LIVING IN REVERSE

 

As you get older you start living in reverse, at least I have.  What else is the rage for de-cluttering if not living in reverse? 

When I young and registered for wedding gifts, clutter was not on my mind.  All that stuff I wanted.  A special dish for deviled eggs!  Now I'm giving away my mother's cow collection:  cows that pour milk, cows that dance, cows that play music.  Too many cows.  Linens, sheets and tablecloths pile up for the thrift shop.  Sheets for beds in sizes we don't even have anymore; tablecloths for dinner parties from a different era.  Business suits land in Nearly New.  Furniture, bake-ware, bits and bobs all wait for charity.  Too many toys, blankets and purses.  Was I really the one who bought all this, or kept it? 

The gift list gets smaller; the gifts more carefully chosen.  No more bulk-buys for networking.  How many this-or-that with some company's logo haven't I tossed?  And promotional tote bags? They sprout and multiply.

The pandemic has brought clarity, hasn't it?  Relationships that don't serve us can be let go as well.  Someone who's too competitive, or negative, or more frenemy than friend is not in our best interests. We can't fix everything.  

Fears fall away along with prejudices and complaints.  We collect experiences rather than things.  We give eachother our time and attention.  We plan outings.  For the children too.  

Ideas flow like air.  I exhale thoughts.  The longer we live the more we understand because somehow, in some way, we've been there before.  The way one generation lived through WWI, another lived through the Great Depression. The way some experienced the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr. King, the Gulf War or 9-11, everyone today will know where they were when the pandemic shutdown began.  I remember the name of Allison Krause, a student killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a peace rally at Kent State on May 4, 1970.  That anniversary is coming up. And I know I'll remember the chants, "Say his name" . . . "George Floyd."   The longer we're alive the more formative moments, bad and good.

We bother to get to know ourselves and, Eureka, like who we are.  Or if we don't, we take steps.  Our friends are more precious. And love . . . love becomes most precious of all.  We don't throw away love; that we recycle. Take it, give it, take it, give it. Round and round.  If we have a lover we live in ripples of tenderness.  But we also dig for love from within.  We learn to love ourselves with that same gentleness we give to others.  We learn to forgive, even when forgetting is not in our control.  We don't save our emotions and we don't squander them.  We lay it all on the line.  

I pray more.  I'm getting to know God as God has always known me.  It's just another kind of embraceable love is what I'm finding.  I don't know how God manages to find me, but it happens every day.  Maybe because I'm outdoors more.  Mary Oliver says, 

When I am among the trees, 

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I would say that too.  We have beech and oaks and pines.  And cedar and dogwood.  And volunteers that grow huge and look more like weeds than trees. When I'm out amongst the trees I too feel saved. 

Could it be that as life reverses and becomes smaller (as it has for us all this past year), our thoughts become larger?  Our ideas range further? So that de-cluttering is also a gathering in, a pulling together and what remains matters more.  Matters more and has more space and time.  That would be good, wouldn't it?                                              
                                                         Nina Naomi

P.S. Full disclosure: I still have the plate for deviled eggs. It's useful and sparks joy!

                                                 

 

 

 

 

MERCI, MY HEART; A SLIGHT POEM

 

Merci, My Heart

 Wounded it beats.

Betrayed it beats.

Broken it beats.

But sometimes, when love is strong,

The heart crouches and springs from the cold of its fear,

Uplifts into action and All Is Well. 

(Or at least as well as can be.)

by Nina Naomi

What's one thing you want to let go of this year?

 

ONE DARK NIGHT; A POEM FOR SLEEPLESSNESS

 

One Dark Night

I wake in the night to have tea.

Tea and a muffin.

Chamomile tea and a muffin spread with chewy honeycomb.

A crumbly corn muffin sticky with comb.

The sleeplessness is instantly transformed into a treat.

 

Funny how that goes,

The way you can find pleasure in the smallest of things, 

Like the ritual of tea.  

So what might have been tossing and turning becomes instead the silent space of reflection. 

I'm awake enough to browse Bella Grace and to write in its margins.

Ideas.  Inspirations.  

This is, after all, not a bad time to be awake.

The dark outside a comfort and the window ajar.

No one else stirs, not even the dog.  

Especially not even the dog, who curls like a snail.

 

Often worries come at night. 

Things always, as they say, look better in the morning.  

Emily Dickinson writes, "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." 

But tonight I am happy it is two in the morning.

I have hours in this peaceful room edged with shadows. 

A soothing hot drink and some honeycomb, 

A pen and some margins to write in.

 

Such  simple things to enjoy.   

I might settle into sleep

Or settle into wakefulness

In a pool of light with only black beyond the fringes as close as I can feel.  

                                          by Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 Wendell Berry 2012

THE REMARKABLE HARRIET JACOBS AND OUR LIVES TODAY

Edenton, North Carolina

We took an outing to Edenton, a picturesque town on the Albemarle Sound just a two and a half hour drive from home, where preserved historic areas are buttressed by reminders of slavery, much as enslaved labor buttressed the coastal economy.   

My husband recently finished Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself.  In the 1820s and 30s, Jacobs (1813-1897) lived hidden in the attic of her grandmother Molly, a freed woman, for nearly 7 years.  Can you imagine? The room was less than head height.  She was waiting for the right time to escape to freedom by way of the Chowan River. 

We went to Edenton to try to feel what life there was like.  It was the kind of trip that acts more like a whipsaw than anything else.  Filled with contradictions like life often is.  For us, a stay in a lovely room at the Inner Banks Inn with morning French Toast or eggs-to-order.  A little kitchen off the living room to make tea and coffee all hours. 

Living Room, Inner Banks Inn

A world apart from the world of Harriet Jacobs. And of those less privileged today.  We're more aware, aren't we, of our privilege at whatever level it lies?  

Just after arriving we walked to the grounds of St. Paul's Episcopal Church where Harriet and her children were baptized.  As my husband was describing to me  the "owner" who made her life unbearable, we spotted his grave: James Norcom, M.D. (1777-1850), who was known throughout his life as  "one of the most distinguished physicians of his time."

And in fact he does seem to have practiced charity to all, all but the enslaved. To Harriet he is a "licentious master" and predator who subjects her (and others) to unrelenting abuse.  Both he and his wife were known among the enslaved for their cruelty and violence.  Harriet chooses confinement--for who knew how long--in the crawl space over her grandmother's home and bakery, to life in the Norcom household.  

The next day we took the Harriet Jacobs' Tour; basically a golf-cart ride with a knowledgeable State guide around the places associated with the writer. Neither of us had heard the term "maritime railroad" but along the North Carolina coast it was a thriving and dangerous route to freedom.  Jacobs dresses as a sailor when she makes her escape North.

To no avail Norcom continues to hunt her with a passion. Here Norcom offers a $100 REWARD for "the apprehension and delivery of my Servant Girl, HARRIET.  She is a light mulatto," he says, "21 years of age, about 5 feet 4 inches high. . . ."  "She speaks easily and fluently," he continues, "and has an agreeable carriage and address."   James wants her back.   In her autobiography she states that she is able to fend him off, no mean feat.  It enrages the man.  The guide tells us that he becomes obsessed with her. Just reading this poster is hurtful. 

Part of the Jacobs' tour includes the African-American Cemetery, mostly unmarked graves. A few weeks ago we also stayed one night in Old Salem, in another historic inn, just an hour and a half from home.  There we saw what is called the Stranger's Graveyard.  Stones of African Americans marked only Adult or Child.

Harriet's life story is remarkable. She unites with her children and once free leads a long and extraordinary life as an activist.  She does more good than Norcom ever dreamed of. 

These trips are moving occasions.  While we were at the Inner Banks Inn the Derek Chauven verdict also came down.  Guilty on all counts.  The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that ex-officer Chauven murdered George Floyd with his knee.  And all because a prescient child filmed the murder with her phone.  We watched promises that change and accountability are coming and hope, despite almost immediate evidence to the contrary, that this may be true. 

We are used to intense times, aren't we?  Pandemic worries, fears of violence, and whatever else we cope with. We are used to the cognitive dissonance, as it's called, of living with tremendous difficulties, and yet having wonderful lives.  I feel like this was a week of paying respects.  But it was also a longed-for week of traveling with my husband, eating food cooked by someone else, and sleeping on sheets I don't have to change.  It was a week at water's edge seeing new sights.  Now at its end I feel transformed, in more ways than one. 

With love and respect for all, Nina Naomi  

1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse, Edenton

 

 

 

 

 

YESTERDAY WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Meadow Wildflowers

Yesterday was one of those days.  Too much ruminating, too many unhelpful thoughts.  Does this ever happen to you?  Like all of us I suspect, things have happened that I wish hadn't. Sometimes one of those is right there waiting for me as I wake in the morning.  As if whatever happened isn't enough, my mind decides to enlarge it, creating unpleasant scenarios against my will.   

Luckily I had signed up for a free course at learning@mindful.org.  I love this sort of thing.  Choose what you want whenever you want.  So I picked the soothing voice of Jessica Morey on the topic of nourishing emotional resilience.  The meditation helped.  It was calming.  Then I went outside.  Outside always helps.  The daisies are just beginning to fill the meadow.  In a week they will look like this, bending with the grasses to follow the breeze.  

Even yesterday there were enough daisies, lavender bugle weeds and buttercups for a bouquet for my breakfast room.  Still, the unhelpful memories kept interfering, some triggered by a short conversation later in the afternoon.  That bugaboo hyper-vigilance was roused.  

I decided to open my prayer journal.  That turned out to be just what I needed.  After writing I began reading over prior entries.  Of course there are prayers of supplication, prayers that arise from need or fear or concern.  All the emotions we feel.  But so much gratitude.  So many reminders of the goodness of everyday.  Of healing, of lessenings of traumas, of the love I receive and hopefully give.  

Life goes on in a haphazardly beautiful way. A way good enough for me and I hope for you too.  That goodness is what a diary of any mindful nature lover should be mostly about.  

                                           from Nina Naomi 

 

 

I WANT TO LIVE WHERE EVERYDAY THERE'S TIME FOR CREATIVITY

One time our daughter was reading her toddler a favorite book.  It might have been The Velveteen Rabbit or that wonderful story about Julius the pig who comes to stay with Maya and her family.  Anyway, what he said was, "I want to live in this book."  The same boy, a year later, was with me at a production of Peter Pan where Peter and the children flew on aerial silks across the stage.  He jumped out of his seat and said, "I want to live up there."  I could see what he meant; swinging with taut arms and legs, high up on those silks would be a great place to live.  

Woody Allen once wrote a quirky piece called "The Kugelmass Episode," about a man who by some strange means ends up living in the novel Emma Bovary.  Readers find him there, disrupting the action.  Notwithstanding Allen himself, I like the story.   

Then I picked up the newest bella GRACE  (bellagracemagazine.com) and read an article by Jessica Monet where she wrote, "I want to live in new books with decorative hardcovers and textured pages."  When I was in 5th grade I would have picked Gone with the Wind to live in.  Missing some of the fine points, I pretty much adored Rhett Butler as the first hero with sex appeal I had encountered. 

I identify with a few of the little things Jessica Monet wants to "live in." 

Cedars in the Meadow, Lulu intrigued 

"The joy of coming across a deer on a hike" is one; deer sleep under the cedars in our meadow.  As the sun rises they meander past our windows into the deeper woods.  Once at dusk a fawn came so close I stopped breathing.  "[T]he enthrallment of exploring dusty, forgotten antique stores," is another.  The Tar-Heel Antique Fair in tiny Efland, North Carolina (1.8 sq. miles, pop. 668) was one of my first post-vaccine experiences.  

So what do you want to live in?  I quickly jotted a list.  I want to live in the hearts of those I love and care for.  I want to live in the mind of God.  I want to live in the newness of every season as it arrives: spring mornings, summer nights, fall days and winter afternoons.  Just these words call up your own images, don't they?  

I want to live in my home and the homes of dear friends.  In my memories, as difficult as some are.  And hopefully, if I've helped someone along the way, in their memory too.  I want to live where trauma fades, where acceptance comforts, where thoughts settle.  Where everyday there's time for creativity. . . .  And more . . . and more . . . .

Where does this idea take you?