The Farewell

Today I took a drive out to the farm community where I lived until I married and began my life of moving around and making a new home many times over. My sister and I still own more than 500 acres of land and the farm house where our father was born and where we spent many days with his mother, our grandmother. The rolling hills looked a bit unkempt today since the last crop of corn has been cut and it’s not quite time for the spring plowing. The yard too looked forlorn with tree limbs askew and poke berry bushes invading the shrubs.

The long bronze key was stubborn in the lock, and persistent jiggling and turning finally made the door yield. This door is just one of three front doors since the house was built in stages over the years. In the early 1800’s two rooms over two rooms and a cellar were flanked by chimneys at each end of the house. From there the house grew in stages. First a step down for a hall, bedroom and porch facing the west and later more rooms rambled in the opposite direction. The kitchen moved from the cellar to a separate small building and then onto the main floor. Sometimes the living room and dining room traded places, another front porch and two small porches off the back joined in before bathrooms were thought of and added. So two back doors and three front doors ensured plenty of places to sit and talk and admire the views. In summer, we could count on a breeze coming over the hills, slipping under the tree branches and into one door and out another. Cold winter days called for closed heavy drapes and an eye on the wood stoves.

The house hasn’t been lived in for over ten years, and we have gradually sorted out the family papers and letters and taken the paintings and furniture that called the tenderest of our memories. The property is for sale now, and propspective buyers have little interest in a house that is architecturally funky and outrageously expensive to heat. For several years it seemed alive with my grandmother. I could open a desk drawer and find notes and prayers written in her hand. Her favorite chair was moved from its usual place, but it was as if her arm still rested on its arm. The bowls and cups in the kitchen were as familiar as the cans of Campbell’s Vegetable Soup that she heated and served me for Lunch on Saturday.

Today the house was quiet and smelled of dust and mold. Even the rooms with the most sun seemed bereft. I walked through each one, stopping for a moment to stroke an old pillow, pick up a book of poetry, finger the curved edge of a painted dresser. And then I walked out the same door I had unlocked to enter. It was the door closest to my grandmother’s bedroom, the room where she sewed and read and took her afternoon nap. And now she was truly gone.

Out of Turn

The call was so unexpected,
A sliver of glass from the side
Without awareness that the window had shattered.
Sara died this morning. Her heart.

How could that be? It isn’t your turn.
There are plenty of people much older than you
Who didn’t die today.
Hey, girl, don’t you understand about waiting your turn?

Photo Reminders

I was flipping through my pix to add one or two to my profile, and there I was in Italy having an amazing morning in a cooking class near Venice! As I remember there were fourteen of us divided into two groups, each with a Chef instructor. Neither of them spoke English. Listening to their Italian voices and the English translation, understanding the hands-on preparation and cooking instructions, drinking enough Prosecco to get a glow; suddenly the sound of the voices and the scent of the food was created fresh and intense in my memory.

We cut the vegetables for roasting in strips rather than chunks, and they lay beautifully in the roasting pan; red peppers, zuchinni squash, leeks waiting for olive oil, salt and pepper. I have a hearty appetite and for years have declared myself open to eating anything but liver. There was rich dark red calves liver for us to cut and trim and prepare and eat! How could I? Of course, I did! And it was delicious.

The usual practice for the day was to listen and cook and drink Prosecco from 10:00 am to noon. With a short break, we assembled in the dining room for lunch. The food we had prepared was served to us as a fine gourmet meal.

So what was the creative experience? Where did it begin? What was the frame? The cooking and learning, of course, and drinking wine in the morning, touching, eating, and savoring a food that had been unpleasant in my imagination. Would it have been possible without the other men and women in the kitchen and dining room, without the white linen in the dining room, without the flight to Venice, without the sunlight of the day? And today, as I observe myself of eight years ago, am I separate or part of the creativity?

What would Ken Wilber say?

Another Day

I moved from thinking about a blog to beginning a blog in my usual way; not quite enough information to feel confident and just enough desire to take the risk. I’m remembering starting my business years ago. A friend asked me, ‘Aren’t you nervous? This seems like such a big risk! Aren’t you afraid you’ll fail?’ With my answer to her, I knew that my failure would be to not try, to not take the risk. And so today.

This morning I woke up long before my day needed to begin. So after a big of reading, it was back to bed to do some yoga and fall asleep. When I woke several hours later, I was ready. I had a bagel with peanut butter and fig jam with my coffee. No matter about the calorie or carbohydrate count. I watched three small birds on the naked branches of the tree outside my home office. No watching the clock. I responded to an email that took me to the website of an artist acquaintenance. For the first time I lingered and looked at her watercolors of Iceland. I read some of her blog. I was moved to tears by my own yearning to see and write. So here I am, writing and making the moment come live. Another day!