Lighten up

This humble room in my house is the center of my family's communal life. It is where we share meals, entertain friends, read books and newspapers, do homework, and set up our laptops. Normally the table is overrun with papers and books, except when I clear it off for dinner, and then the floor surrounding the table is home to paper and books. I cleaned up for the photo.   

   

The dining room set is the one I grew up with. I've often thought of replacing it with something more to my taste, but this is the same table that hosted the boisterous family dinners of my childhood. My Irish father and Italian mother had six children. The table was always crowded with people, food, and conversation. It still is.

 

The room includes a fireplace with a 19th century mantel. This is where we come to chase the winter cold and darkness away. We eat in front of the fire and often move our chairs next to it after dinner and do some reading. Even in summer, there's a faint scent of wood smoke in the house.

  

I love this room, but it has a problem...

 ...1970 dark wood paneling!

Combined with the hardwood floors, the brick, and the dark knotty pine built-ins next to the fireplace, it makes for one dim room, especially in summer when the house, which is nestled among trees, is fully shaded. The kitchen, which adjoins this room, is full of custom-made wood cabinets and tiles made by a local potter. I love all the handmade character, the antique mantel, and the rail pulled from an old church, but the original homeowners could not get enough of the color brown.

I'm an earthy, nature-loving grrrl, but I have to admit there is simply too much dark wood in here for me.

      

I need to lighten up, within and without. With a holiday weekend ahead of us and a restless need to make some changes in my life, I went to Home Depot and got everything I need to paint the paneling. It's the first of several projects I have planned for summer, an attempt to stake a new claim in my life, not just update our interiors. I'll post photos over the weekend when we're done, so check back.

Are you working on any DIY projects this summer? What are you doing this weekend?

At the nursing home

My camera sleeps in my bag;

it knows its place.

Instead, the shutter of my eye opens, clicks, and records.

I am here with a young friend and an old friend,

these two I love, joined by DNA and separated by generations,

are both seeking survival and meaning.

She is adrift in a grey sea of dying neurons,

searching for a landmark, a harbor, a familiar shore.

He is learning the art of tending the fire

burning brightly within him;

mastering the balance of expansion and containment.

Grandson. Grandmother.

Opening and closing.

His deep blue eyes are a beacon,

piercing the fog,

calling her clouded blue eyes home

to flesh and bone renewed and remembered:

fair skin, freckles, and curls,

independence and intensity,

the reinvention of the substance of her being,

the fruit of love and devotion.

Life has come full circle,

waxing and waning like the moon. 

                       *** 

Today they connect as they did 25 years ago--

over a silver spoon of pureed peas.

Hers was once the sunny face and steady hand

that guided it cheerily to the bud of his perfect mouth.

Today the babe-turned-man holds the spoon in his strong right hand

and brings it gently to her pale, dry lips.

Patiently and tenderly, he traces the arc of their history with the spoon:

love, sustenance, strength, care, example.

It is the click of the spoon against her teeth

that marks the moment of awakening--

a flood of light in her eyes and then

the unexpected ring of her laughter

pealing from a hidden place

recovering and remembering forgotten joy

a sacred moment unfurling

as he offers her a lifeline

and reels her back toward shore.

--For Jru

Over the horizon

One month until summer, and I'm perched on the cusp of the season, considering the view, wondering what will unfold in the hot, humid days on the hazy horizon and what lies beyond the life I'm living now. Summer always raises the ghost of my younger self and resurrects the dreams I had, the life I imagined, the need to keep dreaming.

On my recent drive through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I realized I'm probably not ever going to live there, among pastures, cattle, and wildflowers. I always envisioned myself as a rustic country girl, but time and experience revealed me to be a nature lover who appreciates the culture and convenience of small cities. I still seek out trees and trails, gardens and wildflowers. I worship a dramatic sky, but I haven't swam in a river in many years. I didn't learn to ski,  rock climb, ride horses, or backpack on the Appalachian Trail. I let go of all those intentions, for reasons simple and complicated.

While that youthful version of myself never came into being, my dream of  building a home and family did. It has been a different experience than the one I expected as an idealistic teenager, but here I am, decades later, still with the same partner, raising two children (though at 16 I dreamed of four). I work at creating a home that most of time is a peaceful respite from the world beyond. I've heard therapists say that a happy childhood sustains a person for their entire life. I'm hoping that's true and that long after I'm gone, my children will be able to revisit the home and life we had in memory and draw strength and inspiration from it.

I wanted to be a writer--always. And I have been a writer--always.

I wanted to travel and possibly live overseas, and I have traveled and lived overseas.

I never expected to be an artist, and now it looms large in my consciousness. I've dabbled in art for a few years now, but my dream is to explore it more deeply and freely, to try and to fail and discover what I am capable of in the process. That's the frontier I'm traveling toward, the life I hope to immerse myself in once the demands of parenting have lessened and my days aren't consumed with driving, cooking, housekeeping, and shopping.

Maybe I'll work for a non-profit.

Maybe I'll learn to garden.

Maybe I'll get to be a grandmother.

Maybe we'll spend part of the year living somewhere else (this really appeals to me).

As doors shut on some of my old dreams, new ones are tapping gently at the window in the starlight, just like Peter Pan. When the house empties of children, I'll be able to raise the sash and invite them in and see what happens next.

What have you left in the dust? What are you peering at over the horizon?

The long and winding road

...that leads to my heart.

Sunday drive with the ones I love. Heart wrapped in stone and leaf, twig and sky.

Bare-boned and lush, growing and dying, shadow and light, enduring and blue.

 Memories rest, rise, bloom again.

Lone tree, heathered meadow. Big sky, big love.

Shifting winds, drifting clouds, dimming light, ruffled hues

Aging and wondering: what lies beyond the wild blue yonder? 

Mother's Day

My mother has been gone for twenty years now; I lost her when I was fairly young. I've been without a mother most of my adult life and feel that loss acutely at times.

My mother never saw me become a mother and I longed for her presence when I came home from the hospital with an infant in my arms, feeling joyous and overwhelmed and a bit unsteady. I wish she'd been there to celebrate my children and tell me "Don't you worry, you'll do just fine."

She would have comforted my colicky son, fed me and my husband, and oohed and aahed over my daughter's rosebud mouth. She could have told me how she navigated through the scary and exhausting moments and shared stories of her own experiences with me and my siblings.

We never got to have those conversations.

I never got to take her out for a Mother's Day dinner or plan a weekend trip with her. Once in a while, someone I know will complain about "having to do something about Mother's Day" and I will think to myself, "I would love to have the opportunity to send my mother flowers or surprise her with a visit or buy a mushy card or visit a botanical garden with her."

Now that I'm older, I wish I had her guidance and inspiration for handling middle age and marriage and teenagers and menopause.  What would she have told me? Maybe nothing more elaborate than "You'll do fine!" but I suspect she had more to say than that.

My mother adored my husband and would have been delighted and impressed by his gardens--all the flowers and the waterfalls, pond, and patio he built. I would have loved to have brought her a cup of tea as she sat on the patio next to the pond. It makes me sad that my mother never saw any of the homes my husband and I have created together.

I miss her warmth, her faith, her laughter, and the way she loved to put dinner on the table and feed a crowd. I almost always visualize her in the kitchen or sitting in a chair at the end of a long day, dozing off with her latest crochet project resting in her lap. Her hands never rested, even when she sat.

It wasn't until I met people who had mothers who were self-absorbed or emotionally unstable or unavailable that I realized what a treasure my mother's no-frills devotion to her family was. She was always there for me--when I got up in the morning, when I came home from school, when I stepped through the door after a date, when I moved away and needed someone to call. At the time, I didn't fully appreciate how lucky I was to have the constancy of her presence. Being there for someone, simply being present, is such a gift.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I miss you still.