Morning Is Breaking More Gently

This morning I heard robins near the house. Pretty-pretty-pretty, they seem to boast proudly. Sparrows trill in the popple grove, crows call raucously from a distance, the heart-lifting sound of a sandhill crane comes from far overhead, and the woods rings with sounds of the busy cleanup crew, woodpeckers in dead and dying trees. 

Spring’s arrival varies from year to year and can be quite teasing with its advances and retreats. We may yet have another blizzard. But if we do have a big snow in April, as I used to tell the Artist, “It will be a spring blizzard!” And sooner or later the seasonal page will be turned for good, and there will be only memories with which to answer the inevitable Up North spring question, “How was your winter?”

Mornings are easier and more pleasant with less cold wind and more birdsong as Sunny Juliet with her nose, I with my eyes, both of us with our ears explore a morning world that never grows stale. No two mornings –no two moments! -- are ever identical.

Reading her morning newspaper

I’ll keep this short today. One bookish thing on my mind is the idea of a ‘page-turner.’ You know, a book you can’t stop reading until the end. It strikes me now (and I have not taken time to develop this thought) that page-turners are of at least two different sorts. Some are consumables: That kind of page-turner is like a deep tub of popcorn at a movie theatre, a near-mindless reading binge. Such books serve a purpose in our lives. They provide a day’s distraction and relief. Tomorrow we will be ready to face our own life situations again. 

The second kind of page-turner is a life-changer, or at least a mind- or heart-changer, as well as a page-turner. We find ourselves totally immersed in a new world, seeing life through freshly opened eyes. Even familiar elements encountered in such a book evoke a new surge of love from us. We can’t stop reading because we are spellbound, enchanted.

 

Those in the second group are likely to burrow into our lives for good, as precious as old friends of whom we never tire. At least, that’s how I see things this morning on the eve of the Ides of March. How about you? And what's going on in your neck of the woods?

Will there be more? Stay tuned!

For what I learned in a very, very important new film, tap here. For a comforting soup, winter or summer, tap here. Thank you for sharing links with anything you find worth sharing.

Recovery, Phase 2: Nesting

This is what I came home to.

No, you didn’t miss Phase 1. I was too exhausted to see straight during Phase 1, much less write a blog post, having driven twelve hours on Saturday to arrive home after dark and collapse in a heap. Luckily for me, a good friend who used to teach school in Baltimore and come home to Leelanau for the summer, remembering how she felt after all her twice-annual packing and driving, invited me to dinner the next two evenings. Thanks to Susan, on my third morning home I felt nearly human again. 

The first, pointillist green flush in the woods. I wish there were a pause button for this moment.

Unpacking car and bags and boxes, putting things away, clearing clutter left last November, and beginning – only beginning, so far – to deal with sawdust in living room and porch (thanks to a big and very welcome project that took place, surprisingly, in my absence), I find that deciding what to do first, then what to do next, is about all that occupies my mind right now. I'm cleaning up my nest for the season ahead. But with weather as beautiful as it has been the last couple of days, indoor tasks get pushed to the back burner while I work outdoors, pruning berry canes and picking up branches, spreading compost and mowing grass, all tasks Sunny Juliet considers nothing but interruptions in our real northern Michigan country life, which in her mind is chasing tennis balls! 

"Get with the program, Mom!"

Errands, too, of course: banking, paying bills and taxes, updating car and dog licenses, laying in groceries and other supplies, and on and on and on – all part of settling into our little home nest again, Sunny and the momma.

 The whole Leelanau world is blooming and nesting, it seems. And as always, the month of May is speeding by way too fast.

What with everything that taking leave of Arizona entailed, then the drive of over 2,000 miles, and now the work of re-entry, come sunset I’m looking for bedtime reading that prepares me for sleep by silencing the ever-growing to-do lists in my head. (Challenging ideas and deep thinking can wait.) Currently I’m alternating a re-reading of Adele Crockett Robertson’s The Orchard with Anne Tyler’s French Braid: a couple chapters of Robertson’s story first, about trying to keep her family farm in business -- and thus in the family -- during the Depression years, then as much of Tyler novel as I can absorb before Morpheus claims me. 

One more note on my cross-country trip, solo except for canine copilot, and on my life in general. I am not “brave.” Soldiers and support staff and journalists going into war zones are brave. Hiking the entire length of the Appalachian Trail could qualify. Going to law school. Donating a kidney -- which means you leave yourself without a spare. It takes courage to make such choices and face the uncertain outcomes. All I’m doing is putting one foot in front of the other, doing each day as much as possible of what needs to be done. The unexpected occurs, one deals with it. It’s just life. 

The second time we married each other, we both cried with joy.

What I notice, though, going into my second year alone, is that life for me has flattened out considerably. Morning birdsong makes me smile, as does my dear little dog, but nothing gives me the piercing joy that so many moments brought in my life with the Artist. On the other hand, panic and despair have become more or less distant abstractions rather than, as far too often in years past, my immediate response to difficult situations. Is this good or bad? Or, as I always say of life in general, just another double-edged sword? Call it what you will, it seems to be where I am now, and there are worse places to be. 

Loving family and friends, a constant canine companion, beautiful northern Michigan spring – I can deal with these days, full as they are with hard work. 

Always nearby.

But I miss my love. In our years together, we often spent time apart. When we lived in Kalamazoo, I would stay behind to work while he went north as often as possible. Our early winters in Leland, he drove to Florida and I stayed home to write. But he always came back. So it isn't being alone, working alone, that is so dreadful -- though when we were together, working or playing together, that was always the best. The awful part now is knowing that he isn't coming back. And still not quite being able to believe it.

"Forget me not."

I never will.