nature

Remembrance

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

“I’ve forgotten how to be in my own body,” she said

“I feel like I have woken up in a foreign land”

I took her by the hand

Led her down the the sea

“Sit down and let the waves remind you,” I said

We lay back, and with closed eyes

Became one with the ocean

The undulation, the caress and push-pull

We let ourselves be swallowed

And we became mermaids again

Bodies arching, diving

Arms moving through the water

Embracing the flow of the tide

She started crying tears of deeply relieved joy

And so then did I, to see her find home again

Our salt tears mixed with the salt of the sea

And when we finally returned to the shore and found our legs again

We took the ocean with us in the sway of our hips

And the pulse of our hearts

Inspired by The Daily Word Prompt: undulate

37 Degrees

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 3 Comments

The snow whispered her secrets to the sea

And blanketed the shore with her silent song

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: degree

In the Beginning…

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 5 Comments

I don’t buy the primordial ooze theory

Or the Big Bang, for that matter (pun intended)

I look at a flower, its perfect design

The hide of the cougar, its markings

The veins in a leaf, the pattern in a snowflake

My own body – my eyelashes, my skin cells!

The systems that keep me alive

It’s not random

It’s too brilliant

I don’t have a name for for what created it all

I don’t have a theory

But I sure do have reverence

And I sure do have awe

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: ooze

 

 

Pushing Daisies 

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Bury me deep

Disappear me in the earth

Let the rich soil fill my mouth 

Wanna lay to waste, lose my worth

Weave twigs in my hair

Sprinkle daisies on my chest

Do not cry, don’t despair

I’ve yearned a lifetime for this rest

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: bury

Laying Claim

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 7 Comments

Tether me down to the ground, if you love me

The winds of change are at my heels once more

I’ve been running too far, too fast, for too long

Need to drop anchor and rest, lay my head on the shore

Let me listen to the whispers of the rustling trees

Feel the pulse of the earth through my bones

Tether me down to the ground, if you love me

Let us drown out the call o’ the wild with sweet moans

Inspired by The Daily Poat Daily Word Post: tether

Apocalypse Wow

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 8 Comments

When I was around age 20, my life exploded. My entire world literally blew out from its center.

Looking back, I suppose it was destined to detonate at some point or another.

I oscillate between feeling sadness that it did not happen sooner and gratitude that it did not take longer to happen.

Spiritually-evolved and wise people would say that it happened “right on time. ”

I say “Bite me.”

(OK, I got that out of my system. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Maybe we all do. We all have our crosses to bear in this life, right?)

No, seriously, I guess it did have to happen sooner or later.

At that point, I had been away from home for several years…the deep truths that had been bubbling molten hot at my core had had time to gain strength unencumbered by parental presence.

I was also living a breakneck speed: I was a full-time acting student, working a part time job and stage managing productions for the acting company associated with my acting school. I was busy 24/7 and running on fumes.

And then, one day in a bookstore, I was drawn like a magnet to a particular book. (This is the book that was to teach me that I do not chose books but rather they choose me.) It was Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child.

I bought it and read it as quickly as I could, and shortly thereafter, the volcano of my psyche erupted.

This book seemed to be explaining things about my experience growing up that I had long since hid from myself. It was as if in reading each chapter, carefully placed barriers were loosed around the nucleus of my being.

In the days following reading it, I felt like the ground I was walking on was constantly shifting and moving underneath my feet. It was unsettling.

Pressure within me began to build, until one day, one Sunday shift in the restaurant where I worked, my internal world just exploded.

Shards of self flew from my core, and in an instant, a horrific revelation from within flew up through my body from my gut into my consciousness in a searing flash and the fairy tale fantasy that I had been living inside my own mind of a perfect family and a perfect childhood turned to ashes.

And, just like that, I was forever changed.

From that day to this one, it has been a whirlwind, rollercoaster ride filled with astonishing kindness, loss, addiction, danger, self-abuse, despair, hope, comedy, tragedy, loneliness, desperation, shock, torment, friendship, mentorship, recovery, love, joy, bliss, confusion, celebration, emptiness, wholeness, perversion, goodness, synchronicity, luck, terror, horror, wonder, adventure, growth, overwhelming gratitude and grace, forgiveness, miraculousness, passion, sexuality, understanding, caring, shifting, healing, working, giving, taking, receiving, being lost and being found, again and again and again.

(I suppose that is simply a life being lived.)

I would not change one moment because if I did I would not be right where I am today.

Don’t get me wrong. Right where I am today is not puppy dogs and moonbeams.

In some ways, I feel like I am only now rising, like a phoenix, out of the ashes of that apocalyptic day.

And as uncomfortable, often terrifying and unsettling as that feels, to be in totally unfamiliar territory in my own surroundings once again, I know that I am indeed in the process of rising, like a phoenix, out of those ashes, and that knowing, in and of itself, is pretty amazing.

I don’t know where I will land, or even if I will. But I know that this is my journey, meant just for me, and I am rising to the occasion.

 

Prompted by The Daily Post Word Prompt: detonate

 

Holiday Panoply

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This week’s blog is a few days early. I wrote this in response to a word prompt via Daily Prompt: Panoply.

My mother was one for panoplies. Not as in the historical definition of “panoply:” a complete set of arms or suit of armor. But as in “a group or collection that is impressive because it is so big or because it includes so many different kinds of people or things.”

She was quite mad for decorating for holidays. From my earliest recollections, she put time and effort into decorating our house for each holiday.

It began with a small Manzanita branch which she spray-painted white. From its branches she would hang little ornaments and such. Perhaps she had seen something like it in one of those women’s magazines of the 1960’s with articles of how to be a good mother, wife and hostess. Those same magazines provided the recipes for many of the staples that she came to cook for us, too. Lots of recipes utilizing canned goods, as I recall. Things like Spam casserole and meat dishes with sauces made from Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup.

My mother had grown up in a rather eccentric household. Somehow, she and her twin sister never learned how to cook. My Grandma, their mother, did not cook. Their father, an active alcoholic, did the cooking, sometimes. I am not, to this day, sure how they all managed to feed themselves. But once my mother was married, she underwent a self-education of things such as housekeeping and cooking. With knowledge gleaned from the resources at her disposal then – women’s magazines, popular cookbooks and recipes from newly forming friendships – my young mother forged her way through the early years of starting a family.

At first, the Manzanita branch was decorated for the major holidays: Valentines Day, July Fourth, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But soon this expanded beyond just the basics to the other less widely decorated holidays as well: President’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Graduation Days, even Veteran’s Day.

We all teased her about it. My friends through the years would always comment upon seeing the tree and its adornments become more and more elaborate. But even in the midst of our jaded perspective on it all, there was also a sense of amazement, too.

The Manzanita branch holiday tree became a central figure of whatever house we lived in. From the first little house in the Sharpstown neighborhood of Houston, TX, to the house in Dallas, TX where we lived for a year until my Dad’s business venture failed and we moved back to Houston. To the Briargrove neighborhood house where my Dad started a new company and went back to night school. To another house a few blocks away in Briargrove as his business grew and thrived. And finally to the really nice house my parents bought after I was off to college in the higher-end neighborhood of Memorial.

How it made all of those moves intact is a mystery to me. Those branches are fairly delicate things. But somehow, it survived, and was always a symbol of something constant amidst the changing environments of our family’s life.

Once in that really  beautiful and much larger home, the home that was to be my parent’s last house, my mother’s decorating could really take flight. The Manzanita tree took a much less central role, bowing down alongside the growing collections of decorations. It would still be decorated, but it sat on the kitchen island, a more ordinary display in comparison to the dining and living rooms, which were transformed into holiday wonderlands that could have competed with any department store displays.

I came home for holidays and though I am sure on some level I appreciated it, I never stopped to think about the effort she put into it. (And I never once thanked her for doing it, which I feel regret over to this day.)

I didn’t reflect on any of this until after she and my father died, when my husband and brother and sister-in-love were going through that big, beautiful house, processing our parents’ lives and deaths by going through all of the things they had amassed in their lives together.

The hours she must have spent collecting each item. Putting them all out. Then taking them down and packing them all away again.

The love she must have had for us and for the doing of it. It takes true love to accumulate a Santa collection that literally has its own room. Closets for each season…with shelves and drawers filled with bunnies, Lincolns and Washingtons, hearts, witches, black cats, pumpkins, ceramic figures of patriotic people, stars of congratulations, new baby banners…

It was so hard to let go of those collections. I did not have the room in our small New York City apartment to store or even use all of those beloved objects. But I could feel her in them, as we sorted through and discovered her hiding places for even more of her collections.  I imagine my father must have tried now and then to get her to promise to stop buying things. It was clear that she hadn’t. The joy she must have had in finding each one. The love she must have felt for us as she imagined creating each holiday wonderland for our enjoyment.

I chose to take one object from each of the major holidays. I cherish them today. We found the Manzanita, and thankfully, my sister-in-love (who is much like my wonderful mother in her ways and in her heart) expressed a desire to keep it. She and my brother have a larger home in Houston. I know that my mom would be so happy for them to be using it.

My sister-in-love also chose to keep many of my mom’s holiday panoplies. I now get to enjoy them on our holidays together visiting their home in Houston. I walk amidst the Santas, beautifully displayed and lovingly put up now by my amazing sister-in-love. I take time with each one, appreciating them, remembering my Mom, and her love.

The Manzanita branch is there, now stripped down to its natural color. It is still a symbol of something constant amidst the ever-changing world and our family in it.

#holidaydecorations #manzanitabranch

 Panoply

 

 

 

 

Stick Season

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

My husband and I love to visit the area around Stowe, VT. We’ve been going there for long weekends for the past four or five years. We go whenever it works out for our two schedules, so oftentimes we are there at off-season times. Sometimes we can go during the peak seasons that draw the leaf-peepers or ski bunnies out in great numbers, but often we go during the in-between times when the locals can enjoy having their towns back to themselves, or take a break.

The fall foliage is spectacular, of course. Leaf Peepers have been flocking to Vermont for ages to see the hues of color thrown across the rolling mountains like crocheted blankets. There is a vibrancy that is energizing. Walking and hiking through the colored forests is a feast for the eyes and the spirit.

The wonderland that comes from winter – when the trees are dripping with snows and the landscape is white – is quiet and majestic. It fills me with awe and reverence; there is something holy about it. I become entranced by the ice formations that stretch from the eaves, and the swirling, snowy winds. Skiing or playing in the snow is athletic and exciting. And being cozy in front of a fire, winter is meditative and ripe for contemplation and relaxing deeply.

Spring feels like the whole state is mating: Mother Nature is gearing up for a green and pregnant spring and summer. I love the smell of manure for some reason — it takes me back to times spent out in the Texas farmland country near where I grew up. That smell abounds in spring in Vermont, along with the incredible perfume of budding flowers. There is so much promise in spring and summer. Hope and lightness. Everything feels possible.

The traditional four seasons in Vermont are legendary and I love them. But it is the other two that have taught me the most.

We discovered Mud Season one year: some call it the fifth season. At the time, we’d never heard of it. It is the transition between winter and spring when the dirt roads become mucky from thawing snows. It is amazing in its own ways. To me, it feels like the whole state is waking up. It is mucky and messy, a reminder to me that all growth is messy.

Growth requires mess. When I am growing, my life feels almost unrecognizable at times. I often panic: what is happening, why do I feel like my life is falling apart, that I am falling apart. I feel uncomfortable in my skin, even, as if it doesn’t quite fit right anymore.

Now I can know it’s my own personal mud season. I can relax into the mess of it: come to see it as a good sign. It means I am making a deep change and things are thawing out.  I am flooding my own well-travelled roads, creating muck, and from the muck, I will form new pathways, new ways of being within myself and in the world.

Things will clear up again. The world will feel familiar again, a new paradigm shift will have settled. The newness will wear off and I will recognize my self and my world again. New growth will come, and I will flourish.

Just this week, we discovered a new season to add to the five seasons of Vermont beauty.

Stick Season. We had no idea when we booked our trip to Stowe for Thanksgiving break that we had chosen Stick Season. We had called our favorite local restaurant to make a reservation and instead got a voicemail message that said they were “closed for stick season.” I looked it up.

Vermonters refer to the period of time between the foliage season and the snow season as Stick Season: the fall/winter transition after the leaves have fallen and before snow has settled on the trees. Naked trees = stick season.

Now as it happened, in the days before we arrived, there were early snows which thrust us into a premature winter-like Thanksgiving which was gorgeous.

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But in our last few days there, the temps rose again and the snow melted, and there we saw it: stick season.

I suppose some people may find it stark or bare, the landscape lacking the lush, pregnant greens of spring or the gloriously-colored hues of fall. My husband found it somewhat depressing-looking. I get that: trees are stripped down to their skeletons; the lack of color to the eye. Most of the birds have gone to warmer climes, so it is an empty quiet, not the whispery-full quiet of snow-covered earth.

But to me, there are unexpected gifts to be found in the season of stick.

We could see the structures that are usually hidden by leaves: it was like discovering whole hidden pockets of life within the towns we thought we knew so well. We kept being surprised at discovering homes and structures that we’d had no idea were there.

There were still some shocks of color: subdued colors that are perhaps usually overshadowed by the flashier foliage and fauna of the usual seasons. They broke out against the grey in a muted but welcome visual reminder that behind the brightest and the loudest often stand other beauties valuable of our attention, if we pay attention. Red-browns that were formerly overlooked as they were surrounded by reds and oranges and greens finally had our attention, and my hungry eyes drank them in with gratitude.

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And the trees themselves, so bare and simple without their normal adornment, seemed elegant and brave to me. I felt I was seeing their core essence, and I could feel their presence and wisdom resonating in different ways than when they overflow with their plumage.

Their stark, bare beauty reminded me of my mother, towards the end of her battle with cancer. I had always seen my mother’s beauty. But at the end, it was if she had been stripped down to some pure essence of her soul. It was as if anything extraneous had fallen away and what was left was the sheer perfection of her human spirit. She radiated a kind of centeredness and a knowing that I could not yet know. She was stunning.

Those trees in stick season felt that way to me. They know things I can not yet know. They know a bigger picture than I can conceive of. I am drawn to be with them, to feel their wisdom, to allow my own excess of spirit to fall away, to strip my own spirit of what I can to get down to the skeleton of who I am. To remember what really matters to me in this world.

Those final days with my mother brought me a clarity of purpose that I had never known before. At her side, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be, doing the most important work of my life.

It was her stick season, and she knew it on some level. Being in Vermont’s stick season brought it all back to me, that clarity of perspective that being with a dying loved one can bring. It’s one of the many gifts that death can offer.

Stick season. I feel like at this time in my life, I am in a kind of stick season right now. I have the desire to become stripped bare of my habitual ways of being in the world. I am finding out who I really am underneath the masks and the costumes of the plumage of my spring and summer. I am sitting with what is really there in me and letting myself feel naked and vulnerable. I have come to know my pure essence, and I am in the process of allowing my self to be truly seen.

Dead branches drop off healthy, living trees all the time, and wood knots appear in the trunk where branches died. Knots are imperfections that cause living wood grain to grow around them. Isn’t that amazing? In the brilliance of that living and growing wood, knots have formed. They are a testament to the life force within a tree, to their growth ability.

I will no longer hide my knots. I will know that there is a kind of beauty in them, too.

I know that there will be new growth in me again. I will dress again in my plumage, but it will reflect the new colors of what I have found within. Mother Nature gives me comfort and faith in the process of growth: she evidences that truth every day of every year. I need not fear what is happening. It is just Stick Season, after all.

#treetherapy #vermont #theseasons #stickseason