Sleepless in America

It was raining last night, hard at times. It pounded the roof and formed a curtain of sound between the house and the world. It seemed to be washing away all that had come before, including the presidential debate we had just watched.

I thought it would be difficult to sleep, but exhaustion and the sound of rain on the roof carried me away for five hours, when I awoke chest pounding, thoughts ricocheting. No need to go into those; let's just say they weren't pretty. 

But there was one consolation: Last night, I imagine, I was not alone. I can only assume there were legions of us tossing and turning. Last night, I suspect, it was the exception rather than the rule to be sleepless in America. 

The Raven's Debut

Last night I caught most of "You Can't Take it With You," Frank Capra's 1938 film staring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Basil Rathbone and ... Jimmy the raven. It was first of many appearances for Jimmy in Capra films, most notably (at least for me) in It's a Wonderful Life. 

I'm not a Capra expert, but I certainly picked up on themes I've known from his other films — the little people against the big people, the importance of friendship, the corrupting influence of money, and the dearness of animals. 

In this film Jimmy the raven helps make fireworks (don't ask) and a small kitten sits charmingly atop a sheaf of papers that one of the characters is typing up for a book. She decided to become a writer when a typewriter was accidentally delivered to their house. Perhaps as good a reason as any to take up the profession.

Whether it was the writing, the raven or the sheer zaniness of the plot, the film left me light-hearted. Not a bad way to end the day.  

A Post at Midday

While I would like to bookend last evening's "A Post at Sundown" with "A Post at Sunrise," alas it is far too late for that. Perhaps "A Post at Midday." 

Which gets to one of my favorite topics, which is time: the numerous time zones in which we live — not just around the world but within individual lives. To the young, days and weeks pass oh so slowly. To those of us who have a few more years under our belts, they fly. 

And nowhere does this reveal itself more clearly than with the arrival of a new generation. To a grandparent, the changes a baby undergoes during those first precious weeks and months, from a completely helpless newborn with wise eyes that seem to carry within them the wisdom of the ages to a smiley six-week-old are doubly amazing. Miraculous in and of themselves — and more so for us, because the transformation occurs at warp speed. 

With change happening this quickly, no wonder A Post at Sunrise becomes ... A Post at Midday.

 

A Post at Sundown

It's past six on a Sunday evening, late enough that if I hadn't written a blog post I would just skip it for the day. But not this Sunday -- or any of the 51 others we've had this year.

That's because about this time in 2019, I realized that if I wrote a post every day, I might hit the 3,000-mark at about the same time as this blog's 10-year anniversary in February. I figured that if I could write five or six posts a week I could probably write seven. And so I did.

I didn't quite make 3,000 posts by the 10-year mark, though I was close. But as it turns out, I've kept up the daily blog-writing routine for more than 365 days now. Come October 1,  I'll start giving myself an occasional pass on a Saturday or Sunday.

It's all rather silly, I know — a resolution I didn't have to make for a blog I don't have to write. But that's the fun of it.

Metronomic

Today I was idling at an intersection, turn signal on, when I noticed how the tick-tick of the signal was in perfect sync with the meter of the Bach on the radio. I enjoyed the music even more with the pulse of 4/4 time reinforced in the car.  

My days of musical study are long since over, but I still find myself tapping out beats. If it's not convenient to nod my head or tap my fingers, I move my toes quietly inside my shoes, as we were taught to do long ago in orchestra class. 

What strikes me then, and still seems true now, is how we live in rhythms of our own making and how music merely makes us aware of that lovely fact. It's the rhythm of life — and it's ours for the tapping. 

The Late Show

Like many people these days, I'm not skimping on the indoor entertainment budget. I've splurged recently and signed up for two online streaming services. Add to that the DVD rentals to which I still subscribe, plus cable television, which has its own delights, chiefly the movie channels.

I've been watching one of those the last couple of evenings. Strangely enough, though I could choose from a wide variety of streaming programs, it's the more limited menu of old black-and-white films that's holding my attention most these days. 

This probably says something about the limits of choice, but what it's doing most is reminding me fondly of those old-fashioned late shows. Back when television had a sign-off time and binge-watching wasn't yet possible, I would stumble upon "The Blackboard Jungle" or "The Philadelphia Story" when I was babysitting or after returning from my 3-11 p.m. shift at Jerry's Restaurant. 

I was the only one awake in the house. It was just me and the movie — be it comedy or drama or romance. It was then, I think, that I learned to love film. And watching these old movies now, sometimes once again the only one awake in the house, reminds me of those early discoveries. How good they were then; how good they are still.

(Photo of "The Philadelphia Story" courtesy IMBD)

Second Bloom

The climbing roses have thrived this year, and the topmost ones are flowering again. I just snapped this shot today, attempting to capture the creamy springlike hue of the rose along with the first gold tinge of the witch hazel. 

Not for nothing are these called climbing roses. I leaned out a second-floor window to take this photograph. While I enjoy the view from on high, I miss the full effect when I'm more earth-bound. 

Every year at blooming time — the main flowering season in late May and the lesser one in September — I ponder the lesson in this. A reminder to train my eyes upward? To have perspective?

Second bloom means second chances, a bonus, what ought not to arrive but somehow, miraculously, does. In a time of year more associated with fading and dying, these flowers are just coming to life. Maybe that's why there are second blooms — for the romantics among us who like to pretend there are messages in nature. 

Baby Step

Tonight I take a baby step toward my next life: a webinar for a course of graduate study I have in mind. I have no idea if this will work out, if it will be what I think it can be, or even if I want to apply. But I won't begin unless I know more, so hearing them out seems a good way to begin.

As I watch our grandson become more alert, as I marvel at his first smiles, I realize, all over again, how much change is a part of life. Babies change weekly — no, daily! — and older children almost as quickly. But as we get older change becomes the enemy. The body fights it and the mind does, too.

So the question becomes, how to build change and challenge into life? Work provides this for me, but it won't always. Study seems like a perfect substitute: pushing the mind to new frontiers. Or at least that's the plan. As with so much these days, all I can say is ... we'll see ...

Perfectly Balanced

Approximately one hour from now the Northern Hemisphere will leave summer behind and enter fall. While there is plenty of reason to mourn this passage — and I will certainly miss summer— there is something about these days, one in the spring and the fall, these equinox days of perfect balance, that I always admire. 

It has something to do with moderation and tolerance, with being able to hold in one's mind two opposite thoughts and feelings. Here we are with summer flowers and autumn chill. I like the variety of the day. It is a hinge, a bridge, a passageway.

So instead of concentrating on what we're losing, I'm going to try and think about what we have today. In this moment we are perfectly balanced: a rarity in nature and in time.

Remembering Cold

After months of high humidity, warm mornings and sultry afternoons, cooler weather has returned. At night temperatures are in the low 40s, and though sun drives us into splashy bright afternoons, the bones don't completely recover from the morning lows. 

The first cold is always a shock: the way the air enters the nostrils, the need to feel warm merino wool against the skin, the return of layers, the chapping of lips and the drying of hands. 

You know the cold is out there in the summer, up there at the poles, or circulating in another hemisphere. And you feel whenever you step into a super-chilled supermarket. But you can't step out of today's cold. 

This is not the end of the warmth and humidity (it can't be!) but a taste of what's to come. And it makes me shiver, just thinking about it. 

The Bells

I found a new online Mass this morning, the first one to pop up when I did a search. One of the ways it  recommended itself was by the playing of church bells at the opening.

In earlier times, the sound of bells was far more a part of life. Bells marked times to rise and work and pray. They commemorated the passing of lives and eras. 

Of course, now we are in unusual times, but even in pre-pandemic days I seldom heard church bells. In fact, my church was taken to task for their modest bell-ringing. As a result bells are rung shortly before services for a couple minutes at a time.

Thus are we deprived of one of humankind's more sonorous sounds — and of the reminders they provide us. 

(The bells of Notre Dame during an exhibition in 2013.)

Quickly

As I watch two of my daughters go through pregnancy and motherhood together, I try to explain what it feels like. "You were once that size," I say, pointing at my grandson. "And now you're having babies of your own."

They smile and laugh. They get it. Sort of. 

But not really, not yet. They think it's passing quickly. They don't know what quickly is yet. But some day,  I imagine — I hope — they will. 

(Photo of moonrise in North Arlington, taken as I was leaving the girls after a virtual baby shower.)

Magic Beans

Yesterday, at the end of a busy workday, there was a wee little knock at the door. I didn't hear it at first due to Copper's loud response. And since he barks often when given the front yard to survey, I assumed it was more of the same. Turns out it was one of our new neighbors, age 8, doing some door-to-door sales. 

"Would you like to buy some magic beans?" she said, holding out a handful of small acorns for me to see. "Only a dollar for four."

"Ah, only a dollar for four," I said, stalling for time. 

With the poise of a true saleswoman, she rushed in when I hesitated. "Or, I can make it five for a dollar," she quickly added.

"Hmmmm," I said. "Well, I think I will buy only four this time. Let me go get you the dollar."

She was ecstatic when I returned, as was her sidekick, one of the three precious boys who lives across the street and who was apparently going to share in the proceeds of this incredibly savvy scheme of selling something that is piling up all around us. 

With everyone working at home these days, this budding entrepreneur will have plenty of customers. I can't wait to see what she'll offer next: maybe a special on autumn leaves. 

Saying Goodbye

A few minutes ago, while working on the deck, I heard the distinctive low buzz of a hummingbird. It was not, as usual, sipping the nectar from the feeder or plumbing the petals of the New Guinea impatiens. It was, as far as I can tell, taking a closer look at me.

These tiny birds are entering their final days in this part of the world. Every glimpse I have may be my last of the season. 

So when this tiny creature entered my air space, did a few star turns and hovered in front of me, I held my breath. It was a moment of transcendence, a moment of quiet communion. The bird, I'm convinced, was saying goodbye.

(An update on this post: I saw a hummingbird a full week later, so not quite goodbye then after all!)

Recess at Home

Fairfax County may be holding virtual classes, but there is no such thing as virtual recess. That is being held in backyards, on street corners and in cul-de-sacs across the area. 

For those of us lucky enough to work out of our homes, lunchtime and recess happen outside our windows, where a fleet of bicycles and a chorus of young voices serenade us during our humdrum workdays. There are scooters and chalk art, shovels and buckets, games with their own sets of rules that we adults can never fathom. There is childhood on full display.

I'm not so far removed from child rearing that I don't appreciate what's going on here. All romanticizing of recess aside, parents of young children must be pulling their hair out. 

All the more reason to smile when youthful exuberance spills out onto the streets. Or at least that's how I'm feeling now. It's not quite time for recess yet. 

Forty-Nine!

It was 49 degrees when I woke up this morning. While we have moved up into the low 60s, I'm still wrapped in a blanket wearing a wool sweater (the first time to don my toasty new Inishmore-knit cardigan) and sipping hot chai.

My plan, you see, is to work outside as long as I can this season. But based on my wimpy response today I barely give myself to the end of the month. 

Given where I live, however, I realize I could be sweating in record-breaking humidity in just a few days. So for now, I plan to sit tight, wrap up when necessary, shed layers when not, and write al fresco until the cold chases me indoors.

Quiet Sigh

This morning's walk gave me a taste of fall: brown leaves on the roadside, thick clouds in the sky. There were fewer people about, and I picked up my pace just to get warm.

Autumn arrives next week, but tell that to the crickets, which are chirping more slowly these days, and to the cicadas, which aren't chirping at all.

Working outside now, I glance up at the roses that twine on top of the pergola, a few of them in second bloom.  I notice how thinned out they have become, how fragile.

It's still a humid, green world, but the edges are peeling away to reveal what's been hidden beneath all the time: the bare trunks of winter, the quiet sigh of fall. 

Grandparents' Day

It's the first Sunday after Labor Day, which means ...  it's Grandparents' Day! This is the first time I've ever paid much attention to this day, though I think I occasionally sent my parents my kids' hand-scrawled notes around this time of year. Now, I'm the grandparent. I'm still wondering how that happened! 

But, since it did, I decided to look into the derivation of the holiday. Turns out, Grandparents' Day is not a Hallmark creation. It was started in 1956 by a woman in West Virginia who volunteered with older folks and wanted to create a way to honor them. Grandparents' Day became a national holiday in 1978. 

What I also learned from googling, though, is that today is Father's Day in Latvia and Macedonia, Day of the Homeland in Germany, and Knabenschiessen (a holiday based around a target-shooting competition) in Switzerland. It's also National Peanut Day. 

So we grandparents don't have a lock on this day. Like every other holiday, we have to share it. 

Goin' to the Chapel

My niece is getting married today, so the family is gathering at an inn on the Chesapeake Bay for the ceremony and reception. I had a sneak preview of the spot at the rehearsal dinner last night. It's right on the water, with gulls and boats and waves. Though less than two hours from home, it's another world.

For the most part, my tenure as an aunt has coincided with my tenure as a mother. I had little time to relish the role in and of itself. But I felt a trace of pure "aunt-ness" yesterday ... with the promise of more to come today.

It's the same kind of love and pride you feel with your own children, just one layer removed. And, because there is more distance, there is also more perspective. At a wedding, especially, where I'll have to do no more than a reading during the ceremony and the rest of the time enjoy myself. 

It brings back memories of almost exactly four years ago, when we turned our back yard into a wedding venue for Suzanne and Appolinaire. Weddings are like that, I think. They carry within them memories of nuptials past. 

Better Late ...

Most of the crepe myrtles in the neighborhood have long since bloomed and faded. The rose and magenta shades have faded to a translucent brown, the petals have dried and fallen.

But for some reason, the lavender-hued crepe myrtle in the front yard always begins and ends its blooming late in the season. Which means that instead of late-summer color, there's early-fall color. 

I've meant to snap a photo against blue skies and puffy clouds. But those days came and went. Instead, yesterday's rains have weighted the stems and leaves enough that they're hanging their heads for a closeup.  I snapped a shot of their muted blossoms in between the showers. 

Simplicity

I learned from the Writer's Almanac  that today is the birthday of the poet Mary Oliver, who lived from 1935 to 2019. I discovered her only years before her passing, reading her prose before her poetry. But it poetry that she was known for and poetry that won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. 

Today's entry includes a few words from Oliver about what she needed, which wasn't much:

"I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else. There were times over the years when life was not easy, but when you can work a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay."

I will hold onto that simplicity today. 

Six Months

I snapped this photo of an empty movie theater after watching a film during Oscar season last winter. I didn't know then that it would be my last visit to a theater in a very long time. 

A lapse in theater-going is only the tip of the pandemic iceberg, of course. It dawned on me yesterday that today would mark six months since I last worked in my office. I had a conference elsewhere that week, so I put in a full day in the office on March 9 and attended a conference downtown March 10-12. 

Everything changed on March 13. Shutdown orders were flying, quarantines were closing in. I managed to squeak in some errands, and even went to church that Sunday, March 15. But after that, I climbed inside and closed the hatch. Millions of others did the same. 

And where are we now? There have been almost 6.5 million cases in the U.S. alone, and almost 190,000 deaths. Global cases are topping out at 27,615, 676, and the numbers are on the increase in most parts of the world. 

Someday we will better understand this disease, someday we will have a vaccine for it. But until then, we isolate, mask and clean. It's a new world — and we're six months into it. 

All Dressed Up...

It's the day after Labor Day, a momentous occasion that used to strike fear and excitement in the hearts of my children and all the kiddos in this area — and equal amounts of glee and relief for their parents. 

It was a day marked with the arrival of the big yellow buses lumbering down the street and stopping at the corner, where a parade of scrubbed schoolchildren with shiny new backpacks would step into them — and be whisked off to their new lives. 

That has all changed this year with the decision to hold virtual classes only in Fairfax County. There's little glee and relief for parents, who are trying to make their children sit still for six hours of online education.  And there are no big yellow buses plying the neighborhood streets. Caption them ... "all dressed up — and nowhere to go."

Every Loop

Having just completed an afghan for my first grandchild, I'm now beginning to crochet one for my second-born grandchild, due in seven weeks. It's highly likely that the baby will be born before the blanket is completed — especially if, as seemed likely last night, I can't even get the thing started!

I'm not what you would call a crafty person, but I believe wholeheartedly in the beauty of the homemade, in giving a child — and now a grandchild — a gift I have created with my own hands. There may be dropped stitches and other flaws, but what matters is the love worked into every loop.

This morning I decided to eschew the Youtube instructions I found last night, which got me started with a slight deviation that made me crazy, and now I'm back on track. It may not be the world's most perfect afghan, but it will be my own — until it's my grandchild's, that is. 

Most of All

Yesterday, I read an entire book. The title isn't important. Let's just say it wasn't War and Peace. But it's worth mentioning because it's been a while since I've read a book in a day, and it was satisfying in and of itself.

I must clarify that by "day" I mean 24 hours, which includes reclining in the hammock on a perfect late-summer afternoon as well as reading in the middle of the night, unable to sleep — with the latter a more common condition than the former, I'm sorry to say. But still, the words were digested, the book was read.

What this means, what I've known all along, is that reading is one of those things I'll find a way to do no matter what. It's one of the things I love to do most of all.

Lit From Within

Walking after dark, which I'm increasingly more likely to do these days, gives me the chance to observe neighborhood houses lit from within. 

I see the glow of bedroom lamps behind drawn shades, the flicker of television screens in living rooms, the laser-like beam above a desk in front of a window. 

While some families draw every blind, others leave windows open for all to see — the fishbowl approach to living. I try to give everyone their privacy, but I can't help but notice the lights ... and the lives lived within them.

(The turkey teapot is out-of-season, but it's the best lamplight picture I can find right now.)

Public Transport

My world changed dramatically on March 12, 2020, the last day I commuted into Washington, D.C. for my job. With my company having decided that the earliest we will return is January 2021, and the openness to telework after that, I think it's fairly safe to assume that I probably won't have to work in an office full-time again.

This is amazing in many ways, one of which is that is that I've gone from riding public transport three to four times a week to ... not at all. And I'm not the only one. According to statistics in this morning's Washington Post, ridership in one local transit system dropped by 95 percent. Similar shifts are happening in cities all over the country. 

I'm sorry about this, sorry because I think public transportation is the way more of us should be getting around. But I'm happy too, because my commute was a grueling, often three-hour roundtrip. I imagine I'm not alone in these mixed feelings. 

It's only one of many challenges created by the strange new environment in which we live. Only one of many models, ways of doing things, that are crumbling, morphing, transforming, becoming a new world, seemingly overnight.

Part of the Furniture

Yesterday, a hummingbird dive-bombed me, flew around my head several times, then hovered right in front of me, as if to announce herself. Of course, I couldn't get my camera ready in time to take a closeup shot (though I did snap the one above of her or one of her compatriots sipping nectar last week).

Hummingbirds aren't the only animals who are becoming nonchalant about my presence. A six-point buck was grazing in my backyard this morning shortly after dawn. Foxes trot through the tall grass that needs mowing as if they owned the place. A few weeks ago, there was a tree frog in the wind chimes; his croaks were highly amplified.

But the birds are on a completely different scale. Because I've been working outside on the glass-topped table all summer they have begun to treat me like part of the furniture. They flit, they flutter, they feed. They completely ignore me. 

Because they do, I can observe their tiniest rustlings, the way a slender stem bends with their weight, or the chirps and peeps of goldfinches, cardinals and chickadees as they congregate around the feeder and gone-to-seed coneflowers. 

Amidst all this bounty, my task is simple: I sit and take it in. I am, after all, just part of the furniture.

A Tree Falls...

I had just finished the last chapters of The Library Book — which chronicles the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire, which reached temperatures of 2,000 degrees F. and glowed with a white-hot light — when I was awakened by a thud and a pop. 

The thud was a 90-foot maple, its trunk leaning for years and its roots weakened by this summer's frequent rains, finally giving up the ghost and toppling over. Next-door neighbors felt their house shake when it hit the ground. (Luckily no houses were damaged and a car that appeared to have suffered severe damage got off easier than it would have originally appeared.)

The pop was the transformer the tree took out on the way down. By the time I joined the crowd of neighbors milling around in the rainy darkness with umbrellas and flashlights, the transformer had burst into flames and half the street had lost power.

The fire fighters had to wait on the power company, and everyone had to wait for the chainsaw crew, which arrived, oh, about 3 a.m. Trucks are still idling on our street. 

A tree falls, a transformer blows, a neighborhood awakens. It was an interesting night, to say the least. 

The Lives of Others

I am, as you might expect, mostly a solo walker. I savor the quiet time I have when pounding the pavement in my neighborhood or on nearby trails. I mostly walk alone. 

But oh, the joy of walking with friends! Last week I planned two socially distant strolling excursions, one to see a buddy who spends most of her time away from home and I have trouble catching in town, and the other a walking meeting with a colleague who's also a friend. 

Taking these walks reminds me how much I enjoy the other kind of walking, the kind that drives me not further into my own mind but pushes me out, into the lives of others.