It is the first morning of Wood Thrush song, so loud and close I don’t recognize it at first. The flute-like whistles sound shrieky up close, but up close you can also hear the quiet churrs and burbles that follow the whistles. It is stunning. I sit on the porch and start to write but I can’t write while that is going on.
As I write that I can’t write, the song stops and then takes up again much farther off, as if the thrush is respecting my territory. Continue reading
At my infrequent appointments, my hairdresser always asks me what I am doing the next weekend. This standard conversational gambit is usually fruitful for her, I’m sure. But I seldom have any plans to report. Last week, however, I did. “My husband and I are going birding,” I said.
“What’s that?” she said. Continue reading
I spent Mother’s Day afternoon at a funeral home. The visit stretched into several hours because of two things. The person who had passed away was well known and much loved and so the reception line to offer condolences to his widow was long and moved slowly. And then, after my husband and I had greeted the widow, we had extended conversations with the deceased’s father, mother, and aunt. We were, in fact, at the visitation because of the parents and aunt, who have been dear to us for a long time. Continue reading
I’m looking at green so intense it almost hurts the eyes. It is so green you can hear it. The frog and toad chorus has begun today. Spring woods after rainstorm is exactly the time and place to send out mating calls. I could sit here all day, taking it in.
Continue reading
I love a cool spring. It slows things down. On this last day of April it is 50 degrees so some daffodils are still blooming, their radial petals wrinkling and going transparent. I forced myself out for a walk yesterday, two-and-a half miles, collecting two grocery bags of roadside trash along the way. It was a beautiful, sunny day.
I don’t know why I had to force myself to do this, but I did. Even on the loveliest day I can be overcome by inertia and just want to stay inside and read, shove food into my face, and grow old. There is no excuse for this. It is just a fact. Continue reading
I am alone in the house and nothing is pressing so why do I find it hard to meditate? I barely made it to 15 minutes before I gave up.
The 20-minute mark has always been my measure of an adequate meditation (I do centering prayer). Recently I have tried stretching it by a minute or two, setting my timer accordingly, but instead of meditating gradually longer I am often stopping earlier. Even when I feel the need to meditate I can’t maintain it. My mind shoots off somewhere or I am overcome with a huge impatience, like now. Continue reading
There are grandmother hormones. They have not been named yet but one day, for sure, we will know that there are actual chemical connections that make our arms itch to hold newborns and drive us to the floor to play pretend with preschoolers when we ourselves are well past childbearing age. Continue reading
I don’t eat cake. Even in the dream I had yesterday, in which a whole banquet of desserts was offered to me, my thought was, “I don’t eat cake.” Nevertheless, in the dream, I headed straight for the cake. A rainbow ice cream cake and a chocolate cake. I chose both. I woke up before I was able to taste them. Continue reading
A few days ago I started writing something more about the word I have adopted for the year: “Joy.” I didn’t publish it because I wasn’t satisfied. It was too picky and subtle, not quite joyful. I was saying that big Joy is really rare and you have to learn to get along with the little joys, like daffodils for $2.50 a bunch in the supermarket when real spring is still waiting to come out from under the snow and mud.
But right about then I was hit by a big Joy. Continue reading
Antoine, Alfie, and a tame orphan civet
A year ago, in the middle of a winter as vicious and snowy as this one, my friend Dawn and I made an agreement. She would retire from her job at the end of December 2014, and, as soon after that as possible, we would travel together to somewhere out of the country. Somewhere warm.
This trip would be no simple jaunt, however, because Dawn has multiple sclerosis. Continue reading
the practical mystic 