AN AUTUMNAL DAY OF CONTRASTS

President's House

You can enjoy beautiful walks now almost everywhere.  Cooler air,  leaves crunching underfoot, deep reds and russets and golds.  Nature seems happy to shed and reveal its shapeliness.  Knuckle-head pumpkins, red warty pumpkins, smooth white and traditional orange jack-o-lanterns.  Clusters of mums on doorsteps of homes and shops, shades of purple and pink, red or orange, yellow and white.   And apples of every variety ready for caramel, cinnamon or nutmeg.  Fall is a season of excess.    

I was feeling its bounty yesterday when I was caught up short passing the historic President's House on the campus of Princeton University. Life is full of contrasts, as we know.  So switch gears with me if you will.

In front of the President's House is an iron plaque commemorating sixteen of the enslaved men, women and children who were bought, sold, traded or inherited by the men who lived in the house.  They too lived their seasons in the spot I was standing.  Loved and worked, laughed and mourned in this lovely university town. In the house and on the grounds of the President of the University. It is not something to notice and pass by.

I studied the names.  Caesar and Harry served one President.  Joseph and Sue another, Peg yet another.  Names given them by those who enslaved them, of course.  In 1766 a Jamaican mother would not have named her infant "Sue."  An African woman wasn't given the birth name "Peg" by her family. Possibly the earliest dehumanization taken for granted by the enslaver.  

But there's something more particular that caught my eye. Look at the sign closely. The plaque lists two unnamed women, an unnamed man, three unnamed children and an unnamed 11 or 12-year-old boy.  

This memorial was placed by Princeton University in 2019. Much good has come from the Princeton and Slavery Project, which developed from an undergraduate course in 2013. You can look it up as I did.  

But why in 2019 would these children be listed as unnamed?  A name might be unrecorded; it might be lost to history or unknown; but a person is not unnamed.  The enslaved community was no different than any other. Their mother named these children. The children, the women, the man and the boy were each loved by others who knew their names intimately and called them out, lovingly or in anger; in whispers or in fear. Our imaginations do not fail us here. 

I feel like there is a carelessness in so describing these children and adults.  Perhaps a paucity of feeling.  I wonder if this is another way racism unconsciously affects even those who try to make amends. 

I want to think about this.  I am glad during this bountiful fall of walks and road-trips for this time to think about the injustices of today that are so rooted in the brutalities of yesterday.  To remember our history in a tangible way, by the small gesture of touching the raised cast-in-iron mementos of people enslaved where, by the grace of God (and Abraham Lincoln), all now walk freely.  Simple things remind us how much remains for us to do.

Questions of evil like strings of seaweed rise tangled from the depths.  But we are meant to be aware of these contrasts, to confront the disconnects.  To not pass by but rather do good however we can.        

                                                 Nina Naomi  

  

 

 

 

 

A GENTLE PLACE

Matisse, "Interior at Nice," 1919

Lately I've been hard on myself. Why, I don't know. I'm critical of too much.  My aging body, what I eat and drink. Some wrinkles here, some sagging there; haircut uneven, walk not brisk enough . . . .  What unkind thoughts.  If someone else treated me like this I'd ban them from my presence.  How many calories in that brûlée?  How many in that drink?  Is it sugar-free?  How dare I even think about a hot chocolate with marshmallows.  

I hope you're not doing this.  I hope you're being tender with yourself. But if you're not, if you've veered into self-judgment like I have, let's not.  Let's not set rules for ourselves that make us unhappy.  Especially if they have to do with aging, which, after all, is a blessing. Living is a gift and living long . . . well, the greatest forfeiture of all is dying young.  If we've lost someone young it's been etched on our heart.

I would like to love myself the way I love my home.  That may seem like a strange comparison, but every morning I awake glad to see the forest out the bedroom windows, eager to walk down the hall past the courtyard to the kitchen, ready to set the kettle on and rescue Mr. Wiggles from his night's sleep.  I don't mind the age of the house, the broken upstairs bathroom fan, the (new) water marks on the ceiling. No, I just love it the way it is. It makes me happy every day.  

It's a home where with the same friends we've celebrated birthdays and anniversaries but also gathered after standing at the grave site or columbarium.  There's no human emotion this house hasn't held within its walls. Not one.  And its done so with grace.  You can laugh in one room and cry in another and the house enfolds you.  Isn't yours the same?  A place of comfort without judgment.  "I am here for you," it says. Lay down your head. 

And shouldn't the same be true of us?  Shouldn't we be a gentle haven for ourselves?  Like our homes, that see all, absorb all and don't critique.  I'd like to be as reliable a consolation for myself as my home is.  It's a good analogy.  Being our own refuge.  Retreating inward when we want, to a place of safety.  Coming home not just to where we live but to ourselves.  Wrapping ourselves in love with a tenderness we often reserve for others.  

The opposite of being hard on yourself is not being easy on yourself.  It's being kind. 

I'm glad I thought this through.  

                                                      Nina Naomi

REINVENTION

Matisse "Nude in an Armchair" 1920

I was meant for reinvention.

Never stopping, always falling.

Falling in love, falling in grace.

Changing my place, facing my fears.

Keeping my years cherished and clear.

Healing my brokenness,

New everyday.

This is the way

Of reinvention.

     Nina Naomi 

 

 

THE EXTRAORDINARY

"Olive Trees At Collioure," Matisse, 1905

 Where do we find the extraordinary? 

Seldom in black tie and tulle, behind news desks or in our palms.

Earbuds and head phones scare it away.

No, the extraordinary likes the outdoors best.

It likes waterfalls and geysers, old-growth forests and thumb-sized red mushrooms.

It's in shadows of cedars on snow.

Where children play and trains whistle.

The extraordinary doesn't like crowds and cocktails, 

Humble brags or dropping names, "likes" or thumbs up.  No not there. 

Sometimes it comes indoors where lovers keep their promises and lie entwined.  

Or into words that startle.

It's in the voice of Maria Callas and the soul of Puccini. 

Artists find it and poets.  And then like God they give it away.

                                                Nina Naomi

 

 

 

BE THE ONE . . .

 

Picasso, Woman in White, 1923

Be truthful.

Be kind.

Be the one who reaches out, who doesn't disconnect.

Be attentive, be brave.

Be wistful, be tender.  

Be alive to  each      drop      that      falls.

Be the one who who doesn't tally, the one who doesn't confuse.

Be the one who plays with the children, who plants the flowers, who climbs the trees.

Be the one who gets her hands dirty, who's not afraid.  

Be forgiving.

Be humble. 

Be the one who lets someone know they shine, their glory sweeps your heart. 

Share deeply love gently.

Write      Think      Dream

Ah, what a valuable life. 

     Nina Naomi

     

                            

ANYTHING THAT LIFTS OUR SPIRITS

 

Mt. Washington, NH

This blog began in 2017 on our first Princeton, New Jersey adventure.  This is our third.  We all need adventures, small and large.  I count almost anything.  Anything that lifts our spirits.  It can be a day kayaking, a pile of new books to read, some new spices to upgrade my cooking, you name it.  

We just came back from the nicest road trip.  This was something I yearned for pre-vaccine.  I wish I could say post-pandemic, but we reached a new milestone of 711,522 US deaths from Covid as of today.  The last 21 hours added 2,522 deaths; 97% were unvaccinated. That's 2,446 preventable deaths in less than a day. In my home state, 133 North Carolinians were added to the tally.  An unhappy thought. I can't fathom not being vaccinated.  We all need a spirit boost.    

For my husband and me, our two shots of Moderna are holding steady and we are grateful.  We felt safe to plan this trip to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut.  I  never saw New England in the fall before. The leaves are a palate of their own, the reds sharper, the russets deeper, the yellows brighter. We live in the Piedmont North Carolina woods where autumn is not this luminous. No wonder the rest of the country descends on New England this time of year.  And yet it isn't crowded.  Plenty of countryside.  

 

Dickinson Home, Amherst, MA

Emily Dickinson Grave with Offerings

We began in Amherst, MA where Emily Dickinson lived and died.  We sat in her garden and visited her grave.  We saw the church her family attended. My life would be less without her poetry.  The world would be less.  Perhaps you feel the same. Surely those who left sweet offerings on her tombstone do.  Even now, remembering her everyday realm feels momentous.  Reading her poetry always lifts my heart.  We don't need to travel for that.  We can find the world in her poetry. 

 

Frost Home, Franconia, NH

We also took a road less traveled, overgrown and untrodden, high in the New Hampshire hills to see where Robert Frost lived and wrote.  When you're there it feels like you can hear his gravelly voice reciting "The Gift Outright" at President Kennedy's inauguration.  Later we hiked the Flume Gorge in Franconia Notch State Park, the most rigorous part of the trip for me.   

Flume Gorge, Mt. Liberty

The Gorge extends 800 feet horizontally with walls of granite that rise to 90 feet and are as narrow as 12 feet apart, with roaring cascades and waterfalls. A loud chasm with board walks and railings.  Tiring but not unsafe. When we came once decades ago my husband and I were both more agile.  Aren't places like this wonderful?

Do you love traveling in this country?  I do.  Day trip, road trip, camping, a weekender, a local get-away, a mini-break.  All of these lift our spirits.  Being so far from home and long-planned made this a bigger than usual adventure for us. I know life can be hard.  Mine often is.  But somehow after this I'm feeling like there can always be something good around the corner.                   

                                            Nina Naomi

 

THE TINIEST OF PLEASURES

The tiniest of pleasures.  This furry little grey mouse is about the size of a golf ball.  We were walking along a street in Boothbay, a small town in coastal Maine.  I was here years ago and have long wanted to return with my husband.  It turned out to be worth the wait.  

But amongst all the charm what captivated me most was this busy guy nibbling sunflower seeds laid out on a bench. The interest of nearly every bystander was captured.  Holding each seed in its two front feet, scurrying from bloom to bloom for the choicest bit, chewing thoughtfully.  The mouse paid us no thought at all.  If we want an example of mindful eating, this mouse would be it. Each morsel had its undivided attention. Not at all the way Mr. Wiggles approaches a snack.

Burnt Island Light, Southport, ME

We spent a few days in this scenic place.   I found us a cottage at Spruce Point Inn, small and inviting. We took a cruise and saw narrow rocky islands, a lighthouse, harbor seals and cormorants. All part of a long-awaited post-vaccine road trip.  Most of us love to chance upon a lighthouse, don't we?  North Carolina has seven.

Boothbay Harbor, ME

I also love the artistry of buoys, and outdoor coastal buildings here are festooned with them. If you live here of course you're used to the sight.  I assume that these are haphazardly hung but the result seems as careful as the most attractively  arranged wall of photos. Almost five years ago I posted about cheerful racks of canoes in "Colorful Canoes At Home and Abroad," Feb. 2, 2017. Buoys and canoes brighten the grayest of days on the water. 

But more than anything I was enchanted by the mouse and want to put sunflowers out to attract little critters back home. I bet the chipmunk named Doug that hangs out by our bird feeder will like that. How is it that I had to come all the way to Maine to see this?  Maybe its just that on vacation we have more time to notice the tiniest of pleasures. I want to try to make this an everyday thing.