Thin Places

I'm writing from the 15th floor of a chic boutique hotel in the fabulous city of Chicago. Michael and I have been traveling a bit these past two weeks, three states in ten days. Much more than we usually travel, but what a wonderful way to explore and experience life. It does take some mental strength for me to see beyond the hectic schedule- rearranging and allow myself to transition quicker than I like to.  As with running or swimming, I do best when I have a chance to warm up before finding my pace.  I also face a twinge of mother-guilt when we're not home to share dinner and stories.  Fortunately, Meg and Owen have learned how to transition well, between activities, between two homes, and texting has come in handy for staying in  touch with their generation.  They were able to join us on our trip to San Diego which made all this traveling easier and added a level of value to it because it allowed them to see how and what we do when we travel.  Basically, we find a body of water to swim in, we run to become familiar with our surroundings, we eat foods specially known to the region ( fish tacos in San Diego, grits in North Carolina, deep-dish pizza in Chicago), we visit the art museums, look for retro/vintage shops, and whatever else comes our way. Tonight, we have tickets to the Second City Comedy Club which is where many of the Saturday Night Live and other famous comedians have made their debut, John Belushi, Tina Fey, Steve Carrell to name a few.

With all the traveling we do, and we have been to some remarkable and memorable places like Paris, London, Barcelona, and Beijing, but none have given me the sense of a "thin place" quite like the places closest to me. What is a thin place?  I only recently heard of it, in an article I read from the travel section in The New York Times. A thin place is described as a place where “we become our more essential selves.”  It is often sacred, but need not be.  Its location, population, or its cultural reverence, does not matter.  What matters is that it both invigorates and calms the senses, a place you feel alive and safe.  You cannot plan a trip to a thin place.  There can be no expectations.  I suspect, only a veil separates you between heaven and earth, where I imagine, the veil feels like skin.

For me, the garden is a thin place.  So is Nauset beach and Skaket beach, and Herridge’s Bookstore, and Michael’s skin.  These are places where I can breathe, feel air.  I can let thoughts in my head get wet, rinse, spin out. The colors, the smells, the textures burst.

The garden is earth and heaven.  Dirt under the fingernails makes it real.  Sprinkled seeds in a quarter-inch row open to sky. Thick, dark soil, full of possibility, smudges my jeans. The smell of roots, rock, and left-over kale mixes with sun and rain. Always a weed to pull.

To swim at Skaket beach is to ride across land and sea where the pink vista hypnotizes, waves sing me a lullaby, and sand flats cast a spell. It teeters two visions: the verduous depths of the sea and blue with a sun.

Nauset beach has its own magical way of carrying my bare feet along the firm sand. I love how it exposes itself like a Polaroid picture when the tide ebbs. I connect the rocks, casted like stars, with my sandy toes.  Michael runs zig-zag in softer sand beside me and we stride to the furthest point, free of beachgoers, and free for a quick skinny-dip.  The head of a seal, like a periscope, is our only witness.

Drive towards Wellfleet Harbor at dusk and you will see the light on in a little house, piled with books.  Herridge’s Bookstore smells of dust and cedar. I never make it past the first few feet on my left.  Here,the poetry books sit on disheveled shelves.  Michael finds his place a few feet to the right in the art corner.  Two feet behind me are the young adult books, a genre I’ve never outgrown.  The owner, with his easy smile, chats on the telephone to his neighbor.  In this space, nine feet by twelve, I have all the time in the world. 

 

Under well-worn cotton sheets, where my form traces his, I find the space I long for most.  Smells of linseed oil, chlorine( in the winter when we cannot swim open water) and sweat intertwine, and the hum of night seeps in from the window above our heads, a Christmas candle light still taped to the sill.  My essential self sleeps.

I loved the description of a "thin place." It made me think of mine, and realize you don't have to go far to find it.

"It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” – Lucille Ball

Thank you carrot friends for allowing the space to speak of  matters important to me, and for sharing what I find beauty and truth in, and hopefully inspire you to do too. What are your thin places?

xo bess

Call Me Bess

When I was in college, my best friend and I took an Introduction to Jazz class.  It was a welcomed break from the conservative sciences of Physical Therapy's core curriculum, and the diversity of students was terrifyingly more interesting, in a good way. Wild hair, nose rings, drumsticks tapping us on our shoulders.  This was how the other half of the campus lived and I loved it.

We learned to sit in a room with headphones and count the beats to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Coltrane. Carlene was a quicker study because of her high school band days.  My high school days of soccer was no match.  I shouldn't have quit  piano when I was nine, but there I was, engrossed in the rhythm of sound...was it a trumpet or trombone?  And then there were the great ladies of jazz--Ella, Lena, Bessie.  For an entire semester we became them.  Carlene took Lena, Maureen took Ella, and I took Bessie.  We crooned our hearts out, karoke-style in our dorm rooms, studying of course.

Carlene, never stopped calling me Bessie, eventually shortened to Bess.  She even named her daughter after me...Tess ( it rhymed with Bess). When Michael heard her call me Bess, he immediately caught on...yes, Bess is your name.  He had a favorite Nana Bess, and now he had me.

Michael and Carlene are the only two that use that name...the two people that know my most intimate self, but I'm ready to share, to open the name up to the creative world.  Christine, I'm sorry to say, doesn't have a poetic sound, and being a lover and writer of poetry, it just won't do.  I've tried.  I've submitted a few pieces of poetry and exhibited under my given name, but it doesn't resonate with my emerging poetic self. Bess is singing in my ears...Love, oh love, oh careless love/ You fly through my head like wine.

Patience of a Raisin

It takes one month and twenty-three days for a cluster of grapes to become raisins.  That is how long it took us to make our own raisins.  We were staying at a chic boutique hotel in NYC last month and ordered oatmeal for breakfast, our favorite. Atop the milky oats, were the plumpest raisins we've ever seen, and we were surprised when we had trouble getting them on our spoon.  That is because they were still attached to a stem. Homemade raisins...what a great idea!

We like to take something of our travels back home with us, and not always something material, but a creative idea or an inspiration sparked by our experiences. Our stay at this boutique hotel gave us the idea to keep a large bowl of walnuts to crack on our counter.  The bowl says come in, crack a walnut, let's have conversation. We were also inspired to make our own raisins.  So our next bunch of grapes stayed on the counter for fifty-three days.  We never imagined it would take so long, but how interesting it was to watch the gradual process of grapes shriveling to become a gourmet oatmeal-topper.

The drying stems turned to gnarled talons clinging to the ceramic fruit carton on the counter. The green fruit tinged brown and turned browner by the day, the week. Dehydration and depletion isn't pretty. A small reminder to drink plenty of water and also a thoughtful pause on the aging process.

 A youthful grape takes on the renewed life of a ripened raisin. It is sweet!


And in honor of National Poetry Month here is a poem for you...happy poetry reading and sweet patience!

Patience by Kay Ryan

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

The Company Kept

A canvas rests on the leg of a bench.
He bends to add another layer of landscape at dusk
to the one started months ago.
No need to rush,
it's the company kept.
Aside an artist, dear and kin
to art and love, unspoken
affinity to be amongst
still clouds, marsh silence,
the settled sea.
                       (thoughts for a poem I'm thinking of..)

I met with my mentor today. She is wonderful!  I have been meeting with her for two years now and she has helped me grow tremendously as a writer and an emerging poet, but more than that she keeps me smiling all day. She is one of those people in my life that I want to be around, that I get such a creative and energetic surge when I am.  She makes me think, and laugh. I am grateful to have a few of these people in my life.

The above thoughts are from a scene when Michael and a dear friend of ours were painting "plein air" in Truro, MA.  My daughter Megan and I were writing nearby. We were all absorbed in the stillness and serenity of the marsh. I was surrounded by three of my favorite people and immersed in the present moment with no distractions, except for listening to a paintbrush fall below the wooden dock.  Was it Michael's or Nancy's?

To have moments such as these is a gift. To have people in our lives such as these is an even greater gift.
I call them "my people".  The ones I feel no walls between or the need to build them. The ones I can be vulnerable with and the ones to trust when I cannot hear my own voice.  They are the greatest company kept.


In an increasingly distracting and distorted world, I find it a necessity to spend my energy wisely, to keep it centered and simple.  Michael and I often "turn off"  the never-ending information systems that overload. How and who we spend our time with is vital to our growth.  We keep rooted with each other and our carrot friends.

Which, by the way, we planted multicolored carrots. I  can't wait to see them sprout. And our peas that we planted in March our doing great!

Keep rooted!

Pick the Dandelions

Dandelions are tough, lawless vagrants. They may be the most infamous of weeds and the most resilient. They form deep roots and do not let go of the earth easily. Most of us try to rid our lawns of them to keep a manicured setting. It is easy to become distracted by the thing that doesn't belong, a compulsion, and sometimes guilty pleasure to grab hold and pull them out, if you're lucky to get hold of the whole root, but truly, a bit of color never hurts.

As it turns out, Dandelions can be quite tasty, their greens at least. I found a gem of a book at the "free store" we have adjacent to the town dump.  You can drop off stuff, and pick up stuff, everything from furniture, clothes, appliances, books, albums, you name it. We have found many a treasure.  The book I am referring to is titled The Home Gardener's Cookbook, written in 1974, by Marjorie Page Blanchard.  She discusses the relevance of each month to the garden.  In January, it is time to order your seeds, and she lists all her favorites.  In February, she entices the reader to start diagramming their garden plot and to consider adding a small orchard! March has the "maple moon" and in April, it's about the Dandelions.  Included in each chapter of each month is a recipe or two.  She recommends adding it to tired salads, as it is a welcome spring tonic.  Pick them young before the flower blossoms. And for those adventurous cooks here is an old Pennsylvania Dutch recipe for a dressing delicious on the bitter greens:

Bibs Brown's Dressing for Dandelions

Cut 4 slices of bacon into small pieces and cook.  Pour off all but 3 tbsp. of fat.  When bacon is crisp, add 1 heaping tsp. of flour and stir smooth.  Brown this mixture.  In a bowl crack 2 eggs and beat just enough to break yolks. Add about 1/2 tsp. salt and about 3/4 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup vinegar.  Add 2 tbsp. milk or cream.  Mix all together and pour into bacon batter and cook. Add 2 chopped hard-cooked eggs.  Pour over dandelion greens.  Add more sugar or vinegar if necessary.

A friend of mine says a "weed is a wildflower looking for a home." My favorite thing about Dandelions is their snow when you blow on them, and their seeds scatter and sow a wish or two. Maybe these weeds can stay. Just maybe a bouquet of Dandelion blossoms will make your day.

Our Highest Potential Selves

With Easter Sunday and Passover approaching it is, for many, a time of reflection of what religion means to them.  We hold our beliefs in a manner shaped by personal experience. Whatever your faith, may it be a positive realm in your life.

I was raised in a loving, traditional Catholic family yet my experiences have led me to a choice of religion similar to Emily Dickinson.  Running trails, swimming in the sea, gardening, and noticing the simple acts of nature are when I feel the humblest, and the grandest. The potential of our highest selves is what I call "God". We all hold this potential.  It is our truth. It is our beauty.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church/I keep it, staying at home ( FR. 236) is one of Emily Dickinson's poems declaring her religion of choice. Simple as it may read, Emily's attitude towards spiritual matters was thoughtful and complex, and a recurrent, progressive theme in her poetry. She chose not to attend church, not out of defiance, but to have the freedom to think for herself. Satisfied with the family minister's assurance that Emily's spiritual health was "sound", her father built a small sun porch for her as a place of worship. There, in addition to the cupola she loved to inhabit, she witnessed nature's unabashed character and found sanctity.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church --
I keep it, staying at Home --
With a Bobolink for a Chorister --
And an Orchard, for a Dome --

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice --
I just wear my Wings --
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton -- sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman --
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last --
I'm going, all along.

The poem Sunday Morning is a reflection of my thoughts on religion and nature:

Sunday Morning

Before dissonance must sit

starched in a pew,

wearing a Sunday dress too big

and shined shoes too small,

I will let her limbs unfold, and run--

slow by the old barn, fast

past the hounds behind

the chicken-wired fence,

across the bridge,

and through the pines

which sway over water’s edge,

then toward higher ground

where Jonah’s Rock waits--

Jonah prays in the belly of a fish

a trilogy of nights,

Jesus lies in a cave three days, and I,

I run three miles.

Quick-stepping along Stone Row,

I nod to question marks

that punctuate each bend.

Naked arms and legs catch

crab apple petal snow.

I reach the steep hill

that will not end. I claw its earth.

Hands smudged with dirt understand.

My feet slip, but still follow

this path to the stained-glass field

of red-wings, lupine, and Queen Ann’s Lace.

At last, my breath can lift her head.

The hum of stillness in me quakes.

Wings swoop the sky.

Wishing all carrot friends a Happy Easter, Passover, or simply a Happy Nature Day!

 

Reserves for a Lifetime

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts" -Rachel Carson

  

Rachel Carson, scientist and author of several books, her most influential being Silent Spring,  wished for all to sense the wonder of nature.  She wrote of our basic need to notice, appreciate, and respect our natural world.  There is no easier time to do this than Spring. And we are lucky here in New England to be getting an early taste.

With an unusually mild winter, followed by record-setting high temperatures one fabulous week in March, many of us chose to start an early crop.  The soil was warm, and buds were opening, it only seemed right. As my sister pointed out, for the cost of a packet of seeds, there is nothing to lose, but everything to gain. The joy in watching sprouts appear is perpetual. 

We got one of our gardens going. So far, we have pea sprouts, lettuce, and kale that have appeared. Also,the rhubarb has returned on its own merit.  With the turn to colder weather, we followed a tip that our friends in Florida have done, and that is to pour warm water over them.  I'll let you know how we make out.

We saw that our friend Farmer Frank had his blue Ford tractor parked in front of the barn, the sure sign he is getting ready for the season. Check out my poem Rotondo Farm on Rt. 62. Before we got to know Frank, his farm stand inspired this poem.

Other wonders that have us skipping are, what I call, the purple stars of Spring.  They are the Glory of the Snow, the Wood Hyacinths, the Grape Hyacinths, the Crocuses, and the blue-bell shaped blooms of the Siberian Squill.  They, along with the Jonquils, are all playing Ring-a-Round the Rosie with the poised-to-open Magnolia tree.

The Daffodils and fountains of Forsythias are gushing Spring....

and one other sure sign...the Herring are running!

For those that are unfamiliar with a Herring Run, check out the Stony Brook Herring Run in Brewster, MA.