beeconcise

Just after dinner this evening the rain began, first gently, then with gusto, which happens seldom here in Spokane, Washington. I’m used to Florida rain storms, growing up in Pensacola, and I remember the droplets always being silver-dollar sized.

After only a few minutes tonight the rain gutters were filled to overflowing and torrents of water began pouring off the roof, causing small floods at low spots in the yard. Out front, in the Cull de sac, it looks like a river flooding. Rain from everywhere seems to be flowing towards us, as we have one of the two drains on the street at our curb side.

My kids and friends know how I love the rain, and especially on dark mornings or when the sun goes down. It’s both restful and restorative, all at the same time. I must pull energy from this. I look out my office window and can hardly take my eyes off the droplets of water, hanging onto each grape vine. I think I could watch it for days, wondering which drops will drop when.

Not only did it sprinkle on and off all day long, but our computers were down as of 10:15 a.m. Hubby came home from work and fixed it all. I really believed he could restore power where it was needed. But since the computer was not a choice for me later this morning, I went to the grocery store, to the plant nursery and the knitting shop. I came home, put groceries away, lugged plants to the front and back yard, planted most of them, then knitted for an hour and took a two-hour nap. If you ask me, it feels like a vacation.

And yet, I rushed to check e-mail and Facebook as soon as the computers were up and running. I think it was the issue of knowing I was not as connected as I like to be. I still had the phone, and the TV, and you’d think that was enough.

At home in Pensacola we had a black rotary-dial phone with a 5-diget phone number, and certainly no cell phones. We played Monopoly or Solitaire, roller skated with side-walk skates, or played Jacks. I never once felt disconnected by not having a computer or a cell phone, and didn’t miss the TV because we didn’t have one until I was 12. I don’t remember ever feeling deprived.

But then, we did have the rain. And lots of it. No wonder I love it so much today. It always makes me feel safe.

After returning home from a weekend writer’s retreat feeling discouraged, I want to tell my writer friends and family members about the ‘magic’ that happened after I got home … of course thinking about our speaker’s messages while driving home: Writing is hard work. It’s a full time job. It is not a hobby. And why would we ever waste an agent’s time unless we’d done all of our homework and had a perfect pitch ready, for the perfect agent and the perfect publisher, all of which we have researched until we can zero in like a cruise missile. (Well, mutter, mutter.)

During the last morning of our retreat, we selected books from our writing library we might like to have. I picked up A Cup of comfort for Writers, and because it rained so hard last night after I got home, I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning listening to the rain, pulled out the small book I’d brought home with me, fixed a cup of coffee, and read the first story, called “Hummingbird’s Journey” by Cassie Premo Steele. It’s so beautiful I almost cried. And the message in this story was the same message I heard at our writer’s retreat. The first time it was discouraging. Maybe it was the agent’s blunt delivery. But this woman I was reading, at o’dark thirty this morning is a poet. Much softer delivery. But the message is the same. It’s hard work. It isn’t a hobby. It isn’t about inspiration, mood, or magic. It’s about research and revision, and analyzing the genre we love.

In her beautifully written story the writer says that it’s discouraging (and I quote) ‘when there is growth enough in the garden, but no one comes to admire your colors, all you have begun to create and become’. This struck a chord in my heart.

Unless you are a writer this might not stir you soul, but it certainly stirred mine. This poet eventually took a trip in Mexico to the Hummingbird’s winter resting place, and noted that a hummingbird will beat its wings 70 times per second, keeping itself afloat, like a writer, trying to focus on that thought, that idea, those words we labor to find and create. It is hard work. This beautifully written story inspires me in a way the speaker at our retreat did not, and yet I understand clearly that this is the same message, only in a different format. And trust me, my words here are not nearly as poetic and inspiring as the writer’s, but I got the message. It is hard work. And sometimes our hearts do beat as wildly as a hummingbird’s, but we still must focus on things like our jobs, families, friends … our lives in general. It isn’t just writing as fancy, or on a whim, or as a hobby.

When I eagerly checked out this poet’s blog, I found a spot where she mentioned reviewing work by Mary Alice Monroe, whose book The Long Road Home I’d finished reading the night before I left for our retreat.  The week before this, my sister-in-law, Jane, had mailed me a copy of Mary Alice Monroe’s Time is a River, knowing I would enjoy it. I opened this wonderful book (a new author for me) and began reading the moment I tore open the package, and found deep life lessons on these pages that I needed to absorb. I knew I wanted to read as much of Mary Alice Monroe’s writing as possible, the very reason I had rushed out to bring home the next book I’d find on the local bookstore shelf, which happened to be The Long Road Home. 

Reading the blog post by Cassie Premo Steele this morning, sitting in the living room, listening to the rain and finding the interview of Mary Alice Monroe’s The Long Road Home,  felt to me like coming full circle.  As writer friends I’m sure you will understand.

Mary Alice Monroe is going to the top of my reading list. I will be sending along her books to friends & family members, as well.  It also makes me smile to know that that my mother’s name is Mary Alice, having nothing to do with anything here ~ but it does speak volumes to me.

Here’s the blog spot from this morning’s epiphany.  http://cassiepremosteele.blogspot.com/. It felt like soothing ointment to me as I read this May 15, 2011 posting so early this morning. I hope it is just as inspiring to my writer friends and other readers.

Yesterday I bought my mother two really nice outfits at Macy’s, convinced we’d have to have it all altered at $12.00 a seam, as we’ve had done before. She’s has osteoporosis and has lost 10” in height. I wrapped the gifts today in lovely, sweet wrapping paper with beautiful ribbons, added a card, and took the packages out to her so she doesn’t have to wait until Mother’s Day. At 92, how many more of these are you going to have?

She was tickled pink, as she’d say, little Southern woman that she is. And wonder of all wonders – every thing fit her as if she’d been the model for the clothes. Pink slacks and knit top, and also black slacks, black knit top with ivory white bobbles around the neck, and a lovely jacket in black & white. Even the jacket sleeves were perfect. How lucky can I get?

She asked me to help her find a navy blue pants suit, sometime this winter, she said, to wear to funerals there at the retirement home where she lives. It’s a frequent event there now, with so many older residents. Some have lived there for over 30 years, even though my mom is in the newer section.

When I saw the black outfit today at Macy’s, even though it’s a lightweight summer fabric, I knew it would be perfect. We’ll do the navy blue for winter, as she mentioned. Not many things you can buy for a 92 year old, and going out to eat is no longer much of a joy for her. Too expensive, too much salt, and a whole lot of effort with a walker and oxygen tank. She just came to our house for Easter Sunday and we spent time going over photos and videos of kids and grandkids. Dinner, dessert, half a glass of wine and she’s done. Ready to go home.

She’s invited me to brunch next Monday, May 9th, at Lilac terrace at 11 a.m. Now I’m wondering what I should wear. And I wonder what she’ll wear. It’s a girl thing. Mom & Daughter. It’s still fun.

I know we don’t have a whole lot of time left together, and the things we used to do, especially when she first moved out here 16 years ago, are too much trouble now – parks, and feeding the ducks and picnics with the grandkids when they were smaller. We even cooked together a bit, but not anymore. We used to work in the yard together, but don’t do that, either. We rarely sit on the patio together in the summer, as surely a bee will buzz by or a very slight breeze will kick up, and inside we go. “It’s too cold out here,” she’ll declare. I always remind her that we don’t live in Florida any more.

It isn’t fun having her to the house for dinner, because of the preparation, going to get her, bringing her home, making her comfy on the sofa while we finish up whatever we’re having for dinner, and some five minutes after dinner, she’s ready to go home. I take her library books and she says she doesn’t enjoy reading. I used to take her books on tape, but she didn’t like listening to them. She watches TV with the sound off and takes her hearing aid out to talk on the phone – go figure! And she’s never learned to knit or crochet, and if she knew how she’d tell me her fingers don’t work right anymore. And she won’t work on puzzles, and dislikes cards or other games. It’s easy to see why I feel like I hit a home run today with two complete outfits that look totally adorable on her, are the right size, and the pants lengths are perfect. Couldn’t be better. This was a Mother’s Day gift to me, as well.

This morning, finishing up a cup of coffee before heading out to my yoga class, I looked out the sliding glass door into the back yard and discovered the quail were back. There they were ~ eight fat, beautiful, waddling quail, perched on the back fence, and dropping down to the ground one by one to nibble bird seed.

For a few minutes they almost seemed to be feeding in pairs, a boy quail and a girl quail … at one point two couples marching along, together … boy, girl & another boy, girl … all in a row like little children, heading back to a school bus after a trip to a local park or even something exciting like a fire station. What mom who’s ever herded school children on a field trip wouldn’t love this scene?

As I watched the quail, mesmerized, I could feel tension in my body ease and knew blood pressure was also being lowered ~ those things that our doctors tell us are good for our health. It occurred to me that watching quail might be as good for me today as going to the yoga class.

But when the birds flitted away to my neighbor’s yard, it was as if they could sense my thoughts, and knew I really needed to go to yoga, so they left. After a big sigh I picked up my water bottle and headed out the door, and went through the paces in the yoga class. Now that I’m back home, finished with Downward Dog and other poses, I’m happy that I went, and even saw more quail on the hill by our house when I returned. It makes me smile even now as I remember the delight I felt at discovering my little friends visiting our back yard this morning.

Somehow it’s a fitting end to a beautiful Easter here in Spokane, with sunshine and temps that finally reached into the 60’s. I wore sandals to a friend’s birthday party, pulled out summer clothes, and put ‘finding the front porch rope swing’ on my list of things to do today.

It’s definitely spring here now, especially in my back yard. It’s threatening to rain this afternoon, and even that will be welcomed, watering all those new plants that have poked their heads through the soil. We have a friend’s bleeding hearts looking full and vibrant in a back flower bed, new buds on the lilacs, and wild geraniums springing back to life. All of our native grasses made it through the winter and five clematis vines are once again filled with new growth and the promise of flowers to come. A late sprig of ivy planted on the side of the house last summer is even beginning to grow up a trellis. The older I get, the more I appreciate the seasons of life.

We live in the small community of Millwood. If we are to be some place on time we must observe train schedules – Millwood train or the Pines train, between 8:30 – 9 a.m. Today, instead of rushing to get in the car to leave by 8:20 a.m., for my 9 a.m. class at the gym only 4 miles away, (and miss both trains), I skipped it all. I skipped visiting my mom as well.

This left me in the kitchen, pouring a second (or a third?) cup of coffee, and looking into the back yard, where I saw one beautiful quail. Then another. And another. You can’t just tell a bunch of quail to stand still so you can count them the way you might when you’re coordinating a field trip with school kids or Brownie Scouts. I did finally count 10 sitting on our back fence.

As if by magic, smaller birds in the fat evergreen in that corner of the yard began to flit in and out of the evergreen, and then up onto the fence with them. I had to remind myself that these were quail, not hawks, which would have sent our smaller birds dashing off to the neighbor’s yard.

As I finished my coffee, I thought back to schedules I’ve met for myself and others this week – YMCA classes, Dr. appt. for my mother, scheduled walks, compost lecture, library trips, a luncheon tomorrow, things to buy (must not forget the bird seed), a must stop at Good Will to ‘off’ and not ‘buy’ things. Nothing like the schedules I used to keep when I worked. But still enough to fill my calendar to overflowing. I look back at my life and wonder how I did all that I did as a younger version of myself, trying to squeeze in writing time, care for a family, work part time, and return to graduate school with a teaching schedule.

Then I laugh, remembering the 4 a.m. grocery lists I’d write out, buying non-perishables on a lunch hour to stash in the car trunk, perishables to pick up on the way home, and more. Now that’s a hectic life. It still seems necessary to pare down the little I do now to find time to commune with the quail in my back yard, which makes me wonder why we continue to keep ourselves overly busy.

Habit, probably, until we learn to pencil in time for ourselves. Maybe it was my 3rd. cup of coffee this morning but a long-ago thought reappeared – look for a pussy willow plant for the front flower bed. To have quail sightings and pussy willow thoughts in the same morning, with an unhurried cup of coffee. Now that’s what I call abundance.

Spring always brings thoughts of friends to mind, when the plants they’ve given me poke their green shoots through the soil. We’ve got Holly Hocks out by the fence from our next door neighbor. The colors are hot pink and white, and they filled us with such joy all summer long last year. We finally had to stake them up and actually whack them off at the top because they had this ‘Jack and the Bean Stalk’ mentality. I kept telling them it was time to stop growing, but they wouldn’t listen to me.

This fall Dennis planted a big clump of Bleeding Hearts from my walking buddy, and they have wintered over beautifully. The hot pink shoots coming up from the soil look hearty and healthy. I’m told they are also pink and white, and can hardly wait until they bloom.

Last fall I planted about a dozen Grape Hyacinths from this same friend, as well as seeds from the orange lilies in our front flower bed, and they all look healthy. We’ve got a lovely pink Rose bush that a friend gave to my mother. It was a couple from the church we’d attended for years, and the gentleman, Elmer, died this past winter. Very sad. I’ll have to name that rose bush Elmer, I think.

We have a beautiful pale pink Hydrangea that was loaded with flowers the first year it was planted that my mother gave me for my birthday one year. That fall I cut it back, learning the next spring when it failed to flower that it blooms on old growth stems. The next fall I did not cut it back. It looked beautiful in the early spring, until a killing frost took it out. We let it be last fall. It looks glorious now, with the promise of multiple blooms.

Our evergreen ‘Fat Albert’ Evergreen tree out in the corner of the yard by the back fence is looking really beautiful now, even though we tried (by mistake) to do it in the year we put round-up nearby, killing grass inside our new concrete garden edging. Oops again. It’s amazing the lessons we learn as we garden, like raising children, I think.

The Raspberries, Grapes and Asparagus all give hopes of another year of abundance. And the hot pink Peony under the Grape trellis has wintered over nicely. We’ll plant Tomatoes in a spot with a bit more sun this year, and hope to start a Compost bin, which I’ll really enjoy. Our Rhubarb is alive and well, and this actually came from a neighbor’s patch when Dennis and I first married, over 22 years ago … that’s a lot of rhubarb, friends!

There’s something hopeful about getting the patio furniture out from the garden shed each spring, seeing Dennis ‘re-condition’ the lawn mower, and talk of thatching the lawn. And the bird feeders are out now. Yesterday, armed with a can of red paint, I painted the small bird feeder Tate made for us some 10 years earlier. If I remember the story correctly, Phil lost a thumb nail hammering on a part of the bird feeder at a father-daughter evening at Tate’s school. The feeder was my Christmas gift that year. Each summer Dennis thinks it’s the last year for this feeder. But it’s got a lot of years left.

Yesterday I cleared away the winter kill from our Chives and Thyme, and the Oregano is of course coming back as strong as ever. Every time I look at my chives I smile, remembering the time, when Jamie was around 6 years old, that she and I looked around our small garden. I showed her what the chives were and cautioned, “This is NOT a weed. These are grandma’s Chives. Don’t ever pull them up.” I think she was helping me weed a flower bed. A few minutes later she came running in the house to tell me, “Grandma, I just saved your Chives! Dennis was going to pull them up but I told them they were your Chives, and to never pull them up.”

Some years later, when the patch had become too large and unruly, Dennis dug up half of this plant to send home with Tate to their home in the Tri-cities, and there among the tangled roots we found a gold bracelet of mine that had dropped off my arm when I was working in the garden – no idea when or where, until I realized one day that the bracelet was gone. Little did we know we’d find it some 5 or 6 years later, in the tangled roots of those Chives. I brushed it off and put it on, lovely as ever.

It’s obvious that my yard is my friend, and that it has once again survived our harsh winter. I guess it’s all been taking a very long winter’s nap. But it’s awake now and so am I, my gardening tools are by the back steps, and I’m ready to begin my dance with summer.

Just the words Cherry Cobbler bring to mind smells of delicious cherries, warm and crunchy topping, thoughts of home. How lucky for me that my day is not filled with thoughts of a Japanese nuclear melt down, dangerous water levels in tap water and food we can’t eat because of radiation. Here in Spokane we’re toasty warm, it’s raining outside, which I so dearly love, the paper should be sitting out in my driveway, I’ve had my first cup of coffee, have on warm socks. Really, it doesn’t take too much to make my life feel complete. On the other hand, it also doesn’t take too much to unravel it, either. But for today my agenda is set with ‘nesting’ type things – cherry cobbler, lots of laundry to be done, a novel to finish outlining, quick trip to the grocery store, and two March Madness basketball games to either watch or keep up with. Come to think of it, there’s three basketball games I’d like to watch – maybe even four. It’s hard to be lazy yourself when watching college basketball players so focused on their games, making plays that don’t exist unless they make them happen. It’s a good way for all of us to live our lives. Living with a purpose. That’s it. Every single day.

My daughter tells me that my little grandson just completed his first tryke-a-thon at his pre-school down in Georgia as a fund raiser for St. Jude’s. I can see this being something he’ll do all his life, and even though training wheels were on his bike, I think he’s going to be a terror on wheels when he’s older. She said he was the first one on the course (set up in the pre-school parking lot) and almost the last one off, and looking other kids in the eye as he passed them. It occured to me that perhaps the other children, also enjoying themselves, were busy not getting hit and they were the ones doing the looking in the eye. It’s all so much fun for them at four years of age. I think it’s called passion. And these bike riders will grow up to be basket ball players, or maybe writers, or business owners or hoop dance instructors and who knows what. And later they’ll be grandparents like me.

Years ago someone mentioned to me ‘how our lives play out’ and I didnt really understand what she meant. Now I do. It’s simply that – how our lives play out. We start out so young, with a very straight road ahead of us if we’re lucky, stay on the straight and narrow path for a long time, then most of us make some sort of a mess of it all by the time we’re finished marrying, having kids, retiring. It’s like those twisty roads I’ve driven down south … country roads, no interstates to get you where you’re going quickly … just roads that may or may not be going where you want to go. It all just simply plays out. Eventually you get to where you’re going, or you arrive some place. And if you’re lucky, at the end of the day you’ll be able to smile at the birds nibbling at the feeder in your back yard, and have a big serving of warm Cherry Cobbler with somebody you love. This is how I want my life to play out. No mansions. No mega-millionaire. Just cherry cobbler with somebody I love.

What I understand now that I didn’t believe a few yers ago is that even this takes work, clear planning and living with purpose! I don’t think these things happen without an agenda. Then again, I could be wrong. But that’s a thought for another day.

Since I’m one of those who keeps everybody’s addresses and contact information, I’m stressed to find I’ve lost somebody along the way … like a “Best Mommy Friend” from when my children were little. Things happen, though. Our lives move forward, or sometimes backwards. We move, get new jobs, kids change schools, some divorce, remarry, or not. We bgin to age & then one day we realize we’ve lost touch with these friends.

My friend Gail and I from Upper Michigan days were new brides and soon to be new moms. We had another good friend named Donna. Together we three friends had three adorable babies – Gail had a daughter, Becky, I had my son, Phil, and then Donna had her son, Eric. Three young moms with babies in arms. Of course we all had other friends there at K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, with an average of 120 inches of snow a year. Friends, neighbors and support systems were abundant, but to me … Gail & Donna were truly my Best Mommy Friends.

We dressed our kids up & took them treat-or-treating together for Halloween. My favorite photo of these three kids is their first Halloween when they could walk around the neighborhood, with Becky dressed as a tiny little witch, Phil was a ghost and Eric was a cowboy. We moms urged the kids on from house to house, collecting candy to enjoy after kids were in bed – especially the chocolate.

We three friends baby sat each other’s kids, traded recipes, shared holiday meals and parties … and since we were all Air Force wives, we even rode blue AF buses together out to the alert shacks to visit our B-52 crew husbands. And then we began to move with assignments hither and yon. More kids were born to each of us. Lives changed dramatically.

Gail and I exchanged Christmas cards, with an occasional letter or phone call in-between, plus a few photos, for the next 45 years. Then three years ago we were reunited when her middle daughter, Linda, moved to Spokane with her family. Since that time, Gail and I have become ‘best-friend-e-mail-buddies’, have shared books, have gotten together one 4th of July in Gig Harbor with family, and have had some wonderful times visiting in Spokane with our husbands.

But we had both lost touch with Donna. Until now! We found her just this week. I feel like we’ve located buried treasure. What fun to find out our friend from so long ago is doing well, her kids are great & she’s a grandma like the rest of us. She promises photos soon. We are planning not just a reunion, but a slumber-party reunion here in Spokane.

I promise everyone their own bed and own bathroom, we’ll yak and chat, have dinner on the patio with lots of wine, I’m sure, unless we break out the Margaritas; we’ll watch at least one sappy movie with popcorn and will definitely have ice cream with chocolate sauce & raspberries at midnight. We’ll linger over coffee, quiche and muffins on the patio the next morning, and hopefully have a fabulous lunch at my favorite new restaurant. When you get to be our age, this is about as exciting as life gets, but it suits us. Three Best-Mommy-Friends from 48 years ago. I’m looking so forward to this. We’re thinking summer will be perfect.

Actually, poetry every morning is the norm for me. Not writing it, sad to say, but reading favorites. Here are two that speak volumns about this time of year in the Pacific NW, from Wes Hanson, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I hope you will enjoy these as much as I do. He’s given me permission to post them on this blog.

> Field Notes
>
> Though snow crust caps brown weeds,
> Though pine needles are old green,
> Though winter birds talk in cliches,
> I search for buttercups.
>
>

> Nature Works
>
> I look out the window
> at the bird feeder
> where chickadees and nuthatches
> land and push through husks
> for seeds. They pick pocket booty.
> Below them juncos peck
> debris and flit to nearby brush.
> Finches tilt the feeder.
> I think their size should push off other birds, but hunger invokes courage.
> Or is this just my feeling?
> Anyway, the rush between the feeder
> and tree limbs continues.
>
> This winter I did not see the varied thrush.
> It always seems to arrive too early.
> Sometime in February
> I hear its flutey call in curtained woods herald still reclusive spring.
> Not this year, though,
> unless it came without me knowing.
>
> Claw marks gouge old snow below the feeder.
> No mystery.
> Turkeys passed through, searching
> like robed pedants,
> Not like the absent thrush,
> elusive as its calling.
>
>
>

A few weeks ago I saw a poem in my American Life in Poetry weekly e-mail by Lois Beebe Hayna.
She had written a poem called Brief Eden, about her living with her family at the edge of a wood, watching birds that rested at feeders, with whole flocks appearing overnight as this place they lived was under a migratory bird flyway.

There are four main flyways in the U.S., which many know, but I did not know until I decided to write about birds migrating from Mexico to Alaska and then returning in the spring. Imagine my surprise to find – like Delta or United Airlines, they have designated routes that they follow. And here where we live, it’s called the Pacific Flyway.
Since I have this as a complication in my novel, I wrote to Ms. Hayna, to ask permission that I might use her beautiful poem in the front of my novel if it ever sees the light of day. She wrote back promptly, giving me permission, and I am delighted. Here’s the poem. I love reading it.

Brief Eden/Poem by Lois Beebe Hayna

For a part of one strange year we lived
in a small house at the edge of a wood.
No neighbors, which suited us. Nobody
to ask questions. Except
for the one big question we went on
asking ourselves.
That spring
myriads of birds stopped over
briefly. Birds we’d never seen before, drawn
to our leafy quiet and our brook and because, as we later learned, the place lay beneath
a flyway. Flocks appeared overnight – birds
brilliant or dull, with sharp beaks
or crossed bills, birds small
and enormous, all of them pausing
to gorge at the feeder, to rest their wings,
and disappear. Each flock seemed surer than we
of a destination. By the time we’d watched them
wing north in spring, then make
an anxious autumn return,
we too had pulled it together and we too moved
into what seemed to be our lives.