Katrina Kenison's Blog, page 6

October 16, 2016

a hymn to October

img_0911It is one of those late, mild, autumn days that feel particularly precious in New England. We love them even more because those of us who live here know the rhythm of our seasons all too well. There won’t be many more afternoons like this one. In just a week or two, the landscape will be entirely different, scrubbed and bare, gray and frozen, far less hospitable. As I type these words, the world beyond my kitchen windows is bathed in molten sunlight. Bright yellow leaves drift down from the maples nearest the house, so that even the ground seems to glow and burn with light.


img_0895As always in October, I find myself thinking backwards, aware of the special resonance this month has had for me for as far back as I can remember. As a child, I loved October because it was my birthday month. I associated the brilliant change of season with the big change for me of being another year older; the two went hand in hand, just as did chilly mornings and knee socks. I remember brief, gasp-inducing October swims in icy waters; fried dough and ferris wheels and charcoal birthday portraits on gray paper at country fairs; the winey, intoxicating fragrance of Concord grapes ripening by the roadside. The Octobers of my childhood included pumpkins to carve, Halloween costumes to make, and so many leaves to rake into piles under my father’s instruction that my hands would sport blisters before the work was done.


img_0928Earlier today, a wooden crate of Macoun apples at the farmer’s market made me suddenly miss my now-grown boys as they once were.  How I would love to relive our old apple-picking and pumpkin-choosing traditions. Autumn was always a good time to be a mother. The truth is, having children gave me permission to be a kid again myself, to spend hours  with my sons stirring pots of applesauce on the stove, gathering acorns, and pressing the most perfect red leaves between sheets of wax paper tucked into our fattest books.


img_0906Those days are long gone. Instead, with one son apartment-hunting in New York City and the other fully immersed in a new job in North Carolina, I remind myself that my husband and I did our jobs; that our task now is to live deeply into this current life chapter in which past and present are layered together, the sum of all our hallowed yesterdays simply bringing more depth and meaning to this ephemeral, precious present.   And so, alone at home, I allow a particular slant of sun through the trees to draw me across the road and into the woods.  As I walk along the familiar path, the soft peaty earth and dappled light give rise to long-forgotten memories of riding my horse through the autumn woods as a girl of fifteen.  I cherished the freedom of those wild, solitary explorations after school, when I could disappear for hours with no one worrying about me or even much caring where I was. The horse was trail-worthy and my seat was good, and so we were entrusted to take care of each other, my Morgan mare and I.


The scent of woodsmoke from a neighbor’s fire brings back memories of gathering around our own backyard blazes, just as the carpet of pine needles alongside the road catapults me even further back in time, to another October when I collected paper bags full of them as a child for a neighbor to spread over his strawberry patch. Perhaps all autumn memories tend to be bittersweet, burnished by time, a reminder that change is our only constant, that nothing lasts.  “To every thing there is a season,” we’re told in Ecclesiastes, “and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”  Here on the cusp of sixty, these words take on a deeper kind of truth, for there is no holding on to what’s past, no grasping at that which has already slipped away:  youth, my sons’ childhoods, loved ones no longer with us, the summer’s long, bright days.  There is only now, this season, in all its fleeting finery.


img_0898-2In recent years, my own experience of October has acquired shadows. Two of my dearest friends both died in October, one just a year ago tomorrow. I’ve thought especially of my friend Lisa every day these last few weeks, sensing just how thin the veil really is between the earthly realm and the heavenly one. Even something as subtle as the quality of light in the afternoon can erase time, so that we are once again sitting on her sofa as we were last autumn, gazing out the windows and marveling at the way the sun can turn ordinary trees into gold.


img_0883-1Of course, I’m also remembering every “last” of my friend’s heart-wrenching journey, recalling exactly where we were on each of these October days last year, the quiet vigil at her bedside, way the world seemed to grow more tender and more beautiful as she released her hold on it, and how, at the end, the swirling leaves and clear night sky seemed to affirm the vast mysteries within which our own human destinies are enfolded.


img_0873Yesterday afternoon, with the first serious frost of the year approaching, I cut as many nasturtiums as I could, a final bouquet of cosmos, a few of my  favorite plum-colored zinnias. I filled all my vases with the season’s last blossoms and then stood outside to watch the nearly full moon rise, feeling the temperature drop steadily by degrees.


img_0924There’s never any way to predict the vagaries of weather, the first cold night, the inevitable end of one season and the invisible beginning of another.  And so when I left home for a long-planned trip to England a month ago, I knew the garden might not wait for me. While I was hiking in the Cotswolds with a group of wonderful women friends  (more about that journey on another day) and then exploring London with my husband, I knew I might also be missing the peak moments of a season I always treasure at home.  How could I not be here for that brief, dramatic hour when every leaf on the maple tree outside our bedroom window turns yellow and then suddenly begins to glow, like an enormous golden torch set ablaze by the sinking sun? To travel is always to forgo the fleeting, irretrievable transformations that occur in your own corner of the world, moments that unfold in all their splendor whether you’re there to bear witness to them or not.


img_0908Frost often comes in September here on our hilltop, and certainly no one would place a bet on nasturtiums after October 1. And so all I could do, as I tramped through England, was hope. The basil would be gone by the time I arrived back in Peterborough, no doubt about that. But I figured I might return home to find some sturdy, spicy arugula leaves still green enough to cut for salad. Always, I am greedy when it comes to fall. Lovely as it was to spend those weeks overseas, I was also eager to get home.  I  wanted one more trip to the farm stand, a final satchel of summer’s tomatoes, a few long golden walks down our road toward town, and most of all, this: a last, leisurely stroll through my garden, scissors in hand. And then, to stand outside at dusk, watching the day’s transparent colors drain from the sky, the mountains turning rose then purple, then gray, then shades of black. The full, Hunter’s moon hanging in the sky.  A house full of summer’s final flowers. I got my wish.


Here, a few more glimpses of this most glorious and poignant season’s inevitable ending and some words to go with them. As L.M. Montgomery writes, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”  Me too. Oh, me too.


img_0880


“Just before the death of flowers, 
and before they are buried in snow,
 there comes a festival season
, when nature is all aglow.”  ~ Anon


img_0879


” ‘Only today,’ he said, ‘today, in October sun, it’s all gold— sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.'” ~ Eudora Welty


img_0900-1“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”
                    ~ Elizabeth Lawrence


img_0805-2“There was something frantic in their blooming, as if they knew that frost was near and then the bitter cold.  They’d lived through all the heat and noise and stench of summertime, and now each widely opened flower was like a triumphant cry, “We will, we will make seed before we die.” ” ~ Harriette Arnow


img_0916“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.” 
 ~ Nathaniel Hawthorn


img_0902“Delicious autumn!   My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”  ~  George Eliot


img_0927“There comes a time when it cannot be put off any longer.  The radio warns of a killing frost coming in the night, and you must say good-bye to the garden.  You dread it, as you dread saying good-bye to any good friend; but the garden waits with its last gifts, and you must go with a bushel basket or big buckets to receive them.”  ~  Rachel Peden



moments of seeing: reflections from an ordinary life

mos_cover_finalFinished copies of Moments of Seeing arrived early.  This book was a labor of love.  I worked closely with the designer, chose the paper, the cover, the size, and was able to create exactly the book I’ve always wanted — beautiful to behold and easy to read. I’m thrilled with the way it turned out.  Anyone who pre-ordered a book has probably received it by now. I signed over 500 copies and my dear son Henry printed out all the the labels, packed every order, and carried them all to the Post Office.


img_0852(NOTE: If you received an email about your advance order from Scott, Accounts Manager at ES+W, LLC, I thank you in advance your quick response.) In the meantime, do let me know what you think of the book!


If you’d like to purchase a signed copy, click here.  Buy 4, and your shipping is free!


My husband Steve’s company, Earth, Sky & Water, is my official publisher for Moments of Seeing, and the secure order page is at his company website. While you’re there, feel free to browse around and check out the beautiful collection of nature guides, cards, and prints, too.


FIRST READING:  NH friends, I’ll be doing the first reading from Moments of Seeing on Thursday, Oct. 20 at the lovely Hancock Public Library at 7 pm.  For details, click here.  Do come!



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Published on October 16, 2016 03:47

September 8, 2016

the book you want to read now:Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth(and a give-away)

163560For sixteen years I had what was arguably the best job in the world. It certainly was the best job for me. As a first-time mother of an infant, I wanted nothing more than to be at home with my new baby. At the same time, I’d loved my career as a literary editor and I still had to earn a living. By some miraculous stroke of luck and grace, the universe afforded me the chance to do both.


A week after my baby was born, I got word that I’d been chosen to be the new series editor of The Best American Short Stories, an annual anthology beloved by readers and writers alike. Three months later, I hired some help, bought my first desktop computer, set up a system to keep track of everything (magazines logged into FileMakerPro, the stories themselves written up by hand on file cards), and got down to work. It was amazing — I was getting paid to read.


I dressed for my new job in stretchy old black leggings and sweatshirts spotted with baby drool. I had no set hours and three deadlines a year. The magazines arrived by the box load and the babysitter came for a few hours every morning. While she was there, and while my son slept, and in every other spare moment of the day, I read short stories.


Sixteen years flew by. During that time, two little babies grew up into teenagers and sixteen volumes got published and I read thousands and thousands of stories. I had the joy of “discovering” such new voices as Amy Bloom, Junot Diaz, Akhil Sharma, Edith Pearlman, and Nathan Englander, and helping to introduce them to wider audiences. Meanwhile, I also had the privilege of working closely with some of our most accomplished writers — chatting about what made certain stories work and others miss the mark with the likes of Louise Erdrich, Tobias Wolff, Garrison Keillor, Barbara Kingsolver, E. L. Doctorow and many others. Co-editing with John Updike The Best American Short Stories of the Century allowed me not only the happy, prodigious task of reading every story ever published in the series since its inception in 1915, but also the privilege of engaging in an intensive, congenial, two-year correspondence with one of my lifelong literary heroes.


But without doubt the greatest good fortune that befell me as the editor of BASS was my enduring friendship with writer Ann Patchett, guest editor of the final volume of my tenure. After working together for over a year, getting to know each other by email and phone and letter, we finally met in person for the first time in Harvard Square at a PEN reading for The Best American Short Stories of 2006. It was a bittersweet night for me. Handing off the editorial baton to my successor seemed like the end of an era, the end of my professional identity, the end of steady income, the end of structure to my days. I had no idea what I’d do next.


At some point during the evening, as a sheet cake was wheeled out into the foyer and a set of leather-bound copies of all the volumes I’d edited was readied for presentation, Ann slipped her arm through mine. “This must feel so weird to you,” she said. And then, “Well, the book is done. But can we still be friends?” I’m happy to report that, ten years later, we still are.


img_1865I could go on and on here about the joys of this special friendship, but I won’t. Because what I really want to do is make sure you know: the best novel yet from this most generous and gifted storyteller will be published next week.


Three years ago, late one night, after I’d done a reading at Parnassus Books, Ann’s renowned destination bookstore in Nashville, she and I sat sipping tea in her living room. A new book was taking shape in her mind and she was trying it out on me, wondering out loud if she was finally ready to embark upon a deeply personal, even autobiographical novel. It was time, she mused, to write about the one thing that scared her the most: her own family.


The story she was imagining would focus on the children of divorce, territory she knows well. As she acknowledges in her courageous, candid essay “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” she and her sister and their step-siblings “weren’t the products of our parents’ happy marriages; we were the flotsam of their divorces.” When marriages implode, so does childhood. What happens in the aftermath is at the heart of Commonwealth, an emotionally resonant page-turner that draws you into the lives of two young families and then holds you in its firm yet tender grip through a span of nearly fifty years.


I finished reading the galleys of Commonwealth sitting in a rocking chair at dawn last spring, while the rest of my family slept. Determined to make my way in silence and solitude through the final pages of this heart-wrenching, engrossing book, I allowed the tears to flow even as I felt the kind of rare, deep satisfaction that comes when an author does her work to perfection. Knowing something of Ann’s own difficult childhood, I also knew how close to the bone this novel cuts, how liberating and difficult it must have been to write at last, and how brilliantly she had transformed reality into something even deeper, richer, and more compelling – a story so finely and truly wrought that every event, small and large, seems at once inevitable and surprising.


Only this morning, as I read this marvelously intimate interview with Ann in The Guardian, did I glean just how harrowing her process was, once she finally took the lid off and began mining her own experience. Speaking about “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” she recalls “the sweat pouring down her face as she wrote it, while she experienced the distinct sensation that she was ‘sitting in the middle of the highway in the dark, with a legal pad, thinking: I’m going to get squashed by a truck’.”


My guess is that Commonwealth was a bit sweat-inducing as well. And yet, the real achievement of this book is that it’s fiction, the stuff of real life run through the imagination of one of the unmistakably great novelists of our time and quietly, assuredly fashioned into a small literary masterpiece. As Ann’s mother wryly observed, “None of it happened and all of it’s true.”


I can’t wait for every single person I know to read this book. I can’t imagine a more engaging novel for book group discussions or for families to pass around or for two friends to talk about over a cup of tea. You could not ask for a better companion for a day spent in bed, or for a train ride, or for those betwixt and between moments of life when you find yourself with a few stolen minutes of reading time. My own hardcover copy arrived in the mail yesterday and I’m about to plunge right back in.


Are you a reader who appreciates a good first line? I just opened the book and was reminded that this must surely be one of the best: “The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.” And with that, you’re off, embarked on a true-yet-not-real story that will make you laugh, that will break your heart and that will, ultimately, reaffirm your faith in both the essential goodness and the resilience of the human spirit.


If you’re new to Ann’s writing, just go ahead and start right here, right now. There’s plenty of time to catch up. And if you’re already a fan, well, all I can say is, Carve out a little time for yourself and prepare for deep, unbridled pleasure.


A signed first edition to win!


I’ve bought one signed, first-edition copy of Commonwealth to give away to a reader here.  To enter to win, you must be a subscriber.  (Sign up now, if you don’t already receive my newsletter.)  Simply leave a comment below.  Share what’s on YOUR bedside table or your must-read list for the fall.  (I know this will result in a reading list we’ll all be happy to have.)  Of course, you can also just say, “Count me in.” A winner will be chosen at random at 12 pm on Thursday, Sept. 15.  Good luck to all!


Or, order a book right now and have it signed by Ann.


Official publication date is Tuesday, Sept. 13. However, if you order books by noon on Monday from Parnassus, Ann will sign (and even personalize) your copies. Click here.


Prefer to order from Amazon? You can, of course, but this IS a great opportunity to support an independent bookstore AND to receive a signed first edition of what many are predicting will be the book of the year. That said, click here to buy from Amazon. (Amazon links on this site are affiliate links.)


And now, a bit of advance reading:


I’ve rounded up these links to whet your appetite till Commonwealth is in your hands.


The Parnassus website is my favorite place to hang out for all things book-related. If you ever wonder what to read next, you have no further to look for compelling, trustworthy recommendations. Also, there are always new author interviews, inside stories, and, best of all, Ann’s blog. Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at her writing process for Commonwealth.


Well-kept secret: The Guardian has better book coverage than any American newspaper. This interview with Ann is revealing and captivating and funny. It captures the essence of who she is.


Today’s New York Times has a glowing review. However, proceed with caution. I think it reveals too much. A huge part of the pleasure of this novel comes from not knowing what’s going to happen. My suggestion: read the book first.


PrintFinally, this.  Ann’s about to hit the road — thirty cities this fall alone.  Little wonder; booksellers love her as much as her fans do.  And she is as wonderfully engaging in person as she is on the page. She may be coming to your hometown.  Check out her full schedule here.



moments of seeing: reflections from an ordinary life

mos_cover_finalCopies of my new book will be shipped on November 1.  But you can order your own (signed!) copy now.


For more info, and to pre-order your copy, click here.  (Hint: It just may be that you can get all your holiday book shopping done right now: a brilliant novel to gulp down and a fat collection of essays for the bedside table. . .)


Note: My husband Steve’s company, Earth, Sky & Water, is my official publisher for Moments of Seeing, and the secure order page is at his company website. Lucky for me, Steve and his staff are fully equipped to handle order fulfillment. And yes, they can even arrange to ship books overseas. While you’re there, feel free to browse around and check out the beautiful collection of nature guides, cards, and prints, too.



The post the book you want to read now:
Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth
(and a give-away)
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Published on September 08, 2016 12:19

August 30, 2016

moments of seeing: books!

MOS_front_blue

Sometimes, life sits you down in a chair and insists that you stay put, doing the thing you’re really meant to do.


Last winter and spring, recovering from two hip replacements and an excruciating case of post-op bursitis, I found myself facing some very long days.


The physical therapy exercises I was required to do were numbingly dull, until I had the stunning revelation that I could link each repetitive movement to my breath and call it “yoga.” Suddenly, even if I was just lying in bed and flexing my feet, I had my practice back. All it took was a change of attitude, from grudging to mindful. Breath equals connection. And with that simple truth, I was on my way, slowly healing, one inhalation and exhalation at a time.


Meanwhile, nearly two years after I first thought about collecting the essays from this space into a book, I finally had time and space to actually settle down and get to work. The long empty days of recuperation were transformed, by a small shift of intention, into a kind of writer’s retreat for one.


unspecified-4As I wrote here last spring, there was no place to go and nothing to do, except confront at last the nearly 200 pieces in the archive. With a mixture of hope and trepidation, I went back to 2009 and began to read, red pencil in hand. Would the writing hold up? Did the essays have a story to tell? Was there really a book here?


“Everything vanishes,” says James Salter, “except that which is written down.” I believe this to be so. In fact, the process of returning to these pieces affirmed it — both the fleetingness of life and, too, what remains constant for each and every one of us: change, loss, wonder, growth, surrender.


Writing is a way of sharing what can seem, at times, like a rather lonely journey. Reading, we create enduring connections with one another across distances of time and space. These essays, written in and of the moment, are my stories of life as it unfurls, but they are your stories, too. Or perhaps I should say, they are our stories. For here in this online home, we have come to know each other. And in the process of reading and writing and sharing, we’ve discovered, week after week and year after year, that despite the surface differences in our lives, we have much more in common than any of us might have guessed.


Moments of Seeing: Reflections from an Ordinary Life is my gift to each of you. Putting it together has turned out to be a joy. I think the essays do hold up — but you (I hope!) will be the judge of that.


In a few short weeks, the first boxes of books will arrive. I’m so very excited to share the finished product with you. If you order now, I’ll sign your books and guarantee delivery by the first week of November – in plenty of time for holiday giving.


For more info, and to pre-order your copy, just click here.


Note: My husband Steve’s company, Earth, Sky & Water, is my official publisher for Moments of Seeing, and the secure order page is at his company website. Lucky for me, Steve and his staff are fully equipped to handle order fulfillment! While you’re there, feel free to browse around and check out his beautiful collection of nature guides, cards, and prints, too.


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Published on August 30, 2016 09:33

August 4, 2016

chatting with ghosts a visit to E.B. White’s farm

IMG_9597Have you ever wondered by what mysterious alchemy a whim becomes a wish, and a wish a reality?


I’m pretty sure it requires some combination of love and pure intention to transform an idle fantasy into an actual event. Oftentimes, a spirit of adventure is necessary, too. Oh, and a willingness to envision – even if the vision itself seems far off and far-fetched.


This is a tale of a daydream that actually did come true, a road-trip story that had its beginnings in the pages of a cherished book and then slipped right out of fiction and into real life. Sometimes, the stars line up.  Sometimes, all the puzzle pieces fall into place.  And sometimes “real life” feels, if only for a day, graced by a touch of magic.  Want to come along?


charlottes-web-bookBecause I became a surrogate mom to a daughter late in life (a tale with its own magic, which I tell here), the two of us had some catching up to do as we got to know each other. It didn’t surprise me, though, to learn that Lauren and I shared a love of E.B. White in general, and of Charlotte’s Web in particular. Having adored White’s enduring classic as a child, Lauren eagerly introduced her two young nieces to Fern and Wilbur and Charlotte as soon as they were old enough to listen. Having felt the same, I shared with her that I’d read Charlotte’s Web to my own boys, not just once but many times over the years, eventually relinquishing the final chapters first to Henry, and later to Jack, to read out loud, so they wouldn’t have to listen to me trying to speak through my tears.


Charlotte’s Web may masquerade as a children’s book, but it is really one of the most profound and tender portraits of a friendship ever written – timeless, ageless, full of light and shadow, humor and deeply felt emotion, oddly endearing details and unforgettable characters, both human and animal.


It is also, for me, a touchstone, a reminder of what it is to write simply and well, to observe all beings with compassion, to honor life’s impermanence, its fleeting beauty, its enchanting and engrossing twists and turns. And, too, this cherished book is a reminder that love can become sadness, that even the most special friendships end, but that the pain of that loss is always worth enduring in exchange for the rare gift of being seen and known and cared about for a time.


IMG_9555 (1)So when Lauren wrote me last fall to ask if I’d be game for a trip to E.B. White’s saltwater farm in Brooklin, Maine, I didn’t hesitate before saying “yes” – a yes which set all manner of things in motion.


Lauren tracked down the current owners of the farm, Bob and Mary G., who purchased the property just after White’s death in 1985. White was a notoriously private man, and his former house has always been and still is a private home, not a tourist destination. And yet, this kind couple have inhabited their special place for over 35 summers, with a deep respect for its gentle ghosts and its singular history. Changing and updating only what needed to change, they have also lovingly preserved whatever could be saved, a way of honoring both E.B. and Katharine White and much of the character of their beloved homestead.


Fortunately, Bob and Mary also understand that for some of White’s most devoted readers, the hunger for pilgrimage runs deep. With quiet hospitality, they do their best to accommodate those who feel compelled to make the long journey to Brooklin, if only to breathe in the salt air and to see for ourselves the venerable old barn that inspired the book we hold most dear in our hearts.


Over the course of many months, Lauren initiated a correspondence with Mary, arrived at a suitable summer date for the two of us to visit, found us rooms at an Airbnb down the road, and bought herself a plane ticket north. And so it was that the long-awaited day arrived at last. We set out early in the morning from my house in New Hampshire, carrying clothes for all weather, coolers packed with food, provisions for the road, walking shoes and some art supplies.


unspecified-1First stop: my parents’ house on Bailey Island. For a girl born and bred in Connecticut and transplanted south to Atlanta right after college, a first trip to the coast of Maine was pretty exciting in itself. And I loved seeing this old family place I know and love through the delighted eyes of a newcomer. As the mother of sons, it’s quite a treat for me to have the company of a daughter, especially a young woman who appreciates my motherly ways and my skills with a lobster cracker.


unspecified-3We unpacked the car and struck out on foot, soaking up the sun and working up an appetite for dinner – lobster salad and champagne, to celebrate our togetherness, the beginning of our adventure, and the singular beauty of a July afternoon in Maine.  The sunset that first night was perfect.  We sat at the table for hours, talking, watching day turn to night, marveling at the fact that we, who had found each other through, as Lauren says, “the power of the pen,” were finally here, doing this thing we’d each dreamed about almost forever.


IMG_9630Early the next morning we were on our way further downeast, which is to say north on Route 1, the very route E.B. White himself used to travel from his desk at the New Yorker to his beloved rural retreat. Seeing the landscape unfurl before us — the fields rolling down to the sea, the old white farmhouses hunkered down into the earth, the yards bedecked by country-fair-worthy zinnias and bright flags of drying laundry flapping in the wind — I could fully identify with White’s irrepressible desire to flee their hot, dry rented rooms on the Upper East Side and relocate to the rambling old house with a barn attached that he and his wife Katharine had bought in Maine. It was 1938 when they left New York, a move EBW himself considered “impulsive and irresponsible.” He and Katharine had enviable jobs at the country’s most esteemed magazine and, as White acknowledged “everything was going our way.”


Even so, as he recalls in his introduction to One Man’s Meat, the essays he wrote from Maine for Harper’s, “I led my little family out of the city like a daft piper.”


A friend, upon hearing EBW was departing the city for country life, said, “I trust that you will spare the reading public your little adventures in contentment.” Fortunately, White paid little heed to that advice. (Years later, however, he admitted he still heard the man’s leering voice in his mind every time he sat down to write about “any delights that I experience.”)


Of course, he had no way of knowing his greatest work lay ahead of him, or that it would be inspired by the farm, by his deepening love of nature, by his endless curiosity about spiders and rats and geese and pigs, and most of all by his insatiable pleasure in the world. But as an old man looking back and writing a new introduction to One Man’s Meat, he had this to say:


Once in everyone’s life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half asleep. I think of those years in Maine as the time when this happened to me. Confronted by new challenges, surrounded by new acquaintances – including the characters in the barnyard, who were later to appear in Charlotte’s Web – I was suddenly seeing, feeling, and listening as a child sees, feels, and listens. It was one of those rare interludes that can never be repeated, a time of enchantment. I am fortunate indeed to have had the chance to get some of it down on paper.”


IMG_9843What a pleasure it was to pull this collection of wise, intimate essays from my own bookshelf a month or so ago, and to revisit my old friend on the page before setting out to meet his spirit at the farm where he lived out the best of his writing days.


On the road, Lauren and I listened (not for the first time, for either of us) to EBW reading Charlotte’s Web aloud, perhaps the most perfect match-up of author’s voice and material ever. No one could possibly render the contemptuous voice of Templeton the rat with such spot-on accuracy, or so beautifully recreate the dialogue between Wilbur and Charlotte, or offer up such an authentically self-righteous goose gabble as EBW himself. (I know every word of this book, and still it captivates me.) Meanwhile, the miles rolled by. For lunch we ate cheese and crackers and dried apricots in the car, eager to arrive at our destination.


IMG_9522The GPS led us this way and that, through villages, past glimpses of marsh and sea, down one long winding road after another. And then, suddenly, there we were, climbing the back steps, knocking at the kitchen door, being welcomed by Bob and Mary, and ushered right into EBW’s study to hear the story of how the large maps White had chosen decades ago for wallpaper had been hung, in his absence, upside down.


It was a lot to take in: EBW’s office, full now of its current owner’s books and possessions; across the hall, Katharine’s sunnier study, updated but still clearly a space for getting things done; up the steep stairs past original 1700s murals on the walls, to EBW’s bedroom with it’s view across the fields — and, coiled like a sleeping snake in the small closet, the old rope ladder he kept at hand just in case a house fire ever required him to navigate an emergency exit through a window.


unspecified-4From the house and its layers of history, we proceeded out through the “summer kitchen” and into the barn itself. It was tempting to stand there in the dim silence for a while, matching what we saw before us to the description we’d heard EBW read just moments before we arrived:


The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell—as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world.”


The cows and horses are long gone, of course. And yet, as White himself had once observed about the place, “Certain things have not changed.” There were the farm tools, hanging neatly on their hooks.


IMG_9493Tacked to the wall, a yellowed paper inscribed with a family’s most-used phone numbers, with Henry the hired man’s four essential digits at the top of the list. (Henry stayed on, we were told, for many years after EBW and Katharine were gone, caring for the house and the gardens the way he always had when they were alive, until he, too, departed this earth.) There was the trap door that opened up to the manure pile on the lower level, where Wilbur passed his eventful days.


And best of all, perhaps, there was the old, sturdy, thrilling rope swing, the very swing that was much loved and much used by EBW himself, and which he memorialized for all time with his description of the swing in Zuckerman’s barn:


You straddled the knot, so that it acted as a seat. Then you got up all your nerve, took a deep breath, and jumped. For a second you seemed to be falling to the barn floor far below, but then suddenly the rope would begin to catch you, and you would sail through the barn door going a mile a minute, with the wind whistling in your eyes and ears and hair. Then you would zoom upward into the sky, and look up at the clouds, and the rope would twist and. . . ”


Could we take a ride?


Unknown-2Indeed we could.


IMG_9535A shady lane led past the garden, alongside the pond, and down through the trees to Allen Cove and EBW’s hallowed writing cottage at the water’s edge. The door was open, as if someone was expecting us.


unspecified-5It was here, in a plain wooden cupboard hung on the wall, that EBW stored his works in progress.


IMG_9516It was here, by a window lifted open to the sea, that he sat alone with his typewriter. And it was here that photographer Jill Krementz captured him at his craft on a summer day in 1976 – perhaps the most iconic, most romantic, best-loved portrait of a working writer ever taken.


unspecified-2At the end of the day, Mary told us, Henry would appear at the door to carry EBW’s heavy gray Underwood back up to the house.


“Why not just leave it down at the cabin?” a friend once asked.


“Because,” the hired man patiently replied, “then he would have to have two.”


Lauren and I lingered for a long time at the cabin. We sat on the hard wooden bench and gazed out the window at EBW’s beloved view of water and sky and shore. We imagined what it might be like to live in the serene old house and to work in this simple, sacred cottage by the sea. We listened for echoes and watched the dust motes dance in the air. And we imagined EBW here – half farmer, half literary gent, as he called himself — breathing eternal life into a pig who wanted to live and the spider determined to save him.


It was surprisingly easy, in this remote, unchanged spot, to conjure the spirit of a writer who passed away over thirty years ago. I remembered exactly where I was when I heard the news of EBW’s death: riding the M bus on an autumn morning from my own overheated, too-small New York apartment to my job as an editor in midtown Manhattan. I saw the front-page notice in the New York Times and felt as if I’d lost both a mentor and a friend.


unspecified-6And now, thanks to countless twists and turns of fate, here I was all these decades later, sitting at his desk. Here I was, looking out his window to the sea, the sound of his voice reading aloud still fresh in my ears. Here I was, having long since left the city for the country myself, having married and raised sons and written books and buried dogs and lost loved ones. Here I was, having learned and survived my own hard, sad lessons about the limits of friendship. And having found, just as Wilbur does, that a grieving heart recovers and that this blessed, beautiful life goes on — a life full of sea breezes and sunrises and sunsets, wonderful books and unexpected adventures, and a beloved daughter-by-choice with whom to share it all.


unspecified-7


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a visit to E.B. White’s farm
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Published on August 04, 2016 04:31

July 15, 2016

our America

UnknownLet us cultivate a culture of kindness. In that moment, we are determining the outcome of the world.

~ Sakyong Mipham


I know I’m not the only one finding it impossible this summer to make sense of world events. I suspect you, too, are mourning the senseless deaths of innocent people at home and abroad, looking in vain after each new round of violence for answers to the seemingly unanswerable question “why?”, and trying to cultivate an informed, thoughtful attitude toward our presidential candidates.


Perhaps, like me, you assign yourself articles to read written by journalists from the left and the right, writers and reporters who do their homework, who think deeply about where we stand as a country and who choose their words with care. Perhaps you, too, are struggling to keep your heart open to all people, to opinions that conflict with your own, to the concerns and worries of friends and family members who see things differently. Sometimes very, very differently.


It’s not easy being a good citizen these days. In the past couple of weeks two of my friends have confessed to blocking or defriending those whose political postings on social media cause them angst. Others have expressed a desire for Facebook to remain a place where we can enjoy browsing photos of our friends’ children and pets and vacations, without being confronted with their opinions, especially when they conflict with our own.


I have recently deleted political comments from my own Facebook page, remarks that were disrespectful, rude, or insulting — not to me, but to others. To do so causes me pain, for I value a free flow of ideas and information as much as anyone. But then, name-calling and personal insults don’t fall into that category.  I believe there’s a difference between conversation, which demands empathy and a willingness to listen with an open mind; and invective, which is about hearts and  minds that have been willfully shut down.


I don’t have to tell you: there are many loud, belligerent voices out there, all straining to be heard. Turn on the TV or radio, scan your news feed, scroll through Twitter, and you will find them. Voices full of accusation and suspicion, hatred and superiority, disdain and incivility. Voices eager to label and vilify. Voices that separate us from one another, that seem bent on dividing souls rather than uniting them. Voices quick to judge, voices meant to instill fear, voices that incite distrust or even violence. There are voices that condone cruelty, voices raised in self-righteous fury, voices that disregard quiet, unassailable truth in favor of suspicion and innuendo and outright lies. There are voices that speak the language of the F-bomb, the bully, the oppressor. And, alas, there seem to be very few voices asking questions, such as, “Tell me why you feel this way?” It’s a bleak and painful chorus, the kind of dysfunctional acting out we would never tolerate in our own homes or in our own families.


And yet somehow we’ve allowed this disgraceful shouting match to become our national dialogue.Actually, to call it a dialogue is a misnomer. We’ve pitted ourselves against each other in a nasty zero-sum game. Instead of coming together to mend what we have – a blessed, beloved country awash in grief and violence and confusion – we are allowing the rifts that separate us to deepen. Unfortunately, the media on both sides of that rift seem more concerned with making money and boosting ratings than with elevating the level of our discourse. And so the newscasters and pundits are all too willing to play along, feeding the delusion that this election is just one huge, competitive sporting event. Turn on CNN or Fox News or MSNBC. The slant will be different, but too often the underlying goal is the same: to capture and hold viewers by turning all of us into bad guys and good guys, interpreting each day’s unfolding events in terms of the precarious balance between winners and losers.


As someone who will go way out of my way to avoid conflict of any kind, it’s easier for me to be quiet than to speak the truth of my heavy heart, especially here, in print. But I think we are all losing. The more polarized we become, the less obliged we feel to pay attention. The more willing we are to think in terms of “us” and “them,” winners and losers, the less able we are to bear witness to the experiences of others.  The more we shut down, the less effective we become at making good decisions — for ourselves and for our country.


unspecifiedA few days ago, I saw a post on Facebook written by a woman who seemed to share my despair. “I never thought I would be bringing up children in such a world,” she said. “I am tired of all the anger and shouting.” And then she continued: “I wonder what ever happened to OUR America? I’m still voting for Donald Trump, but I’m shutting down my Facebook page for now, because I don’t want to hear any more political discussions until after the election is over. May God bless us all.”


I’ve been pondering those lines ever since. The words “OUR America,” especially.   I wonder what, exactly, she meant. The America of white people? Of straight people? Of Christian people? Of Republicans? Of people who believe that torture should be legal but abortion should not? The America of twenty years ago or thirty or forty?


I wanted to say to her, “But this IS our America, in all its beauty and heartache and diversity and confusion. And as long as we are building walls and labeling people and judging others for who they love or how they worship or what bathroom they use, then we are failing ourselves and our country.” And I wanted to ask her, “When you say God bless us all, do you really mean all? Because if you do mean all, then I wonder why you want as your president a man who most certainly does not believe we are all equally deserving of God’s blessing?  Tell me why he should be the one to lead us forward.”


Of course, I couldn’t have that conversation with her, not even online. She had made up her mind. And she was gone.


It seems to be a trend. Many people on both sides are claiming they’ve had enough, heard enough, thought enough. It is almost a badge of honor these days, to throw up your hands and say you’re done listening, you’re done thinking,  your mind is made up, end of discussion.


I confess, I feel just the opposite.


There is no question about who I’m voting for. And yet I must also say that the more voices I listen to, the more I begin to understand the depth and complexity of the problems we face. The more I read, the more grateful I am to those writers who are far wiser and better educated than me, writers who are willing to explain the intricacies of the issues we face and the far-reaching consequences of our choices. The more stories I hear of struggle and hope and despair, the more humble I feel. And the more humble I feel the more I also sense the weight of responsibility upon my shoulders. Especially the responsibility to keep talking and listening, both to voices that sing in unison with me and to those voices I must struggle to understand. Because this IS our America, and our futures are at stake.


I am an American citizen, and I am a mother, and I possess a conscience. So how could I possibly turn my back on the news and tune out the debate until November? On the other hand, I also ask myself, what difference can I, or any one person, possibly make? I don’t know the answer. All I know is that on this hot summer day, I find myself sitting in this kitchen where I have written thousands of words over the last few years about what it means and how it feels to raise children, to be a wife and a mother and a friend, to love and to let go. I have written about questions of faith and calling, about the grief of losing loved ones and the joys and challenges of family life. I’ve wrestled with the slow march of age and I’ve celebrated the fleeting, precious beauty of ordinary moments. I’ve written painful essays about broken friendships, a son’s addiction and recovery, raw moments in my marriage, and deep-seated insecurities of my own. And yet only now, for the first time ever, do I need to summon courage to say what’s on my mind. Mine is not a political voice but a private one.


Still.


The possibility of a Trump presidency scares me. He belittles and scorns the very things that matter most to me – womens rights, LGBT rights, immigration rights, racial equality, affordable health care, equitable taxes, services for the poor, gun control, education, and the environment. I value kindness.  Trump is the  antithesis of kind; not only crude but cruel, baiting and insulting those he perceives to be weaker or less deserving of adulation than he is. I put enormous stock in education, in our shared responsibility to read and think deeply about the issues that confront us.  Trump wings it, impulsively and without regard or respect for facts.  I  have listened to Mr. Trump’s speeches, I tuned in to every one of the Republican debates, and I’ve watched countless TV interviews with him, searching for the goodness and wisdom in this man. I do not see it.


No one is perfect, least of all our politicians. There have been times when Barack Obama has disappointed me, but many, many more when he’s inspired me. I can’t excuse or condone Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, nor have I always agreed with her policies.   She has made compromises when I wished she’d stood firm and she’s lied when the truth would have better served us all. (Doesn’t the truth always better serve us all?) She is flawed and human and she’s made mistakes all along the way. But I have never doubted her tireless commitment to women and children’s rights, her intelligence, her willingness to work hard, her hard-won experience, her composure under fire, or her life-long dedication to her country. OUR country.  So yes, I support her.  But I don’t think that means I can now return to photos of puppies and barbecues while the rest of the country sorts itself out.


How will we get through these next difficult, momentous months if we harden our hearts and close our minds? How can we proclaim reverence for life if we decide that some lives matter more than other lives? I, too, worry about children coming of age in a time where a presidential candidate promotes a culture in which bullying is perceived as strength, name-calling is par for the course, and bigotry and racism masquerade as populism.


Yet there is one thing I think we can all agree on – that the outcome of the very public debate playing out in our country right now will have enormous consequences in all our lives. To engage thoughtfully and respectfully in this process is not only a right but, dare I say it, a duty. At issue is who we are and what we stand for, as individuals and as a nation.


My hope, for all of us, is that we will not shy away from the hard conversations. May we continue to have them with our loved ones and our friends, on our Facebook pages and in public spaces and, especially, with people who see the world through different eyes. May we choose in each of these encounters and communications to heal rather than humiliate, to honor rather than to hurt. May we listen well and respect each other. May we resist the urge to dehumanize others. May we practice the art of empathy, which is to say, may we put ourselves in the shoes of another and willingly walk their mile. May we be living examples of kindness. May we act in accordance with our deepest human values: love, compassion, integrity, fairness, and hope for a better future. May we read more deeply and think more expansively. May we continue to educate and stretch ourselves. May we not retreat from complexity, but embrace it. May we be practical rather than partisan, thoughtful rather than reactive, generous of heart toward all rather than protective of a few. May we seek and find common ground here, in our America.



readings

I didn’t intend to write this essay today; I was actually going to wash woodwork and weed the garden.  But I found myself sitting and thinking, and pretty soon I found myself writing, unsure until I said it just what it was I needed to say.  If you’re here, reading, thank you.  I’d like to share some of what inspired me today. These three pieces are the ones that finally moved me to put some of my own feelings down.  I recommend them highly.


Adam Gopnick is the smartest writer I know.  The New Yorker is daily sustenance for me, and this short, sharp piece is a wake-up call, even for those of us who thought we already were awake.


I have good friends who are teachers, and bullying is a central concern for every one of them.  There has been so much good progress made as teachers devote themselves to changing the culture of the classroom into a place where bullying in any form is not tolerated.  This well-researched article in Tikkun may disturb you, but it will also bring home just how swiftly norms can change and how corrosive Trump’s influence has been.


No matter how you feel about Hillary Clinton as a person or as a presidential candidate, your understanding of her will be deepened by this illuminating profile that shines a light on the woman as she’s known by those who have worked most closely with her.  I needed to read this.



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Published on July 15, 2016 14:48

June 15, 2016

a bouquet of peonies

IMG_9236I can’t tear myself away from home these days, nor am I getting much of anything done around here. The peonies are in bloom. And I don’t want to miss a moment of their brief, luxuriant season. Most mornings I’m in the garden within minutes of waking, to pay my quiet respects to the outrageously generous display going outside our door . At dusk I wander, scissors in hand, cutting fragrant armfuls to carry inside. For this week only, there are peony bouquets everywhere. Every vase and jar I own is full, the air is thick with the sweet, subtle scent, and still they come, a succession of blooms. I cherish every one.


IMG_9162If you were to drop by my house for a cup of tea and a chat this afternoon, I’d send you home with peonies.


IMG_9231But as it happens, I’m here alone on this June day, typing at my little table on the porch. There’s no need, and no room, for yet another bouquet in the house. And so I offer you, instead, a bouquet in words and photos. Here are my dear peonies and some lines – from poets and gardeners and ancient Chinese haiku artists — that pay them homage. Inhale deeply. Peony season, like life itself, is precious, fleeting.


IMG_9237Peonies


Heart-transplants my friend handed me:

four of her own peony bushes

in their fall disguise, the arteries

of truncated, dead wood protruding

from clumps of soil fine-veined with worms.

“Better get them in before the frost.”

And so I did, forgetting them

until their June explosion when

it seemed at once they’d fallen in love,

had grown two dozen pink hearts each.

Extravagance, exaggeration,

each one a girl on her first date,

excess perfume, her dress too ruffled,

the words he spoke to her too sweet—

but he was young; he meant it all.

And when they could not bear the pretty

weight of so much heart, I snipped

their dew-sopped blooms; stuffed them in vases

in every room like tissue-boxes

already teary with self-pity.

~ Mary Jo Salter


IMG_9219“The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty. . . . Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone.”


~ Robertson Davies, What’s Bred in the Bone


IMG_9224By the Peonies


The peonies bloom, white and pink.

And inside each, as in a fragrant bowl,

A swarm of tiny beetles have their conversation,

For the flower is given to them as their home.

Mother stands by the peony bed,

Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,

And looks for a long time into peony lands,

Where one short instant equals a whole year.

Then lets the flower go. And what she thinks

She repeats aloud to the children and herself.

The wind sways the green leaves gently

And speckles of light flick across their faces.

The charms of the ordinariness soothe the threat of anxiety.

~ Czeslaw Milosz


IMG_9214When the peonies bloomed,

It seemed as though were

No flowers around them.

~ Kiitsu


IMG_9198Peonies


This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

to break my heart

as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open–

pools of lace,

white and pink–

and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes

into the curls,

craving the sweet sap,

taking it away

to their dark, underground cities–

and all day

under the shifty wind,

as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,

and tip their fragrance to the air,

and rise,

their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness

gladly and lightly,

and there it is again–

beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.

Do you love this world?

Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

and softly,

and exclaiming of their dearness,

fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

their eagerness

to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

nothing, forever?

~ Mary Oliver


IMG_9228In the stillness,

Between the arrival of guests,

The peonies.

~ Buson


IMG_9226Dusk on the flower

Of the white peony,

That embraces the moon.

~ Gyodai


IMG_9185Peonies at Dusk


White peonies blooming along the porch

send out light

while the rest of the yard grows dim.

Outrageous flowers as big as human

heads! They’re staggered

by their own luxuriance: I had

to prop them up with stakes and twine.

The moist air intensifies their scent,

and the moon moves around the barn

to find out what it’s coming from.

In the darkening June evening

I draw a blossom near, and bending close

search it as a woman searches

a loved one’s face.

~ Jane Kenyon


IMG_9225The peonies have fallen,

We parted

Without regret.

~ Hokushi


IMG_9128What peonies!

one poem per flower

will not do

~ Ryumin


IMG_9132Though mine,

I hesitate to pluck

the peonies

~ Baishitsu


IMG_9213Half a mind

to dress up and bow down

to the peony

~ Shiki


IMG_9123“It always seemed to me that the herbaceous peony is the very epitome of June.  Larger than any rose, it has something of the cabbage rose’s voluminous quality; and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its petticoats with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty.”

~ Vita Sackville-West


FullSizeRender


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Published on June 15, 2016 15:58

June 4, 2016

happy reports

IMG_0198

The other morning, I snapped the leash onto Tess’s collar and headed out for a walk. We followed our old route, down the hill from our house, onto the bike path toward town, and home again. Nothing too ambitious, yet this was the first time in two years I’ve taken this particular four-mile walk without feeling pain. It was also the first time since having both of my hips replaced last winter that I felt confident enough in my new hardware, and in my healing, to risk having Tess lunge unexpectedly or pull me off balance. I’m strong enough now to hold onto her, strong enough to hike back up the hill without pausing to catch my breath, strong enough to do the whole loop in under an hour. And so it is that a daily ritual I once took for granted has been transformed into an experience that feels special, one I’m grateful for.


IMG_8921So much of what I’ve struggled with, and written about, over the last couple of years has had to do with loss and grief, what Jack Kornfield so evocatively calls “the storm clouds of the heart.” Sitting alone in a quiet room, finding words that both pay homage to the richness of human experience while also acknowledging how vulnerable I often feel in the face of that experience, has given me a way to come to terms with some of the inevitable challenges of growing older — the illnesses and deaths of dear friends, concern for the struggles of a young adult son, life chapters ending, intimate relationships transforming, elderly parents facing their mortality, a body that’s showing the wear and tear of nearly six decades of hard use.


I’ve sometimes wondered whether “ordinary days” would ever return. Or if in fact the best days were behind me now and my own “ordinary” would forever more be tinged with sadness, a kind of constant, chronic, low-grade grief, like the slight limp I’m learning to live with as result of having one leg that ended up being an eighth of an inch longer than the other.


The answer, it turns out, is no. The hitch in my gait is ever present. But sadness, most definitely, is not. The slow, demanding work of mourning what’s over gives way, in time, to the quiet peace of accepting what is. And just as the sky clears after a heavy rain, the storm clouds of the heart disperse. The sun shines again. It’s shining now.


A couple of weeks ago our family pulled off the rare accomplishment of gathering in the same town at the same time. Jack, who finished school in April, moved to Asheville, North Carolina, in May and resumed his job working in a wilderness therapy program for troubled adolescents. His schedule is such that he’s on duty out in the woods for a week and then off for a week. Fortuitously, one of Jack’s off-shifts coincided with a week-long break from touring for Henry, who flew in to Asheville to meet us. We rented a cabin and a car. Our surrogate daughter Lauren drove up from Atlanta to join us. And suddenly there we were – along with Jack’s new dog, Carol — walking along a trail through the botanical gardens on a beautiful spring morning.


IMG_0285.JPGTime was (not so very long ago) when an outing with the kids was utterly routine. As the mother of two boys I was always in search of some simple diversion to fill the day. But boys grow up. Life separates parents from their adult children. Jobs and friends and distant places take priority and even brief moments of togetherness can be nearly impossible to achieve. So this leisurely family walk felt somewhat miraculous – worthy of gratitude if not outright celebration.


And lately, gratitude, especially for the little things, has been my daily theme. Our family has always made a dinnertime practice when we’re together of going around the table and sharing something we feel grateful for. As we recently discovered, Lauren and her roommate Lindsay do the same thing at their house, but they have a special name for it, a hold-over from Lindsay’s childhood: Happy Reports.


I love this practice and I particularly love the way these two young women share the news of their day and the doings of their lives by choosing to focus, first and foremost, on what’s good. The words, “I am happy to report” can’t help but bring a smile to a listener’s face. We all did Happy Reports in Asheville and found that our evening meals began on just the right note of intimacy and gratitude as a result.


Steve and I carried Happy Reports home with us and are doing them still – a powerful antidote to a day’s petty grievances or the grim realities of the evening news. Happy reports are a reminder that even the most challenging day contains its moment of grace, if we are willing to seek it out. Happy reports are a way of affirming that we can choose our own responses to the roadblocks fate places in our way. Best of all, happy reports have a way of generating, well, more happiness.


And so, to that end:


I’m happy to report it’s June and once again the days are long and warm and generous. In our yard the lupines, iris, and foxgloves are in full, harmonious bloom. The lilacs were more lush and fragrant this year than they’ve ever been and the peonies are awaiting their moment to take center stage.


IMG_9010I’m happy to report that I can work all day in the garden, come in tired and dirty at dusk, and not even think of reaching for the bottle of ibuprofen. (This feels like a gift.)


IMG_9050.JPGI’m happy to report that I’ve cleaned the screened porch and we’ve already had four dinners and one birthday party out there, listening to the birds sing their evening songs as the sun slips behind the mountains.


IMG_9021.JPGI’m happy to report that our son Jack continues to walk his path of sobriety with a commitment and humility that makes me proud to be his mom. I’m happy to report that we talk on the phone just about every day. I’m happy to report that he’s happy.


I’m happy to report that Steve and I will drive to Providence on Sunday to catch a matinee of Bullets Over Broadway and a glimpse of Henry in the orchestra pit. After the show, he’ll have a week off before heading to Texas for the last leg of this long national tour. I’m happy to report he’ll be home in his old bedroom for the next seven days.


I’m happy to report that our expanded family means there’s more love to go around. Having Lauren join us in Asheville simply made it better – more conversation, more laughter, more fun, more precious memories stored up. And we are all nuts about Carol, a sweet little pup who appeared on Jack’s doorstep a few months ago in need of a home. Perhaps there was a bit of divine intervention there, for Carol came to Jack just as Jack found his way to the twelve steps. He was immediately smitten with her, adopted her, began to train her, and got her certified so she can accompany him to work in the woods. They are a good team both on the job and at home, and Carol is proving to have a knack for the therapeutic intervention: kisses, sock stealing, and tail chasing are all effective tension diffusers. (And although I don’t expect to be a grandmother any time soon, I’m happy to report that Carol seemed to awaken some of my dormant maternal hormones the moment I met her.)


Carol with toyI’m happy to report that my parents have completed the herculean task of emptying out the famly homestead of forty-five years and letting go of an enormous mountain of possessions – with grace and good humor and remarkable energy. I’m happy to report that, after living with us for three weeks, they are finally at home in their new, light-filled cottage and we are now almost-neighbors. I’m happy to report that I can go have lunch with my mom any day – and the drive from my door to hers takes exactly eight minutes.


Although there’s no turning away from the truth of loss or suffering, I’m happy to report that at this particular moment no one in our immediate family is sick or confused or in crisis. I’m happy to report that I’m old enough to know that such a brief, blessed reprieve is all any of us can ever hope for. The clear skies won’t (can’t) last. And when the storm clouds roll back in and the emotional weather of my own life once again takes a dark turn, I also know I’ll somehow manage to gather my courage, reach for a friend’s hand, brave the elements, and carry on.


FullSizeRender.jpgI’m happy to report that with each passing year, the ordinary feels more extraordinary, simple kindnesses matter more, time with family and cherished loved ones becomes increasingly precious, and life’s small enrichments bring greater contentment to my heart than any material riches ever could.


IMG_8998.JPGDone! (As Lauren and Lindsay always say.) And now, my friends, it’s your turn. What is your happy report today? I’d love to hear it!


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Published on June 04, 2016 15:08

April 19, 2016

downsizing, 10 things my mom taught me & a Mother’s Day offer

IMG_8557In a few weeks my parents will say good-bye to the antique red house surrounded by woods and fields that has meant “home” to our family for nearly forty-five years. At eighty and seventy-nine, my folks could have chosen assisted living or even a simple condo for this next chapter of their lives. Instead, in good health and always game for a project, they’ve built themselves a small, fully accessible cottage on a pond just eight minutes from where my husband and I live now. Still, this move calls for a major downsizing. And as anyone who’s helped an elderly parent move knows all too well, letting go can be tricky emotional territory, for both generations.IMG_0433


Our old family homestead is a charming Cape built in 1765, with many original details intact but enhanced by a spacious later addition, designed by my parents and complete with a porch, master suite, spa, and a generous living room. Filled with the antiques and special pieces my mom collected over the decades, each nook and cranny of the house is cozy and welcoming and uniquely beautiful. My mother’s special touch is in evidence at every turn – a collection of birds’ nests displayed on an old glass table, a row of white ironstone pitchers on the mantle, a small, antique oil painting propped amongst the gardening books, a wicker chair in a sunny corner.


The new, small cottage has a different feel altogether – spare and clean and open, with white walls and simple, modern lines. A few of my parents’ favorite things are making the move with them. Most of their furnishings and possessions, however, either won’t fit or just don’t “go” in their new, downsized quarters.


IMG_8581Months ago, at my parents’ request, my brother and I did a walk-through of our childhood home, looking for things we might want for our own houses, taking measurements and promising my parents we’d get back to them with our lists. I don’t know about my brother and his wife, but Steve and I found it hard to return to our own fully furnished house and see places where a mahogany table or an old pine bookcase might fit. I stuck my list of “possibles” in a file folder and let it sit there.


Now, though, the time of reckoning has arrived. On Sunday Steve and I spent the morning helping my dad do one last spring clean-up in the yard. My mom, who’s been busy packing boxes for days, was eager for me to start relieving her of the some of the things I’d told her I might want. She handed me an empty box and suggested I begin filling it. “Whatever you kids don’t take,” she warned, “will become part of the estate sale.”


IMG_8575Last week there was an article making the rounds on Facebook titled “Memo to Parents: Your Adult Kids Don’t Want Your Stuff.” It did strike a chord. As it happens, I find myself stuck right in the middle of this dilemma – already hopefully stashing kids’ toys, old dishes and flatware, and a perfectly good kitchen table in a rented storage space for our own young adult children, just as my parents are hoping we will step up now and relieve them of some of their furnishings.


Of course, in the big-picture view of things this is not a terrible problem to have. My parents are of sound mind and body. They are not going against their will into a nursing home but joyfully (though not without some tears and hard moments) into a small, new home that suits their needs now. They can decide for themselves what to bring and what to leave behind.


And then there’s this: I adore my mom’s taste. As a little girl, I loved our Sunday mornings spent in search of treasures at the flea market, our leisurely road trips to New England antiques stores, the long summer days we’d spend together at country auctions and estate sales, eating donuts and waiting for a particular rocking chair or serving platter to be held aloft. My mother’s aesthetic shaped mine. Or perhaps we developed a certain style together, by virtue of all those enjoyable hours spent looking and pondering and choosing. She always was my best friend and we’ve almost always seen eye to eye.


IMG_7775Growing up, I watched our quirky old house take shape over time, piece by carefully chosen piece. I saw how every faded rug or wooden shingle or china bird figurine my mother added brought character and charm to a room. In high school the first piece of furniture I bought with my own money was an antique birds-eye maple dresser I spotted for sale outside someone’s garage. I knew my mom would think it was as beautiful as I did. It’s the dresser that sits in my bedroom now, nearly forty years later. Little wonder then that these days, as I help her shop for a rug for her new living room and pick fabric for the window seat, we are still drawn immediately to the same things. “Yes,” we say in unison. “This is perfect.”


And so the hard part here is not that I don’t want my mom’s stuff. It’s that I have a house that’s already full — full of things that are just like hers. Still. I’m looking around again. The rug my grandmother hooked by hand will look lovely in the guest room. There’s a place for the bookcase after all. The small gold- framed mirror will go somewhere. I’m making room.


FullSizeRenderIn the meantime, knowing I don’t have space for very many of the beautiful things my mom has collected over the years, I’m thinking instead of the gifts she’s given me that take up no room whatsoever – the lessons she’s taught me by example that have shaped me into the person I became. Here, the ten that come immediately to mind:


Ten Lessons I Learned from My Mom


How to have faith in my kids — even when they don’t have faith in themselves.


How to pick my battles – and how to let go of the small stuff.


How to listen well — even when I’d rather be talking.


How to find joy in simple things and to see beauty in the details.


How to put family first.


How to make a house a home.


How to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for 35 people and make it look easy. (I have yet to road-test this one.)


How to make everyone who walks through the door feel welcome.


How to forgive.


How to grow old with grace and good humor.


Mother’s Day is around the corner. If you’re lucky enough to still have your mother, or if there’s a woman in your life who has ever offered you a kind maternal hand, let her know how grateful you are. Mother’s Day is the perfect time to forgive your mom for being flawed and to celebrate her for being human. We may have trouble putting our love and our gratitude into words, but actions speak for themselves. (So, my friends, do something nice!)


Back by popular demand: Once again this year, in honor of Mother’s Day, I’m offering personalized, signed, gift-wrapped copies of all of my books at special discounted rates. Details below.


And finally this:  I’ve always wanted to write about my sixteenth summer, when my parents grounded me.  Finally, I did. It’s online here and also on news stands now in the May issue of Family Circle magazine.  (I just love that Family Circle was willing to publish such a story. Be sure to check out my racy summer of ’75 reading list, too. What were YOU reading at 16??)



books!   
signed, sealed, delivered, they’re yours 
–- in time for mother’s day

IMG_2078Want to order a signed book (or several) for the special moms in your life? It’s easy. Here’s how:


1. Click here.


(Note: This link will brings you to my own landing page on my husband’s website, Earth, Sky & Water.  Steve sells beautiful posters, note cards, and laminated nature identification guides. And because his business is already all set up to take online orders and fulfill them quickly, he’s kindly offered to handle this special sale for me. While you’re there, feel free to browse his offerings, too!)


2. Want your book(s) personalized for a special person? Send me an email at klewers@tds.net.  Include the book title you’ve ordered, the name for the inscription, and any special message you’d like me to write.


3. If I don’t hear from you via email, I’ll simply sign your book(s), gift-wrap them, and have them sent to the address specified.


4. For Mother’s Day only, I’m offering a special price that includes free gift-wrap by yours truly.


5. Hurry!  Deadline for all orders is Friday, April 29.



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Published on April 19, 2016 14:40

March 16, 2016

expectations

IMG_8239Before we can change anything in our life, we have to recognize that this is the way it is meant to be right now. For me, acceptance has become what I call the long sigh of the soul. It’s the closed eyes in prayer, perhaps even the quiet tears. It’s “all right,” as in “All right, You lead, I’ll follow.” And it’s “all right” as in “Everything is going to turn out all right.” This is simply part of the journey.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, from Simple Abundance


I was pretty confident I would be a kind of poster child for hip replacement recovery. I’m relatively young, not overweight, in decent shape for someone who’s been slowed down by advancing osteoarthritis for two years. In all that time, despite encroaching pain, I did my best to keep exercising. I continued my daily yoga practice, albeit a modified practice using blocks and a chair and bolsters. I waited a full year to see a highly recommended surgeon at one of the country’s best orthopedic hospitals. I scheduled my surgeries for 6 weeks apart at the end of 2105, so I could begin the new year with two new hips.


And I figured that if I followed instructions to the letter, did my physical therapy religiously, and didn’t push too far or too fast, I’d soon resume my old, normal life. Some people had warned, “This is major surgery.” But others said, “It’s no big deal.” Those were the ones I chose to believe. I was nervous, of course. But this had already been a long road. (I wrote about that here.) And within a few days of my second surgery, I had myself convinced I would negotiate this little patch of rough ground easily and soon be back on course with my life.


Yes, that’s called an “expectation.” And you’d think I’d know by now that getting attached to an expectation is a good recipe for disappointment.


About six weeks ago, I had to ask well-intentioned friends to stop sending me YouTube videos meant to lift my spirits and urge me on. There are plenty of inspiring hip replacement stories out there. I’ve watched the sixty year old woman doing yoga three weeks after her hip replacement. And the forty-eight–year-old former gymnast as she kicked her legs up around her shoulders without missing a beat.


roxasI marveled at the guy who threw his crutches away three days after surgery and was doing martial arts and kickboxing a few months later. I visited the website for post-op runners and read their stories of training for and completing marathons with bionic hips. The fifty-five-year-old Alvin Ailey dancer is gorgeous and amazing. As is the tap dancer. Yep, tap dancing, three weeks after surgery.


So impressive, every one of them. And so not my story.


Which is to say, I will not be joining the HipRunners club or sharing my recovery on dancerhips.com.


A few weeks after my second hip replacement, on the left side, I began to notice increasing pain and weakness in my left leg. Having already relegated my crutches to the basement, I retrieved them. The pain got worse. And then it became excruciating. X-rays showed there was nothing wrong with the new hardware and blood work confirmed there was no infection. And with that, my highly respected surgeon pretty much lost interest. “Take it easy,” he said.


The day after that appointment, I flew to Florida, fighting back tears with every step and dependent on the kindness of strangers to help me board the plane. My parents met me at the other end, surprised to see how much ground I’d lost. I’d planned this trip to their house here months ago, with the thought (the expectation) that by the time I arrived, I’d be almost back to “normal.” I pictured myself outside walking every day, adding miles, getting back to full speed.


Instead, for the first couple of weeks here, my mom took care of me. I spent hours those first days online, until I was finally able to diagnose myself: ischial bursitis. This debilitating inflammation can be caused by a discrepancy in leg length (check), extended periods of sitting (check), trauma to the region (check).   There is no cure but rest and time, pain management, and then, eventually, exercises to begin to strengthen the atrophied muscles.


I’m better now. Most of the pain is gone. But it’s been almost three months since my last surgery, and I’m a  long way from kicking up my heels. I still have weakness in my groin area. I have a limp. My left leg is shorter than my right, and that is something I’m going to have to live with. None of this is what I expected.


And so I’ve done a lot of thinking over these last weeks about expectations. I can certainly relate to Calvin and Hobbes creat0r Bill Watterson’s line, “I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations.”


Because, really, so much of the disappointment we experience in life has to do with the gap between the way we think something ought to be and the reality of what actually pans out. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t watched all those videos of the hip replacement superstars. I might have had an easier time, psychologically anyway, if I’d set out down this path with a bit less ego and expectation, and with more humility and curiosity instead. Bodies are unpredictable, after all, and surgery is an art not a science. There are no guarantees.


And so, I come to the end of this long-awaited time in Florida with new perspective on the process of healing. The physical setback meant I had no choice but to go into one-day-at a-time mode. And having to readjust all my expectations brought me to a place I didn’t expect to be: starting over again at square one. Instead of sailing through these surgeries and the aftermath with flying colors, I sat on the edge of the bed here at my parents house six weeks ago and wondered how I was going to lift my foot high enough to get my underpants on.


“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,” observes Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, “but in the expert’s there are few.”


Pain makes you a beginner. Moment by moment, day by day, you learn what your body will tolerate. You figure out what helps and what movements to avoid at all costs. And suddenly, with pain as your teacher, you are really, really awake and really, really paying attention. Simple movements that you once did mindlessly – carrying the tea kettle to the stove, getting into a car, standing up from the toilet – demand the kind of awareness and integrity you used to bring to an advanced yoga pose you were trying for the first time.


IMG_8100I’ve had nearly two months in this lovely house with a pool and a hot tub overlooking a canal. I’ve had time with my mom, time with Henry, and now, before Steve joins me for a short vacation, I have two utterly quiet weeks all alone. I’ve had hours each day to stretch, to do exercises in the water, and to experiment on my yoga mat, slowly rebuilding strength and flexibility. What I’ve accomplished wouldn’t make for much of a video, but it feels like progress to me. Both of my legs are getting stronger. And I’ve also learned a few hard lessons about releasing expectations.


When it comes to my body now, I have to accept that there’s much I can’t control. What I can do instead is attend to it. The difference is major. Attending means listening, observing, accepting.  It means working with what is rather than grasping for something out of reach. The path to wellness turns out to be more mysterious and unpredictable than I knew, which makes it scarier and more confusing. But it also makes it beautiful. Because as pain slowly eases its grip, what comes seeping into that tender place is gratitude.


IMG_0183Yesterday, I took my first real walk outside without using hiking poles for support. It felt like liberation – and like cause for celebration. I walked slowly, thinking about every step, carefully placing heels and toes, focusing on creating a smooth gait. And what I thought about wasn’t that I’m not running or dancing or executing pigeon poses on my yoga mat. I thought about how fabulous it felt to take a walk.


I watched the sky change colors and the clouds turn golden as the sun sank away. I listened to the mourning doves calling back and forth from their perches on the utility wires above my head. I felt the breeze on my skin and the long muscles in my inner thighs that still need strengthening and the awkwardness of having legs that don’t quite match up. But I also felt like myself. Not the old self, who used to run through these neighborhoods, pounding the pavement and dripping sweat, but me, nonetheless: present, in my body, in the world, and still moving. Oh, and happy.


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Published on March 16, 2016 08:10

February 25, 2016

the family we choose

IMG_2949“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.”

~ Chinese proverb


I always wanted a daughter. Last year, I finally got one.


She arrived not as a newborn into my arms, but into my heart instead, and fully grown. And yet the mysterious, compelling process of attachment has changed us both. Perhaps that’s because as long as we’re fully engaged in forging deeper relationships with others, we’re also continuously being formed ourselves, sculpted and honed by the invisible hand of love.


The first email from my daughter-to-be came a couple of years ago, through my website:


Hello…. Today I watched the Ordinary Day video and found myself crying in my cube at work. I am not a mother (yet). I am a Connecticut native who became a transplant in Atlanta – working and dating with no long-lasting luck.


Your video moved me because even though I am 32 years old, I have always longed for my parents, or perhaps more so my Mom, to share with me her feelings like you did. . . .Funny enough, I am much like you: Nostalgic, and with a plethora of stories of the five kids I grew up babysitting, and I long for those “ordinary days” even for myself!”


Lauren wanted to order a book for herself and one to give to her cousin for Mother’s Day. And, Lauren being Lauren, she wanted to make her gift special by having me inscribe it.


That was the beginning – an innocuous exchange similar to hundreds of others I’ve had over the years. But, Lauren being Lauren, she followed up her request for books with a thank you note. What’s more, she told me she’d now read The Gift of an Ordinary Day and sensed in me a kindred spirit, the kind of mother she herself aspired to be one day.


Fast forward a few months, to early autumn 2013. My son Jack was moving to Atlanta to begin school in October and I was flying down with him, to rent a car and help him set up housekeeping in a new apartment. Lauren, now a regular reader of my blog, sent an email.


The gist: I live about ten minutes from where Jack will be. I’m sure you’ll be busy, but if you have time for a cup of coffee, I’d love to dash over to the campus and meet you two. And then, if Jack ever needs a ride to the airport, or tickets to a Hawks game, or a friend in Smyrna, he’ll have someone to call.


The three of us had that cup of coffee. We hit it off. In fact, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to part on that bright October morning with hugs and promises to stay in touch. And we did. Jack and Lauren met for breakfast a few times and he took her up on her offer to drive him to the airport. We exchanged more letters. When she came home to Connecticut for Christmas, I invited her to New Hampshire for a visit.


IMG_2950This is so not the usual me. Introverted by nature, protective of my space, I don’t enter into new relationships lightly or often. But from the beginning there was something different here — what Lauren called “a wink” — as if some larger forces were at work.


And so it was that within minutes of arriving at our house for the first time, Lauren was up to her elbows in dough, making sausage balls with Henry for Christmas breakfast. When I flew to Georgia to visit Jack last February, she invited me to stay in her guest room. And  once again, the universe winked: what was meant to be a quick three-night stay turned into a whole week, as one snowstorm after another, all up and down the east coast, resulted in a series of canceled flights.


Lauren loaned me a cozy bathrobe and a winter hat, brought me coffee in bed each morning and, on long walks through her neighborhood, shared with me the story of her life, from her parents’ divorce when she was eleven through the ups and downs of her online dating career. I taught her how to make my salad dressing, introduced her to the short stories of Laurie Colwin, and to the grace our family says when we’re all gathered at the table. We took Jack out for dinner one night and on another invited him over for a candlelit meal at her table.


We spent our time just the way I’d have spent a lovely, uneventful week with my own flesh-and-blood daughter, if I had one. And moment by moment, as we walked and talked and listened, we got to know each other better. Stirring soup and making banana bread, watching Downton Abbey, browsing the neighborhood shops, reading side by side in silence or working quietly on our laptops, our easy, companionable togetherness slowly, imperceptibly turned into something more, something I can only describe as kinship.


By the time I finally did get on a northbound plane, Lauren and I were a done deal: bound for life. And when I landed in New Hampshire, there was an email waiting for me: “I’m completely charmed by your nurturing presence and big heart. I also think you would have been an ideal mother to a daughter, so I’ll gladly and graciously be your girl, if you’ll have me!”


These days, I often refer – only half-jokingly — to “my three kids.” In fact, those three young adults have grown close, forging their own sibling relationships with each other, just as Lauren and Steve have created an affectionate father-daughter bond. Without any urging from me, our family simply got bigger. And better.


What I’ve learned over the last year, as these unexpected, precious relationships have deepened, is that motherhood isn’t just a matter of biology and blood. To mother another human being is to love that person wholeheartedly, both for who they are and also for who they could yet be. It’s a willingness to be present, to bear witness to another’s journey. It’s an act of recognition.


IMG_7443Here’s what I think: Just as in the exhilarating moments after birth, when two souls meet, so too can a mother and her spiritual child find each other at any time when hearts are open, and at any twist or turn in the path. And when it happens, there’s a flash of affinity, a kind of deep acknowledgement, a sense of ancient, inexplicable knowing.


I can’t say whether it was grace or God or serendipity that offered me and a sensitive young woman from Atlanta the opportunity to forge a connection that satisfies a longing in us both, but ours is surely a sacred alliance. To me, being a mom these days – whether to my own two sons or to my cherished surrogate daughter – is about seeing and nurturing the essential beauty in each of these young people, believing in their growth, inspiring them to realize their deepest potential even as they inspire me, in return, to realize mine.


“I think I willed you to me,” Lauren wrote me the other day, in a letter that prompted me to ponder our special bond – and to write these reflections down. She continued:


I don’t know any other way to express this thought other than to say my soul had been searching for you. . . .Perhaps the biggest misconception is that we assume that you can only mother little kids, and that adults don’t need to be mothered. But look at us – I’m 35 and you’re 57. There’s no right or wrong time to connect, or to mother someone you didn’t bring into the world. Your kids flew the nest, and doesn’t that just mean they need you now in a different way? And now you’ve got me, too, updating you on potential matches, sharing books, advice, love, stories. I think about how I met you after years of working on some really difficult things, and while I don’t view myself as a wounded bird, there is a part of me that you saved. This entire last year would have been a completely different experience for me if you weren’t in my life. I believe that deeply. And no one would have been able to predict this connection on that morning you first treated me to coffee at Life University.


I’m glad the love flows in both directions, and I’m glad I have you as a mother in my life. I may no longer be held safely within the village of my youth, but I’m pretty sure your presence in my village today is just as special and important, simply because I choose you every day.”


It’s often said we can choose our friends but not our families. Not so. I’ve chosen a daughter and she’s chosen me. There are years we missed (no adolescent angst to recall, no funny anecdotes from childhood to laugh about), but no matter. Ours is a potent alchemy, one in which we are both being asked to stretch, to trust, to reveal our own vulnerabilities and shadows and yet to remain in sight, present for one another through life’s sweet joys and its inevitable sorrows. An invisible thread has connected us — and the blessing flows both ways.


FullSizeRender-6


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Published on February 25, 2016 17:41