If ever we see those gardens again, The summer will be gone—at least our summer. Some other mockingbird will concertize Among the mulberries, and other vines Will climb the high brick wall to disappear.
How many footpaths crossed the old estate— The gracious acreage of a grander age— So many trees to kiss or argue under, And greenery enough for any mood. What pleasure to be sad in such surroundings.
At least in retrospect. For even sorrow Seems bearable when studied at a distance, And if we speak of private suffering, The pain becomes part of a well-turned tale Describing someone else who shares our name.
Still, thinking of you, I sometimes play a game. What if we had walked a different path one day, Would some small incident have nudged us elsewhere The way a pebble tossed into a brook Might change the course a hundred miles downstream?
The trick is making memory a blessing, To learn by loss the cool subtraction of desire, Of wanting nothing more than what has been, To know the past forever lost, yet seeing Behind the wall a garden still in blossom. ~Dana Gioia “The Lost Garden” from Interrogations at Noon.
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. . . . We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory
Memory can play tricks, either smoothing over the many potholes in the road of life, or digging the holes so deep, I fall in and am lost.
Whenever I am feeling regret for the things I have done, or all that I have left undone, I remember I have walked on paths of beauty beyond imagining.
I wouldn’t change much about what has been, knowing there is much more beauty to come.
I remember gates and doors I could not open. Just a peek told me all I needed to know: there is a hidden, lost garden just waiting, still blooming, still inspiring, still brimming full of everything any of us could ever need.
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Our memories are, at best, so limited, so finite, that it is impossible for us to envisage an unlimited, infinite memory, the memory of God.
It is something I want to believe in: that no atom of creation is ever forgotten by him; always is; cared for; developing; loved. ~Madeleine L’Engle from The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
…a friend told me a story about a little girl who wanted time alone with her infant brother. Her parents were suspicious of her motives. What if she did something to harm the baby? The big sister was so persistent that her mom and dad finally decided to allow her ten minutes alone with him in his room. After they closed the door, they listened quietly.
They felt chills when they heard their daughter say, “Baby tell me what heaven is like. I’m starting to forget.” ~Sue Shanahan from “Fresh from Heaven”
He of strength and hope, of infinite memory and everlasting love:
He knows us down to our very atoms ~~ even we who are weak, broken, and undeserving.
He causes us to burst into bloom in remembrance of having been in His presence.
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Holes in the shape of stars punched in gray tin, dented, cheap, beaten by each of her children with a wooden spoon.
Noodle catcher, spaghetti stopper, pouring cloudy rain into the sink, swirling counter clockwise down the drain, starch slime on the backside, caught in the piercings.
Scrubbed for sixty years, packed and unpacked, the baby’s helmet during the cold war, a sinking ship in the bathtub, little boat of holes.
Dirt scooped in with a plastic shovel, sifted to make cakes and castles. Wrestled from each other’s hands, its tin feet bent and re-bent.
Bowl daylight fell through onto freckled faces, noon stars on the pavement, the universe we circled aiming jagged stones, rung bells it caught and held. ~Dorianne Laux “My Mother’s Colander”
Many of my mother’s kitchen things, some over eighty years old, are still packed away in boxes that I haven’t had the emotional wherewithal to open. They sit waiting for me to sort and purge and save and weep.
It is as if I haven’t wanted to say goodbye after her death at age 88, now seventeen years ago.
This particular kitchen item- her old dented metal colander – found its way to me when I moved into my first apartment some 49 years ago. She had purchased a bright green plastic colander at a Tupperware party so she felt the old metal one was somehow outdated, overworked and plain, and ready for retirement.
It had held hundreds of pounds of rinsed garden vegetables during my childhood, had drained umpteen pasta noodles, had served as a sifter in our sandbox, and a helmet for many a pretend rocket launch to infinity and beyond.
Dented and battered, it still works fine, thank you very much, for all intended and some unintended purposes. It does make me wonder what other treasures may surprise me as I begin to open and sort my mother’s boxes. Her things have remained in suspended animation, waiting to be rediscovered.
I know there will be tons of tupperware, carefully saved yogurt containers with lids, and quite likely a hoard of pickle jars. As a child of the depression, she saved anything that could be potentially used again.
Perhaps these items have waited patiently to be touched lovingly and with distinct purpose as they once were, and be remembered for the part they played in one woman’s long sacrificial and faith-filled life.
Maybe, just maybe, it will feel like I’ve unpacked Mom once again and maybe this time it can be both a hello and a goodbye.
To infinity and beyond…
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
I wanted to treat feelings that are not recognized as afflictions and are never diagnosed by doctors. All those little feelings and emotions no therapist is interested in, because they are apparently too minor and intangible. The feeling that washes over you when another summer nears its end. Or when you recognize that you haven’t got your whole life left to find out where you belong. Or the slight sense of grief when a friendship doesn’t develop as you thought, and you have to continue your search for a lifelong companion. Or those birthday morning blues. Nostalgia for the air of your childhood. Things like that. ~Nina George from The Little Paris Bookshop
Are you so weary? Come to the window; Lean, and look at this — Something swift runs under the grass With a little hiss . . .
Now you see it ripping off, Reckless, under the fence. Are you so tired? Unfasten your mind, And follow it hence. ~Mark Van Doren “Wind in the Grass”
A white vase holds a kaleidoscope of wilting sweet peas captive in the sunlight on the kitchen table while
wafting morning scent of pancakes with sticky maple syrup swirls on the plate,
down the hall a dirty diaper left too long in the pail, spills over tempera paint pots with brushes rinsed in jars after
stroking bright pastel butterflies fluttering on an easel while wearing dad’s oversized shirt buttoned backwards
as he gently guides a hand beneath the downy underside of the muttering hen reaching a warm egg hiding in the nest
broken into fragments like a heart while reading the last stanza of “Dover Beach” in freshman English
Just down the hall of clanging lockers To orchestra where strains of “Clair de Lune” accompany
the yearning midnight nipple tug of a baby’s hungry suck hiccups gulping in rhythm to the rocking rocking
waiting for a last gasp for breath through gaping mouth, mottled cooling skin
lies still between bleached sheets illuminated by curtain filtered moonlight just visible
through the treetops while whoosh of owl wings are felt not heard, sensed not seen.
Waking to bright lights and whirring machines the hushed voice of the surgeon asking
what do you see now, what can you hear, what odor, what flavor, what sensation on your skin
with each probe of temporal lobe, of fornix and amygdala hidden deep in gray matter
of neurons and synaptic holding bins of chemical transmitters storing the mixed bag of the past and present
to find and remove the offending lesion that seizes up all remembrance, all awareness
and be set free again to live, to love, to swoon at the perfume of spring sweet peas climbing dew fresh at dawn,
tendril wrapping over tendril, the peeling wall of the garden shed
no more regrets, no more grief no more sorrow.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
When I was a child I once sat sobbing on the floor Beside my mother’s piano As she played and sang For there was in her singing A shy yet solemn glory My smallness could not hold
And when I was asked Why I was crying I had no words for it I only shook my head And went on crying
Why is it that music At its most beautiful Opens a wound in us An ache a desolation Deep as a homesickness For some far-off And half-forgotten country
I’ve never understood Why this is so
But there’s an ancient legend From the other side of the world That gives away the secret Of this mysterious sorrow
For centuries on centuries We have been wandering But we were made for Paradise As deer for the forest
And when music comes to us With its heavenly beauty It brings us desolation For when we hear it We half remember That lost native country
We dimly remember the fields Their fragrant windswept clover The birdsongs in the orchards The wild white violets in the moss By the transparent streams
And shining at the heart of it Is the longed-for beauty Of the One who waits for us Who will always wait for us In those radiant meadows
Yet also came to live with us And wanders where we wander. ~Anne Porter “Music” from Living Things
One evening, when our daughter was only a toddler, just learning the words to tell us what she needed, I was preparing dinner, humming to a choral music piece playing in the background.
She sat on the kitchen floor, looking up at me, her eyes welling full with tears like pools of reflected light spilling over from some deep-remembered reservoir.
At first I thought she was hurt or upset but then could see she was feeling an ache a desolation deep as a homesickness as she wept for wonder at the sad beauty of the music that spoke for her the words she could not express:
Of the One who waits for us Who will always wait for us In those radiant meadows
Yet also came to live with us And wandered where we wander.
For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever… 2Corinthians 4:17-18
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten — What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild — Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child? ~Sara Teasdale “Only in Sleep”
When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, That Eden lost unknown and found unsought.
Then just within the gate I saw a child,— A stranger-child, yet to my heart most dear,— Who held his hands to me, and softly smiled With eyes that knew no shade of sin or fear: “Come in,” he said, “and play awhile with me; I am the little child you used to be.” ~Henry van Dyke, “A Child in the Garden” from The Poems of Henry van Dyke
My childhood home is painted a different color but so familiar as we drive slowly by, full of memories of laughter and games with friends, long winter days of sledding and longer summer evenings playing hide and seek and kick the can.
Back then, I wrote notes to my future self, left them in hiding places, a diary of sorts to preserve those days. I still remember what I wrote.
My child’s heart tried to imagine itself decades hence, what fears and joys would I pass through, what wounds would I bear and bleed, what love and tears would trace my face?
I have not forgotten. No, I have never forgotten the child I was ~ she is me, as I was, and, deep down, still am.
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Everything remembers something. The rock, its fiery bed, cooling and fissuring into cracked pieces, the rub of watery fingers along its edge.
The cloud remembers being elephant, camel, giraffe, remembers being a veil over the face of the sun, gathering itself together for the fall.
The turtle remembers the sea, sliding over and under its belly, remembers legs like wings, escaping down the sand under the beaks of savage birds.
The tree remembers the story of each ring, the years of drought, the floods, the way things came walking slowly towards it long ago.
And the skin remembers its scars, and the bone aches where it was broken. The feet remember the dance, and the arms remember lifting up the child.
The heart remembers everything it loved and gave away, everything it lost and found again, and everyone it loved, the heart cannot forget. ~Joyce Sutphen “What the Heart Cannot Forget” from Coming Back to the Body
The main thing is this– when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning. Then talk softly to your heart, don’t yell. Say anything but be respectful. Say–maybe say, Heart, little heart, beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. You can whisper also, Remember, remember. ~Grace Paley from “The Art of Growing Older” in Just As I Thought
Approaching seventy, she learns to live, at last. She realizes she has not accomplished half of what she struggled for, that she surrendered too many battles and seldom celebrated those she won. Approaching seventy, she learns to live without ambition: a calm lake face, not a train bound for success and glory. For the first time, she relaxes her hands on the controls, leans back to watch the coming end. Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of the things she didn’t do, as much as the things she did do. Did she sing a love song? Approaching seventy, she learns to live without wanting much more than the light in the catbird window seat where, watching the voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along. ~Marilyn Nelson “Bird Feeder”
I’ve relaxed my grip on the controls on the runaway train of ambition. This is a change for someone driven for decades to succeed in various professional and personal roles.
Who I am is defined by what I haven’t gotten done and what I managed to do. And now, at seventy, I hope I still have some time to explore some of those things I left undone.
I want to remember those who I wish were still here, their time over.
Reflecting to my grandchildren the calm I feel. Holding my own heart gently and treasuring theirs. Humming as I go. Just sitting when I wish to. Watching out the window. Loving up those still around me.
My heart remembers. It won’t forget. It is sweet to still have some time.
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Make a monthly donation
Make a yearly donation
Choose an amount
$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
Or enter a custom amount
$
Your contribution is deeply appreciated to help offset the costs of maintaining an ad-free blog.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. ~Lawrence Binyon from “For the Fallen” (1914)
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who died We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. ~John McCrae “In Flanders Fields”
When you go home tell them of us and say – “For your tomorrow we gave our today” ~John Maxwell Edmonds from “The Kohima Epitaph”
November pierces with its bleak remembrance Of all the bitterness and waste of war. Our silence tries but fails to make a semblance Of that lost peace they thought worth fighting for. Our silence seethes instead with wraiths and whispers, And all the restless rumour of new wars, The shells are falling all around our vespers, No moment is unscarred, there is no pause, In every instant bloodied innocence Falls to the weary earth ,and whilst we stand Quiescence ends again in acquiescence, And Abel’s blood still cries in every land One silence only might redeem that blood Only the silence of a dying God. ~Malcolm Guite “Silence: a Sonnet for Remembrance Day”
To our military veterans here and abroad – in deep appreciation and gratitude for the freedoms you have defended on behalf of us all.
No one is left untouched and unscarred in the bitterness of war: those of you who died in service, those of you wounded in service, those of you who bore visible and invisible scars all your lives.
You are heroes to the cause of freedom.
As G.K. Chesterton said, “Courage is a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”
My father was one of the fortunate ones who came home, returning to a quiet life of farming and teaching after three years serving in the Pacific with the Marines Corp from 1942 to 1945. Hundreds of thousands of his colleagues didn’t come home, dying on beaches and battlefields. Tens of thousands more came home forever marked, through physical or psychological injury, by the experience of war and witness of death and mayhem all around them.
In my medical training in the 1970’s, I cared for veterans hospitalized for mental health care after serving in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I witnessed for myself the sacrifices of these soldiers, and the limits of our therapies.
No matter how one views wars our nation has fought and may be obligated to fight in the future, we must support and care for the men and women who have made, on our behalf, the commitment to be on the front line for freedom’s sake.
Even our God died so we could stop fighting each other (and Him). What a waste we have not stopped to listen and understand His sacrifice enough to finally lay down our weapons against one another forever.
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are… Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. ~Frederick Buechner in “Wishful Thinking and later” in Beyond Words
Twenty three years ago, a day started with bright sun above and ended in tears and bloodshed below.
This is a day for recollection; we live out remembrance of the torrential red that flowed that day;
Two decades later, far-away streets still course with the blood of innocents.
What have we learned from all this?
That terrible day’s edges were so sharp we all bled and still bear the scars.
So do not be afraid: we are able to still breathe and weep.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
(I wrote this 15 years ago on July 6 and have updated it with an addendum)
I remember childhood summers as 3 months of full-out celebration– long lazy days stretching into nights that didn’t seem to really darken until 11 PM and bright birdsong mornings starting out at 4:30 AM. Not only were there the brief family vacations at the beach or to visit cousins, but there was the Fourth of July, Daily Vacation Bible School, the county fair, family reunions, and of course and most importantly, my July birthday. Yes, there were mundane chores to be done, a garden to tend, a barn to clean, berries to pick, a lawn to mow and all that stuff, but my memories of summer are mostly about fluff and frolic.
So where are the summer parties now? Who is out there celebrating without me? Nothing seems to be spontaneous as it was when I was a child. Instead, most grown-ups have to go to work most days in the summer.
I’m finding myself in the midst of my 55th summer and I have to create celebrations if they are going to happen in my life. Without that perspective, the bird song at 4:30 AM can feel more irritant than blessing and the long days often mean I fall asleep nodding over a book at 9 PM. I want to treasure every, every minute of this precious time yet they flow through my fingers like so much water, faster and faster.
I realize there will be very few “family” summers left as I watch my children grow into adults and spread their wings. They will be on to new adventures in future summers. So each family ritual and experience together takes on special meaning and needs to be appreciated and remembered.
So….for this summer my family has crammed as much in as we can in celebration of the season:
We just spent some time in the hayfields bringing in the bales with friends–our little crew of seven–sweating and itchy and exhausted, but the sight and smell of several hundred hay bales, grown on our own land, harvested without being rained on and piled in the barn is sweet indeed. Weekly we are out on the softball field in church league, yelling encouragement and high-fiving each other, hooting at the good hits and the bad, the great catches and the near misses, and getting dirty and sprained, and as happy to lose as to win. We had a wonderful July 4 barbeque with good friends culminating in the fireworks show on our farm’s hill overlooking miles of valley around us, appreciating everyone else’s backyard displays as well as our own.
We are now able to sing hymns in church in four part harmony, and last night our children helped lead the singing last night in an evening “campfire church” for over fifty fellow worshipers on our hill. In a couple weeks, we’ll take to the beach for three days of playing in the sand, roasting hot dogs. reading good books, and playing board games. We’ll try to make the trek down to Seattle by train to spend the day watching the Mariners play (and likely lose).
One change after seventeen years of hosting a display of our horses at the Lynden Fair: due to “off the farm” work and school schedules, we can’t muster the necessary round-the-clock crew of being there for our little part of small town agricultural pursuits.
Yet the real party happens right here every day in small ways without any special planning. It doesn’t require money or special food or traveling beyond our own soil. It is the smiles and good laughs we share together, and the hugs for kids taller than I am. It’s adult conversations with the new adults in our family–no longer adolescents.
It’s finding delight in fresh cherries from our own trees, currants and berries from our own bushes, greens from the garden, flowers for the table from the yard.
It is the Haflingers in the field that come right up to us to enjoy rubs and scratches and follow us like puppies. It is babysitting for neighborhood toddlers who remind us of the old days of having small children, and who give us a glimpse of future grandparenthood. It is good friends coming from far away to ride our horses and learn farm skills.
It is an early morning walk in the woods or a late evening stroll over the hills. It is daily contact with aging parents who no longer hear well or feel well but nevertheless share of themselves in the ways they are able. It is the awesome power of an evening sunset filled with hope and the calming promise of a new day somewhere else in this world of ours.
Some days may not look or feel like there’s a summer party happening, but that is only because I haven’t searched hard enough. The party is here, sparklers and all, even if only in my own mind.
Addendum: Fifteen years have passed since this was written and I’m glad I can look back and be reminded how full of life those family summers were. We seldom have the full-meal-deal of everyone together at one time, and since our parents have passed on to eternal summers in heaven, we have now the blessings of six grandchildren. Freckles abound!
We still can make a party happen, if only in our own minds.
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Barnstorming 