Tag: nature

October

Gusting winds whipped through the garden, with the same rhythmic power of the sea. Leaves swept inside-out and then back again, still clinging to branches, the violence of the movement sounding like waves crashing onto shore.  Laying still in the dark of early morning, I am reluctant to move, wishing I could remain in retreat and follow the wild-weather from the comfort of my bed. But up I get to join the fray.

The wind brought the rain — falling in lashing grey sheets throughout the day. Rivers of water filled the roads and traversing even the shortest distance from car-to-building was enough to get drenched. Still, it felt tropical – more summer than autumn. But that was yesterday. This morning, my street is filled with storm-flotsam: twigs, leaves, branches pooled by flood waters into a topographical map over the cracked tarmac.  The sky is vivid blue and the leaves seem to have changed into their autumn colors overnight.  A flock of birds settle noisily into the trees. I cannot make them out between the foliage, nor do I recognize their song – more like chatter – as if they are discussing what route to take. They are on their way somewhere – at least 30 of them. It feels cold and pulling my jacket close, I yawn and my breath forms a cloud.

The seasons were wrestling these past few days – but this morning we have a winner: autumn is here.

Living with Books

When I ride the train, the subway, walk on a beach – and see someone reading, I always want to know – what?  When people are photographed or interviewed on television in front of a bookcase, I try to make out what titles are on their shelves. Because I work in a bookstore? Maybe, but also because I am nosy – it is as if I’m sneaking a peek at who this person really is by checking out their books.

My own bookshelves are packed to capacity – including too many books I have yet to read. Will I ever? There are titles that I feel like I should read — a great example being a huge tome: Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl E. Meyer and Shari Blair Brysac.  Autographed by these local authors and scholars – I do want to read it for a better understanding of this volatile region we have been so mired in – and so it stays and I think: one day. The same ‘should’ keeps From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman on my shelf for years.  I cannot let go of these books nor my good intention to read them but other books always jump the reading queue.

Then there are the books I may want for reference – that get yanked from the shelf about once a year or so – Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide by Goldberg and The Art Book – a book published by Phaidon door-stop sized book I picked up once at a tag sale. It’s a fast-food kind of look at the history of art.  I have more cherished art and photography books I also found on sale and could not resist – the most recent find being Andy Goldsworthy’s Passage – this remarkable sculptor’s poetic works are created out of nature – powerful works of time and space – some of stone but many others of ice, leaves, the tides and now, only a photograph remains.  It sits on a table in my living room and I have looked at it maybe once but I am so glad it is there.

I have the powerful photography books by my friend Ron Haviv – his important documentation of wars including Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal – the war I knew. My Balkan titles can take up their own shelf and I have read them all, hungering to understand the madness that was my life for four years.  My collection began back in 1992 with Rebecca West’s classic Black Lamb, Grey Falcon and Misha Glenny’s The Fall of Yugoslavia. Later on, I added David Rieff’s Slaughterhouse, Peter Maass’s Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War. And perhaps the one most poignant for me, My War Gone By, I Miss it So by Anthony Lloyd – a powerful memoir of addiction to war and to drugs.

The addiction self-help books have mostly been purged – in the hopes that the problem is also gone out of my life, I have passed them on to others who might find them useful.  But I have kept the memoirs – Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, Mary Karr’s Lit.

Over the years I have amassed a collection of signed titles that are impossible to part with – I see them as a legacy for my daughter. J. K. Rowling – the second Harry Potter title signed at an event at the store early on in her success.  Still, it was like hosting a rock star but she was lovely, signing well over a thousand books and looking every child in the eye and sharing a chat while signing with her arm in a brace.  My inscribed copies of Angela’s Ashes and Teacher Man will always have a revered place on my shelf with warm memories of my encounters with Frank McCourt.

There are books I can and should cull: novels I have read and never will again. Outdated travel guides – to Bali, Martha’s Vineyard (I have not been since high school), the Florida Keys (I have never been) parenting guides, cookbooks I never open – but as my eye scans the dusty spines, I think of a reason why I want each one to stay – a memory, the possibility I might one day need to check on the correct Serbo-Croatian word or refer to that book The Brain. I won’t though — the internet is too easy.  At least, I will dust them.

Next Year May Be Better (The Garden)

A rare Saturday with nothing planned. Much to do, but nothing required. The ‘to-do’ is catch-up cleaning, inside and out.  The garden looks abandoned – petunias dried up in the window boxes, basil plants going to seed, morning glories strangling scraggly rose bushes and in the vegetable garden, pokeberry and crabgrass reign. A few perfect, little heirloom tomatoes are rallying on an almost-leaf-less plant, and I hurry to rescue them before the birds and squirrels attack. And jalapenos – I can’t make salsa fast enough and they wrinkle on the kitchen counter. But the garden is at the end for the year.

As the days finally cool down, I plan on how to prepare it for winter.  Rather than yank up all the crabgrass, I’ll probably cover it with newspapers, then layer leaves, compost, dirt in ‘lasagna’ garden fashion. By spring, it should be rich earth, ready for planting. Although it was a bad year, I am planning for next. An optimist – next year may be better and, in any case, I will try.

Fleeting Summer

These days the seasons seem to change back-and-forth between autumn and summer – almost daily.  This morning, the sky thick with clouds, I dug a sweatshirt out of the closet to ward against the chill, while yesterday was hot enough to kayak.  We rode wide heaving waves out just beyond the first island and then, with our paddles out of the water, lolled luxuriously in the heat of the sun while the current and tides carried us back to shore. Climbing out of the boat, as relaxed and mellow as if I’d just had a massage, I wondered if this would be our last day a-float for the season.  There may be the sweet Indian Summer day or two, but with less daylight, it’s tricky to find the time to get out on the water.

So yesterday, I studied the horizon, the school of tiny fish leaping out of the water in a flash of silver, and each salty, deep breath I took in, came out as a sigh, the melancholy that comes with the end of something wonderful.  A sense of this being the end of things makes everything more vivid – our mind’s way, perhaps, of preserving memories.  At least, this is what I do: psychically save scenes of beauty and peace to conjure up when I need them – in the dentist’s chair, for example.  When the metal scraping in my mouth seems unbearable, I transport myself back to the heat of seashells as I lay on the beach of an island on the Sound with only the plaintive sound of seagulls and rhythmic waves around me.

Beyond Noise

From where I sit at the table by the window, lit by a slant of morning sun, the hum of the highway sounds louder than usual. Most of the time, the traffic is white noise, a whooshing punctuated by the louder roars of trucks, motorcycles. There are few places in Norwalk to escape the sound of automobiles. On the other side of town, the Meritt Parkway is another artery of noise. And in-between these two major roadways is the Post Road – a constant shifting gears as cars and buses crawl along between stop lights.

The best chance to escape is on the Long Island Sound, early in the morning or in the evening, and better on a weekday.  But even out on the water, there is rarely silence. Motor boats speed by, sending heaving waves into our boat. But worst is the hysterical motor-grinding of jet-skis around and around.  And of course, there are always airplanes, although the drone is so distant and quickly gone, they are easy to ignore.

Usually, I try not focus on man-made noises, instead tuning-in to sounds like summer insects. The volume of the Cicadas seems to change as the temperature does and at night, there is a different chorus of blaring bugs.  I notice the birds: the soft-drumming of a Downy Woodpecker on the stump of elm, the chirps of the Cardinal family, the weird, squawking Parrots (yes, Parrots!) swooping through to eye our trees. I let the dog out to bark at them, hoping to discourage nest-building intentions. Out by the butterfly bush, bees vibrate by and dragon-flys so close, I hear the extraordinary flutter of their wings.

Of course, I prefer these sounds of nature to the cacophony of man so try to cultivate a selective awareness.  There’s the key: of course my state-of- being affects my perceptions, and this week, I have been tightly wired and not particularly ‘conscious’. Triggered perhaps, by anticipating my daughter’s return from England and the always stressful trip to the airport to retrieve her.  She is home now, safe and sleeping upstairs, but the discombobulated feeling remains. Even the usually unobtrusive soundtrack of my daily life unsettles me.  After days of being irritated by everything around me, I admit to being the source of my own discomfort. I suspect it is because I have not been writing nor doing yoga – my anchors to peace.

Less than an hour ago, my focus was on what seemed the maddening noise of the highway. As my attention shifted, it was the birds I heard, the neighbor calling to her children, my fingers tapping on this keyboard, and finally, as I reel myself in closer to my elusive center, I find silence.

The Discipline of Neat

We finally trimmed the privet hedge surrounding our property – a task that has literally hovered over me  for most of the summer. Now, returning home in the car or from walking the dog, the place no longer looks  abandoned.  The  hedge had grown so high it took two of us to finish the job – I held the ladder steady while R swept the grinding teeth of the trimmer steadily across the top of the 8 foot growth. There is still a patch left because we need a higher ladder to reach the scraggly sprays, but this one bit of chaos is tolerable for now. Drooping oak branches also need trimming and the privet detritus needs to be raked out of the day lilies and hostas, but at a glance, the hedge looks neat and elegant. The psychological impact this has on me, is amazing.

I am reminded again that clearing bramble, maintenance of home and body, (my hair is often like the overgrown hedge) is as important for the spirit, as it is for aesthetics.

Inspired, I moved on to my car pulling stray bags, outdated coupons and receipts out of the back and from under the seats.  In the house I cleared surfaces – and now try to keep them so: immediately washing and putting away dishes, throwing out the mail I don’t need, keeping the newspapers, the magazines and books in a neat pile. I even tackled my closet, ruthlessly tossing clothes and shoes for Goodwill or garbage.

Of course, I have done this before – purged and cleaned and vowed to reform from messy to neat, high on the benefit of clarity that comes from clear space. The longest period that I managed to sustain this was when I lived in Kyoto. There, my tatami-mat bedroom was always pristine. Every morning I folded up my futon and quilts and shut them away in the closets.  I never left piles of clothes or papers about.  Of course, I lived alone then – it is enough of a challenge to reform myself, impossible to impose this on others.  But I will do my best to embrace this as my discipline – starting small: I will keep the tables clear, ready for plates of good food to eat together as the messy family we are.

August

The changing light of these early mornings reminds me that my favorite season is on the wane although there is a full month before school starts (thanks to my daughter, school still marks time for me) and many more days of sweltering heat and humidity yet ahead of us. But I mourn the passing of long daylight hours although I recognize that melancholy lends a sense of sweetness to every moment.  I savor the light, the heat – time. I take deeper breaths and almost taste the summer-scents of earth and grass and when the wind is right, the rich sea smell of the nearby Long Island Sound.  I reassure myself that there are a good two months or more of paddling to be had and still a promise of harvest from the garden.

My tomatoes are disappointing – some creature – (I suspect the squirrels) has found every fruit before me, gnawing some, devouring others.  The guilty rodent prefers the heirloom variety and we have yet to taste one. On the other hand, although I know it his favorite, the groundhog has ignored the patch of edamame and I see teeny little pods clustered in amongst the purple flowers. I have no complaint about the lettuce: just when I think we have had our final salad, I find more leaves hiding beneath the cucumber vines. I must remember to always, just keep looking.

Embracing the chaos

I am not an organized person and while I envy this quality in others, it will never be mine.  That’s not to say I am not efficient and responsible: my desk may be a mess at work and at home – but I never miss a deadline and my bills get paid on time.  This is just my style.  And it translates to everything – including the garden.

This morning, dressed in sweatpants and tee-shirt retrieved from the floor, hair flattened on one side and eyes still bleary with sleep, I took the dog out for his quick, morning walk.  I live on a quiet street and rarely meet anyone at this hour. Bordering our not-quite quarter acre,  Hosta, Iris, Day Lilies are growing in abundance.  Looking at this mass of green through my sleepy haze, I recall my autumn vow to separate these plants in the spring: divide the Day Lilies and Hosta plants, give away the Bearded Irises (strange, almost vulgar looking, I think) before they reached full bloom and I could still see space between them.  Too late: they swallow each other up in a green mass and they in turn, are overwhelmed by the hedge that stands now like a wall between our house and the street.  I used to be able to trim this hedge standing in the street – now it is at least 8 feet high and dense.

In another corner of the garden are the once scrawny twigs sent to me by the Arbor Society for a $10 donation.  I did this at least two years in a row – dutifully planting painted twigs only inches long into a corner of the garden where they would not get trampled.  Now we have about 7 trees in the works. They are growing within feet or even inches each other.  I meant to move a few of them this spring while it was still early – before their leaves began to sprout.  We moved two last year – digging around the roots and then wider, deeper yet to get some kind of root ball.  Finally, cursing and bothered, we chopped at the dangling roots and yanked them out – moving them, (not very hopefully) to a spot where they have more room to grow.  Amazingly, they survived the trauma and are still alive and  have grown quite a few feet.  We vowed to get to the others before they got bigger. Too late again.  None of those little trees I stuck in the flower garden for safe keeping and then, forgot about, will leave without a fight. For another year at least, there they will stay.

To add to the garden chaos, I planted two cherry trees in the hope of one day eating fruit from them.  Slightly bigger sticks that probably won’t bear fruit for a decade because I’m too frugal to spring for the $60 it costs to buy a large one from the garden center.  All of these saplings live beneath the massive oak that’s not far from the mulberry tree, so tall the branches lean over the garage. Another oak stands at the end of the drive and a quartet of trunks make up the maple tree shading most of the front lawn.

At this point, we feel overwhelmed by the growth, the weeds reclaiming a patch we cleared two weeks ago, the neighbors annoying forsythia that hangs like a curtain about to come down over our blueberry bushes.  But it’s nature doing its thing and it’s gorgeous and lush and the birds love us.

Balance

The sky is cloudless, the temperature is perfect and  I am torn between being in the dirt  planting vegetable seeds, tomato and jalapeno pepper plants – or writing.  Since I seem to only be able to write in solitude, when R leaves to run an errand, I drop my spade and dash inside to write, and when his car pulls in the driveway, I head back to pull weeds and water plants. And in this way, I find a kind of rhythm.

Here I am inside now – garden gloves abandoned in the dirt.  I have less than an hour before M is home from school.  A room of my own?  I imagine such a place for myself  and maybe, one day we can transform the crawl space – not quite an attic.   But if I could really disappear for hours on end to a cubby of my own, away from them and our shared life, would I? Certainly, if this was my ‘work’ but not now.  All moments beyond the hours spent at my job are carefully mined and  ultimately, it is the time I spend with these ones I love, that is most precious to me. But were I to win the lottery…

April Showers

Today’s rain is welcome.  Yesterday I spent hours potting herbs (parsley, oregano, lemon verbena, basil and more basil) and filling window boxes. As I make my morning tea, a movement outside my kitchen window makes me jump – newly planted red geraniums out of the corner of my eye appear as if someone is looking in at me. It will take some time to get accustomed to their presence.

Although recent sunny days have been lovely, I am glad  to stay inside, read papers and do indoor spring cleaning tasks. Every room in the house is filled with the scent of lilacs – the result of trimming almost 3 feet off the top of an overgrown bush. This was one of those jobs I have meant to do each year and never gotten to – until now.  The blossoms were out of reach of my nose so it was time. According to a Google of ‘Pruning lilacs’ one should wait until the flowers have finished blooming. But wanting their evocative fragrance in these rooms, we took the lobbers to the branches and now the shrub looks sad – all chopped up. Fingers crossed it hasn’t been traumatized too much and next year’s blooms will be glorious.

We’ve done a lot of that around here this year – hacking away at old growth, chopping butterfly bushes practically to the ground. What were awful looking stubs only a few weeks ago are sprouting green. It works. Of course, all summer we will have to look at the bald limbs of the lilac and trust we have done the right thing for the future. There are so many ways this applies to my life: in a mundane way, cleaning out closets, throwing out, giving away, making SPACE!  But in psychic ways too. I will try and examine thoughts and habits so long ingrained in my life they might just be stunting growth and try and be brave enough to make uncomfortable changes for a healthier future. A good exercise for the seasons.

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