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Category: time

Simple Gift

Simple Gift

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One of the simple gifts, a gift that doesn’t always seem like a gift but sometimes a drudgery, is waking up every morning. The weekend wake-ups are best, of course, unforced and un-alarmed as they are. But even the weekday ones, rushed and bolt-upright, are proof we wake to live another day.

A good thing? It doesn’t always seem that way. But mornings are the exception even when there’s general gloominess afoot. There is something about a morning, and especially this crystalline one I’m experiencing right now, that makes me glad to be alive.

I’m not going to analyze this too much — or second-guess myself for being a soppy optimist.

I’m just going to enjoy it.

(Morning light in the garden, late June. Alas, the coneflowers aren’t looking this good now.) 

An Aquarian Exposition

An Aquarian Exposition

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It was three days of peace and music, revolutionary for some, a peak experience. It was to my generation what the beginning or end of World War II was to my parents. A seminal moment. That by which others are measured.

In the last few days I’ve read about Woodstock, watched a documentary, listened to the voices of those who were there, learned much about it that I didn’t know.

I’m struck by several points, which many people may already have learned and processed, but which feel fresh to me this morning.

It was almost completely noncommercial. Due to a last-minute change of venue, organizers realized they only had time to complete the stage or the fencing — and they chose the stage. They declared Woodstock a free concert early on. There was almost no merchandise for sale at the concert, which means the value it retains comes primarily from the music (and the documentary film released the next year) and the experience itself.

It was by young adults, for young adults, and it happened in an era when young adults had far more autonomy and freedom than they do now. It seemed like fully half of the concert-goers I heard on this morning’s C-SPAN call-in show were 16 or 17 at the time. “Your parents let you go by yourself?” the announcer asked, aghast. Of course!

Most of all, I’m struck by the seemingly impossible fact that it happened 50 years ago. And that is what ultimately unites the baby boomer generation with all that have come before. Time passes, bodies age — but spirits stay (at least we hope) forever young.

(Poster image courtesy Wikipedia)

Second-Hand Rain

Second-Hand Rain

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An early walk this morning into a moist and muggy landscape, breathing steam — or what felt like it.

There were puddles beside the road and the leaves were gleaming from last night’s dousing. We’ve been humid for days, but rain-fed humidity is different somehow, less oppressive, cleaner.

It wasn’t until the end of the stroll that I saw the second-hand rain. A brisk breeze was stirring the high branches of the oaks and sending down a spray of drops that caught the sun and shone there. It was last night’s precipitation recycled beautifully in the morning light. I walked through it as if through an illuminated mist.

It was a beautiful way to start the day. But now I’m dashing inside from moment to moment trying to dodge the second-hand rain … which is landing lightly on my computer keyboard as I try to write this post.

Weekend’s End

Weekend’s End

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Usually I celebrate the beginning of the weekend. Tonight I celebrate the end.

Well, maybe not celebrate, but savor.  Because I don’t want it to end. I want it to continue.

It was well-balanced: There was time with family and friends, time to read and write, walk and stretch, mow and weed, cook and clean.

What more do I want?

More of the above.  That’s all.

Gains and Losses

Gains and Losses

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Over the weekend I started reading about the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, which we will celebrate next month. One of the tributes was in Parade, which bills itself “the most widely read magazine in America.”

I couldn’t help but notice how thin this most widely read magazine is. And this got me thinking about what we have lost in the 50 years since humans first stepped foot on the moon — in particular the rich print culture that has been slowly dying during the last two (three?) of those decades.

I’m a print girl from way back, and though I quite happily ply my trade in a mostly-web way these days, I miss the heft and gravitas of ink on paper. I miss the smell of it and the feel of it, the weight of it in my hands.

I suppose you could draw a line from rocket technology to the waning of print. After all, the information age was in part launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). But that’s not where I’m going with this.

I’m merely musing that our technological gains come with quality-of-life losses. And I don’t want us to forget about them.

(A small printing press, from an exhibit at the Museum of the Written Word in May 2013.) 

Long Twilights

Long Twilights

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I read in the newspaper today that we are not only in a period of long days and short nights but also in a period of long twilights, which occur around the summer solstice.

I learned in this article that there is something called “astronomical twilight,” which only ends when the last glint of light leaves the sky. Last night that was 10:33 p.m. And this morning the light was back at it by 3:43 a.m.

Most of us can’t discern such minute shadings of gray. But they are there. And they are longer now than at any other time of year.

Fresh Starts

Fresh Starts

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The rain moved out overnight and left behind a bright breezy morning. As the wind blows you can see the underside of the leaves, and that creates an even more varied palette of green. I finished a big work project yesterday and am catching my breath from that. It feels like something new is beginning.

I like to think about all the little fresh starts we are given in a lifetime. Of course, there are the big ones: new schools, new jobs, new loves. And then the really big ones, births and deaths. But in between there are countless others: new weeks or weekends, visiting a friend we haven’t seen in years, taking a trip and returning from one, finishing a book that sets the mind a spinning.

These little beginnings are the freshets of regular existence, burblings-up from the wellspring of grace that is there all along but is often forgotten.

Buds, Blooms and Petals

Buds, Blooms and Petals

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The climbing roses reached their peak yesterday. I snapped photos of them from every angle, and Claire took photos with her new phone camera, too.

I tried to drink in their beauty as I scrubbed the porch table and chairs, as I removed the green film from the outside of the flower pots.

I tried to enjoy them during dinner with the storm that would be their undoing already making itself felt in the heavy air and ominous clouds.

I think I was successful, in as much as we humans every fully are. To savor the moment, the perfection of the bud and bloom, knowing full well the pile of petals that will follow — that about sums it up, doesn’t it?

Begin the Day

Begin the Day

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May is unfolding slowly here, with cool nights and days that stay firmly in the 70s. I think that’s about to change soon, so I’m enjoying this cool morning and the bird song I hear as I write this post.

The trees have fully leafed out and the annuals I’ve planted are taking root. In the front yard, the breakout roses have snuck up on me again. (They’re not as full and healthy as the roses here … I wish … but given the shade in which they struggle, at least they’re still alive.) In fact, all is green and growing here, especially the weeds!

Inside, clocks are ticking, Copper is napping (after our walk at 7) and I’m grabbing a few quiet moments of what promises to be a busy one.

Thinking of all the possibilities …

It’s a good way to begin the day.

Decades of Home

Decades of Home

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Last night, I arrived home from my short trip to visit Drew out West. I couldn’t help but think that 30 years earlier to the day (impossible to fathom!), I stepped off another plane with baby Suzanne in my arms as we began our new life in Virginia. Tom had arrived early to meet the moving truck while Suzanne and I snuck in a quick visit to Kentucky, so he picked us up at the airport and drove us to our new home.

It was a beautiful spring evening when we arrived at Fort Lee Street, a time of the day I know now (from hanging out with photographers) is called “the golden hour.” And I still remember that light, how soft it was, how full of promise.

Though the trees were shorter then, the neighborhood looked established, lived in. Kids had a game of touch football going in the yard across the street. There were two little girls next door and another one from down the street. I looked at the throng, thought of the playmates and babysitting potential, and smiled.

The next morning, Tom woke up and went in for his first day of work (which means he’s celebrating a work anniversary today, though he doesn’t make a big deal of it).

All this is to say that our roots in this clay soil go deep. They weren’t supposed to … but they did —and still do.