Taste the Day

It's one of those autumn weeks when the sun is so bright it bleaches the brown fields to honey gold and the wind makes me wish I had a kite to fly everywhere I go.  Inside, daylight flirts with floorboards until the moon's curfew, and roses mellow until my eyes taste sugared melon at a glance.  Weeks like this, we alternate between morning walks along the bay in search of cooper's hawks and evenings holed up with old books.  In between there's work, but that's not what we'll remember when we look back on these days.  No.  Our minds will recall strong tea, warm bread, the favorite threadbare quilt.  Remember, you'll say, how we laughed at those women in line at the mall buying all those scented candles?  Dozens and dozens of them, every one like Christmas shoved into a jar: cranberry, sugar cookie, apple spice.  "Just bake a friggin' pie!" you said,  and then we went home and baked one in their honor, with blueberries and raspberries and ice cream on the side.

I dreamed of this once, that life could be this.  I didn't know then that each day is the past in the making.   Once I finally realized, I tossed all recipes aside and started each day from scratch, measuring minutes and ounces and cups and pounds and kisses and good mornings and goodbyes with my hands and my heart.  Suddenly, no day was ever too bitter that I didn't want a taste, and most days I was scraping the bowl or finishing the crumbs off the plate with my fingertips.  And you were always willing to share.  

And there's us now, tonight, two forks, eating cake straight from the serving plate.  And this is what I'll remember: just how sweet life can taste.           

    

Happy Mother's Day!

Wandering in the gardens near the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, on Friday, I found myself at various moments crawling under the rhododendrons, lying flat on my belly to photograph (and smell!) the lilies of the valley, and crouching among the dandelions and wild asters in the sunshine.  

Nose-to-nose with blossoms and grasses, I was transported to childhood, to the world of my mother's garden, and to afternoons spent building kingdoms among the rhododendron roots.  Dew-dropped in the morning, cool in the heat of day, lush and mysterious as the sun set, her garden was a world of scents and colors that helped me understand the importance of cultivating and nurturing beauty.

The tame world of the house was always only steps away, yet this was a wild place, a place where tiny flowers loomed large in my imagination.  I could imagine myself into a hundred lives, each one richer and more enticing than the last.

My mother gave me many gifts when I was growing up, among them her time, her patience, her laughter, and her sense of curiosity.  And she passed on to me a love for gardens.  This afternoon, as we walked in the garden of the house where I grew up in Maine, my mother and I talked about plans she has for transplanting a few shrubs and perennials, and for building a new stone wall around one bed.  A gardener's work, like a mother's, is never done, but there is always a little time for sitting in the cool green shade of a late afternoon, letting the scent of lilacs and lilies of the valley wash across the grass as a breeze rises--time to enjoy the feeling of a job well done.     

Happy Mother's Day, Mum!  

Thinking today of you, 

and of Grammy and Memere,

and all the women in our lives

whose understanding  and humor and care

taught us to grow wiser and stronger

and ever better 

with the passing of years. 

Thank you.

Love,

g

On Being Unabashedly, Unapologetically, Wholeheartedly Old-Fashioned When it Comes to Valentine's Day

I believe in romance.  

I believe in flowers--the frothier and frillier and girlier the better--wrapped in paper with ribbon and a handwritten note.  I believe in roses and candles and a kiss on a terrace, and serenades and love poems and x's and o's.  I believe in a starlit walk through a park in the snow and in the warmth of a hand holding another's, tucked deep in the folds of an overcoat.  I believe in Louis Armstrong on vinyl--and Ella and Edith and Dean and, oh, anyone whose voice makes your heart beat fast and the night go slow.  I believe in red and white and pink and lace and dark truffles dipped in cocoa.  

I believe in the gesture, the smile, the sweet word softly spoken in the wee hours with the lights low.  I believe in the slow dance that lingers when the song is over.  I believe in the hand that cradles my neck and the one that holds my own.  I believe in never looking back.  I believe in never letting go. 

Ebb Tide

I've been thinking about relationships I've known that have weathered tough times and have even thrived after seemingly insurmountable challenges.  Less dramatic, but also difficult, is learning how to see the beauty in the every day, the shifts and rhythms of a relationship during times of abundance as well as times when one feels stripped down to the bone, raw, alone.  This is perhaps a quieter lesson, but it is one that asks for patience, respect, and no small dose of faith.  Expressing this beautifully is the passage below from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea: "Intermittency," she writes, "-- an impossible lesson for human beings to learn. How can one learn to live through the ebb-tides of one's existence? How can one learn to take the trough of the wave? 

It is easier to understand here on the beach, where the breathlessly still ebb tides reveal another life below the level which mortals usually reach. In this crystalline moment of suspense, one has a sudden revelation of the secret kingdom at the bottom of the sea. Here in the shallow flats one finds, wading through warm ripples, great horse conchs pivoting on a leg; white sand dollars, marble medallions engraved in the mud; and myriads of bright-colored cochina-clams, glistening in the foam, their shells opening and shutting like butterflies' wings. 

So beautiful is the still hour of the sea's withdrawal, as beautiful as the sea's return when the encroaching waves pound up the beach, pressing to reach those dark rumpled chains of seaweed which mark the last high tide.

Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally."
 I've been rereading this passage off and on all afternoon.  It's low tide now as I type this.  The waves have pulled back to reveal dinner for the seagulls as well as rocks upon which to sit and soak in the last rays of the afternoon sun.  My love sits near me reading a book.  Tonight there will be pasta and candles and the moon and stars.  We will celebrate the equinox and another autumn together as the tide rolls back in toward the shore.