Category: grandchildren

Forty-Five Years Ago Today

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The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words.
We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving,
for in joining ourselves to one another
we join ourselves to the unknown.
~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage” in Standing By Words

Our vows to one another forty-five years ago today:

Before God and this gathering, I vow from my heart and spirit that I will be your wife/husband for as long as we both shall live.

I will love you with faithfulness, knowing its importance in sustaining us through good times and bad.

I will love you with respect, serving your greatest good and supporting your continued growth.

I will love you with compassion, knowing the strength and power of forgiveness.

I will love you with hope, remembering our shared belief in the grace of God and His guidance of our marriage.

“And at home, by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be–and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

(our wedding vows for our September 19, 1981 wedding at First Seattle Christian Reformed Church — the last line adapted from Thomas Hardy’s  “Far From the Madding Crowd”)

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

We enter, willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.
~Wendell Berry from “A Country of Marriage”

…Marriage… joins two living souls as closely as, in this world, they can be joined. This joining of two who know, love, and trust one another brings them in the same breath into the freedom of sexual consent and into the fullest earthly realization of the image of God. From their joining, other living souls come into being, and with them great responsibilities that are unending, fearful, and joyful. The marriage of two lovers joins them to one another, to forebears, to descendants, to the community, to heaven and earth. It is the fundamental connection without which nothing holds, and trust is its necessity.
~Wendell Berry from Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

We married forty-five years ago today in our Seattle church with Pastor Peter Holwerda officiating, with a small group of family and friends as witnesses.

It was a wedding of two frugal people with little to spend – I sewed my dress and Dan’s shirt from muslin, we grew our own flowers, our families helped potluck the lunch afterward and our tiered carrot cake was made by a friend.

Yet our vows to one another were not frugal and held nothing back. They were extravagant and comprehensive, coming from our hearts and spirits. The music we asked our amazing organist to play (versions below) inspired us by its simplicity and complexity – very much like the families that raised us and the God we worship.

Our vows have taken us from the city to the countryside, to the raising and rejoicing in three amazing children and now soon to be seven grandchildren. We served more than forty years as a public-employed attorney and physician. We have laid down those responsibilities, and picked up the tools of farm and garden along with church and community service for as long as we are able.

We treasure each day of living together in faithfulness, respect, compassion and hope – knowing that how we love and find joy in one another mirrors how God loves and revels in His people.

We pray for many more days to fill us with what endures.

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.
~Peter Pereira from “A Pot of Red Lentils”

Here are versions of the organ music we selected for prelude, processional, recessional and postlude

To Be Still…

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I wanted to see the tea house
a bridge arching over water

I wanted to study Japanese maples
their fine-toothed fiery leaves

I wanted to bow my head to chance,
to a lantern, to stones placed in a wall

The paths led us down and down
far off we heard workmen building a road
overhead a jet scrawled a contrail note of farewell

If I wanted to kneel at the pond, it was to know
how like my mother I’ve become

I wanted to admire hydrangeas, exclaim
at a lace-cap two-color one—both blush pink

and purple, on one stem—taking a photo to share—
I wanted to touch the clapper in the bronze bell

at the gate, where two panels slide together,
each side making one half of the sun—

letting it sound and then be still
~Patricia Clark “Kubota Garden” from Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~David Wagoner “Lost”

Our grandchildren —
born in Tokyo, adapting to a rural life here —
bring within them the serenity
of the gardens they visited there,
finding respite from worldly worries and sorrows.

We remind them to love such stillness:
there is rest after busyness,
there is light beyond darkness,
there is peace amid chaos,
there are smiles after tears,
there is quiet within noisiness,
there is grace and mercy forever…

…as we who are older
give way to the new.

So It Goes

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I spent seven hours yesterday at my daughter’s house
helping her expand their garden by at least ten times.
We dug up sod by the shovelful, shook off the dirt as
best we could; sod into the wheelbarrow and off to the
pile at the edge of the yard. Then all that over and over
again. Five hours total work-time, with time out for lunch
and supper. By the time I got home I knew all too well
that seventy-two is not thirty-five; I could barely move.

I got to quit earlier than Nadine. She told me I’d done
enough and that I should go get a beer and lie down on
the chaise lounge and cheer her on, which is what I did.

All this made me remember my father forty years ago
helping me with my garden. My father’s dead now, and
has been dead for many years, which is how I’ll be one
of these days too. And then Nadine will help her child,
who is not yet here, with her garden. Old Nadine, aching
and sore, will be in my empty shoes, cheering on her own.

So it goes. The wheel turns, generation after generation,
around and around. We ride for a little while, get off and
somebody else gets on. Over and over, again and again.
~David Budbill “Seventy-Two Is Not Thirty-Five” from Tumbling toward the End

The wheel turns, we cycle around again, get on and eventually get off.
This is a week of July birthdays in our family, for both old and young.

This hit me when we celebrated our grandson’s third birthday a few days ago in a suburban backyard where my daughter has continued the Gibson/Polis gardening tradition, using the compost we hauled in our truck from our farm several hours away.

Her peas were full and ripe and juicy, her greens lush and tasty – simple perfection thanks to her careful tending.

Meanwhile, our son gardens with his three boys in a very small urban backyard in Denver, teaching them what is weed and what will become a future meal.

I couldn’t help but get weepy, enjoying that special birthday feast.

…and knowing someday, our grandsons will plant and weed and harvest from the soil just as we and their parents did, over and over, again and again.

And this is why my eyes are closed
It’s just as well for all I’ve seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you’re the only one who knows
~Billy Joel

Those Quiet Brown Eyes

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Who loves the rain    
    And loves his home, 
And looks on life with quiet eyes,  
     Him will I follow through the storm;    
     And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,    
     Who loves the rain, 
     And loves his home, 
And looks on life with quiet eyes.
~Frances Shaw, “Who loves the rain” from Look To the Rainbow of Grace

Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
~Wendell Berry from “There is no going back”

What a wonder I was
when I was young, as I learn
by the stern privilege
of being old: how regardlessly
I stepped the rough pathways
of the hillside woods,
treaded hardly thinking
the tumbled stairways
of the steep streams, and worked
unaching hard days
thoughtful only of the work,
the passing light, the heat, the cool
water I gladly drank.
~Wendell Berry “VII” 2015 from Another Day

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only.
I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary…
~Margaret Atwood

I stop writing the poem
to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt 
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.
~Tess Gallagher “I Stop Writing the Poem”

For Dan’s 73rd birthday…

In this journey together,
we inhabit each other,
however long may be the road we travel;
you have become the air I breathe,
refreshing, renewing, restoring~~
you are that necessary to me,
and that beloved.

Each year, as we grow older together:
grayer, softer, gentler
with ourselves,
each other,
and the world.

I pause to say,
on this day you were born,
thank you, God, yet again
for bringing you to earth
so we could meet,
raise our three amazing children,
and now six grandchildren,
with another on the way,
walking life together
with faith and hope and dreams.

It was your quiet brown eyes I trusted first
and just knew
I’d follow you anywhere,
and I have…

Just An Ordinary Life

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No doubt she’s disappointed.

Such a disgrace I turned out to be.

Not a policy-maker
Or tech-savvy entrepreneur.
Nothing of note.

I gave birth three times
and sent three
tall, kind people 
into the world

I offered words of consolation
I planted sunflowers
I listened

Elected official?
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist?
Cutting-edge thought-leader?
MD, PhD, CEO?
Oscar, Emmy, Tony? 
Nobel? 
Anything?

I closed my mother’s eyes
when she died
and again, my father’s

I made no fortune
no headlines
nothing went viral

I sang and danced
for no one

I remembered
I noticed
I breathed

Just an ordinary life
filled with extraordinary love.

How disappointing.
~Mary Poindexter McLaughlin “Alma Mater”

Parents can hold unreasonable expectations of success for their children; they tend to reflect their own deficiencies or failures.
After all, we want our kids to make the world a better place
than it was for us.

Yet no academic degree, no bank account, no notoriety or award
can match living an ordinary life filled with extraordinary love.

And yes, I am disappointed in myself – not because of the unmet expectations of my parents – I checked off all the boxes they hoped I would achieve in my younger years, but I couldn’t match the extraordinary love they showed me.

The older me tended to withhold myself emotionally from them as they grew frailer, fearing their weaknesses would someday become my own.

I could have been more compassionate in their final years, rather than taking on the more professional role of the doctor-daughter – physically present but too distracted and stretched with competing responsibilities.

That is something I cannot undo now except to pray for forgiveness for how my own inner struggles made those years harder than they needed to be.

My husband and I birthed three tall kind people who we love and have sent into the world. I pray for them what I wish I had understood when I was sent into the world by my parents: living their ordinary life of extraordinary love is more important than anything else they set out to do.

I rejoice as I see them foster such love for their spouses and their children and their communities: remembering, noticing and breathing life into each new day.

Seeing that as the years go by, I keep planting my sunflowers, slowly letting go of my own disappointment in myself.

All Parents Must Feel This

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Today I’m sharing some poems I’ve collected recently about parenting, as I realize, looking back at my life, being a parent (and now a grandparent) has been my greatest joy.

In the early afternoon my mother
was doing the dishes. I climbed
onto the kitchen table, I suppose
to play, and fell asleep there.
I was drowsy and awake, though,
as she lifted me up, carried me
on her arms into the living room,
and placed me on the davenport,
but I pretended to be asleep
the whole time, enjoying the luxury—
I was too big for such a privilege
and just old enough to form
my only memory of her carrying me.
She’s still moving me to a softer place.
~Leo Dangel “In Memoriam” from Saving Singletrees.

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry –
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.
~Marie Howe “Hurry”

It wouldn’t even matter if I could sleep
as in was capable
since soon as I tuck in
my son calls from his bad
dream and I’m upstairs wiping his brow
and saying how it’s okay
so I trudge back down and arrange
the pillow just right and my breath steadies
till my daughter coughs and needs water
downstairs to get it creak back up and I tell
her it’s okay and I flop downstairs again
and find my bed after and in it the baby
upset by all this walking and creaking
and I hear her and I pat her on the back
and make wave sounds with my mouth
telling her she’s okay and I don’t know if
I am really I’m tired but I also feel guilty
like I’ve won something huge, opulent
and undeserved.
~Mischa Willett “Price”

All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
~ W.S. Merwin, “Rain Light” from The Shadow of Sirius

The best thing I did
for my mother
was to outlive her

for which I deserve
no credit

though it makes me glad
that she didn’t have
to see me die

Like most people
(I suppose)
I feel I should
have done more
for her

Like what?
I wasn’t such a bad son

I would have wanted
to have loved her as much
as she loved me
but I couldn’t
I had a life a son of my own

a wife and my youth that kept going on
maybe too long

And now I love her more
and more

so that perhaps
when I die
our love will be the same

though I seriously doubt
my heart can ever be
as big as hers
~Ron Padgett “The Best Thing I Did” from Collected Poems.

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.
~Ada Limón “The Raincoat”

In the spelling bee my daughter wore a good
brown dress and kept her hands folded.
There were twelve children speaking

into a microphone that was taller than
they were. Each time it was her turn
I could barely look. It wasn’t that I wanted

her to win but I hoped she would be
happy with herself. The words were too hard
for me; I would have missed chemical,

thermos, and dessert. Each time she spelled
one correctly my heart became a bird.
She once fluttered so restlessly beneath

my skin and, on the morning of her arrival,
her little red hands held nothing.
Her life since has been a surprise: she can

sew; she can draw; she can read. She hates
raisins but loves science. All the parents
must feel this, watching from the cheap

folding chairs. Somewhere inside them
love took shape and now
it stands at the microphone, spelling.
~Faith Shearin “Spelling Bee” from Moving the Piano.

Each carried a balloon from a special event for kids and their families.

It had been a morning of our family being together, just because. Being a grandparent needs no other reason other than “just because.”

Big sister was saying how she planned to take her balloon to school on Monday to show her friends. She was enjoying the balloon’s bobbing and weaving in the air … until suddenly it popped, causing her to jump and then she had nothing left but tatters in her hand.

Her face crumpled and the tears began to flow.

Little brother gripped his balloon more tightly, looking at his sister’s tears and worrying the same thing might happen to his balloon. His face contorted, ready to cry right along with her.

Then there was a moment of clarity and insight in his eyes.

He handed his balloon to her. He said, “here, you can have mine.” And though he was clearly sad at the thought of having no balloon himself, his eyes were shining with proud tears.

He had discovered what it meant to sacrifice, to comfort and care for someone he loved.

She was speechless. She held his balloon gently, struggling to know how to respond. If it was even possible, she loved him so much more in that moment.

So their parents said to her brother, “we think that gift deserves stopping for a hot chocolate on the way home.”

Big sister looked at her parents, looked again at her little brother, and handed the balloon back to him, saying “why don’t we share?”

Hot chocolate makes all things wonderful and cozy and better, when shared with children we would give up anything so they can flourish.

Balancing Between Earth and Sky

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Every child should know a hill,
And the clean joy of running down its long slope
With the wind in his hair.
He should know a tree—
The comfort of its cool lap of shade,
And the supple strength of its arms
Balancing him between earth and sky
So he is a creature of both.
He should know bits of singing water—
The strange mysteries of its depths,
And the long sweet grasses that border it.
Every child should know some scrap
Of uninterrupted sky, to shout against;
And have one star, dependable and bright,
For wishing on.
~Edna Casler Joll “Every Child Should Know a Hill”

photo of a windy day at Manna Farm by Danyale Tamminga

When I was younger
the world was full of wonder.
Forests were kingdoms.
Following the wind was freedom.
Children wielded branches
like sharpened swords

There was no separation
between dream and reality
no border to defend,
Blanket forts were impenetrable.
The monsters in the closets
could not reach us there.

We ruled from treetop towers.
We danced in the rain.
We needed no permission
to believe in the sacred.
It was simply everywhere.
It was simply
everything.

In those days
we were of the living.
~Logan Holder “Of the Living”

How brief are our childhood days,
when we can touch both earth and sky
without knowing any limits,
how we can fly downhill
and climb impossible obstacles,
how the ocean stretches to infinity
as our imagination sails away.

I now watch these treasured young friends I’ve watched grow,
held as babies, taught new songs and games,
helped their faith grow,
now getting married,
ready to grow up children of their own.

This, the unending turn of the years,
a stretching tether connecting
one generation to another.

Everything sacred, held so close
until one day it is time to let go –
and once again run, climb, fly,
touching the earth and sky at once.

Lyrics by Keane:
I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me complete

Chorus: Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting old, and I need something to rely on
So, tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin

I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?

And if you have a minute, why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So, why don’t we go somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know

And if you have a minute, why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So, why don’t we go?
So, why don’t we go?

This could be the end of everything
So, why don’t we go somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know
Somewhere only we know

Cut and Tumble, Sickness and Weeping

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God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and bad-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water, from hurt of the fire.
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise her, from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that wake her desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat.
From the depths o’ sea water by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble, from sickness and weeping;
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.
~Winifred Lett (1882-1973) “Prayer for a Child“

photo by Nate Gibson

I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.
~C.S. Lewis

I want to make a case for the Lighthouse Parent, a term that the pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg and others have used. A Lighthouse Parent stands as a steady, reliable guide, providing safety and clarity without controlling every aspect of their child’s journey. 

Like a lighthouse that helps sailors avoid crashing into rocks, Lighthouse Parents provide firm boundaries and emotional support while allowing their children the freedom to navigate their own challenges. They demonstrate that they trust their kids to handle difficult situations independently. The key is learning when to step back and let them find their own way.
~Russell Shaw from “Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids”

celebrating a long-awaited pregnancy – 1985

This “prayer for a child” has hung on the wall in our home for four decades, purchased when I was pregnant with our first of three children.

The drawing of the praying mother watching her toddler leave the safety of the home to explore the wide world addressed my worries as a new mama. I would glance at it daily, knowing the world is full of peril; it would remind me of God’s care for our family through every scary thing, real or imagined.

It helped me smile at a few of my irrational fears. Tinkers and pookas and fairies were unlikely to find our children in our rural landscape but at times the world seems full of “black-hearted strangers” and other threats, known and unknown.

Decades later, I continue to pray for our grown children and their God-given spouses, and for six adventuresome grandchildren.

I pray because I can’t not pray, and because I’m helpless without the care and compassion of our sovereign God for each of us, especially when we are brand new, completely dependent and helpless. He is a true “lighthouse” in our lives,

May I be changed by my prayers, molded into a “grand” mother and a light for our half dozen cherished grandchildren, each a jewel in His keeping.

Gone to Feed the Roses

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Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
Shelt’ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country’s derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O’er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.

Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart’s dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past; silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!

Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of the dust and dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with the breath.
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!
~Paul Dunbar “Ode for Memorial Day”

homepristinerose

I am not resigned to the shutting away
of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be,
for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look,
the laughter, the love,—
They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled
Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know. 
But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes
than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “Dirge Without Music”

weepingrose

Each Memorial Day weekend without fail ~

we gather with family, have lunch, reminisce,
and trek to a cemetery high above the Sound
to catch up with our relatives who lie there, still.
Some for nearly 120 years, some more recent,
some we knew and loved and miss every day,
others not so much, unknown to us
except on genealogy charts,
their long-ago names and dates and these stones
all that is left of them.

Seven generations together briefly,
above and below the ground,
age 6 through 200 years.

Yet we know each
(as we know for ourselves and others)
was tender and kind, even though flawed and broken,
was beautiful and strong, even though wrinkled and frail,
was hopeful and faithful, even though too soon in the ground.

We know this about them
as we know it about ourselves:
someday we too will feed roses,
the light in our eyes transformed into elegant swirls
emitting the fragrant scent of heaven.

No one asks if we approve.
Nor am I resigned to this but only know:
So it is, so it has been, so it will be.

roseonblack

Goin’ home, goin’ home,
I’m a goin’ home;
Quiet like, some still day,
I’m jes’ goin’ home.
It’s not far, jes’ close by,
Through an open door;
Work all done, care laid by,
gwine to fear no more.

Mother’s there ‘spectin’ me,
Father’s waitin’ too;
Lots o’folk gather’d there,
All the friends I knew.

Home, home,
I’m goin’ home!
Nothin’ lost, all’s gain,
No more fret nor pain,
No more stumblin’ on the way,
No more longin’ for the day,
Gwine to roam no more!

Mornin’ star lights the way,
Res’less dreams all done;
Shadows gone, break o’day,
Real life jes’ begun.

Dere’s no break, ain’t no end,
Jes’ a livin’ on;
Wide awake, with a smile.
Goin’ on and on.

Goin’ home, goin’ home,
I’m jes’ goin’ home.
It’s not far, jes’ close by,
Through an open door;
I’m jes’ goin’ home.
Goin’ home.

What is Left Undone Will Wait

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To rest before the sheaves are bound,
toss the scythes aside, bare the feet and sink
into the nearest haystack, release
the undone task and consent to sleep
while the brightest hour burns an arc
across its stretch of sky:
this is the body’s prayer, mid-day angelus
whispered in mingled breath while the limbs
stretch in thanksgiving and the body turns
toward the beloved.

This is the prayer of trust:
what’s left undone will wait. The unattended
child, the uncut acre, cracked wheel, broken
fence that are occupations of the waking mind
soften into shadow in the semi-darkness
of dream. All shall be well. Little depends on us.
The turning world is held and borne in love.
We give good measure in our toil and, meet and right,
obey the body when it calls us to rest.
~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre “Noon Rest (after Millet: 1890)” from “The Color of Light: Poems on Van Gogh’s Late Paintings”

Van Gogh: Noon Rest at Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Lying Man in Meijer Gardens

When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
Proverbs 3:24

Thanks to retirement, I have learned to love mid-day naps.

After forty-plus years of 10 hour work days, then awakened with calls at night, I managed to semi-thrive on minimal sleep.

Not any more.

In my new reality, I have discovered that it is possible to leave things undone, something that was never possible during doctoring and patient care. Now it is okay to set a task aside and think about it later. All this hasn’t come naturally to me, but I’m learning.

So it is time to kick off my shoes, pull a quilt up to my chin and close my eyes, just for a little while.

All will be well. The world keeps turning, even when I’m not the one pedaling to keep it going.