Summer and plants and pets and Taylor

My word. More than two months have passed since I last sat down to write. I hate that the temporal space between posts seems to be getting longer; what feels like stuck is actually rustiness. And with that comes a sheepishness, or perhaps a sluggishness, with both writing and sharing.

Such avoidance happens for very real reasons—time constraints, busyness, the kids getting older, some things just don’t need to be shared—but also it’s rather like exercise; if you stop, it’s awfully easy to never return. Writing, as I always tell my students, is both craft and therapy. It takes practice and effort, but the returns are substantial: greater skill, augmented self awareness, and peace. Regardless of what “it” is, better out than in.

Societally, the concurrent increase in loneliness and decrease in mental well-being are markers of a terrible trend of isolation and lack of trust. There are many reasons for both: Covid, social media, the climate crisis, partisan politics, a rapidly fraying social contract based on fact, mutuality, and kindness. And sometimes that all feels utterly overwhelming. Overwhelm makes it easy to stop exercising, writing, making time and space for the joys of living. I see that in my students all the time. I see it in myself and my beloved friends and family, too.

But here I am, back to the page. Happily so. I am sitting in our reading room in WV. Ruthie is cleaning her bottom with absolute dedication and thoroughness. Now she’s on to a paw. If you’ve never watched a cat bathe its paws, you are missing out on a darling process. Try to find a bathing cat, and I swear you’ll feel nearly hypnotized.

At Oliver’s 8th grade graduation; now heading to 12th and 9th.

Both Jack and Oliver left last Friday; Jack flew to Berkeley for an engineering and leadership program, and Oliver returned to Pine Island. After my two round trips to Dulles, I loaded my car with the cats, guinea pigs, and a few groceries and headed to WV. Tom joined me later that day and stayed for five. We’re lucky to be able to work remotely from here, and all credit for that goes to T who has jury-rigged some system involving an old phone, a new SIM card, a router, and something made by eero that blankets Wi-Fi over your house. Why is that necessary, you might ask? Because West Virginia, both poor and mostly rural, is vastly underserved by broadband internet that so many of us take for granted. So, yay Tom.*

I was not in, shall we say, a calm state when I arrived. Last week was madness as Jack had his driving test for his license (he passed!), both kids had Global Entry interviews, both needed to pack, there were appointments, etc. But immediately, as I always am when the boys first leave in the summer, I was struck by how time takes on a completely different personality when it doesn’t need to be so fastidiously and constantly shared with so many. Everything slows. Initially, it almost feels like some drug-induced alternate reality experience. I kept worrying that the day was almost over but when I checked the clock, it was but lunchtime. The first three nights we were here, I slept for 10-12 hours each. I have since read four whole books, one of which I bought and first started two years ago.**

I have gardened a lot, too. Duh. For me, working outside is like the physical form of writing; both are immersive processes that enable/force you to focus and process. Gardening allows you the time, writing demands it. I am determined to wrangle some control over the four zones that surround the house, all of which had been left to nature for decades prior to us buying this property. I love me some nature, but invasive shit that thrives on increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and related drought and heat is not my jam. It benefits nothing but has an insatiable appetite for area. Slowly, I’m reclaiming a fair bit of land and infusing it with love, amendments, and native (and some just beautiful) plants along the way. Penstemon, bee balm, spirea, echinacea, sedges and grasses (not fescue or turf; nothing that needs a crap ton of water and provides almost nothing for nature), ferns, solidago, mountain mint, hydrangeas…the list goes on, and honestly, I am very proud. It is peaceful and beautiful here. It always was, but when I look out and my eyes are awash in bees, butterflies, birds, frogs, fireflies (right now!), and so forth, I am deeply happy and satisfied. Today I planted three black chokeberries, two Itea virginica Little Henrys, a Virginia Creeper, and 10 Pycnanthemum muticum aka short toothed mountain mint. I did this in 85 degree heat and an N95, mind you, because smoke from the Canadian wildfires rendered the air here (and in MD and throughout the area) Code Red quality. Several hours in, it was like I was trying to waterboard myself. Awful. My heart hurts for all in California, Canada, and around the world who deal with this on the regular. The climate crisis is worsening.

After Hurricane Laura, as we salvaged and packed everything possible in my parents’ house, someone thought to get the porch swings. Mom and Dad had had them made for the house back in 1994, and, until Laura, one hung on each of the two back porches overlooking the bayou. They gave us one when we bought this home, and last month we finally found the perfect spot and hung it. It’s in Zone 3, of my 4 labeled mission-to-reclaim areas, which has been the biggest bear to wrangle into some submission, but the view is sublime and having this swing is worth all effort.

I have to return home tomorrow, and while I hope the WV version of time will come with me, it won’t, at least not for long. I’m going to go have a quiet dinner now, but let me just leave you with a bit of Taylor.

Swift that is. Yes, I am a total Swiftie.

Tom and I saw her second show in Pittsburgh over Father’s Day weekend, and it was worth every penny, all the driving, and the two hours it took us to get out of the parking garage afterwards. Taylor is an absolute queen. QUEEN. I feel so lucky to have been there. She sang and danced for 3+ hours straight. Everyone in the crowd was blissed out. Everyone felt welcome and happy and seen. It was such a gathering of acceptance, love, and joy.

*and screw you, Tommy Tuberville, and all Republicans who voted against Biden’s broadband funding but then raved about how it would benefit their people.

**New terrific mystery/crime writer alert: Catherine Ryan Howard. Irish, terrific writer with great, tense plots. Start with The Liar’s Girl! Distress Signals is also fab. I cannot wait to read more.
The book I bought two years ago was not one of CRH’s. I may need to write an entire post about said two-year-old book because while the story was good, the writing caused me great distress. NO ONE needs to use the word scent four times in two consecutive sentences. Pain.

Just some thoughts about life

Earlier today, I buried a goat. It was a somewhat surreal experience, but let’s back up a bit.

Last weekend, for my birthday, I bought too many plants and drove to West Virginia for three days of gardening. For a variety of reasons, I suppose, or maybe for no real reasons at all, this was not a good birthday. I love my birthday, and so this was disappointing, but I’m glad it’s in the rearview and my plants are in the ground. Much of what I planted last year for my birthday plantathon is thriving (I shake my fist at you, ironweed!); it reminds me that growth can appear so glacially slow that what was alive seems to have died, but in reality, progress is being made. Life is biding its time. Cell by cell, root by root, bud by bud.

Despite my inability to settle, I spent a lot of time with the goats and cats and the peace and beauty of the land and our view. Of our four-turned-eight goats, Lefty has always been the weakest, the gentle lumberer the others butted and picked on to continually assert pecking order. She nearly died three years ago of listeria; her then-owners literally saved her life by literally going above and beyond for many sleepless days and nights.

I also, last weekend, hired a couple to help me pull some shiso (my invasive nemesis!) from the pastures. West Virginians endure so much poverty and hardship. It’s enough to break your heart on the regular. This couple currently lives with their teenage daughter in one room of a house in which dogs are allowed to pee and poo and it’s rarely cleaned up. There is mold, and they wish they could return to the hotel, but they can’t. Lefty loped up to say hi as they started pulling, and they even got to see her turn a left circle (hence her name, from the listeria episode). I hope she gave them a moment of simple pleasure.

Since we adopted Lefty, we have all doted on her. She was often alone, which is not the norm for a herd animal. Tom thought she seemed content; I always worried that she was lonely. In that is such a fascinating perspective on how different people read and experience others. But, that is an explication for another day.

Last weekend, I took Lefty aside each day for a chopped apple in private. She is a slow eater, and I didn’t want her to feel rushed. She loved apples. As she chomped, I scratched her neck and looked into her big brown eyes; they were like pools of simple goodness. Some apple juice ran down her jowls, and it made me so happy. When I left Sunday, I hugged her and said I’d see her soon.

On Friday, our caretaker called to say that Lefty had died. He’d seen vultures for a few days straight and found our girl lying in a sun-dappled dip in one of the pastures. Because he has dealt with livestock death before, he knew to close the gates to isolate her so that the other goats and scavengers wouldn’t meet up.

Yesterday was Earth Day. I’d organized a neighborhood yard sale which was a fun, great success. So many families sold and gave away so many things, hung out together, and contributed to various eco and charitable drives I and some other neighbors spearheaded. Supplies for a local diaper bank, a humane shelter, a family shelter, and a summer art camp for poor and refugee families in our area. The rain we desperately needed held off until closing time. It ushered in a cool front, and I wondered if that might help any smell or bloat we’d encounter when we went to bury Lefty. I thought about how much material stuff was being exchanged and how it was both wonderful and awful. The excess when so many have nothing.

Right now, I’m on my porch watching grackles and northern mockingbirds and sparrows and mourning doves duke it out at my feeder station. They, too, have a pecking order and regularly flex with wing, call, flight, and talon. A zaftig dove has decided to use the tray feeder as a bed. It’s both reclining and eating, and you’ve just got to admire the chutzpah. I am sad and quiet.

We all dreaded finding Lefty today. J was extremely worried about what state she might be in; O and I felt the right thing to do was properly bury her no matter what; T was solemn.

As it turns out, vultures are profoundly capable creatures, and Lefty was but a skeleton, one leg, and a hide. There was a smell, but only if you were downwind or on top of what remained. It was remarkable, really. Like, objectively, we all had to take a moment to appreciate the incredible efficiency, thoroughness, and lack of waste. And selfishly, the vultures’ work made ours infinitely easier, in both emotional and physical ways. What we saw didn’t look like Lefty anymore, and that helped. And, so much of our land is rock with a hint of dirt, but where Lefty lay, we could dig with relative ease. Quietly, wearing masks, Ol, T, and I dug and folded and covered. J pulled shiso, and then we all built a cairn atop Lefty’s grave. In a weird way, the entire afternoon felt rather like a perfectly organic end to the Earth Day weekend. For what it’s worth, I want to be buried like we buried Lefty. A pine box if you must, but just me and the earth would be my choice, with some flowers on top.

I am enjoying a glass of wine and the cacophonous concert of these wonderful birds —a scarlet cardinal has just entered the mix— and thinking of Lefty and the differences between strong and weak, objective and emotional, simple and not. About community and the individuals that comprise each one. About how hard life is for some.

I think, as I so often have, about articulating for the first time how strenuously I wished for a simpler, more still mind. It was my senior year of college, and a boy and I had recently fallen deeply in love. He would be the second and final heartbreak of my life, but I can still only think of him with fondness and gratitude. In any case, our relationship was, perhaps, a mere month old. We were in bed, and he looked at me with his big brown eyes, pools of love, and asked, “Emil, do you ever wish you had a slower, simpler mind? I do.” MANY people call me Em, some call me Emmy or Nichols. No one, before or since, has called me Emil.

“Yes, all the time,” I said. And that was that. We listened to a lot of music together; Tom Petty was a favorite, and whenever I hear “Time to Move On” I am instantly transported back to a room in the Delt house.

It's time to move on, it's time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, time to get going

In the decades since, I’ve gotten tougher, stronger, orders of magnitude so. But my mind? It still runs and races and feels and hurts, and that in this world is…well, it’s hard. Is the goat lonely? Will the couple be ok? Will the ironweed ever grow? Will the shiso be eradicated? Will any plastic bag recycling drive ever make one bit of difference? Will my loved ones continue to grow up and out in healthy ways? Will I get to take the stage for my next act?

Today I buried my darling Lefty. My greatest hope is that she didn’t suffer at all between the last slice of apple and lying down in that bit of valley. I hope she felt love and some peace. Perhaps her mind was always still, perhaps it was at the end. It’s time to move on.

Bullies

I am waiting to donate blood this morning, when a long-time co-volunteer says that a mutual acquaintance would like some feedback on an experience I recently had and inquired about. “Of course,” I say, “happy to. How about after I finish donating?”

An hour later I am escorted to an office and proceed to be condescended to and slapped down in such a way that I begin to reel. Nothing has been easy for months now. I am tired and running on fumes, and now someone who has asked to meet with me is mansplaining in such a dismissive way that I have to cast back nearly 25 years to locate another moment in which I felt so utterly disrespected.

Then, I felt, as so many women do all too often, screamed and demeaned into fearful near-erasure. That was a boss, an alcoholic tyrant of epic ego, with whom the power differential made things even worse. He threw chairs at us, in pathetic fits of rage. I was 23 or 24, needed the job. All of us did. And so we tucked our heads down and did our best and left when each of us could.

Today, I am 46. I had just donated blood on behalf of this person’s organization, a member of which I’ve been for an exceptionally long time, a good 15x longer than they have. Determined not to tuck my head, spill a single tear, or lose my cool in front of this bully who clearly had zero interest in my concerns, questions, or feedback, I feigned post-donation light-headedness and excused myself. I can’t begin to tell you how long I was in there. 20 minutes? a bit more?

There is no chance this individual would have spoken to me like this if I were male. I was, and remain, furious beyond anything I have yet been able to articulate. I have cried more today than I have in a long while, not because I care what any pompous bully thinks of me —no, I refuse to be pushed to erasure anymore— but because the vehement unkindness was so disheartening and, really, just so unnecessary. It was shocking. I remain shocked.

I don’t understand pumping this kind of ugly energy into the world. Everything is hard enough. Most people I know are not, shall we say, thriving, and for the life of me I just don’t understand the end-game of awful behavior. Is it power? Is it hubris? A desperate desire to be right? A high experienced from punching down?

I’m tired of even trying to figure it out.