LOVELY LEPIDOPTERA

Old World Swallowtail 

There's a butterfly on my lantana, yellow and black

On tiptoe angling this way and that

 A little pollen brushing her hair-thin legs.

Proboscis probing for sweet nectar

Drinking through her own straw, savoring her liquid diet.

A quick flutter to another bloom, another landing pad

Of lantana clusters, so brightly attractive. 

On her hind wings blue spots barely there.

Twisting and turning

 Gathering every drop of the divine drink of the Gods.

Lonely my geraniums sit, velvet red but nectar-poor, ornamental only.

But lantana, it has work to do feeding the lovely lepidoptera

Out my window where I write. 

  

Black Swallowtail

IMPERFECT YEAR, IMPERFECT PHOTOS

Do you love snapping photos?  These are from the past twelve months or so--imperfect photos of an imperfect year, by their imperfect photographer.  Imperfection is part of our lovely, challenging, painful, beautiful lives (see Post, January 14, 2024), isn't it?   

 

The first picture is of our mild dusting in January with deer just waking on the slope by our patio, heads turned toward me, instantly alert.  The bit of sky above is sunless.  More snow came later.  Oh what a better photographer would have done with this scene!

 

This has been a year when we look to our own lives, our own homes, travels, friends and family for respite.  A year when the man who acts as president descends further into cruelty and we fight harder for our democracy. Luckily, for many of us, the pleasures of home are abundant.  

 

This photo is of an approaching storm at the North Carolina shore.  I was walking on the sand at the time and turned back toward the path I would have to navigate to safety.  I can't remember if I made it home without getting soaked.  These dark clouds come often at the beach and catch us unawares.  But beautiful, yes?

Earlier, before the January snowfall, we hosted a holiday supper and I got out my Spode Christmas china.  I come from a family of women who love ceramics.  I have inherited my grandmother's 12-place setting of formal china. Casseroles with lids, sugar and creamer, large and small platters, gravy boat, two sizes of bowls. . . .  More than I have ever needed, but love having nevertheless. Someday it will end up at a consignment shop, I am sure.  Probably no grandchild or niece will want it.  What do we do with all these wonderful old things that we have inherited?  Not worth much, actually, but family memories, heirlooms.  I may be their last custodian.  Is that true for you of anything? Do you have a quilt, men's pocket watch, or old work bench or desk?  Something your grandfather used every day? 

I have china from the St. Louis 1904 World's Fair which my Grandmother attended as a child, Bavarian vases and tchotchkes.  Maybe cost her mother pennies, but precious to me. But the Spode Christmas pattern you see below, I collected myself.  Replacements Unlimited, pretty well-known I think, is just down the road here in North Carolina.  My husband gave me a whole Christmas tea set one year and that began my collection.  So here it is, set out for a party. There's some of my great-grandmother's cut glass in there too.  And some I've already passed on to my daughter.  

From the bare trees you can tell that the shot below is of a winter sunset from our meadow looking out to the woods.  Never have I seen one more beautiful.  Shouldn't we seek out the daily sunsets more? Or sunrises? Everyday the sky is a gift, right out our windows and doors.  Free to all.  I can get lost scrolling sunset pictures; or zinnias; or hummingbirds.  Instead, I need to promise myself to go out every night to see the sun set or the moon rise. When Mr. Wiggles was alive, this was so much easier as he needed his last walk before bed.  (Another reason to have a dog!)  It takes but a minute to salute the end of the day with a bow to the moon or stars.  

Another December photo below is from the past year.  We attend Duke University Chapel for services.  It is Gothic, with a majestic Flenthrop organ and a choir unsurpassed.  Visit if you can.  The poinsettias were arrayed for the season.  On Christmas eve when the students are gone, a community choir leads the congregation in Nine Lessons and Carols.  One year my father and I joined the singers, when he still had his high tenor voice and I my first soprano.   

This too is a favorite photo, a soft blanket my sister-in-law and brother gave me for Christmas.  A cozy spot.  How many such have you made in your place?  I don't have a rocking chair, but that would be comfy.  

You can tell with the heat of August, somehow I am thinking about winter! Probably because we hit over 90F again today.  My plants needed water, in ground and in pots and I gave all a thorough soaking.  I hope the heat will bring rain tonight.  

Thank you for looking at these photos and thinking with me about your year too.  With gratitude, Nina Naomi 

 

MIDSUMMER BLESSINGS

 

Midsummer On the Patio

Again, Family this weekend.  What a blessing.  nephew and wife and three nieces, granddaughter and us.  Also daughter-in-law.  A full house.  Tomorrow a grandson arrives, probably just for the day.  And today is my free day, also welcome. I didn't have to make the drive down I-95 or I-40 to see any of these loved ones. Just plan some meals and go with the flow. How did I get so lucky? 

I think it is because we live in an old mid-century house large enough to host; that's surely part of it.  Also North Carolina Beaches have their attraction for New Jerseyans.  I got to do crafts with almost-nine-year-old Lily all day yesterday.  We used shoe boxes and made bedrooms.  

One of our New Jersey nephews whom we seldom get to see, has Tourette's Syndrome, like our son Adam, who died from cancer at age 33 many years ago. This boy spent Saturday with his grandma Mimi and Grandpa Da cooking peach specialties and hitting golf balls.  Just what a boy with Tourette's needs--one-on-one time with a grandma and Grandpa who are unfazed by his tics.  Adam spent many a day with my husband's mother when he didn't want to go to school.  Tics are exhausting and controlling them even more so.  I used to walk with my arm tucked around Adam's neck to support his head, which was painfully jerking, a hard memory . . . . I wish we got to see this boy more. 

Was your midsummer weekend OK, or good, or difficult? Classes start for our college kids this Monday.  In North Carolina college students have to take a sport.  Our niece took walking last year! Our granddaughter is taking racket sports, starts tomorrow.  Our son, all those years ago, at 6'4" took gymnastics! Our church sponsors a ministry of listening presence.  Last week my care-receiver said that she likes her life just the way it is.  Since she is mostly bed-ridden in a nursing home, her comment might have surprised me. But she is a person cradled in the peace of God that passes all understanding.  Maybe I am too.  Maybe there is no way else to account for so many good days for a mother who lost a son to cancer.  Maybe our nephew will be such a person, cradled in the peace of God, growing up with his tics in a way that gives him empathy for others and compassion for himself.  

Spending time with family who all love each other despite setbacks, some almost unimaginable, does this--makes one thoughtful and grateful.  And a grandson tomorrow, who will soon return to St. Andrews, Scotland for his last year at University.  These are my midsummer blessings.  I hope with all my heart that you have yours.    In peace, Nina Naomi  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARE YOU OLDER LIKE ME?

 

Collaging

Collaging

I retired in 2014.  From a 30+ year litigation practice that involved depositions, motions, hearings, trials and travel.  My concentration was plaintiff's medical malpractice:  representing people injured through no fault of their own by the medical care they trusted to help them.  I won my cases;  or more accurately, my clients won their cases and I helped them.  Each patient was catastrophically injured by a hospital or doctor that failed to follow acceptable standards of care.  Most of my clients were children.  I worried endlessly that I might not win for them; l might lose their only chance of recovering enough money to care for them for life.  Thank you Lord that did not happen.  It might sound strange to thank the Lord, but I did pray about every case.  I would sit on my office floor with exhibits spread about and pray.  I didn't want to go to court alone.  

Somehow most of the cases settled before a jury verdict.  The insurance company defending indefensible care decided that their risk was high enough to offer us the money we needed to structure a settlement that provided lifetime care.  I never had a dissatisfied client.  (I do know that that sounds like a humble brag.) We always remembered that this was a child's money we were risking, not our own.  It was a heavy burden for any parent.  

So when the time came, I retired.  Every case took at least three years, and I simply stopped taking cases.  When the last one ended, I was through.  

We have a relative whose brother-in-law died of a massive coronary on the day his retirement party was scheduled.  He wanted a healthy retirement but did not get it.  He was younger than I was when I retired.  Younger than my husband when he retired.  My husband is an academic and keeps writing.  He has stopped anything public.  I do nothing law related.  How about you, if you are retired? Are you doing the things you didn't have time for when working full-time?  I am.  

I began this blog in 2017, 3 years after retirement.  I began a prayer journal the same year after a traumatic event.  I just noticed that I began my collage journalling in 2019 and now have 6 huge notebooks filled with my collages.  They are journals in that they track my life; like diaries, they mean the most to me and no one else.  But they bring me great pleasure; a flow state, if you will. My craft table is filled with material for the journals. What else?  Now I have time to swim every day; our pool is heated, although right now in North Carolina the temperatures are in the 90s and no heating is needed.  We can go to the beach when we want.  We can have family visit, here and at the beach.  A ton are coming in just a few hours for the weekend.  We could travel, but it seems we want to do that less than we expected.  

The first benefit of not working is emotional freedom, as other retirees know.  We still have family-related stresses, and personal health concerns.  All those over 60 do, it seems.  A close friend fell recently.  Some other close friends have died, almost always from cancer. We are less needed than before; irrelevance is something to face.  But there are upsides.  I can focus on God more.  Spiritual concerns become more front and center. When I was working full time I could never have joined a book club or knitting group. Or taken a pottery class, or yoga on Wednesdays. One couple and we have our own supper club; we eat out together.  We have three or four couples we see regularly.  A friend and I have found a vegan restaurant called Pure Soul for lunches. I have time to write devotions for our church, which started during the pandemic (Somehow I want to capitalize that:  Pandemic.).

So many people are doing more than I am.  In fact, before I began this post I was thinking about whether all this introspection was worthwhile at all.  Whether I should be helping refugees or providing free legal services, and so on. But then I look up at a pottery hanging I did:  "NOTHING IS MISSING.  YOU ARE ALREADY WHOLE." 

Thank you.  I like this.  I think I will believe it.  You too.  Time to believe this.  Whether retired, employed or unemployed (hard), go ahead and believe this. 

In peace from Nina Naomi.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I WAS A STRANGER, AND YOU DEPORTED ME"

CHARLES BRIDGE, PRAGUE       On Sunday in our Intercessory Prayers we bowed our heads and remembered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; we asked the Lord to "keep us mindful of the horrors of war." We did not ask without reason.  While in our pews we may have recalled parents or grandparents who fought in WWII, more probably we were thinking of current horrors: the US war in Iran, the Israeli war in Gaza, and Putin's war in Ukraine.  Or maybe not; the nightly news has stopped showing us "horrors."  Instead, rising gas prices are featured. How many killed in Tehran or Kyiv or Gaza are not lead stories.       Before the Intercessory Prayers, we read from Psalm 145, "You watch over all those who love you, but all the wicked you shall destroy."  It is hard to come to church, read the Psalms or Gospel, sing the hymns or take communion without contemplating the situation in our beloved country.  It is simply not possible for a practicing Christian to "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," hands over eyes, ears, and mouth.  Nor do we think that our God wants our heads in the sand.  That would not be the way to follow Christ.  We can state this, I hope, from a position of humility.         Then on Sunday afternoon I read a post (in Substack) by Rev. Benjamin Cremer called Opposing Performative Christianity.  It seemed of a piece with our monthly Sunday School class where we have been discussing Christian Nationalism, among other topics. Historically, the idea may have originated in the theory of the Divine Right of Kings; if a King ruled by God's will, then resisting the monarch could be portrayed as resisting God. In Matthew 15:8-9 Jesus says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules."  Since Christ's church carries centuries of moral authority, who, seeking power, would not want to align with it?  Even if only performatively, i.e. the easy way, without sacrifice for and obedience to the Word?       Rev. Cremer ends his post with, "May it begin with us."  This reminded me of Rev. Wendy Waugh's endings to her devotions, "Let us be as good as God to others."  In a recent devotion she asked, what is Good News to the poor? It may be a grocery opening in a food desert, she said, or getting a job or finding affordable housing.   Rev. Cremer preached it this way: "I was hungry" and you cut SNAP. "I was thirsty" and you cut funding to ensure clean water. "I was sick" and you cut Medicaid. "I was a stranger" and you deported me. And then the clincher:  "Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."           Finally, let me cite a few lines written by Wendall Berry (b.1934) in 2004: You mustn't wish for another life.  You mustn't want to be somebody else.  What you must do is this:  "Rejoice evermore.  Pray without ceasing.  In everything, give thanks."  I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions Yes, those are the right instructions.  We know the right instructions.  We know the horrors of war cannot be ignored or minimized and that "wars of choice"-- well, yes--such wars may be chosen by those whose "hearts are far from" the Lord.  We know what we must do unto the least of these and that all religions must promote national policies that are moral.  And while we are doing what we must, we rejoice that we are able, we pray for guidance and we in everything give thanks.         We are not all the way capable of so much, but we are capable.  So, every week, let it begin with us.  AMEN   ​​

      

      

 

"AND I WILL RAISE YOU UP. . ."

 

OXFORD, ENGLAND

 I wonder what it's like to be a spirit,

To lift my arms and be a sprite,  floating without visibility.

To be incorporeal.

What it is like to move from mortal life to life immortal.

Do we do this in darkness or in light?

I picture it in light, in a brightness 

Where my intangible self moves in tandem with all of creation, 

Where I do not sit, or lie down, but float, maybe curl and uncurl, waft--

All without pain or feeling anything but weightlessness.  

A sweet remembrance of unearthliness where the world began.

I think my body will be transparent.  

It will be beyond imagining.  

It will not be earthbound.  

It will be lighter than air.  

I don't picture water in this new incorporation.  

Nothing heavy.  No clay or sand or boulders.  

Just hawk-like freedom, hawk-like soaring.  

God holding me up:

"And I will raise you up on eagles' wings,  

Bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun.  

And hold you in the palm of my hand."

This is a promise, isn't it?  

This is a hope and a promise.  

This is a dream and a hope and a promise.  

This is otherworldly by definition.  

We learn its form only from the clouds, only from the breeze, 

Only from the whistle made by the wings of doves as they leave their perch.  

We do not learn it in our minds, but in our hearts,  

In the spirit that has been there since birth.

This is a promise there for everyone, not just me.

For the miner, the teacher, the doctor, the stay-at-home, 

The patient on oxygen, 

The patient whose heart is slowing with little, less,  no time left.

The person whose soul flies from their body to safety,

On an exhale with no intake to follow the out-breath, chest settles, 

Released to the firmament.

No one can give this gift but the Lord.  

But everyone can receive it.  

Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, 

Infant, the comatose, the aged, the cancer-riddled,

The baptized, the unbaptized, the unGodforsaken. 

Our spirits will mingle, will rest on one another like dolphins carry their calves, living or not,

With tenderness we will carry one another.

I can breathe this, I can now when I have in-breath and exhale, breathe this in.

I can love this, picture this, believe this, live this, accept this, 

Write it faster than my mind can think.  

This promise, this gift, this spiritual acceptance of God's love, 

This oneness with creation, this blessing, this life as my breath reaches deep within me. 

This ending.

This beginning. 

 

 

 

 

 

WELCOME, AUGUST!

 

A Summer Place

 I'm starting this post waiting for family to arrive for supper.  While working on the weekend's food all day, I've had time to think.  Cooking and thinking go well together, don't you agree?  Just a small group, grandson and partner, brother and sister-in-law and us.  It's a two day drive for my brother from Florida, 2 hours for my grandson from Boone NC.  I feel lucky this hot summer weekend to have family willing take the time for a visit.  Another grandson and his father arrive tomorrow on their way to the beach.  I feel confident about the weekend's plans.  Maybe you're the planner in your family too.

Has August taken you by surprise?  I feel like that often.  How can it be Friday?  Or Monday?  Or June, or July?  One summer we had nothing but sorrow atop sorrow followed by new life; I've written about it before, the summer of 2005 ("January 28 Forever," posted Jan 31, 2026; "The Sundial," posted July 23, 2019).  I hope your summer has been without personal tragedy; but it mayn't have been.  One summer I made discoveries that startled me and landed the ball in my court.  Any day it's your turn or mine, or so it seems. 

Still, midsummer is always welcome.  Recent rainy nights have given this part of North Carolina a lush, tropical feel.  Trees bend over the roadways; purple wisteria and magenta crepe myrtle along with orange trumpet vines leave blossom litter everywhere.  The humidity keeps our skins soft and moist.   For me, it's a languorous time.  Weekend naps, an early evening swim, easier schedules all around.  I know I sound privileged and I am--I'm not working even one job and my neighbor brings us veggies from their garden.  We have enough to eat and gratefully receive our Social Security each month (for which we thank President Franklin Roosevelt who signed it into law in 1935 during what history calls the Great Depression).  

The worry about our democracy is always somewhere on my mind, though.  I begin the day catching the news in the New York Times and The Guardian online.  It's usually not good.  I find positive news too, however, reported in The Dworkin Report, The Contrarians, Heather Delaney Reese, Joyce Vance, and others on Substack.  There I learn about small and large resistance victories.  They are mounting up as we approach the midterms in just 3 months.  So you and I must not lose hope.  Martin Luther King Jr wrote, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."  

There's a good bit of summer left.  Even after the kids return to school, the weather will be summery.  Pools will remain open and parks welcome visitors.  In Durham, Duke Gardens is beautiful year-round.  Seasonal produce in our local Farmer's Market remains abundant, plus honey and soaps and bouquets of zinnias and food trucks.  It's not to be missed.  I bet you have one too.  Are you a vendor?   

I'm ending this post with the weekend over and family on their way.  But summer hasn't left.  It's everywhere.  My pot plants are blooming.  There's enough grass in the woods and meadows that the deer have left us alone.  Enough berries for the birds and squirrels.  Enough grubs for the birds.  Enough pollen for the butterflies.  Enough insects for the frogs and the cicadas are deafening (not exaggerating) every evening.  What a wonderful time.  

I hope you're feeling it too.    In peace, Nina Naomi