Waking

Fog's fingers
pull curtains of mist
over morning.
Sleep-shuttered eyes open,
awaiting a sliver
of sunlight.

Harvest

November gray. Overnight, it seems, strong winds tore golden brown leaves from every tree. Skeletal limbs reach skyward even as shadowy winter clouds hang lower and lower. The river waters darken, growing colder, the surface buffeted by a brisk breeze.

More than any other month, November holds sadness. It is dying, dead, the send of summer and the autumn equinox, yet not quite to gentleness of December and the first crystaline snow of the season. Limbo. November is limbo, purgatory.

As November recedes, though, a bountiful harvest is laid before us. Red potatoes and Yukon golds, root vegetables, squash and pumpkins, the last gigantic cabbages, the last green tomatoes, an array of crisp red apples grace our tables even as we grace family with that American celebration called Thanksgiving.

Perhaps November's mission is to create a space to mourn the loss of lushness, then nourish us back to contentment as we gather family around a table and celebrate the gift of each other.

Last Dance of Summer

The equinox has come and gone, this year a bold line separating summer's heat from the coldness of autumn. Outside, steel gray skies lower, a deeper heavy sky, a portal to winter. But not quite yet.

In my garden, the hummers dance the last dances amid browning leaves scattered with the last bright colors of the season -- the golds and burnished orange -- wealth of the harvest.

In a week or two those sparkling, flittering creatures will disappear, seeking warmer air and brighter sun in southern climes. I'll take down my bright red feeders, wash them inside and out before setting them aside for another season.

It's been a rich year for hummers -- dozens of them have feasted on my sugar water concoction.

While I will miss them, it's time now to set the table for the winter birds, the cardinals and finches and tiny house sparrows ... different feeders,
different menu.

Cycles and circles.

The last dance of summer. The first waltz of winter.

In my garden.

Not your usual Father's Day story: Dads aren't always biological fathers

Father's Day. Throughout the week I've been contemplating fathers, thinking about my relationships with them, and, well, remembering. I've had three "dads."

My birth father cut a dashing figure; I have a number of photos -- some from mom's old wedding album and some with me as a child. My last childhood memory of him came at age 5, when he in a drunken rage over impending divorce smashed our furniture and beat my mother; the police took him away, the beginning of a long period of incarcerations for, among other things, domestic violence and failure to pay child support. For the next 12 years there was nary a birthday card, a Christmas gift or any sign that I or my brother were even alive.

I was 17 when I saw him again, though he didn't recognize me (or if he did, he didn't say). I paid for my purchase and left. I was 21 when he showed up at my door drunk, in the company of a drunker friend, and asked to see my daughter. I turned him away, and told his friend that I would allow it if he returned sober.

Another 1/2 dozen years passed and then I read that his sister had passed. A wealth of feelings resurface when I read his name in the obituary and deep within me I resolved to attend the funeral and see him. I went to the funeral home, sensed curious eyes on me as I paused at the casket holding my aunt/godmother (who hadn't acknowledged me since childhood). I sought a private room and after he had paid his respects, the funeral director told him "someone" wanted to see him privately.

He was smaller than I remembered; to children, adults always seem enormous. He wasn't. I had grown taller than him, and he was thinner, grayer, more wrinkled than at my last glimpse ten years before. I felt my anger, hurt and years of wondering dissipate.

After shaking hands, we sat beside each other. He fumbled with his wallet and pulled out old photos of me, along with a handful of newspaper clippings: my wedding and engagement announcements, my 4-H award notices (over 100 of them) and miscellaneous clippings about my life since I was about ten. I was shocked, surprised. And I could accept him, though without the affection that colored my other relationships.

My uncle Roger (mom's brother) was a disabled WWII vet who lived upstairs from us with grandma. Roger was always there for everything from hanging storm windows to fixing bikes -- not just ours but for very kid in the neighborhood. He drew airplanes on the insides of empty cigar cartons, moved the lawn with an old rotary mower and clipped our immense hedges with a manual hedge clipper, an all day task at best.

In Roger's company, we went to weekly fireworks shows at Mountain Park, swam almost daily at Kingsley's Beach where Roger -- an expert diver -- would dive from the third platform (the highest) and swim underwater for the length of the beach. He raked leaves from our massive maple trees, which we burn on top of foil-wrapped potatoes and feast on, along with the fresh corn on the cob mom boiled throughout August and September.

He wasn't my dad, but he took care of us as if he was years. He suffered a brain injury in a fall when I was 22. Then his post-war issues combined with the injury to rendered him ill and incompetent, I returned the care he gave us by caring for him -- physically and legally --for some 22 years. No regrets. During the seven years that my mother was completely alone, he stepped up to the plate became not just our uncle but a kind of father figure to us.

When my mom met my stepfather, who was much older than her, our lives changed. This marvelous man was not handsome in the traditional ways, but he smiled when he laughed, and he laughed often. He had already raised two daughters (both married and gone) and a nephew he had taken in (also grown and off on his own). And here we were, me at 12 and my brother at 9, about to hit the turbulent teenage years. My new "father" didn't even blink, just took us on.

He went to work every day, came home for a family super every night, had a "little Knick" (Knickerbocker Beer) after supper before the garden tending. He could grow anything, though Big Boy tomatoes were his pride and joy. He took us on vacations, took us fishing and swimming, attended our school functions, helped me get a scholarship to college, and gave me away at my wedding (which he also paid for). Not once were my brother or I treated as anything but his own. I was proud to call him dad.

When he first became ill and had to have his leg amputated, he became an example of courage, taking time to be angry before simply accepting and beginning a hefty regimen of PT that got him up, walking, gardening, fishing and working again. Much much later, a series of strokes complicated by cancer ultimately took his life. During those terrible four years, though, I returned his care by caring for him, again using my hard-earned skills to ensure that he would want for nothing.

During that time, my birth father passed away. In the chaos that surrounded his death, I learned that he had two additional families after us, one a marriage of many years that produced three other children I had never heard of, and the other a longterm relationship with a woman so much like my mother that I was staggered, rendered speechless (and that's hard to do).

I learned that my birth father had a longstanding heart condition and a drawer full of meds prescribed but never taken -- ten years worth. I found myself, as his eldest, taking charge of so many things then, including settling the negligible estate he left behind in New Jersey.

I spoke at length with the lady (not just a woman, but a true lady) he'd been living with, finding some unexpected surprises about how much she really knew him. But she had loved him for a long time, and I was comforted to know that he had finally, in the end and with her, found in his own was peace of mind, a sense of beauty, and sobriety. That was something that didn't exist in much of his earlier life. It was good to know that I had found peace with him some years before.

Each of these three men had tremendous impact on my life, teaching me a lot about strength, love, healing and forgiveness. They helped shape my life, and for that I can only thank them.

Invasion

Starlings arrived today, targeting my feeders with precision as they launched their invasion.

I almost made it to the end of winter without them, though in recent days, I've spotted them in near-spring migration, hundreds upon hundreds of them blacking the sky as they soar in a northerly direction, stretching from horizon to horizon.

Throughout the winter I nurtured the presence of my song birds, the fiery red cardinal, the unique etching of a chickadee's feathers, the stark geometry of the red-headed woodpecker. Each has its own language, its own song, its own brand of morning and evening chatter. The starlings, though, are noise. Discordant, squawking noise.

Apart from their distinctive racket, they have an extraordinary ability to arrive by the hundreds and clean out a feeder in half an hour. I had to shut the kitchen down, at least for a while.

My "regulars" are quite skilled at picking my feeders clean in a day; I am used to that pace. But a half-hour? I am also used to these regulars disappearing when the local hawks light on the trees beside the feeder. After all, no self-respecting songbird wants to be brunch. The arrival of the starlings came quickly; hopefully their departure will follow with similar haste, though our extreme cold weather and back to back snows will undoubtedly draw them to both the shelter of my feeding area and the black sunflower seeds it contains.

In truth, though, as I watched the free-for-all that erupted between the locals and the starlings, I became amused by just how territorial my faithful friends were. The cardinals fluttered wings to knock off the starlings, the finches, sparrows and chickadees ran interference. Hard yellow beaks pecked at dark black ones, challenging seed for seed. The faithful asserted their dominance, and the starlings' presence was short-lived, at least for today.

I know it will be a few weeks before the competition settles back to a semblance of normal, and I await the arrival of my other spring birds, including the bluebirds my little house has attracted. By then, the starlings will have move on to freshly tilled fields replete with seed corn and soybeans. Once again, I will have music -- and nothing but music -- at my feeders.

Letters. Emails. Phone calls. Words fly from mid-Tennessee to New England these past few weeks in a flurry of condolences, wrapped in a shawl of sadness embroidered with memories of too many yesterdays.

It seems that such losses occur in clusters, in groups or two or three or four, sometimes more, before the waiting game begins again. It comes with a certain age, though now that I am breaching the "age" the age of these lost friends seems to be younger and younger. Or is that simply my view from this new pinnacle of 60?

I found myself writing more letters, sitting at my mother's drop leaf desk (recently refinished, all traces of fire finally finally finally removed) from the wood. I pull stamps from one drawer, envelopes from a cubby, address labels from a small interior shelf. Though I've tried to use technology (Hi-Speed net running at less than the speed of dial-up most days), I find myself reverting to hand-written missives, seeking the comfort of sending something I've touched into the hands of another.

In the past few weeks, contemplation has been the order of the day: once I get my body moving in these days of interrupted sleep, oddly-timed naps and nagging pain at inopportune times (all the time in truth), I find myself doing a few chores almost in reverse before settling into pieces of silence. I sit alone with my thoughts. It is part of my process of change, that is to say, dealing with change. And loss. And grief.

I haven't felt much like writing for public consumption these past few days.

Curled up on the couch, I pull back the curtain, looking for "specks" of expected snow, hoping for a dusting that will make the world brighter for a bit. February and March are otherwise so brown and gray here in these days just before daffodils and magnolias.

I sift through random photos unearthed in the process of filled the desk, of assigning places within. Each photo holds a story, and I make a plan to identify them all, a process enabling memory, not just for myself but for those who follow. I remember sitting pen in hand with my mother, when her mind still had some clarity, making notations on dozens of photos.

With each memory that passes through my hands, I work consciously not mulling over sorrow but focusing on the joys that each lost soul of these past weeks, brought into my life. I, and all of us who knew them, are the better for it. We've held them all for a very long time, gladly.

Small brown peat pots.
Seeds pressed
beneath the surface.
Basil. Thyme. Parsley.
Herbs in my window
raise seed leaves
to the sun.

Shedding winter
as spring-like sun
kisses the earth.

Vacancy

I pull out
bits of grass, twigs.
Down clings
to my fingers,
then flutters on a breeze.
The inside empty,
I tighten the roof.
Bluebird house for rent.

Yesterday

Milk bottles,
delivered before dawn,
tucked in a box
beside the screen door.
Cream rises
to the top.

Rhinestone Memory

Fingers softly turning
spiral clips.
Jewels glisten.
Adornment for the dance.

Recovery

One of the few things saved when our house burned was my mother's desk, resplendent in a mantle of soot, bubbled paint, and charred wood. Its fittings -- intricate metal handles -- were roughed and rusted out by some quirky residue, fallout from the burn and the black cloud of smoke that wrapped itself around, well, everything.

It was never a valuable desk; it is plain, solid wood, with three drawers of substance and a maze of divided spaces and drawer behind the drop leaf front. In my 60 years of life, such a desk has always been a part of my life. Like my mother, I am a letter writer, a keeper of photos, and gift-wrapper of enthusiastic proportions, and all the components for such activities lived in "the desk."

Of intrepid spirit, I wanted that desk to be pulled off life support and brought back to life. It was dragged out of the house to a patio, where I spent days soaping it up, washing it down, drowning it in vinegar, fumigating it, and bemoaning the difficulty of its resurrection. In other words, I tucked it in my storage unit and let it sit.

In the past year it worked its way into the house, landing in hallway in all its charred glory. Armed with scrapers, sandpaper, and all manner of fix-it gadgets, I began the slow process of, if not restoration, reclamation of the shell. An hour here, and hour there, and a year, still a shell in charred glory, minus a few bubbles of paint.

As I moved through a period of limited mobility, living in close company with "the desk" on a daily basis, I knew that it was time to try that final fix. I believe my mother was prodding me from whatever space she is in today. I rolled the desk (on casters) into my kitchen and parked a plastic porch chair in front of it. I began to work, scraping the drop leaf smooth, one square inch at a time. Sometime a quarter inch at a time, dropping tiny bits of charred paint to the floor. I worked around to the sides, the trimmings (the worst) and its more ornate footings.

I had started this once before; the resistance of the paint to its removal defeated me. This time, though, I found the pieces giving way beneath my fingers, succumbing to my desire to renew this old-fashioned desk. It was a long process. Clear a small section, then stretch, lie down, apply heating pad to aching back, uncramp legs, come back later and do a bit more. With enough repetition, over a lengthy period of time ( I began this nine months ago), the cleaned up parts became greater than than the unfinished remains.

I broke out the paint. The desk was not going to take stain well; plan two was paint (I am a huge fan of painted furniture anyway). I began with a drawer, testing the paint against the wood and finding myself pleased with the color: Autumn Stem, an auburn brown with a hint of plum that pulled to it the burgundy and brown tones of my furnishings and art. The painting was repeat of the rituals of the cleaning: paint a small section, then stretch, lie down, apply heating pad to aching back, uncramp legs, come back later and do a bit more. Eventually, it will all be done. Patience is key.

The drawers are now finished, restored hardware firmly attached, and stand in a neat row in the hall. The cubbies inside the desktop are painted, hinges reattached, and only one section still needs a second coat of paint. Not today though. Not today.

The top of the desk remains rough; much damage still lives there. Thus I am considering adding a narrow trim to its perimeter, and filling the interior with tile (or a mosaic of broken tile), or perhaps even decoupage. The artist in my mother would approve such a solution to the problem.

I won't make a decision in haste, though. As the desk is assembled, piece by piece, later this week, I will think about it, study it in relation to the treasures it will house and the treasures that will be placed upon it.

It will rest below a huge burgundy/brown toned poster for a production of Madame Butterfly -- fitting, since that was one of my mother's favorite operas as well. There is a certain kharma, a distinct energy, that brings all these pieces full circle to each other.

Tonight my small kitchen smells of paint rather than food, and resembles an obstacle course more appropriate for the cellar I no longer have (a cellar is the perfect place for such projects).

Next weekend, when this desk is seated in its new resting place, with its new facade, the fire that tore our lives apart will truly be over. I'll be thinking of my mother as I sit to write my first letters there. She's smiling, I know.

Greening fronds of iris
pierce remnants of snow,
birthing spring
from winter cold.

Passages

Decades ago -- that makes me sound so old -- I read Gail Sheehy's Passages many times over, finding succinct bits and pieces of theory and analysis that have become benchmarks of a sort over the course of my life. "The size is the same but the fit is different" is one of those tidbits that describes a life ever-changing.

Sheehy categorized the cycles of growth and development, charting how we as humans move through various stages -- everything from teenage rebellion and the passage to our 20s, to midlife change (crisis included) to aging. Though our youth-oriented culture seems to fight these transitions, I never did, and often feel like a bit of an anachronism.

Turning 30 didn't phase me, 40 was a breeze, 50 was a piece of cake (I graduated college, started a masters program and climbed Machu Picchu), and 60 is just fine (even if my body is my body is doing a bit of an arthritic/back injury dance). Somehow, along my journey, my life has in fact fallen fairly neatly into those segments of passage, those transitions that seem to come in seven or eight year increments.

I feel another one coming on.

Sixty brought with it a variation on a hectic work schedule and a new injury to cope with. I am coping. Sometimes when life is steamrolling over us, we must be knocked flat; it's life saying stop and re-assess. For a month my brain focused on pain and pain management; sadness followed, linked in part to a holiday season filled with enjoyable temptations I could not partake of. I became angry at my inability to do some of the simplest things -- including standing at the stove making gravy for a holiday meal. I didn't have to cook the meal, just the gravy. I did it, but was "whipped" by my body for the rest of the day.

Not good, I said in a conversation with myself.

So what are we going to do about this physical quagmire and its mental morass, I said in a conversation with myself.

With ample time for contemplation, I sat by my windows, watching my birds, watching snow, waiting. I realized that in the hustle of business I had let go of my personal sustenance. No, not let go, but rather, let slip away those things that fuel my spirit. That was the first snippet of change.

I renewed my rituals of meditation, I began writing on a personal rather than professional level, handwritten scraps of poetry, narrative, and letters. I started a blog and joined A River of Stones.

I resurrected several projects, most which would have consumed a couple of hours just a year ago but now will take a week or more to complete, on bit or piece at a time. I break everything down to manageable parts. And I have my hand on a manuscript that I now believe must be a play. I've never written one before; I favor prose and dabble in poetry.

Returning to my place on the couch by the window, birdsong filtering in, I scratch notes and patterns and positions and dialogue. In my mind I see staging, movement, lighting. In my mind I hear dialogue, the rise and fall of voices from whisper to rage. In my mind I want to see a staged reading sometime in the next year or so, and must put pen to paper to make that happen. It is like nothing I have ever done before, which is the perfect reason to do it.

Right on time, I am entering another passage, taking a risk, moving along a new path. It's not a rejection or elimination of the old, just new addition. My life has been filled with them. I feel change surrounding me: missions accomplished (really accomplished) opens the door for growth and change.

I itemized in my mind what I have and don't have (a much longer list) where I live, what I miss, as well as what I want to have, and that brings with it more seeds of change. I don't know yet where all of this is going, and I certainly don't know when or where it will end. I am on the front end of formulating a plan.

The change of seasons are passages, and I view the coming of spring this year as still another of my life's new beginnings. Finally, I am beginning to feel alive again.

Angled brush.
Dob of paint.
Change.

Snow Day

A few days ago my bird population soared as winter's birds were joined by spring's harbingers: robins. These red-breasted groundfeeders -not seen since fall -- were once again everywhere, creating a morning symphony of birdsong.

Indeed, the air grew balmy, warming to the upper 40s, the mid-50s, causing us to shed winter parkas for lighter jackets and hoodies. January thaw? Of course. I hold no illusion that winter is over.

In the tree outside my window, my seven pairs of cardinals and their cold weather companions, finches, chickadees, nuthatches and such, were surrounded by hundreds of other birds. The sunflower seeds in my feeders shrank as if poured through an hourglass -- which is about how long long it took these vultures in the making to deplete each feeder.

Punctuating an exceptionally cold and snowy Tennessee winter, the robins hinted at spring hovering on some meteorologic horizon that would include daffodils, daylight savings time and tornado season.

Yesterday, though, that snippet of warm air dissipated, displaced by a damp frigid cold and a burst of snowfall, the crisp kind of snow that froze roads and coated sidewalks with an icy froth.

Beneath my feet, unlike previous soft billowy snowfalls, this snow crunched and crackled with an edgy sharpness that said "I'm going to make your life a tad difficult for the next few days."

It didn't, though. I of Vermont traction snowboots, long underwear, SmartWool socks and all that other northern cold weather gear, donned my camera, stepped outside and took photos. I can't walk far at all, nor can I stand for long, but a folding chair in the snow and a lens aimed at my birds addressed both issues.

My cheeks reddened, my shoulders were capped in white; being outside for however brief a time was a resuscitation of my spirit, of inner harmony suppressed and saddened through the winter months. I don't do confinement or immobility well.

Snowfalls are a joy, a tumble of happiness that unfailingly scrubs the air clean. The day after a snowstorm usually dawns bright, bold, with the bluest sky and the most breathable air.

I scattered handfuls of ice melt on my sidewalk this morning, a solitary figure in a glistening world not yet awake ... except for my birds, clamoring once more at the feeders. Always hungry for more. Like me.

Snow crunching
underfoot
like corn flakes
and sugar.

Sentinel

Snow people,
hats and mufflers,
stand watch.
Flurries fall.

Laundered

Sun-kissed linens
snapping
in a summer breeze.

Anticipation ...

My daughter called today.

Have you been to the produce aisle at Wal-Mart? she asked. Brandon said they have basketball-sized cabbages!

She got my attention.

In my native New England each fall, huge boxes of "ginormous" cabbages can be found at every marketplace; it's our family's autumn ritual to launch the cold weather season with a Polish favorite: golumpki (stuffed cabbage). Our best cabbages come from Atkin's in Hadley, Massachusetts. Everything at Atkins is good. But I digress.

As the season arrives, we begin our quest to seek out the largest, freshest cabbages we can find. We steam the leaves, create a filling of ground beef, rice, onions and spices, and steam the finished cabbage rolls for hours in a tomato'ey sauce also made from scratch, never making less than 50-60 per batch. these are not piddly little golumpkis; these are, as one friend affectionately calls them, "golumpki bricks." Golumpkis of substance. Not for the meek or mild appetite.

The creation of said golumpki is a family dynamic; workstations are created around the kitchen. Meat must be prepared, and rice, and the sauce. Leaves peeled and steamed. Everything blended, using every pot and bowl in the house in the process. Then, one by one in assembly-line fashion, each softened cabbage leaf is laid out, trimmed, stuffed with a large spoonful of filling, rolled, folded, tucked, carefully placed in the roaster three or four layers deep, and covered with sauce. Three hours later we feast. And it is astonishing how many of these ethnic delicacies our horde of teenagers can consume.

To our dismay, this fall in our part of Middle Tennessee there was not an Autumn cabbage to found, at least not one that was golumpki-worthy. Very distressing, since my October-born eldest granddaughter's biggest birthday wish was a plateful of our homemade stuffed cabbage. How many young ladies can you think of who request golumpki for their 22nd birthday?

Scouring every single store, market, farm stand and back yard garden in our community yielded not a single worthy cabbage; three weeks after her birthday we gave up. Large autumn cabbages rival large yellow turnips for scarcity in Middle Tennessee. Yellow turnips should be considerably larger than baseballs, and they are, everywhere else. But I digress.

Today came a secondhand report of large cabbages at Wal-Mart (the finder's fee, by the way, is a plate of the finished product) and by morning my daughter will be there to grab two or three -- maybe more -- if they exist. I hope we are not disappointed; wintry weather on tap in the next few days creates the perfect opportunity to "go into production" in the kitchen and churn out this beloved meal. And freeze the extras, if there are any.

Running on hope, I can already feel the leaves in my fingers, smell the spices, taste that first mouthful...

What's that Carly Simon song?

"Anticipation..."

Golumpki

Small hands roll steamed leaves,
tucking and turning
the spicy filling within.
The roaster awaits.
Is it ready yet?

Parentheses

Two worlds
bracketing
one life.
Gatekeepers.

Spice

Cinnamon. Nutmeg.
Pinch of cloves.
Sugared apples
baking slowly.

Hearty stew simmers
at a gentle bubble.
Aroma of a winter kitchen.

Cycle

A handful of ash
cast into the current
returns a raindrop
or flurry of snow.

Connection

Connectivity.
Pen, paper, envelope, stamp.
Internet not required.

Friendship Quilt

As the chill of winter sets in, I find myself reaching for an old friend crafted by the hands of another friend.

I can still see Robin sifting through bolts of fabric and bins of yardage, culling the bits and pieces that would tell a story, create a mood, enchant and delight. She holds a gift for the craft, an innate ability to play one fabric against another, an instinct that simply said "yes" when the right combination lies before her.

Although I could do this with clothing, with pattern pieces that made garments and slip covers, doggie beds and rice packs, and even non-traditional styles of quilts and duvets, my color choices lacked her zest. She could look at the tiniest shred of fabric and mentally place it in any traditional American quilt...with striking effect. I failed to see those patterns, those "connects."

Her hands stack and cut the shapes, stitch the 1/4 inch seams, square by square, from lap throws to king size bed covers; when the size was right she would layer. First the bottom or "backing," then the batting, the light fluffy filler that gives a quilt its loft and warmth, and finally that crafted, patterned topper, all draped over an expansive kitchen table. Working from the center with rulers, she meticulously sets pins every four inches in every direction, mapping out the points to be "tied" -- a process that would keep the filler from shifting into uncomfortable lumps after long periods of use.

Once pinned, she threads strands of embroidery floss through a needle and pierces the layers, pulling the floss through before tying its loose ends into double knots. Working her way to the outer edges takes hours, sometimes days if the quilt is large enough. When the edges are reached, the wide outer band of the cover is folded over and hemmed, by hand, creating a border on the backing of the piece.

It's a painstaking job, even on the smallest of quilts. Robin over the years has stitched dozens of quilts for family and friends, and dozens of more that have been given away, or donated for fundraisers. Though I used to visit often, I have since moved further away, making visits harder than they used to be. It is comforting, now, to curl up on a wintry evening and wrap myself in this quilt, knowing that her hands fashioned it, one stitch at a time.

Robin presented me with a quilt in my favored fabrics as a celebratory gift on the event of our college graduation (late in life) several years ago.

Each time I 'wear" my quilt, I am wearing a hug from my friend.

Quilt

Backing. Batting. Cover.
Threaded needles pierce,
emerging to tie and bind.

Chaos II

Traffic.

I find I simply don't wish to deal with it; nothing is worth becoming a prisoner of gridlock, of being trapped in a snaking line of cars curled back onto the highway. This manic Monday after a spate of holidays equates to insanity. Does it really all have to get done today?

In my mind, my list is quickly pared to essentials, and there are few of those. Sneaking back into a slot in the traffic flow, I find the quickest side road that will take me anywhere but where I am-- with few lights and even fewer cars.

Thus my day is only partially successful; my mind turns to back road simplicity as I remember a day when my friend and I, tooling down the dirt road to her mountain home, paused side by side with a neighbor, conversing through car windows for more minutes that I can remember now. A third car pulled up ... another neighbor joined in the conversation. When this country-style gridlock dissolved, in a flurry of "nice to see you's" and "call me later's," our respective journeys continued.

No traffic.

Chaos

Gridlock. Jousting for position.
Urban arteries pulse.
Disconnect.

Connection

Good morning!
Friendship's voice wraps itself
around a smile.

Clarity

Morning air nips.
Wake up. Touch me.
I am here.
Waiting.

Sustenance

As I write from this small corner of my room, I realize that my desk is an immovable object. Oh yes, there are other places, other corners, where I could connect all the wires and peripherals and still work, but not with such peace as I have with its current placement.

My desk sits beside a window, beside a sheltered corner of my house, a corner where my birdfeeders are positioned to be out of the wind, and close enough that should the glass suddenly dissolve, I could reach out and touch the birds, a could lay my along the sill and should I remain still enough, they would likely light upon me.

A few feet away stands a small but full and beautifully shaped tree, lush and leafy in summer, a froth of barren grey branches in the cold seasons. In all seasons, though, bird garnish this tree with presence. I have seven pair of cardinals at last check, a few of whom have earned their own special designations; one is a fiesty red bird who challenges every other bird, knocking others off the feeders in his gluttonous haste to be first and have it all. Summer brings hordes of sun-yellow finches and a frothy riot of chirping and fluttering at the thistle feeders.

Some mornings of late have been unnaturally quiet, and that alone aroused curiosity, until a friend and I -- upon leaving my house -- spotted a healthy female hawk stalking from a sheltered spot in the shrubs. later, she perched on the peak of my roof, a mere six feet from the feeders, awaited her version of a smorgasbord. I startled the hawk one morning when, as I rounded the corner seed in hand, she suddenly flew up, wings rustling and brushing my face. Close encounter of a wild kind.

In the summer months my bluebird house rests at full occupancy, and hummers flitter by my bright red sugar feeders. From September to June, suet feeders hold myriad temptations -- berry blend, peanuts, sunflower seed -- at other points around the house, all positioned to bring maximum birdsong to the world around me.

This obsession had been lurking within me all my life, but blossomed with my father's disability: confined to the home in winter, bird feeding became his pastime of choice, one nurtured by and shared with all of us. My time at the lake intensified my obsession with the addition of wild birds -- egrets, heron, eagles. I've since carried this obsession back to the city I live in now. It's so well known that my Christmas stocking this held my favorite licorice, and suet cakes.

It's a simple pleasure really; no heavy effort involved, just the daily monitoring of seed. Just breathe, watch, listen, smile, laugh...and the day eases by. In a time of manic communication and constant "tuning in," stopping to watch my birds, to let their song serenade me, becomes a peaceful decompression.

Photo by Brandi Rose LaPlante (granddaughter), who knows where the bird book is.

Feast (aros)

Red plumes.
Sunflower seeds snap in yellow beaks.
Winter feast.

Bounty (aros)

Bounty. Just as the holiday cupboard thinned, four mesh bags of oranges and four of apples (red and green) arrived, tempting in color, hinting of succulent juices in every bite. And small breads. Cherry and apple pies. Leftovers from Christmas...slices of meat pie, ham, turkey in bits and pieces, ready to satisfy.