Harvest Time

Scan Facebook for two minutes and you realize what the farmers have known for thousands of years--now is time for the harvest, to reap what has been sown all these long years.  Our urban fields, though, are scattered with half-filled corrugated boxes and curled photographs collecting dust in the corner.  Our crop--our children--now boxed up and heading to their respective silos to see what they are worth.

Back at the ranch?  Well, at first, we stare giddily at these newly available acres of land, giving over to our imaginations.  For now, at least, mine shall lie fallow, resting quietly after all those years of Cover Girl, clutter and clothing.

In the midst of all of this disarray, what I also have discovered is what no one has had the decency to tell me--or perhaps I wasn't listening.  Beyond selling off the kid crop, I'm also spending heaps of my time tinkering with a whole host of other challenges, from sputtering appliances to my own version of Creeping Charlie, not to mention the death and decline of people I really love.

Frankly this whole "circle of life" thing has outgrown its cuteness. . . . which is why, earlier this week,  I reached for the soothing salve of Joni Mitchell.  Long neglected on my music shelf, Joni still manages to pack a punch where I have needed it most.  In my early-morning drives to work, she has become the warm compress I place upon the sorrow and exhaustion that have inexplicably pooled in my calves.

Slowly, Joni's lilting (and, as Mark would say, generally annoying) voice has jarred loose some of the difficult detritus that has built up within me, and, while she occasionally leaves me dewy-eyed, I am grateful for the relief.

I'm not sure how much longer I will let Joni accompany me to school.  She is, after all, kind of a downer.  But she's also a heck of a writer--something I'd forgotten over the years.  And there is something to be said about the power of a minor chord.

For now,  it makes sense that albums titled "The Hissing Lawns of Summer" and "For the Roses" fill these post-harvest days of mine while the sun anchors itself ever closer to the horizon, the morning shadows sleepily stretching across newly-harvested fields.

And me?  My thoughts begin to turn to the ungerminated seeds that beckon a new planting season, a handful of fresh ideas anxious to break through.

Is It Any Wonder?

Early morning at Woods Park has its usual suspects, some of whom have real names, while others go by more descriptive terms:  "Man with Slight Limp," "Lady Who Calls for Opus the Bird,"  "Woman With Dog Named Thor, Who Wonders Why He's So Aggressive". . . .  Richard (his actual name) is a steady presence, always in khakis, usually carrying a coffee mug, and sometimes plugged into a radio.  And he always comes prepared with a story.  Or two.  Or three.

This morning, as Finn and I crossed 33rd Street, I was stunned by all the leaves in the street.  Specifically, all the leaves in the middle lane.  I stood there at the intersection, scanning 33rd for any sign of a wayward leaf resting in another lane, and could find none.  The sight left me a little breathless.

I bumped into Richard shortly after crossing into the park and pointed out to him the crazy "leaf" gathering.  He immediately began to offer an explanation.  "When cars drive by--really, it's just like what happens with snow--but the. . . "  And I quit listening.  See, I wasn't pointing out the sight so that he might explain it.  Really, I just wanted someone with whom I could feel wonder.

After we parted ways, I started to think about what he'd done, and how often I--as a teacher--had done the very same thing.  How many times do our students just want to be heard?  Or just want someone else with whom they can feel wonder?

We teachers can't seem to help ourselves--we just like to answer things, even when there is no question that has been posed.  We are, by nature, elucidators, explainers, enlighteners.

Annoying.

When the kids come back this Wednesday, I hope I remember my early-morning encounter with all those leaves in the middle lane and how magical it seemed to me.  And I hope I remember how unnecessary Richard's explanation was.  How it missed the point--and the moment--entirely.

I hope I remember to just listen and let them wonder a little.

Google-Mapping My Life

If there were some sort of personal satellite hovering above us, recording the paths of our lives, I suspect the images it would send back to us would be far more crosshatched than we'd have ever guessed.    Our lives are rife with crossroads, yet only a handful of those intersections tend to grab our attention.

Much like our famously underutilized brains, maybe it turns out that we only use 10 percent of our eyesight, missing most things that are right before our eyes.

For whatever reason these days, my eyes seem to be spying more intersections than usual.

Life and death, work and play, childhood and adulthood, inside and out--all these seemingly opposite things keep meeting up at the corner of Jane and Holt with surprisingly regularity, and I'm not always sure where to turn my attention.

One moment, it is on son Eric, who heads to Southeast High School Monday to learn what it means to be a teacher.  How can this even be possible, I wonder to myself, only to follow the question with another.  How could it not?

Heading down the road to the next intersection, I find myself considering daughter Allison, whose own life is rife with transitions, both physical (she moves to an apartment on Friday) and academic (she begins her new Film major in two weeks).  My reaction to both stands pretty firmly in "Yipee!"  but there are moments when I wonder if the price I pay for a more picked-up house is the yawning absence of that funny, strange spirit.

At work, my map is filled with all kinds of new roads--some more paved than others.  Navigating them, I see new faces and new job responsibilities,  as well as a formerly-favorite road now closed off to me as others begin driving down it.

Running my fingers along the larger map before me, I notice darker intersections that I'd rather pass over, ones filled with friends' cancer and death and the general decline of my parents' health.  Despite my inclinations, I click on "Street View" and try to face these with greater attention to detail.  They are, I know, the intersections that benefit from a closer view, even if I'd rather avert my eyes.

Sometimes, I feel like I've just entered Los Angeles at peak drive time, the sun in my eyes and my mind overcome by fear of the unknown.  Everything is fast and unfamiliar and just a little bit scary.  Eyes on the road, I tell myself.  And no radio or cell phone, please.  I need to concentrate.

Maybe this is why I start each day with a meandering walk through a neighborhood I know so well.  At this early-morning hour, my path is virtually absent of other  humans, and I happily roll down my proverbial window, letting in the fresh air and the monk-like whirr of cricket song.  These walks are the travels that sustain me, the ones that allow me to face the more-difficult intersections that await me, whether or not I choose to notice them.

The Turn of a Page

With my annual "educator" gig staring me in the face, it makes sense that I've gotten a bit reflective in these waning days of summer.  And, like seemingly every other 21st-century, first-world woman lucky enough to be able to pay her bills and put a little extra aside each month, I am tempted to be critical of the reflection that is staring back at me.

How on earth is it possible, I ask myself, to still consider my summer "a happy success" despite attending my dear friend's funeral just last week? 

Surely, there must be some sort of moral crack running through my core.

Whatever my justification is for this quiet joy that runs through me, I think the greater lie for me would be to say that this has been a bad summer.  Because it hasn't.

Even this past month--a month weighted down by the wrenching evidence of life's circular tendencies--I have come away heartened.  Consider Bev and Janese and Carol and JoAnn and Mark and Mike and Rob and Brenden and Kim and Mary and Kelly and Renee and neighbors too numerous to name. . . .  Frankly, I have spent time with too many good people in otherwise sterile hospital rooms to believe that joy and love can be snuffed out by the writing of that final chapter.

Yesterday, as we left Pioneers Park, Eric and I pulled the car over to check on a soft-shelled turtle hunched motionless in the middle of the road.  Clumps of still-red blood pooling at its side told us why he'd grown so still.    Moments before, we had celebrated the discovery of a fat, very much alive Monarch caterpillar and its red-beetle neighbor hidden underneath a milkweed leaf.

Everywhere there is evidence that life is full and messy, cyclical and miraculous.  Everywhere, there are stories of revolution and renewal.  Of lives filled up and lives spilled out again.

Perhaps the explanation to this contentment that runs through me, then, is that I have been lucky enough to have taken notice of these things, to have moved into and through these moments of joy and aching, to have lived them as fully as I could, eyes and ears and heart wide open. 

A Nod to My Friend, Mary Kay

Ten years ago, it was a dog and geography that brought Mary Kay Kreikemeier and me together. And, really, it was only the geography that we shared, although--for years to come--Mary Kay would go on to provide treats and poop bags to my family pets.  

You can imagine why, after that first driveway meeting with Mary Kay, I forever altered the route of my daily dog walks.  Who among us would pass up a chance to spend a little time with Mary Kay?  Under her spell, I became like a child, forever hungry to play with my neighborhood friend, never once considering that my unending knocks on her side door might be intrusive.

That's because Mary Kay always opened the door to me.  

True, there were times when I walked through that door and thought I was on the set of Little House on the Prairie--her kitchen counters covered in freshly-sealed jars of homemade salsa or just-out-of-the-oven fruit pies.  And always in quantities that boggled the mind.  

The fact that she always let me in, though?  That  was Mary Kay's magic--this ability to open doors and meet us where we were. And even though there were a thousand things that Mary Kay had mastered that I would never do particularly well, if at all--mothering and baking and living in Africa and volunteering and driving a bus come to mind--I never felt unworthy around her.  She just made me feel more...me.  


Mary Kay Kreikemeier's arrow always pointed outward, towards those people and things and ideas that she enthusiastically encountered.  She was a tender of fires, stoking her kids' passions, helping an elderly neighbor find a new dog, picking the perfect book for a young reader.  And we are all better for having had Mary Kay stoke the fires in our  lives.

I think that this rare quality of hers is one reason her kids walk on such solid ground.

As I ponder how to make my way through this life without my regular “Mary Kay” fixes,  I am heartened by the reverberating influences of that life lived so large.  How many of her family members and friends, for instance, have I come to know and love in this last chapter of her life?   And I know that, because of Mary Kay, I will open my own door for someone who has wandered my way. . . .although I may not let them in the kitchen.

I love you, my dear friend.  And I do not doubt that—right now—you are standing on your heavenly driveway—fresh-baked kolaches in hand--greeting a group of celestial neighbors and happily meeting them right where they are.

People, Places and Things...My Kind of Nouns

Barbra Streisand, who (ironically) has a lifelong case of stage fright, had it right.  People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.  That's certainly how I felt about my Fourth of July yesterday.   And, if I may throw in a tenuous reference to an observation C.S. Lewis made about the genius of Catholic parishes, there is something pretty wonderful about finding joy in the people you have no say in choosing--your family and your neighbors. 

Beyond savoring the smoked ribs and the surprisingly long-lasting Blue Angel fountain ($1.29 from Crazy Cracker), it was the people who made this Fourth especially enjoyable for me, and I have daughter Allison to thank for getting that ball rolling.  Her suggestion to bring together the Holts and the Raglins (unlike, say, gathering the Capulets and Montagues or the Jets and the Sharks) was a great one, in part, because everyone plays so well together.

While Martha Stewart might choke on a palate-cleansing spoonful of sorbet to hear me admit this (and, really, would it be such a bad thing for her to choke just a little?), my one gift as a host comes wrapped in a proverbial brown paper bag--I keep it simple.  Mostly, I keep it simple because I lack the skills to do otherwise.  But I tell myself that if the point is to gather and to enjoy that time together, a simple approach (you bring something, I bring something, then we sit down, eat and talk about it) really is the best approach.

. . . and having family members who truly enjoy each other guarantees that things will always work out well in the end.  Of course, good food, decent weather, paper plates, and a friendly Ladder Golf competition (with  prizes!) didn't hurt our chances either!

The neighborly followup was equally low-key and enjoyable.  It is amazing, the magnetic power of a city-owned sidewalk.  Drawn to it like moths to flame, as the sun set, we each made our way to the others, with promise of cold drinks, simple snacks,  and just enough fireworks and glowing punks to guarantee a short show. 

I'd be hard pressed to choose better folks than the ones I gathered with last night.

Long into their lives, I think that my children will hold dear this image of folding chairs and friendly banter, punctuated by short bursts of Crayola-flecked fountains and whirling dervishes, the happy embrace of good people come together and a warm summer's night holding us all close.   

A Joyful Noise

Eight simple steps.  That's what the lady said we'd be learning last night at my inaugural foray into the  surprisingly athletic world of belly dancing.  I'm not usually one to correct people's math, but there is no way that there were only eight steps.  And they certainly weren't simple.

But this is my "Just Say Yes" summer,  so all those mashed-up moves and mixed-up numbers didn't matter in the end.  I was there to dance and that's what I would do, however badly.

The soundtrack to my summer has been one of joyful noise and I can't quite shake that happy tune from my head.  Opening myself up to the innocuous "whatever" has enriched and delighted and stretched me in ways both silly and significant.  From mid-morning movies to Chicago subway rides, cicada searches to belly dancing and late-night sky hunts, this season has been punctuated by moments seized.

Do something slightly out of your routine, though,  and you quickly discover an interesting mix of truth and misconception.  For instance, I have often told myself that I am open-minded and curious about my world.  And, to a certain extent, those things are true.  But I am also a stubborn creature of habit, a lover of early-to-bed routine and uncluttered schedules (or, better yet, no schedule whatsoever). Those ingrained habits sometimes speak louder than my own misconceived notions of self.

I know this because friends have a way of pointing out the obvious, which is why I have been getting a lot of ribbing lately.  Tease me long enough about staying up late or donning form-fitting gypsy clothes, though,  and the scales will eventually start falling from my eyes.

Tease away, I say!  This is my summer of joyful noise, after all, and your words tell me that "Just Say Yes" just may be the most perfect motto ever.

This simple mantra certainly has served me well, even if I'm still a lousy dancer.