Open Window

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Proof positive, things have changed

The curtains are open today.  A sight I have never observed in the thirty years I have lived here. Mrs. B is now in a cubicle home, in a town ten miles away. As it is morning, the sun must now be shining on a floor not use to seeing natural light.  I wonder, does the carpet plead for shade? For of course, the wood floors are carefully covered in wall to wall wool carpet, or does it revel in it, like a sleek cat finally finding warmth?

On her moving day, I walked over through the wet, rainy day to visit her one last time as my next door neighbor. Her carefully cared for living room was covered in boxes, papers, and used gift bags all looking like a tornado had arrived, and stayed without welcome.

She was perfectly coiffed. She was assuring herself, as well as me, this was all for the best, though it was difficult to leave, she wanted the place in town, but it was too expensive, so this really was best.

I reminded her of when we first moved here, her mother, her little dog, Pepe.  She remembered how her first home was above her father-in-law's grocery store in the next town, and they only spoke Italian. The building of her home, how happy she was to have a house to raise her children. A boy, then a girl.  Her hearing aids in today, allowed for the conversations that in the past had eluded us.

All the while her son and daughter-in-law packed boxes reassuring me they would find really nice renters for the house. This intertwined with how much better this will be as they are't able to be there all of the time, and ...

Mrs. B's erect body slowly folding into a chair, slightly shaking, causing me to fight the tears, as I said, I will come visit you, bring my grandson, all the while wishing somehow I had more to offer. Her face lighting up, while tears leaked out, saying how much she would like that.

As I took my leave, after carefully writing down the address, phone number of her new home, along with the son's number, I walked  home, slowly in the rain, which seemed only fitting as my tears were falling in the same steady stream.

Fencing in Words

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Not glamorous, but the view I have had for thirty years...

April is coming to an end, May is around the weekend, and I am herding words onto a blank page. Baby is asleep, dishes wait, with no remorse, in the sink, with crumbs of  breakfast clinging, while I contemplate the silence of my sanctuary.

I have lived in this home for thirty years, while my neighbor, Mrs. B has lived in her home for fifty years. Today, she is moving into a new home, at least new to her.  Did she see this day coming or was the advance one of  stealth?

As I type this, I am able to see her solid brink house built by her husband with Italian hands.  Mr. B has been gone, though she has often said, she still expects him to walk in for a few words to bicker over, probably ten years. He was erect, walked with tiny steps on tiny feet, used a ham radio, groomed his yard with a manicurist care.

I think they prescribed to my husband's Irish gran's school of neighbors, "High fences make good neighbors.", though there wasn't any fence, just honeysuckle bushes, routinely trimmed one a year , with much care and a string to maintain the equal height as he cut along the row. He had an engineer's precision, and a temperament that did not interfere with his goal.

Sometimes, he would offer sage advice to our children, "wear shoes, missed a stripe with the mower, or clip the peonies after they bloom." Which, of course, surprised them as normally he was the silent one. Mrs. B on the other had, was the talker. She had worked in the bank where the children had savings accounts.When we would make our sojourns into that staid, silent establishment, to deposit money, but really to receive a tootsie pop, they were always surprised to see Mrs. B and always caught off guard when she knew who they were, for they, in their hearts, believed they were invisible to her when at home playing in the back yard. Funny how that is.


Anyway, she is moving, which for some reason, I find also moving. She was probably the age I am now, when we moved into this house with only two children, one on the way, no knowledge of the fourth that was to come after the third. Mrs B's  mother lived with her then, a white haired woman, and because she spoke only Italian, I never was able to communicate with.

As long as I have lived here, I have never seen the shades on the east side of her house open, even today they are drawn, closing out the morning light. I have only ever been inside her house a handful of times, though she has been in my home many times. I do know she has two kitchens, which I had never heard of before meeting her. I was in awe of this piece of information as cleaning one seemed like enough work for me. Since then, I have come to know many people with more then one kitchen.

(in fact, there is a house for sale not far from me that we call 'three kitchen" and can barely constrain myself from going to the open house to see exactly how this is laid out as it is small three bedroom ranch, not a mansion, which would seem a more likely candidate to house three kitchens, don't you think?)

These last few years with out her husband have been very trying for her. I know this for a fact as she has set off her burglar alarm with abandon at all times of the day. The difficult part is, she is very, very hard of hearing, doesn't wear her hearing aids in the house, and cannot hear the alarm when is it gong off.  Alerting her to the fact it is going off, after one ascertains it is an error is even trickier.

Then, of course, her house was broken into while she was at the Italian Women's luncheon, and fear has now won the day.  Nor can I blame her.

We are connected by time, proximity, and sentences, and I will miss knowing she was there.  

Levitating

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The Patient Man, I Love

I lie awake, levitating*,
while  you slumber beside me.


My annual respiratory distress,
thankfully,
is not distressing your sleep.

This unfortunate malady,
allows me the luxury,
of meditating on you.

Once again,
realizing how your life,
has made mine possible.




*Gotta love nebulizer treatments

Coming Home

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Suspended, kind of like these plants I recently saw. 

Today,
My husband of thirty-eight years
is arriving on a jet plane.

I will, in a little while,
traverse four lanes of
wilderness,
to retrieve him.

The days without him
have left me feeling
s u s p e n d e d
between
being alive
and waiting to
live.

Attempting to go Forth

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A recent quilt top I have made, which has nothing
 what so ever to do with anything.

Today:
I am going forth.

Not to slay dragons,
(except maybe the ones with in)
but to retrieve the dry cleaning.

Not to change the course of the nation,
(perhaps the course of my heart)
but to uncover the dining room table of borrowed objects.

Not to rescue fair maidens or princes,
(barely myself, these days)
but Clementine (our dog) from the hole in the fence.

These days of going forth are built of little tasks,
Alone,
Just a drop.
A drop of the ocean*.
The ocean of the everyday.







(to borrow from Emily Dickinson)

nor beautiful

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Not a beauty, nor beautiful,

*I don't have a cat anymore, though I wish I did. 

but her words were.

shining spots of language,
slid along the page,
as though skating on ice.
(even though there was never ice in Mississippi)

Choreographed without
routine to a melody,
seldom heard before or since.*

If only such sentences arrived in my mail box.




*inspired by the letters of Eudora Welty and Ross MacDonald read in the collection titled: Meanwhile there are Letters

given the least kindness...

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Bloom of compassion

I am drawn to be
better then otherwise planned,
when given the least kindness.

Melting, softening,
sensing,
selfless sentences
springing forth...
for others.

Found Beauty

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One of, my friend ,Marc Chagall's pieces...

We each have a moment,
I think,

buried,
in our minds,

held,
tenderly,
carefully,
quietly.

Which,
I believe,
is the source
of how we perceive beauty.

Watching

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We wait wondering,

November morning light in my livingroom

wanting no change,
yet expecting one.

We wait while,
wondering,
how life goes on,
amid this pain.

We wait watching,
one another's
grief.

We wait willingly,
for one another,
hoping for relief.

We wait while loving,
Joan with all our hearts,
knowing we will always do so,
hoping she will always know.

Index Cards

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Just love these little guys

I write lists on index cards, every night before I go to sleep. Upon I waking, I then write a modified list on a new index card.

This has been my way for decades. Sometimes the lists are for what really needs to be accomplished, sometimes it is what I hope to finish (if days were 36 hours long instead of the skimpy 24).

Perhaps you are familiar with this method of list writing?

Usually, my lists are of the practical sort; wash kitchen floor, make cookies, can tomatoes, laundry, etc. Practical may be my middle name, right next to: use what I have.

I have always attributed my index card habit to my ability to sleep well. I write it all down, fall asleep knowing until tomorrow, all will be well.  I find it peaceful, as though someone else has it in hand for the night.

Lately, I have taken to writing down things of concern which I have found I have little control over, so along with , say laundry, I now write; pray for women and children around the world caught in slave trade, right before clean the bathrooms, or for people caught in war torn countries, before weed the flower beds.

Sometimes, what I write is closer to home:  pray my children will be friends, as no other people  will understand where they came from as clearly as their siblings, before, repaint the kitchen, adding think of others first. then, replace tile by front door, as one of the tiles are loose.

Perhaps it is pie in the sky, or irrational, quite possibly both, but maybe it does make a difference. At the very least, it heightens my level of intention.

So I am hoping, when opportunity presents itself,  I will not shy away from working towards something better, something kinder, something much more important than me. Because at the end of the day, all we have is the sum of our actions, and how we treat one another.

Besides, I do love those clean white index cards, and how they allow me to have some order in this chaotic world.

John Keats at 24

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Today, as Writer's Almanac has informed me, is the day John Keats wrote the ode to autumn.  He was 24 years old when he whipped this poem off.

I aspire to this beauty
.

I do love apples.

It was lovely then, and it is lovely now, so for your reading pleasure:


To Autumn
by:
(a very young)
 John Keats


Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core"

Morning Message

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The very tea bag message thing (what is that called?)

Found this morning:

hard words hanging over,
worse then if
I had been drinking,
from night before.


Found this morning:

a message on teabag,
which,
I eagerly read,
looking for wisdom


Found this morning:

a stone softening,
leaking the
milk of human kindness.