Nature vs. Lurchers

Feelin' the Yearn
to Spurn Bern
Dump Trump
Bruise Cruz
Forgo Marco
and Pillory Hillary

Move over, politicos.  When it comes to real progress, Nature trumps you every single time.

Granted,  air temperature is tempestuous--teasing "spring" one day only to frost our windows the next.  But the sun?  Well, the sun never lies.  And its recent propensity to get out of bed earlier and earlier only seals the deal for me that spring really is just around the corner.

But the sun isn't the only one singing songs of hope.  Consider four signs collected in the past 18 hours:

1. BLOOMING CROCUSES
You read right.  A part of my neighbors' yard is awash in purple and green, as crocuses have pushed their way through the leaves to make their splashy statement.  And our own daffodils, awash in the tropical winds of our dryer vent, aren't far behind.

2.  BUDDING MAPLES
It's true, I suppose, that some trees, like some people, are early bloomers, but I've seen too many buds this week to believe that every tree I've encountered is an overeager early bloomer.  From the soft buds of my neighbor's magnolias to the berry-like bursts of this maple, spring has just about sprung.

3.  PROLIFIC PINE CONES
Not 20 yards from the maple sits a string of very happy pines, their top quarters heavy laden with new pine cones--proof that the long drink of fall extended well into the winter.

4.  COTTONWOOD STARS
Yesterday's walk along a prairie corridor west of Lincoln brought me, once again, into contact with an immense cottonwood.  Scouring the ground around its massive trunk, my friend Shannon and I snapped dried twigs to look for these tiny stars, replacements for their fallen brethren, loosed from the skies.


I did one more thing this week that helped fill me with the lightness of spring.  I read an article in Atlantic Magazine, titled "How America Is Putting Itself Back Together."  In it, the authors contend that our communities are much more communal than the aforementioned politicians would like us to believe.  Like the crocus' delicate green tendrils breaking through winter's hard, cracked earth, there are signs everywhere that we are waking up and becoming beautiful again.

Fever Dreams and Redemption

Seven hundred and twenty three.  That's how many pages I've had to read to finally--finally!--start enjoying The Goldfinch.  Until early this morning, the sun still tucked into bed, I had few kind words for its main character, Theo.  This self-absorbed, drug-addled, life-happening-to-me character had been trying my patience these past few weeks, despite my pity for his earlier circumstances.

But there, on page 723, was redemption, framed in the bioluminescent vision of his mother, who met him in a dream.

And, just as suddenly, I was taken aback by the parallels between this newly-respectable Theo and my own mother, who, herself, woke yesterday with the sticky residue of a dream that did not leave her.  Energized by dream-become-vision-quest, both Theo and my mother were propelled into these new days by something that the rest of us could not name.

I wonder sometimes, as my mom writes this last chapter of hers, if I am reading too much into it, looking for symbols and meaning where there is, in fact, only circumstance.  Like the clunkiness of a poorly written plot, I force and retrofit significance instead of letting it unfold like the first buds of spring.  It is understandable, of course, that I do this, that I try to add heft and depth to each of our meetings.  But that doesn't make the compulsion natural.

Better, I suspect, for me to let my mom set the pace.  To take my cues from her, as she pulls me in, rubbing my back like she did when I was a child.  Better to let her speak enthusiastically about the important work that kept her up all night, work that I cannot possibly understand or even find traces of, instead of me trying to explain it away.

While I may hold a pen to a piece of paper, it is my mom who holds her own pen, is her own author, steadily writing late into each night, more certain of the plot line than I will ever know.

Love Will Keep Me Together

Italy-bound.  October 2009

Chapter One: Mark + Jane

It's 5:30 a.m. and I'm dilly dallying.  I've been fading in and out of consciousness for at least an hour.  And now, Mark is sitting on the bed in his Duncan Aviation duds, telling me goodbye.

"Happy Valentine's Day, honey poo poo bear," I mumble from under the blankets.  Mark bolts up and rushes to the Man Room.  I hear drawers opening and closing, paper rustling, a pen scratching my name.  Voila!  A card appears--one that has no counterpart, I'm afraid.  But we both know it doesn't matter.

A corny card awaits me (I'm not sure what "cahoots" are, but I know I'd like to be in them with you!) and, really, that is more than enough--a pun that makes me giggle.

This is what love looks like in the Holt household on Valentine's Day.

Chapter Two: A Walk in Woods

Today, I brought my phone on our morning walk.  For a few weeks, I'd been meaning to take a photo of the magical string of love notes still stretching between two trees at Woods Park.  This morning, phone in hand, I finally could record their existence and send my friend Mary Beth a secret message of hope, to boot.

What is there to love in a morning walk?  Everything.  The sights, the smells, the silence, the deliberateness of walking on ice and frozen snow.    And that look of my dog as I release him from the leash and he runs free--finally!--raw and fast and happy.

My walks fill me with love.

Always.

Chapter Three: Hubba Hubba, Hub Cafe!

"Friends" dressed as me...Halloween1988

Jill calls and asks if I've heard of the Hub Cafe.  I hem and haw just long enough to locate it--at the trailhead of Antelope Valley, next to that awesome sculpture.  She invites me to a late breakfast at the new place.  I promise to bathe quickly and ponder her offer.

When I arrive--fresh and only slightly frumpy--a few Russell Stover candies fill my pocket.  Because it is Valentine's Day and I like chocolate, I stopped at Walgreens on my way downtown (okay, it wasn't exactly on the way) and bought ten Russell Stover eggs to hand out to friends at the restaurant and--later--at church.

I'm nerdily excited about this.

A $6 piece of toast--laid thick with avocado and pickled onions, Lebanese spices and sea salt--calls my name and, before long, we are sharing stories of regret (WHA?!).  Kristie goes first and we giggle a little too loud, delighting in her squeamishness.  Then, Jill, recalling a former boyfriend who--with many years on her--probably was more of a man friend.  Steve, her husband, tells an amazing story about a former girlfriend--wild and funny and unpredictable.  And I wonder if I have any stories of regret.

That's when I remembered Jerry--a high-school/college boyfriend I really liked.  About the same time that  I entered college, Jerry entered Sloan Kettering, a cancer hospital in New York, where he eventually left without his arm, which had fallen victim to bone cancer.  We eventually broke up, but, because Lincoln is a small town in big-boy pants, our paths crossed again when I was a college sophomore.

We had a nice evening, catching up.  By the end of the evening, he said he was headed to NYC again the next morning and wondered if I'd like to see him off at the airport.  I said I would and he promised he'd call me before he headed to the airport.

Enter regret, in the form of a rotary-dial phone that rang and rang and rang as I lay in bed and listened.

I don't know why I didn't answer it.  Why I didn't get dressed and drive to the airport to wish Jerry well.  I still don't know why.

What I do know, though, is that the previous night  was the last time I saw Jerry alive.  A few months later, he died and I was at his funeral, wondering why on earth I'd just sat there that morning, all those months ago.

Chapter Four: Olden Years at the Landing

Sally and Jane, 2013.

After an enjoyable church service with friends, I called my mom and asked if I could visit her.  A half hour later, I was at the Landing, sitting in my mom's too-warm apartment, helping her rifle through the piles on her table.  Among the pile was an announcement that there'd be live music at 3 today.  We headed downstairs and took our seats, while a father-and-son duo worked the crowd.

And for the next 45 minutes, I was transported by all kinds of sweet things--love songs, old people singing aloud, corny puns, sweet notes, cookies and punch.  During that time, I was reminded of what a wonderful thing music is to all people, especially the elderly, people who have lived and loved and lost but who still have all those lyrics stuck happily in their heads.

It was wonderful, aside from that one song from the 50s.  Something about that era just makes me go dark.  And, when I left, I left with a full heart and a quiet satisfaction.

All kinds of love, it seems, bubbled up and met me today.  I still don't have a card or gift for Mark--who gets home within the hour--but I have something even better.  Memories of a day filled with fresh air and friends, memory and song, time with my mom, whose clock keeps on ticking.

It was a very good Valentine's Day.  Maybe the best yet.

Matters of the Heart

Twice in the past two nights, I've awakened wondering if my heart was okay.  Whispered fluttering, a slight pull near my left shoulder. Evidence, I am certain, of six months of emotional detritus finally burbling to the surface.

Like everyone, I wear two faces.  But there in my bed, in the middle of the night,  those faces are blurred, shared skin grown blue and translucent.

Middle age, like the middle of the night, can be a strange beast, a wild dream state in which tidy compartments sprout sudden leaks and I am left trying to discern what is real and what is not.  It is an exhilarating time, to be sure.  Most days, I am certain that I have grown into the skin I was intended to wear.  But there, in the in-between hours, I feel weighed down, realizing how many last chapters are before me.

The losses, like the joy, accumulate.  And my heart tells me to pay attention to it all.  Such an impossible task, this emotional fence walking.  How else is there to live, though, but openly and honestly, dipping my toes into the salt and the sweet?

It is morning now.  And, still, my heart beats, this steady companion, and the sun rises, just as the newspaper said it would.  Still, the Carolina Wren sings its noisy, throaty song, out of place and at home all at once. Like me.

Like all of us.

In Dreams

Last night, Mark dreamt he was swimming in electricity,
     held close by its blue arms.
He said the last time he'd had such a dream was when his father was dying
     --how can it be 13 years already?

Former Newspaper students filled my dreams
    huddled close not by deadlines but rather for the chance to simply be close.

Those arms, too, held me.

As did the back-and-forth of the Great Horned Owls,
one just outside our bedroom window
      me, crouched silent by the blinds,
      holding my breath
   
 . . . waiting, waiting, waiting
for the throaty exchange.