Tag Archives: Everyday Life

January Leftovers

02 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Life at Home

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Few will wish for January leftovers when something fresh and piping hot from February’s skillet of life is so readily available.  But here I am anyway.  Still in January. Because sometimes, leftovers are good.  And my January leftovers were very.  So very very, I’m finding them difficult to toss out with February trash.

My feelings on January’s rightness and goodness don’t arise out of the usual ‘feel goods’ we pick up like lint from life when doing right by others, — like helping Sis paint our aunt’s living room last month — or giving Amy what I believe may have been the best birthday gift I could have given — or helping Kara with the before and after gearing up and tearing down of my granddaughter’s Reese’s first birthday party  — you know, those sacrificial acts where we lay down ourselves and our own plans to serve others, only to walk away with hearts strangely light, lugging more love than we left in our wakes.

No, January was memorable for reasons much to do with the way my life carried on the most delicious dialog with works of art.  I watched films galore and read books and went to the art museum and lived my everyday life in between it all.  And I noticed something along the way as I was attending my private January Art Festival of Life: I noticed, for the first time in forever, how art informs life and how life informs art — and how it does this everyday, whenever we bring the two together.  And I noticed how art doesn’t just inform, but how it helps us sometimes to even conform, softening our hearts to receive messages that life alone just can’t.

When my husband asked me his leftover question last month — the one posed last winter, and the winter before that and the winter before that — if it wasn’t time for us to make our own funeral arrangements? — I finally talked to him about it.  I looked him in the eye and begin thinking out loud about what I want to happen and what might help the children, when the time comes — rather than responding as I have for the last three times with a ‘yes I suppose so’ but then doing nothing to make good on that supposed-so yes.

Did this new receptiveness arise out of the recent death of his mother?   No — not even close.  I listened to that tired, wilted question only because I had spent five evenings in January watching films where Death played a leading or supporting role — films like “The Winter Guest” and “Wit” and for the second time, “The Hours” and “Marvin’s Room” and “Evening.”  And I don’t know why I ended up watching so many beautiful stories about death.  I only know, that in ways I cannot fully explain, those movies helped pave the way for me to finally hear my husband’s hard-to-face question.

Another art-life conversation grew out of last week’s surprising encounter with a wasp.  I was stung Tuesday.  Then stung again by words I read on Wednesday — another live-giving passage from An Altar in the World  — on the importance of feeling pain.  And as my index finger throbbed and itched and swelled with leftovers of wasp venom, I endured the discomfort rather than easing it with a dose of Advil.  For three days I lived with a pain that spoke of my humanity.  I heard little whispers  — like how wasps are worth my awareness — how hurting is helpful, because the pain shows us we are still alive, whether our injury is physical or emotional — how life goes on even when injured and even when death is the outcome.  It’s an old lesson that we must learn over and over to death because it never quite sticks. And who could have imagined that a wasp would come out of its hive in January to begin teaching me this lesson on pain and humanity and life and death?

January has borne witness to many exchanges between art and life.  Too many to tell but for one more –  about that pretty antique mesh purse, made of German Silver, featured in the photo above, that became Amy’s birthday gift two weeks ago — that needs to be shared.  The purse came from a collection my mother treasured — which is funny in itself, because Mother not only never carried purses, but she never cared for glitzy, fancy stuff.  She preferred a life of everyday casual — she dressed herself in many-times washed denim –  she never wore cosmetics — and kept her hair cut in a carefree style that allowed her to leave the house with minutes notice.

Anyway, Mother left her prized collection of purses to my sister, who has been trying ever since to sell them to whoever might want them.  And I don’t know why I finally connected Amy to Mother’s purse’s collection, but I believe it had much to do with immersing myself in art.  I was helping Sis paint our aunt’s living room when the dots began dancing together in my mind: I was thinking about Amy’s upcoming birthday…what special thing I might give her as a gift… then I remembered Sis’s unwanted inheritance and how Amy had just borrowed my copy of “Midnight in Paris” which featured an actress portraying a flapper carrying a purse similar to handbags in Mother’s collection.  And somehow, all these leftover dots of dialog came together — and just like that — I had Amy’s perfect birthday gift.  Not only was I giving Amy something she would love, but I was giving her something Mother loved, and something my sister did not — making it a special, three for one moment that forms a perfect trinity.

And now, January is all used up. The month — full of moments mixing magic and mystery — is over.   And there’s nothing I can do about it.  Nothing at all.  Except live like it’s still January — by regarding this new month as a new little art festival of life.  So, then.

Hello, February.  How good of you to drop in for a visit.   No, I know you can’t stay long.  But have a seat, won’t you?  Now tell me — have you read any good books lately?  Seen any good movies?  Oh, “Hugo” — yes, of course, I saw “Hugo” the last day of January.  Of course, in 3-D!  Hey, any thoughts on who might win the Oscar for Best Picture?  Oh, yes, I know you know and can’t tell.  But, what?  You think that ending scene of “Hugo” — showing a close-up of Martin Scorsese’s automaton — looked a little like ‘Oscar’ too?   Oh, I can’t wait to see what happens.  What’s that?  You want to know what’s going on in my life?  Oh, I see — you’re just trying to change the subject — but I’ll be a gracious host by saying –  oh, lot’s.  Lot’s is going on.  And we’ve all month to talk about it.

Wilderness Sayings

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in The Great Outdoors

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Perhaps it’s coincidence.  Or nothing but tunnel vision that causes me to filter out what is not uppermost in my mind; when I have “X” on the brain I see  “X.”  And I see ‘X” everywhere. Sometimes to the exclusion of all else.  No “Y.”  No “Z.”  No whatever else — as it flies past my line of vision.

But whether coincidence or tunnel vision, over and over I find myself thinking along a certain path — to encounter another on my blog roll further down that particular thinking trail.  The connection feels important — not hokey, as with those sometimes, seemingly ‘spot-on’ sayings rising out of broken fortune cookies, that get read aloud by tables full of wisdom seekers.

Here’s one for instance — that comes out of a blog comment I wrote several days ago:

How strange to find you baptizing today’s post with the phrase “question without an answer” — on the day I should wake up realizing that unanswered questions are one of the many things to inspire me.  Maybe it’s Rilke’s urging – “Live the questions now.” — to that young poet of old that causes me to find life most meaningful and real in the face of unanswered questions… [Questions like:]

Is my youngest daughter’s growth on her thyroid benign..?
What comes after death?  [in thinking about my mother-in-law...]
What’s for supper?

No matter their weight, the questions themselves inspire me to live. Inch by inch. Day by day. Until I catch the glimmer of an answer…

Upon writing that list, I thought it an odd mix of questions — the first two hovering at the quick of life with the last feeling a bit frivolous and flighty.  But rather than play editor, I decided to leave the questions be, keeping the list just as it came to me.

It was just as well.  By the next day, I began seeing the questions as more connected than I’d first imagined.  And it came about as all reinterpretations of the past happen — by looking at the same “X” through a different set of lens.  In this case, it was more than one pair of lenses — for I looked at that list through the lens of a new event; and then the lens of a new experience, and finally, through the lens of one other than myself.

That the last came from a flock of birds who had just dropped in for supper — lending me their proverbial bird’s-eye view — well, this did throw me off-balance — enough to confess that even now, I can’t say whether these birds were Red-breasted Black Birds or Robins.  All I know is they were ravenous and noisy and feasting on the fruit of the Cherry Laurel outside my kitchen window.  It seemed every seat in my new bird cafe was filled.  As fast as a ‘table’ came open, a new bird came to takes its place.  No need to ask, “What’s for supper?  These birds had the good fortune to find my tree, so supper became ripe black cherries.

Of course, whatever food they happened upon that day — fitting their own particular bird’s palate — could have become a fine supper:  worms, birdseed or insects, perhaps.   From the bird’s perspective, any answer would have been a good answer — a life-giving answer — as long as the birds themselves didn’t become another creature’s supper — like some bird-watching fat cat, per chance.

As I watched them eat, I saw that life for these birds, as it is for any creature living in the wilderness, is a meal-by-meal affair.  It’s not a question of bird seed or worms.  It’s birdseed.  Or worms.  Or fruit.  Whatever they find.  These live an eat or be eaten sort of existence.  Everyday.  From the birds perspective, living into the answer of ‘what’s for supper’ is not a light-weight question at all — why it very much belonged to that quick of life list of questions left in my blog comment.

Still, the strange thing about yesterday, one I still need to think about, is this:  As I watched that bird-laden tree being picked over clean, I remember thinking how I’d never seen that tree look so alive before.  It shook.  And pulsed.  As birds came and went.  And while ravished by the wilderness, the tree lived on. Empty of fruit, the tree lives to bear again.  The tree lives and the birds live.  And I like how both the giver and the takers have happy endings.

And though I can’t say how — somehow, when I looked at that tree eaten yet not consumed, I imagined the tree being me.  And that instead of birds feasting on my fruit, it became unanswered questions which pecked away my fruitfulness.  Yes, it’s crazy, crazy, these thoughts of mine.  But then, I’ve always had a wild imagination. Perhaps these loose connections I’m making are nothing but tunnel vision at play. Yes.  Let’s just say that me being that tree — and my flock of questions being those birds — is nothing more than one of those odd life coincidences.

The White Orchid

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Life at Home

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The orchid arrived without a card. Like the proverbial pair of socks, where two go in the washer and one comes out — the card came up missing when Amy gathered the plant for delivery.

So what I know is that the orchid was given to me by Amy’s mother Barbara — that it came while I was out furniture shopping with my aunt and sister –  and that my husband, who accepted the gift on my behalf, did not think it important to ask for reasons why.

No mystery here.  He never asks.  Nor does he speculate.  This man I married, who in all ways but this lives in the “real’ world rather than a fairy-tale world of make-believe, prefers to think people will tell him all he needs to know about matters of a personal nature — in spite of an entire married life of evidence to the contrary.

Ginny had a baby.
Boy or Girl?
Forgot to ask. 
Mike’s getting married.
Where are they registered?
Don’t know.  I’ll ask.

 

Sometimes, as it happens, the generic, ‘just-right-for-all-occasions’ gift becomes a perfect gift to give.  And sometimes, the perfect gift becomes what the recipient would never buy for herself –  a lovely white orchid, eight blooms long — that is not only beautiful, but that has inspired me to expand my gardening knowledge in a way unforeseen.  How much light?  How much water, and so on?  For days now, like a Goldilocks of indoor gardening, I’ve searched for the perfect spot for my new orchid to call home.

The den was good since it was in a highly visible space; too bad the light was weak.  It sat on the kitchen counter for an afternoon, before I worried that the cabinet doors would lop off its blooming head.  The utility room?  Too hidden.   My husband’s office — too full.  The dining room?  Too dark.  Living room?  Too hot.  After days of looking, the ‘just-right’ spot ended on top of a nightstand that offered an abundance of soft light — and as living within mystery so perfectly happens — the nightstand belongs to the person who has no need to ask for reasons why.

I’ve come to appreciate how a lack of curiosity –  that once would have bothered me  to no end — has proved to expand a single gift to become many.  Was it a Christmas gift?  Why yes, I did receive the orchid during the season of Christmas.  Was it a sympathy flower, a way of expressing sorrow at the loss of my mother-in-law — why yes, this too makes perfect sense.  Was Barbara’s gift a way of expressing thanks, for the few tasks my husband and I took on related to the wedding reception?  Well, yes — why not.  All these answers hold merit.  Yet, after days of seeking, I’ve settled on a reason less likely but more generic — one that covers Christmas to sympathy to thanks:  that of friendship – and that I received the gift of a white orchid at all — becomes answer enough.

But what of that other pair of questions tossing around in the laundry, like  — Will Amy ever find the missing card? — And will my husband ever ask why the orchid has come to live on his nightstand? — to these I offer a single answer:  I hope not.