The wind blows over our days and scatters them like scruff.
If you cannot accept the past at least accept the present.
Go outdoors where the heat is now,
Where the brush is now,
The bending is now.
There are so many things that shutter what haunts--
A chipmunk we named Doug,
A cardinal who courtship feeds his lady,
Some feathers (left by a fox?),
The hawks that sit on the fence,
Dragonflies over the water . . . .
by nina naomi
Wondering is in our nature.
Or is it wandering?
Maybe floundering is in our nature.
Or blundering.
Childlike we wonder and wander, flounder and blunder.
Oh, that's a good way to be.
Don't be afraid,
Be curious.
by nina naomi
When I was a child my mother said,
"You are beautiful, you are smart.
Your hair is soft, your lips are full.
You are loved."
I believed her then, I believe her now.
She is the gift from God to me.
Write it, know it: Gifts from God last forever.
by nina naomi
Oh how I love the train. Eight times a day, first at 7:02 and last at 9:33 I love the train. Morning the Southbound, evening the Northbound I love the train. It's as regular as Mr. Wiggles waiting for his supper.
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| Train we took in Alaska |
The track runs four miles from my window on the other side of the forest. Long it whistles, longer it echoes, crossing after crossing as it travels into town (or out). Not forlorn, not haunting. Just people traveling from Charlotte to Durham to Raleigh and Washington, perhaps then north to Mystic or Boston. Ordinary people choosing the rhythm of the train as others have for almost 200 years. The sound saturates the forest around us, melds with the insects, the frogs, the birds and the scuttling. Even the trees pulsate as sound ricochets off their canopy and cascades back to earth. There's nothing disturbing about this tidal wave of noise. I love it.
Oh how I love the clamor of the geese. Each night they pass overhead honking their way in one direction and then in the other. Again, you could set your clock. Often in the mornings they settle in our meadow to graze and pluck a few tasty insects. As we drive off for the day, others cause a traffic jam padding across a nearby country road from a pond. Why are they in sync? Such communal creatures.
They are the noisiest of waterfowl. They seem to live for water and sky. Enviable. I don't know why I love them, but maybe it's because they seem steady and predictable and, above all, talkative. I read that they honk to encourage eachother as they fly. How could we possibly know this? But it's a lovely idea. In the air they're a skein, flying in formation. On the ground more rowdy and undisciplined, thus a gaggle. I don't know that many people who look forward to geese, but I do.
I have friends who hunt duck and geese and deer. One also shoots wild boar, elk, and whatever he can. The duck and geese can't be too hard. After all, their arrival is a raucous event and in a skein you're bound to hit one. The deer that fill our meadow would be no harder to kill, I dare say, than your pet dog. Still, I'm not a vegetarian so how can I judge?
Complexities aside, this is the good luck of my life--living amongst the machine and the garden. The sounds of the train, the cacophony of the geese and the beauty of the white-tailed deer. We love what we love. What about you?
The shadows out my window fill the woods with only patches of light. It's a bright day, almost no clouds, yet the shade is deep, the leaves a darker green than ever yet this year. Far off but still visible a gravel drive, a neighbor's pond and gazebo, fancier than the tall weeds and foxtail that grow in sunlit patches of mine. Just beneath my windows ferns and mosses spread on the damp side of the house. Our land rolls to the creek, a ravine of old leaves wedged between roots and rocks, rerouting the water with each hard rain.
One larger patch of sunlight catches my eye. Shade grass squeezes between the granite, quartz and sandstone, trunks pushed to left and right leaning on eachother where their tops collide. Fungi nestle in the composting leaves, some a surprise with their thumb-sized red hats. Always I am happy to spot them.
Always I wanted to live like this in a house in a woods, in a woods behind a meadow; a meadow with cedar trees three stories high and deer beneath the branches spreading low to the ground making a dome fragrant and fresh. Then along the wood's edge loblolly pines shedding onto their golden carpet. Cedar leaves small and itchy, loblolly needles soft and long. Pinecones spread wide. Hawks and ravens and turkey vultures in the meadow and under the dogwood squirrels and chipmunks sharing bounty with the birds. Wild spiny mahonia, barberry, holly and nandina, all with berries blue or red. Lenten roses reseeded across the boundary from a neighbor's garden.
Nothing showcase here, all is old: the land, the trees, the house and some days me. Even the dog. Nothing quite kept up to snuff. But what a place of calm and equilibrium, where life can stretch long like a shadow, like the shadows out the window that fill the woods.
Nina Naomi
Feeling fine again. The day has been full, church and prayers for others and myself. A brunch with salmon and avocado. An afternoon nap. And rain, blessed rain.
The earth has been hard and thirsty, only spots of moisture around the plants that I water, small dark circles of wet earth. But finally, hours of steady rain and now the happy noises of rejuvenated evening sounds out the open window.
In the middle of sleep last night my husband of many years woke and whispered sweetly in the dark. How could life be better? A dog, the rain, a loving mate, Sunday and the space it brings. And no problem on the horizon that at this moment I am tasked to solve. A special day indeed.
Ahhh . . . there's the train whistle, distant through the woods yet near and clear. One more thing I can rely upon. So many simple blessings. Thank you God.
Time is different the older you are. Have you noticed? Although there's less future, there's so much past that life feels very full. My life span feels huge--my brain, heart, memory, thoughts all burgeoning. Every little thing recalls something else. Knowledge is boundless. I have familiarity with decades. Different fashions, periods, wars, manners, technology. My very skin could burst with all that's inside me.
It's the same for all of us. We know about birth, we know about death, we know about life, we know about loss, we know about love, we know about hope. Sometimes I think that I know everything that matters. How to read a poem, how to root begonias, how to comfort myself, how to make Moroccan chicken and perfect grilled salmon, how to find God. How to survive just about anything, certainly more than I ever thought I would have to.
Who of us knows what time we have left? But the years behind overlap with what's to come and life seems whole. It seems complete. It's a miraculous feeling, this fullness, this plumpness of life, as if it stretches endlessly.
Tonight I sit indoors and hear the cicadas and tree frogs and perhaps a coyote far off. I can predict just when the train whistle will sound. The dog snores softly with his head propped on the roll of his bed. I'll be in my own bed soon. Tomorrow I'll feed him again and let him out and make tea and dress for church. There I'll light candles for a person important to me whose mind and heart are confused.
But tonight all that has gone before seems enough, satisfying, like a good meal. The days we've been alive are just right; let's have no quarrel with them. Each has built us, has given us something, has held us up and enlarged our soul. God is at the center of this. God has been here all along, for me first in my mother's love, my father's interest, and in our small families of four: the one I was born into and the one I gave birth to myself.
What a blessing this feeling is. I am writing it down to preserve it in words, because not every day is so overflowing due to, really, nothing at all. God is here this very moment.
Thank you from Nina Naomi
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| Collage Journal |
It's 97° today where I live, too hot to leave the air conditioning. But if your work is done and you have some time, here's an indoor exercise that helps us identify what values we hold dear and then keep space for them. I found it a positive thing to do and maybe you will too.
First, using stream-of-consciousness. answer these questions:
Writing quickly I listed the things I have that are important to me: my marriage, my family, some close friends, my faith, my home and the peacefulness it imparts. Before I was retired, I would have included my job, (representing people injured by their health care), which was fulfilling. What I want to have are solutions to
personal problems that are ongoing. We may all have some of those.
What I want to do is to give love, be kind, spread joy, and leave good memories for others. Again, quickly jotted down. Others' answers will be different. Earlier in life mine would have included good parenting, providing for the family, being a good lawyer, etc. My
responses are general, but others may be specific: You may want to volunteer,
get home earlier, stay healthier, be more optimistic, find
time for creativity, take a course, have financial security. . . .
And who I want to be? Myself, the person I am now but closer to God, less judgmental, more mindful, keeping good memories close, accepting the past and the present. . . . And so much more. Again, stream-of-consciousness.
The idea in doing this is to discover our core values and then align our decisions and goals with these. We all want a place in our life for what matters to us.
I forgot one: travel. The pandemic has made this difficult, but for me travel touches on many core values: happiness, growth, adventure, knowledge, boldness, fun, openness, optimism, balance, challenge and curiosity.
This exercise has told me that I need to plan a trip. A hot July day at the computer reminding me of the benefits of travel; not a vacation--we all need time off--but travel. Isn't that the most wonderful thing? I will plan something; such fortune to be able to, so many years when I couldn't.
See what the exercise tells you. I hope something good.
Love, Nina Naomi
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| Rose o' Sharon blooms in July |
July is such a lovely month. Plenty of summer left. Quite hot where we live and dry, but good for swimming and grilling and eating al fresco, especially this holiday weekend. Mornings are cool enough to walk and there are evening breezes. We've been giving the birds lots of water and irrigating the plants from our well.
Lots of our friends have Covid but none, thankfully, is hospitalized. Our Durham family spent the last week rafting in the Grand Canyon and comes back tomorrow. And I've been feeling better about the world-at-large now that New York has outsmarted the Supreme Court by banning concealed weapons from parks and playgrounds, hospitals, schools and churches, subways and Times Square. New Jersey is set to do the same and we have family there; six are children. Other states will follow. Things are looking a little less dire. I hope you are feeling the same. There's too much good in the world to allow our negativity bias free reign.
I've been learning a lot lately and perhaps some of it you might like a reminder of.
