On my recent walks down the street with Tetley, these leaching-chlorophyl leaves have been catching my eye. There’s something poignant about the luminous, x-ray quality to them, certainly an image of fading life. The ribs of the leaf are evocative of skeletons and veins, don’t you think?
And then there’s this one, ravaged by chomping insects, weather, time. I find them beautiful – for me, they capture the way Summer’s has slipped away this year, slowly blurring like a watercolor into Fall. Recent weeks of high temperatures, crystalline skies, exquisitely drawing out the sweetness of last days.
Summer remains my preferred season and I am sad to see it go. I like the heat, the extra hours of light, the generally slower pace. Of course Autumn brings wonderful gifts. It’s time to start transitioning into warmer garb, closing windows, stiff from being in the open position for months. The crazy chorus of night insects has diminished to only a few, forlornly calling from the dark hedges. Darker earlier these days – and that’s even before our biannual messing around with clocks.
While I’m loathe to put on socks again, or find gloves that match, I’ll welcome fires in the fireplace, the deliciousness of being inside after the exhilaration of a walk in the bracing cold. I’ll appreciate the new views of the sky as the leaves hit the ground, easier to spot my favorite falcons that hunt in the neighborhood.
On the street where I walk Tetley, at least for now, colors seem to just be leaking, fading away. But in my yard there is a Maple going out in expected glory. In the Camellia plant still perched outside, I find Maple leaves snagged in the branches, flashes of red. There are different exits to the end.
Every college campus should have a spot like this. A path to ponder, a place to dream. To walk towards the horizon with nothing but sky ahead. No limits. Anything is possible. The world is yours. All that.
As a college student, I often came to this very hill, a short distance from my dormitory. Decades and a lifetime of adventures later, I visit my freshman daughter here. And this road in the clouds still evokes the questions: Where to? What next?
We came to look at the cows. R loves cows.
Tetley remained ambivalent. Not even a bark.
I know, I just wrote here about my new-found attraction to the city as a place to grow old – but hey, it’s not time for that yet. Back home I searched the real estate sites to look at houses and land in that part of the state. There’s still relatively inexpensive places to be had. With space for cows.
Just when I figured out I’d prefer to be old in NYC than in the suburbs, I read this article: Broadway actress Elaine Stritch moved to a suburb of Detroit. A pretty shocking decision for such a NYC icon – to leave her longtime life full of Broadway and nightclubs, pretty clearly, to die. I get it — her family is there. But yikes.
The way I see it, there are worse fates than to be an oldster shuffling across the avenue long after the light has changed. (what’s with that timing, NY?) In the no-longer very distant future, I can envision returning to live in noisy, nasty New York. Of course, as my dear sister reminds me, there is plenty of peace to be had there. I can see myself in Riverside Park, sitting on a bench overlooking the Hudson River – a mere stone’s throw from the heaving hordes on Broadway. Maybe I’ll even feed the very squirrels I now have no affection for. I might become one of those old ladies I used to worry about.
Perhaps, on a good day, I’d make the hike or take a bus or hop (okay: creep) onto the subway to catch a concert at Lincoln Center or an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. Certainly any of this sounds better than withering away on a couch hidden behind doors in suburbia. Much better to be around teeming life – the lovely and less so buzz of humanity always on – than in front of a screen all day.
This change in thinking is notable because, although I was born and spent most of my childhood as a city kid, I always wanted to get away from it. I didn’t like the crowds, the noise, the dirt. I longed for country life with space, woods, a garden. And I do love all that – it’s my alternate fantasy in fact. But I wonder about my future ability to maintain said garden, house, car, etc.. It all takes money and so much work — work that gets harder to do as the bones grow brittle.
And most importantly, you need to drive. Where I live now there is no neighborhood coffee shop to hobble over to meet friends to discuss politics, art and okay – the grandkids. I have to drive to get anywhere here – and this in a relatively urban suburb. It seems to me, unless your lucky or overlooked, eventually your right to drive will be taken away. And with that, you lose your power, your independence. Reliant on others to get out into the world, it’s harder to stay interested in it. What’s the point? And from there, it’s all downhill. That’s what I’ve seen.
In America, the elderly get farmed out to ‘places’ with other geezers, maybe to Florida where they have compounds of fellow geezers. In other countries I have lived in like Japan, Italy, former Yugoslav countries, old folks are included in life. Generations live together in one house or nearby. Evenings on any square in Europe, all ages gather to drink coffee and wine, little kids run around, grandparents watch. On the market streets in Japan you’ll see all ages doing the daily shopping, together. Everyone’s part of the whole. Families, communities. You can still see that in some neighborhoods in NYC.
My daughter sweetly envisions R and I living in the little place she’ll have next to her own big house full of kids. Well, okay. But meanwhile, there’s this lovely brewing plan that as the years catch up to us, we will move to Manhattan where we can be artsy old folk. And lucky me, unlike Elaine Stritch, that’s exactly where my family is. (It’ll be fun, A!)
Yesterday, strong winds curbed our kayaking ambition. Rather than venture all the way out to one of the islands, we floated out only as far as the sandbar. A 10 minute paddle away and marked by sea grass that disappears completely at high tide, this spot is where we go for short trips when we want to get on the water, content to be jostled about. At low tide a nice little beach is exposed and we can park the boat up on the sand. We wade through the water, watch the birds, the clouds, the waves, the shimmer of light and shadow on the water, dig our toes beneath the sand. We don’t talk much, absorbing the bliss.
Yesterday, overwhelmed by the beauty I said, “There’s something magical about this little spot, isn’t there?” It feels a bit like that patch is ours.
The tide was heading out it was still too high – no parking the kayak yet – but R hopped out into the water to stretch his legs and let the current swirl around his knees as I paddled over to the grasses, the plastic boat heaving but held steady by the Moses-reeds. Peaceful. Finally, I floated back to R and we agreed to head back. With the kayak and my gaze pointed towards shore, I felt R climb in and pushed my paddle into the water.
“Wait. We have to go back,” R said. “I had the car key in my pocket and it must have fallen out. We have to look for it.”
Silently, I guffawed. The Long Island Sound still around our calves even at the most shallow spot around us. We’re supposed to look for a key in the water? Certainly a case for lost causes, I thought. Were I a believer I’d be praying to Saint Jude. In any case, I hopped out of the boat and began scanning the rippling water, grateful that these days, it’s clean enough to easily see the bottom.
“It’s my only key. I only have this one left,” R said philosophically with a smile, not ready to get despondent yet.
At least the tide was going out and not in — the sandbar would soon be exposed — instead of disappearing even more underwater with an incoming tide. Still, this was no gentle retreat. The water billowed around us, the sandbank churning broken clam shells, stones, mussel shells with each new wave. Creating, I thought, new layers for us to dig through. I flashed on the rest of our afternoon sifting through our beloved sandbar, surrounded by piles of wet sand. Or maybe we could enlist some guy with a metal detector to lend us a hand. We’d have to kayak him out with that crazy apparatus to save the day. Maybe.
Zeroing in on a dark object, I plunged my hand into the water hoping this might be the rubber end of the car key. Mussel shells look a lot like car keys in a foot of water. I took off my sunglasses hoping to see a little better. A few minutes later, a flash of what might be metal was the inside of a piece of oyster shell.
Impossible. No way we could find R’s single key in all of this churning water and shifting sand. I thought again of lost causes, of Saints, of prayer – something I don’t do much, vague as I am in belief. Yet I have a sense of not really ever being alone, of being watched over. Mostly, by those that have loved me. I do believe in love and think it impossible that love can just disappear, poof! – be gone. Sometimes, I’ll have a silent chat. And yesterday, while poking around for a key in a sandbar, I did just that. Maybe that’s a prayer. And maybe it’s just a coincidence, or perhaps just luck — but in all that water swirling around on our magic sandbar, I found the key.
Growing up in the Bronx, when I wanted to go outside to play I yelled “I’m goin’ down!” not “out”. Exiting apartment 7D, I’d walk down the windowless hallway to the elevator, or more likely, yank open the heavy door to the stairwell and leap down (step on first two steps, jump the rest) 7 flights of stairs. Sometimes I stopped at the 2nd floor to ring Barbara’s doorbell – if she wasn’t already waiting out on the stoop. We’d sit on those cement steps for hours, taking turns at hopscotch – or maybe we’d roller skate up and down the bumpy stretch of Broadway sidewalk that constituted our block. If Barbara’s mother, Mrs. Bullard, wasn’t at her usual perch, her elbows propped on a pillow as she looked out at the street, we might dash across the 4 lanes of traffic to go play in VanCortlandt park. This instead of walking down to the light at the cross walk – that would have taken 2 more minutes.
VanCortlandt park is now a gorgeous stretch of woods and fields, streams and even a horse barn. Back in the late 1960s, the stretch across from our apartment building was mostly shabby, sad grass ruined by dog shit and we still rarely ventured beyond that one field. Especially after the stocky guy with the red goatee crashed through the branches to lift Marjorie out of the tree she was climbing in. Puzzled, I stood watching him until I realized he was trying to get her pants off. Feeling a weird detachment, I ran out beyond the tree line yelling for help although there was no one but a distant dog walker. Seconds passed before Marjorie ran out after me having successfully squirmed out of his arms. We didn’t speak as she zipped up her pants. I held my breath so I wouldn’t laugh, feeling crazy – why did I want to laugh? I didn’t tell my parents and I bet she didn’t tell her’s either. Unaccounted for shame of good Catholic girls. We stayed out of the woods from then on, unless there was a gang of us. Marjorie and I were probably 10 at the time.
I didn’t intend to write about this creepy childhood, urban episode. Funny how memory works.
I know – just a lone sparrow – the others were camera-shy – and I need to wash the screen.
No, this morning, as I listen to mad-chirping at my window and watch the birds surrounding the feeder that hangs inches from where I sit, I remember myself as an almost-teen, raiding the nature shelves of the Riverdale Library. Almost weekly, I’d come away with another stack of books on identifying birds, tracking animals, living out in the wild. I loved books by naturalists – or simply observers of nature. May Sarton was a favorite – a poet in New Hampshire who wrote about the seasons and solitude and kept journals like I always did, full of observation and reflection. And I thought, that this was precisely the life I wanted: to be in a place where I could write and watch the birds, maybe the deer and other creatures who wandered out of the surrounding wood, to drink from the stream I also imagined as mine. A city kid, I wanted to live in the country, maybe even live off the land.
Dandelion fascination even at this age…
Some summers, my parents who were teachers and had summer off too, would rent a house in Vermont where I got to live out my fantasy for a few weeks. Eventually they bought a getaway in the Hudson Valley that we’d go up to on weekends. Behind that house were woods with an old trail I used to wander up feeling safe even by myself, mesmerized by the silence that wasn’t really silence, enchanted. Listening, watching, hoping the Chickadee’s might land on me if I stayed still long enough. In those woods, I discovered a way to a peaceful place -physically and spiritually.
I imagined then, disappearing into the wild and staying there. My copy of Euell Gibbons Stalking the Wild Asparagus, the original bible of foraging and eating from the wild, was dog-eared. Once I treated my Fifth Grade classmates at PS 95 to a meal of Dandelions — roots and little flower buds drenched in butter. That seemed to be the key to the memorable meals from that book: butter. And sugar too. Another favorite were blossoms of the Black Locust tree – dipped in batter, drenched in OJ and rolled in sugar. Fritters of dough and sugar with a green stem in the middle. But the perfume of the blossom was intoxicating and somehow, that translated to taste as well.
Decades later in a Connecticut city on my .24 acre of nature, with no stream or wood, I narrow my focus to my green patch (also a little shabby, I admit) and find the same joy. Although the hum of traffic is always audible and houses surround me just beyond the hedge, my garden, the bird feeder and observed moments just outside this window nurture me and I remember the kid I was. I knew then, the way to serenity. And now, I get to just go ‘out’.
Birds and bugs weave across the sky, skirting the patchwork of green and golden field grass. Yellow butterflies – Monarchs? – float by, a Hummingbird buzzes past my ear. A Crow caws from somewhere in the forest and a pair of Wrens creep upside down along the branches of the willow tree beside me. A frantic Robin flies back and forth, filling the gaping beaks of her babies parked right outside the door we go in and out – as annoying as that may be for Robin-mama, she must feel safe from predators. With every breeze, the leaves of a stand of Aspens across the field shimmers like confetti.
It rained for much of yesterday and today, but this afternoon the sun finally shines – the clouds are benign – puffs and strokes across the vivid blue sky. The air is sweet with summer smells. In the field where I dare not venture for fear of ticks, is Queen Anne’s lace, Milkweed, Black Eyed Susan all lend splashes of color to the range of greens.
Just now, a shadow crossed the table where I sit. A Great Blue Heron swept by so close – it’s legs and neck weirdly postured as it positioned to land at the pond tucked into the wood below. So magnificent and commanding! I watch the shadows watching for more movement, wanting to see it lift off, to witness that wide flap of wings again.
It’s later and my friends have all gone out to a play. I opted to stay home for some rare solitude. After cleaning up the remnants of another delicious dinner, I’ve come back to face the field. The sound of a plane fades and then there is silence – but it is only momentary – an illusion really – there is plenty of noise. I hear the cracking of sticks, the evening complaint of a Robin, another bird song, I cannot identify, perhaps a Red Wing Blackbird. A rustle of leaves, the flutter of bird wings, the vibration of insects. The sounds are subtle but certainly there. From the pond just down the hill where I still look hopefully for the Great Blue Heron, I hear the odd belch of a bullfrog.
Out by a towering Pine tree about the distance of a block away (a city reference still works best for me), a deer is feeding, gently moving through the field. I know these creatures are common – even a nuisance – but to me, they still are marvelous. She passes gracefully back and forth across the mowed pathway, mostly she keeps her head down in the brush, busy munching, only occasionally popping up to twitch her ears, a beard of foliage hanging from her cud like a beard. Her nose looks like a chunk of sweet licorice.
Later still, I faced the field – now singing with nighttime insects – and watch the night draw in. I stared ahead at the now blurring shapes of trees, bushes, grasses, stones tumbling into the wood where darkness had already settled in. As the sky turned a blue to purple, the stars emerged, even as I watched, my neck cricked back, my face to the stars.
I miss this – nature at night – not so easily available in my busy neighborhood – not on this scale. I cannot even begin to capture my excitement – as if I have discovered a secret: what really goes on when we are closed into our homes, driven in by the mosquitoes, the draw of the light, and alas, our televisions. Standing at the edge of the meadow having been with it for hours now, I recalled this feeling, watching – no: being in nature, alone, until I feel one with the pulse of a wood or a meadow.
I remember, long ago as a young girl, a nature lover stuck in the city, memorizing animal tracks, matching the leaves of the trees to those in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, gathering dandelion roots and buds. Summers our family would go to a country spot and I remember exploring dirt roads on my bicycle. Often, I would stop where no one was in sight and stand leaning over my handlebars, mesmerized by a meadow a wood, the light, the dark. I still am.
Lovely, no? The house is incredible – full of nooks and crannies and open studios, and even a greenhouse with grapefruit, lemon and fig trees (!) neatly tucked into the steep hills of Litchfield County. One-on-one and together again around tables of food and drink, we decades-long friends have been catching up. Paula and I share a room and must force ourselves to shut up and turn off the light. So many years to catch up on and so many years to remember. Between gabbing session, we eat meals like this…
Tuesday Night Dinner – Veggie Lasagna and Salad
Wednesday morning, Fran, who lives nearby who was also a devoted former Mike Skop student, generously ran one of his Creativity Sessions – a great launch for our week. The 2 hour session included a bit of Zazen, Yoga, IChing and Notan collaging. I particularly enjoyed the meditation session – something I’ve wanted to start doing but have recently felt challenged by. What should I DO? Fran offered a very simple technique of simply counting your breath – 10 to inhale, 10 to exhale. Just that focus helped to quiet my mind. The silence, the peace, made it easy to find that space of serenity – surrounded by dear friends of like minds and intention all breathing together.
That seems to be the theme – this shared vocabulary we have, an understanding of something intangible that in our day-to-day existence, gets easily muddled. The word PORTAL keeps coming up in our conversations together – an image, a sense of what this time together, reflecting and creating — that seems perfect. And we laugh a lot.
Today is strangely cool and since it was sweltering when we packed our bags the other day, we are mostly underdressed, borrowing socks, layering sweaters. But now I will venture out cautiously (Lyme tick country) between the fields and through the woods for a good fix of nature while I’m at it. I’ve been marveling at the bounty of flowers and veggies that thrive un-assaulted by critters even though the gate is not fenced in – easy access for rabbits, ground hogs and other short guys. So much bounty around here, they can’t be bothered? I’m envious.
Mangos were on sale and how could I resist a whole case for less than $10?
Summer Fruit
My mango slicing technique stinks, but by the third fruit I was doing an adequate job of slicing the mango off the pit with skin still attached, criss-cross slicing the flesh attached to the skin, popping the skin inside out and deftly lobbing off nice chunks of fruit. I confess, I am still not very ‘deft’ but the resulting dish was delicious.
Black Bean and Mango Salad
A simple recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman: a can of rinsed black beans, a deftly sliced mango or two, scallions, mint, salt, pepper and a squeeze of lime juice. (Thank you, Kitchen Express.) I also made a lassi/smoothie with mango and mint with a batch of yoghurt that never quite turned solid enough (though it worked well for salad dressing) blended together with ice. Lovely.
I also snipped at the herb pots with my scissors and made this beverage with my clippings – a concoction of lemon verbena and lemon balm and mint, a good squeeze from the rest of that lime and a dollop of honey blended up with some ice.
A Jug of Garden to Drink
A lazy and spectacular summer day, savored here with the Sunday paper …
This morning’s walk with Tetley after yesterday’s monsoon-like storm, everything felt charged. Green stuff erupted everywhere – certainly the bittersweet that threatens to topple the trees along this wooded stretch of ignored land seems to have grown by feet overnight. The blue sky through the green canopy promises a lovely day.
Blue sky beyond the bittersweet.
A few years ago, I threw a few strawberry plants in the sloping patch beside the driveway just to get them out of my vegetable patch. Here they thrive and continue to multiply and after this storm, so did ripe strawberries. I had to bring Tet inside so I could use both hands to pick the good ones.
Strawberry Patch
In harvest-mode, I wandered around to the back of the house to see what else might have erupted into ripeness. Before yesterday’s soaker storm there had been days of sunshine and heat – just what a garden loves. Looks like a little salad might be possible. Certainly there’s arugala-a-plenty as you’ll see in the next image.
Baby lettuce mix.
Plenty of horseradish and a tomato plant holding it’s own between them. And mint hovers in the background ready to strangle everything.
Tomato tucked between wild arugala (it just keeps coming back – a good bite to it – yum) and horseradish.
Unfortunately, my beloved Peonies took a beating yesterday and I’m not sure I’ll even be able to salvage another bouquet. Is it ridiculous to say that the incredible bank of Peonies is one of my favorite things about this little patch of property? They’ve been here forever and were also beloved by the old woman who I bought the house from in 1997. Their heady perfume evokes all that is sweet about summer as well as the melancholy of passing too quickly. Ah well. Seize the day … and the flowers, while they blossom.
Battered Peonies
The weekend weather report looks good for planting – if I could only decide where to set these Zinnia and Cleomes so they don’t get eaten by the ravenous groundhogs. I guess the not-yet-eaten lettuce patch bodes well, I may tuck them in there.
Waiting for a home.
The Roses blossomed over night and after the storm, have taken a dramatically desperate pose, don’t you think? I really like Roses although they are a bit prissy. Give me a giant, scratchy Sunflower any day over these posies. But then again, I appreciate their hidden toughness – they are deceptive with those treacherous thorns! And I love their scent. I do make it a point to always stop and smell the roses – much to my daughter’s embarrassment. In any case, these need to be tied up. (!)
Roses striking a tragic pose.
Around the side of the house I check on the Blueberries. This is the first year I’ve seen so many berries. These bushes are smack under a Mulberry tree that grows like a weed. The birds will be swarming in a few more weeks, to get the fruit of the tree and maybe they’ll miss these little guys waiting to ripen. Bird netting is on the to-do list.
Blueberries not yet blue.
As is mowing the lawn, weeding, weeding, weeding. And the hedge is crazy-high again.
Behind the house.
And, looking at this photo, plenty of cleaning up to do. Time to clean up the furniture and get ready for outdoor feasting. In the pots, I confess, I thought I was planting Dahlia bulbs I’d carefully saved from last autumn — but I think they’re Gladiolus. Again, not my favorite flower — rather funereal, don’t you think? I’m thinking I’d rather not be wasting those pots on them – better to pick up a few herbs or plant some of the Zinnias in there … work, work, work!
Homemade yogurt and granola with just picked strawberries – and aspargus! (not for breakfast though.)
I seem to be experiencing vicarious ‘senioritus’ as my daughter counts down the days until graduation and mostly moves on cruise-control through school. Certainly she’s savoring social events more than the study ones. These last weeks are full of concerts and award ceremonies to mark the end of her public school career.
Busy, busy. This is a reason I give myself for my recent writing hiatus.
Also, Spring clean-up is overwhelming around here as we do so little autumn maintenance. Last year’s leaves have rotted nicely under the hedges and in the corner of the driveway and can now be raked right into the vegetable garden. (We are good environmentalists thanks to our laziness.) Hedges need clipping, vegetables – planting.
The list goes on. There’s so much to do!
Of course, these excuses for not writing are complete bullshit. So what’s my problem? I beat myself up with doubt: any writing-mojo I ever had is just gone, I’m a fraud – I can’t write! But rationally, I know it’s simply a lack of discipline.
I’ve been goofing off.
When it comes to being creative, it’s rarely a bolt of inspiration that gets me working, it’s simply sticking to a routine. A time and place in my daily schedule when I sit my ass in this chair in front of this screen – and very importantly: stay off the internet!
Still, life happens and I allow these excuses, to cut myself some slack. I remembered a silly philosophical discussion from my days as an art student — if a piece by Michelangelo and a dog were both in the middle of the road about to get hit and you only had time to save one, which would you save? Of course, we agreed that we’d save the dog, choose the life over art.
And then there’s this one, ravaged by chomping insects, weather, time. I find them beautiful – for me, they capture the way Summer’s has slipped away this year, slowly blurring like a watercolor into Fall. Recent weeks of high temperatures, crystalline skies, exquisitely drawing out the sweetness of last days.
