Light After Dinner

Light After Dinner

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Last night I sat on the deck after dinner watching the daylight drain away. The air was
full of moisture and I followed the bats as they darted through the air. They were invisible until they crossed a patch of still-blue sky. 
The wind picked up, moving
the tallest oak branches. They might be palms waving in a tropical
breeze, the fringed opening to an underwater cave, guardians of heaven.
As I sat there, the sky darkened and a faint star blinked
beyond the blue. Frogs sang and lightning bugs danced ever higher in the sky.
It was after 9 but I didn’t want to go inside. 
On nights like these it’s easy to believe that summer will never end, that it will always be light after dinner, that there will always be more time. None of it true, of course. But lovely to believe just the same. 
Gratitude

Gratitude

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Parents need children, I once wrote, because they help them remember what it was like to be coming alive to the world. As a parent to young adults, I will amend that slightly. Parents need children because they remind them what it was like to be … a young adult. And no matter how wondrous and exciting that can be, it makes me appreciate every creak in my middle-aged body.

What prompts this revelation? Having one daughter return from a four-day music festival, for one thing. Apparently it was difficult to sleep more than a few hours at a time there because the music blared all night. No shade, no quiet, no privacy. No thanks!

And then, from another daughter, a description of her Monday. A double shift at the restaurant: working lunch followed by a two-hour break when she ran and worked out at the gym followed by working dinner. Waitresses are on their feet constantly. I remember because I once was one.

So I head into Tuesday glad that I’m not 19 or 22 anymore. Takes some of the sting out of the day, doesn’t it?

(Photo: Claire Capehart)

Living Through Them

Living Through Them

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Studiously avoiding a Father’s Day post — or even a post Father’s Day post — too painful this year — I turn my attention to the natural world, to the deck, where (truth be told) a chunk of my natural world experience occurs. (Hey, I can’t be tramping through the woods all the time. A girl’s gotta work!)

This morning, as I start my en plein air office day, I watch the birds flit from feeder to perch and back again. Hummingbirds zoom to their nectar founts and attack them with fencing-like maneuvers. A young chickadee lands on the railing and hops his way to the feeder. A male cardinal splashes in the bird bath then flits off to the azalea bush.

What I notice is the constant motion, from perch to trough and back again. What seems an impossible distance to me — up fifty feet to the dead bough of a towering oak — is but a few wing beats to these creatures. They make living look easy. It’s good to live through them today.

Oh Say, Can You Sing?

Oh Say, Can You Sing?

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In honor of the two hundredth anniversary of the national anthem, choristers are converging on the National Mall to stage the largest sing-along ever of “The Star Spangled Banner.” The National Museum of American History, which is sponsoring the event, is encouraging would-be warblers to join Anthem for America parties across the country. If there isn’t a party near you, just tune in and sing along with the huge chorus at 4 o’clock today.

What an anthem we have! One of the most difficult to sing of any, with a wide-ranging melody and a high note at the end. A strange sort of anthem for a democracy, when you think about it. “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” is easier, though undeniably British. Or even “America the Beautiful,” though it has its share of high notes, too.

Also interesting, I ponder today on Flag Day, is the fact that our anthem asks questions rather than makes statements. And it’s written in second person. “Oh say, can you see?” These features make it more conversational than most. It’s a song that wonders more than it pronounces, that marvels more than it prescribes. And in those ways, it is endearing.

(Manuscript of Francis Scott Key’s lyrics to the National Anthem courtesy National Museum of American History.)

Chicken of the Woods

Chicken of the Woods

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When I spotted it a week ago, I thought it was a flower. So brilliant, so orange. What kind of flower, of course, I had no idea. But I’m an optimistic gardener, also a bit near-sighted, and from a distance it appeared that some brave unknown volunteer had settled down into the clay soil.

On closer inspection, of course, I learned the truth. Not a flower but a fungus. A flower of darkness. A decomposer. Beautiful at its business, thriving on wounded oaks.

A little research and I have the answer — laetiporus, chicken of the woods, so called because it is edible and tastes like … yes, chicken.

I’ll get my chicken from chicken, thank you very much. Beauty I’ll take wherever I can find it.

Moment in Time

Moment in Time

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A quick walk yesterday at lunch time. Just long enough to feel the pulse of the city and to muse about what often occurs to me on walks in crowded places: That we are all here together on this earth. Right now. That we are all sharing a moment in time: young and old, weak and strong, those who’ve just begun and those who are almost done.

Some of us are in love; some of us are in despair. And some of us (those would be the teenagers on family vacations) are bored out of our minds. But for this one moment, the distinctions are irrelevant. We all feel the warm sun on our faces. We are all equally alive.

I don’t want to get all mystical now, but lifetimes, after all, are composed of moments. Which is why dipping my toes into the waters of humanity almost never fails to comfort and inspire me. It certainly did yesterday.

It’s Back!

It’s Back!

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You forget what it’s like. The feeling of moving slowly through the atmosphere, pushing it aside, clouds of moisture.

You forget what it does to your hair. How all attempts at order and smoothness are in vain.

You forget how it warms and comforts you, this steam bath that we move through most summer days.  And the muggy nights, so full of ache and promise.

For the last weeks we’ve lived in a dream: cool nights, warm days, sweaters after the sun goes down. But something was missing.

The humidity is back. Summer is here.

Framed

Framed

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The other day I stepped out of my car at the library to return some books and for some reason I was overwhelmed by the blueness of the sky.  I don’t think I was imagining it. The sky really was bluer than usual. In fact, it was blotting out the green of the trees and the brown of the brick.

Why the library? Why then? I have no idea. It was a fine, low-humidity afternoon. Recent rains had cleaned the air. 

I hurried home, back to where I could put the sky in its place. This is how I view it from the deck, softened by trees and — at least when I snapped this shot — puffed up with clouds.

Intensely blue? Yes. But parceled, balanced — framed.

World That Was

World That Was

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I see them everywhere. They’re made of straw or cloth; they are jaunty or slouchy. Are men’s summer hats making a comeback? In my limited experience on the streets and in the conveyances of Washington, D.C., the answer would have to be yes.

The question is whether this trend is dermatologically or sartorially driven. Given the fraught nature of our times, I’d go with the former.

Whatever the explanation, I’m enjoying it. The other day on Metro, my seat mate removed his straw fedora and for an instant I was back in the dark, downtown church we sometimes attended with my grandfather when I was very young. There were hooks in those old wooden pews, little pincers perfect for playing with during Mass, and that’s where my grandfather would hang his hat.

Metro cars, of course, do not supply this amenity, so my seatmate simply held his awkwardly on his lap. I shifted in my seat, tried to give him and his hat as much room as possible. I thought about anachronisms like hat hooks and how they seem so fussy and antiquated in our streamlined days. And I thought about what the world was like when we had them.

Home Again

Home Again

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Tom returns today from three weeks in Africa. Though work took him there, he had time for a wonderful visit with Suzanne, including a stay in her village, Toura.

Traveling in Benin is not for the faint of heart, so I imagine the house will look pretty good to Tom — running water, electricity and one or two more sublime blue-sky days for deck-sitting.

But the place — this house, this neighborhood, these woods and fields — is looking better and better to me, too. Freed of school schedules and young children, it is no longer a nest but a refueling station. It’s a place for the girls — and their parents — to leave from and return to as we make our way (separately and together) in the wide world.

(Photo: Katie Esselburn)