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.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, February 11, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, February 4, 2011
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)