The sun glaring into my closed eyes reminds me that it is summer. When I open them again, the world looks faded like an old photograph, and I feel like I have been here before. Sure, I was here yesterday and the day before that, but my childhood was miles away in a wide, mostly flat field adorned with dandelions and a long, steep hill patched with clovers and chopped grass that stuck, like a scarecrow's, out the ends of my sleeves after I rolled down the hill.
I wonder what happened to the years since those days of hill-rolling and doing cartwheels in the field past dusk, when Mom would call me in at dark and beg me to take a bath or at least wash my feet, but I wouldn't because I liked the way they felt when the bottoms were grassy-green. I almost felt that yesterday. I pushed Bea on the swing under the fatherly maple, and I felt like I could be ten years old, pushing my sister skyward as afternoons were measured in laughter.
Days seemed dull as the seasons stack into piles of old calendars, but now, the flowers, the trees: it all seems vibrant. I wonder where I've been the past eleven years because I don't remember any days like this lately. I think of the past ten months; the journey has been long.
This colorful house was my safe-haven in the fall. I didn't realize then how much morning tea and a patchwork quilt could hold me together. They warmed my body to a semi-cohesive being, stitched from these simple tokens of Christian love after being picked from a sidewalk of grief where I was a fluff of dandelion popping through the cracks--pieces floating away with each tug of breeze.
Bea loves to pick flowers. She walks along finding the brightest hues and textured arrangements. She picks them short, just tall enough to fit in Kim's tiny vases that scatter the kitchen table and counters. She pulls a dandelion from the side of the road and adds it to her bouqet as we walk towards home.
Summer used to mean this for me: playing outside all day, running around pretending like we were adults because it was summer, so we answered to no one. We--Katlin, Derek, and me. Those days are long past, though, and my recent recollections of summer are working at the daycare, counting heads for ten hours a day and being too exhausted to venture beyond the kitchen after returning home. At least, that's what I'm sure it would be like if I were staying at my parents' house. My mind blocks the last four summers from resurfacing. If I were at home, I would be going to Derek's every night after work.
I keep having these moments where it hits me that he won't be there when I go back. These moments are painful in a way that I cannot grasp because the concept still baffles my mind. Last weekend, I sat over his grave in awe. Had he really been placed into this rectangle of ground? The grass is a solid green across the plot where a short, yellowed patch had sprouted in the fall. It all blends in now, smeared together by the season's first cutting, and I cannot be sure if he is really there because my memory of those months has blended too.
The town of Waynesburg is the only place here in Southwestern PA where I have no connective thoughts of, "I should be doing this with Derek right now." He's never been here, and phone calls were never enough anyways. When I opened my eyes to the sunlight, a rush of urgency flooded me; if I were home, I would be with him. No, I will not allow myself to go there. I am here; I am safe; I am living a life painted in purples and reds and three daughters, like sisters, when added together equal the age of my own, as if I am living with her at all stages of childhood again. Where is my brother?
This house greets me like an old home aftering my brief stay months ago. I feel part of this family, and I wonder what happened to this sensation in my own home where I spent my childhood. The kind faces that I'm spending my days with encourage me towards hope--in faith, in future, in family. The dandelions that Bea picked open petals of orange and yellow; home is sitting around a small table in mismatched chairs to sip the morning's prayer to the day.
I don't know what brought Derek to mind as I let the rays seap through me, but now as I listen, I hear him all around me. The birds chime to each other in a symphony of summers spent listening to Uncle Eltie talk crazy to them as he sat by the mailbox when Derek and I brisked by. The breeze trickles down the hanging pipes that sing to the touch of metal-on-metal--the only voice that answered during the days after he died. The dogs bark down the street the way Casey would when she saw me bounding down the hill as she peered through the open window. I even see him in the sequins of birch leaves, flicking like pages through a book. He is the breeze carrying the birds' tune, the dogs' bark, the leaves, the curtains by the window. His new voice speaks without words, only tiny clangs of soft-loud-echo.
"This feels like summer when I was a kid," I told Kim as we walked inside for supper. Bea and I prepared spaghetti, and I saw the green-stained balls of her feet as she tiptoed on a chair to stir the noodles. I peered under my own toes to find that they matched. She turned to me and smiled, probably proud of her noodle cooking, while I smiled back, wanting to hold on to green feet and children's laughter and bouqets of dandelions on the kitchen table.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
There is much to learn from birds.
As usual, I fall out of writing in no time at all. I've been saying for days (has it really been weeks?) now that I would blog. I had one running through my mind for a while, just brainstorming through the chaos that I consider everyday and the wild decisions that I fall into because I can never make up my mind.
Regardless, here I am: a recent college graduate with no sense of direction for the rest of my life. Do we all start out this way? I often feel like I am the only one. Okay, so I'm not totally a graduate; I still have this science course to finish up, then a camping literature course for a week before it can be official. I mean, I've graduated, but I am yet diploma-less. Luckily, I have the opportunity to stay with a really amazing family while I am here. Today, we did some garden work, and it turned out to be just the inspiration that I needed for a blog.
After the morning in the garden, we spent most of the afternoon indoors. Martin, however, kept working away in the shed while Kim and I wrote in the sunroom.
"A bird's nest!" We heard through the open window, as the breeze washed sunlight into the room. The sharp contrast against the shed, as Kim was quick to point out, made the bright colors of the shed even warmer, a strange sight against the ominous storm clouds behind it.
The bird's nest was not the typical bowler cap shape. Martin described it as a shoe: it had a long "foot" extended from the tall, thin cove that served as the birds' home. I found it funny how birds can be so content with twigs and mud as their walls. It reminded me of my recent difficulties in trying to pack all of my belongings for my upcoming move.
As I close yet another box, I wonder how on earth I am actually going to transport all of this stuff aross the country. My big move to Arizona is coming up in... 75 days(!) according to my countdown. I really struggle with the number of boxes that my life requires. Why do I hold such value in these items, many of which lie on shelves or in drawers where I can't even see them most of the time? Sometimes it feels as though holding onto these little pieces of my childhood will make me remain a child, though I know that's probably the farthest from the truth. I always imagine coming home to see my room just as I left it--brilliantly chartreuse walls and my old grafting desk under the window.
Sitting on a short, brick wall, I watch a bird swoop and sway across my view. I think, graceful, like walking. But the bird dives at a tree, scraping at the branch with its claws and poompf! it lands, not so gracefully, but sturdy holding onto the height with careful balance. I jump from the wall; the ground only a few feet below my dangling ankles, and I think of myself as landing from flight, but when I touch the ground, I fall forward, scraping my palms on the sidewalk. Gravity's still working. Birds don't even have hands. What is their secret?
For a while now, I've had this great yearning for independence. I am always wishing that I could just go be on my own. I'm almost there, but I'm stuck at that in-between stage where i need to fluff my feathers a bit before I can take flight. As the boxes pile up, I wonder if this is how the bird nests are made: twigs and clods of dirt carefully chosen to build a sense of home, just as my books and paintings will embellish my walls. I imagine the birds moving south, picking their favorite sticks and carrying them via beak to a new home.
Why do we over-complicate things? Surely I too could select a few favorites to take and leave the rest of my past in PA. I just can't grasp this connection to these objects that seem to define my memory. Without them, I often think, I would lose all that I have lived.
When I first saw the bird land on the branch, I commended it's perfect balance. I thought, that must be the secret! and decided to follow suit, but then I realized that in my inherent clumsiness, I will never be balanced beyond tree pose, and only then when firmly planted on a mat. When trying balance postures in yoga, one of the greatest challenges is not the act of balance itself but the trusting of your own body to not let you break. Trust.
I wish that I could say for certain that when the time comes, I will fly South with just a few sticks, but my commitment to a life of simplicity is a work-in-progress. So many memories are tied down through possession, and it's a lesson that cannot be un-learned without discipline. What I do know, though, is that when I go, I will kick off, spread my wings, and settle into a new home. I will carry with me each moment of my life, even if I can't remember them all. Most importantly, I will trust. I will trust that I can land on my feet (not my hands!), and I will trust that God will still keep me in-check with gravity.
Regardless, here I am: a recent college graduate with no sense of direction for the rest of my life. Do we all start out this way? I often feel like I am the only one. Okay, so I'm not totally a graduate; I still have this science course to finish up, then a camping literature course for a week before it can be official. I mean, I've graduated, but I am yet diploma-less. Luckily, I have the opportunity to stay with a really amazing family while I am here. Today, we did some garden work, and it turned out to be just the inspiration that I needed for a blog.
After the morning in the garden, we spent most of the afternoon indoors. Martin, however, kept working away in the shed while Kim and I wrote in the sunroom.
"A bird's nest!" We heard through the open window, as the breeze washed sunlight into the room. The sharp contrast against the shed, as Kim was quick to point out, made the bright colors of the shed even warmer, a strange sight against the ominous storm clouds behind it.
The bird's nest was not the typical bowler cap shape. Martin described it as a shoe: it had a long "foot" extended from the tall, thin cove that served as the birds' home. I found it funny how birds can be so content with twigs and mud as their walls. It reminded me of my recent difficulties in trying to pack all of my belongings for my upcoming move.
As I close yet another box, I wonder how on earth I am actually going to transport all of this stuff aross the country. My big move to Arizona is coming up in... 75 days(!) according to my countdown. I really struggle with the number of boxes that my life requires. Why do I hold such value in these items, many of which lie on shelves or in drawers where I can't even see them most of the time? Sometimes it feels as though holding onto these little pieces of my childhood will make me remain a child, though I know that's probably the farthest from the truth. I always imagine coming home to see my room just as I left it--brilliantly chartreuse walls and my old grafting desk under the window.
Sitting on a short, brick wall, I watch a bird swoop and sway across my view. I think, graceful, like walking. But the bird dives at a tree, scraping at the branch with its claws and poompf! it lands, not so gracefully, but sturdy holding onto the height with careful balance. I jump from the wall; the ground only a few feet below my dangling ankles, and I think of myself as landing from flight, but when I touch the ground, I fall forward, scraping my palms on the sidewalk. Gravity's still working. Birds don't even have hands. What is their secret?
For a while now, I've had this great yearning for independence. I am always wishing that I could just go be on my own. I'm almost there, but I'm stuck at that in-between stage where i need to fluff my feathers a bit before I can take flight. As the boxes pile up, I wonder if this is how the bird nests are made: twigs and clods of dirt carefully chosen to build a sense of home, just as my books and paintings will embellish my walls. I imagine the birds moving south, picking their favorite sticks and carrying them via beak to a new home.
Why do we over-complicate things? Surely I too could select a few favorites to take and leave the rest of my past in PA. I just can't grasp this connection to these objects that seem to define my memory. Without them, I often think, I would lose all that I have lived.
When I first saw the bird land on the branch, I commended it's perfect balance. I thought, that must be the secret! and decided to follow suit, but then I realized that in my inherent clumsiness, I will never be balanced beyond tree pose, and only then when firmly planted on a mat. When trying balance postures in yoga, one of the greatest challenges is not the act of balance itself but the trusting of your own body to not let you break. Trust.
I wish that I could say for certain that when the time comes, I will fly South with just a few sticks, but my commitment to a life of simplicity is a work-in-progress. So many memories are tied down through possession, and it's a lesson that cannot be un-learned without discipline. What I do know, though, is that when I go, I will kick off, spread my wings, and settle into a new home. I will carry with me each moment of my life, even if I can't remember them all. Most importantly, I will trust. I will trust that I can land on my feet (not my hands!), and I will trust that God will still keep me in-check with gravity.
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