Virginia

I am beginning to think I have left it too late. The writing life, I mean.

What if you went to Hawaii and fell down some stairs in Kauai and broke a rib just halfway into your trip?
You might pack yourself in ice that night, take some ibuprofen, and the next day climb back up those same stairs and get in the rental car and drive to Hannalei to see the view. Of course you probably would not know that your rib was broken just yet. But since you seemed to be breathing fine, and the pain was not THAT bad, you just might as well get on with it. Some would say you were "rolling with the punches."
And the next day you might take a river tour in Wailua to see the cave where so many destination weddings have been held. You might listen to the Hawaiian Wedding Song and thereby renew your wedding vows with your beloved of almost 43 years.

'If we sip the wine, we find dreams coming upon us out of the imminent night'  D.H. Lawrence

When Kate returned to the table, she found Cliff deep in thought over his drink. 'Penny,' she said.

'Penny?'

Something my kids used to say -- short for "penny for your thoughts.'"

'Ah. I don't think they're even worth a penny, frankly.  You okay?  You were gone quite awhile.'

'I was watching the tropical fish.  They don't look happy, to me.'

'They've got it made! Gourmet fish food and a clean tank -- what else could they want? No hunting to survive, no fear of predators! We all should be so lucky!'

'I'm not so sure about that.'

'What do you want to drink? I wasn't sure if you'd want more wine or something a little more exotic.'

'I'll stick with wine, thanks.  A dry chardonnay.'

'Alas, she who cannot see the bars of her own cage will find it difficult beyond measure to escape.'  anonymous

George had managed to use a tree branch to get himself upright.  Gillian pulled up as close as she could, set the handbrake, and jumped out to help him.  It took some maneuvering, but they got him into the passenger seat.  He looked like he was about to faint from the pain. She made three cuts to turn the car around, and finally got it headed back up towards the road.  She had no idea what they could do when they got back there, but at least they'd be closer to some kind of help. The engine cut out again on the steep rise.  She pulled on the emergency brake, and turned the key in the ignition.  It caught.  She eased out the clutch, giving it just enough gas to take hold in first gear.  They moved slowly up the grade. She knew he saw how close to panic she was.

It is in the details, the minutiae, that we discover and begin to understand another's life. So much meaning in such tiny things.  Purse dust, I call it.

And the first time I understood it was a day when I was full of resentment, frustration, anger, and grief.  An ordinary day, really, for so many. The day of moving a grandmother, an aunt, a dad, out of their home and into a safe place. A retirement place. A place that may or may not actually become a home, again, for them. A day of sadness, driven by hope. Pin pricks of hope that there might be new connections, less worry, less responsibility, more life.

No Digging for Worms         

Earthworms have their own business, and it is holy.
They are lacing through debris, making it clean.
If you see them when you are turning the earth to plant a bulb
or root out a weed, let them return to their dark home.

They bristle their way through their loamy world
 with tiny hairs all along their body, bringing air to the soil.

The mystery of their own breathing is in the slime that coats them. 

In the night, above the ground, under the moon, or under the stars, or under a thick blanket of cloud,

they find a mate.  Each worm is male and female, complete unto itself. But still they need a mate.

Regeneration is their holy business.  Turning and turning, they revive what has decayed, what is dead to us. 

Bits of holiday paper and glitter linger long after the holidays have packed themselves up (oh if only they really did that) and put themselves away in tidy boxes, hidden out of sight until we go looking for them again at the end of this new year.  The ornaments that we hung on trees, by chimneys, or around windows have left an imprint, even though they are not actually there.  That imprint is, of course, on our mind’s eye – that eye that sees so much more.  The mind’s eye still can see the wrapped packages, the fresh green tree, the tables set for guests, the lighted deer on the lawn nodding over that big weed that grew up suddenly, untouched by the greedy lawn mower.  The glow from the Hanukah candles still shimmers on the dining room wall, the vision -- the flavors -- of the Kwanzaa feast linger.

The headaches began when the dreams began. 

In the dreams, people would talk without pauses or inflection.  Sentences had no beginning, no end.  There were no commas, semi-colons, or colons.  No dashes – no question marks – no periods.  There were also no compound words – no “can’ts”, no “wont’s”, no possessives.

It made the dialogue sound like that of political pundits.  It was delivered rapidly, with urgency.  Almost with a despair that all the words would not come out fast enough, that the ideas needed to be emptied from the mind and poured out quickly or they would sour and turn on the speaker.

Figuring out how life works is hard.  It takes most of us all of our lives to make sense of it.  But there are some who are luckier than others.  There are some who are fortunate to start with a foundation of enough love, enough trust, enough of the basics that make life comfortable.  And that makes all the difference.

This foundation "layer" starts with parents who see children as people, right from the beginning--people with their own needs, their own desires, their own ways of being.  Parents who get that, give their children most of what they need to build good lives, right there, in the earliest years of their lives.  

I have been thinking about the layering of my own life.  And I realize that those of us who were born to "The Greatest Generation" were also born to face some of the greatest challenges. 

Connections.     

I have been thinking lately about how we make them, how we lose them, and what they mean to us.  Do we intentionally stop trying to make them -- or do they just wither away without much intentionality at all?  What did they mean to us when we had them?  How were they crafted, forged, proved, tested, and trusted?  And how do we do that today?

My mother used to talk to her mother every day on the telephone.  When we had a party line, she had to wait until it was free before she could make a call.  If she had been nosey, she could listen quite easily to the conversation that was going on while she was waiting, but I know she did not do that.  Her life was complicated enough.