.....reciprocity

Yogis,
You know how when you notice something, then you suddenly can’t stop noticing it? That has been ivy for me these last couple weeks.

English ivy or common ivy, the kind you picture climbing up the buildings of ivy league schools, was brought to the US as early as 1727 by the European settlers. Everyone loved it because it stays green all year, fills in bare areas and requires no care. But we loved it a bit too much and it is now invasive and threatens our forested areas.

I have plenty of experience with ivy since my old house, this house and our beach house all came with ivy included in the purchase price. Being young and naïve I thought it looked cool as it began covering the foundation and the base of trees, but as I and it matured, I learned the hard way how heavy a hand you have to use to rein it in. Ivy in the yard is not for the weak.

Each spring, I spend time removing ivy and other invasive vines (of which there are several new ones) from my trees. Cutting them back at the ground, pulling up roots when possible and cutting vines as high up as I can reach to make sure they don’t reconnect. I swear when I pulled the last vine off a small holly in my woods yesterday, she stood up straighter and shined. Trees appreciate our care.

Reciprocity.

Trees give to us every single day. Shade on those hottest summer days, warmth from the winter winds, fruit, nuts, wood for our firepits, the couch we sit on…….and the very air we breathe.  They provide shelter for birds, housing for insects and stability to our ground. They give and give and give. And what do we do other than take and take and take. That’s the question of reciprocity.

Lately as I walk through our town or along the river all I see are trees being smothered by ivy. All you have to do is look up!

Ivy starts to climb innocently enough offering greenery against brown bark. Soon it thickens. It continues to rise and engulf the trunk. When it finally reaches the branches it starts covering leaves blocking the process of photosynthesis. You begin to see limbs looking ragged. Branches begin falling. The tree is smothered if it isn’t first blown over by strong wind due to the weight of the ivy. It is a slow drawn out death.

I wasn’t going to write about this today. I know we don’t have the capacity to go in the woods and remove all the ivy and thought this would be like a yell into the dark. Then yesterday we went to visit the grandkids. As I walked in the door my grandson came running and grabbed my hand to show me their old raggedy pear tree in the back yard. It too, along with the ivy it is encased in, came with the house. It was in full bloom!

Then he points at the trunk.  Look what daddy and I did! There I see the lower 4 feet of trunk clear of ivy. He recounted how dad used the big sharp knife and he used the clippers to cut it off at the base and as high as they could reach. I knew then that yes! I was indeed supposed to write this today.

Take a walk around your property and neighborhood and notice. Mention it to neighbors who have ivy on their trees. Most people don’t know. Maybe lend a hand to a tree in the park who is just beginning to be climbed.  They will be most grateful.

Maybe you too won’t be able to stop noticing,
SARAH

.....memory lane

Yogis,
‘What do you think about taking a trip down memory lane today?’

It’s a gray dreary Thursday morning and that’s my mom as she comes down the steps. I had arrived at my parent’s house in NJ on Tuesday to spend a few days with them. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas, and it felt like it was time.

In many ways I already felt like I was on memory lane. Sleeping in my old house, being alone with my mom and dad, being cooked for, watching Jeopardy and laughing over old stories told one more time. No longer the one in charge I could lay back and go with the flow of whatever the new day offered.

‘Sure, I said. What do you have in mind?’

A few hours later we load into dad’s car and head down route 22 (a road I dreaded as a young driver) and turned off onto memory lane in Plainfield NJ. Our first destination……the apartment they moved into with me as a brand-new baby. It took a few times around the block and a couple of guesses to finally land on the big yellow house divided into individual apartments. Next stop…..the apartment we moved into not much later. It was the big front porch that let us know we had arrived in front of the right house. My parents were 25 and 28..

Next on the trip is the small cape cod they bought when I was two. This was the first single family house I ever lived in, the first one my mom ever lived in, and the first one my dad ever lived in. The cost was $17,000 and they had to lie a bit to get the mortgage. It looks even smaller than I imagined, but so cute.

We lived there a few years and I have some fleeting memories…..  Falling off my tricycle and skinning my knee. Getting bit on the nose by the dog next door when I got too close to the fence. Being chased by a squirrel as I tried to walk to the neighbor’s (you all heard that story when I recounted my second squirrel encounter last fall.) Why do we always remember the scariest moments?

We then stopped in front of the old brick house where my dad lived with my grandparents in the top floor apartment with a beautiful wood paneled ceiling and the master bedroom in a turret. I have wonderful memories of being there for family dinners and holiday gatherings. I remember watching Nixon resign on their large stand up B&W tv, my pop pop smoking a pipe in his armchair and my nana cutting up chicken livers for the cat Cleo.

Off we go, heading into downtown Plainfield to find the storefront where my mom and grandmother opened Glad Rags, a mod clothing store in 1965. While mom worked, I would play in the dressing room pretending it was a fort. She would give me money and I would walk down the street  alone to Texas Weiner to buy a Drakes coffee cake (remember them?) and an orange soda in a bottle with a straw. I was four. A different world back then.

We found them both! Glad Rags now empty but Texas Weiner alive and bustling. We went in and spoke with the current owner who has been there 35 years now. We told him stories from 56 years ago. My dad recounted stories from years even before that.

As I listened, standing in the exact same spot in front of the counter where I stood as a shy four-year-old little girl, I tried to remember how it felt. The same me looking through the same eyes but without decades of life layered on top. Memories flooded in.

My parents ordered two Texas weiners and brought them home for late lunch.

Nice to drive memory lane,
SARAH

.....march madness

Yogis,
The nearness of spring filled the air on Friday. A lightness. Mid 60s, blue skies and a gentle breeze. The sun, sitting a little higher in the sky, shone brightly on the newly bloomed daffodils and the puffy pink redbud blossoms. Everything about the day told me it was finally time to get my hands in the dirt……

I headed to the community garden I tend with lawn bag, shovel and scissors in hand dressed in a thin long sleeve shirt and light sweater. Within minutes of pulling the old black eyed susan stems, their dried buds still intact, the sweater comes off and hair goes up in a ponytail. With my hands smelling of rosemary from pulling matted leaves off her needles, if all felt like a new beginning. The start once more of a new life cycle.

The evening’s air was still warm. We sat on the front porch and had a beer. The fox ambled by.

Saturday morning, I wake to sideways rain pelting my window. I get up, brush my teeth, set up my blankets and sit on the bed to meditate. I listen to the rain on the roof. Before long I hear the tapping of ice pellets mixed in with the rain. Soon it is all ice. By the time I open my eyes a half hour later it is snowing and the wind is howling.

March madness.

I bundle up and head out into the world with Phoebe. The garden I had cleared of leaves only hours before now buried in snow. Daffodil heads heavy. The pink buds the trees had been proudly showing off now encased in white.  

A game of tug of war between winter and spring. Spring steps forward and is given a moment in the sun but is then forcefully pushed back by winter. One step forward and two steps back. Unpredictable. Changeable. Reminds me of the state of our world.

Whether its covid, the price at the pump, financial markets, or politics, I feel like we are stuck in an endless March with no clear end in sight. Up and down and all around. Then throw in the storm in Ukraine and the unfathomable images of a war that makes no sense to me, and it becomes hard to get your footing. Grass covered not with snow but pieces of buildings. Bombs falling from the sky. People fleeing their homes. Going to bed thinking the world is one way and waking up to pelting on the window.

One step forward…..two steps back. Is it just me, or does life feel so complicated right now?

I know with confidence that the calendar will turn its page and April will arrive, leaving March as only a memory. But will we as a human race find a way to do the same……

…..did I mention that time does not change but we change our clocks one hour?

March madness,
SARAH

....a feast

Yogis,
This morning I am again woken by the birds. I can sense that it is getting light but that’s where the similarities end.

I am under a sheet and warm blanket with long pajama bottoms. I hear the heat kick on and off. Rolling toward the window I open my eyes. An empty gray sky peers back at me….and a sea of brown. Early March brown. The starkness of the naked trees catches me by surprise. The wind rustles the remaining dried leaves that refuse to drop until spring arrives. I’m home.

Only yesterday the sun woke me in a place so different it’s hard to imagine I could already be back in my own bed. Late last night I returned from a week in a beautiful white clapboard house with sky blue shutters built into a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea. St Johns. An island that feeds my soul.

Within hours of arriving there by ferry I felt the shift. Shoulders dropping, face softening, feet finally free from the dark confines of shoes and my curls springing back to life after weeks of dry static. But there is also an inner shift that happens. I begin to feel more like me. More like the me deep within that gets buried at times but longs to be on the surface. The vibrancy of being in this place nourishes my senses. Every time…..

Instead of robin’s voices greeting the day, goats bleat and roosters crow. The sound of gentle waves lapping the shore sets the day’s rhythm and before long I swear my heart beats in time. The screech of gray tree frogs at sunset competes with our dinner music.

And the colors! Every shade of green imaginable carpets the mountains with polka dots of purple and yellow flowers. The water so blue and clear it looks like crystal. The hummingbird. The red of a chicken’s head and the brilliant fuchsia of the orchid on the balcony that watches us drink our morning coffee.  

Instead of watching for other cars, the eyes search for donkeys lazily congregating in the middle of the road right around the next sharp curve. Or the iguanas who hope to safely cross by camouflaging their skin. Being careful not to step on the hermit crab who pulls into his shell as my foot casts a shadow from above. The bearded goat who stands on the cliff overhanging our driveway each afternoon to watch us unload.

A feast……..

  

Life under the water as vibrant as above. I spent hours listening to only my own breath through the snorkel as I floated. Turtles who look me right in the eye.  Rays and needle nosed fish curious but going about their own business. A school of angel fish brush my side. When I’m not quite ready to make landfall, I float effortlessly on my back. Held by this place that offers me what I need.

And for the final course, each night before bed I stepped out onto the patio and gazed up. Millions of stars twinkling back at me through the darkness. Grateful for them. Grateful for this island.

I feel full……
SARAH

....hearing spring coming

Yogis,
My consciousness begins to be drawn from the deep dream it had so intricately woven in my mind. A myriad of colors, sensations and layers of a story that feel as real as me sitting here writing you this note. I can feel myself being extracted. That internal tug of war between longing to stay and the outer world calling for my attention. Something out there was pulling their end stronger than my urge to stay removed from the challenges of daily life.  

The birds…….

I’ve noticed over these past two weeks that the sound of early morning has changed. Where silence so recently sat, bird song now fills the air. As I lie there with my eyes still closed, I hear the singing of the wren and I know she has begun the search for this year’s home. The quiet chip of the cardinal and the excited boisterous chatter of my sparrows. They are excited to be up and out.

Spring must be coming……

I yawn, stretch, swing my legs off the bed and take my first step into the new day. I look at the clock. It is 7:12. It is 19 degrees out.

I hear the raspy caw of the crow and look out my window. He is standing in the grass under my birdfeeder, methodically cleaning up the spillage from yesterday’s feeding frenzy. Occasionally he looks up and squawks, puffing out his chest and lifting his wings in the process, making sure everyone within earshot knows that for this moment, this space is his alone.

Bundling up I add in my mittens and face warmer, mentally prepare myself, and head for the river. As I start down the street I hear something scurrying and watch a chipmunk run down a tire from inside a car engine and head towards the brush. Braving the cold like me instead of hibernating in her protected burrow.

Spring must be coming…….

Walking the path that traces the river’s edge a large group of ducks and I startle each other. In unison they spread their wings and lift from the water. Much quacking ensues and the geese nearby respond with their deep nasally honks. With the warmth of the sun on my face, when I close my eyes, it could be April.

I hear the squirrels busy digging through dried leaves trying to remember where the heck they buried those nuts last fall. And the sound of me picking up sticks to begin filling lawn bags.

Although we have cold days ahead, the movement toward to a new season has clearly begun. I can hear it. Can you?

Listening,
SARAH

....watching the sun rise

Yogis,
When was the last time you sat with the sun to watch her rise? I had the pleasure of doing just that these last four mornings.

I arrived at the beach house on Wednesday to meet with workers who are going to replace our kitchen countertop. That night as I was setting my alarm and visualizing the morning I decided, why not? It had probably been a year since I witnessed the beginning of a new day and the weather forecast showed clear skies.

Alarm goes off at 6:10. Clothes on, Phoebe fed, phone in pocket. Out the door by 6:25. It’s still dark but there is that nearness of day you can feel. Houses silent as we run by. No cars on the road. No planes in the sky. We head through the neighborhoods and onto the beach path, which only two weeks ago was thigh high with snow. Scrub bushes surround the path, and my shoes press fresh prints in the sand next to those of both humans and dogs who had passed through here last night.

We crest the dune and there’s a catch in my breath.  As the path widens and opens to the beach it’s as if I am being welcomed. Open arms. Layers of color hint at what’s to come. Something big is about to happen.

It’s 6:38. Not another soul in sight as we run the brightening shoreline. The tide is rolling in and seagulls spot the beach. They too seem to be waiting. The tidal pools created on the beach reflect the colors of the sky as orange, gold and red begin to swirl together against the horizon. A ball of fire seems to lift from the ocean. I stand in awe. It’s 6:57.

The next day I do it again. This time there is a small cloud in the path where she rises, her rays shooting out to the sides letting me know she is there. 6:56. The next day I do it again. A thin sheen of haze along the horizon causes variations in her colors as she arrives at 6:54. Tide higher. Two people walk by. Finally today I do it one last time. Cloudy with snow on the way. I can’t see her, but know she is there at 6:53 as the beach brightens and the gulls begun to squawk.

Every day she came! Every day at exactly the time she was expected. How many other things in our lives are as dependable as her?

The rise of the sun is an event. Magical. Unlike other events though, you can always get a front row seat, it starts on time, its different every single time, it’s never crowded, it happens every day and best of all, it’s free!

I am heading back up the beach toward the path and can feel her warmth on my back. I realize I almost forgot an important part of being witness…….

I turn to face her and spread my arms and heart open. ‘You are beautiful, awesome, magnificent, incredible, dependable, powerful, life giving, warm and bright’ I tell her….out loud. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

As we run back through the neighborhood I have a new found lightness. I can see people stirring in their homes. A car drives by. An albino squirrel crosses our path. Robins line the telephone wires, warming themselves by the first rays. A New Day has begun.

In a relationship with the sun,
SARAH

....what does 60 feel like

Yogis,
I turned the big 6-0 in early January. With the hoopla of Christmas winding down I marked the day with a simple family gathering. Home made fajitas at our house with my sons, daughter-in-law, sister in laws and grandkids. Even tiny one week old baby Ben joined in. Grateful for my family.

Everyone started asking me how it felt to be 60…..

My sister in the background continued nudging me to come up with an additional way to celebrate ‘me’ and this milestone. I don’t always find this easy, so she suggested we all meet at the beach and she would cook a special dinner. My sister happens to be an amazing cook, so yes!

Last weekend was the date we put on the calendar. Last weekend was also the date a blizzard put a bulls eye on her calendar for the mid-Atlantic coast.

Boots, snow shovels, enough food for a week, candles, flashlights……packed. Off we go!

Friday, we arrive and go into town for a drink. You can feel the electricity in the air. Everyone waiting for that first flake. The weatherman said it should begin at 7. Then moved it to 8. At 8:30 nothing. I had the house ready, the fire burning in the fireplace. Twinkle lights turned on. Eagerly waiting. The same giddy anticipation I felt as a child with my face pressed against the cold window.

I walked out to the deck and can feel it. Then I smell it. I now see flakes lit by the light. Memories flood in. I remember this sensation. There is something about the beginning of a snowstorm that tells you when it is going to be a big one. My heart beats faster and I yell into the house that it has begun!

I woke every hour and looked out the window. The later it got the harder it was to see through the windblown snow stuck to the window screens. The streetlight my gauge of intensity. By morning there is a foot of snow on the ground with swirling winds.

I want to be out in it! Boots, long coat, neck warmer, hat, mittens. Remembering my pink snow coat and baggies over my shoes inside rubber boots from when I was young. Being so bundled up you couldn’t bend your joints.  It’s coming down hard as we walk the neighborhood and head for the beach. Every tree a piece of art. The air so silent we can hear our breath.

The candy store’s brightly colored sign on the boardwalk blanketed in snow. The sound of waves mixed with wind. I discover that the fencing used to hold in sand dunes also does an excellent job of holding in snow. As we walk through it is up to our thighs and I start laughing. I felt like the 5 years old me walking in Chicago during a blizzard. Struggling to lift each leg enough to take another step. Knowing if I fall down, it will be a struggle to get up.

That night, like teenagers, we braved the roads to get to the dinner. Nothing like a blizzard to set the mood! We ate, played games and danced to a playlist of 60 dance songs under the disco ball hung from the beams. Sensations of college.

We wrapped up the weekend on Sunday by watching football games while eating grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup. Images of my mom in the kitchen when I was young and me dotting the bread with butter when my boys were young. The tastes in my mouth haven’t changed.

So how does it feel to be 60? Honestly no different than when I was 5…..or 15…..or 25…..or 40.  Yes the body has changed. I know more. I’ve experienced more. But the me on the inside, that quiet part that lies below the thoughts, below the emotions, below the doing….never changes. It is what makes me, me, and is eternally young.  

And I don’t have to shave my legs as much,
SARAH