Staying In

Is there anything better than laying in a cozy bed, with no plans to pull you away, while the outdoors gets scrubbed clean by the first spring rain?  

Some days are made for staying in.

True, Finn and I still managed a wind-whipped morning walk between gully washers, made all the more successful because neither of us was terrorized by tumbling tree limbs calling "uncle."  But, as soon as we got back home, we both knew it was likely a one-and-done kind of day.

It is a good thing when the weather occasionally sabotages our self importance and washes out our weekend wish lists.  

It is a good thing to idly stare out the rain-spattered back window, gape-jawed at the Cedar Waxwings eating breakfast in our Crab Apple.  It is a good thing to have the delicious task of riffling through the bookshelf, pondering which untouched title to pick up next.  Heck, this morning, it even is a good thing to dawdle on the dwindling want-ads pages, wondering if I have what it takes to be a Night Distribution Coordinator at the paper (I don't). 

Surely, this year--of all years-- we've learned to appreciate the "pause" button a bit more, begun to understand the importance of being able to pivot in the midst of disruption.  And what ruption will be dissed for you on this rainy day?

Will you replace tending your garden with writing a friend a letter?  Swap tallying your taxes for taking a long, hot bath?  Is today the day you give yourself over to the joy of music played too loud, of dance moves that erupt without forethought or shame? 

Finn may disagree, but I'm rather looking forward to seeing what unfolds within these walls that hold me today.  

The Arc and its Covenant

Last night, a flash of light punctuated itself between the slats of our blinds, followed by thunder--low and rumbly.  It was all I could do not to trip over Mark's outstretched feet as I tore open the front door, breathing in the metallic scent of something both ancient and new. 

Already drunk from successive days of southerly winds and bright, sunlit afternoons, the evening's prelude for spring storms left me thick-tongued and delirious. 

Such are the effects of earth's rotation within the vast universe, the orb's spring-ward arc and its beloved covenant.  

Early last month, I decided to alter this year's calendar, pushing New Year's Eve to March 10, 2021, a year to the day when I shed the last of my innocence.  By dinnertime the following night, I'd learn that Tom Hanks was holed up in Australia, with something called COVID-19, and I felt a subtle yet seismic shift in the arc of things. 

What followed is both inexplicable to and known by all--a devastating year of disease, death, discord.

But still, this beautiful earth held to its well-worn path, spinning lopsidedly on its axis while bending its way around the sun.  

And still, the Sandhills Cranes came, alighting on the sandy fingertips of the Platte, hungry and honking.  

Still, the Honey Locust out front stretched its limbs skyward, its tiny, new leaves filling up on light-filled fuel. 

Still, the fireflies brought their magical light shows to our summer lawns.

Still, the milo fields burned orange, under the umber light of a September sunset.

Still, the quiet storm of endless snow told us it was okay to stay in and just watch.

Come March 10th, amidst the mixed microburst of crocus and vaccine, I will don a silly hat and raise a glass to this beautiful, steady earth that has held me this long year, remembering those who have gone and those who have yet to come.  

Amen and allelujah. 

Joy and Justice

"Joy, I think, is a kind of self justice."
        --J. Drew Lanham, ornithologist and poet

What could possibly top the wonderland of yesterday morning, our world transformed into an icy, walk-through Ansel Adams photo framed in iterations of grey?  By lunch yesterday, my neck was sore from looking up and my toes were frozen from walking through.  What a way to go, though!

This morning could not have been more different.  Clear and calm, almost spring-like, my walk was punctuated by long-silented birds. Cardinals had swapped their short-chirping winter soundtrack for the trilly love songs of spring, while the Blue Jays shrieked warning of the low-flying Sharp-Shinned Hawk trolling for breakfast.  Also chiming in were Black-Capped Chickadees (chick-a-dee-dee-dee!), White-Breasted Nuthatches, sparrows (who generally deserve no capitals, except for the White-Crowned, Harris and White-Throated varieties) and House Finches.  It was a choral performance for the ages.

Halfway through the walk, the low, golden arms of a February sun alit on my head, stretching my shadow across 33rd Street, until I covered both sides of it.  And, as so often happens when I walk, I felt the low, happy thrum of endorphins pulse through me.

Yes, I've seen the forecast.  I'm aware that today is as good as it gets for awhile.  Plummeting temps likely will shorten my walks for the next few weeks, but they won't stop them.  And I'll be darned if I let something that is not here yet take away the joy that this morning has already brought to me.  That would be squandering a gift and, if I've learned anything in the past year, it is to savor the good that finds me.  

Joy, for me, is the best fuel I can burn as I walk into the unknown of a thousand tomorrows.  If I were you, I'd head outdoors today and fill up on it.  Your engine will thank you.

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
    --John Muir

 

Doggone These Dog Days

Apparently, for about twenty minutes today--while we were wandering Woods Park--Finn was dead, which would have surprised both of us, had we noticed, especially considering how diligently he was stalking the squirrels.  Halfway through the walk, my brother called to tell me about Finn's untimely death.  Or at least what people had perceived as his untimely passing.

My bad.  

I consider myself a halfway decent wordsmith, but I had clearly botched things up with this morning's Facebook post.  I thought I was being playful with the concept of time, referencing how the past four years had felt like a decade, how--heck!--the past week had felt like a year and, yet,  how I couldn't believe the speed with which nine years had passed since we'd first gotten Finn.  I posted it and then we went went galumphing on our way.

One condolence quickly snowballed into a small collective of digital grief, until I pulled the plug on the post, post haste.  A few awkward PMs and a revamped post later, and we'd mostly cleared things up.  Good news for Finn!

But I was left with a sense of how quickly we go dark these days, and what a price our lightness pays because of that. 

Worn down by endless days of repellant rhetoric, fractured factions and calamitous COVID, we eventually find ourselves stripped of nuance.  No more subtle greys--just black and white.  But mostly black.  I've certainly seen it in myself.  My dull brain has missed many a pun this year, for example, and I recently interpreted a yelp from Finn as proof of a sinister disease ravaging him. One meant a missed opportunity to giggle, while the other became a wasted visit to the vet, nuance but a wispy memory.

We all seem to be on edge right now, quick to misinterpret and slow to celebrate.  Boy, am I ready for a return to lightness, to a time when I once again can discern intent, pick up on subtlety, bust a gut with my buds.  Because this?  This is an unsatisfying place to be.  Especially if you're a dog, just trying to celebrate your "gotcha day" with an extra walk or two and maybe another handful of kibble. 

 

Warmth

I write this during the early-morning hour of a blizzard.  As you can see, Finn is making the most of it, cozy beneath the how-can-they-make-material-so-soft warmth of my fleece blanket.  What you can't see is that my own form is also comfy under said comforter.   

Earlier--just after the call from the district that I should stay in bed (apparently, even people who only very occasionally collect wrinkled dollar bills at school sporting events still qualify for The Call) --Finn thought that perhaps I'd abandon my book and head downstairs, so he scurried off the bed to begin his doggy calisthenics on the carpet in the other room.  That's when I reached my hand over to the spot he'd just abandoned and relished the warmth of his imprint. 

Good lord, I love that sensation...the thermal memory of someone I love who now is somewhere else.  Three mornings each week, weekend warrior Mark abandons me before 5 a.m., readying himself to do things for airplanes that I still don't quite understand.  Often, I let my arm drape over his pillow, his warmth still pooling there for me.  

I love that all of my friends and all of their students also got the early-morning call to stay in bed and savor the hard-earned warmth of skin-on-sheet. 

And when I finally swap pjs for something only slightly more public-appropriate, donning coat and boots for a walk around the block,  I'm certain I'll find that warmth again, the imprints of those I love, showing up in the least-expected places and ways.  In the brilliant red flash of a male cardinal darting for cover.  In the uplifted swirl of snow, the resilient bend of little bluestem, the crunch of snow under tires.

The warm imprints of our beloved are everywhere, mixed up in and moving through this ridiculous life, whispering their breathy incantations, reminders that we most certainly aren't alone, even in the storm.   

The Longest Month

When I taught (I know, I know. I should be wary of using that term, lest a dozen former students PM me, frantically typing up myriad examples of all the times I did not, in fact, teach), anyway. . . . When I taught, I always considered February--stunted though it may be on the pages of my Sierra Club weekly calendar--to be the longest month of the year. Void of vacation days, punctuated by the pap of a day Hallmark created to bump up sluggish sales, the sun still too low in the sky to ignite anything but ennui, February offered little in the way of hope.

Now retired, and wrapped in the poly-blend blanket of politics and pandemic, I'd be forgiven for mistaking this January for any February. And we just now got to double digits, for crying out loud.

Thank goodness I found this swamp-oak leaf the other morning, resting on the pavement at Woods Park, so neatly outlined in the remnants of an overnight fog. That tiny discovery jolted me. First, I thought, what is something with the word "swamp" doing in Nebraska? And, as someone who has always struggled to use scissors deftly, or to outline decently, I wondered how on earth the fog fell so perfectly along the leaf's edges. What was it about those edges that called to the rimy crystals to alight on them?

Later in the walk, my eyes follow the footprints of a fox--propelled by hunger or curiosity or horniness--and I admire the curved line of its path as it bent towards the northwest corner, where backyards abut the pines.

How is it we spend these short winter days doom scrolling, frightened by our worst instincts and fearful of invisible invaders, when, just up the street, brittle leaves sparkle in crystalline finery and the foxes turn their sights toward family?

Even as we wonder how we will see this brutal winter through, the landscape changes and the sun stretches upward, its arms growing longer each day.

Feeling Funny Bone-less

 

Earlier this week, a friend sent a text to Mark and me.  She was snarky and I was black-and-white in my stodgy, unappealing response.  So, she answered back: "Sarcasm.  Don't ever forget my sarcastic nature." 

At some point in the last few months, I done broke my funny bone.   

My God.  I might as well have lost both legs, a major organ and my hair. 

I so hanker for a gut-busting laugh these days.  I am deeply hungry for an inane, fart-filled giggle fest in which there is no mention of news or loss or anything at all that is serious and relevant.  I mean, I'm 58 and retired. You'd think I could find irrelevant more easily. 

Instead, I mumble horrible things to Mark while we walk the dog, conjuring imaginary, "Tennis anyone?" Monty Python episodes of a politician's unfortunate downfall.  Sure, we laugh.  But it's a hard laugh, one that has sharp edges and lacks the silliness of my favorite kind of humor.   

I guess I just want to be goofy again. 

Oh, I get close.  

Lately, I've been getting the giggles on the pickleball court, some absurd image flitting through my head while I should be concentrating on the serve.  Really, if it weren't for pickleball--the court filled with my kind and easy-going peeps, all of whom sweat less than I do--I might find myself in a corner, sucking my thumb. 

Humor has served me so well throughout my life--forgiving my adolescent stupidity,  softening the loss of beloved family and friends, providing a much-needed break during cancer treatments.  I'd like to lean on it a little more right now.  

Maybe I should quit the news for awhile and play my music a little louder.  Somehow, I think that'd help my funny bone to heal a bit.  

I always live larger and better when my funny bone is fully functional.