Soul Wrestling in Suburbia

 

I love to live, to journey and learn, to broaden who I am and what I want to give to the world.

  In March I moved because of love.  When I got to Illinois, I got lost in a suburban landscape where I am older than all the buildings and the trees are only big in the established neighborhoods.  I felt empty, useless.  So I put one foot in front of the other and set out to find "myself".
It was going ok.  I read gardening books but I had no land to implement technique on.  I dreamt of recipes using the bounty of farms I could not find.  I told myself I was writing a book for my nieces, but I was really just making a collage for them.  And then I travelled to my family, my green mountain roots, my friends who feed me, and have bathed with me in the waters of home.
  It was full on lilac season in New England.  I was there for two weeks.  Two weeks of being Auntie Cat.   Two weeks of walking with my feet bare on the dirt road I grew up on.  Two weeks of my mother and crosswords.  Two weeks of being next door to my childhood best friend.  Two weeks of my love, 887 miles away in the burbs with my two cats and my absence rattling in our apartment.  
I drove back to my life, exhausted, with my father in the car.   We drove through thunderstorms and Cleveland.  I slept in the parking lots of abandoned restaurants and ate salads from the shelves of rest area convenience stores.
I unpacked plant clippings and artwork from my travels around the globe.  My lover watched as more of my life spilled into hers.  We kissed quietly in our bedroom as my father sat reading in the living room.  We cooked food together and rejoiced when he got on the train. We went on a date, 1500 feet in the air.  The wine was delicious.
Then life settled back in.  The plant clippings got potted, the artwork went up on the wall, and once again I was lost in a suburban landscape where I am older than all the buildings.  But a small little miracle was embedded in my heart, in my soul.  While in Vermont, over local feta and a bottle of wine in the whisper of past the kids bed time, one of my dearest friends gave me the name; Rebecca Solnit.  As I read Solnits' essay today I realized so much of who I am.  A breakthrough of sorts.  It has been incubating and rooting and now I feel as though it is poking through the soil of my mind, like the first green curl of spring through the dirt of March snow.  I know what it is I am here for.  I know why Illinois has me caught in a concrete jungle.  As she references one of my favorite minds, Michel Foucoult, I know what it is that I must do, and I know why I must do it.  I do not know what my do will do... But our future needs us.
And so the journey of me continues with serendipity, grace and frustration, sunsets through tears and the knowledge that if I do not know, those that I love do.  They will share their do and they will not know what it does.  

So...Chicago

Here I am in Illnois.  Full of snow this place is.  A beautiful sky, creamy light yellow grey snow sky.  There are fireplaces, and red wine.  Tractor trailor trucks thrum down the highway outside and then sunset happens.  In the middle of the afternoon the sky explodes in color.  The snow has stopped falling and purple and orange throw themselves to the horizon.  I gaze over the highway, the parking lots, the hotels and the bustle of folks so far below me.  There it is...Sunset.  The same as it ever was, reminding me that where this life takes me I will always appreciate what this great earth provides.  

113th Birthday

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

BY LANGSTON HUGHES
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

    To write is to show our nakedness.   It is to reveal, to understand, to ply our souls.    To love and be loved within that understanding is the most thrilling and arduous work of the soul.   My soul has grown deep like the rivers.  Happy Birthday dear sir. 

legacy

Gravestone of the founding father of my family home, Jenckes Farm.  

As I was flying from Mexico to New Jersey last week, my mother sent me a series of photographs.  The photos were of deep snow drifts, barbed wire holding boundaries tin he forest, trees naked and stoic in the winter afternoon light.  This photograph I have been returning to.  This stone.  I know its resting spot in the grave yard at the top of the pasture.  I have sat in its quiet solace, I have revered the spirit of my great, great, great, great, great, grandfather.  I have offered thanks for the work he put into the land my family calls home.  My father saw this stone on a walk he took before my brother was born.  Under the snow, this stone reads, "a patriot of the revolution."  My brother is named after the man who lies beneath this stone.  As I was on my flight, to the cold after dashing through the surf grinning in the warmth of the Mexican sun and basking in the light of my friends love, I was thankful to have such a solid reminder of who I am, where I come from.  I love to explore and find this earth in all her glory but I am most thankful for my home, the soil that holds my roots and the people who cultivate its heart.

Watch out world I have been scheming..

Today I did some work that I have been scared to death to do.  I emailed a friend of a friend and asked for her help, I want to plumb the depths of her expertise.  I want to build a business.  "Fortune favors the brave..." the latin proverb came to me via the internet this morning.  And then Gloria Steinem's words: "Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning."

I don't know how.
What I do know is now.  Now I have the courage, the support, the patience and inspiration.   I must gather these strengths and move forward for myself.
So I hope you all join me as I dive into the deep end and keep myself afloat with the love and blessing of my friends and family, the diligence of my imagination, and the inspiration of fierce hearts everywhere.  Love hard my friends, it brings us strength and perseverance.
Wish me luck, I'm going for it!

i just chased a love note through the library

when i greeted the silver haired woman behind the counter i was chipper because i was going to ask for a favor.   i use my restaurant manager voice when i need to put the moves on bureaucracy.  she was very kind and helpful, although doubtful.  she looked up the book i needed to find.  gave me the number and sent me on my way.  

i walked with purpose around the corner through the room of books and computers where sound was still permitted.  as i made my way further into the building it got quieter and smaller.  i started up the stair case.  colored construction paper cut into misshapen letters  and purple snowflakes announced that "reading was snow much fun".  up the second flight and into the kids section.  the elevator door was blue across from me and there was a table with two people talking.  in the next room i stopped when i saw a call number poster with my section on the top.  i perused the shelf, caught the number 658.152.  grant writing for dummies.  nope.  i scanned the entire length of the shelf.  it wasn't there.  i read the numbers on the shelf above.  nope.  the shelf below.  nope.  i pulled out grant writing for dummies.  not my book.  i turned and retraced my steps towards the stair case.  i glanced over the table the two people were at to see if my book was there.  i continued down the stairs and into the room where sound was permitted and back to the front desk.  i politely said that the number she gave me was not the book i had previously checked out.  she looked at me with a far off stare.  as if i were speaking a foreign language.  she looked up the book again.  she read me the number again.  i assured her that this number did not correlate to the book i had returned over the weekend.  

"is it possible to pull up my account and look at the title of my book and get the proper call number that way?' 

a woman sitting at a smaller desk with a bigger computer looked sideways at me from behind her large screen.  her curled hair bounced with annoyance.  "yes, we can.  give me a moment."

she looked at her big computer screen ignoring my appreciation.  "your name?"

walker...w-a-l-k-e-r- cath-

"yes, she interrupted me.  

she gave me the same number, with three letters listed after it.  then abruptly got up from her swivel chair and marched me to a shelf in the sound allowed room, my book was not there.  we walked through to the back of the building and up the stairs with the construction paper snowflakes.  she scanned the shelf, murmured about it being shelved wrong and then left the room.  i followed her to the table the couple were sitting at.  the librarian, starting picking books out of the ladies canvas bag.  every one she showed me was the wrong book.  then i peered in the ladies bag.  i saw the plastic molded cover of my book.  i pulled it out from between other books and thanked the librarian.  

i opened the book and clumsily thumbed to the table of contents.  

there i found the post it note.  "i miss you hon"

i pulled the note from the page, tucked it into a book in my bag and thanked the librarian and baffled lady volunteer at the table.  i walked down the stairs and back through the sound allowed room, nodded to the lady behind the counter when she asked if i had been successful. "yes, thank you."

i opened the door and walked down the staircase and through the parking lot thinking to myself, i just chased a love note through the library.  

"hey babe, i got my note."  were my first words to her when she answered my phone call.  

"huh"

"i got my note."

her laughter spilled through the phone and made my heart smile. 

to be continued...