The singular and the strange

Well hello!  Yes, I am still here.  I love this little corner of the internet.  Photo from Instagram which is where I do more writing these days (though still not enough.)

I am endlessly fascinated by why things come to our mind when they do?  Why is a certain person that I’m not in touch with in my thoughts one day, and a quote I’ve known for years but not thought of in ages pressing into my consciousness another?  I’m sure there’s some hidden meaning to these rhythms, equally certain we’d do well to listen to them and heed the message they bear.  Today the words I’m thinking of are old ones by Gail Godwin: “The more you respect and focus on the singular and the strange, the more you become aware of the universal and infinite.”

I am reading and enjoying a book whose protagonist is a midwife (The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon – enjoying!) which made me think about how if I wasn’t a recruiter and a writer I’d be a midwife and a writer.  And so I wanted to ask and share some small details that I personally think can illuminate a lot about a person.  My own version of the Proust Questionnaire, I guess.  I’d love to hear your answers!

What would you be, professionally, if you were doing something else?

A midwife

If you are married, what is engraved inside your wedding ring and that of your spouse?

Mine: nothing (it’s diamonds so can’t engrave).  Matt: you are my sunshine

If you ride the train, do you like the Quiet Car or hate it?

Love.  If I could live in the Quiet Car I would.

Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

Sunrises

What is your favorite color?

Orange.  No, this is not because of Princeton, though that doesn’t hurt.  It is the Buddhist color of enlightenment and I’ve always loved it!

What is your favorite quote?

“There is no such thing as a complete lack of order.  Only a design so vast it appears unrepetitive up close.” – Louise Erdrich (for which this blog is named)

What is your Myers-Briggs type?

INFJ

Solstice

“We are moving towards the solstice, and there is still so much here I do not understand.” – Adrienne Rich

This is the holiest day of the year for me.  I’ve written ad nauseum about it.  For many many years my parents co-hosted a Winter Solstice black tie dance on this night.  It’s the darkest day of the year yet it also holds the promise that tomorrow we begin to move towards the light.  Deep darkness that holds the promise of light.  That’s what this day means to me.  I am thinking of Adrienne Rich’s words which are in my head most days.  The more I know, the less I understand.  Darkness.  Light.  Memory.  Movement.  Life.

From Instagram on 12/21/23.  Photos below from a family wedding on 12/20/23.  And below, some links to previous thoughts on the solstice.

The Huffington Post: Darkness and Light

Solstice: Light and Shadow

Thoughts on Darkness

A Darkness Full of Light

 

 

Right now; February 2023

sunrise, Boston, February 2 2023

Happy new year.  A few things on my mind lately.  I’d love to know what you’re reading, loving, and thinking about.

More and More, I Talk to the Dead – I love all of Margaret Renkl’s writing (her book, Late Migrations, is gorgeous) and this piece in the New York Times is no exception.  This article made me gasp out loud, and I relate.  The article reminded me of one of my most vivid memories, which is from years ago on the Solstice, December 21st.  I was walking at sunset (which was around 4:30) and had a sudden and strong sense of people that were gone to me – most of all my grandmother and my mother’s best friend Susie, who was a kind of second mother to me – standing just over the horizon.  It was like they were there.  And instead of being eerie, the sensation was reassuring, comforting.  Now dad is with them, and my other grandparents, too.

I’ve also been thinking about when Matt and I summited Kilimanjaro, in June of 1998.  Perhaps because I’ve been listening to Southern Cross on repeat.  And as I wrote on Instagram, as we headed up to the summit we could see both the southern cross and the big dipper in the sky at once.  As we kept climbing, a storm rolled in.  Our summit photos could have been taken in front of a show blower at Killington; the background is just white.  No spectacular sunrise for us.  Anyway, at the top of Kilimanjaro we met two other people who we thought were heading to the summit. You get towards the top and there’s about an hour to the actual summit (and the famous sign that you’ve seen in friends’ photos – but not ours!).  They had stopped moving and were heading down.

“Did you get to the top?”  We asked them.

“No, but we got to this spot and it’s close enough.” One of the two men answered.

We nodded at them.

“I mean, who will know?” He continued.

“Well, you will.” I said, before I could apply my filter (my filter is not, at the best of times, particularly well developed).

We continued up.  It was slow going.  We got to the top and headed down.  The next day, we were getting onto a bus at the base of Kili back to the hotel where we had been staying.  One of the men we’d encountered at the top was sitting on the bus.  He smiled at me, and said hello. “I have you to thank,” he said to me, surprising me.  What was he talking about?  “I would never have gone to the actual summit if not for you.”

“Oh, wow.  I did not realize.  I’m sorry I was so abrupt with you at the top.”  I had been feeling badly about my comment to him.

“No, I want to thank you.  It’s because of you that I got to the top.”

I’ve never forgotten that.

That’s my February 2 2023 update.  How are you all doing?  What are you reading and thinking about?

the Sunday of summer

I’ve written before about the word “liminal” and about how it speaks to me.  Now we enter the most liminal of times, at least as far as I’m concerned: August.  We turn towards the fall, towards new school years and new beginnings, time marks another year past.  I have often thought it is not an accident that I’m born during this time, which I often experience with tears in my eyes, a faint sense of dread in my heart, and time’s drumbeat in my ears.

That’s truer than ever this year.  For some reason, summer’s impending close is hitting me harder than usual this year.  I think that’s probably because this is likely the last summer both kids will live with us, and we’ll luxuriate in slow mornings and dinners on the porch.  These days are painfully numbered.  I have been writing about – obsessing about, let’s be honest – time’s irrevocable forward march since Grace and Whit were small.  But this obsession has roared back into my mind in the last few days and weeks.

All of this is at it should be.  I love my young adult children.  I honestly adore them more with every passing year, and thus far there hasn’t been a year of parenthood that hasn’t been better than the last.  That said, it’s undeniable that something is ending, that the period of family life where we’re all together draws to a close.

My previous post was called “the ache and the beauty,” and if there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that those two things are inextricable from each other.  But all the knowing in the world doesn’t insulate me from the pain of that ache, from the echoing sorrow it brings.  Ahhhh … I know.  I’m so upbeat, on this summer August morning when it’s hot as hell on the Massachusetts coast, where I got Dunkin Donuts with Grace and can hear Whit’s alarm going off down the hall.

Be here now.

I got temporary tattoos that say that, and I look at those words on my wrist now, daily.  I’ve always said that if I get a real tattoo, ever, it will be those three words on the inside of my wrist.

Onward.  As the days grow shorter – I can definitely sense a different texture in the light, a sense of something gathering to its end – and the approach of Real Life grows more clamoring.  I don’t know how to handle the sadness that these developments bring, but I’m old enough now that I recognize its coming.  I try every year not to let my preemptive sadness about what’s ending occlude my last days inside its joy.  I will try, again, anew.

the ache and the beauty

On Mondays and Wednesdays I walk Phoebe to doggie daycare a mile from our house, which makes me think of why we live where we live. Reminder: Matt and I moved into our house 21 years ago expecting it to be a 2-3 year house before we moved to a suburb. We never did that. Our house is small and urban but it has worked for us, and mornings like today I recall why.

As I walked home from dropping Phoebe off, I glanced down a side street to where Whit played little league for many years. Suddenly those years – of long games as the June sun set, of Whit’s growing up into leadership positions and playing in the all-star game, of #14, of the mercy rule, felt so animate I almost couldn’t breathe. I moved around a lot as a kid and swore to give my own children a more settled childhood. And wow have I done that: same house from birth through high school and beyond.

That means that there are ghosts and memories everywhere, and wherever I look I’m reminded of both the ache and the beauty of this life. My children as they were exist in shadows around the edges of who they are, and I’m grateful and wistful in equal measure. Oh, life. Can’t have the joy without the loss, that I know. This is a bittersweet time, with graduations and endings coming fast and furious. I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes the other day by my teacher @daniwriter, “…beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” – Annie Dillard. In my deepest core I know I was there. And I am thankful for that.