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Terrible Beauty
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” — Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith I am a lover of nature and animals. I don’t use binoculars, but I am always on the lookout for animals on the move. Many weekends I live in Dutchess County, which is full of animals of all kinds. One of the most common – and least beloved – is the deer. I happen to love deer. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania which has a lot of deer, but in my youth they were still quite hidden and tucked away in the higher parts…
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A Solitary Orange Tree
Today I heard a 9 year old child named Colin who has brain cancer say: “If you want to be a fireman, then be a fireman.” Here is a young boy facing his own immortality speaking with words of wisdom and courage. Too often it takes us years to do what we have always wished and dreamed of. It didn’t take him long to follow his heart’s desire. Recently they declared him a policeman in Ithaca and his spirit soared. Unless a miracle happens, he will not be able to carry out his duties for very long, but I believe he has already fulfilled more than most of us. He has…
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Tabitha Grace
My darling cat Tabitha has become very old almost overnight. Her narrow shoulders slope downward the way an old man or woman’s shoulders would. When she sits down with me on the porch of my apartment where we feel the sea breezes, she circles around her soft bed and tucks her legs gently down under her with perfect delicacy. I can almost feel the arthritic pain. I wince knowing that, I too, will be her age someday and having been a runner for most of my life, I will feel this pain. She moves so slowly, but with intention. Her spirit is strong. When I leave her to go…
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The Shape of Grief
I did not know the shape of grief until my healthy father and my vigorous mother died a few short months of each other. I find myself sifting through the old coins my father left me and I am not counting the value of money, but I am feeling each one as though I was he. There are the coins from Reykjavik, Iceland where he was a sailor in WW II in 1942. And all the silver coins feel so thin in my fingers – so worn and so wonderful. And my mother – there is her light green night shirt from Orvis that I gave her to wear after she returned from…
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Sailing Close to the Wind
When I lived in Annapolis in the 80’s, my husband taught at the U.S. Naval Academy. I was lucky enough to be allowed to sail in their fantastic sailing program. This is where the plebes get their feel for water – its power as well as its splendor. There are valuable lessons to be learned on sailing vessels. One afternoon I watched several plebes sail an 18 ft. boat hard into the slip with the mainsail still flying. They had ignored our cries to drop the mainsail and they tried to stop the boat with their legs. This proved a painful lesson for them. Many afternoons I would climb on…
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The Silent Battle
I used to spend some of my day feeding young cats in Fort Greene Park near my old apartment.Taking care of them was one of my daily rituals. I met Christopher doing this. He is a young man who lives in a wheel chair. Half of his leg is gone. He works out with his trainer near where I fed my cats. He has a big smile and a fierce determination. Now when I look at him, I see the man and not the chair. One day we were talking about what we did. He told me he had a blog. Later that night I read his story. When he…
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A New Purpose
When I first began writing this blog, I was in the midst of grief. Both of my parents had died a few months apart and it had naturally thrown me into a difficult period of mourning and missing their physical presence in my life. Eventually I was able to enjoy the memory of their wonderful teaching and embrace the gift of having such good and loving parents who provided for all of us in a tender and generous way. Now in this move I am experiencing loss. It is different than grief, but perhaps it is a cousin of grief. It does not compare to the loss experienced by someone…
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Post MidLife
I often find myself in the midst of discussions about work, relationships, moving, change, and midlife. I have to stop for a second. Are we really still in midlife or did we pass through it while working? Are we now post-midlife? NPR had an essay on surviving midlife. It was called: “8 Ways You Can Survive – and Thrive In – Midlife.” It was written by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, a former NPR writer and author of Life Reimagined.* I got some clues from this superb essay and podcast. 1.) Be a a rookie at something. Why? Try new things and if you fail that’s okay. You can be a “rookie”…
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Reader’s Block
When I began to write, I stopped reading. I did read some material related to researching my essays, but that was it. I read about crows, deer, Virginia Woolf, artists and of course about writing. I love novels, but every novel I picked up I promptly put down. I told a friend who recently retired from a long career in publishing about my difficulty and she said that she, too, found it easier to write than to read. She spoke to a local librarian and the librarian said that it was “reader’s block.” It is similar to writer’s block, but it involves an inability to stick with reading a…
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Walking Compline
I had a theater director in college who began his day walking from his home to the college where he taught. He would pray the alphabet as he walked. He would begin with A and then he would pray for all the students whose first names began with A. By the time he reached his office he had offered up his “lauds” for each student who was studying with him and acting in plays. It seemed to me a creative and active way to pray. It was as if the alphabet was a “rosary” and he was praying one step and one name at a time. I find myself…
