by jphilo | May 21, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
Yesterday turned out not to be one of my best days. I landed in the middle of a mess, big enough to make the memory lapses mentioned in last Friday’s post more worrisome than humorous. A mess that made me feel like our pink peony bush hit by frost awhile back – disappointed by the promise of beauty nipped in the bud. A mess big enough to make me wish for a humongous do over or a trip back in time.
That didn’t happen so I did the next best thing instead. I took my camera along on my morning walk, determined to photograph the beauty around me. First I saw a pair of goldfinches. They are everywhere this spring, and this male sat still long enough to have his picture taken,
though his dowdy wife flew out of the tree just before I could capture her photo.
Next, a red fox made an appearance, but you’ll have to take my word on that because he ran into the ditch and hid before I got my camera out. Not too much further along, a photogenic woodpecker struck a pose,
and a Grant Wood-style plowed field took my breath away.
Beside the stone culvert over the stream, the wild rose that caught my eye the other day still sported a few blossoms,
but the little shrine beside it – perhaps in memory of the high school student who committed suicide last Thursday evening – brought tears to my eyes.
I thought about the woman in our town who will soon bury her son.
I imagined how her heart is breaking,
How she must want to go back in time,
How she would give anything for a do over.
The remainder of my walk yielded no photographs. No more birds, no flowers, no scenic panoramas. Not because beauty disappeared, but because my perspective changed. Beauty hugged me close, too close for a photograph. Blessings surrounded me.My children are alive. My husband is healthy. A grandchild is coming.
Living children.
A healthy husband.
A grandchild coming.
My messes are small.
My burdens are light.
I am blessed.
by jphilo | May 11, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
This beautiful spring morning, I decided not to lug my camera along on my walk.
“I took it yesterday,” I reminded myself. “And what with stopping to take pictures of
our town’s freshly painted, newly filled swimming pool,
two goldfinches playing king-of-the-hill at a bird feeder,
Papa Gander, Mama Goose, and the goslings out for their morning constitutional,
and a bluejay in a tree, I wasted a good portion of the morning.
So no, I won’t take it along today.”
My decision seemed like the right one at first.
The swimming pool looked much the same as yesterday.
The bird feeder was abandoned.
The pond was still as glass and empty.
The bluejays were nowhere to be found.
But just past the pond, an unfamiliar chirping made my head lift.
Only a yard away, at eye level,
An indigo bunting perched in a sapling.
It glowed in a shaft of sunlight,
puffed its chest, and sang a clear and piercing song.
Yesterday, I took my camera.
But today I chose
Time over nature,
Time over beauty.
Time over a picture I’ve been waiting years to capture with the lens.
When will I learn that time hoarded is opportunity lost?
by jphilo | May 4, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
Spring is lovely along our Iowa gravel road.The rain washes away the dust kicked up by cars passing by, so the foliage is a deep and vibrant, soothing green. Every day is a feast for the senses.
The lingering scent of rain from a night time thunderstorm.
Toads betrayed by small movement in the grass.
Does hiding the shadow.
Cardinals singing in the treetops.
The stream rushing and gurgling under the bridge.
Goldfinches fighting for their turf in low bushes.
Each spring morning, I rush outside to greet new blossoms.
First the magnolias, the rhododendron, the red buds, and the daffodils.
Then the bleeding heart, the tulips and the lilacs.
Now the iris, the clematis, and the columbine.
Soon the peonies and the daisies.
I can’t bear the thought of missing the arrival of these friends. So most years, I stay home in May, determined to fully savor its beauty. But not this year. Not this week. Tomorrow, we pack the car and leave the beauty behind for a few days. I hate to miss the arrival of the peonies and daisies. But I know how much my daughter misses our gravel road after a year in Ohio while her husband finished grad school.
She misses the ancient silver maples in our yard,
The sight of leaves and grass,
The smell of trees and space and flowers,
The fairy ring where she played as a child,
The regularity of a gravel road each mile,
The greenness found only in Iowa,
Beloved by Iowa girls like my daughter and me.
She’s hungry for her home state, as I was during the seven years Hiram and I lived in South Dakota. So hungry, I could hardly bear it. So eager for a taste of home, I lived for my mother’s visits and feasted on the time she spent with us.
My mother left her roses,
And her yard work,
And her rhubarb,
And her invalid husband
To feed her daughter a taste of home.
So the peonies and daisies will have to bloom without us. Hiram and I are off to see our daughter and new son. Packing our car with Iowa air and comfort. Eager to share our feast with our hungry, Iowa-starved children. Bringing them the taste of our gravel road as my mother once brought a taste of home to me.
by jphilo | Apr 16, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
Ever since The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper created the word “prevening” to refer the hours in late afternoon hours and early evening, I’ve been waiting for a chance to coin a word, too. The crazy weather of the last six weeks – our April-like March and now our March-like April – provided the perfect opportunity to combine the two into one new month.
I call it Marpril.
The original plan was to flip flop the order of the two months, putting April in front of March from now on. It seemed like a good solution last week during March-in-April when three nights of hard frost did damage to the magnolia tree’s leaves rather than to the blossoms as usually happens. But this year, the magnolia tree bloomed and dropped it’s petals during April-in-March. But, the flip flop plan died during this past weekend’s normal rootin’ tootin’ April weather display, complete with wind, thunder, lightning, rain, and tornadoes. Hence, my elegant, new word solution emerged.
Marpril
A lovely word, don’t you think? But a dark side hides behind the loveliness. In Marpril, frost can shrivel magnolia leaves. It can turn crab apple blossoms brown,
put an end to dreams of cherry picking in June,
blacken some peony buds while leaving others untouched,
and fill the rain barrel over and over and over.
Lovely, deceptive, and dangerous.
That’s our Marpril.
A month not to be trifled with nor savored. A month which seduce with warm temperatures during the prevening hours, then ushers in a cold front the minute your back is turned. A two month period, which could stretch into three. In which case I’m ready with another new word.
Maypril.
My words are gonna make the next edition of Webster’s. You can count on it. Which is more than can be said for March and April Marpril.
by jphilo | Jan 20, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
In winter, the extra hours of darkness
Weigh upon my shoulders,
Press upon my eyelids,
Make me groggy and slow and stupid.
Still last week, when the moon was full,
And the air was winter-warm,
I took my camera into the darkness
As the sun waited patiently to start her day
Until after the moon went to bed.
The darkness was too thick
And my hands too shaky
To capture the glory of the moon,
And finally I quit trying,
Trudging home with shoulders bent,
Eyelids drooping in a darkness
That lingered until yesterday
When I finally looked at the pictures.
Disappointments, all of them but one,
Where the bright moon waited
In the blue-black sky.
Not behind bare black branches
As it was in reality,
But in front of them,
Eclipsing them,
Engulfing them in silver light.
Looking at the picture,
My shoulders straightened,
My eyes opened wide,
When I saw the truth.
Light is stronger than darkness,
Waiting patiently to be found by those who seek it.
by jphilo | Nov 7, 2011 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
The last bloom in our flowerbed, a tiny pink rose that smiled each morning at the beginning of my morning walk, finally met it’s match. It couldn’t overcome last Friday night’s hard frost, though on Saturday morning it was still beautiful to behold.
Weighed down by frost, shivering with cold, it’s brave brightness greeted me one last time.
Frost on the rose, I thought and then wondered why those words sounded so sad. Frost on the pumpkin sounds cheery and seasonal. It conjures up a child’s excitement over Halloween and the good smells of a Thanksgiving feast. But frost on the rose sounds wrong. Sick and wrong, my sister-in-law would say.
And she’s right.
Especially concerning this sweet little rose, I purchased and planted because it reminded me of the pink fairy rose my grandfather planted on his farm and dearly loved. The rose I fertilized and pruned because it reminded me of the fairy rose bush my mother planted in her flowerbed in memory of her father.
Lovely memories killed by frost until the bush comes back to life next spring.
Spring and new growth and longer days seem far away on a chilly, dark November weekend when we bowed to winter’s arrival by setting the clocks back. How will I survive winter’s drabness without the rose’s colorful hello each morning? How can I hang on to the promise of spring?
How can I keep those memories alive?
Suddenly, the answer comes. I will make a poster of this picture of my cheery friend. I will hang it right beside the door where will watch me put on my coat before going out in the cold. It will warm my heart and make winter easier to bear.
It will give hope.
