Bottom Lines
For many years my professional goals were closely tied to the wages I needed to earn. I made a living from writing articles, editing a magazine, telling the stories of an organization.
Now I’m glimpsing a different way of being, one where pen and keyboard are no longer expected to bring home the bacon.
Both ways are worthy. Both ways work. They’re just very, very different, that’s all.
(To be continued…)
The Zucchini
The world is in turmoil. Winter is right around the corner. Time for some positivity, which comes today in the form of a vegetable.
I’ve mourned the trees as they’ve fallen. Now to celebrate the sunniness that has come in their wake.
There’s no better proof of this than the plump zucchini that managed to thrive in the back garden. In fact, it became so large that the only palatable way to eat it will be grated in bread or pancakes.
Still, this is a milestone. I’m not yet rushing out to plant a vegetable garden, but I’ll begin to think of the backyard not as a shady place … but as a sunny one.
Toddler Time
To see the world through the eyes of a toddler — what riches that would bring! A kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, smells and textures. A riot of color. What a boon for a writer, to experience such raw sensation.
The next best thing? Perhaps to follow a toddler around. A lively experience, of course, but difficult to document.
To capture a toddler in motion is like photographing a hummingbird. Too much movement to contain. Only when there’s deep engagement can you move in and snap a shot. Luckily, that happened yesterday.
Every Verse
“Second verse, same as the first,” goes a line from an old Herman’s Hermits song.
Two verses used to be the limit for the processional and recessional hymns at my church. But there’s a new music director in town, an organist no less, and he plays all four verses of every entering and leaving song.
Is it my imagination, or is there a certain restlessness as we plunge into verse four of the entrance hymn, a narrowly avoided temptation to glance at the watch?
As for the recessional, people are voting with their feet. This morning, about half the congregation left before the last notes of “The Church’s One Foundation” sounded and the postlude began, organ chords thundering down from on high.
This is how we’re supposed to leave the sanctuary, I thought, as I made my way to the holy water font and out the door — caught up in a marvelous swell of sound.
(This organ is from San Bartolome Church, Seville, Spain, not my church. I wish!)
Walking Bass
When I need ballast and rhythm, when I require that steady beat, there is usually one composer I turn to — J.S. Bach. I cue up the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 because it has the peppy piccolo trumpet I once heard can pop the blood vessels of its players, so high are its notes, so forcefully must one blow to make them sound.
But also because, like its confreres, No. 2 has a steady walking bass line, the solid quarter notes perfect for pacing one’s self, for staying in line, for moving along.
Although now associated with rock or jazz, the walking bass line has long-ago origins. Some theorists consider Bach its early master. And while this is important for musicians to know, it’s equally essential for walkers. We need a beat that will pulse all the way down into our metatarsal bones.
Although the trumpet notes of Bach’s Brandenburg No. 2 dance around on high, underneath them is the dependable meter of the walking bass. It’s a winning combination: the flourishes of the former, the steadiness of the latter. Together, they keep me going.
(Can’t imagine walking very far with this bass!)
Shoulder Seasons
What is it about shoulder seasons? Are spring and fall truly more poetic or do they just seem that way?
“Margaret are you grieving/Over Goldengrove unleaving?” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poem “Spring and Fall to a Young Child.”
Autumn and spring are times of great beauty, times when it’s easier to notice the underpinnings of things: the uncoiling of a fern, the thinning of leaves.
I wonder, too, if spring and fall aren’t times of greater yearning, when we see outside our small worlds to what lies beyond.
Author Susan Cain would call these seasons bittersweet, “a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world.”
Good Words
Today is the birthday of Eleanor Roosevelt, mother, teacher, writer, wife, first lady and activist, whose 2020 biography was unputdownable.
One of Eleanor’s many noteworthy traits was her capacity for growth. She was not afraid to plunge in, assess, take action, and, when necessary, reverse course. She was ahead of her time.
Perhaps this quotation helps explain some of her courage: “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you,” she said, “if you realized how seldom they do.”
Good words to take into the day.
(Writing about Eleanor gives me an excuse to feature a Washington, D.C. photo.)
Deer Management
“Shoo! Get out! What are you doing back here?”
At first the deer looked at me blankly, as if they had no idea what the fuss was about, why I might be waving my arms at them as they strolled casually through the backyard.
Eventually they got the idea, though, and I counted them as they raced along the fence line and leapt into the common land.
One, two, three, four, five. Their white tails waved as they vaulted themselves into the air.
A small herd, but a herd just the same.
(This sign is not in my backyard, but it did come to mind this morning.)
A Reckoning
The furnace came on this morning. I smelled the heat before I felt it, slightly acrid but warm and comforting, too. The aroma of thick bathrobes and steaming kettles and stepping inside from a cold rain.
We could have held out longer, but why? It’s inevitable. The cold is coming. Toughing it out won’t keep it away.
As befits a day of forced air heat, clouds dominate, and the stillness they bring is welcome. They promise seclusion and concentration and a long writing session. They promise cold, too.