Blue Moon Halloween

Last evening's moonlight made striped shadows of newly bare trunks and lit the backyard with its wan glow. 

Tonight's blue moon (the second full moon of the month) will rise on little ghosts and goblins who, instead of ringing doorbells, will grab treat bags from tables placed at the ends of driveways. 

If clouds stay away, moonlight will be their companion. But even if they don't, these kiddos will see houses more decked out for the season than any year in recent memory. Giant spiders climb ropes that span most of a yard. Skeletons dangle from doorways. And webs spread from hedge to hedge. 

It's a creepy, crawly little world folks have created for children this year. A fun, faux-frightening one set amidst the very scary real one we are, at least today, trying to ignore.

Plague Lit

Call me strange, but for some reason I've gravitated to pandemic fiction these last few months. I re-read The Plague by Camus, tried Jose Saramago's Blindness but only got a third of the way through it, and just finished the historical novel Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. 

Though The Plague was more profound, Year of Wonders was more enjoyable. I was pulling for Anna, the protagonist, who suffers loss upon loss but emerges the stronger for them. 

I was whisked away to a 17th-century English village (based on a real place), which decided when faced with the Black Death to keep the disease contained within its boundaries. The citizens voluntarily quarantined themselves, suffering much greater loss of life than if they had run at the first sign of illness. 

Knowing that once, long ago, a group of ordinary folk decided to take this step, to give up their own lives to save others, makes this an especially powerful moral message to contemplate. 

Lessons from the Pandemic

We received word late yesterday that the earliest the U.S.-based employees in my organization (which is most of us) will return to the office is April 1, 2021. By then, it will have been a full year of remote work. 

As it stands now, we are well into our eighth month. Almost long enough to make a baby. In fact, here's a thought: infants conceived at the beginning of the pandemic will soon be out in the world. The Quarantine Generation. Gen Q?

What else has been gestating? Fear and confusion, to be sure. Divisiveness, absolutely. But also, as many have noted, a renewed closeness with the natural world. 

What I was trying to get at yesterday, but didn't quite, is that the outside office, my "deck desk," is not just a bucolic retreat; it's at the mercy of the elements. I've dashed inside to avoid raindrops, wrapped up in a blanket to withstand the cold. And soon, perhaps even today (I'm writing this an evening ahead), I will be forced inside. 

Being more attuned to the natural world is instructive, though; through it, we can better understand what the pandemic is so rudely teaching us: that we are not in charge. That can be ugly, true. But it can also be beautiful. 

The Deck Desk

For the last many months my desk has been a glass-topped table on the deck. It's where I've scattered my notebook and planner, where I've carefully placed my laptop and phone after wiping the glass to remove even the tiniest drop of dew. 

It's a table that gives me a front-row seat on the natural world. Squirrels and chipmunks scamper a few feet away from me, searching for acorns. Cherry tomatoes still cling to the vine. The hanging basket of New Guinea impatiens has thinned and browned, but there are still enough bright flowers to remind me of summer.

Even as the leaves turn from green to yellow — and power tool sounds from lawnmowers to leaf blowers — I sit here still. This is my workplace, my deck desk.

Mind and Body

Over the weekend I read an essay about the power of literary analysis in the college classroom — and, because of the unique times in which we live — also not in the college classroom.  Apart from the many excellent points made about education in the humanities — the lessons of the great books have never mattered more, the ability to think and analyze is prized in the workplace — the author, Carlo Rotella, made one that brought a crucial point to mind. 

While teaching via Zoom, Rotella said, he realized how much he uses visual cues in his class, figuring out who he should call on, who's getting a concept and who is not. I ran this through my own, English-major memory, and sure enough, the same seems true from the student's point of view. 

What I remember most about college literature classes is not just the ideas that seemed to be exploding in my brain as we discussed The Magic Mountain or The Brothers Karamazov, but the visual impressions my teachers left as well. 

I recall in particular my favorite college professor, Dr. Ferguson, who would curl himself around the podium when he lectured, one knee on the desk, one foot on the floor, while stork-like, he led us through the great books. It's not that I don't recall the ideas themselves — I think about them all the time — but until I read this essay I wasn't aware of how closely they are linked to the physical peculiarities of the professors who introduced them to me. 

This essay triggered a dialogue in my brain, a conversation between the author and me, and the part that I supplied surprised me — as it should, when the "conversations" are deep and good. 

Cousin Meeting

Over the weekend, there was a gathering of the clan. And the cousins — who had attended showers and weddings and family dinners together (though with one or both in utero) — finally met in person.  I wouldn't exactly say that they interacted, but they were held up close to each other, and it felt momentous to me and to their parents.

There's something about taking on the grandparent role. It's a stepping into the wings and off the main stage, a move made with gratitude for the most part but not without a backward glance. 

Not that I won't be a big part of these little people's lives. But I won't be raising them, and up till recently, the parenting role is the one I've had. 

As we left the house there was one baby fussing and the other being strapped in his car seat for the ride home. Our car felt empty and quiet — but peaceful, too. 

(Photo from another gathering of cousins, this one long ago.)

Gathering Rosebuds

The weather gods have given us one more warm day, one more day to walk and bounce and write outside before the cold moves in. It could be 30 degrees cooler tomorrow than it is today.

I can hear the lawnmower outside. Does it only seem more fast and frantic because I'm feeling that way about making the most of this day?

The second bloom roses I've been enjoying brought this verse to mind:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

Autumn Bond

Autumn is rolling out quite the red (and gold) carpet for our fall "babies" (our new granddaughter's mother's birthday is today). 

Decades ago, when I was expecting Suzanne, I hoped she would be born in time enough to enjoy the glories of autumn. We lived in northern Massachusetts then, though, and the trees were almost bare when she arrived. 

As it turns out, though, Suzanne's birthday is perfectly aligned for autumn color in the mid-Atlantic — and so is her baby's. 

Now when I marvel at the bright colors, inhale the scent of crushed leaves, I think about how she and her baby will always have this bond. This time of simultaneous change and equilibrium will always be theirs to share. 

The Wake-Up Walk

I woke earlier than usual this morning, woke to a cotton-wool world all blurry around the edges. Perfect for a wake-up walk, one where you start off half asleep and the walk itself is what brings you fully to consciousness. I took sunglasses because there's a brightness beyond the fog and I wanted to be ready for it.

I began with Dan Fogelberg's "To the Morning" in my ears, because its quiet start and slow crescendo mimics a day opening its eyes and stretching its arms. At the halfway mark I switched to chants from Anonymous Four.

As it turns out, I didn't need the sunglasses. The day has yet to brighten as I think it will. All the better for a wake-up walk, one where footfall is stilled and thoughts along with it, where the hours begin their slow unfurling with dignity and grace.

Baby Girl!

Our second grandchild arrived in the wee hours of the morning: a little girl this time! Like her cousin, she was born slightly before the due date, an awesome accomplishment that has me wondering ... will both these children be punctual beings, or more than punctual, will they always arrive early? An amazing thought!

Childbirth in the age of Covid means we are scattered about the region and the country, sharing the news with middle-of-the-night texts, sending hearts and flowers and congratulations notes, waking and cheering and giving thanks and falling back to sleep (or trying to) with images of infants in our heads. 

Suzanne was a sweet big sister right from the start, as she demonstrates here, in one of the first photos I have of her holding Claire. 

Now she's holding a baby of her own, long awaited, cherished and treasured by many. I hope mom, dad and baby feel the love we're sending their way. I bet they do!

Going in Circles

Happy is the house that allows circumnavigation — by which I mean, happy is the house that allows you to walk in circles through the rooms, 

Our house has an open living room, a center hall that leads into an office (dining room in a former life), which opens onto the kitchen, which flows into the living room. Put these features together and you have a perfect venue for ... going in circles. 

This might seem unimportant, and I didn't think about it when we were buying, but once the girls were toddlers, they loved running loop-the-loops, chasing the cat or evading a parent. Copper uses this configuration for his victory laps. It also comes in handy when you need to pace.

In short, circumnavigation is a nice feature to have in a house. It provides an openness and flexibility that is sorely lacking in many aspects of life. And though I have only anecdotal research to back me up, it may even keep one limber. It's not a feature I would have put at the top of my list when choosing a house, but now that I have it, I can't imagine one without it. 

The Pipeline Path

I wouldn't want to live next to it, but the oil pipeline a couple miles from here has at least one thing to recommend it, and that is its paved path. I walked it on Saturday, right after mailing my letters.  Starting on McLearen, sun-warmed in the brisk air, I dipped off onto a trail I'd tramped long ago, turning left instead of right, navigating a fair-weather crossing right after a dog and his owner had just decided not to attempt it (the man was game but the dog was having none of it). 

From there it was just a bend and a hill-trudge from a buckled, fir-shaded, needle-strewn path along the greensward. Though I enjoy the meditative woods walk, there is much to be said for a stroll that skims the backs of houses. There's an intimacy there you don't find otherwise. 

I had a front-row seat on screened-in porches, knock-out roses and garden gates. There were trampolines, bird baths, even campaign signs. And on the path, a complement of fellow walkers who seemed as happy as I was to be alive and walking on such a fine fall morning.

The Big Send

In an hour or two, I'll drive to the Oak Hill post office to mail 100 letters, part of the Vote Forward campaign which today will send 15,000,000 (that's 15 million!) letters to voters in swing states. The organizers are calling it the Big Send.

It's a way to canvas for votes during a pandemic and it's business for the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service. Plus ... and this is my favorite part ... it's a vote of confidence for the old school approach: pen and paper, envelopes and stamps, snail mail. It's harkening back to an epistolary mode of communication that's so old it's new again.

I'm glad I could find time recently to pen a few lines to voters who are registered but seldom go to the polls, explaining why I vote and encouraging them to do the same. It's not exactly knocking on doors, but it's a small movement in that direction. 

Playing a Scale

In the meditation group at work, we're beginning a two-week session on focus. It's a skill many of us have lost, given the nature of the modern workplace, with emails, instant messages and other notifications pinging and zinging around us. All the more reason to give it a go. 

In the session that just ended we imagined the body as a scale, with various points — the ankles, solar plexus, chest and brow — as the notes. I struggled to visualize these "notes" in a way that wouldn't bring PTSD from reliving the most difficult scales from my life as a piano student. (E major? B flat minor? I've forgotten so much that I no longer even remember which were most difficult!)

But never mind. The only "performance" that matters now is visualizing a light, like a bulb inside a shade, the narrator says, airy and spacious, touching all the "notes" along the scale. In time, we'll be able to play this scale at will, simultaneously softening and sharpening our attention. In time, we'll acquire focus. It sounds lovely — but I'll believe it when I feel it.

Being Here

Sometimes on my morning strolls with Copper I look around at the familiar houses and yards, and catch my breath at the loveliness. It's the slight roll of the land, the trees turning yellow and gold, the shaggy white miniature daisies that border the common land garden. 

This is not to say I live in some magical place, some beauty spot. It's a subdivision in a suburb of Washington, D.C., (are there enough "subs" there?), one of hundreds. We love it for the sense of community we found from the beginning, and love it more now because it's where the girls grew up. 

But what I was responding to this morning (and do so often these days) is the natural world that is more present now than it used to be. We have lost much during this pandemic — but one thing I've gained is a greater appreciation of this small patch of land where I find myself. 

It's where I am most of the time now. And it's not a bad place to be.

A Patch of Grass

Now that it's fall, with cool nights and warm days, something is happening in the backyard, something I longed for all summer long: the grass is growing! I've seen it springing up all over the yard, but especially here, where it luxuriates with a few autumn leaves. 

While some homeowners worry about a patch of weeds, here we celebrate a patch of grass. I'd almost forgotten what it looks like, its long thin spears so soft on bare feet, so tempting to trod.

The ongoing lack of grass and subsequent weediness has been through no lack of trying. Seed has been sown, and sown, and sown. But the hard clay soil has seemed impervious to it. All the more reason to be gladdened now — that for some reason, be it rain or chill or slant of sun, the seed has finally taken.

Seeing this patch of grass now, feeling it tender beneath my feet ... gives me hope. 

Paper and Pen

The witch hazel is blazing bright yellow in the backyard, but at least so far, I'm working inside. I will work in chill but not damp chill (which we have today) — plus there is the sensitivity of the wonderful machine on which I type these words. One drop of moisture in the wrong place spells doom. Which has me thinking about the portability and beauty of paper and pen. 

I could no more do my work solely with those two items than I could with a stylus and clay tablet. But it's worth mentioning how much freer one can feel with tools that weather the elements with fortitude and good cheer. 

The fickleness of the modern computer is one of those things that makes me feel I'm living my life atop a stormy sea of unknowingness. It's a fair-weather implement that helps me when there's power, but doesn't when there's not. I don't really, truly understand how computers work, only that — somehow, miraculously — they do.

And of course, there's the fact that this blog wouldn't exist if I communicated  only with paper and pen. And there you have it: the modern dilemma in a nutshell ... or at least one of its nutshells.

(Above: the little black book where I write when I'm not typing.)

Twin Branches Trail

A weekend walk reminded me of just how wild the Reston trails can be, especially the stretch between Twin Branches and the W&OD Trail, which winds along the Snakeden Branch of the Glade.

It angles up, then steeply down, crosses a stream then follows it for three-quarters of a mile. Houses are a rare sight. Instead, it's trees and paths and creek water singing.

How easy it is to forget it's out there, the natural world, even as the suburbs have encapsulated it. But it's still with us, in the small parcels we've allowed — still with us, to heal and inspire.

What's Eating Folkstone?

Neighbors are buzzing. Theories abound. But no one has yet figured out why great swaths of lawn are being rooted up, ripped through and turn asunder. No one is quite sure what's eating Folkstone. 

Is it that eight-point buck that's been cruising the woods near here, pawing the ground in a show of virility as he partakes of our impatiens? Or could it be an errant bear, chunking up before winter comes.

The most believable theory is that hungry skunks or raccoons are tearing through the grass looking for grubs. Once they sniff them out, they paw through the dirt until they've eaten their fill. 

It's hard to overstate just how bad a lawn looks after they're finished with it. The photo above just hints at the damage. But stay tuned for more evidence soon. The latest plan: to install a remote camera.

Quick Trip to Bangladesh

The news escapes slowly, as I learn which of my colleagues, liberated from the office until at least 2021, have quietly slipped away from their former homes to other (usually sunnier) climes. At least two have moved to North Carolina, one to the Outer Banks. Another is relocating from Arkansas to California. Still another has been living on the Delaware shore since March.

I won't be moving anytime soon. But I have a wealth of armchair trips I can take. 

Right now, for instance, I'm thinking of Bangladesh, not a big vacation spot, true, but a place where I spent an intense and satisfying two and a half weeks in 2017. Having just written an article based on reporting I conducted there, I'm reminiscing more than usual about the place. 

It was the rainy season, and the fields were startlingly green.

Tea plants were ready for picking. 

Streets were bustling and rickshaws were colorful.

I met people I'll never forget. 

Is it any wonder I can't resist a backward glance?

Tender Foot

I woke early and padded outside for the newspaper, whose slap on the driveway had provided the final whoosh of my awakening this morning (bobbing as I was on the edge of consciousness and waiting for just such a prompt). 

It's too early for shoes so I walked to the edge of the driveway with bare feet. It's warm enough for that this morning, though I've been known to go barefoot in much cooler temps. 

Today when I made my way gingerly to the street I thought about how tough my feet used to be when I was a kid. It took a few weeks every summer to harden the soles, but after that I was off, free to dash out of the house, banging the screen door behind me: no socks, no shoes, just a shirt and shorts and a tan that deepened as the weeks wore on. (This was long before sunscreen and there were precious few trees in the new neighborhood of two-bedroom bungalows.)

Tough feet were a point of pride. They indicated a certain street-smartness — or was it street-hardness? — and they showed that you were inhabiting the summer as you should, making it a part of yourself.

Now my feet are not only stockinged and shod, they are orthoticized (if that's a word ... and my spell check tells me it is not). They are the soles and toes of an adult who works on her bottom — and not on her feet. But they can still remember the freedom they once felt. And I like to think that, deep in their neurons and tissues, they can feel it still. 

Still Outside

I write this post as I have written so many others the past few months: sitting on the deck in this lovely outside "room," where I have a front-row seat on bird flight, leaf fall and squirrel shenanigans. 

It's quite mild and pleasant now, but Monday morning I took the call to al fresco work to rather ridiculous proportions. Bundled in three layers of cotton, wool and down, I cut the fingertips off a pair of old gloves and donned a hat, too. My colleagues said I looked ready for the ski slopes. Instead, I was ready for a hot bath. It took a while to thaw out! 

The fact is, I don't want to move inside. Moving inside means winter is coming, means the boundaries are closing in. I have a fantasy that I can work out here at least down to 50 degrees F. And, as long as it's not windy (which was Monday's problem), I think I can. 

As for now, I'm looking at the splendor around me: trees just starting to turn, flowering annuals holding bloom, sunlight dappling the lawn. It's October, it's mellow, and (yes!) I'm still working outside. 

The Summer Book

I picked up Tove Jansson's The Summer Book because it showed up in a list of books that feature grandparents. There are precious few of these, I've noticed. 

Jansson's Grandmother (she's given no other name) is crotchety and wise and foolish and loving. She smokes cigarettes and breaks into a neighbor's house. No cookie-baking for this grandma. She's a renegade. But she also understands her granddaughter Sophia, pushes her and puts her in situations where she is bound to succeed. 

Grandmother also levels with herself and with others (when she's not lying, that is). Here she is after the break-in: 

"My dear child," said Grandmother impatiently [to Sophia], "every human being has to make his own mistakes." ... Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn't even realize that they had forgotten."

That's the kind of gem Jansson strews about for us through the pages of this slim and lovely book, all of it amidst a natural world (an island in the Gulf of Finland) that is as beautiful as it is dangerous. 

Seasonal Migration

It's time for the annual migration. I'm not talking about birds flying south for the winter but of the seasonal switch from shorts and t-shirts to tights and sweaters. 

One thing struck me yesterday as I laundered and folded and ran up and down the stairs carrying warm clothes up and cool clothes down. It was that many of these clothes would be better off going not up or down but out of the house entirely.

How many sweaters and shirts and scarves do I hang onto because I love the person who gave them to me? The answer is ... many! 

Yesterday I told myself once again that I need to stop hanging onto these duds. It's one thing to have papers and books and knick-knacks you cannot bear to part with ... but to have clothes that are this way, too, is far more inconvenient. What's required is a certain ruthlessness. I'm awaiting its arrival. 

A Patch of Blue

It's easy to be morose when the great trees fall, as indeed they have done, over and over and over again. 

But when they come down, they free up a spot of sky. 

I snapped this shot yesterday, returning from a walk in what I've now come to think of as tree-falling weather: rain-saturated ground with a stiff wind from the west. 

This empty sky used to be filled with a tall tree. Not it's open, free, giving us all a patch of blue.*

(*Writing this reminds me of the lovely film by that name, a 1965 flick staring Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters. One worth watching.)

Unsettling

I write this only minutes after learning that the president has tested positive for coronavirus, as a year we thought could not be more unsettling has suddenly become more so. 

I look back to my earliest posts on the new order and think about how much has changed since then: our notions of disease and contagion, the reality of remote work, the way this virus has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives from how we shop to how often we see our dearest family and friends.

And now this. 

Is there anyone who has not suffered from the disease and the social and economic havoc it has caused? Some, of course, so much more than others. A prayer and a hope today for our country, that it emerge from this stronger, healthier and more civil. 

New Month

The witch hazel tree, first to bloom, is also the first to turn. But this year, other trees are following suit. Cold evenings have also tinged the maples and oaks. 

In the garden, the weeds I haven't pulled are thinning and retreating on their own. Summer is giving up the ghost.

It's a new month, an autumnal month. And months matter more in this time of few markers.