Attention Deficit

Attention Deficit

Comments 0 Comment

We interrupt our normal blogging schedule to bring you … summer!

All other post ideas disappeared from my brain this morning as I stepped out into the humid morning, already beading up the outside of the glass before 8 a.m. Yes, it will be almost 100 today, and I finally turned on the air-conditioning. But it’s time.

So I left the house early, walked quickly and found myself striding on a paved path through a meadow, tall grasses waving, not a breeze to stir them except the one I made in passing.

Later, almost home, I pushed through more tall grasses, daisies, Virginia creeper, weeds with minds of their own. The low grass was wet from the morning dew. The climbing roses have climbed another half foot. The day lilies are ready to pop.

How hard it is to sit still on a day like this. One wants to always be moving, pulling weeds, airing linens, scrubbing the sink. But sit I must. So I compromise with a rocking chair. Today, I’ll rock and write.

The days are long, the attention span is short.

On Top of Tap

On Top of Tap

Comments 1 comment

For months I’ve felt lost at tap class. The steps have been complicated and I’ve been slow to learn them. “The thing is,” I’ve admitted to my teacher, Candy, “I tend to think of a foot as a foot — not a toe, ball and heel.”

“Oh, that’s not good for tap,” Candy said.

For some reason though, I was on last night. I did back-ups and push-backs and even mastered a bit of the not-so-aptly named Happy Warmup.

I can explain my sudden improvement. This was the last class for several weeks. Our annual break is coming up. My feet obviously knew this. They were putting on a show, the final volley of fireworks, throwing it all up in the air before taking a well-earned rest.

Solace

Solace

Comments 2 comments

Last evening Copper and I ran down Folkstone Drive, reversed course at Blue Robin Court and returned via the woods trail. The path was still damp from last week’s rains, and I was glad I wore my old tennis shoes.

It didn’t take long for the woods to work its magic, for my shoulders to drop and my breathing to slow, for my pace to adjust to a non-asphalt stride. I thought about the woods of my childhood, building forts, feeling vaguely disobedient, straying too far, staying too long.

I thought about how long the natural world has brought me comfort, a lifetime of solace in the out-of-doors.

It was as if I had always been walking, always been inhaling the fragrance of smooth, clay-packed soil and marshy creek water. The aromas had been closer to my nose then, since my nose had been closer to the ground. But if I inhaled deeply enough, I could smell them still.

Daisies!

Daisies!

Comments 0 Comment

The daisy has all the simplicity of summer, and all the cheerfulness, too.

Daisies lined the roadsides of my drive to Kentucky last weekend. They clustered and nodded. They brightened and bobbed.

They softened the shaggy limestone cliffs of that part of the world, proof of the soil’s richness, a mantle for the ground, a bright penny for its thoughts.

“Long Live the King”

“Long Live the King”

Comments 0 Comment

A quick trip to Kentucky last weekend plopped me down squarely in horse country on the big day. I watched American Pharoah clinch the Triple Crown only an hour away from the racetrack where he won the Derby.

There was a certain inevitability about the win, not just the odds and the sportscasters’ predictions but the three-year-old leading the entire race, his second-only-to-Secretariat pace, his supple gallop, his champion’s heart.

Only a few minutes before the race, the televised coverage took what I considered an unusual but  heartening turn. It showed a printing press whirring out a newspaper and speculated on what tomorrow’s headline would be.

Was I imagining this? A print newspaper? A headline? Not a click, a tweet or a post?

So yesterday, before I left Lexington, I picked up the newspaper. The Lexington Herald Leader‘s headline, which I regret I did not photograph, was “Long Live the King.” The Washington Post‘s, which I regret I could not photograph better, was “American History.”

American History in more ways than one.

Ninety-Three Percent

Ninety-Three Percent

Comments 0 Comment

Just back from a walk in the mist, the air filled with moisture. Good for the skin, bad for the hair (I’ve given up this week) and, when one is out in it, good for the soul.

How can this be?  It’s the first week of June, a time when blossoms should be bursting from the branch, a time of blue skies and not yet broiling temperatures. This year a week of steady rain and heavy mist, of sodden soil and fallen petals.

Look carefully at the air and you can see the droplets there, a drizzle so fine it surprises itself.

I originally titled this post “Ninety-Nine Percent,” because I couldn’t imagine how air could hold more moisture than it’s holding today. But I checked the weather and found that it’s ninety-three.

Six percent more? No way.

June Channeling April

June Channeling April

Comments 0 Comment

It is June channeling April. Rain is pounding the roof, bouncing off the deck, making those musical gutter sounds it does when it means business.  It is weighing down the bamboo and darkening the deck.

The plants love it, so do people who prefer their summers on the cool side.

But for those of us who like our summers hazy, hot and humid, this weather seems out of place, to say the least. Where is the whirring fan, the glass of iced tea with almost all of its ice melted?

About three days away, that’s all. And so, since there is little to do about it, I’ll put on my tennis shoes and raincoat and float away into the day.

Relic

Relic

Comments 0 Comment

We used to search for glasses, keys and phone numbers. Now we also search for passwords.  And yesterday my password search took me here, to the most undigital of places, my old Rolodex, where I used to keep a card with those pesky open sesames.

I never found the card, but I did spend a few minutes flipping through the Rolodex. It’s dusty and neglected, poor thing. I haven’t touched it for months, haven’t used it for years. But oh, the memories it holds, the connections it made possible, the worlds it opened up.

There are editors’ phone numbers, the contact information of long-forgotten sources, strings of numbers I once knew as well as my own. Each card tells a story. There’s that infant sleep expert who took to calling me at all hours, including when I was in labor with my first child! There’s a phone number for the Population Reference Bureau, which I just Googled to find a ticking world population clock (7, 718, 240, 013 — I mean 014, 015, 016 …). 

Before we swiped and tapped, we paged through and wore out. Most of these cards are bent and softened from frequent touching, tangible proof that they were used and treasured.

No one I know uses a Rolodex anymore. Now our contacts are scattered on various media, social and personal. Are we more connected now than we were then? The funny thing is, I don’t think we are.

First Draft

First Draft

Comments 0 Comment

Thinking of yesterday’s title, “First Walk,” and of the difficulty of pinning down the precise rush of feeling from Sunday’s stroll.

What helped was scribbling a few phrases in my journal as soon as I came in. Those crabbed words led me back to the feelings of that walk. They were the rushed but essential first draft.

It’s the perennial problem, letting the words flow enough in the beginning to get you (more or less) where you want to go. Care too little about the final destination and you’ll muddle yourself from the start. Care too much and you won’t be able to put one syllable in front of the other.

Word processing has made the first draft a rare document indeed. How difficult it is to push forward without using the delete key; to hold in mind the perfect image while valuing the imperfect one that materializes in its place.

In so many ways, a first draft is more precious than the final draft it makes possible: rare, ephemeral, a product of struggle, a product of doubt.

First Walk

First Walk

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday, the walk came first. I strolled out into the morning, the first day of my new year, and felt a sort of awe.

The headphones, they would remain in my hand. There were birds to listen to, morning music free for the taking. There was a bird that seemed to be saying “Judy, Judy, Judy,” a poor imitation of Cary Grant. There were crickets in the woods, chirping as if it were still night.

And then there were sights that made sounds unnecessary: banked clouds that seemed lit from inside, a wind stirring the high oak branches. Most of all there was a hush to the morning, a holding of breath.

I felt a sort of wonder at this new day, at the sheer gift of existence, of being alive. Beyond people and expectations. Part of the natural world for which we surely were made.