MEMORIES OF HOMES

 Is there one place you have lived that you love more than any other?  Is it because of the place, the time or the people?  I may be thinking about this because we are living in our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California.  I have been posting about this.  They have a view of the mountains.  None of my own homes has ever been in a setting like this. 

My life is more prosaic.  Our North Carolina home is mid-century modern with trees and a meadow. Lots of privacy but always needing clean-up and repair.  Fallen branches, flooding creek, piles of debris.  Deer ticks and humidity.  A lovable place in every way, but hard to keep up.  Here, "seems it never rains in southern California," as the song goes.  So as house-sitters, we are watering desert-like pot plants that sit on a pebbled patio (no grass of course).  I never knew how vibrant bougainvillea are. 

Where do you live?  Overlooking a city street?  Traffic sounds out front?  Do you have a balcony to lean over?  Can you wave when a neighbor walks by?  Or is it swings and a sandbox in the back yard for you?  Have you been able to make all the places you've lived feel like home?

Where we have lived in Princeton, New Jersey for short stints, the bathroom window abuts the sidewalk where the kids line up for their school bus.  The kitchen door opens to a fire escape and laundry is in a moldy basement.  But with plants, pillows and fairy lights it's a super place to live.  I could make that home.

Where we stay in London, we carry our laundry to the basement across the street.  Years ago when we lived there as international students, we were all young and having babies.  Decades later we lived in a colleague's apartment in Zimbabwe while our London-born daughter taught in Lebowa, South Africa. Twice a week a woman washed our few clothes in the bathtub and swept the worn carpet with a broom. I remember all these places with affection.

I think about people who have lived in the same place forever.  Maybe that's you.  My best friend from childhood-to-now, has lived in our native state her whole life. Her children and grandchildren too. Same with my favorite cousin who is like an older sister. I can't help but think that because their friendships are longer, they must be deeper than mine. Deeper connections with place, with the history around them.

The other thing about homes, though, is they aren't just places of comfort.  We all know that tragedies happen in our homes.  Bad news.  Hurtful discoveries.  Facts that won't disappear.  Words that can't be unspoken:  forgiven, yes, but not unsaid.  Where love is greatest, emotional distress is too. Our beloved pets die.  Our parents die.  A spouse, a partner and yes, even a child may die.  So home isn't just a refuge.  It's where we get bad news as well as good.  We have fights there.  We get hurt there.  We crawl inside our closets and hide our scars. Home is not such a simple place after all.

The sayings about home are interesting. Is home people or a place?  I don't have a single friend in London, but the city myself is my friend.  I know the bus routes and alleyways, the neighborhood restaurants.  I can shelter in a museum or cafe. Many of us have a favorite city.  

Robert Frost (1874-1963) says, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  That may be true if our parents are alive.  Or a brother or sister or friend who loves us.  But not everyone has a place like that.  The greatest scourge is homelessness.

British poet Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) says that winter is the time for home--good food, comfort and warmth.  But so are the other seasons, we might say.  I am here in our friends' home in spring.  That too is a time for home, when we might grow with the season.  Or summer, when the sun warms our souls and bodies. Or fall, when the reds and yellows remind us of death and rebirth.

My widowed father lived in his home until two weeks before he died at age 94.  By that time home was a small apartment in a retirement community where he had spent the last ten years. He enjoyed it as much as any home where he had ever lived: company, good food, activities and just 10 minutes from me.  May we all be so fortunate.

Thoughtfully, Nina Naomi 

  

  

THIS IS OUR WORLD TODAY

We are still at our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California marveling at the different vistas of creation--the Santa Ynez mountains, the Los Padres National Park and the endless Pacific.  Have you visited friends or family in distant places?  North Carolina has mountains and sea, cities, college towns and villages.  It is my favorite state--home.  

But different ecosystems are a wonder to see.  Here we have sage brush, sea lavender and the iconic ice plant all protecting the cliffs from erosion.  The fig and eucalyptus trees--the latter the tallest known flowering tree on earth--are abundant.  Also the jacaranda with their purple blooms in May.  

 

This is different than visiting a city. No skyscrapers or even tall buildings as this land is earthquake prone.  Fires a present danger too.  Maybe you have lived in California and know more than I.  I am awed by the shoreline and cliffs, mountains and sky.  The people too, all friendly and dog lovers, as am I.  Without a pup now, I covet the animals we see being walked along the shoreline or off-leash on a designated beach.  

The other thing we love is visiting other churches.  Here we attend an Episcopalian church.  We can see the spire from the window of our friends' home, which is on a hill.  I light candles in our home church and in churches where we visit.  I have done this for over 30 years, wherever we find ourselves.   It is good to be with people who worship the same God.  It is good to be with people like Californians, who work so hard to protect their immigrant population.  My first NO KINGS day was here. 

Our friend whose house this is, is bilingual and coordinates a community carpool to take immigrants to doctor's and other appointments.  Her husband, a pastor, has served churches in vacancy.  Like Durham, North Carolina, this is a good place. 

Since 2017 I have been posting in my mother's name, Nina Naomi, in this blog titled "Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover."  With Mother's Day next weekend and house-sitting in a spot where mindfulness faces not a single obstacle and nature is wild and abundant, I feel grateful and calm.  I hope you do too.  We, you and I, are not replicating each other's experiences.  I am usually at home with the chores an old house brings and the stresses of age.  You may be home with chores, job and family.  But we share the need for time outdoors, time with trees and garden, time for possibly prayer and reflection and perhaps to light a candle, if only for ourselves.  

So wherever we are, let's take care.  Of ourselves, each other and God's creation.  And if you are inclined to share your reflections on this post, please do.  I would love to hear from you.             Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

 

 

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US"

 

Dwarf Red Maple and Snap Dragons

I started writing this post last week, seated outdoors with time to think. Having just finished my peruse of The Guardian, half my mind was on Donald Trump, who facing 80 and dementia, posted an AI picture of himself as Jesus Christ.  Inanity and blasphemy. Like all of us when "[t]he world is too much with us," to quote William Wordsworth (1770-1850), I needed to transition back to the moment.    

How better than to share the beauty of the courtyard where I was sitting, the dwarf red maple newly blooming with last year's snap dragons reseeded?  My daughter-in-law had said that morning that we must pace our attention to the state of our country. So I worked in the yard, watering the moss because we are in a drought; pruning the dead branches from the hydrangea, which always bloom on our anniversary, early June; and best of all--swam. (Yes, it reached 81℉ that day where we live in North Carolina.)

Last year's fulsome bounty!

We live in an old mid-century modern house with a small concrete pool.  Great for my bad back.  I can slide in and reach the other side in eight strokes.  A luxury I never dreamed of until we found this abandoned property over 20 years ago.  After a lap, I raised my head to a small field mouse, paddling in desperation.  I put a float under it and out it scampered, into the grasses.  Whew!  

So a small but, to me, luxurious day.  I always feel like I may not deserve this old house in the woods with mice and a pool.  I may not deserve a long marriage and retirement.  I may not deserve the free-time to sit and blog.  Do you ever feel like you don't deserve your good things?

Now, this week, we are back at our friends' house in Santa Barbara, California; the third year they have invited us to house-sit while they're gone, leaving our sweet old home to the field mice, squirrels and deer and my indoor plants to my gracious daughter-in-law. Here the purple jacaranda are in bloom.  I feel lucky again. 

How do you feel about your life?  I hope you mostly--if not entirely--love it.  Are content with it.  Wouldn't want to trade with anyone else at all.  Most of us say that, I've read. We may need more security and better health, but our life is ours. We won't give it away. 

No matter how we feel, here are my suggestions for spring, the suggestions of someone who has lived long:  Stick with the outdoors, stick with nature.  Wordsworth's poem continues, 

"late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" 

Backing away from the news from time to time keeps our hearts intact. Loving nature helps us love our lives, doesn't it?  I plant a few pansies and when the heat takes them, choose impatiens, begonias and geraniums.  Here at my friend's I am planting her thyme, basil, mint and oregano. My own has come up fresh and fragrant.

While here, I enjoy the orange and lemon trees, the amazingly fuchsia bougainvillea and the sight of the cold Pacific Ocean.  This is unusual for me.  Many people live in vacation spots or cities and towns known for their charm.  Not exactly true of Durham, North Carolina, a blue-collar town we do not intend to leave. 

So, there is no moral to this story.  Trump and his cruelty continue but so do our lives and loves.  So does God's creation.  So do our daily needs and resets.  So does the means of our salvation, our relationship with our God, with our families, with the life and water outside our door. 

Somehow after writing, this feels to me a bit like a prayer.  

AMEN

Nina Naomi  

 

  

 

 

 

 

  

A SPRING MOMENT--LASTING LOVE

 

 My Midwinter Moments are over for the year, the last one posted on January 22.  It's time for Spring Moments.  Of course, the first isn't a moment at all; it's a way of life.  Today, the day I am writing, is two weeks after Easter.   Like many, we had a our typical Resurrection Sunday:  church and Easter Breakfast.  We sat with friends in the Fellowship Hall and gorged on eggs, pancakes, sausage and fruit.  Very Lutheran.  

This year we had no family for brunch or supper.  We were alone together, our favorite way to be.  We have committed to de-cluttering this spring.  We are beginning with old love letters, the handwritten kind, written when we were very young and before email or cell phones.  It is the first time we have ever re-read these longing, romantic missives sent between college students living states apart.  

For three years we each wrote almost a letter a day.  Having met in junior high and dated in high school, in college we were growing into adults together, sharing our academic pursuits (both English majors) and amazing feelings of overwhelming love.  Not puppy love, or first love, but what was to become lasting love; love that would weather all storms, even great losses.  But of course, when we wrote these letters, we knew nothing of adversity.  We knew not that we were setting a strong foundation that would build trust of one another we couldn't, and didn't want to, break.  

I am going through the boxes and reading the yellowing letters aloud to my husband, bits and pieces, as he gives intermittent attention to a project on his computer.  We run across adventures we barely remember. Each letter is full of feeling.  

"1 a.m. Monday morning.  Back in the dormitory again!  It seems I just left.  You were in my thoughts all the way from St. Louis to Fort Wayne, as I dreamed many beautiful stories about us which will all come true. . . . You are all the brightness in my life; you are my life.  Without you, there would be nothing.  I love you with all my being, with all the strength that I have, and never, as long as I live, will I cease loving you."

I think we were 19 and 20 when this was written.  We have grandchildren those ages now.   Can we look to the future from a letter like that?  Do such feelings make an unbreakable bond for a marriage?  Or might someone feel that way at 20 or 30 and squander it all for a secret relationship at 40?  Or even 70?    

I tend to think that the early longing we endured built, in me at least, expectation and assurance of lasting fidelity.  I believed that early letter and responded in kind. The slightest deviation from that kind of love, for me, would not stand. My husband, I hope, the same.  

I have stacks of letter yet to go through.  Then we will save some and discard most.  I want to save the one I quoted.  How sweet is that, from a 20-year-old to the girl he loved?  I am lucky to be that girl, that woman.  We are both lucky.  Reading these for the first time in decades is a Spring Moment for us.  

With happiness, Nina Naomi 

 

EARTHLY KING, HEAVENLY KING

 

It's almost time for the next No Kings Day, Saturday March 28.  I wouldn't miss it.  I hope you can participate too.  Not that what we have is a King.  Kings can be benevolent, wise, concerned for the good the their country.  But not dictators, or the Mad King, the wannabe tyrant.  

We are at the coast and will be for No Kings.   I will attend in the neighboring Town of Beaufort, on the Newport River alongside Beaufort Inlet.  Being here changes one's perspective.  Vastness does that, doesn't it?  Far horizons, dark skies, eternity all around.  Go outside any night and look up.  It's a comfort, like an embrace.  A feeling we need these days. 

From time to time I read Robert Reich on Substack.  Professor, political commentator, and former Secretary of Labor, Reich reminds us that tyranny cannot succeed where people refuse to submit to it.  And that's what we're doing, day-by-day and each time a No Kings comes around--refusing to submit.   We rally, we find joy in knowing that we are millions.  

We gather to show that our communities won't submit to a police state.  We won't tolerate anyone who protects pedophiles.  Or tolerate arrest without due process.  We gather because the opening words of our Constitution's Preamble are "We the People," not "I the President."  We gather so that those who follow Mr. Wannabe become more worried about losing our support than his.  

We gather out of respect.  If we are people of faith, we gather because our faith asks that of us.  If we are Christian, we honor one king only, our Heavenly King of Kings and Lord of Lords:  the One who keeps His promises, who asks those who need help to approach boldly, who changes not.  The Heavenly King who every spring sacrifices that we might be saved.  Our resistance says, "You may be a greedy billionaire who thinks to rule by fear.  Not me, not my neighbor, not today, not ever."  

I ask God to help and guide me.     In Peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPRING'S SACRED DANCE

Garden, Pierre Bonnard, 1935, NY Met

God of the equinox, spring or vernal, autumnal or fall,

We ask You to bless the light and the dark in our days,

Our country and world.

In our country shine your light on the evil being done in Your name

To Your sorrow and ours expose and defeat with our help and Yours.

Make us one with You and Your Word 

So that in our fear of wars and rumors of wars we remain steadfast

In action and faith, resisting always each in our given way. 

In this time when the sun hovers over the earth to equal day and night

And the song birds return to lift the universe with sounds only theirs, 

(The first of Your creation to sound the alarm of hope),

Teach us to use all Your resources--insect, bud and bloom, refreshing rain,

Green and yellow, purple too as imperatives to follow your Holy call. 

Inspire us to turn despair to action.

 

Out my window is dancing, spring is dancing, days longer just for the dance. 

Forsythia are dancing, redbud are dancing on roadsides.

Lenten roses are taking a bow.

We hear Your invitation to join this sacred dance.

To sing songs of protest if we wish, to march with signs of Love Conquers Hate.

To become peacemakers without falter.

To remember that every dictator dies ignominiously and alone. 

But we with our Lord, doing the tasks that our faith assigns us,

Shall grow this Spring with the flowers, using Your strength to restore Your world.

For this we pray in Your name O Lord.  AMEN 

 

 

 

 

IT MIGHT BE SPRING SOON

 

 Sometimes we need a break from everything, absolutely everything.  One thing we always need a break from is the quest for perfection.  Getting older helps with that; there's not a single thing I can do perfectly anymore.  My garden is not perfect and never will be.  Just the other day the top of a large ash tree hit the ground, blocking my "fitness" trail (i.e. a path of moss I tend lovingly).  I will have to call the tree service for their regular post-winter clean-up.  I want them to start at the road and work their way back, chipping the downed trees and branches--We live in the woods. This will take at least a half day and cost my winter savings.  

The daffodils and early blue hyacinth are pushing up.  I picked a few daffs today for my shelfie.  And the Lenten roses are lush.  I've sprayed the hyacinth and nandina with Deer Off to deter the still-hungry deer.  I've put out pansies and sprayed them too.  They will weather the few frosts still to come in North Carolina.  I'm using Squirrel Repellent liberally.  What a late winter garden:  everything smells like urine!  

So--perfection.  My favorite magazine, UK's The Simple Things, had a feature on The Slapdash Manifesto.  I.e., whatever is good enough is good enough.   I love that.  After all, being imperfect is what makes us human.  My house, my garden, my baking, my knitting, my hobbies, (my hair!)--all works in progress.  Simple means imperfect, and simple is really, really enjoyable.  

The Slapdash Manifesto consists of general principles for good enough:  

• Become a dabbler.  Just have a go.  Begin. 
• Enjoy the journey.  Its the doing, not the result that matters.
• Try.  Get in the spirit.  Forget criticism, your own or others. 
• Make your own rules.  Have fun.  
• Pause.  Go slow.  Stop and smell the roses, or eat cake, or take a nap.  

 Isn't this nice?  It makes me feel good.  Tomorrow I will check on the new plants, the perennials just sprouting, the sedum coming up in all my pots (I use it as filler, it's so reliable and sturdy), mint that is peeking through the leaves, oregano and chives I transplanted.  Even violets that will show any day now.  And won't that be wonderful?  

 

This Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover is thoroughly imperfect.  I've been posting since 2017, a long time ago now.  Whenever I check, it surprises me, the number of readers and where they (you) are from.   So, take a walk.  See what is making its way through the leaf letter in your garden or neighborhood.  Take a photo.  Show the world some love.             

                  In peace, Nina Naomi