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The Holiday Hero

Who knows, in today’s challenging times, where heroes may appear?  Where might we encounter those special folks who fuel inspiration and spark hope with quiet achievement of the impossible?

For me, they tend to emerge in the most unlikely scenarios, and I witnessed one the other night. She appeared in the form of a middle-school orchestra teacher, a job that surely ought to come with a cape as standard equipment. Before I departed for the evening, I etched her name permanently on my personal hero roster.

It all began as I trailed into the school gym with my daughter and son-in-law, drifting in with a cheerful, bustling crowd of other parents and grandparents for the semi-annual school orchestra concert, a rite of the holiday season.  As we found our seats on the old-fashioned wooden risers, I began to observe our leader for the evening: A youthful paragon of patience and positive energy in a neat black dress and comfortable shoes.

For the purposes of our story, we’ll call her Miss Mandy. As the large gym wall clock ticked toward launch time, she tended carefully to her proteges as they took their seats and prepared to begin the evening’s entertainment.  Quick-stepping around the yakking adolescents, she delivered a smiling nod to a question here, or a swift and practiced adjustment to a string bow there.

Even the most indulgent and enthusiastic attendee (a grandmother like me, for example), prudently approaches these events with a certain firm management of expectations.  It’s the effort that counts, we babble, as other platitudes of that vintage come to mind.  As Miss Mandy motored patiently through the final preparations, the kids were a predictable, harmless portrait of pre-teen disorderly conduct. They were nudging and rolling eyes at each other, tugging at their unfamiliar, formal black pants and skirts, dropping things and knocking over chairs when retrieving the dropped object from below.

My 11-year-old, sixth-grade granddaughter, stationed on the back row with her upright bass, appeared to be enjoying a huge joke with the next player over, a giggling soldier for the cause wearing large glasses and a red bow tie.  Their focus was anywhere but on the music perched on the stands in front of them.  Eyeballing this beehive of boisterous holiday inattention, one had to wonder—what could possibly go wrong?

Alas, with patience and hope we might learn from the example of the Wise Men, one can observe a miracle of the season as it unfolds.  Miss Mandy stepped up front to the conductor’s stand, radiating encouragement as she lifted her outstretched arms, and a stunning transformation was instantaneous.  Silence fell, bows were carefully hoisted, and 93 pairs of adolescent eyes trained on her, awaiting their cue.

I admit to holding my breath for the first few measures, with that expectation management thing hovering. Memory drifted to an observation from the immortal British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, who once described the opening violin solo at a village concert like this: “It was loud in spots, and less loud in other spots, and had that quality I have noticed in all violin solos, in seeming to last longer than it actually did.”

Imagine the gratifying surprise when the opposite proved to be the case. A soft but appreciative exhale blew out quickly as the kids bowed and plucked their way through a perfectly respectable, if slightly down-tempo, rendering of Winter Wonderland.  Miss Mandy could not contain her own fervor, swaying and tapping her feet as she transmitted the conductor’s magical cues and guided 93 (absorb that again—93!) kids to play multi-stringed instruments, in harmony and on beat, through the beloved tune.

Next up, the smaller group of younger, beginner performers added their own brief offering, delivered with more determined energy than competence, but still a charming effort, overall. This was followed by a collaborative effort of the younger and older musicians on a brightly paced medley of ubiquitous holiday classics.

And suddenly that, against all odds, was that. Hardly 20 minutes into the action, we started in surprise when Miss Mandy announced the arrival of the evening’s conclusion.

“What?”  My daughter looked around, graciously subtle in her happy surprise.  “We’re done?”  We joined the doting crowd in enthusiastic applause and cheers, which may have achieved a higher multiple due to the merciful brevity of the proceedings.

Miss Mandy cemented her hero nomination when I approached to thank her.  “Great job,” I began, but she wouldn’t have it be about her.  “Weren’t they wonderful?” she responded, with such heartfelt warmth that I couldn’t bear to refract the praise back her direction.  Dying to probe deeper to unearth the hidden depths of such brilliance, I could see it wasn’t the time. I left her in peace with simple agreement: “They were,” I agreed, “they really were.”

“That has to be some kind of a miracle,” I said to my daughter and son-in-law as we moved toward the exit. “The teacher is amazing.  Can you imagine what it takes to get 93 middle-school kids to do the same thing, at the same time, with some level of competence?”

“I can’t, at all,” she agreed, shaking her head.  “Because I can barely get two of them to do anything, ever.”

Looking around at the horde of parents and grandparents emerging into the cool evening, I speculated that most would say the same.  That’s the stuff that makes heroes—those brave souls who never give up on reaching heights we mortals can hardly envision.  God bless them, every one.

 

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Just Walk In

When it comes to domestic science–or arts, depending on how you like to regard these matters of home–my greatest achievement might be the reasonable management of expectations.  If you work a challenging career while managing your home on your own, hang out with your family and friends, and stop even occasionally to breathe and enjoy life, well, let’s face it.  If you want to sleep at all, something has to give.

Too tired for the dinner dishes?  Leave them until morning, perched in the sink, and no one’s life will be diminished therein.  Dust on the dining table?  Cover it with a placemat, top off the red wine and cheese board, and carry on.  Unidentifiable grunge in the back corners of the fridge vegetable drawer?  If it’s not sprouting anything yet, it’s no sweat. It Can Wait.

The It Can Wait philosophy for home management may be tested, however, when functionality begins to diminish, or comes to a full stop.  Consider for a moment my cherished walk-in closet.  It remains one of the most life-changing upgrades I experienced when choosing a new home three years ago after a decade in an 80s-vintage condo.  The condo storage space was clearly intended for minimalists with one pair of jeans and two towels to their names.  My new walk-in, measured out for two in a home presently occupied by one, is large enough to double as a sleeping nook for a visiting grandchild.  And when it comes to maintaining organization in this spacious temple to clothes, shoes, purses, jewelry, hats, and… other stuff, my standards are, as always, reasonable to low-end.

I just want to be able to, you know, walk in.

Sadly, It Can Wait collided head-on into Safety First earlier this week. Reaching for a dress for a work meeting while snaking around the various obstacles long ignored on the closet floor, I skidded on something and fell forward, catching myself on a hanger rack just in time to avoid a nose-dive into the depths of a peachy slip and fall case, featuring me as both plaintiff and defendant.

The Queen of It Can Wait values domestic flexibility but places a higher premium on life and limb. So, first thing Saturday morning I set aside plans for a couple of errands.  It was (long past) time to bravely face the inner sanctum and, in the name of all that’s holy, clear out enough floor space to re-establish safe entry and exit.

How did it get so far gone?  Evidence abounds while excuses are absent.  Here blocking the dress rack is my new suitcase, unpacked but never stowed away after a fabulous trip two full months ago that was immediately followed by a blitzkrieg work schedule.  The suitcase totters, unbalanced by a pair of shoes stuck beneath it that were set out for donation but never got there.  The cause of my slip?  A slick, plastic, folding suitbag, fallen from a shelf above who knows when. In my (wobbly) defense, the bag is the same color as the carpet.

The upside, of course, is the litany of discoveries emerging from the excavation of the floor.  Look!  There are my favorite amber beads, presumed lost forever.  In reality, they apparently fell from the necklace rack into an overturned shoe.  Even better, the floor was festooned with a wealth of fallen hangers, just when I had cited the absence of available hangers as motivation to postpone doing the laundry.   And there, thank the LORD, FINALLY, is the box to store the hat I wore at my little, impromptu Derby party.  In 2023.

Even when It Can Wait rules the day, I still keep an eye open for any chance to funnel excess down to the next generations.  A few days before the Slipped But Got Lucky drama, I invited my daughter back into the depths of the walk-in to help me select a necklace for an upcoming important event.  Sorry about the mess, I babbled, suddenly embarrassed for the clutter to be seen by anyone else, though she is never judgmental about such things. Do you see anything in here that you want?  I added hopefully, trying to distract.  No dice that time, but occasionally that tactic is fruitful.

If I actually noted the minimal time it finally took to restore the closet floor for unfettered passage, the self-flagellation might endure forever.  Instead, when I finished it felt great to pace the floor briskly, one end of the walk-in to the other, three times in succession, like a deep thinker sorting through a great idea.  Say, for example, an idea like progressing from clearing the floor to sorting through the shelves and hanging racks for more stuff to clear out.  At some future time, another day.  After all, It Can Wait has a habit of restoring control pretty promptly.

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Antiques road show, family-style

For those targeted in the demographic as “mature” readers, there is a wealth of material everywhere you look these days replete with advice about disposing of your belongings, especially older items.

Perusing this advice is not recommended on a dark and dreary day.  Do the closet purging now, so your children don’t have to later, admonishes one so-called expert.  Get rid of everything that doesn’t bring you joy, preaches another.  (That one especially inspires a gag reflex.  Seriously?  My vacuum cleaner doesn’t bring me joy, but some things are just necessary.  And I’m not turning my house into a personal temple to my own rapture.  Spare me.)

And then there are the dire predictions about locating useful destinations for your objects, especially items from bygone days.  The problem is not what to purge, reads one article, but what to do with what you are shedding. No one wants your stuff, one writer declares—especially not your children—and particularly old dishes, glassware, and silver.  Even charities serving the needy may not accept such items, and readers are advised to research this carefully.   What to do?  Facebook marketplace?  eBay, where listings appear to linger for ages?

I suppose it is likely that some of our long-used family belongings could someday end up in such places.

But you’d have to catch them first.  That’s because many of our family pieces have logged more miles than the newly retired with the keys to a sparkling new RV.  As a tribe, we give our own special meaning to the phrase “antiques road show.”

Let’s begin with an old maple rocking chair, with elegantly curved arms, a wonderfully tilted back, and the long, deep rockers that make for a fine, fine rocking interlude.  That chair has at least 400 miles on it.  When wewere dispersing items after my father’s death, the rocker traveled home with me from Kentucky to Tennessee, and after I moved again a few years later to more limited space, it traveled back up the exact same road to a sunlit spot in my sister’s larger house.

These travels are not limited to comfortable furniture.  I recently came into possession of a dozen gleaming silver-plated water goblets, future use as yet undetermined, but gosh, they are eye-poppers.  If I think carefully about history and lineage (a dangerous thing in such situations), I believe mine is the fifth family home in in which they have resided.  It’s

best not to attempt a road mileage total on that one.

My longtime interior design consultant and dear friend once described my home design style as “inherited.”  And while that one got a roar of appreciation when I shared it in the fam, the pattern emerged decades ago for very practical reasons.  It’s not that my house is crammed with items representing some overburdening emotional obligations.  It began as much the opposite: Any furniture from family sources I liked and could use, as a young person starting out, was a piece I didn’t have to pay for.

Still, I freely admit our family treasures may offer some endearing, tangible connections to those who passed them on.  A few years back I was mesmerized by a fascinating book about Te Māori, the first U. S. exhibition of ancient art from the native Māori people of New Zealand. The opening of the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York was preceded by elaborate tribal rituals symbolizing honor for and protection of the ancestral artists, who are believed by the Māori to spiritually inhabit the art they created.

My own treasured artifacts mostly weren’t made by our earlier generations, but I still enjoy thinking about what their spirits, if residing therein, could pass on to us. Could I replicate the hospitality at my own dinner parties that always illuminated my parents’ home by remembering to pull out my mother’s crystal wine glasses? If we keep that old rocker in the family circle, will we someday emulate with our younger members the long conversations I had with my dad when I sat in it, across from his favorite perch in their den, while we chatted?

In our defense, we are at least beginning to think and talk about “re-homing” some of these family items, as the term is currently used in reference to rescue animals, not necessarily a flawed analogy.  As the current trustee of two sets of fine china from two generations back, I was recently struck by the notion that two might be one too many.

I really need to make some more space in my cabinets, I lamented on the phone to my sister, and I don’t really want to start packing things away in storage boxes.  “I know, I’m the same,” she answered with a sigh.  “We aren’t moving anywhere, anytime soon, but I am starting to think about what I can begin to purge from this house, working toward when that time comes.”

There is a particular, unspoken code for these family chess moves, and I was careful to follow it:  I’m probably going to get rid of Mamama’s good china, I continued.  (Mamama being our maternal grandmother.) I just don’t use it or need it.  That is, of course, unless you want it.

Pause for here for a millisecond of dead air in the ether.  “Wait,” she pondered. “Which ones are those?”  Absorbing my description of the old ivory porcelain with the brightly flowered centers, she suddenly leapt the tracks on the strategic execution for starting-to-get-rid-of-stuff.  “Actually, I might take those.”  She had reasons, of course, but they elude memory at the moment, because she had a chess move of her own lurking.  “You might want these ones I have that were Snowy’s (our paternal grandmother).  They’re all-white, and they’re gorgeous.  You’d really like them. As a special bonus offer, I’ll throw in the cushioned, zippered containers I bought to keep them in and protect them from chipping.”

The absurdity of this exchange finally ignited a roar of laughter from both guilty parties, but even that burst of self-knowledge does not appear to be forestalling next steps.  More road show might be coming.  “I’ll send you a photo,” she said, “and if you want them, I’ll bring them when I come down to visit in a couple of weeks.  And I’ll take the others, if they are the ones I am remembering.”

On it goes.  On a recent weekend afternoon, a text from my daughter inquired what I was doing. I confessed to furiously polishing an ornate, silver-plated, Victorian-style tea and coffee set that belonged to a great aunt who died 40 years ago.  Even the hopeless optimist in me knows that charities have no use for such things these days, and a perusal of eBay showed too little value to be worth the trouble of the transaction.

What am I going to do with this thing?  I asked her, rhetorically.  “Maybe use the sugar bowl to store device cords,” she attempted, helpfully.  “And water your plants with the teapot?”

That’s my girl, I thought, a bright flicker of pride warming my heart and emboldening me to push forward another step.  I sent a photo of the silver water goblets, asking, “I don’t suppose you want any of these?  No obligation, no hurt feelings if you don’t.”

And it was the second half of her response that turned the flicker in my heart into a warm, enduring beam of hope for the next generation.  “Sure, I’ll take some.  Now, whose were those, again?”

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Points of Light from 2023

Farewell 2023, and good riddance.  In our generation, it is hard to recall a more heartbreaking, crisis-ridden 12 months.  The year-in-review news summaries are enough to turn the toughest stomach. Wars, weather crises, political turmoil, unrelenting gun violence—it is enough to bow the most fervently faithful head.

As we all search the horizon for bright spots, seeking hope anywhere, I started a list of inspirations from 2023.  From the tiny and personal to the global, the private to the very public, here are 10 widely disparate things and people—some more serious than others–that were bright lights for me in a tough year. In no particular order:

Neighbors still help neighbors.  In early summer, a favorite neighbor up the street experienced a sudden and serious medical emergency while alone at home.  Her kind and attentive son, blocked from reaching her quickly by an untimely traffic problem, called a neighbor, who called another neighbor, who brought still more neighbors.  All raced to her, waiting with her for the ambulance and tending to her home and beloved dogs while she got the medical attention she needed in the hospital.  Waiting for her return home, we circled round, making lists of how best to help in the next phase and sharing ideas for what would mean most to her. Interestingly, our street of all recently built homes forms a very new set of neighbors.  There’s such hope in watching how quickly the bonds of community form and sustain.

Sean Dietrich is an influencer of hope.  This writer, a columnist, novelist, and humorist, devotes his career to inspiring readers through sharing stories of the downtrodden, the overlooked, the defeated.  He testifies to how they struggle, and how they rise.  He shared so many memorable stories this year there is no room to list them all, but his blooming friendship with a young blind girl named Becca who has an angelic singing voice has stirred my heart every single time.  You don’t follow Sean to experience literary greatness; you follow Sean if you want to believe that greatness in the human spirit still triumphs in daily life.

I got Wordle in two.  Twice in the same week!  There’s nothing like blazing, blind luck to inspire hope.  If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.  Never, ever, ever give up.

One doctor really listened.  Absorbing my frustration about a medical problem that lingered, unabated by treatment thus far, the young doctor (about the age of my daughter, I surmised) snapped his laptop shut.  He turned on the stool in the examining room to face me directly and hear me out.  My problem was nowhere close to serious or life-threatening, but it was throwing my daily life off balance, and I was getting desperate.  This has been going on too long, I fumed, and he quietly agreed.  Sometimes it takes multiple tries to find the solution, he added calmly.  Can you hang in there with me while we keep trying?  He really heard me, I thought to myself, shocked to realize how rare that has become.  Hope renewed by having an ally, I said I would. And I did.

The Covenant School parents just won’t go away.   The March 27 slaughter at Covenant School of three children and three adults by a deranged former student with an assault rifle was described by our mayor as Nashville’s worst day.  The ripples of heartbreak and despair spread everywhere in the community.  Conversely, there are ripples of hope, maybe small, but still visible, in the determined voices of the Covenant parents’ group that is publicly advocating for improved gun safety in Tennessee.  Soundly defeated, even harassed and vilified for their intervention at a special session of Tennessee’s legislature in late summer, they are already speaking out as the lawmakers prepare to reconvene in the new year.  There’s a faint but discernible glimmer of light in the widening circle of churches and other community-based groups rallying to support their position and kindling the public dialogue.

When love wins, the light reflects on many.  This summer, my daughter married a loving and kind man in a ceremony meticulously planned to reflect their joy in each other.  Watching a child transformed by a loving partnership is surely one of a parent’s greatest gifts.  Watching the parallel joy of her children in their new family unit adds a dimension that beams hope all over the place.

Kentucky re-elected Gov. Andy Beshear.  Major political forces invested heavily in creating a different result, but the voters in my home state nevertheless returned their governor to his office for another four years.  It is so hard, sometimes almost impossible, to like or admire politicians in these times. Yet Beshear inspires hope by demonstrating that public officials can choose to rise above the current tide and lead with vision and decency.  Faced with the pandemic and multiple weather-related tragedies, Beshear speaks common sense, refuses to indulge in ugly partisanship, and openly acknowledges his faith without weaponizing it.  Here’s hoping he has a long and successful career as a public servant in the best sense.

When you need an optimism demo, watch a dog.  Yes, yes, yes, legends are written, and movies are made about all the magical gifts of animals—their dedication, their healing powers, their learning skills and discernment.  On that very long list of things to cherish in their daily lives, I choose optimism.  In my house, there’s a morning ritual as predictable as dawn; my dog spins, dances and prances in front of the closet door closed on his food bin.  Not in so many words, he radiates hope and absolute, unwavering confidence: You’re going to open that door, I just KNOW it, and you’re doing to scoop that stuff for me, ANY MINUTE NOW!  I know you are, I know it, I DO, and I’m SO EXCITED I can’t stand it ONE MORE SECOND.  And I will say ALL this again tomorrow, and every morning after that.

Jon Batiste’s musical genius is getting the attention it deserves.  Many of us first encountered the New Orleans native when he was band director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  In the last couple of years his career has exploded, as he has won Grammys, an Oscar and more accolades for an astonishing range of work that includes movie scores and a couple of full-length albums.  Jon defies genre and radiates hope and faith.  For a quick dose of the power of Jon’s work if you aren’t already familiar, try his song Freedom.

There was a star.  On a chilly Christmas morning, a few days after the winter solstice, the dog needed his morning break just as dawn was barely evident.  Watching him from the back porch facing the woods behind the house, I looked up at the still-dark sky.  There was a bright, single pinpoint of light reflecting in the east above the trees.  A satellite, maybe?  A helicopter hovering?  Or the Eastern Star of Christmas?  I know what I think.

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The Sun’s Palm

The sun has no voice, surely, so I must have imagined that call.  It summoned me outside as it continued its ascent in the bright, early hours of the morning after Thanksgiving.  The striated rosy and berry pinks of dawn over the hill behind had just faded, giving way to near-blinding illumination from a cloudless sky.

Probably will be too cold out here, I grumbled, unsure about accepting this invitation as I wrested open the porch door and stepped out in my tattered old yellow robe and slippers.  Still, lured by the crimson tints still clinging to a few determined trees in the woods behind the house and the bleak grace of the towering bare trees farther up the slope, I longed for some different air. I took along my book and coffee, and, of course, the dog, who frets if ever left more than about 14 inches from my feet.

The porch is shuttered for winter, like a beachside pub in the off season, its colorful flower pots retired to storage and cheery cushions stashed in the garage.  But on this particular morning, there was an odd, welcoming draw in its lean openness.  To wrest one of the creaking old iron chairs around sideways was the work of a moment.  There!  Now I could read without squinting straight into the rising sun, and I perched.

A chilly breeze denied the sun’s promised warmth, and I hoisted the collar on my old bathrobe higher around my neck, inhaling deeply, once, twice, then three times, not entirely sure why this perch inspired the deep breathing exercises.  The sun settled on my right cheek and hand, holding in place like the lingering touch of someone familiar.

The dog, in his elevation some seven inches above ground, struggled to settle.  His requisite security patrol around the visible perimeter completed, he sat briefly on the concrete, then for a fraction of a second on the grass, before he came to stretch up and position both paws gently onto my thigh. This telegram read:  The grass is wet and the concrete is cold.  What shall we do?  Appreciating his dilemma, I plucked one of his beds off the floor of my adjacent office, dropped it on the porch concrete, and sighed with satisfaction along with him as he jumped in. He curled up with face toward the sun and gaze toward the woods, from which despicable aliens like turkeys or deer might always encroach. There being none in sight, he closed his eyes.

With fresh clarity bestowed by the warm light and wafting winter air, I could admit why I needed that deep breathing.  I let that discomfort stand up on two feet and sat with it, staring into the trees, my finger holding my place in the little book I was ignoring.  Thanksgiving Day was a tough one, a low-key version of the holiday, or what I sometimes call an “off year”.  I desperately missed my late parents, who loved rowdy family groups and festive holiday gatherings.  I missed my extended family, all understandably occupied with other branches of their own families, an inevitable calendar result of these holiday rotations.  Memories of earlier holidays, especially before some of the beloved had left us, scrolled across my forest view like old movies on a screen, and my eyes briefly welled with tears.  I tried one sip of coffee, now completely cold and slightly bitter.

Hard to say how long I sat there, the sun steady in its grasp on my cheek, like a comforting palm.  As I felt my chest relax, I closed my eyes and thought, shoot, I could doze, sitting right here.  And I remembered, with gratitude and for the umpteenth time:  There is nothing that begins to ease sorrow more readily than staring it right in the face.

The dog raised his head, nose twitching briskly to re-examine potential threats signaled on the breeze, and it seemed best not to doze where one could inadvertently slump forward onto concrete.  The hard day of lingering loss was behind me, a bright new morning begun, with groceries to procure and a table to set for guests coming later.  The peaks and valleys of the holidays, sometimes so closely knitted it is hard to distinguish between them, can take on different tones when an interval to sit still and breathe is afforded.

Thankful for the call of the sun and carrying the feel of that warm palm with me, I started back into the house.  Time to be up and at it.  And if the call comes again tomorrow morning, I’ll be listening.

 

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Heat Exhaustion

A Labor Day weekend survey of the garden is a such a dreary exercise.

The petunias in the window box, big favorites of the hummingbirds and bees this summer, droop sadly in apparent surrender to the late-summer weather scourge. Their dry, twiggy stems are grumpily sprouting junior versions of their glorious purple trumpets from early summer. Patient daily watering does not appear to assuage their gloom or straighten their spines.

It has been generally miserable around here, as August in the South tends to be, when the old joke abbreviates the weather as HHH (hazy, hot, and humid). The plants are as irritable as the people as September arrives. The Gardener encountered a brief poem the other day that heralded September as the season of renewal. She briefly wonders where that poet resides but is pretty certain it ain’t around here.

A viney cherry tomato plant that hangs in a basket was a fun experiment this season for a warm sunny spot in the back of the house. The Gardener hung it on a pole and grinned at it all summer, thrilled at the candy-like flavor of its tiny red orbs. Then, as if the other maladies of August—storms, record heat, mold, and more amusements of that sort— were not sufficient to beat a Gardener into submission, the hornworms appeared. These vicious, naturally camouflaged attackers started at the top of the plant, working their way downward to shred the leaves and gobble the fruit. While the Gardener’s faithful back was turned, they transformed the proud green vines from robust to eligible for life support in an eye-popping 48 hours.

The first experience with hornworms was the stuff of nightmares. When poked, the sneaky, life-sucking little assassins rare up like a cobra and display tiny teeth. (No one could make this up. Seriously.) The Gardener was not proud of the satisfaction gained by ending Hornworm Reign of Terror with a sharp pair of garden shears for slaughter, but end it she did. Interestingly, Nature brooks no waste. The injured, half-bitten tiny tomatoes were hurled like Major League fastballs across the lawn toward the woods, more balm for the frustration. It was kind of fun to see the neighborhood flock of wild turkeys, strutting and clucking their grateful anticipation, descend on them like vultures on a roadside skunk. Can turkeys smell food? After watching these peaceful neighbors and their amusing habits for several seasons, the Gardener would not bet against it.

As the heat wave continues, even the stalwart herbs beg for relief. A new variety this year with a tiny, pointed leaf and tart, lemony flavor, the basil plant bushed out beautifully and faithfully did its thing in support of the quintessential summer tomato salad. As if on cue last week when we hit 99 degrees, the basil suddenly sprouted a cluster of flowers on the tips of the stems as thick as the wildflowers in the meadow beyond the house. The butterflies are enchanted by the little blossoms, and even the hummingbird is happily sucking away, but this sight holds no joy for the Gardener. She reads the message clearly: Basil is done for the summer.

Saddest of all—as pitiful in its decline as it was glorious at its peak– is the potted giant zinnia, nearly the size of a bush. This happy one brightened the porch all summer. The fat, fluffy blossoms of red, orange and yellow summoned the hummingbirds, who cheered the Gardener with daily visits outside the office window. Zinnias are a gardener’s safe harbor in the hot Southern summer. They are reliably heat tolerant and last so well in a vase when cut. But after this latest brutal siege, even a major morning dose of water doesn’t bolster the zinnia to stand up in the heat by mid-afternoon.

The Gardener knows just how it feels.

Yet there is no rest for those who cannot relinquish optimism when faced with these signs of pestilence, drought, and tragedy. The lifelong Gardener is either the most determined optimist you ever met, or an oblivious idiot, or somewhere combination of both (OOI). The owner of our best local garden center writes an informative weekly blog about our conditions and the opportunities they represent to us OOIs. “You can plant now!” He promises. “The nights are getting cooler! Plants will grow and thrive until the ground freezes solid. It’s not too late. There is plenty you can do.” (And to nudge that concept along, all plants are on sale, of course.)

Feeling the 90-plus degree sun on her sweaty neck as she surveys available bed space on the holiday, the Gardener is inclined to dispute this advice and write it off to blatant commercialism. She commences to poke around for evidence in support of surrender, and that she is right, and he is wrong (because why trust an expert?). Sure enough, dadgum it, here is the sight, on closer inspection, of small green sprouts emerging near the bases of the tired petunia vines. Poking a toe in exasperation at the black-spotted, rotting leaves where the Shasta daisies sprouted eagerly earlier in the summer, she can see fresh, green leaves popping up at the base of the rotted ones.

Maybe, just maybe it is too early to surrender, after all?

As the Gardener stands absorbing these little surprises, she begins to contemplate a quick run to the garden center, eternally alert to potential bargains and intent on scoring that alluring 15 percent off for just the right things to fill the open spaces in that bed. Why not listen to the experts, after all? If the poets consider it the season of renewal, who is the Gardener to argue? Lost in these fantasies, she looks down to see that a tiny butterfly, brilliant orange and black, has taken a brief rest on the toe of her garden sandals.

Surely, this is a sign. Sometimes the Gardener takes comfort in considering that her beloved late mother, her mentor as a Gardener, might be manifesting encouragement to her in the forms of the hummingbirds and butterflies. An OOI down to the marrow of her bones, she does not care if this sounds crazy. She heads inside in search of her car keys.

 

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The Coffee Dancer

I went back in time yesterday.  Just for a little while—long enough for breakfast.

The scene was a favorite hangout in my old neighborhood, a deli that used to be one of a type easily found all over town.  You know the kind I mean:  Speckled vinyl tabletops with chrome trim, shiny booths with a crack here and there in the deep upholstery, a full glass sugar shaker on every table, perched next to matching glass salt and pepper shakers.  Not so many years ago these joints bustled all over any city or even small town, just pick a street corner.  Now, in Nashville’s exploding metro area, you have to look hard and know where they remain, if at all.  With the flush of migration toward the South enhanced in the post-COVID world, a population swelled by tourism accompanied by a tsunami of commercial investment, our community has been overrun by chain restaurant “concepts” (whatever that means) most of them based elsewhere.  Expensive, gourmet selections only, menus on QR codes…la di dah, la di dah.

The local joints, the kind where you know the wait staff, where the favorites stay consistent and never disappoint, where someone actually acts happy you came—those are getting few and far between.  I am lucky enough to know the best one in town for breakfast, and there I decamped yesterday, in search a dose of the familiar and the comfortable.  And I was hungry.

Sure enough, the corned-beef hash and eggs (cooked perfectly, actually as ordered) and warm, crisp rye toast (still hot when served) set me right and adjusted my attitude after a long week.  And—remember this part?—they bring your coffee to the table, and pour it into a white ceramic cup.  No massive countertop coffee urns for self-service if you dare, an acre away from your table.  If you are looking for the exotically roasted, this place is not for you.  They pour the old standard, black-magic fluid that will stand your hair on end and rev you like a Grand Prix driver on the final lap.  Even more miraculous, they come by the table to pour your refill without waiting to be asked, using one of those glass carafes with a wide plastic pour spout.  Like I said, it’s a trip back in time.

While the hash has no equal in town—I think it’s their corned beef—the real soul magic here is served up by my old friend, the waitress whose station I always request.  She’s been pouring my refills, remembering to crisp up my bacon, and checking on my grandkids for more years than I can recall.  Every time I return and request her tables, not as often as when I lived just around the corner, I stiffen my back against the eventual probability that she will someday retire, her feet or her back will give out, and my breakfast will never be the same.  Yesterday was not that day, and my heart warmed to hear the hostess confirm we were heading to an open booth in her station.

Her name is Jamie, and her age I have never known or inquired.  Her blonde ponytail now features a couple of grey streaks, but otherwise, she has not changed in all the years I’ve known her—thick bangs, bright blue eyes, petite frame, black work costume, ubiquitous smile.  Yesterday she approached the table from behind, beginning her customary, bright, “How are you this morning..” before she realized the woman in the straw fedora hiding my Saturday hair was familiar.  “It’s YOU!” she exclaimed, reaching into the booth for a big hug.

How are you?  I asked, and earned her unwavering answer, the blue eyes as wide as ever:  “I’m wonderful.”  Over the years, over the clunking of countless warm plates of hash or French toast and a steady rhythm of those coffee refills, I’ve heard bits and pieces of Jamie’s own story.  And like the story of anyone who can see reality with both eyes open, there are lots of un-wonderful bits.  There was the unexpected death of her sister, and an unemployment stint for her long-time partner, referred to as “my old man.”  More recently, we wondered if the restaurant would survive the COVID restrictions.  Staff hours were cut, service hours reduced, takeout promoted.  She and the “old man” moved still further away from town to cheaper quarters, hanging on and scraping by like so many millions as those nightmare months stretched on.

And yet, she is wonderful.  Day in and day out, year after year, shift after countless shift, cheerful customers and jerks, on her tired feet, punching in orders and juggling plates and hot pitchers and looking after other people.  On the second coffee refill this visit, she paraded the steaming glass pot to the table and executed a little two-stepping dance maneuver in the aisle before she stopped to pour.  The breakfast traffic having slowed a bit, she plopped into the booth across from me and asked for more news of my grandkids, who often came with me to breakfast when I lived in the neighborhood.  I produced a photo showing the older of the two, at 12 now taller than his grandmother.  “When did they get so BIG?   You need to bring them back to see me soon.”  I played her a brief video of the kids delivering a toast at their mother’s recent wedding, and she turned toward me, her eyes filling with tears.  And then she was gone again. Time to pour refills at another booth.

The great writer Margaret Renkl, a fellow Nashvillian, delivered a commencement speech earlier this year in which she repeated this line:  “The world is beautiful, and most people are good.”  At a time when one is so often consumed with doubt and fear about the first, perhaps we can more easily believe it if we can open our eyes for the second.  Along with great hash and hot coffee, Jamie always provides a reminder to watch for the good people, the ones who shed kindness with every dance step in the most ordinary, innocuous places.

I know where to find one, when I need to.  She’s still out there, and she can’t be the only one. She’ll plunk down that white ceramic cup and bring all the steaming refills I want.  And if you are lucky, like me, you might get to take your coffee with a dance.

 

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In Scarlet Glory

Hello, Gorgeous.

So you’re back, are you?  Yes, here you are, in all your tempting ruby glory.  I can’t get enough of you, and I don’t care who knows it.

There are those who may say (sing it, Andy Williams) that the year-end holidays are the most wonderful time of the year.

Perhaps that’s true, but right here, right now, record one vote in that category for Strawberry Season.

These red crown jewels of cuisine, the tiny ripe ones sweet enough to make you weep on first bite if you weren’t too busy reaching for another—they come from right up the road this time of year, if you are lucky enough to live in the right places.  In our neck of the woods, the Strawberry Epicenter is Portland, Tennessee, and on farms stretching out and around the rolling hills of north-central Volunteer State.

Why Portland?  The definitive local source is silent on and agricultural/scientific bases for the local strawberry boon.  According to the website for Portland’s annual strawberry extravaganza, “in the early 1900’s Portland’s big industry was ‘strawberries’.  In addition to the large number of farms and agricultural businesses growing the country’s finest berries, there was a creating factory, a fruit processing plant, a canning factory, and a freezing facility producing strawberries for Breyers Ice Cream and other national brands.

It continues: “During the peak of the strawberry business Portland would ship out 30 railroad cars a day.  Portland started hosting the Middle Tennessee Strawberry Festival in 1941…Each year in mid-May the festival brings 40,000-plus people together to celebrate the importance of the strawberry industry to Portland’s heritage.”

Thirty freight cars a day?  That’s a train worth hopping, like the hoboes of old in search of better times and places.  That “country’s finest berries” part just might reflect regional bias; who knows?  Google reports, as Google tends to do, a maddening variety of conflicting answers on where to find the best strawberries in the U.S.  Here’s our answer to Google’s eternal indecision:  The best strawberries are the ones that are grown right up the road, wherever you may be.

Meanwhile, if you have even one eye open, you cannot miss the arrival of the Most Wonderful Time.  Like a royal coronation or the Super Bowl, it is heralded with street banners, celebrations, and featured recipes in every possible media outlet.

The most authentic fans wait patiently for the arrival of the local gems in glorious early summer, disdaining the hard and flavorless imposters that perch in other seasons in the produce section coolers at any grocery store.  Too large, off-color, or, worst of all, hollow inside (shuddering is the appropriate response here), these are easy to ignore, for they are the poorest imaginable substitutes for the true, local, delectable thing.

Strawberries are tasty testimony to the eternal truth that small is so often superior.  The very best of these scarlet prizes are small, blood-red, no orange tones.  They are firm, not too hard (underripe), and not too soft (overripe).  We the faithful (read: picky) scan container arrays at farmers markets and in neighborhood produce shops, scrupulous in selection.  We are indifferent to how long this examination requires, and we pity those who don’t understand it’s importance.

At this height of the Blessed Season, the chefs of YouTube, the Food Network, and beyond present us with countless recipes to feature our treasures during this brief annual spectacle.  There they perch atop a salad, snuggling amidst Southern pecans and local goat cheese.  And here they are swimming in a cocktail, the scarlet tones drawing the eye like hummingbirds to red geraniums.  My, they photograph well.  A favorite local restaurant, Nashville’s fabulous Midtown Cafe, added strawberry cake to the dessert menu, its lovely pink cream icing proudly holding up the fresh, naked trophies atop each slice.  It is enough to haunt your dreams.  I awake wondering how I can finagle a return visit before the season ends.  One must have one’s cake and…well, you know what I mean.

About those recipes.

Admire them as you may, but there is a great secret among the most indefatigable of the Strawberry Tribe.  We never make it through those recipes.  Because we are bound to the only recipe that matters:  Pop in mouth immediately.  Follow with another.  Continue with as many as possible, before the Blessed Season ends, all too soon.

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The HOPE Special

I don’t think I could have done it. Not then, not so soon.

It would have been too painful to say the word “hope” just days after our community joined hundreds of others across America, paralyzed and grief-stricken.  As we have watched in so many other cities and towns nationwide, a deranged, gun-laden shooter blasted her way into Covenant School in Nashville on March 27 and showered assault-style bullets into three nine-year-olds and three adult staff members before the police killed her.

Everyone knew someone who was impacted.  It was inescapable.  Someone was a cousin of one of the victims, their next-door neighbor, a student of the murdered head of school, a spouse of one of the first responders, a news anchor who had to stand in front of the cameras reporting on victims close to the ages of her own children.  Tragedy converts a large city to a small community as quickly as an assault weapon ends lives. Many of us navigated those first days in a daze of horror.

And yet, sooner than it seemed possible, after just two or three settings of the sun, even in those bleary early days of shock, hope was sought, and was offered. In this particular case, it was a trade for hospitality and nourishment, with open acknowledgement of the natural trauma of any parent.

“It’s been a lot…. In honor of our daughter and all the kids growing up in this world today we’re offering the HOPE special for lunch. We cook, you say Hope then you eat, for free. Let’s strive to make the world the place our children deserve!”

That’s the Instagram post from a trendy Asian restaurant in East Nashville called Xiao Bao, just three days after the Covenant tragedy.  And those generous proprietors stood alongside many others with hearts aching for the opportunity to do something. Along with the pain and the fear and the anger and the utter disgust, you could almost touch another element tightening the circles within circles.  It wove its way into the bonds that form a community. Call it Hope, call it Love, call it Generosity…call it all those things, or anything you like.  Along with the grief that settled over the city like the unsettled clouds of a spring storm, those unexpected forces also rooted and grew.

Nashville’s beloved Frist Art Museum offered two days of open doors, free to all, “Whether you need to gather with loved ones or visit alone, we hope the museum can provide some respite.” Less than 10 hours after the shooting, our church opened its doors to the community for a candlelight vigil of grief and acknowledgement.  Local flower farm Apple & Dove, a small family enterprise, dropped a delivery of brilliant clumps of spring tulips in mason jars at a popular local produce market. Their bouquets normally get snatched up at prices that enable a small farm to survive, but these gorgeous emblems of spring’s arrival were free.  “Our community is hurting..” said the sign on the shelf, inviting anyone who would take comfort from the beautiful offering to help themselves.  

I took a bouquet and dashed out to my car, where I sobbed all the way home.

Why is it the signs of kindness that throw open the gates of emotion? The stories just kept coming.

“Magpies store was giving away pink headbands to girls going to Evelyn’s funeral (one of the nine-year-old victims). My niece who knew Evelyn’s mom was babysitting for kids of parents who knew the parents better than she did. Her husband was doing the same for a group of boys.”  This so the adults could attend the funeral.

As the services for the victims began, signs of compassion and remarkable mercy continued to emerge.  As reported in the New York Times, the husband of Covenant’s slain head of school reminded the community that all the families of the dead were suffering. “Dick Koonce delivered a eulogy on Wednesday for his wife, Katherine, who was killed in the shooting,” the Times reported. “ ‘Honoring Katherine compels us to remember a seventh family, equally wounded in the loss of someone dear to them,’ Mr. Koonce said, a reference to the family of the shooter. ‘We are trusting in the strong and loving embrace of a strong and loving God to take each of the seven that died and heal their wounds and their souls.’ ”

In neighborhoods across the city, the work continued:  “ We all put pink ribbons on our mailboxes in (another victim’s) honor. Also held a candlelight vigil for her and her family on her street this week. Meal train sign-ups and $ contributions. Some friends/neighbors offered home rentals at no cost to house out of town families and also bedrooms in their homes for families in town. Card/ letter writings. We all feel we can’t do enough…”

“When you don’t know what to do, you do what you know,” said another loving and pragmatic friend, who made large bows in the red and black colors of Covenant School and attached them to mailboxes all up and down her street.

Others took to the streets to vent their grief and demand change in the time-honored American methods of protest.  Group after group gathered at the Tennessee State Capitol, marching with signs held high, demanding legislators consider red-flag laws and restrictions on assault weapons.  Doctors, teachers, law enforcement…most of all, I saw hope in the crowds of the high-school students who walked out of class to march at the capitol.  Their young faces were ablaze with fear and anger—but I saw hope in their presence, in the evidence of their resolve.

We just passed the one-month anniversary of our shared tragedy.  I look around with changed eyes at the hundreds of communities who have suffered similar nightmares and wonder how one nation can digest so much violence and heartbreak without making the sorts of changes that so clearly have alleviated this devastation elsewhere.  In our great national shame and failure to protect our children, aren’t those of us who are silent also complicit?  I have said little, done nothing, never even reviewed my electoral selections based on this issue. Like so many millions of others, I thought this battle could not be won, that the forces of evil that block lifesaving changes were too powerful and too sickeningly wealthy to defeat.  And so I remained silent.

Perhaps that’s true—maybe it can’t be fixed after 20-plus years of murderous rampages in schools and elsewhere.  But perhaps it isn’t. I look around again, and I think about those high-school students, those bows on the mailboxes, those flowers, those police officers begging for change, those physicians marching in lab coats.  And I wonder if maybe enough hope, rising on the tide of tragedy, really could forge a different future.  Save lives.  Keep more families from the same agonizing losses.

The signs are out there, if we are willing to look, the signals that hope can rise alongside anger and grief and shame.  Is it time to look in the mirror and see if we find hope looking back at us?  Maybe, just maybe, the time is finally here when we, as parents and grandparents and friends and neighbors and citizens and voters, accept and act on our shared responsibility as an outgrowth of our unimaginable, colossal shared grief.

Maybe it’s time to have hope for lunch.

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Inspiration, Wearing Green

January, I defy you.  Your dank, slate-shadowed days are but a passing blip, barely worthy of acknowledgement.

February, I see you lurking there in the shadows, ready to smother us with your utmost:  Your truncated days when gray blankets the drizzly world down into the marrow of your bones and the golden touch of sunshine seems like a distant, irretrievable fantasy of the past.

But you can forget it.  Neither of you are taking me down, because Fern will not let me forget that different, maybe better, days are ahead.

We have some history, Fern and I.   This is our fifth winter together, and we’ve logged some miles across the seasons of our shared journey.  After such an extended relationship, this winter she earned an official name, though not an especially creative one, because she is a, well, you catch on here—a fern, of the commonly called “asparagus” variety.  This plant is described by one of the expert gardening sources as “an attractive herbaceous perennial that is easy to grow”.    Without a breath for pause I’d shove that description one step further:  These suckers are dang near immortal.

Fern first joined our household as a young sprout, growing wonderfully on a hot, west-facing patio, adding height and lush volume, almost like a great hairdo, to a grouping of flowering pots.

She performed so well that first summer that I decided on a whim, and a fleeting nod to the garden budget, to see if I could winter her successfully near a sunny window inside the house.  This experiment was met by Fern with, at best, grumpy cooperation.  Even when comfortably damp in her sunny spot, she littered needles all over the floor, jabbed me with prickly insistence when I tried to trim her away from the window blinds, and generally made herself a pain in the neck.

When I decided to move at the end of another hot summer, a cherished friend offered to keep my favorite plants while I was in temporary quarters for a few months.  I debated about sending her to foster care, well-acquainted with her cantankerous nature, but my kindly friend was game, so off Fern went.

Temporary quarters stretched over the winter months in the sad, dark season of COVID, and plant reports from foster care were cheerfully delivered.  All were doing well, though Fern was demonstrating her unsavory winter behavior.  “I’m trimming and watering it and doing my best, but I don’t know,” said my patient pal.  She told a mutual friend that one of my plants might not make it, and the friend said, “Oh, no, I hope it’s not her favorite!”  Haha, I responded to that story, no worries there.  If she dies, she dies.

But she didn’t.

Fern emerged again on the new patio when spring arrived, turned home to explode to an even more massive, resplendent size, fronds waving jauntily in the warm summer breezes.  Another summer came and went as Fern reigned over the patio pot garden.  Then last fall arrived, time to shut down the patio; what to do?

Somehow, I didn’t have it in me to face another prickly, messy winter with Fern.  Maybe I’ll cut her way back and just try to save a few sprouts, I thought, but her root system had grown so dense I couldn’t even pull the blasted green monster out of the pot without help.  Exasperated, weary, mind and heart focused on other things, I cut off all the prickly stalks and stuck the large, heavy pot in the back corner of the patio, abandoned.  Fern and I had run our course together; surely those years of great summers was more than enough.

The holidays arrived, and with them the threat of the coldest temperatures in recent memory.  Preparing outdoors for anything that could be damaged, I grabbed the pot on a whim, sure that Fern was dead but wondering if the pot might freeze and crack.  I shoved the heavy thing just inside the patio door without further thought, scrambling to finish my freeze-prep tasks.  Turning again to other things over the next days and weeks, I ignored it completely as the holidays commenced, just waiting to shove it back out the door as soon as weather permitted.

The post-freeze thaw brought sunshine, and with it, a surprise.   Bending to move the heavy pot in a late surge of post-holiday organizing, I was stunned to see several small green sprouts emerging from the cluster of dead brown spikes that were alone in the pot just a few weeks before.

Fern was back. And I didn’t know whether to praise or grieve.

Fern in early Jan., sprouting by the window, against all odds.

Wow!  I thought first.  No water, no nothing, yet I didn’t kill her.  Dang, I thought next, do I really want to keep messing with this blasted thing after all this time?

Yet it seems that the die is cast.  Fern stands stubbornly by the windows with the view of the woods behind the house, where dead leaves, muddy bark, and bare limbs declare the drudgery of late winter.  Her prickly, unwieldy green stalks duplicate and triplicate against all odds, standing between me and the woody morass, declaring refusal to submit to the season.  I will not be ignored or intimidated, I will not surrender, I will not starve or die of thirst, Fern insists.  I will outlast.  It’s almost as though she is telling me: You can do the same.

Who am I to argue?  Yet on so many days, it is a hard message to accept.

Winter is such a daunting companion in times when the world suffers on nearly every possible front.  COVID will not be banished.  Zelensky desperately needs tanks to hang on.  Certain branches of U.S. government operate like, at best, the mocking skits from Saturday Night Live, stretching credulity for any person with an atom of common sense.  Eggs cost more than your electric bill. Global drivers of despair loom everywhere we turn.

What is left for our late-winter gloom but to watch for encouragement in the smallest of things?  Fern earned the right to remain undisturbed in her post by the window, growing increasingly, amazingly taller, even while root-bound, dry, and neglected, interrupting my view of the dark, still woods beyond.  If I remember to watch her progress, to pay attention, maybe I, too, can remember that beyond darkest of winter days, spring still follows.  It’s so hard these days, isn’t it, to remember to hope?

So, I am keeping my eye on Fern.  Hoping that I can be as tough as she is; not sure, every single day, but hoping.  She sets the bar, or shall I say the branch, pretty daggone high.

Fern in summer-glory state

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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