Category: Uncategorized

Baths in War & Peace

My house was built in 1938. The bathtub is original and there are rust stains around the drain fixture and it needs fresh calking. It’s vintage like the rest of my home. Twenty years ago, and in the early years of my marriage to Neil (who loved a bath) I soaked in a tub almost daily. 

Living in Europe during the early 90s, Neil and I experienced all sizes and shapes of baths in the many rentals and hotel rooms we stayed in. One memorable hotel in Italy had a tiny square tub that puzzled us. It looked like a little shower pit with no curtain. Neil, ever the comic, folded his 6 foot 4 frame into the cubby bath and held the shower head to his ear as if he was making a call. It was a fun photo op (I’m still searching for said photo!) but not an acceptable tub.

The bathtub was one of the first things Neil assessed when we landed someplace new.The best was in our apartment in Zagreb – long enough for him to almost stretch out. Because he was one of 6 children in a working class family, Neil learned to share bath water. He was chivalrous: regularly ran a steamy bath for me, set out a towel and sometimes, even when we had electricity, lit candles. When I was limp-as-a-rag-relaxed, rather than empty and refill the tub, he’d climb in and use the same water. It would still be clean(ish) as a bath was as much about relaxing as it was scrubbing and I took care and appreciated the frugality of his practice. Besides, this conservative bathing was necessary during our courtship days in a war zone.

Neil and I met and fell in love while we were both based in Bosnia in 1992. He lived at the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo and I was in a small flat in Kiseljak – a village about an hour away through checkpoint filled roads. Access to water and electricity is often weaponized in war. Besides making life miserable for populations, there is a huge increased risk of disease. Many days we’d turn our taps on and nothing would come out – especially at my flat. Journalists and relief workers were housed at the Holiday Inn and Neil, who worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were always more likely to have water and thanks to generators the news outlets relied on, electricity. Both of us had learned the trick of filling the bathtub and any other available containers whenever water was available.There were many days I’d bathe in an inch of cold water. In the early days of our courtship, when I’d stay with Neil at the Holiday Inn, he put his electric kettle to good use, topping off the usually tepid water. Those baths were particularly sweet for the preciousness of both water and warmth in the winter of 1992.

I don’t remember when I shifted away from taking baths to showers. I suspect it happened gradually as our life became more hectic. And certainly, like most things, we’d stopped sharing bath water. Water is precious. Love is precious. I feel this but my thoughts here are a muddle when I try to write more – about water, about war, about love. How does that sense of these things change when the world falls apart around you? I can tell you that everything changes in war. If you don’t know this, my hope is that you may never need to find out. 

We take so much for granted. Those of us who have it, mostly presume our comfort. When I first moved to Zagreb – still near but not as affected daily by the war, I marveled at the abundance of water and electricity. But soon enough, I no longer thrilled with joy every time I flipped a switch and had light or turned a faucet to a flood of hot water. It became expected: of course I have these necessities. I can fill a bath, take a long hot shower, and watch television at night. I expect it. And I have it – a drinkable abundance of water, plenty to fill a bath. Because, by some chance of birth, I was not born a child in Gaza, Ukraine, South Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan – so many places in the world who live without basics. I try to remember that I was once lucky to have the inch of water to bathe in.

Nature. And Not Nature.

I was watering the garden on a recent morning, staring out into space with hose in hand. From the corner of my eye I registered my neighbor’s dog moving around their yard. I was looking through the picket fence that divides our property so I saw only bits of his golden coat between the slats. I wondered why he wasn’t barking at me like he usually does. He’s a good size dog. I went back to aiming the hose at the garden.

When I glanced up again, a small set of antlers was floating over the top of the fence. Just little horns. And then he lifted his head, looked over at me with minimal interest before jumping the fence into my yard. It was he who I’d seen — not a dog.

Young buck stepped across the wood chips under the peach trees, nibbling at the weeds before leisurely continuing on to the side of my house. I dashed inside, grabbed my phone and quietly went out the front door, hoping to capture a photo or video. I know deer are common in many neighborhoods around here but not in my fairly urban one so this encounter felt magical.

Creatures have been showing up in my yard a lot this summer. Another recent day, while washing my dishes and gazing out the window over the sink, I saw a good size coyote saunter through the side yard. A little alarming but all are welcome. Especially now that I don’t have a little dog to worry about.

The regulars are also still here including an abundance of chipmunks and squirrels and of course, birds. And the groundhog. I say ‘the’ because this year I have only seen one. And it is not the one I remember from last year. Likely, there isn’t just one but I pretend there’s one so I don’t feel overwhelmed. But truth is, there are holes galore around here and that makes me think there are groundhogs-galore too. 

There are rabbits. More of them than groundhogs, I’m sure. I’m fond of bunnies, especially when they are babies. This year the little ones seem particularly fearless, continuing to nibble the grass even as they see me approach. That’s what happened a few days ago when I went out to pick some zinnias. I greeted the little guy: “Hello, little bunny! You’re quite the brave one, aren’t you?” I unhooked the gate to the rickety fence of the garden where the zinnias are.

(A sibling?)

As I bent over to snip my flowers, a whoosh-whoosh caused me to turn. Flying away was a bird of prey – one with feather leggings and a very large wing span. It had swooped in just behind me, only a few feet away. Yes: brave bunny had been spotted and snatched. Little squeaks faded into the distance as the massive bird flew across the rooftops with its meal.

I stood in shock, zinnias in hand, I searched the lawn but I knew it was gone. I was heartbroken. Yet this is nature. I know that. And I love birds of prey – not just little bunnies. (I only wish it had taken a chipmunk or squirrel. Is that terrible?) Surely bunny’s mother would be looking for it? 

Can you imagine? Someone just swooping in and taking your loved one as they’re going about their business? This is what predators do. This is what’s happening now, every day to (mostly brown people) in our community. The hawks’ behavior makes sense. What these masked thugs are obediently doing does not make sense. Not to me.

I will never forget nor forgive the evil of what is being done to our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. I hope you feel the same. We must support and protect each other. Suggestions welcome.

Early Morning After a Summer Storm

The rain blew in at night with fierce winds, dramatic thunder and lightning. It moved through fast but enough rain fell meaning no need to water the garden. Last night, after a particularly violent gust, I heard a noise and peered out every window looking for downed branches or toppled furniture but saw nothing. This morning, while the kettle boils for my tea, I walk the yard to look for damage. I see that the garage door popped open. Maybe that was the noise I heard. I’ve been lazy, keeping it closed by laying the weight of a rock against the door rather than wrestle with the ancient lock from inside. There’s not much to steal in there but still, I’ll make more of an effort now.

Around the back of the house, a potted fern has toppled. I set it right. The air is cool. The oppressive heat and humidity of recent days has lifted. I see my neighbor Ken through the fence. He is sweeping up the water from around the kids’ play area. I’m fond of this young family. I call out a greeting and we chat. He tells me the electricity went out for about 10 minutes. Mine did not. Their house is a little higher up and must be on a different line, he says. I promise that later, I’ll retrieve and toss back the ball that landed in my weedy yard. He’s taken to sending me photos of my garden with circles drawn around where the most recent ball has landed. These make me laugh. They are welcome to walk through the gate and retrieve it but it’s better I do it since it entails ducking under low-lying peach and pear branches through ankle high plants. I’ll put on boots and spray for ticks. 

I go back inside and make my tea and rather than my usual ritual of going back upstairs to sit on my bed and read and write, I go back out on the porch. I straighten the cushions and hang the plants back up from where I put them on the ground last night to catch the rain. The sun is low enough that it’s still shady on the glider where I sit to watch the morning and drink my tea. A slight breeze is blowing and feels delicious on my bare arms and legs. A firefly moves across the porch, slowly floating mid-air like a lazy helicopter. Almost daily, I find one around my kitchen sink, seemingly lost. I scoop them up and move them outside. Maybe this is one of those kitchen-displaced bugs, lurking from days ago. I wonder — isn’t it time for them to sleep and recharge so they can glow later? 

I look up at the branches of the Norway maples. A group of four remain as my only shade in the front yard. I miss the oak tree cut down a few months ago because it was dying. The house feels naked now, fully exposed to the full morning light.The stump and logs rest in the corner of the yard waiting for my missing handy man to come with his splitter. I make a mental note to text him again. A few birds are flitting between branches overhead and I shield my eyes from the sun to try and get a better look at them. I think they are likely Robins, perhaps the ones born on my porch only weeks ago.

While I’m gazing up at the branches I notice that the leaves on these trees are sparser and smaller than usual this year. I worry, are these trees dying too? The leaves on the Mulberry tree growing next to the garage are also less dense this year although the berries are abundant. Are my trees also mourning the missing oak? Swallowing the last of my tea I think yes — they yearn for and miss their yard companion of decades. I know a little about this yearning but I trust they, like I, will carry on and bloom brilliantly again for years to come. Now they are mourning and I understand as I too still search for shade no longer there.

Sounds Like Bombs to Me

I’m not a fan of fireworks. I prefer to see the tiny explosions of fireflies lighting up as they dance across my yard. I love the quiet drama of a sunset, purple and orange streaks exploding across the sky. For the thrill of big noise, I’ll take a sometimes terrifying summer thunderstorm. Nature is the boss and her destruction intense –  but she does not intentionally target populations like man does with bombs that, by the way, sound just like fireworks. 

It’s almost 9 PM and I’m on my porch catching the last of this stunning day that was July 4. And boom – the first explosion in the neighborhood is off. Now a smattering of smaller machine gun sounding explosions. For anyone who has heard the real thing – this sucks. I had it easy. I was getting paid to be in a war zone and was able to take breaks and be in Italy or Austria ordering good wine and cappuccinos within hours. I knew people who could not leave, who didn’t want to leave their homes. To become refugees. So they did their best to protect themselves and family while bombs fell. They ventured into the street to get water, food, firewood, running on streets where they knew snipers hid in burnt out buildings ready to arbitrarily shoot them in some sick game. And this was a pre-drone time. I can only imagine how terrifying things are now. I don’t want to imagine either – but here I am – imagining. 

Because I remember these sounds I hear from my front porch – as mortar shells exploding in Bosnia and Croatia. Once on the drive up into the mountains above Sarajevo for a meeting with a braggadocious man (now living in the Hague for war crimes) a tank fired off into the city. Our car was heavy and armored but the force of the explosion lifted the SUV. We made the rest of the drive silently, deafened and wondering about who and what was hit this time. How many injured, how many dead?

Don’t get me wrong – I once enjoyed watching the sky lit by exploding flowers and falling stars shot off on a barge in the distance. I have oohed and ahhed and enjoyed the festive atmosphere of a fireworks display. They are beautiful. But from my porch on a summer night it feels ominous and I think about war.

Sorry to be a downer but that’s my take. And besides, fireworks, especially uncontrolled neighborhood pyrotechnic displays are terrible for wildlife, little kids and pets.  

There’s a brilliant organization around here (https://wildlifeincrisis.org/ ) that rehab every kind of critter. They’ve reported an increase in injured animals being brought in because of fireworks. And the internet is full of people looking for pets that ran off in terror. Our long gone Cairn Terrier Tetley hated them.

Here’s to sparklers!

Peace!

A Robin’s Nest – and my bout of NIMBY

A robin built a nest on my front porch and I’m not thrilled. I know, I know! I feed the birds all winter, keep the bird bath clean and full and yet here I am getting all NIMBY when it comes to sharing my space. I was thrilled to see a local osprey fly off with one of the branches I’d collected from my recently downed oak tree imagining it’s new life as baby bird home. But when my feathered friend chooses my sweet porch to build in, well, I wasn’t happy. A little too close? What kind of hypocrisy is this? I have reflected on and chastised myself for this poor attitude. I don’t offer the following as a defense, simply an explanation.

With the warmer days, I get to expand my living space outside and I’ve been busy cleaning up. The front porch is my favorite spot to drink my tea in the morning, ponder the yard and life. And now, I feel thwarted. I had my chance and confess, I considered removing the nest when I saw the beginnings of grass stuck in the corner space right above the pillar next to where my laundry line begins. I really thought about it.

Momma Robin won. I did not touch the nest. This morning I watched her fly back and forth, beak full of damp leaves or wads of earth and now bits of dropped flotsam litter the area. After depositing her load into the nest, she hops in, shimmying down with a fluff of feathers to make sure it’s just right. Within a few days she’s woven the messy strands of straw into a formidable little home.

Don’t get me wrong – I love birds and respect a nest. I’ll skip whole sections when pruning my privet hedge at the slightest suspicion there’s someone nesting. When cardinals settled in to raise their babies in between the branches of a rose against the breezeway windows, we tiptoed passed for weeks. But this spot is my Grand Central. I am always in and out and live out here as soon as the weather warms. I hang my laundry off the line at least once a week.

I’m not sure how to navigate now. Do I not use the porch? I want her to feel safe and comfortable raising her babies here. I’ll have to figure it out and so will momma Robin. She still takes off when she sees me in the window. So now I’m a little worried I didn’t make her feel welcome.

I looked it up – incubation period is about 2 weeks and another 2 for the babies to move out. Did you know that most bird nests are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA)? Don’t tell our current administration about this though – God forbid that any vulnerable living thing be protected. That law will go the way of all the other protective legislature if the emperor gets wind of it.

What an opportunity to recognize and work on myself. I left the nest alone. I obeyed the good law. I’ll love my neighbor. Now I’ll settle in do my best to practice this lesson on living my life with integrity from the best teacher ever: nature.

Support our National Parks.

https://ourparks.org/

Doing Sensible and Human Things

I booked my trip to a yoga ashram in the Bahamas back in November, not realizing I’d depart the day after inauguration of the evil one. Fortuitous, right? Packing up and leaving the country for a week of meditation, yoga, good food and the Caribbean was a perfect preventive step against being overwhelmed with anger and despair. So far so good.

These are my pals – not me!

During my week away I rarely looked at my phone and read only headlines. I badly needed a social media and news detox. Newly retired, my abundance of time coupled with a motherly compulsion to follow the LA fires and Molly’s proximity had me spending way too much time scrolling.

On the way to evening Satsang

Scrolling is a solitary pursuit but at the ashram I was surrounded by community made up of a diverse group including students doing their teacher training, swamis, karma yogis and vacationers like myself. I managed to connect with too few of the oh-so-many interesting people during long vegetarian meals and barefoot beach walks. Every day I had deep conversations about life, the world – inner and outer – with kin spirits from all over the planet and across generations. Returning home to my quiet life did not feel lonely after so much fulfilling sociability. Inspiration still reverberates and I am reminded that community will save us.

Can you see the little red booted bird?

As will art, including music, writing, plus much laughter, dance, walks, nature and most of all – love! We cannot let the monsters diminish us or our joy!

The other day Molly shared this quote to live by from C. S. Lewis written after the bombing of Hiroshima:

“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies but they need not dominate our minds.”

The entire essay remains relevant. This passage leapt out at me as so true – just substitute recent events (or not!):

“What the wars and the weather and the atomic bomb have really done is to remind us forcibly of the sort of world we are living in and which, during the prosperous period before 1914, we were beginning to forget. And this reminder is, so far as it goes, a good thing. We have been waked from a pretty dream, and now we can begin to talk about realities.”

Current reality isn’t good. I feel like we need to stay informed, talk about and figure out what we can each do. It’s terrifying. The presidency was bought by the richest man in the world who has already staged a kind of coup – stealing private information, waltzing around like it all, we all – belong to him. Now they (think) they have us where they want us. The tech bros and the emperor (who has no clothes) are all bad. I am not clear about my own footing, where to step next – but hey – it’s the year of the snake – a time for shedding skin and re-birth. It will be uncomfortable for a time but I believe that the reality of what these creeps are trying to put into place will hopefully become apparent to the fooled ones. I believe that we’ll be okay. We’ll find a way to live – better for all. We have to.

There are so many lessons to be learned from history across the world, and in our own communities from those who have long lived under injustice and oppression. Now more than ever, in whatever ways we can, we must fight against authoritarianism, to protect the vulnerable, the earth, each other. We can do this.

Here are a few links of people and organizations I follow for factual information and guidance on how to push back. Please feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

(Robert Reich suggests: “…you might call your senators and representatives in Congress and tell them you don’t want Elon Musk messing with your Social Security or anything else. That number is 202-224-3121.”

Democracy Now

ACLU

Robert Reich Substack

Heather Cox Richardson – History Behind Today’s Politics

Southern Poverty Law Center

Under the Desk News on Instagram

Fires Raging – What’s the Plan?

For days I followed the news and social media and studied regularly updated Los Angeles fire maps to count the scant (5!) number of blocks of buffer between the ‘Recommended Evacuation’ zone and where my daughter lives.

December 2024 – Foreboding clouds over the Pacific Palisades.

During the holidays Molly, Rufus and I walked along the spectacularly gorgeous stretch along the Pacific. Not long after I returned to Connecticut, news cameras set up on that same sidewalk to report on the flames destroying homes in the Palisades. Smoke hung like nuclear clouds behind the newscasters over the lovely-now-deadly hills that border the Pacific. On one of our walks in December the ocean was particularly wild and clouds were almost frightening, hovering over the mountains in the distance. I took the photograph above. It seems like a disturbing premonition of things to come.

December Walk through what will soon be in the recommended evacuation zone.

The terrible destruction of the fires, the awful loss in communities across the city, is heartbreaking and shocking. Winds have whipped through those gorgeous dry mountains forever. This latest destruction is historically the worst – because of humans. Greedy humans, mostly men, who ignore climate change and care more about their own wealth and survival than us little guys. Most wars can also be tracked back to the same base intentions. When I worked in peacekeeping at the UN my boss would in whisper to me, refer to the leaders sitting around negotiating tables as gangsters.

And today in this country we make our own version of gangsters, official. Welcome to the autocracy. Inauguration day.

I have no idea how to navigate these next years but I will do my best not to live in anger. I will turn to and build my communities and find new ones. Neighbors coming together is a powerful thing. We see this in LA and hopefully, in our own lives. I certainly have. Hope and love lives in communities as do solutions.

My first instinct is as a parent – to protect my child. No matter that she lives across the country and is a grown woman taking excellent care of herself. I watch the flames, worry about the smoke and bad air, climate change. I fear for her future with this new administration. Yes, she is white with the privilege that comes with it – but she is a woman. I fear for young women and tell them to stock up on birth control for starters.

Here’s a ray of hope: today is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Initially my reaction to inauguration day being the same as Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday celebration seemed terrible. An insult to his legacy. Now I realize, this is a sweet invitation to focus on remembering MLK and looking for hope and a way – rather than pay attention to the depressing pomp and parade of oligarchs ready to take the reins. Martin Luther King Jr. offers us a different door with a path to follow. We must keep the dream alive! Be Love. We can do this.

*The King Center: Established in 1968 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

I find Timothy Snyder’s list still stands and provides . Author of On Tyranny – a book I purchased and sent out to many friends last time this nightmare was in power. Time to dig it out again. Or just refer to the list link above.

PS: Molly is safe and loving her life in beautiful California.

Listening to the Universe

I woke at 4 AM unable to sleep so I surrendered to the day and turned the light on. If needed, I could nap later – no need to struggle for more hours of sleep like I might on a work day. Was it worry about money, health or work that kept me from slumber? No, the burning question keeping me lit was how and where should I build a wattle fence. Yes – a wattle fence – a simple, handmade structure created from branches. Mine would not be woven like ones I referenced online at 4 AM. My plan was to sort by size and then simply layer the pruned branches of my fruit trees.

After contemplating different corners of my property, I decided to build it beside the deck in place of a broken step I regularly needed to warn visitors away from. The whole wattling (can it be a verb?) process took less than 2 hours. I yanked out the wooden step, pounded in stakes and stacked the branches. I proudly sent pictures of my crude structure to Molly who said it reminded her of the story of the Three Little Pigs. The wolf would certainly make short work of blowing down my wattle fence but I’d found such pleasure in the creative process. And why go to the dump with those lovely straight branches?

When Molly was home for a short visit in February I recruited her to help me prune our 4 fruit trees. We mercilessly removed branches, some up to 5 feet long. My electric Saker handsaw made the project go quickly. The results were initially shocking. Had I butchered the trees? There were barely any branches left on the peach. It had to be done. In past years, I had not cut these dwarf trees back far enough and they were growing way too tall. So far the pear trees are happily full of blossoms and while the peaches still look traumatized, they are alive, bravely pushing out pink blossoms on the stubby limbs. Ultimately, I know that these harsh cuts were necessary if the trees are to thrive.

And so it is with me. I am working on doing the same in my life. What is necessary to live and thrive in this cycle of my life? These are my questions. I know there is much ‘pruning’ to be done. For a start, I tackle my garden. The to-do list sometimes feels overwhelming but ultimately, if I wake at 4 AM because of what needs to be done outside, it is with excitement. This week I spent some evenings after work clipping at the long hedge, pulling out dead wood from shrubs, yanking out ivy and weeds, picking up fallen twigs for kindling. I’m trying to grow grass again where the pipe was dug up in November so I hauled the hose out of the garage and now have the daily routine of filling the bird bath and spraying the seeded dirt while breathing deeply of the cold morning air. Most mornings, my exhales are no longer visible as it warms into spring.

And remember the branch that fell a few posts back? It’s still there. I need to get a new chain for my electric chain saw – so it’s disappearing a bit into the growing lawn. Nature will take care of things in its own way if I don’t manage to. I try to make sure that the ‘way’ is compatible, that I am doing right by the earth. I am content outside with the birds, the family of squirrels running through the oak and maple branches above me. Breathing fresh air after being in the house all winter, the sun warming my face – this is where I belong.

The universe is speaking to us with earthquakes, eclipses and wild storms. Reminding us that we are a part of something larger than ourselves. We need to pay attention. In the garden, on my knees in the dirt, I listen.

Off the Couch

I don’t mind walking when it rains as long as it’s not torrential. The other day in a soft rain, protected only by my hooded jacket, I decided to walk along the river to the farmers market on the green. My desire was to vegetate at home doing a lot of nothing on the couch, but I forced myself to go out.

After following the river past the condos where the ducks hang out waiting for stale bread to be tossed from balconies, I dashed across the street to the secret path that climbs up behind the church in front of which, the market is held on Saturdays. The path opens out onto the parking lot next to the place where Molly spent a year in daycare. Most of the time when I pass this way, long-ago memories don’t register but this day I remember a time that Neil never picked Molly up so I was called at work to rush over and get her. In the early winter darkness, her teachers stood next to their cars right here, waiting with little Molly. They were kinder than I might have been at the inconvenience.

Another time I remember joining the parade of toddlers crossing this lot to the senior home to trick or treat and sing a song. Molly as a princess, wore a favorite blond wig of curls over her still barely-grown, short brown hair and a too-long Disney dress, now dirty at the hem. Perhaps because there were no grandparents in her life, the sight of all the old folks in wheelchairs, some with obvious dementia, completely freaked her out and she looked up towards me as if to rescue her from where she sat on the floor with the little group of costumed toddlers. Her face was crumpled in tears. Always an empathetic soul, maybe the scene felt too sad, as it did for me. The sweet babies in the middle of all these decades of life was a stark snapshot, the extreme passage of time, too much.

The path I walked isn’t really secret, it just feels that way because I never see anyone else. It’s a short stretch of tarmac leading up an incline along a stone wall. Exiting out of the path into the side street leading to the church, I saw the street was empty – the farmer’s market was not there either because of the rain or the season being over. All I’d needed was a few eggplants. Plan B meant walking out to the noisy street to the much busier nearby store. I mostly avoid this street on my walks as it requires crossing 4 lanes in front of determined and often distracted drivers who largely ignore the flashing yellow light I activate by pressing a button. I step out cautiously, trying to make eye contact with the driver to determine they’ll be slowing to a stop or at least to a miss-hitting-me speed.

This is my neighborhood where usually, I too am a driver. But I walk a lot even without a dog. Sometimes with friends. Our gabbing makes the time fly by and I don’t even glance at my phone to see how many steps I’ve wracked up. I try for the max. I almost never make it to 10,000 steps when I’m alone and am satisfied if I get in 2 miles. I don’t listen to music or podcasts because I mostly like to hear the sounds of the world around me and don’t like the feel of having earplugs in.

If I don’t get too distracted by all the memories my neighborhood evokes, my solitary walks are meditative. I try to concentrate on my breath and if I’m walking around the track (very conveniently located right next to my house) sometimes I’ll close my eyes as I go round and round the gravel circle. I practice booting out annoying thoughts that pop-up like a merry-go-round. I’m rarely inclined to walk on the track, the endless circling less appealing than exploring the world outside of me, but after a few rounds with a periodic glance at the changing sunset sky, I discover that the round and round can lead to an interior quiet that is very sweet. Even in the rain.

Blazing New Trails

Inspired by recent travels, I am trying to approach my weekends with curiosity and gusto rather than days to do laundry and errands. I love to take long walks in different places so on a recent beautiful day with the slightest hint of autumn, I visited a nearby national park where (shame on me) I’d never been.

Weir Farm – “Visit the home and studio of America’s most beloved Impressionist, J. Alden Weir, and walk in the footsteps of generations of world-class artists. Set amidst more than 60 acres of painterly woods, fields, and waterways, you’ll soon see why Weir described his home as the “Great Good Place.” Weir’s farm is a national legacy to American Impressionism, the creative spirit, and historic preservation.”

The kind park ranger at the visitor’s center walked out on the porch to point me in the right direction of the long hike he said was his favorite. He gave me a laminated map to be returned that I promptly tucked it into my bag with water bottle, journal and phone. I brought said-journal all through Greece and Italy last month and barely filled 3 pages. I had high hopes for this hike, imagining myself so inspired I’d perch on a rock to scrawl. I took the journal out of my bag even less than the map: 0 times.

Off I went, gravel crunching underfoot, ready to disappear into the woods. Well, almost ready. I should have worn long pants. Some of the trails were vague and a little overgrown. With every brush against grass, leaf, branch, I imagined microscopic ticks leaping onto my bare calves. I periodically scanned between my freckles and age spots for ticks, brushing my hands across them as if I might whisk them away. Little bastards!

I live in an urban suburb, if that make sense. I am lucky to have my own little patch of green. Today I picked a few pears from my pear tree. But the hum of the highway is ever present as are neighbors, sirens, lawn mowers, and those infernal blowers. I’d forgotten the bliss, the soar of my heart, the serenity yet excitement of being surrounded by woods and sky. The creak of a branch in the breeze high over my head. The quiet that when you listen hard enough, is full of sounds like a familiar but unknown language. The chickadees doing gymnastics almost close enough to touch, the distant woodpecker, the bird song I didn’t recognize through the rustle of leaves.

Initially I walked a sweet trail – wide and welcoming. Map forgotten, I just walked, periodically noting a dash of color on a tree marking a way. The ranger told me the white and purple trails were his favorite so I thought I’d follow those. I never saw purple – sure looked blue to me – and then some yellow and soon, I was just following whatever looked like a trail, climbing stony hills, gingerly stepping over mossy rocks across a stream, probably following deer paths. I was in heaven. Surrounded by forest quiet. Almost. There was the distant sound of a blower. Of course – it’s CT and a suburb still even here in a national park.

Worse than the blower was the noise in my head that briefly shouted louder than anything. For a moment my exhilaration was drowned out by a fear that hit me like a rogue wave. What if I twist my ankle on this now-narrow trail? Or fall down this rocky slope? At the entrance I had seen a sign about recent bear sightings. What if I encountered a bear? No – even worse: a bear and cubs with a protective mother! She’d destroy me! I stopped in my tracks and googled – what to do if you encounter a bear. Go back the way you came, don’t run but keep an eye that it’s not following you. If it does approach you, make a lot of noise and throw things at it. What would I throw? I picked up a stick that would easily snap over my knee and make great kindling. I guess I’d throw my metal water bottle.

What the hell? For a start, I had no interest in returning the way I’d come from. That’s a policy I like to follow both physically and metaphorically. Mentally I yanked myself up by the collar – why this sudden crazy anxiety? Get back to blissing out in nature! The self-scolding worked pretty well, with worry mostly banished. I’d like to disconnect that synapse in my brain connecting to imagined disasters. It’s so… old lady and I am trying to buck that trend for as long as I can.

I got lost twice (the second time with people I met on the trail – so that time, not my fault!) and ended up clocking close to 5 miles – which is weird because when I finally looked at the laminated map, no trail is much longer than 1.5 miles. That’s a lot of criss-crossing or something. When I handed the barely-glimpsed-at map back to the ranger and told him where I’d been he seemed amazed and told me almost no one goes that direction. I guess he must have decided I was a really serious hiker because he went to a back closet and gave me my very own trail map. Not laminated so I can fold it up even smaller into my bag. For next time!

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