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Wall of Sound

April 23, 2019 by Cynthia

Rounding a street corner on Walkabout, I heard the first frogs of spring at 4:43 AM several weeks ago.  We call them “spring peepers.”

As the weather swung between warm spells and cold snaps, the song of those solitary individuals, and eventually quartets, came and went as they somehow detected me on the street some distance from their marshy greenbelt.

At about the same time, two early birds, robins in this case, took up the traditional roosting spots where I find them year after year.  For anyone interested, that would be a particular mailbox post and a tree down the block.

Nowadays, spring is in full swing.  Forsythia bush and magnolia trees are blooming and the 5:00 AM robins quickly give way to a delightfully discordant mashup of birdsong—an audio veil that transports any common morning into something more exotic.

And the peepers?  It is prime time.  Early spring rehearsals have led to a tightly interwoven tapestry of sound, a background thrum that is both impenetrable mystery and a well-remembered song of childhood.  Eternity calls nightly—and in those early morning hours, along the greenbelt in an unremarkable neighborhood that could just as easily be yours.

 

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Body of Work

March 23, 2019 by Cynthia

Age bequeaths change.

Change gives us life and flesh. In turn, change leads us to shed those gifts, eventually.

I am older than I was, and hopefully younger than I will be. It is the same with you.

White, brown, black, pale, dark, yellow, poor, comfortable, avaricious

Genetically conferred containers, in the flesh, while we are.

Take a moment, take a lifetime, soul etches experience from the inside out

You see my face, I see yours, a book and its cover

Scramble for status, to have and to get—does it really matter?

Horseman, pass by.

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On a 90th Birthday

February 28, 2019 by Cynthia

The smartphone delivered fine pictures of my brother and my mother celebrating her 90th birthday.

There is genuine happiness there, and it has to do with more than the fabulous frosting on the cake.  Even at a distance, I am forever affected by the radiance of my mother’s smile.  It has always been that way.

My mother has a gift for displacing the unpleasantries of life. They can be stored high in a garage, manicured into a garden, or at this stage of life, simply forgotten.

When I was young, and the household occasionally knee-deep in dysfunction, the direction from my mother was to “sit under the linden tree and think kind thoughts.”  Despite the bench my father built under that tree in our back yard, I feel few kind or unkind thoughts were ever deposited there.

But my mother, even now, is a prodigious, sure-footed gardener and her choice of a linden, esteemed in mythology and folklore, was undoubtedly well-intentioned.

Hers is a smile without guile.  It hides and deceives nothing. There is an innocence to it that is crushing. It can split any moment because darkness simply does not exist for its bearer. Dismay cannot get traction in such a setting.

I have only ever seen my mother’s smile elsewhere once.  Decades ago, the sports page of the local newspaper featured a 10-year old boy, hoisting a first catch, a beauty of a rainbow trout. The beaming smile on his face, for that frozen moment, was just like hers.

Somewhere, I still have that folded yellowed clipping. Smiles are so transient, guarded, or spare, it is good to have a few keepers.  And for now, that includes my mother.  Her smile is her greatest gift to me. They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

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Stairway to Heaven

December 9, 2018 by Cynthia

A grey dun flock spirals upward in the spotlight of a towering freeway fixture in an early morning downtown snowstorm.  Schooling fish of the air, the birds, transcendent, wheel high above massive dark overpasses and funneling commuter traffic.

Amid the metal and cavern of a high concrete parking garage, I watch.

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Isn’t that the way life goes?

September 30, 2018 by Cynthia

Moon

Moon and cloud

Cloud over moon

Cloud and moon

Moon

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Closing the door quietly

September 2, 2018 by Cynthia

The unassuming nature of the word “quiet” belies its importance in the smaller and larger matters of life.

Used to gear down a small child, describe an uneasy peace between adults or countries, demonstrate a quality of character, or illustrate the strength of a musical or other passage, quiet capably holds down its real estate in the semantic world.

Today, I closed my bedroom door quietly, to support the sleep of an older child who is off tomorrow to the start of the next year at university.

As I pulled the door to, the joy of his arrival, the sadness of his departure, and the giftedness of it all played into the careful maneuvering of the door.

Letting go of the handle, the scene sped forward to quietly closed doors in houses that are less full, and further on to the unbroken quiet of homes where years have emptied the beds of all but the elderly.

Yet quiet also beckons reflection. It conjures memory, pierces the veil of everyday illusion, and offers opportunity to sort and put pieces together—or back together.  Quiet is both a universal solvent and adhesive that is a close relative of time and perhaps even soul itself.

Though simple, there is a lot to the word “quiet.”

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I am sorry I missed you

July 23, 2018 by Cynthia

Maybe we passed along on a street, maybe with somebody else
Or maybe a glance across a room
Wherever it was, I am sorry I missed you

Middle age can come at any old time
You can be all alone in a crowd
I did not see, and I did not hear,
And I am sorry that I missed you

On it goes, until it does not
It is how all stories are written
But here I am, looking out at the stars
And I am so sorry I missed you.

Maybe there’s time, and maybe there’s not
The choices, mistakes I made, I will bear
Perhaps I am a fool for thinking you’re there,
Either way, I am sorry I missed you

 

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I love the nightlife

July 7, 2018 by Cynthia

As a wise man once said, “from there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere,” or at least, three feet in front of me and moving fast.

With some luck I avoided walking straight into the flank of the buck deer crossing the sidewalk in front of me.  Silent and swift, he was across the street and blinking at me from the pine trees yonder in a flash.  There is a lot to be seen in the neighborhood at 4:50 AM, including apparently, deer.

In these summer months I marvel at the bustling before-dawn world that plays out as most humans sleep. Come winter, with snow, ice, and sub-zero, there isn’t a songbird to be heard, unlike now when the robins pluck up the tune at around 4:20 AM.

Earlier this week, one particularly vocal robin conducted his fellows while perched upon the mailbox of number 5668.  In my three circuits of that street, the bird never budged from his perch, unbothered by my quiet passage.

The birds and critters of the nighttime no longer run from me.  Sometime earlier this summer I passed a mileage or other marker, and am no longer deemed a threat worth fleeing.  Stray cats, rabbits, skunk, fox, and even a low-slung groundhog do not find enough menace in me to turn tail.  The bats are interested only in insects above my head. I’m good with that.

Looking up, the stars and planets dazzle as the universe slowly turns.  The waxing and waning moon is a fine and true companion. Bright orange Mars is a feature in the morning sky these days.

Lately my thoughts have turned to the rover, Opportunity, on the Martian surface. The plucky rover has been silenced for weeks as a dust storm engulfs the planet, prohibiting the trusty traveler from recharging its solar-powered batteries. Mission Specialists say Opportunity is hunkered down until the storm passes, let’s hope it is so.

At other times, shooting stars light up the sky. Yesterday morning the International Space Station (ISS) made a pass overhead.  I waved.

Like the critters and the stars, I am usually on my way by the time dawn streaks from east to west.  Sunrise is a different gift altogether, and on comes day.

 

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An evening in the suburbs

June 24, 2018 by Cynthia

Montgolfier is full these days.  Named for its resemblance in full leaf to a globe aérostatique-style hot air balloon, the tree rises considerably above this two-story house.  When I first met it, it was a broken four foot stick in the ground that provoked thoughts of quick firewood rather than any future grandeur. Tending and time have lent it vigor, an almost impenetrable green depth, and an easy, safe haven for the generations of birds who have called it home.

Off the back deck, a garden flag bedecked with painted zinnia flowers flutters ever so gently in a slight evening breeze. A new garden spinner with young colors spins quietly as the sun sets.

I spent time in the garden today, not a lot, but some.  Nudged out of the front garden – which needs a lot of work – by a neighbor’s seeming mid-life moment.  How do I know?  Male, mid-fifties, overloud tunes overwhelming the driveway and street, predominantly boozy guitar chords and licks of Nugent’s “Stranglehold” are a dead giveaway.

Up the street, same thing on a nightly basis with a different play list. Easy to gauge mood there.  Creedence on the upswing, Pink Floyd on the down. No judgment, just annoyance that these moments must be attended by the rest of the neighborhood, children, couples, dogs, grandparents, trees, and breeze, when a moderate volume would be fine for personal use.

Summer solstice has passed. The sun and the trees are as full as they are going to be. Today hummingbirds, a monarch butterfly, and even a monarch caterpillar graced the garden built here to provide them succor.

As the sun sets, the midlife woes have quieted along with the lawn equipment and power tools of home-improvement projects.  At past the height of the season the rain has been kind.  Green oasis of lawns encircle houses when hot, dry weather usually crisps things up by now.

The night songs of the tree frogs are giving away more quickly to the crickets.  A waxing moon is brilliant against a deep blue sky. The birds are slowing down now and soon, when the solar orb drops fully below the horizon, the bats will wing by to start their day.  In the distance the distinct chirp of a cardinal calls loudly of the coming nighttime.

The fireflies have not begun their twilight shows yet this year.  When they do, I’ll let you know.

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Crossing Paths

December 9, 2017 by Cynthia

First snow of the season, hugging tree, street, and sidewalk.

Shuffling westward, ankle deep, the sidewalk snow was pristine.  Cars and trucks lumbered by inches away, but the blemish-free snow underfoot made for undiscovered country in the most common of places.

Several blocks on, I came upon an east-going traveler.  Bundled more expertly than me against the temps and terrain, she walked the same print-dash-print-dash as me, a Morse code trail heading the opposite direction.

When we crossed paths, my cheery greeting was met with a smile.  Thereafter I did something I usually only think about–I walked in the footsteps of someone else.

The print-dash-print was longer than mine.  Walking in her tracks, already forged, made for easier walking.  But in the exchange, the unbroken potential had disappeared.  The snow, both ridged and flattened, was defined, in a glance it was, rather than what it could be.

Walking forward I unwound her past, reliving steps already in her memory–just as she was likely inhabiting mine.

I turned off on a side street. Our paths diverged. My eyes, not my feet, traced the path of her westward past. A forecast for incoming waves of snow will clear the canvas for the next travelers coming this way.

 

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