Naked Driveway

Naked Driveway

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It seldom happens around here — in fact, I can’t quite remember another time when it has — so I had to snap a photo. The event: an empty driveway without an empty house. 

With one car in the shop, another on indefinite loan and the third (wonder of wonders!) actually parked n the garage … it stands to reason that the driveway would be empty. 

And yet, an empty driveway is terra incognita. What is this vast expanse, warped and worn? What is this house devoid of parked vehicles? 

Most of all, what is this emptiness as I back out of the garage on my way to an appointment? I paused, as I always do, calibrating how much I’d have to swerve to avoid the car that’s always parked west of the dogwood. But that car wasn’t there. My way was clear. It was a naked driveway. 

Zoom Memorial

Zoom Memorial

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Over the weekend a friend and neighbor was memorialized over Zoom. My initial skepticism at this 2020 version of a final send-off melted away in the first few moments when a devoted son — one of five — opened the call, his voice slightly husky from the task at hand. 

There were photo montages of his father as a young man, a proud dad, a world traveler, a loving husband. Each son spoke in his own way, one from his father’s garage. And though each had a different mode of expression, in the end, the portrait became clear. 

Here was a family grieving but also celebrating a life well-lived. Here was as much life and music as could be crammed into 60 minutes of screen time. And in a strange way, the screen amplified the presence, made it at once more intimate and expansive. 

I imagine Zoom memorial services are as many and varied as the people they honor. The fact that this one was so touching may have nothing to do with Zoom and everything to do with the man himself. But I’m not ruling out the nature of the event, the fact it came into our living rooms and kitchens, where, without diluting the enormity of the loss, it softened and transformed the sadness. 

Solstice Miracle!

Solstice Miracle!

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This morning while meditating we were urged to think of our body as a receptacle for a warm, golden, spacious light. Let this light flow from above the head down into each toe, intoned the narrator, let it flow up the legs to the knees, filling the stomach, the chest, the throat, the head and, from there, each finger and through the arms up to the shoulders. 

I’m still a beginner at all of this. I try to visualize this light, which looks a little like melted butterscotch. I try to think of my body as a receptacle, which means thinking of it as empty. 

A funny notion, this, to think of oneself as empty rather than full. It dawned on me today that the very notion of emptiness is in itself liberating. That means that all of the worries and to-do lists clogging up my brain are actually not there after all. 

It’s a Solstice miracle!  

Writing Cards: 2020

Writing Cards: 2020

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It’s been a busy weekend so far, full of baking, shopping, wrapping … and writing cards. I started penning these on Friday night, which spilled over to yesterday and today, too. The reason: I’m writing more on each card. 

I was pondering this yesterday, as I scribbled messages on the back of each photo greeting (which is a vertical card this year), telling myself that if I kept up this pace I would never finish. 

But it makes sense: It’s been a long hard year, a year of isolation from friends and family. So of course, writing notes to friends and family should take precedence over any notion of timeliness! 

Luckily, this philosophy suits the general pace of mail delivery, which is just north of glacial. And who cares about that, either? 

The cards will all arrive, eventually. The last-minute packages will, too. 

White Stuff

White Stuff

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I just peeked at the weather forecast to see what Christmas might have in store and learned that snow showers are predicted for the morning of the 25th. While I doubt this will hold up, we’ve had more snow on the ground this week than in the last two years, 

This morning I awoke to a coating of fresh flakes on yesterday’s hardened ice crust. There’s just enough of the white stuff to flock the holly and dust the deck. And since it’s only 28 degrees outside right now, it might last.

It will be a strange Christmas; that much we know. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was a white one, too?

(I took this photo during Snowmaggedon … not today!)

Door-to-Door

Door-to-Door

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The boxes come in and the boxes go out. In this very different holiday season, I never know what I’ll find when I open the door. A large box or a small envelope. A package that arrives seemingly in the middle of the night — another that arrives during a snow and sleet storm. A box of oranges or a carton of long-awaited gifts — ones I’m giving others that still have to be mailed to distant destinations.

News reports tell of an overwhelmed post office. And no wonder! I feel like they might be overwhelmed just with our stuff alone. 

I’m not a comfortable online shopper. I’d rather see and touch the items I buy before making the purchase. But these days we have little choice. Even before the pandemic, brick-and-mortar stores had begun to limit their selections, to offer to order things for you from their store. 

It’s a more distant and less friendly world we inhabit now, to be sure. I’m hoping that the boxes I send release the warmth I feel when packing them. 

The Ninth

The Ninth

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I hadn’t heard it in a while, and I caught only fragments on my drive to and from the post office last week. But there it was, the syncopated rhythm of the second movement on the way there and, on the way back, the first strains of the fourth movement.

Today is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and he will be well-represented on the radio —just as he would have been thundering through the concert halls, if those were open. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a way to hear his Ninth Symphony today, too.

But I doubt it will compare with last week’s performance. After arriving home, I rushed out for a walk, headphones in, classical station blaring, so that I could move through space as that sublime music moved through my brain. 

There was the first “Freude!” “Joy!” The soloists’ voices entwined and melodious, the pulsing timpani and the chorus filling my head with sound. And in that way, the ordinary walk became a celebration of life.

Light-Seeking

Light-Seeking

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I feel like a winter plant, straining to soak up all the rays I can. I find the sunniest corner of the house, an upstairs bedroom perfectly positioned for the low winter star, and sit right where the rays hit the wall, propping myself up with pillows.

And speaking of plants, I’ve brought two of them up to this second-floor room. Like me they are leaning outward, just shy of contorting themselves, to soak up as much of the good stuff as possible. 

At nighttime, this room is illuminated, too. Turns out, the most brightly decorated cluster of houses in the neighborhood is best seen from this vantage point.  

To be here in the daytime is to be warmed; to be here after dark is to be comforted. 

Rejoice!

Rejoice!

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Yesterday was Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, when the message shifts from one of “beware and prepare” to “rejoice and prepare.” 

I love both Advent messages. For that matter, I love Advent. It’s a season of anticipation — and isn’t anticipating an event usually always better than the event itself? 

More than two decades ago, I happened to read Kathleen Norris’s book The Cloister Walk during Advent. It was a busy time for me as a writer and a parent, and when I’d collapse in bed each night I’d savor a chapter or two of this fine volume and be transported into the silence of the cloister.

The image I have of Advent is one of cold stone and plainsong, of middle-of-the-night awakenings for prayer and devotion. Though Norris spent time in a monastery in Minnesota, it was the old churches of Europe that came to mind as I visualized her progress through the liturgical year. The long centuries of hope condensed into an annual calendar. 

By the reckonings of that calendar, we have already begun a new year. 

The Mirror and the Light

The Mirror and the Light

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I just finished reading The Mirror and the Light, the 750-page conclusion of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant three-part reimagining of the life of Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal of England and Henry VIII’s right-hand man … until he wasn’t. 

In the final pages, Cromwell prepares for his execution. He ponders heaven and hell, thinks often of his father, Walter, a blacksmith and a drunk who beat his son and propelled him out from Putney into a life he could not have imagined from his beginnings, a life of service and, more than most, of influencing history. 

Still, when Cromwell confronts his end, he shudders and he trembles, he sees ghosts. He also realizes that life will go on without him, as it will, of course, for us all:

It occurs to him that when he is dead, other people will be getting on with their day; it will be dinner time or nearly, there will be a bubbling of pottages, the clatter of ladles, the swift scoop of meat from spit to platter; a thousand dogs will stir from sleep and wag their tails, napkins will be unfurled and twitched over the shoulder, fingers will be dipped in rosewater, bread broken. And when the crumbs are swept away, the pewter piled for scouring, his body will be broken meat, and the executioner will clean the blade.