauge this month as I was not paying much attention to rainfall amounts the first week or so of the month. There is a promise—but no guarantee—of a string of days where the sun might dominate the sky.  Seems more necessary as we just slipped under 12 hours between sunrise and sunset.

Did manage to do a little yard work here and there, and one morning saw a ruby-throated hummingbird and a bird that looked like a goldfinch with the color scheme reversed. Or so I think I saw. Fluttering about the garden and then up into an oak, the bird never allowed me a good look. Not long enough to be sure.

Perceptions, you know how they go.

The other day at lunch I confessed to a young friend that I feel a little longer now the ache of muscles pushed beyond the normal day-to-day routine. As if somehow to counter that reality with what doesn’t ail me, I followed up by insisting that my mind seemed no different to me these days than 10 or 30 years ago. Her take was the opposite, that her mind seemed wearier, but she thought herself physically strong. I’ll spot her the childrearing and a demanding fulltime job. Indiana had it right, perhaps, about the miles.

I spotted myself the accumulated experience of the world as a plus to offset what my mind may be losing. To never address the topics that were a part of 31 years of teaching makes me wonder about how quickly that bucket of knowledge will leak away. No more Keats, Oxford commas, Transcendentalism, and on and on off the top of my head. To be fair, I have several times confessed to never wanting to say anything ever again about any of what was my bread and butter for three decades. Interesting.

Of course, not knowing is not the same as forgetting. Wonder when I will forget whether I knew something about Yeats. For the present at least, sometimes I find myself thinking that something or other is something I once knew.

If the transition is slow enough—guess I’ll never know, will I?

Another overcast day, Max anxiously chewing his rawhide bone, and I with too much time on my mind. Again.

As for you, be well.

As always, srk  

 

Memory Sticks, 9/21/89

Dear Maria,

A couple of days of cooler temperatures and drier air in Greenville and Max and I agreed to lengthen our stride during the morning walk. Stars out, very nearly the last sliver of the moon, and a quiet that needs to be heard to be appreciated. Makes for a quick forgetting of sluggish, muggy mornings.

Speaking of remembering—chuckle or groan? A friend of mine ask me recently if while sailing I had been in a storm. A few times, but one very particular night remains vividly in the memory. During an evening race that took us offshore, we were caught coming back in between the jetties when a 60-knot microburst struck us from the north. The roar of wind and rain, the sound of a rescue chopper hovering to pull folks from a boat wrecked on the south jetty, the flashes of light that revealed the rocks to be a mere 6’ from our stern as two crew members fought like devils to get our genoa back on the foredeck.  Seven to eight-foot swells chased us home all the way to The Battery.

Of course, you know experts insist that the more senses involved, the deeper the memories. Another night, another storm, and all of us here remember. Hurricane Hugo.

That roar—like a shop fan a hundred feet tall. The muffled booms of heavy pines thumping the ground and the vibrations felt inside the house. Sea water around my ankles during the eye of the storm as I went out to the street, trying to take in what was happening in the darkness of that night. My neighbor hammering down a few pieces of plywood on his roof before the engine reignited.

And to think I slept somehow as the second phase of the storm was winding down.

The next morning—two thoughts about the moment I stepped onto the front porch. Too much sky, there was too much sky showing, and left behind, only a few trees where once had been a solid massing of green in every direction. And the smell. The scent of pine as if my face had been shoved into a bucket of crushed needles, or a thousand neighbors had massed their Christmas trees in front of my house.

We had been bombed.

The sound of chainsaws, the smell of grilled food. The aching muscles, the relief of a hot shower. The voice on the radio out of Jacksonville. The neighbors’ cheers when learning The Citadel beat Navy. The thwack of the morning newspaper landing in the driveway.

Oh, yes. I remember. Twenty-five years ago. Deeply held, that memory, eyes open or eyes closed. You should have been here. Maybe not.

Here’s to slipping by unscathed one more season. Have a great week.

Yours, srk

 

 

Teetering, Tottering...

Dear Maria,

Good morning. Cool—sort of—and damp. Same air hangs over us like a wet towel around our necks. At some point….

You’ll laugh to hear that I trotted out that somewhat suspect teeter-totter analogy again this past weekend. A friend and I got into a discussion about expectations in a relationship—her emphasis was romantic—and I did a ten-minute monologue on how relationships were like riding a teeter-totter. She probably felt like I wasted half of her lunch hour.

I still think there is some merit to the notion that at any given moment balance is unlikely between friends, lovers, family members in the give and take, the ups and downs that occur between two individuals. Go ahead, groan. My friend cocked her head to the side and gave me the look for that one. So that’s been done.

Of course, I keep thinking about boyhood friends who would without warning slip off their seat and boom went my rear end. Funny—or not—I don’t remember a girl ever dropping me on my behind like that. Okay, maybe I don’t want to remember.

Listen, some folks are never going to keep the ride going, or at least not by much of their effort. Maybe it’s like swinging. Some folks never want to take their turns doing the pushing part. The work.

I know, I know. You’ve heard this line of yapping before. Just living for the dream, an easy rhythm that finds balance in the ups and downs of the ride.

Oh, about reading Living Buddha, Living Christ, I recommended not so much as a lesson in Buddhism—might read Watts for that. The sincerity of the book reminded me of Thomas Merton, and a connection does exist coincidentally.

Last week the heavy vine that is working its way up an oak out back showed a few yellow leaves. Now, a few have appeared in the elms out front, and the crape has three red leaves. Yes, I counted. Hope springs for fall to come calling.

And I am glad I read the latest from Murakami. Not recommending it exactly—that issue of tastes—but I found it more engaging than 1Q84.

Okay, enough. On balance, doing well.

Yours, srk

P.S. Tell me you didn’t think of someone who left you up in the air.

 

Bird Week

Dear Maria,

Greetings! Still summer despite what local school calendars proclaim. For me, the past week was my own version of Bird Week—obviously, Birdnado would be overkill—and a week for processing very difficult news for a number of folks in my community of friends and colleagues. Of course, Shark Week was much more dramatic than my bird moments, and I have friends who can tout encounters with bears and foxes or the wily coyotes that are invading the local landscape. But, me? I have birds.

Monday, as I went across the street for the mail, a bluebird streaked overhead and landed in the neighbor’s no-so-healthy poplar. Before I could turn around and head back to the house, another two bluebirds flew into the cover of yellow and green leaves and suddenly a half-dozen flew out, all in different directions. Now, I hadn’t seen a bluebird for nearly six weeks. Maybe more—uncertain because I don’t keep a bird-watch journal. Late that afternoon I saw a young male bluebird perch of the top of the condo out back for a few minutes. So, was that their version of divvying up the local real estate for next spring’s hatch?

Had to water around mid-week as no rainfall for a while—much to Max’s relief, no storms to send him under chairs or into closets. When I slid open the patio door to go turn off the sprinkler, nearly two dozen crows rose up from behind the knockouts and japonicas, where they were out of sight until I flushed them. They rose four or five at a time and then off to the neighbor’s stand of trees. Soundlessly. Very disconcerting. I thought I ought to write a poem about the moment, but I figured Mr. Stevens had done enough with black-feathered birds. Perhaps I should get out the book on symbols again.

I have already complained about the hawk that sounds off just before dawn with its loud and persistent cries, but she—or if a young male, he—got an aggressive visit from a large male Thursday morning. The small hawk flushed two kites out of one of the tallest pines on my side of the street, and within a minute, out the corner of my eye, I saw the second hawk flying up from a lower vantage and then land on top of the smaller bird. There was much flapping and shrieking, but the summering bird took off pretty quickly with the more powerful interloper in pursuit.

The big hawk that prowls this neighborhood doesn’t usually show until October. Don’t know if this is the same bird, but I haven’t seen or heard another hawk or the pair of kites for three days.

A flurry of action, a flurry of sad news, and just seven days passing by. In the news, a tragic car accident that hit me hard, hard in the heart, and news of cancer striking again and again. Seems so often these days we hear that word, cancer. Like some muffled cadence, again and again. Even in the quiet of my routine, a retreat of sorts, life pushes ahead, sometimes a thrashing.

Two house finches are tumbling about in the young elms. Ever onward, we go.

A very warm wish for peace and safety for you and your family.

As before, just, srk