Coming Home

When you live somewhere a long time, as we have, you become settled. Even in a place that I originally feared was placeless, you find the firm ground, the sticking places. You join a book group that people leave only when they move out of town — and even then, some of these people return and rejoin.

Yesterday, I became a "re-joiner" too, meeting once again with a writer's group that welcomed me eight years ago but which full-time job, family responsibilities and logistics (this is a Maryland group and I live in Virginia) made impossible.

Now the full-time job has fallen away and the family responsibilities have lessened, and there I was yesterday entering yet another funky old Italian restaurant a few blocks away from the one where we met years ago. 

Once again, there was the company of writers. It felt like coming home. 

Already Advent

We come now to one of my favorite times in the liturgical year. It's a short season, one ever more likely to be buried in tinsel and outdoor lighting. It's the season of Advent, of preparation, of prayers and devotionals.

It is almost lost in this world, buried by frantic list-making and shopping.By nonstop carol radio and the Hallmark Christmas movie channel. Every year I hope the prayer and devotional part wins out. Every year it does not. But Advent is early this year, so maybe it has a chance.

Advent reminds me of medieval stone abbeys, of kneeling on hard surfaces, of chanting the divine office in the wee hours. No doubt informed by once reading The Cloister Walk, a fine book by Kathleen Norris, during early December, but also, I think, by the hymns and carols of my youth. 

Now these are mostly memory, but still captured in a few plaintive melodies — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, for one. I played it on the piano last night, trying to capture the hope and longing of this fleeting season. 

Shopping Online

I did my best to pretend that yesterday wasn't Black Friday, but by the end of the day I caved and went online. And yes, there was the hysteria I remember from years gone by, or at least a virtual version of it made possible by pop-ups, reminders that there are "only five left ... order soon!" and countdown clocks.

It's the clocks that affected me most, their hours, minutes and seconds all winding down to midnight. Perhaps because I'm time-sensitive, accustomed to packing as much as I can into whatever time I have. Why should shopping be any different?

Well ... because it should, that's why. It should be a deliberative process — not the digital equivalent of pawing through lingerie in Macy's basement. 

But darned if the online marketers didn't figure out a way to make us care ... and rush. 

Black Friday — it runs through Sunday, from what I hear.

(A real shopping experience, complete with masks.)

Looking at Clouds

This morning I awoke to the house at rest, a house that somehow held 22 people for a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. 

An outside table was pulled in, borrowed chairs were tucked under it, and the best china was pulled from its sleeves, dusted off and actually used.

Today, I could do some Black Friday shopping, I could catch up with classwork .... or, I could do what I most want to do, which is to look out my office window at clouds scudding across the sky. 

Together

It's 9 on a Thanksgiving morning and for once I remembered to turn on the TV in time to catch the parade from the beginning. It will be on in the background as the dust flies, the turkey roasts and the potatoes boil.

But the big story for most of us this year will not be on a screen. It will be in living rooms and family rooms and kitchens across the nation.

It will be when we rub shoulders, click glasses and — dare I say it? — hug each person who enters our home. For the big story this Thanksgiving is that we're celebrating it together.

Scott Hotel

Only time for a short walk yesterday, but I had a destination in mind: the Scott Hotel, once owned by my grandfather and great uncle. Mom and her family lived at the hotel intermittently through the years, sharing quarters with the horsemen and the tobacco farmers in to sell their crops. 

The hotel was right across from the Southern Railway Depot, a natural place to stay for a night or two if you were in Lexington on business.

It was a less likely place to house three young daughters and a son. But these were different times, harder in some ways, easier in others.

The hotel is abandoned now, has been for years. It stands in mute testimony to those long-ago lives. 

Putting the Lap in Laptop

As a walker in the suburbs I write very little about sitting. But sitting has become my bane. It is such a necessary part of modern existence, especially when one is mostly working on a laptop, which, by its very definition requires sitting. But I've done far too much of it through the years and my body is letting me know it's displeased. 

Of course, I can stand up when I write, edit or read — and I try to put my standing desk through its paces as often as I can. But when I really need to pull out all the stops with the gray matter, I need either to be walking or sitting. 

And lately ... I've been sitting. 

(A good place to sit if you have to!)

Olmsted in Kentucky

I learned through weekend wanderings that famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted once turned his attention to my hometown. 

He and his brother, as the marker explains, had a hand in designing Transylvania Park, where the lovely Lexington Library once reigned; Ashland Park, where I spotted this sign; and Woodland Park, one of my favorite haunts.

It doesn't surprise me. These places may not be the Chicago World's Fair or Central Park (two of Olmsted's more well-known accomplishments), but in them the built and natural environments work together. They have a beauty and a presence — a  sense of having always been there.

Feast for the Eye

A walk this morning before the rain moved in: tall grasses swaying, leaf piles growing. I love to walk in Lexington because, at least where I stroll, no two houses are alike. 

Some are traditional, others contemporary. Windows are mullioned or plain. Doors arched or square.

Chinquapin oak leaves litter brick sidewalks, and a ground cover I'm not familiar with froths around the base of a tree.

The variations are a feast for the eye and a balm for the brain.

In Kentucky

I drove to Kentucky yesterday, following the new route through the mountains. For the first few hours, I took in the late-fall color on the gleaming hillsides. But by early afternoon, I had driven into the predicted cold front. 

Dark clouds gathered above the huge windmills, and strong gusts sent leaves swirling and scudding across the highway. The rain started when I was at about 3,000 feet, lightly at first, then heavier by the time I reached the interstate. 

It was not the bucolic drive I had in August, when I stopped to admire the mountain views. This was a no-nonsense-just-get-me-there kind of trip. 

And it worked. I pulled into the driveway just as the last light was draining from the sky. 

In Spring and Fall

The Kwanzan cherry tree puts on quite a show in the spring. It's not the earliest bloomer; it waits until the soil has warmed and the forsythia and dogwood have paved the way. But when it finally gets going, it draws the eye to its big-fisted blossoms, its pink petals exploding from narrow stems.

What I've only started to appreciate is the show it puts on in autumn. Once again, it bides its time. Other leaves have changed, dried and blown away. But the leaves of the Kwanzan cherry have waited patiently — and this is their time.

They light up the late fall landscape, shimmering in dawns and dusks. They flutter in the breeze, brave flags waving. They gladden my heart each time I see them.

Immersed in Van Gogh

"I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate."

Vincent Van Gogh

The Van Gogh immersive experience begins as soon as you walk in the door and are greeted with a wall of sunflowers, or, I should say, a larger-than-life Van Gogh-like depiction of them. A few steps away is a bust of the painter that morphs from black and gray shadows to the swirled blues and lavenders of his flowers.

You pass a re-creation of the room at Arles, complete down to the washstand and window and hat hanging from a peg on the wall. Take a photo of the room and you've created a masterpiece.

There are videos on the artist's life, his hospitalization, self-mutilation and eventual suicide. And there is music: Vivaldi's Four Seasons, something by Debussy, others I couldn't place, all soaring and emotive.

But the best is saved for last, when you walk into the final gallery and find yourself a part of the paintings. You stand or sit or recline on the floor while the art comes alive around you, pages slide off easels, stars explode in the night, and a hundred sunflowers bloom against a lapis lazuli sky. 

Dancing in the Streets

I read this morning of the return of 26 pieces of history from France to Benin. The return was celebrated with dancing and singing and general merriment. There were thrones, statues and other artifacts, all taken by France from what was then its colony of Dahomey, all of them finally home after more than a century of exile.

Since some of my family hail from Benin, this is big news. And since I've been to that wonderful country, I have a small sense of what it must have been like to see the big truck pull up, the decorated horses and riders escorting it to the presidential palace, the jubilation of the people.

There are plenty more looted treasures to be returned, and it sounds as if Benin is fighting for those, too. But for now, for one small country tucked between the Sahel and the sea, there is dancing in the streets. 

(At the Voodoo Festival in Benin, January 2015)

Of Time and Art

I don't always explore the Google doodles, but I did today, lured on by the picture of a woman playing a grand piano in a room filled with art and light. 

The woman, I learned, is Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, born on this day in 1805. She's the sister of Felix, a composer I've come to appreciate ever more as the years go on, and was herself a gifted pianist and composer. She composed over 450 pieces of music, including many lieder (songs) and piano works.  As a 14-year-old she could  play 24 Bach Preludes from memory. 

Fanny died of a stroke at the age of 41. Her brother died of the same cause six months later, after composing a quartet in her memory. 

What the musical world gained from these two talented siblings cannot be measured. But what more it would have gained had they lived 200 years later, when they could have been on high blood pressure medication. Of course, had they been born 200 years later, they probably would have been writing rap music. Such is the nature of time and art. 

(Photo: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's music room in her home in Berlin, courtesy Wikipedia)

Way Too Early

The Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Rails to Trails path was bustling late yesterday when I finally made my way to it. There were runners and walkers and cyclists, mostly the latter zooming by with a brisk warning of "passing on the left." 

I slipped into what I always think of as the "bridle path" part of the trail, the unpaved route that runs alongside the asphalt. But due to the bridges over Herndon and Fairfax County Parkways, I couldn't always stay on that calmer and less traveled path. 

What I could do was to focus on the scenery I passed: the changing colors of the deciduous trees. 

The subtle beauty of the shaggy undergrowth ... and the sun setting way too early, once again.

A Walk Recorded

I took a stroll late yesterday through the gloaming, the exquisite though way-too-early gloaming — I was walking between 4 and 5! — then came home and wrote these words:

The late fall light is draining quickly from the sky and a bright near-half moon showing itself. There are the most delicate of evening sounds: a few hardy crickets, the bird that says "Judy" (did I determine that's a wren?) and various human-caused sounds — a pinging that could have come from a small forge but was likely a kid banging on a pipe — the distant downshift of a passing truck. But none of these sounds disturbed the peacefulness of the landscape. They only enhanced it. 

Some of the shorter shrubs have lost most of their leaves. Those that remain seem to be offering themselves for viewing, like golden coins on a platter. Back on my street, the russets and scarlets of the maples and oaks shimmered in the twilight. 

Night falls fast this time of year, but when it's warm, as it has been today, that doesn't seem to matter as much.

The Purse

Britain’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth, has been in power for almost seven decades. And for most every moment of that time she seems to have carried a purse on her arm.

It's a funny thing to notice, but women notice other women’s purses. And I wonder about hers: Why should this woman, who can snap her fingers at any moment and have an attendant bring her whatever she desires, need a handbag on her arm wherever she goes—including in her own castle? What does she have in there? Her phone? Her hanky? The nuclear code?

Why does this matter? I’ve thought of it recently because I, too, have been carrying my purse around even while inside the house. I take it upstairs and down. Into the kitchen and into the office. Onto the deck and into the backyard.

There’s a reason for this, of course: it’s because my phone is in my purse. And it helps that I have a purse I can wear, cross-body style. None of that prim, crooked-elbow arrangement.

Still, I don’t like carrying a purse around the house, and I’d like to stop this habit in its tracks. But that will only happen, I’m afraid, when clothing designers start giving women what they’ve always given men: pockets.


(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Doing the Reading

Finding the balance point for this new phase of life is not going to be an exact science, I can already tell. I crave big blocks of time but am also terrified by them. I tremble at not having enough to do, then compensate by piling on too much.

For instance, I continue to try and do all the reading for class, even though it can be an insane amount. Last night, for instance, I realized that there's an entire book we're supposed to read for today.

In my mind are the words of my children. "Mom, you don't have to do all the reading." Wise words from people who, as I recall, were taught that they should do all the reading. 

But as with so much of life, relationships shift, patterns change, wisdom develops. 

And tonight, I will go to class at least slightly ... unprepared. 

Made by Walking

We make the road by walking. That was the sentence beamed on the wall of the Methodist church in Arlington where Bernadette was baptized on Saturday. Bernadette like an old-fashioned baby in her long white baptismal gown and cap. Bernadette who reaches out her arms to be held, who crawls like a house afire and pulls herself up to stand. She is a delight, though she can still cry with the best of them.

While she has perfected the piercing wail, her cousin Isaiah has mastered the wild bird shriek, his way of letting folks know he's not getting his way. And he used this to perfection during the baptism, even as his parents fed him Cheerios, age-old food of parents in distress, and did everything else they could to occupy him during the service.

It seems like not that long ago we were the parents on the front lines, we were the ones grabbing those little pencils and envelopes in the pews, handing kids keys and trinkets they would never be allowed to touch otherwise. We were the ones carrying a screaming baby out of the sanctuary. We were the ones making the road by walking.

During the sermon, the pastor talked about how those who come before us make the way ... just as we make the way for those who come after us. A lovely image not only for the Path of Life, capital P, capital L, but for every little lower-case section of it.

Charting Time

It's only a baby habit, just getting started, but I've decided to keep a time chart, noting on my (paper) calendar what I'm doing and when. 

Time flows differently these days, it eddies and it stalls and sometimes it swirls by so quickly that I barely see the ripples it leaves behind. 

So rather than wondering each day, where does the time go, I will try to chart it as it flies. 

A noble experiment, yes? 

We'll see. 

Inside Again

The house this morning has the feel of Noah’s ark two days into the 40. Only it’s not animals seeking refuge this morning; it’s plants.

As temperatures plunged into the 20s, we brought in the ferns and the spider plant and the cactus. They are hunkered down here where temps are in the upper 60s, heading for a high of 70 once the furnace moves to its daytime setting. Because some of the plants are so large they must be moved in on little dollies, they will stay inside now till spring.

The moving of the plants is one of those autumnal rites of passage I try to put off as long as possible. Turning on the heat in the house is another one. On both accounts we’ve made it to November, which I can hardly complain about.

But I will add a wistful note, a plea to the weather gods. It's nothing personal, nothing against the plants themselves. But I hope it won’t be long before they can be outside again.

Driving Day

It's been a driving day — not a Sunday-drive kind of driving day but a rush-to-the-dentist-then-run-errands kind of driving day.

It's been the kind of driving day when I look longingly out the window as I zoom past side trails I've strolled, imagining what it would be like to be on them rather than behind the wheel of a car. 

I've smelled the pine needles, pushed a low-hanging branch out of my way, even felt the fine feathery tendrils of a spider web. 

But all the while I was really cruising down Main Street, Chain Bridge Road, the Beltway. I was in Fairfax and Vienna and Tysons Corner. Everywhere and nowhere, which is how it is when you're driving. All the while racing to get home ... so I can walk.

Three Layers

Three layers on today, plus wool socks and, at least for the moment, a hoodie over my head. It's been months since I put on this many sweaters. Must be November!

Life without seasons holds no appeal, would be flat and boring. But as daylight shrinks and cold winds blow, I feel a shiver that comes not just from the cold upstairs room where I write these days. It comes, too, from the knowledge of what awaits us.

The leaves that glitter golden now will soon fall, turn brown, need raking. The winds will shudder in from the west, bowing the bamboo and penetrating even the hardy siding.

Even though I try to live in the moment, to take each challenge as it comes, it's hard not to anticipate this perpetual, seasonal one, the dying of the light.

All Souls

With Halloween and All Saints Day behind us, we come one again to a more humble celebration in the liturgical calendar: All Souls, the day set aside each year to honor the dead. Not just the famous or the pious but everyone. 

That's a lot of souls. According to the Population Reference Bureau, about 109 billion.  And every one of them once a life, a presence, a story. 

I don't know about you, but this day feels more sacred to me than all the others. 

Halloween Lost and Found

Yesterday, my neighborhood rolled out all the stops for a Halloween parade and party, complete with "Monster Mash" and other seasonal favorites blared over a loudspeaker attached to a slow-moving truck; a bouncing room for the little tykes; a haunted forest; and pizza and candy for all. 

We saw baby pirates, glittering princesses; and a rumpled, white-wigged Einstein. My grandkids were a 50s-style greaser, a bumblebee and SpiderMan. It was chaotic and fun. 

True, I never found the treasure trove of costumes that my own girls wore, many of them hand-made by their seamstress grandma. But those will undoubtedly show up soon, in plenty of time for me to lose them by next Halloween.