Highs and Lows

Highs and Lows

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A few weeks ago, the Arkansas River, which now flows placidly less than a quarter-mile from my hotel, rose and raged and overflowed its banks.

I was trying to imagine the flooding last night as I strolled along the river walk. There was a large hose, some matted greenery, but nothing else to give away the inundation that was. Instead, there was sultry air, graceful bridges, crepe myrtle in full bloom. 
It made me think about the changeability of the natural world, its highs and lows, of what Emily Dickinson described when she said:  “Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem.”
Up in the Air

Up in the Air

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Sooner or later, usually sooner, the modern-day traveler runs into a delay,  cancellation or other snafu. This time is was my turn. The flight that was supposed to get me to Arkansas Sunday night with time to check in, have a good night’s sleep and then slide easily in the work week ….  was cancelled.

Instead, I went back home Sunday night, left my bag checked at the airport and made my way to the local office yesterday morning … in a monsoon. Inches of rain an hour, wind blowing it sideways, puddles so deep they covered my shoes.

Even a quick dash across the street from the “tunnel” to the door of my building left me drenched to the skin … and of course I was wearing the clothes, shoes and socks I’d be traveling in until almost midnight last night.

No matter. The clothes dried, the new flights (both of them, to Chicago and to Little Rock) took off on time ,and my suitcase was waking for me, having apparently spent Monday in Little Rock.

Well, at least one of us did!

West of the Mississippi

West of the Mississippi

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I’ll spend most of this week in Arkansas, a place that was briefly my home decades ago and is the official headquarters of my employer. It’s a work trip through and through, but it’s also a change of scene, and will put me somewhere I enjoy being … west of the Mississippi.

Crossing the Big Muddy has always been a milestone in the long drives west. The river doesn’t evenly bisect the continent, but the spirit of the country changes on the west side of the river. It loosens its shoulders, drawls a little more. It’s friendlier, too.

I’m hoping this touch of the west will rub off on me a little while I’m there. Will slow me down and loosen my shoulders, too.

Blossoms in the Dark

Blossoms in the Dark

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In honor of the photo I received too late yesterday to include in my Friday post … a salute to Thursday’s fireworks display, one of the longest and most spectacular of recent memory.

Reports from those who went downtown to see the pyrotechnics were that the smoke obscured most of the show.

But from our perch in Arlington’s Cherrydale neighborhood we had a wonderful window on the exploding lights and colors … on the blossoms in the dark.

(Photo: Claire Cassidy) 

Home with Humidity

Home with Humidity

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These days the air is so moist it seems to hold itself up, a scaffolding of water droplets. The slow walks I take with Copper give us both time to take in the humidity, he to pull and tug his way through it, me to wander through it as if in a dream.

Humidity is no fun when you have to mow in it, or hoe in it. Or for that matter, when there’s no respite from it. But when you’re strolling through it leisurely it can be good company.

“Home is where the humidity is,” read the T-shirt of a friend I saw last night.

To which I say, you’re darn right it’s home. Humidity: bring it on.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

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On this Independence Day I imagine the sweep of this wide nation: its mountains and prairies, its red rock canyons and natural bridges, its cities and towns, filled this day with crisp flags flying.

I think of the cool stone walls along Pisgah Pike outside Lexington and the lilacs that hung heavy along Martins Pond Road in Groton. There were orchards there, too, and I would wander through them with Suzanne in a baby carrier on my back. She was just coming alive to the world.

I think of stepping out of Pennsylvania Station onto Seventh Avenue in Manhattan or standing on the brow of Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas or snacking on wild blueberries outside Bar Harbor, Maine. And as I imagine all of this, I hear the cicadas singing and the crows cawing in my own backyard.

What holds these images in my mind, what makes them dear, are the people I love who have been with me on this journey. But beyond them is the beauty of a land loved and cared for — and the more than 327 million people who live in it.

It is a nation founded on liberty, a nation we celebrate today.

Happy Fourth!

Ah, Nuts!

Ah, Nuts!

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Today I finished off the last few pistachios from a giant bag that’s been hanging around for weeks. I enjoyed every last morsel, and found myself thinking about the first time I ate one — and crunched into the whole thing, shell and all.

Pistachios were the expensive nut I could never afford with my allowance, you see. When someone bought them for me as a treat, I couldn’t believe my good luck. But having only admired them and never tried them … I didn’t know the shells weren’t edible.

The early confusion hasn’t stopped me from loving them, though. And they are instructive, an early lesson in how things aren’t always what they appear to be.

Embracing the Puritans?

Embracing the Puritans?

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I’m finishing up Marilynne Robinson’s book What Are We Doing Here? Throughout her career, Robinson has been fascinated by erasures and omissions, and in an essay titled “Our Public Conversation: How America Talks About Itself,” she asks us to rethink our Puritan heritage, its spirit of reformation, its genius for education and institution building.

Puritans get a bad rap, Robinson says, in so many words. Some of their greatest achievements have been forgotten, including a code called the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) that anticipates the Bill of Rights. The abolition movement flowered in colleges founded by Puritans. There is much to appreciate about them. But they are not hip.

This latter point is my own opinion, and an extrapolation, but I make it because Robinson opens her essay by mentioning an article about herself in which she is described as “bioengineered to personify unhipness.”

She laughs off the characterization — figuring that it’s because she’s in her 70s, a Calvinist and lives in Iowa — but she takes seriously the fact that Americans are inclined to “find their way to some sheltering consensus that will tell them what to wear, what to eat, what to read, how to vote, what to think.”

Anyone watching the Democratic debates last week would be hard pressed to disagree with her.

(Picture of the Westminster Assembly by John Rogers Herbert, courtesy Wikipedia)

Butterfly Garden

Butterfly Garden

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Morning in the backyard, monarchs light on the coneflowers. I only capture one each in these photos but there have been pairs and trios and even more.

Meanwhile, in another section of the garden, a female cardinal splashes in the bird bath, wiggles her little body around, then jumps out.

A small plane and a loud lawnmower provide the background noise to this seasonal tableau. It’s July, summer’s in full swing.

Voiceless

Voiceless

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The hoarseness I had last week finally caught up with me this weekend when I lost my voice entirely. It was not altogether unwelcome. It gave me an opportunity to drop out, sleep in, and read — to float along in another world for a few hours.

As I enter Day 2 with minimal voice power, I find myself noticing all the things I can’t do: sing hymns at church, order sliced turkey at the deli counter, instruct a rowdy doggie to behave.

If my voice is still rocky tomorrow I will have to navigate the workplace in silence, too.

All of which makes me think about our voice — our aural calling card, that which announces us to the world. As unique as we are, and sometimes as vulnerable, too.