Heeeere’s Johnny!

Heeeere’s Johnny!

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I stayed up late last night watching Johnny Carson. Tom and I laughed in front of the set as my parents had so many years ago. I remember hearing them from my little bedroom upstairs. Dad would pop popcorn and open a Pepsi; the Tonight Show was a grownup party I wasn’t invited to.

But there would be plenty of time to watch Carson — when I was in high school; during college summers, when I came in from my 3-11 p.m. waitress shift; when I was single and living on my own; and (less so) after I married and had kids. Johnny’s last show was in 1992. Our middle daughter was not quite one; our oldest was three. I slept whenever I had a chance — including through the last Tonight Show. This is something I’ve been sorry about through the years, so when I heard there would be a documentary about Carson on last night, I made a point to tune in.

There they all were — Ed McMahon, Doc Severensin, Johnny in his natty suits  — all of them young, so young. There was Johnny bursting through the curtain, fiddling with his tie, swinging his imaginary golf club. There he was running from a baby cheetah and jumping into Ed’s arms, wearing a turban as Carmak, deadpanning after a guest’s wacky comment, saying things he would surely be called sexist for now. Johnny worked a flubbed joke better than anyone in the business.

It seemed like most everyone watched Carson, liberal and conservative, gay and straight.  Carson has been off the air for 20 years — and the world has become a more brittle, more divided and less funny  place. Don’t you wish we could all stay up late again watching Johnny?

Photo: dvdtalk.com

Rain in Isolation

Rain in Isolation

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One aspect of living here that I’ve never minded is our sunny climate.  I don’t know the statistics, but the D.C. area is the brightest place I’ve ever lived. Which means I appreciate the rainy days when they come.

Today’s patter sounds like the rain in white noise machines. It has the same rhythm and pitch, the same levels of splatter. It is, then, a model spring shower. Made to order for the annuals I just settled in the ground yesterday.

I enjoy today’s rain only because it is the exception not the rule, though. There are places in this world I could never live because rain is the rule, not the exception. I’m thinking of Ireland.

Here is Heinrich Boll in his slender 1967 volume “Irish Journal,” writing about the weather of the country to which he says he is “too attached”:

“The rain here is absolute, magnificent, and frightening. To call this rain bad weather is as inappropriate as to call scorching sunshine fine weather. You can call this rain bad weather, but it is not. It is simply weather. …”

Rain in isolation does not drain the spirit. It excuses one from outside labors. It opens up the book, turns the page, settles the pen in the hand. Sometimes it even inspires.

Through a Glass

Through a Glass

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If eyes are windows to the soul, then windows are eyes to the world. It is through them that we see what goes on beyond the house and family.  If they are old, scratched, unable to open smoothly; if their vapor lock is broken — what will we then make of the world?

Probably much the same as if they were crystal clear, in all truth. After all, we aren’t hermits hibernating in this house. We leave and return to it every day. Our view of the outside isn’t limited by what we see from the inside.

And yet, as I look out a pair of brand new windows, the world is new born. The recent arrivals slide up and down in their casements. They are so clear and unsullied that they are invisible.  May’s green grass and leaves explode outside them.

For years we have been silting up and clouding over, but the transformation has been so subtle and gradual that we haven’t noticed. Now that the old windows are out and the news ones in the scales are off. We no longer see through a glass darkly.

Street Life

Street Life

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A few hours in Annapolis last Sunday. A day of clouds and sun and midshipmen and women in their dress whites. Checking out the boats in Ego Alley, browsing for prints at Creative Impressions, having dinner at Chick and Ruth’s Delly, stopping for scoops at the Annapolis Ice Cream Company.

On the way home, I peer in the window of a real estate office. It’s a stretch, I know, but it’s fun to fantasize. A morning like this one: cool and brisk, a walk along the water, picking up the paper in a coffee shop, strolling home past people and places we would come to know. A touristy town, I know. But underneath it all still a hometown, a small town where all sorts of people jostle together.

Most of all: not the suburbs.

Eye Candy

Eye Candy

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I chose the walk because of what I would see. Not the usual scenery. So I turned left on Third Street, cut across through the courts complex, past the Canadian Embassy and on to a series of plazas. It was the flip side of the Mall, the downtown side of the National Archives, heading toward the White House but never actually there.

There were fountains and chairs and people. Many had just picked up their lunch. They carried fast food bags or pizza boxes or salad containers. (Is there a hierarchy here, I wondered.)

Rain was in the forecast, and people scurried as if at any moment they would have to run. All around me was bustle and commerce and, most of all, new sights to see. I moved through it all quickly, wanting to look and not to think.

It was eye candy, I told myself.  When the landscape grows predictable, vary the route.

What Passes for Darkness

What Passes for Darkness

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Sometimes a path presents itself, opens as if by magic. It was almost 7:30 when I started walking. A cloudy night, the light fading fast. As I entered the dark passage, my eyes picked up the brighter green of a nearby field. A fox ran toward it, auburn and plump. It posed in a green corner, then skulked into a bordering thicket.

I followed the curved walkway, my feet moving fast on the downward slope. I asked the woods to hold me up, the path to carry me. I asked only movement, and in that movement absorption. If that is all I ask, I reason, the walk will give it to me.

And that is what happened. The path, so close yet unfamiliar, the day almost over, the slight sense of danger as I walk in the woods in what passes for darkness in this well-lit suburban place.

After Dinner

After Dinner

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An evening walk. A neighbor and her granddaughter. The girl’s mother was a girl herself when we moved in. We’ve lived here long enough for the child to become the parent. The little girl wore pink, and she whirled herself around in a circle as she swung a stick over her head. The days they are long for her, and the years, they stretch ahead endlessly.

Meanwhile, the grandmother plants annuals around a tree. She talks softly to the little girl. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, only see their heads bowed together in conversation. I inhale a faint whiff of cigar smoke, whether from the girl’s grandfather or from recalling my own, I couldn’t tell you.

It was that kind of evening, a brilliant sunset in the making, a bank of clouds that looked like a wave eddying around a breakwater, the air still and heavy. The past and present packed together in an after-dinner walk, the most portentous kind of stroll, spilling over with the motions of the day and the dying of the light. The fullness that passes for joy, that is deeper than joy.

Iris

Iris

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The iris are blooming. We have just a few, only these small Siberian ones, slender, weighted with their own blossoms, bending slightly with the fullness of the season. We bought these from a local lady whose garden was once the envy of the neighborhood but who has since passed away and whose yard is but a shadow of its former self.

But bulbs from the “Iris Lady” are planted all over the mid-Atlantic and even farther afield. Her garden grows not just in Oak Hill, Virginia, but in countless climes and soils. It has done what flowers and people are supposed to do, has given itself to others, has held its head high.

Out of the Nest

Out of the Nest

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This little guy and his (her?) brother (sister?) were clinging to the inside of our garage door yesterday. I knew there was a nest in the rafters, had seen the busy mother flying in and out the window, had heard occasional chirps and peeps, but had no idea it was time for the little ones to leave the nest. Why does this surprise me?  By now I know how quickly youngsters grow up.

I tiptoed into the garage with my camera, poised for the perfect shot, and … the camera was out of charge. The mama bird was extremely unhappy, too. She chirped an alarm and bounced toward me to do battle. So I came back inside, plugged in the camera and waited.

A couple hours later,  this baby was still out and his mama was away. I inched closer, talking softly. The birdie opened one eye and looked at me without fear. I’m not much of a birder, but I think he’s a wee robin. A delicate mess of feathers and beak, he’s like a human baby with a head much bigger than the rest of him. Soon he will leave the garage, as he’s already left the nest. His body and tail will lengthen, his plumage will smooth out. He will be able to fly 36 miles an hour and up to 200 miles a day. He will sing and he will mate. He will take his place in the world.

I was privileged to see him in the beginning.

Editor’s Note: The little wee bird was actually a wren. 
Morning in the Garden

Morning in the Garden

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Morning in the garden. Holly blossoms in the air. I move some ferns and plant some impatiens. As I plunge my hands into the worked soil, I feel connected to the day. Birds sing from their green perches.

I measure the warmth, the freedom of being outside in shirt sleeves before 8 a.m. It’s a good way to live.

My neighbor, Nancy, reads my mind: “I love mornings in the garden, don’t you?” She’s on her daily  walk. I will soon be on mine, too.