Words, Whims & Whatnot

Aloft

11/12/2017

Since summer, my mom and I have been keeping an eye on a particular bird in the aviary at my dad's nursing home. We noticed it because it couldn't seem to fly. The bird—a finch—looked just like some of the others, so if it was a juvenile, it had been greatly surpassed by its siblings. This bird couldn't even hop into the food dish like the other birds did. Instead it ate the spilled food from the ground and spent its time cocking its head at all the other birds flitting about.

During my visits I'd often sit with my dad by the aviary and simply will the bird to fly. It was heartbreaking to see a creature so obviously excluded from its group, its tribe. To see so much confusion and longing in that little bird face.

Then, one day, the bird was able to flutter upwards a couple of feet.

A few weeks later, it managed to fly all the way to the top of the aviary.

Now the problem was the poor thing still couldn't land. While the others would effortlessly shift from branch to wire to wooden perch, our little guy would hover for a few seconds and then drop back down to the sawdust-covered floor of the aviary. Alone. Again.

But those days are over. On Saturday, I witnessed the bird land. It still couldn't manage the wires or branches, but several times I saw it flutter up to a safe spot in the corner, land precariously, and cling with all its might.

With any luck, by my next visit, the bird will be flying and swooping and landing with such ease that I won't be able to tell it apart from the others.

During that time when the bird wasn't flying or landing—those many weeks of watching a creature try and fail at something it was meant to do—I often had the feeling that if only this bird could join the others, all would be right in the world. The anger, hate, injustice, ineptness that has darkened our days, particularly this last year, would somehow dissipate.

When I did finally see the bird land, nothing like that happened, of course. I cheered the bird on and then went home to the usual alarming headlines in the news. The challenges in my own life were no different than they'd been the day before.

But that's okay. It was enough to step away from the aggregate blackness for a time and notice that good things, simple things, were still taking place all around me.

Some birds have to work at flying. I guess we do too.

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BLOOM, Glory Camp, & Pretty Mysteries

10/25/2017

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Dog Walk Discoveries (July and August, 2017)

I happened to walk by just when a ray of morning sun hit this sign.

And another optimistic message from beyond: Welcome to Glory Camp! Made me think of a song we sang at church camp when I was a kid. I've got a home in glory land that outshines the sun...Do Lord, O, Do Lord, O do remember me. (And if you get that song stuck in your head all day like I did, remember I'm just spreadin' the joy.)

I walked by this tent nearly every day for two weeks. A bigger, ordinary tent was across the yard. I couldn't get both into the picture, but this crooked little circus tent, way off to the side, always amused me.

I've been puzzling over this one. Is it supposed to look like a pig staring out the window? Or is it merely the back side of something else?

And a concrete lawn ornament that doubles as a sturdy political sign/dangerous thing for small children to climb on.

Ripped art on a utility box.

A fairy metropolis! (Mountain Lake)

I never did figure out where this
reflection was coming from.

Don't know what happened as I took this picture,
but in all likelihood this image is more interesting than the one I intended.

Dead vines, bright light.

Interesting texture...a little ominous, though, not?

Now that is an attention-seeking shadow.

And on a much smaller scale, so is this: a tiny leaf with a swan shadow.

A living tree that's mostly hollow at the base. (Crosby Farm Regional Park in St. Paul)

Another survivor here. (Fort Snelling State Park trail along the Minnesota River)

Such a pretty mystery...

I can't explain why I took this picture. Just something companionable about those tree trunks, I guess.

I feel like there should be a miniature horse beneath this dwarf maple tree.

What fairy tale is this?

Yes, I am strange enough to find beauty in a cracker covered in ants.
Just be glad I didn't share the video.

Maybe that Cheese Nip was a pattern, teaching ants about straight lines.

Always a good idea to end with flowers.

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The Wholeness in Us

8/22/2017

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Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that we do have an impact on other people, whether we realize it or not.

My dad, who has Alzheimer’s, moved into a nursing home in February 2015. It was a transition my family both dreaded and anticipated. Would he be all right without my mom’s constant, patient presence? Would he get along with the staff and other residents? It was sort of like sending a kid off to college—except, of course, that young people leave in order to create their lives. Old people leave in order to gently finish theirs.

The first couple of months were rough, but eventually we settled into a new routine. That routine included my dad’s roommate, Harry. Harry wasn’t a typical resident in the memory care unit. He was fully mobile. He could still read. He could carry on a conversation so well that you’d wonder why he was there—until he let it slip that he would be driving his truck back to the Twin Cities later that night. Harry seemed like a guy you’d find telling jokes to the gang over morning coffee at a small-town café, or maybe over beers at a local bar: blunt and a little gruff, but with a twinkle never too far from his eyes.

One day Mom and I were in Dad’s room, talking to Harry about his long career as a trucker and farmer. Dad piped up, “I haven’t grown up yet!” To which, quick as wink, Harry replied, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you won’t make it.”

My mom, especially, enjoyed Harry’s company. On my dad’s sleepy or uncommunicative days, Harry would make her visit more interesting. He spoke Low German, as my parents did. Low German (“Plattdeutsch”) is a funny, expressive language. I had no idea what their bantering meant, but it was clearly a treat for both of them.

More than a year went by.

Then one day Harry was gone. Just gone. He’d died in his sleep.

Mom and I went to his funeral. The service, at a local funeral home, was well attended by extended family, but it didn’t seem like anyone had a particular connection to him.

But Mom and I went to pay tribute to Harry because, no matter what the story of his past life, he’d added humor and grace to a poignant period in our lives. He had become part of our story.

A couple of years ago I gave a spontaneous hug to someone I didn’t know well, someone who was dealing with an intense, ongoing family crisis. It was a parent-to-parent moment, a “there but for the grace of God go I” moment.

Recently this person made a point of seeking me out and telling me that my impulsive hug had marked a turning point for him. He’d been in despair, looking for a sign that life wasn’t as bleak as it seemed. And then I showed up. I was the sign.

I was the sign even though, at the time, I was probably at the lowest point in my life. Divorce. Struggling kids. Career disappointments. The sense that I’d failed miserably at everything I’d ever cared about. I was utterly broken—and yet my brokenness didn’t matter. In spite of it, I had become part of someone else’s story.

This week marks the beginning of another year of service in Reading Corps. At training today, my program manager shared an essay by Rachel Naomi Remen. The essay explored the differences between helping, fixing, and serving. As I came to these lines, I teared up a little:

When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve.…The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life.

So, yes, a crusty 92-year-old with dementia can become the bright spot in our day, and a middle-aged woman scraping along at the bottom of life can provide a foothold for someone who needs just that.

Whenever we share of ourselves authentically and without reservation, we are serving. We are whole.

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Moving Off the Farm: A Look Back

8/1/2017

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Our apps have a life of their own, don't they? Recently Google Pictures began sending me notifications: X number of years ago on this day...

I was a bit startled to see this picture come up on my phone, out of the blue:

Creepy! But let me explain.

Five years ago my parents moved off their farm to a house in town (Mountain Lake). They moved in March, but the folks who would be renting the homestead weren't going to be arriving until August. So every week or two that summer, I drove from the Twin Cities to spend a few days helping them clean out the house and some of the outbuildings. It was a hot, dry, Sisyphean summer: Would we ever, ever reach the end of things to be packed or sorted or discarded? Would it ever, ever rain again?

The dolls in the above picture had been stored for years, maybe decades, in what we called the "chicken barn" (even though no chickens had lived there in my lifetime). Those dolls were my well-loved and well-worn childhood friends. My mom made clothes for them out of fabric left over from the clothes she made for me—in fact, the orange dress on the doll to the right came from the dress I wore on my first day of kindergarten.

The day we tackled the chicken barn was supposed to be very hot, so we got to work especially early. And when I discovered my long-lost dolls, I set them out to catch the sun's first rays. After being shut away in the darkness for so many years, they deserved a little time in the golden glow of a July sunrise.

Among those in my age group (early 50s), helping parents move is a common scenario--exhausting yet brimming with memories. So I won't stop with the dolls. Here are more photos from the summer of 2012. Maybe some of you will relate.

My "Have a Happy Day" wall hanging, made with burlap and felt, stood the test of time. (And so, might I add, did my mom!)

I'm pretty sure this cowboy-themed toy bin helped me learn my letters and numbers. And then there's KerPlunk, a canister of Tinker Toys, and a leather-stenciling kit that belonged to my brother.

Also in the chicken barn: the remains of my brother's purple-ribbon 4-H bug box. I think he went to the state fair with it. At one point it held a prized luna moth as well as a cecropia moth—true victories in the world of 4-H entomology.

Now for something pretty! This intricate tissue-paper flower was made by my grandmother, along with several others. I wish I knew the occasion.

Also from my grandparents: this set of pictures made with real bark and moss. As a kid, I found them fascinating.

These pictures are imbedded in my brain. The mountain one hung over the organ in the living room. The fruit one was in the dining room—but the troubling thing is, I had to really think to remember where it had been. And it's only been five years.

More pictures that had been around as long as I could remember. But by 2012 they'd been relegated to the basement, where my dad had made room for a computer desk.

I think he found them comforting as he wrestled with the unfathomable hydra that none of his experiences had prepared him for: the internet.

This work of "art" was my doing. I put this puzzle together during all the snow days we had when I was in seventh or eighth grade. That was the era of my maroon body suit. (For some reason that's what comes to mind when I think of working on this puzzle.)

My introduction to nonfiction.

A weed missed by the mower seized its chance to really show off.

Even a key can be a sensory memory...its smoothness and weight...
and the way you had to feel for just the right place to turn.

I remember spending the better part of a day packing up the pantry.
But what good old-fashioned farm pantry it was!

During one visit I worked into the night and then took a few pictures.
The lattice work cast an intricate shadow, and the picnic table seemed to float in midair.

The view from inside the breezeway, facing the yard light and granary.

A mama cat named Babe was happy for some company.

Headlights on corn...one of the eeriest images there'll ever be.

Hard to believe now, but as a kid I did undertake sewing projects now and then, mostly for 4-H (and always under the watchful eye of my mom). The tennis dress and the skirt I made from these patterns both ended up in my daughter's dress-up basket.

In high school I used this pattern to make a beautiful blue two-piece dress. The fabric was called qiana, a fact I've remembered all these years because it was one of those rare words in which the "q" doesn't need to be followed by a "u". (I'm quite bitter that "qiana" doesn't count in the official Scrabble dictionary.)

The pattern for my prom dress, senior year. It was like the dress on the right, long and sleeveless. Mine was a deep teal and I wore it with a thin gold belt.

The dust of a summer's work covered my Sorento.
A few sparse raindrops turned it into a canvas.

My daughter, then 15, came out with me sometimes and amused herself by taking pictures. This is one of my favorites. It's how I like to remember the farm: both dreamy and substantial, and always inviting you to get up off your feet.

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