No Way to Say No

When I began walking this morning, pink clouds were piling up on the horizon. The day was just getting to know itself. I needed a quiet tune, so I chose Dan Fogelberg's "To the Morning." 

There's a line in the song I've always liked: "There's really no way to say no to the morning." It's an obvious statement but one I need to hear sometimes.

To listen to it as I walked this Monday morning was to hear how beautifully reality can be crafted. Yes, there's no way to say no. But there are so many ways to say yes.

Nothing

I woke up this morning, glanced at my calendar, and found ... nothing. Oh, there are a couple of errands to run, but there are no trips, excursions, parties or concerts. Nothing I absolutely have to do. 

How lovely nothing can be. Because nothing is potential: a lazy afternoon in the hammock, an hour of weeding, or, what's more likely, a few hours of reading and study. (Taking two classes this semester has me hopping!)

But right now, for this moment, nothing is exactly that. And I'm going to revel in it.   

Walking Distance

Yesterday, a walk with a friend. Not just any friend, but one who lives a walking distance away from my house. 

Granted, it's a walk through the woods, and this time of year the woods are full of burrs that attach to your socks and spider webs that cling to your hair and clothes. 

But still, to be able to walk anywhere around here is a triumph. And to walk to a friend's house ... even better. It humanizes the neighborhood. It allows me to think (even fleetingly) that I live in a village instead of a 'burb.

(A downed tree I clambered through on my walk.)

Politics of Fear

Yesterday was as picture-perfect a day as that September 11th, but 23 years later, nearly a generation ago. As it happens, I spent part of it on class readings about 9/11 and the politics of fear. 

One of the points I took home from these articles was terrorism's legacy of anxiety and containment, of divisiveness — there are those who are terrorists (or look like them) and those who are not. 

In class last night, a colleague mentioned something I hadn't thought of in a long time: threat levels. Remember those colors — red, orange, yellow? They were part of the Homeland Security Advisory System, I learned from Wikipedia today. In place from 2002 till 2011, they affected the level of security at airports and public buildings. 

Some class members were babies then; they had no memory of those. The threat index they're most familiar with are air-quality levels. 

The Rack

When we first acquired it, I thought we were crazy. A drying rack as big as a room. I mostly use an electric dryer, which, along with the washing machine, saves me hours of labor every month. 

But this hot summer, I have a new appreciation for the contraption, especially when placed outside, where it provides for optimal air-drying. 

There's an elemental pleasure in hanging wet shorts and shirts on the rods, a pleasure almost as great as attaching sheets to a clothesline when I was a kid, the fabric flapping in my face.

Often, clothes dry almost as quickly on the deck as they do in the dryer, and when I bring them in, they smell of air and sun and heat. 

Coming Soon

A new sign greeted me on my early-morning walk. "For Sale: Coming Soon" read the sign on a house across the street. 

In retrospect I'm not surprised. The house is looking primed and polished these days with tidied landscaping and a newly sealed driveway. 

I barely know the occupant; his tenure has been relatively short, as residencies are measured in this neighborhood of long-lasting owners. I feel the lack of contact as a failure of sorts. We knew the previous owners of this house quite well. Their youngest daughter was one of our youngest daughter's best friends. 

Still, times change — and neighborhoods do, too. This one will be changing again soon.

Grandparents Day

For the most part, I consider Grandparents' Day, which happened yesterday, to be a Hallmark holiday, something ginned up only for consumption value — cards, flowers, brunches out. 

But my Grandparent's Day was the real thing. It started the night before, when the four of ours who were sleeping over (thankfully, with their mothers) were running crazily through the house, doing headers off the coffee table, brandishing suction-cup arrows, and regaling us on the latest "Frozen" characters. 

It included a laugh fest so long and so thorough that it reduced all of us to tears, and it continued with a sweet (and yes, early) morning, waking up to the sounds of little voices in the house. 

In the four years since I've been a grandparent, I've marveled at how these kiddos change our perspective, test our resilience (how long can I pretend to be a mean tiger while crawling around on the trampoline?) and expand our imaginations. Most of all, my grandchildren remind me of youth, when all seemed possible. Because, for them, all still is. 

The Bird and the Bee

'Tis the season of stoking up, and the local hummingbirds are doing just that. They're hanging out near the feeders, sipping nectar and scaring off interlopers. 

Yesterday, I watched as an especially feisty bird sparred with a bee! Yes, a bee. Not a large bumblebee or wood bee, but a modestly-sized honeybee. 

The honeybee was stoking up too, you see, and this did not sit well with the hummingbird, who became increasingly territorial. 

At one point, it looked more like the bee was chasing the bird than the other way around. I wish I could have snapped a photograph of their aerial displays, but these are quicksilver creatures, best observed and admired from afar. So instead I'll trot out one of the few decent photos I've ever taken of a hummingbird. It will have to do.

Real Heroes

I've become a newspaper skimmer these days, checking headlines, reading a few stories and largely ignoring the rest. That I'm reading a hard-copy newspaper at all makes me a dinosaur, so the fact that I'm not always reading every article from start to finish is hardly jaw-dropping news. 

Sometimes, though, an article I only meant to skim draws me in to such an extent that I keep on reading even when I should be doing something else. 

Such was the case last night when, as I was heading to bed, a headline caught my eye: "The Canary." Maybe because I like birds, maybe because the photograph of a mineshaft piqued my curiosity since I spent some time in one last month. 

The article tells the story of Chris Mark, a mine-safety engineer and the winner of a "Sammie" award for excellence in public service. From the sound of it, no individual has done more to keep miners safe than Mark has. Not that he'd tell you this himself. The man is humble to a fault.

No way can I do this riveting story justice; you'll have to read it for yourself. But don't do it leaning over the kitchen counter, as I did. Brew yourself a cup of tea, settle into a comfy chair, and peruse it properly. If for no other reason, read it to remind yourself, as author Michael Lewis says, "how many weird problems the United States government deals with at any one time." And read it to remind yourself that real heroes still walk among us. 

(Graffiti in the Last Chance Mine, Creede, Colorado)

One Day or Many?

Here in northern Virginia, weeks of swelter have been replaced by cool nights, warm sun and low-humidity air. 

I feel like I'm in Colorado again, where you dress in layers that can be peeled off or piled on as the day's warmth waxes and wanes. 

It's an interesting way to live, temperature differences of 30 degrees or more in a single day. Does one get used to it over time, or does one day feel like many?

The Cassidy Kids

At the reunion, my cousin Cindy reached into a little basket and pulled out what appeared to be party favors to give each of us. They were small tulle drawstring bags, tied with narrow white satin ribbon. Inside each was a thumb drive full of old family photographs.

Talk about good things in tiny packages! I've been spending time I don't have today ogling the photos, ones I've never seen, glimpses of the past. 

One of my favorites is the one you see above. It's titled the Cassidy Kids.  They are, top row: Kenneth, Christine and Bernard, and bottom row: Lois, Dolly and Frank. 

The only one who looks like a kid here is Dad, who wears short pants, and even he shares the solemn, muted expression that was expected in formal family portraits of the day. 

I have no date for this photo, but I expect it was taken in 1929 or 1930. These kids are gone now. But their kids, grandkids, great-grandkids and great-great grandkids live on. 

Family Reunion

We gathered yesterday in Ohio, more than two dozen of us: brothers and sisters, kids and grandkids, aunts and uncles and cousins. Some of us traveled a few miles to be there; others flew or drove for hours.

There were burgers and brats, iced tea and lemonade, potato salad and jam cake. There was a poem, a song, a prayer and a hymn. And stories, of course, so many stories.

Most of all, there was connection — not just to each other but to those who came before, to the absent ones. It was as if in gathering we brought them back.

There was the spitting image of Dad in the face of my oldest cousin. There were his sisters in the eyes and smiles of their sons and daughters.

And then there was all the life and liveliness of the newest generations. They are the future. But it's good to remember where they — and all of us — began.

Scent of Home

On a walk through my parents' old neighborhood in Lexington, where I sniff deeply of the mown grass to see if I can detect the scent of home. 

It's there, I know it is, though I can't put my finger on exactly what's different. 

Is it the bluegrass, full of calcium from the limestone-rich soil? 

Is it the way the light strikes the lawns and releases an aroma?

Or is it knowing that the bones of my ancestors lie in cemeteries just miles away?