Notes on Birthdays

The years don’t matter;

not the number,

be it large or small. It matters

not where you are (or aren’t)

on this very personal day:

a day for celebration

of the you you’ve come to be.

This day is one of recognition

of people and places,

surroundings and treasures,

that made your everyday

for whatever years.

You are not GETTING older,

But growing.

Always. Every hour, every day,

toward the apogee

of you-ness:

the star inside your soul.

Tree

I’m in love. With a tree. 

Last year, we bought a townhouse, more or less sight unseen. We were in San Diego for the winter; our VA house had sold, and we needed a place to move to when we returned to the east coast. WE finally saw a place that looked like it might fill the bill. We pored over photos on the listing and on Realtor.com, studied the various features, asked questions of our agent and our daughter about things that weren’t shown in either of those locations--where is the powder room? Are there any walk-in closets? What about storage? (You will notice that we did not ask if it had an open floor plan, stainless-steel appliances, or granite countertops--those are stupid HGTV questions that we hoot at when we watch Househunters.) We ended up buying the house on its merits: location, garage, light--but there was still a lot that we did not know. Some of that was important, some less so.

We did not know about the tree. I had assumed that, once again (for the third house in a row), I would have a bricked-in patio that needed to be enlivened with plants in pots. I expected bare and blasted, and, I must admit, the roll of bamboo fencing that (sort of) screened the HVAC compressor was pretty ugly: attached to the fence on one end and, wobbly-legged, fastened to the side of the kitchen window on the other. Wire-cutters, please.

The rest of the back ‘yard’ area held a non-functional wall fountain, attached to the side of the kitchen bay window. (Huh?) There was a tall storage cabinet (about 12” square and 5 feet high--presumably designed for pygmy gardeners) and a coffin-sized box with a slanted copper-painted-black lid. A small bricked-in area fanned out from the brick steps, with a small dirt area, semi-covered with bark mulch that held the afore-mentioned HVAC unit and the ugly quickly-removed bamboo fence. And the tree.

The tree is a red maple, I think. In May, the leaves were green, but they were small and fine and delicate-looking. It shaded the patio; it stretched up to the second floor bedroom, giving that room the aura of a treehouse. From the kitchen window, I saw branches and leaves reaching across the blue sky, and from my chair at breakfast, I could watch squirrels chase each other up and down its trunk. I liked this tree from the start.

Love came in the fall. My tree saved the finest for last. Her leaves turned magnificently red, with gorgeous orange highlights. She lights up the patio, and leans over the fence so that passers-by will see her and remark upon her colors. In the morning--even on dull mornings where clouds drag the sky down to the ground--she offers a bright note to start the day. I find my eyes drawn to the window,, to the sunlight filtering through that rosy confusion., and think: all they had to show me was this tree. I could paint the walls, the trim, the cabinets; I could get someone to fix what’s broken, and alter the things that are inconvenient. But...getting a tree like this takes years of patience, years of care, years of love. This one puts Joyce Kilmer to shame. 

Balance

It's Thanksgiving, and Facebook is filled with gratitude. Every post lists things we are thankful for, ranging from pets to pies. Maybe we all just need a break, because I haven't seen a lot in the news to be thankful for. Murder, rape, riot, and catastrophe--not to mention Trump, the biggest catastrophe of all-- stream across our televisions, parading current and past scandals and offenses. I, for one, am ready for some good news.

It's easy to list our blessings, large and small. It's easier yet to catalogue all the things we would wish away (Can I get in an early thumbs-down for political ads? and any stories about Harvey Weinstein?) But, today, I'll take my cue from a magazine editorial I read this morning.

We all have a lot of 'everyday' in our lives: things that have to be done that we don't particularly want to do--making beds, doing dishes, unloading the laundry, putting stuff away, feeding the cat, vacuuming...These are all on my personal "Don't wanna" list, along with a number of other delightful activities. The editor that I chanced upon was folding laundry while watching the news. As everyone knows by now, news programs everywhere feature floods, fires, and hurricanes, shootings, robberies, and scams. Here and everywhere around the world.

And here I am, on the comfortable island of my living room, safe and sound, watching the news and complaining about having to decide what to have for dinner. I have choices that so many others don't. There's a refrigerator and freezer and pantry full of inspiration. There are restaurants a block away. I can call on my phone for pizza delivery or for an Uber to take me somewhere else. I have a table and chairs and a bed to sleep in, air-conditioning or heat, or just about anything I might want. And amid all this plenty, the whiny child says, "But what do I want for dinner?"

You get my point. Years of having it all have spawned years of needing more, until we've become eternally dissatisfied, essentially unsatisfiable. We take our lives for granted, when we are, in reality, one storm away from the deluge, one match away from the fire, one bullet away from tragedy. Why is it so hard to say a simple "thank you", then to roll up our sleeves and pitch in to make life a little better for someone else?

So here it is--between the Halloween candy and the Thanksgiving feast, between the adorable children in costume and the inevitable handprint turkeys, between gorging on candy and celebration of endless leftovers...thank you. Now, where's that list of places to start?

100 Loads of Laundry

Today I hit the bottom of the box of dryer sheets that I bought when we moved. That means that, since May 11--5 months ago--I have done 100 loads of laundry, averaging out to about 20 loads every month, more or less. Surely, that has some milestone-level of import. While Eliot's Prufrock measures out  his life in coffee spoons, I apparently choose laundry as my unit of measure.

One hundred baskets of laundry have churned through my life: clean sheets, clean towels, everything from jeans to underwear, from t-shirts to tablecloths, have measured out my days. Each basket represents an hour here, an hour there, tucked between the events and errands of the day.  The significant measured by the insignificant.

And--if we measured what we have accomplished in that laundry-measured period...?? Today I can report that we've plateau-ed out. Most things have a place (though occasionally I will open a closet or cabinet and be surprised by a box or bag or piece of silver that was incongruously placed.) This is when you have to recognize that there comes a time in every move when you just say, "That's enough!" and stop. Some things just have to stay where they are until motivation returns.

That may be Christmas. For now, we've stopped moving and started living again.

Moving

Who knew 

that, in moving, I 

would have to catalogue my life, 

answering questions seldom posed

in daily conversation? 

Who sends me mail, newspapers, 

magazines? Who do I want 

to hold close, to receive their messages?

I sit and make lists, 

and each name leads to another: 

family, doctors, friends, organizations. 

Banks and credit cards and mortgage companies. 

Magazines and bills and services and repairmen: 

all the people who keep my life going, 

who I can call upon in emergencies, 

who accompany my living like the score 

of a well-known play. The music in the background, 

suddenly come to the fore: Harmonia Gardens to my Dolly; 

The Sound of Music to my mountains. 

Now acknowledged, note by note, 

as I change locations and 

sing out the particulars 

to all my backup 

as the curtain rises on my new adventure.

Smoke and...

It's a piece of cloth; it's a hunk of metal.

Flags and statues aren't America.

Let them go.

America is people—who came from everywhere,

and found a home.

America is hope—for people who lost everything,

and found compassion.

America is a place to belong, to be safe,

a place of rescue.

Who are we to deny  

that safety, that hope

to others, when we are separated

only by a generation's tenancy?

Who are we to insist that our

inalienable rights supersede theirs?

Who are we to lie and murder

and deny opportunity in defense

of our own petty fiefdoms, our own

pieces of cloth and hunks of metal?

Let them go.

There is evil to be found out there.

Let it go.

Shutting doors and building walls

won’t stop it.

Tearing down flags and moving statues

won’t stop it.

Evil

will sneak through windows,

will tunnel underground,

will tell scary stories in the dark

of flags and statues, and

will have a million faces.

God grant we may not see them

in our own mirrors.

Ice Cream and Opera

Every year we trundle off to Chautauqua, and almost every year, I wonder why. It's difficult to explain, particularly because I have never been much of a go-to-lecture type of person. In my mind, it was bad enough that I had to sit through 4 years of undergrad lectures, and a couple more in grad school--almost all in incomprehensible subjects like x-ray crystallography and molecular biology--or things I wasn't particularly interested in (but was obliged to take) like Russian art or theology. When it comes down to sitting in an uncomfortable chair, listening to droning for an hour or so, I have had my fill. And yet, I go each year to Chautauqua.

Admittedly, the lectures are not as boring as my class in physical chemistry (though that one at least had the suspense of me wondering if I could absorb enough to pass--I did) or advanced inorganic (I didn't.) But the benches are harder, and the audiences much larger. This year, I set a new (and hardly praiseworthy) record. I skipped ALL the lectures. Refusing to be cowed by the semi-religious attendance at each morning lecture, I deliberately steered myself away from the amphitheater, and...read or shopped or people-watched my mornings away. Most days I also had a writing assignment to complete, so it wasn't wholly without reason.. I met JC for lunch each day and he filled me in on what I'd missed, and--I must admit--some of the lectures sounded as if I might have enjoyed them. But I enjoyed frittering too. Sometimes frittering gives rise to writing topics....

Like..about how amazing it was to be in a place--a town!--where it was a commonplace to see people sitting and reading: under a tree, on the grass, on library steps, on a porch--real books!!! To see a crowded bookstore, to hear people (I eavesdrop shamelessly) discussing theater or opera or even the recent lecture. The occasional musician stands on Bestor Plaza and plays his/her violin, or the sound of a rehearsal emanates from the amphitheater as you walk by. You can eat an ice cream cone and listen to opera rehearsals. Where else do these things happen?

I can also lose myself in the gardens. These are not just aggregations of geraniums and impatiens lined up in front of miscellaneous shrubbery. These are gardens on steroids. Rhododendrons that have been in place for decades; perennials that are older than my grandchildren; daylilies and gladiolas (when was the last time you saw glads anywhere but in a flower shop?) in every imaginable color. August is the time for zinnias, and they are out in force. And there is garden art: statues, and a teapot hung on a hook with a single crystal 'drop' suspended from its spout, fairy gardens (there's one on the plaza that moves--the entire village--every night) and signs...The houses have names, and they all have porches and rockers and people. I remember my grandmother's house--and I daresay many of the people I see have memories of their own of once-familiar gardens.

I usually take a class, and some are better than others. This year was a prose workshop, and, while the exercises were fine and made me think more about how and what I write, my classmates were not, and made me think more about how much nicer than I the leader of the group was..and how much better she was at herding cats. Next year, it's back to poetry for me. It seems that EVERYONE thinks they can write well enough for a prose class, but thinks twice about that poetry stuff. I may not be the greatest writer, but I CAN manage to stay on topic.

I think what I like most, and what brings me back each year, is the suspension of everyday life, even for a week: a week when I don't turn on the traffic/weather/news as soon as I wake up, a week with other options (whether I take them or not) instead of the daily round of TV quiz shows and absolute dreck that passes for network programming nowadays. It is a welcome change.

And so, we have made reservations for next year. A week when the theme is music and culture, and the rock-star-speaker for the week is Yo Yo Ma. Now THAT lecture is one I will most likely attend.

Wrap-up

I realize that it has not been quite fair of me to drag all my friends through the past nightmare of a year--and then, to abandon the playing field, so to speak, without providing a conclusion. That conclusion is this week. We have received a signed copy of the buyers' final walk-through, and all that remains is for the title company to release one last check. Now done and deposited.

So. After the de-cluttering and cleaning, the spiffing up and the disposal of unnecessary items, after the organization of storage spaces east and west, after the packing and moving and the planting and the watering and the constant attention to how everything looked...after the sale and our bizarre purchase of another townhouse, sight unseen...how have things worked out?

Perhaps it is simply our tendency to bloom where we are planted, or our fairly flexible attitude (who, us?) we're doing great. We are glad to be out from under the endless paperwork and forms to be signed and sent, the uncertainty of open houses and realtor visits, the roller coaster of hopes and fears that accompanied every second-visit by a potential buyer. We are SOOO over keeping the house in perfect (well, as close as we get...) order 24/7, and hearing the nit-picking complaints that visitors come up with. But now...it's done.

We have been in our new house (new to us, at least) for two months. That is hard to believe. I have learned many things, the most important of which is that I am no longer able to pack and move and re-establish a household in a couple weeks. My memory is not what it used to be; nor is my eyesight, my upper body strength, or my stamina. A night's sleep or an hour's rest is not enough time for my body to repair the damage I do to it when I am lifting, bending, stooping, and climbing on and off stepstools. Moving is harder work than I am used to, and it shows. Thank God we didn't wait another ten years or so; we could not have done it. Or at least would have required substantial help.

However, now that the lion's share of the work is done (though please don't open any closets!) I can safely say that we love the house, are delighted with the neighborhood, and are finding new reasons every day to be glad we moved.  When we drive out of our street in the morning, we see the park and the river, and--if we are lucky--the sun sparkling on the water, and a blue stretch of sky. There's a lot to be said for starting your day with something beautiful. We have wonderful walks to anticipate: upriver, toward the old canal lock and the gorgeously landscaped business centers along the river--and downstream, the path toward King Street that meanders through yet another park or two. We are a couple blocks from our favorite supermarket, a block or two from a few good restaurants..even Starbucks and Trader Joe's are not that far away. Our kitchen window overlooks the Mt. Vernon Trail, which is buzzing with bicyclists and joggers and strollers all day long. I am never alone in my kitchen, unless I drop the shades.

The house itself is bright, with lots of windows (which may make it chillier in the winter, but we also have a fireplace to warm things up..) and faces south, with windows on the east and west sides as well. The garage is terrific--and is the first time we've had a garage we can use for cars instead of just storage. Wonders never cease.

The kids have even visited for a week, and, except for some cat-mandated reorganization, there is room for both kids and adults to sleep. And in this house, the laundry room is well-placed, neither two flights up or two flights down, but on the floor where most of the clothes are. What a concept. When I describe the layout, I generally say it's the 'Goldilocks' house: not too big, not too small--just about right for us. I have some issues with kitchen storage space, but I have a lot of kitchen stuff, so I can't gripe about that. Much. And I am making do. So the hall closet shelves hold my bigger appliances, and the ones I use once a year are in the garage or in storage? I can deal.

The important things are that we each have room to work (when we want to), that the minor everyday irritations are small, that Jake has a sunbeam or two that he can curl up in on a regular basis, and that I have a patch of green to look at that will inform me of the passing seasons and make me smile. Check, check, check, and check.

I no longer consult Realtor.com over my morning cup of tea. Our realtor, much as I love her, is no longer on speed-dial and I do not miss the daily messages. I'm getting to the point where I know (again) where to find things, and where the boxes are no longer planning world domination, starting in the living room. I am sleeping through the night again without 2 AM rides on the mental hamster wheel of 'what do I have to do today?" I can leave dishes in the sink, or laundry in the hamper, or towels on the bathroom floor if I want to.  Ah, normalcy!