Young'uns

wandering around

looking confused

should I go 

this way                        

                    or that?

wait for the wave 

to rush over my feet

or run up into the hot sand?

we were so eager 

get away from the

overbearing parents

always telling us

what to do                    

                    what not to

freedom seemed so appealing

back then

the adults made it look 

so easy

floating on waves

dip your bill for a fish

lift up into the sky

sail through the air

but now

on our own

with my mottle-feathered gang

I'm hungry and bored

kind of cold too

missing mom and dad

The Enigma of Time

Time has a way of continuing to move on. It doesn't matter if we are moving with it, or if we are watching it go past from our easy chair. 

When I am in Florida, as I am now, time has a different quality to it than it does back in Vermont. Despite being here for several months, there is something of "vacation" about my time here. I struggle against this, by transporting my kombucha scoby and sourdough starter 1,434 miles, and making meals from scratch, despite the prevalence of dining options within walking distance once I arrive. I walk every day as I do back home, but here I have the luxury of choosing to walk on a beach or a palm-shaded path. I read the news and do the New York Times puzzles, but when I glance up and away from the screen, the inland waterway is glistening right in front of me, boats lazily making their way out to the sea for the day, and, just beyond them, the golf course stretches as far as I can see.

Florida wants to teach me how to slow down. It wants me to notice the beauty of a white bird foraging for bugs, a manatee swimming by, flowers in full bloom despite winter's chill, lizards darting across my path when I least expect them. I want to comply, I really do, and I think there is a part of me that might be starting to let time to flow by me or through me, but there is a greater part of me that still wrestles with it. There is something within me that assumes it is important to create meaning in every moment. There is a part of me that wants to prove I have achieved something with each day granted. 

I imagine that someday I will discover that there is a balance between the two, a balance between achieving and learning how to appreciate and embrace the beauty of each moment. Maybe this is the year I will take the lesson to heart.

While the Sun Shines

 

While the sun shines

there is much to do

fill the woodbox

hang out laundry

mow the lawn

wash the windows

So easy to consider

all the details

making up survival

these, of course

must be done 

sometime

easier in clement weather

But what about thriving?

what about joy?

caring for the soul?

lifting my spirits?

My new list

while the sun is shining: 

wander in the woods

sit by the stream

soak in the golden warmth

stretch out in my hammock

paint the light

write a poem

Beach Cleaning as a Heart Practice

MacArthur State Park is one of our favorite beaches to spend time at while we are in Florida. There is an estuary to explore in kayaks, where we see all kinds of birds flying overhead or hidden in the mangroves around the shoreline. There is a boardwalk across the estuary, and finally, an expansive sandy beach where we can sit or walk for hours undisturbed. 

Storms can alter the shape and scale of beaches overnight, and one day we were shocked to see MacArthur Beach littered with all kinds of debris thanks to an overnight storm. The wind was still blowing when my daughters and I walked down to take a closer look. We saw the remains of someone's freshly built dock - the wooden planks and stairs, although scattered many feet apart, were still raw and freshly treated. A small boat, mostly made of foam and plastic, lay half buried in the sand. We sat for a while on a piece of lumber, and watched the crashing waves as the wind continued to blow strong and steady.

It was too windy to sit for long that day, but the next Gary and I returned and picked up a bucket and trash grabber that were stacked near the entrance to the beach. Walking up the beach that day we each collected a bucket full of plastic bottle caps, bags and fragments well on their way to becoming microplastics that cause so much harm in the worlds oceans. There were ropes and sharp bits of glass and wood, as well as a syringe that definitely gave me pause, walking barefoot as I usually do when I am there.

Since that day, when we go to the beach I often grab a bucket and add litter pick up to my relaxing beach walks. This practice helps me to feel that I am contributing in a positive way to keeping the environment I care about in better shape. It also slows me down. 

I am a person who has spent most of her life hurrying from one place or activity to another, taking very little time to reflect or pause between. How ironic that something that feeds into my need to keep myself occupied and feeling like I am accomplishing something worthwhile is also teaching me about the value of its opposite! It is important to learn how to simply BE, how to slow down to the speed of life. I know this intellectually, but find it difficult to actually practice it. Now, thanks to my desire to contribute by picking up litter, I am reaping the benefit of actually taking time to notice my surroundings, down to the smallest fragment of plastic or shell or seaweed or stone.

The discernment process of determining the difference between trash and treasure is serving me well as I allow myself the time to discern what is next in my life. I am not very patient, least of all with myself, but this is helping, and it enables me to do some good while I wait.

 

Under Construction

 

Gary and I are in Florida now, a winter destination that we appreciate for its warmth and our ability to walk outdoors despite the fact that there are snowstorms back home in Vermont. Last year before we came down to Florida for our first extended stay, I wrote about the concept of home. This year, knowing what to expect from this place, I am feeling more settled here. The irony though, is that the building in which our condo is located is undergoing major renovations. From 8am until 5pm there is the unnerving sound of drilling, concrete dust floating through the air, and the odors of paint and sealants. Windows are covered with blue plastic or plywood sheets to protect them (and us!) from flying debris. The pool is inaccessible during the daytime hours, and coated with the aforementioned concrete dust and debris of indeterminate nature, even when swimming is allowed, although probably not advised.

A week or so after our arrival, once the flooring had dried and painting was (mostly) complete, we were told that we could once again use our balcony. Gary and I were thrilled. We moved the furniture back out, cleaned windows and were prepared to enjoy our favorite spot in the entire apartment. The staging was still attached, with ropes and wires hanging down 12 stories from the roof, supporting scaffold cages that could be raised and lowered to where the workers were needed. But this seemed like a small thing compared to the ability to enjoy our balcony once again.

Despite having the balcony back, our quiet mornings were not guaranteed. Several mornings, I heard the whine of the staging motor begin as I sat out there in my pajamas and robe, enjoying a cup of tea. I would dash inside to change into something acceptable (to me) for company. Soon enough, the faces of a construction worker or two rose into view. Sometimes they stopped at our level and hopped out to clean windows, touch up the paint or address another last-minute issue. Other times they were just passing by on their way to upper levels of the building.

So, yes, we are here in Florida, enjoying the warmth and sunshine. And yes, we are also living in a construction zone. Most days we wander off to another location for a few hours - the beach, the library, a nature trail - returning as the workday winds down. It is a different kind of balance than the one I anticipated in coming down here, but it works for us. It also pushes us to get out and about rather than sitting too long in one place.

Solar Eclipse

 There was a solar eclipse today. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of it. Gary stopped by our local library to pick up a couple pairs of the special glasses they offered to community members through which to safely watch the sun slip behind the moon's shadow. I tried them on, and even went outside to see how effective they were, but it was so cloudy that no light at all got through the safety lenses. "Oh well," I sighed. "Guess we are not going to be able to see anything this time around."

When we went on a walk in the early afternoon, it was pretty dark, and I did think for a moment that maybe that was the effect of the eclipse. But the clouds were thick, so I thought it could also just be one of those gloomy, cloudy fall days. There were hardly any sounds at all, and very little movement. Even the chipmunks and squirrels seemed to be hiding, despite the fact that it was still early afternoon and the temperature was pretty comfortable for small creatures to be running around in. "Hmm, I guess autumn is really starting to settle in. The birds aren't even singing," I said to Gary. It was quiet as we made our way up the road, and, honestly, it felt kind of depressing.

When I returned home, I busied myself around the house for a while, getting food ready for supper, sorting through some mail and answering texts from my daughters. 

A little while later, I made my way outside again and had to stop in my tracks in wonder. What a difference! Even though it was only the tiniest bit brighter than it had been when we were on our earlier walk, we were surrounded by a literal cacophony of sound. Every variety of bird seemed to be singing and chattering up a storm. Chipmunks were running back and forth along the rock wall. It was a remarkable contrast to the rather somber mood of the natural world just a short hour before. The world was exploding with life, with sound and movement.

I was struck by the fact that the entire natural world seemed to have experienced the eclipse and responded to it instinctually. They laid low when the unnatural darkness fell over the earth, staying quiet and out of sight, but as soon as the light started to return, they went about their activities again with a renewed burst of energy and, dare I say, enthusiasm.

We may not have been able to see the eclipse today, but we sure heard it and felt it in our bones - us humans and all the earth's creatures too, it seemed. It was awesome to feel so intricately connected to the natural world by sharing in the eclipse with the birds and chipmunks and the other creatures who noticed that today was different from other days. There is something inside of each of us, that longs to be woven into the tapestry of life, to be a part of the larger whole. Today, I felt the pull of those threads.

Where Does the Time Go?

 

Time is such a slippery element of our lives. When I was working, somehow I accomplished everything necessary at home while also managing to carry on a full time job. Now that I am retired, I often get to the end of a day and find myself wondering, "what just happened here!?" The days pass weirdly slowly, but in what should be the opposite, they also go by in a blur, with less accomplished than I had hoped for at their dawning.

A few weeks ago my sister called to ask if Gary and I wanted to join them for a long weekend in the Finger Lakes. Sue and Mike wanted to check out some of the many wineries in the area, and had found a cabin on Cayuga Lake that had a beach for swimming as well as paddle boards and kayaks that we could use to explore the lake. My gut response was, "Oh no, we can't do that. It is coming up too fast. We don't have time enough to plan." But I took a breath, as I am learning to do thanks to several years of mindfulness practice, and asked myself, "well, why not?"

A week later, having made arrangements for our cats to be cared for in our absence, we loaded up the car and took off for the adventure.

What amazed me about those days was that there seemed to be enough time to reconnect in a meaningful way with my sister and her husband, as well as to relax and enjoy the cabin and lake. We sat on the dock to watch the sunrise, sang songs around the campfire with the folks at the cabin next door, we paddle boarded north one day and south the next, and swam for a while when we were hot and tired. We even saw a golden eagle when we were paddling, and a brilliant rainbow stretching from the sky down to the other shore after a storm. Somehow we also had plenty of time to hike to a waterfall in one of the famous gorges, and took in more than six wineries, breweries, or distilleries over the course of our time there.

When we got back home, I was slightly bewildered by all of the exceptionally fun things we managed to accomplish in such a brief time. "How did time stretch so far?" I don't have an answer, but maybe it has something to do with truly being present in each moment as best we could. All I do know is that I am going to keep practicing. Maybe I'll get even better at it, and learn how to stretch out the rest of my life in some amazing ways?

Be Here Now

 

There is such a profusion of beauty in the natural world. The other day Gary and I took a hike on Endless Brook Trail, which is near our home in Vermont. We came upon these flowers at the beginning of the trail. They arrested my attention, as the person who planted and tends them was most likely hoping they would, and I am grateful for that. All too often I plunge from one thing to the next, checking things off of my "To Do" list as I turn my attention to the next thing on said list.

These flowers stopped me in my tracks (tracks that were heading rather quickly and single-mindedly to the summit of the trail), and I am glad they did. They reminded me that it is not just the summit that is of value. The means by which we get to the goal of our climb matters too. In this case, the trail itself and everything it contained was worth noticing. For instance, the name of the trail comes from the brook that runs along it for awhile. The water goes underground for long stretches and then pops up again so it seems to be endless.

As a result of slowing down, Gary and I took in the beauty of these flowers and all of the bees, butterflies and other insects who were visiting them as well. A little further on, we saw a frog in the pond, well-camouflaged among the lily pads he was resting on. Every few steps along the trail, mushrooms of various wild colors caught our attention. They ranged in hue from pale white to yellow, from orange to bright red, and from the tiniest perceptible dot to saucer-size platters scattered among the leaves, roots and ferns.

Of course, we did reach the lookout at the top of the hill after a good while climbing, and the view was nice to take in. Gary and I sat on a fallen tree in what little shade we could find and munched on snacks of walnuts and red grapes along with sips of refreshing water as we looked out over Lake Saint Catherine. Far below we saw boats circling lazily, and above them, some raptors cruising the skies.

On the way down, I stopped at the stream and took off my shoes, sitting with the water as it moved by, and watched the play of sunlight reflected from the water onto the bank across from me. Small fish swam near me, checking out my toes while some curious water creatures who looked like sticks with wiry appendages moved with jerks across the sandy bottom.

Ram Dass is known for his philosophy and book titled "Be Here Now". It is a phrase that I thought I understood when I was first introduced to it, but my earliest impression was just scratching the surface of its possible meanings. I like to think I am getting better at truly understanding it as time goes on. Days like this one, when I can reflect on so many small, interesting and beautiful things that captured my attention tell me I just might be getting closer to not just comprehending what it means to Be Here Now, but actually living it.

Resilience Lessons from Ducklings

I am on Monhegan Island in Maine for a couple of weeks. It is a place Gary and I have spent time for the past ten years, finding here a sense of respite and calm that soothes my soul. Mostly what I do here is sit on rocks or cliffs, and watch the ocean and her inhabitants go about their lives.

Yesterday, I was sitting in a place called Gull Cove, on rocks pretty near the shoreline. What looked like a floating log appeared on the water moving toward shore, but as it got closer, I realized that it was actually not a log at all, but rather a mother duck and her long line of progeny following closely behind. As they moved into the cove, the little ones started attempting to tip forward putting their bills under the water, desperately trying to capture a bite of something yummy. The problem was, that they were so buoyant they kept bobbing back up to the surface, often with quite a bit of force and a big splash!

The mother duck led them up to the very top edge of a rock where they started jostling for position. As they each tried to get themselves settled on the rock’s ridge line, they kept bumping into one another, and inevitably one or two of the little balls of fluff tumbled down the side of the rather large rock. The first time this happened, I gasped, worried that the little ones who had lost their place in the line-up would be hurt or worse, but as soon as they stopped rolling, they righted themselves and started climbing right back up to the top of the rock.

Soon, the ducklings were lined up in a row along the edge of the rock, happily nestled next to one another. Calm reigned for a little while.

It was not very long before the mother decided it was time to get up and move again. As soon as she climbed off the rock, her little ones followed, a line of fluff balls waddling and tumbling down into the water. As they paddled around in the cove, they started practicing their bobbing again, dipping their little bills in the water, and amazingly soon, actually diving down under water where they stayed for longer than I thought possible. Somehow, in the course of a very little amount of time, they had figured out how to stay under water long enough to achieve their goal of finding some delectable snack. Maybe it was that period of rest that allowed their little duck minds to open up to the next lesson?

I sat on the edge of the cove for more than an hour, watching the ducks until the mothers began to lead them out into the deeper waters of the ocean. Waves washed over them, scattering the ducklings every which way. I worried that some of them would be lost in the fray, but eventually mother and babies were reunited beyond the roughest waves and they set off to their next destination.

Reflecting on what I had seen, I was struck by the resilience and resolve of those little ducklings. No more than a ball of fluff, each of them had a fierce determination to accomplish every new task. It didn’t matter if they bobbed to the surface when they tried to dive, they just kept at it until they figured out how to manage the mechanics. It didn’t matter if they got knocked off the rock by a restless sibling, they just got their feet under them and climbed up again. 

I know that we humans have far more tasks that we need to accomplish in order to achieve competence and adulthood, but I think we can learn from our fluffy companions that a little resilience and a whole lot of resolve goes a long way. If we think we can, then chances are, we can!

Obligation or Joyful Pleasure ?

 I was swimming today, reflecting on how nice it is to be staying with my daughter and able to make easy use of the very close-by community pool to swim laps. There was a subtle but important difference between the pleasure I was taking in the feel of moving through the water as I relaxed into the strokes I know so well and the concern I had felt earlier in the day when I thought, “I need to get to the pool so I can do my laps.”

“Actually, I don’t have to swim laps today if I don’t feel like it,” I realized. “I can go if I want to, but I don’t have to. And I can swim if I want to, but there is nothing saying that I have to do laps. I could just splash around for awhile without worrying about how long I swam or how many laps I completed.” 

I sat back on my heels and pondered the possibilities for a little while, savoring the freedom I recognized myself to be luxuriating within. Given this new sense of limitless possibilities, I felt myself released from the need to conform to expectations. I decided I would go to the pool, but once I was there I would simply do whatever felt good and right in the moment. 

When I arrived, I was greeted with a warm welcome by the women at the desk, who are getting to know me. And as I walked into the pool area, the lifeguard and I talked about how quiet it was. She told me just a ten minutes before, the pool had been pretty busy. As a lap swimmer, I was glad for the quiet because it meant I would probably have a lane to myself and could swim without worrying about bumping into other people, especially when swimming the backstroke.

My swim today was just right, because it was just what I needed to tap into the simple pleasure of, not only swimming, but of being alive and of appreciating my body for all it does for me, not least of all carrying me through the water with a certain ease. 

This whole experience reminded me of an interaction I had with a dear woman who directed the choir at a church I served for quite some time. I sang in the choir there, and I have to admit that I did it out of a certain sense of obligation. “You have a good voice. You ought to sing,” was the message the Protestant work ethic and all of my ancestors who espoused its principles imposed on me. But one day Sue, the director, and I were talking. With a sparkle in her eye she said to me, “you know, some people sing because they actually enjoy it.”

Caught red-handed by her incredibly perceptive comment, I thought long and hard about the place of joy in my singing and in my life. Somehow I had managed to take something joyful and fashion it into a “should”. Wow. That was not how I wanted to live my life. From then on, when I sang with the choir I set my intention for experiencing the sheer pleasure of singing. Sometimes, despite my good intentions, I have to admit I grumbled a bit as I made my way to choir practice on a cold winter night, but Sue had definitely helped me see the value of tapping into the joy whenever I could.

I feel like today’s experience with swimming was a reminder to tap into the joys of my life as much as I possibly can. Obligations have their place, but not when they crowd joy and pleasure out of the picture.

Retired!

This is the first day of my retired life. It is pretty exciting to finally take the step I have been contemplating for awhile now! In The Summer Day poet Mary Oliver asks, "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" This question has been haunting me. I feel that there is something inside of me that wants to come out, but I don't know what it is. I sense that it needs me to create time and space where it will feel welcomed and safe, where it can stretch its wings a bit and let them dry before attempting to take flight. 

Karen Walrond, author of The Lightmaker's Manifesto, in conversation with Brene Brown, said it is important to create space in your life, to not just get restless, but to get bored! As I listened to their conversation I started to recognize that I am very familiar with getting restless when I take time off from the normal routines of my life, and that my restlessness usually pushes me to get active again pretty darn quickly. It is rare that I allow myself the freedom to actually get bored. Even on vacation, I often bring along a pile of books I plan to read, or work on some writing. I was nervous about retiring and leaving behind a job that was meaningful to me, one through which I felt I was contributing to the community in a positive way. Sure ministry can be anxiety producing, but it also has aspects that are deeply fulfilling and rewarding. Still, after 39 years of parish ministry, I knew it was time. It was time for me to prioritize this other calling that kept tugging at me, the one that Mary Oliver's words reminded me of.

One of my favorite places in the world is an island off the coast of Maine where my husband and I have been going for eight years now, often twice a year. When people ask me what I will do there, my usual response is "I will hike the trails and sit by the sea watching the waves, the seals and the birds." And that is what I do, I sit for extraordinarily long periods of time observing and even becoming a part of the scenery. I realized that this is what I need to do now. I need to simply be present where I am, letting the peace of the place (no matter where I find myself) settle into my bones.

Eventually, whatever is next will start to show itself, but until then I will be trying to get comfortable with any restlessness that emerges. Until then, I will keep breathing deeply, practicing those meditative techniques and prayerful approaches to life that have anchored me through the years. I will be waiting for boredom to take hold, and, hopefully, welcoming it as a true gift.