Labor Day...Change in the Whether

Sunday morning, quiet, except for the rattle of locusts in the trees behind the house, and a sharp-toned exchange from two little brown wren telling tales on one another.  I am on the porch enjoying the peace of no intrusion, the house all mine for a change.

Up before six this morning, as I am every weekend morning, just in time to hear the night carer's report and wish her a good rest and day, I opened the door to the inclinations of fall.  The purples bloom, there are small pops of scarlet on the ficus trees (or, its more romantic name, weeping fig), and this week, three scarlet spider lilies suddenly shot up straight and tall in the bulb patch out front.

The droopy hellebores and my two sturdy heuchera have picked up their heads from the moody heat of August, no doubt sniffing the change of season.  The morning's cool draws me outside to wander the yard, pull the last brave weeds in the driveway, pick up the night's rain of twigs, plant the dark burgundy pinella I rooted from a broken piece of Nancy's voluptuous yard (I'm hunting for more broken bits, now that I know they root so well), and stand chatting with neighbors of the same inclinations.

Labor Day Monday is early this year, bringing with it seasonal changes not confined to the garden.

My neighbor Anna has gone to the beach for a few months after a trying summer.  Like ours, hers has been riddled with surprises she could well have done without.  I know the months away will be restful for them, and am a bit envious, but I miss knowing she is only a back door away.

My uncle, still asleep, is coming to grips with a turn in which his memory suddenly took another sharp leap backward, layering place and time and event over one another into a difficult-to-decode set of presumptions.  This predicated by nothing, probably, but a temporary change in caregiver and an evening's jaunt into town I took myself for a nice change of pace.  It was good to get out into a social world for a few hours, cheer among people I don't see very often, take a long walk back home...all thanks to Joseph for sitting in for me, even tired as he was after a day working in the yard.  Now my uncle's legs are refusing to hold him up properly, which confines his movements even more.  Time for a change in the caregiving schedule.

Change is hard, whatever good comes of it.  Alexander is beginning kindergarten, after a summer of anxiety about what that means.  A few weeks ago, he told me, "I want to stay five and keep going to playground school!"...that's what he used to call his preschool. Who can blame him?  Five is such an enchanting age, full of curiosity and sweetness and endeavor and soaking in of huge amounts of knowledge about the world, small as it might seem to us, large as it really is to him.  And playground school has its virtues, too.  What did you do today, I would ask him when I picked him up in the afternoons.  "Play," he would say, "just play and play!"  Sounds good to me.   Playing is the most creative thing you can do...ask any artist, any inventor in any field.  Play is inspiration's fertile ground...problem-solving's best arena.

But after a week, he likes his new school and is making new friends, one step toward handling the unwitting shifting about in his young life these days.

Change comes upon us in sometimes simple, not to say simplistic, ways, too.  Last week, I rearranged the furniture on the porch.  Change for change's sake?  you ask.  Not really.  Remember that disgruntlement I mentioned a blog-post ago?  Lately I have been trying to work myself out of it, and small adjustments, I find, are helping me more than big ones.

So why pick on the porch, in which everyone is comfortable, and indeed clusters, taking in the breezes, the sense of being outside, the sense of community where people gather or share what's going on on the street, in our lives.  The pride of my house! (I am, as my husband used to accuse me, house proud...I admit it.)

Well, that's it, to tell the truth.  Because while everyone gravitates to it, I seem to be left without a seat.  I like working on the porch, reading on the porch, writing on the porch, just sitting as the morning opens itself or the evening shades lower.  And while I'm glad everyone else finds that peace there, too, I decided that I needed my own corner, unqualified, uncontested.  I discovered, moreover, that it took little effort to make one...just switching two tables and one chair did the trick. I also discovered that to make it work I'd have to convince people, as tactfully as possible, that the sitting area on the right was the better place for them.  (You didn't think change would work that simply, did you?)

Fall is heating up with more social events, and I am finding ways to make myself part of them again.  A night out with friends, celebrating whatever the occasion, a weekend away to visit a friend (celebrating, too).  I pounced on a chance to host the weekly neighborhood gathering last week, when the young couple down the block who generously began it were on vacation in a cooler climate.  Everyone thanked me for it, but frankly the gesture was pure self-service:  having the pot-luck at my house meant I could finally be there, too.  Even a phone call to a friend...making the time to catch up without the ever-expected "oops!  better run..."  It took two long phone calls, with an "oops" in between, to connect with my college friend Kathy, but we did it.  Opportunities for reconnection are like fall itself...a great breath of change.

A corner of my own seems to be the theme of those little adjustments I find myself making, and feeling better for it:  a corner of space, a corner of time, a corner of my psyche not ringing with other voices.  A chance to be out in the world to wander on my own.

I have to say here that I miss having someone to wander with on the spur of the moment, when getting in the car and riding somewhere, anywhere meant throwing off the blues, frustration, the edge of a quarrel, the uneasiness of the mind cooped up for too long.  Fall has that kind of freedom, no matter what circumstances we are in, and, this year, I most appreciate its gifts.

Happy Labor Day...may your life be for this day a picnic.

One thing after another...

Good morning, though it's nearly the end of it, and I'm just getting started with my upstairs life, which includes art in my small, rather crowded studio (which can at a moment's notice also be a guest room), and this blog on my more spacious but equally crowded desk at the other end of the hall.

Right now I am listening to my house being power-washed, a service my kind neighbor arranged for me, and if ever there were an analogy for the power-washing our psyches get when crises strip us of all our built-up, and often moldy, defenses, here it is.  This is what attempts at clean living will do to you.

 Going in to the studio this morning, I found water leaking through the windowsill, just missing by inches the new cards I had laid out, this week's work.  Going out to warn the worker away from windowsills and doors, I saw that the woodwork outside the kitchen door, where he had forcefully cleaned, would be in need of paint.  The shed, too, once encrusted with green moss, would obviously  need, besides trim paint, some new boards above and below the double doors.

 I sigh.  Just when you think you have things in hand, the next task drags behind it a whole string of new jobs, some unexpected, some hidden by denial, that clink in your brain like those noisy cans attached to wedding getaway cars.  Instead of Congratulations! the dangling sign reads Repair alert! 

Not that some of the cleaned-off world doesn't suggest the good side...art to emulate, patterns to meditate on, a new view that brings a smaller, but more contented sigh.

Still, you reach for your list of odd-jobbers, carpenters, painters, and add those newly uncovered tasks to the already long list of Things That Must Be Fixed.  Like the water discovered yesterday, after weeks of very hard rains, pooling under the house.  Like the dishwasher, which now won't work well with the recent sink re- (and re-) plumbing (admittedly not a big deal:  I hardly use it anyway).  Like the cat (not mine) or perhaps a raccoon or a nest of squirrels or some other house-devil hiding under the porch, making a smelly nest where I can't reach.  "Just get a roll of that screening from Lowe's and wire it in," says my son. Right.

The thing is, the house is only one thing in need of repair after repair...not because I've ignored it, but because it's always something.  It's a rule of life that feeling settled and in control of a moment is only a warning sign to be on the look-out for What's Next. This year, particularly, What's Next has been in plentiful supply, those miles of tin cans rattling along like a hurricane (all right, not a hurricane...perhaps a small squall?). 

I ought to be used to sudden changes, taking them in stride with experienced aplomb, but lately I feel growing in me a surge of disgruntlement sometimes hard to contain.  Like the house under its power-wash, my peeling nerves and leaking filters are showing me what repairs need to be done to my psyche...or at least to my sense of balance about what are, after all, pretty petty things, put in proper perspective.

And at the same time there are so many good things swirling in the air...the new symphony schedule arriving in the mail, along with an invitation to a good friend's milestone birthday party, and my nephew's wedding a few months' hence. A trip to Greensboro with Cathy next week, and, if care comes through, to Asheville for a weekend to see Anne. There are cards to make for November's show, and all the events in between.  Kathy Steinsberger will be back from France in a month, and she promises we'll work on a new book I have in mind.  Maybe I'll even get back to the shore for a real vacation.

Which list do you think I'd rather work on?

Yes, ok, somewhere in there will be that trip to Lowe's for screening and a truckload of sand for under the house, etc.  Maybe on the way back from the dentist's.

As I noted earlier, this is what attempts at clean living will do to you:  longer lists, thicker defenses.  Back to the studio.

A Place at the Table for Peace

Setting a Place at the Table for Peace
Rachel '18

Good morning.  For nearly a month (if you include pondering, pickling, and perambulating about it), I have been working on a new piece.  It's evolved slowly, as do most of the larger art I do, but the slowness gives me both leisure and pleasure to pursue (and accept and appreciate) the visions that create themselves.

Art isn't about explaining, so I won't.  I will give you a little tour, however.  The base is linen, cut and edged to be a table runner, on which five places are set, each with a place card centered on a mat.  Each place card is a book, with a collaged cover, a handmade paper title page, and a printed poem inside which the image inspires. 

So that you can see at least some detail...cover, title page, poem...I've photographed each book.  I'd love to know, as always, what comes to your mind, too.

Book i:  Inspiration

Watch for the moment

when wings open and soar

above prisons above

calumny and misdirection

(the winds howl, the winter's bite)

above the hiss

of fiery tongues who blister

what we hold from harm

Remember where we

come from

the pure spontaneous

AH!

Rise!

to the occasion

to compassion

to care

Book ii:  Song

An old melody floats

above our drone

we reach into the notes

and entwine one another

in harmony

Here is music to encompass

the music of the sphere

the symphony of time

of far thoughts riding

a beam that carries across

land and sensibility

Sing!

our voices carry more than words

Book iii: Insight

There is dark

there is light

not only on the first morn

but every breath

which ignites

(and extinguishes)

life

We draw awake in

the dawn each

soul brings

What brilliance!

and see in its glass who

we are

Book iv: Hope

My sister sees it first

the silver bird aloft

above wisps

of something

we have yet to name

Yes! we call

Yes!

Oh carry us

wise spirit

to 

peace

Book v:  Generation

Our seed springs forth, sets

birds flying crawling things

afoot swimmers awash

Leaves sprout at our touch

fall not in peril

but protect us from

the grief of dying unclaimed

Is the earth

remembers our names

nurture

our return...listen

we grow again

______________________________________________________

(Cathy Burnham, bless her, came with her more professional eye and equipment 

to photograph the whole piece at the top of this page...many thanks!)

Lunch on a pretty summer day

After an hour's relaxing on the porch, my uncle is having a light lunch here in the dining room...half an egg-and-spinach sandwich and a salad of strawberries on butter lettuce, cranberry juice and maybe a cookie afterwards.  It's one of those early afternoons when the sun is flickering equally lightly through the trees all around us, its buoyancy peaceful, hopeful.  Goodness knows we could use all of those spirits these days.  I've already told Julie, our caregiver, who has just come in, that today needs forthwith to be low-impact.

It's been quite busy this morning...the nurse coming at 10 while he was only half awake, breakfast punctuated with questions like "do you know where we are?" and "how are you feeling?" (hard to answer any time!); the physical therapist drove in right after that, a wonderful woman named Valerie who keeps him moving gently and firmly and with whom he has the most patience of all those who cross his path bothering him about something or other; then a caregiver who, though not new to his care, is unfamiliar.

This week, after a three-day stay in the hospital geriatrics clinic that severely tested his mental status (not to mention his tolerance, of which he has very little for such intervention, anyway) there have been more people in and out, night and day, than he can keep count of, much less put names and faces to.  Every one is concerned for his welfare, of course, but very old age is tired of concern...it simply wants to live out a routine, have a little company, take a shot at humor, fall asleep unimpeded in a chair or rocker, certainly not be bothered with what day it is.  I can sympathize.

Things will even out very soon, though, with more predictable, uncomplicated attention; it took me a day or two to iron out a feasible schedule of caregivers, but thanks to his previous illnesses, few as they have been, I've gathered a useful network to call on.

We're so lucky that we can give him that, that he can afford it.  We are not, as a country, set up to really care for people--the old, the young, the ill and distempered.  Always there is a sticky web of bureaucracy, a crude dismissal of the poor and soon-to-be-poor, to struggle through even for basic support.  Something as simple as the height of a bedside table, or as complicated as the prejudicial assumptions made to distinguish each medical necessity...all of them spell our irresponsibility for one another.  We don't, to put it bluntly, get it...even, amazingly, while we are living it ourselves.  And yet because of rules, regulations, and presumptions, and care facilities that seem to care more for themselves than for their inmates, conditions that can often be addressed simply and cleanly with a good dose of common sense, take on herculean proportions.  Unfortunately, common sense seems to be missing in huge doses.

Anyway, our newest chapter here at home is that, despite fortunate stability of care, each day now will be a different reality, evening out one way or another as the hours go by, certainly, but needing to be carefully negotiated each morning.  Unless one understands that continuously varying state of mind which is at work in the aged mind, it can be confusing, both for caregiver and cared-for.  We are grateful for the stability of environment that allows it plenty of room to wander safely, in place where, as the nurse today put it, there are plenty of clues to hook on to.

Lunch being finished now, it's well-deserved naptime for my uncle.  I'm off to the grocery to stock up on tomorrow's fare.  The young ones are coming to visit...quite a different energy in the house, and like the airy afternoon most welcome.

  

A Fourth

Independence day dawned brightly this morning, and with  the exception of a few clouds filtering through (maybe rain later today, we can always hope) brought heat and quiet to our street. 

We wish there were someone here to celebrate with us today, but it's only my uncle and me.  Though he is healing spectacularly well (the nurse and physical therapist shake their heads, amazed at the speed), he's not quite up for my niece's pool picnic with the rest of the family, and most of the neighbors seem to be out somewhere.  Still, I woke this morning in a mood to cook.  It's a holiday, after all, and holidays mean food...I don't feel justified in letting this one pass unnoticed at the table.  Especially one so purely centered on picnic.

Until last year, for him and my aunt, and before that for other family, the summer holidays...Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day...meant hamburgers and hot dogs foremost, one each, with trimmings like baked beans, corn, tomatoes and ice cream. This year he voted for a hamburger again, dropping the dog.   In case you are wondering, my uncle's recovery has made no dent in his appetite.   I'm not a meat-eater, but protein, everyone who knows insists, is what makes healing possible.  (Would that we could use so simple a remedy for the larger sphere on which we live.)  So he will have his burger.  Leading up to it, I've been working all morning at the half dozen or so dishes that spell the Fourth for us.

 Beginning with Summer Squash Casserole, the ultimate Southern covered dish, which was inspired by a yellow monster our helper Julie brought in yesterday from her landlady's garden.  Clearly it had lain unnoticed under its wide leaves for a month before somebody thought to pick it.  "I figured you'd know what to do with this," she laughed.  And I did.  I borrowed a recipe from that belle of Southern cooking, Paula Deen, and set to work seeding and slicing it.  All morning the smell of baked onion and Parmesan cheese permeated the house.  We won't miss the sour cream I forgot to throw in.

The next up was Zucchini Relish, which had been an experiment for our neighbor Steve's birthday drinks last weekend.  It was, I decided, good to have around any day.  Zucchini, the other summer squash, is on the table here all during the year...sauteed with a little onion, chopped raw in salad, folded into quiche, stuffed with herbed rice...but now the small, dark green ones are at their best.  This time I added to the relish some fresh peas, just for fun, a dose of lemon pepper, and some herbs.  Most of the work is dicing a lot of zucchini and a couple of shallots small enough, then watching carefully as they cook down over forty minutes or so.  Don't shudder!  The end result is worth the misgivings of sauteing such a delicate vegetable for so long...it caramelizes them to a rich sweetness, still shapely but spreadable.  With wheat or rice thins, it could be a whole meal on a hot day when you don't want anything else but to dip into something cool and slippery.

Hard-boiled eggs! Though I'm risking a whole tradition of picnic necessities by not deviling them, I'm just not in the mood today to fuss.  A little fresh parsley and lemon juice over the shelled halves is good enough.  My mother would tell you so, too.

Corn on the cob.  Tomato with basil.  I thought about combining them into a cold salad, but they are so much better whole and on their own.  I can taste the plain, unadorned kernels already. I wish Alexander were here...it's become his favorite just in time for summer bounty.

I was still deciding on whether today is too hot for baked beans, but those clouds sheltering our midday nudged me toward them.  I love baked beans.  They are good protein, too.  I got up from this blog post and baked some, with mustard and beer.

After that, a bowl of berries is just enough to sign off with.  We'll be set for the day, and probably a few days thereafter...don't be surprised if I call a few of you up to share leftovers.

_______________________________________________________________________

On this Fourth, may you enjoy not only fine fare and fanfare,
but hold close the freedoms we celebrate today, even in fragile times like these.

In the meantime

So much has happened in the month since I have written that I wonder where to begin, or indeed if to begin at all.

Our shore stay turned into a hospital stay and convalescence; my uncle, on his very first early morning there, mistook the stairwell for the bathroom door, and down he went, injuring pieces of his right side from head to foot.  The best laid plans of mice, men, and shore goers gang oft aglay, as a countryman of his once penned, mostly.  Thank goodness for the rescue of children, family, and friends who, scrapping their own vacations, took over nursing, watching, shopping, cooking, running errands while I braved the parking deck at the community hospital for a week and then, realizing that rehab centers were not suitable for nonagenarians (or vice versa), brought our invalid back to the ocean breezes and sunned deck to recuperate.

My college friend Pat wrote, Nothing like dear friends to hold your pieces together.  Yes.

We're home now, and still recovering slowly, wounds healing quickly, pain continuing to dog him.

There.  That's said and done.  What next?

Ah.  The gift of rain.  We came home to a dry, dry landscape...no rain but a drop or two the whole half month we were away.  My kind neighbor Anna and a caregiver took turns watering for us, but the yard greeted us sadly, especially my hydrangeas, which this year bloomed a spectacular pink, and were shrunken  until, two days later, the rain came, pitying, and drenched us for a whole day and night, and they revived.   It was a gift I was grateful for and said so, frequently.

So you see, there was quite a bit I could have written this past month.  About making assumptions.  About life changes.  About hopeful moments and jarring wakings.  About meeting challenges head-on.  About resilience and about rain.

Though blog inspirations floated to me from the wind and waves, alas, the internet connection was out, as it often is there.  Frankly, part of me saw that as a gift, too, though I was sorry to leave you all behind, verbally.

Instead, I put my thoughts as best I could into pictures; on the days when I could steal a walk, I took my camera to illustrate what the shore is about, even when catastrophe strikes.  (Indeed, it has stricken before, so we are practiced at it, and even so remain grateful to be ocean-side to heal us.)

 On the last day, we closed the umbrella against rain, welcome even there.

AT THE SHORE II