IF YOU LOVE THE TREES, THEY WILL LOVE YOU BACK by Nina Naomi

 IF  YOU LOVE THE TREES, THEY WILL LOVE YOU BACK.

IF YOU LOVE THE BIRDS, YOU WILL WAKEN TO THEM.

IF YOU LOVE TO SING, YOU WILL LIVE YOUR LIFE SINGING.

IF YOU LOVE THE EARTH, YOU WILL TEND TO YOUR GARDEN,

WALK IN THE GRASS, GO BAREFOOT IN SUMMER, 

IN SPRING AND IN FALL, THEN SOCK FEET IN WINTER.

IF YOU LOVE THE NIGHT, YOU'LL STAY OUT AFTER DARK,

LIGHTS IN YOUR WINDOWS SEEN FROM AFAR, A CHILL ON YOUR ARMS.  

IF YOU LOVE TO CLIMB TREES, YOU WILL GROW UP THEIR FRIEND. 

YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THEIR TRUNKS IN YOUR ARMS. 

YOUR FEET FIND THEIR BALANCE, BY FEEL YOU CLIMB HIGHER,

A PLACE TO STRADDLE MAYBE A PLACE TO DANGLE, 

TESTING THE STRENGTH OF EACH LIMB, A PLACE TO SIT,

A PLACE TO HIDE.

THIS BRANCH WANTS TO HOLD ME. 

IF YOU LOVE A TREE, IT WILL LOVE YOU BACK. 

            by Nina Naomi 2025

SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER by William Sloane Coffin

May God give us grace never to sell ourselves short;

Grace to risk something big for something good;

And grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth

And too small for anything but love.

   by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin (1924-2006)

THIS IS YOUR KINGDOM, WHEREVER YOU ARE

Tube Station (no upgrades here)

In a prior This is Your Kingdom post (Feb 6, 2022) I mentioned the online UK travel guide that handpicks contributors to write about their favorite places.  London is mine.  We were newlyweds there, lived on a tiny stipend, had a baby and generally built memories that helped shape a strong marriage.  I hope everyone has such a spot from their youth.  For three years, just about every outing we took began at Russell Square Underground Station. 

Now we've just come back from showing London to two grandchildren, ages 17 and 18.  We all have dreams that we may have to abandon, but this one, sharing the best part of our past with these two, came true last week.  My heart is full. 

Our original time in London began in a room in student housing, bathroom down the hall and electricity dependent on our stash of shillings for the meter.  After a few months an apartment came through in a Trust called Goodenough College, set up for those whose countries helped England during WWII.  The apartment was fourth floor, small dormer windows, two-burner stove, closet and bedroom. It was perfect.  

We had a key to Mecklenburg Square, full of mature London plane trees. Virginia Wolfe lived near there in the 1920s.  Charles Dickens once lived down the block. 

This trip we stayed in Goodenough College again, one of many returns but perhaps the best, having these youngsters to share it with.  The Square hadn't changed.  We had always relied on pasta for a filling meal then and did so again.  If you live there or plan to go, the restaurant is Ciao Bella on Lamb's Conduit St. in Bloomsbury. 

Pasta for Four

This was a whirlwind week, exhausting for us grandparents, who skipped the early morning Trooping of the Colors.  But we did make it to Westminster Abbey, Stonehenge and most of the other sites.

Choir, Westminster Abbey

Queen Elizabeth I and her sister Queen Mary are buried together in Westminster.  So is Chaucer; and many more. The whole trip sometimes felt like a living history class, a feeling we often get when we travel to heritage sites, don't we? 

Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain

Like the best of times, the most wonderful part was seeing something new (or old) with people you enjoy most.  The trip was filled with love and caring, the cousins for each other and both of them for us, the grandparents who slow them down but admire and appreciate them.  It was their gift to us as well as ours to them. 

National Gallery, Trafalgar Square

When I need to remind myself to be grateful, I think this trip will be foremost for a long time.  Maybe forever.  Let's each look into our lives and see what we can recall that awakens our gratitude.  I bet it involves someone very, very special.                     

                                    With all good thoughts, Nina Naomi

OLDER BY A DAY WITH A CURIOUS MIND

Renoir, Misia Sert, 1904

Today I am older than I've ever been,

With hair still long and curious mind,

A peaceful home and love forever by my side.  

At night we coil and kiss and he says, "I adore you."

I wake to birdsong, legs entwined and back just shy of pain.

Yes, older than I've ever been, but feeling almost young.

Sometimes when memory interferes, I scold and back it stays.

" Not wanted," my heart beats and chastised it retreats. 

Thoughts of that never-time when from great fear I persevered. 

That never-time I wanted not. 

That blot that fades as we grow older than we've ever been,  

That cannot change the truth and--now I know--that never could. 

I am not plagued by worry or perfection, not of body nor of soul.

I've layered doubt with intuition and asked my God to comfort me. 

My ears are full of silent sounds, my eyes the trees, the meadow grass, 

My heart the shaggy hickory bark, the bugle weed and ash. 

To find faith everywhere is such an easy ending, 

And yet an ending to embrace when--you know--we grow old.   

OUR MOTHERS, OURSELVES--

This weekend is Mother's Day and we're bound to be thinking about the person who mothered us.  You know about my mother; she's the Nina Naomi I dedicate this blog to. Her memory is alive in me, and I talk to her often.  Since her death in 2005 I've had to provide her responses too.  It's not a fraught relationship.  Before she died, I told her, "Mom, we have no issues."  

And of course, many of us are mothering someone ourselves.  Before my son died too young, he said, "Mom, no son ever loved a mother more than I love you."  My most precious gift.  And I had issues aplenty with that headstrong boy.  But from boyhood he was quick to give and forgive.  I think my daughter's sons are the same with her. 

A writer in the New York Times (Jancee Dunn) asked readers to share moments when their moms were right. This response resonates:

After my first child was born, my mother put her hand on my arm and said, "Honey, you have breathed your last free breath."  And she laughed--in a kind, not a bitter, way.  Her words meant that I was now to know love so consuming that every second of the rest of my life would be spent in fear of loss.  I feel connected to her knowing that we have shared this deep and meaningful terror.  Shannon Kilgore

I don't know how young we are when we learn the fear of loss.  Some younger than others.  The children of Ukraine are learning too soon.  For the mothers of all those murdered in America the terror comes true.  Such is life, so far, in this 21st century.  

But what else is important in this mother's advice?  She said it "in a kind, not a bitter, way."  That's what mothers do.  They let us know about the world, how it will be for us.  They don't do it harshly.  They want us to be kind and not bitter too.  They know that only great love gives rise to great fear, and they want great love for their children. 

Another reader response brings solace: 

I once asked my mom, "What am I ever going to do when you are gone?"  She said, "Exactly what you're doing now."  I was startled by the simplicity.  In a few words, she let me know that life would go on and I would be fine.  Mary Ellen Collins

When I feared losing my own mother, she said to me, "I had the best mom in the world, your grandma, and I've done just fine."  I knew she was right, on both counts. 

This graduation/Mother's Day weekend I hope your heart is where it needs to be.  That whatever our history we have found love and peace.  And if we need to give or forgive, we can do that too.  In love, 

Nina Naomi 

   

SOME DAYS ARE STORMY (IN VERSE)

Verse #1 for Today

What do you need? God asked.

To be understood, valued and loved.

Yes, God said, anything else?

Not just by You (a plea).

That too, God replied.

But how? she wondered.

Trust yourself?

Trust your intuitions?

Protect yourself?

"Yes those, but more:  Keep Me beside you."

Verse #2 for Today

If there is a time for everything 

Then there is a time for letting go.

Thoughts into memories, memories into thoughts.

Some are treasures that turn the tide

Rushing to cut off my heart, my breath. 

Things I let go return to have their say, 

And deep without warning I need to write.

Not all, just this, these words.

Verse #3 for Today

She never needed perfect,

She only needed love. 

Verse #4 for Today

Immutable is the Word

Knowing what I cannot know.

Acting when I cannot act.

Giving when I cannot give.

 
 

CHASED

Blowing Rock, NC

 Chased by the sunset, chased by the moon  

Chased by the morning coming too soon 

Chased by my thoughts as I open my eyes

Pushing back covers confronting the whys

Feeling my blessings as arms hold me tight

Loving the warmth that has sheltered the night

Sometimes the memories confound morning's peace

Leave my mind hoping their circling will cease

Why, I now ask, have they have lasted this long 

But the touch and the breathing can right an old wrong

If I let it, I help it, I sing our true song

    by Nina Naomi

MAYBE TIME STOOD STILL

 

(I found this at Barnes and Noble)

 Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.

After Bonfire day (Post: A Bonfire Day, 3/21/22) when I set my thoughts and prayers to flame to free the future from the past, I bought A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature; a charming little book with sketches, prompts and space.  It is a most inviting place.  It begs for stories and goals, things imagined or true, the random or the persistent . . . .   A place to make so fine that it could slow your breath. 

Perhaps you have a special place to write too.  Here is what this workbook pulled from my heart this morning. 

• Keep love alive.  Offer it, accept it, take care of it as something fragile.  Friendship the same.  Good things are fragile; like plants they need water and a tender touch.  Love doesn't thrive if neglected. Or usurped.  It may change into habit or routine or even die. We know the phrase, "a wandering eye?"  Even companionship needs a watchful, not wandering, eye.  Think how your companionable dog attunes to every sign of what you want. 

• Accept the past, bad and good, what you would change and what you would never.  We can not win a fight with the past.    Acceptance is admitting the truth of whatever happened, whether by me, by someone else, or to me.  As simple as that.  The most unbelievable things happen; believe them.  There's no way out but there is something better:  a way forward. 

• When something wonderful happens savor it, prolong it, let it spread and give it a special place in your memories.  Today nestled in sleep I heard loving words and woke smiling.  Not words from a dream or a memory, but words being whispered.  Today I lived for the moment, the shining warm moment of requited love.  Today I let those words permeate me with no other thought intruding.  Today is never yesterday.  Today is always now.  

• Seek out the places where you find yourself.  Where is your place?  I go into the woods to find myself.  I go into the woods to find God.  I go into the woods to find peace.  To be delighted by soft green moss, spreading clover and variegated  pine cones.  What words fill-in-this-blank for you? By a lake?  On a hill top?  Under the open sky? On a walk?  Into a church?  There is no one who doesn't have a place.  

• Be vulnerable in love.  Say words that show trust.  Some words of love come trance-like from the soul.  "Love me," is a deep request, a beautiful admission.  The feeling is one of air--fresh, clear and warm.  Or like a circle of lamplight inside the night.  Words of trust make us feel clean as from a shower, soft from the soap, ready for bed.  Windows open, moths hitting the screen.  It could be years ago. Or maybe time stood still.   
  

 

 

 

THIS IS THE WAY JOY IS

Newly Engaged, Dinner for Two

This is the way  life can be:

I once lived in a house with front and back stairways, one bathroom, coal furnace.  I tumbled  down the backstairs into the kitchen, but waltzed down the front stairs into the hall.  I thought I was Scarlet O'Hara.  How carefree  childhood can be.

I once loved a boy who drew an X by his locker and said "Here is a spot for you to stand."  I have been standing by him for decades now.  I didn't draw an X, but he stands by me too.  This is the way love can be.

I once knew not God, but God found me.  On a walk by the clock tower I knew "This is true." I was twenty years old with snow falling.  God drew the X for God's self.  This is the way my faith began. 

I once had two babies to care for.  Sometimes I miss that soft, fragrant, rambunctious time.  This is how time passes.   

I once had a son who joined my law firm and said to his clients, "This is my Mama."  What a wonderful time! Oh how hard when cancer steals a young life.

I once wanted grandchildren, precious and free.   Now I have three.   Strong,  transcendent,  faithful and kind.  My cup runneth over.  This is the way joy is.  

The house, the boy, our faith, the babies, death, grief, a new generation, blessings--all of it, all of it, the way life can be.   

 

WHEN WE ARE VULNERABLE WE ARE ALIVE

Since Valentine's Day was this month, I have been thinking about love, surely the most universal feeling of all.  I ran into an article by someone who wrote the following: 

The arrival of love is offered to me everyday, and everyday I have two choices.

To let love in and trust it just for this day, letting it wash over me in the gratitude that I get to feel it even for an hour.

To spend all hours of the day obsessing over if I can trust the love being offered; take out my detective notebook and look for all the holes in the story or where what is being promised didn’t line up with what happened before; and thereby block the love.

Have you ever done something like that?  If something bad has happened in the past, we may concentrate on that to the exclusion of the good that is right before our face.  That's blocking love.  It happens when we nurse a grudge, or are suspicious.  Or can't forgive.

If I have a memory or an intrusive thought, I might let it ruin (or try to) the happiness of the moment.  Sometimes I must actively remind myself:  Don't let this be hindered by something that is over. That is what I think the writer meant by not trusting the love being offered because "what is being promised didn't line up with what happened before."  

We all have our Worst Nightmares.  I don't mean "I'm not prepared," or "I'm naked."  (Apparently those are our top two.)  I mean those things that can explode under our nose or behind our back that we actually cannot prepare for, that we find out after they've happened.  Worst Nightmares almost always make us feel helpless and useless, or whatever other adjectives attach to feelings of worthlessness.  There's no preventing it because it already came true. Worst Nightmares can be traumatizing.

When we're faced with a Worst Nightmare we can let it consume our every waking thought or we can live our lives one day at a time, trusting that somewhere intimacy, joy, faith and trust will follow.  When we do that, we let love in. From other people, from God, from ourselves, from our partners and friends. We can either hear only the thoughts that paralyze us or listen to the love we are offered. The scariest and bravest thing we ever do is to love someone completely. Only when we are vulnerable are we alive. 

WISE WORDS, A COLLECTION

 

 

Reader, I've filled my 2021 collage journal with these words and would humbly like to share them with you:

Winter reminds us that every living thing, including us, needs quiet time.

The world is full of magical things waiting for us to notice. 

"Books are the destination and the journey.  They are home."  Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)

When the astronauts looked back, they saw that what they were leaving behind was perhaps even more beautiful than where they were going. 

Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.  Eckhart Tolle (b. 1948)

A healthy wish:  To live simply.  To sit by the window when it rains and read books, and never be tested on them.  

Another healthy wish:  To fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly without penalty.

Go ahead, write about your life; it's completely yours.

"[Books are] the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this.  So the book doesn't only belong to the writer.  It belongs to the reader as well.  And then together you make it what it is."  Paul Auster (b. 1947)

Trees have given us shelter, food, warmth and healing for all of human existence.  Now we must care for them with love.

"Life is to be lived, not controlled."  Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994) 

"Make your life a little easier, especially in your head." unknown 

What we pay attention to thrives.  What we ignore fades away. So place your attention carefully.

"It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world."  Mary Oliver (1935-2019) 

Peace doesn't mean no noise, trouble or effort; it means to be in the midst of these and more, yet still be calm in mind and heart. 

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."  Plato (428-348 BCE)

Change is inevitable.  It's OK to change your point of view, change your priorities, change your beliefs, your mind, your behavior . . . .

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally." John Donne (1572-1631)

There's more to come, and some of it will be beautiful. 

Just connecting to beauty is consoling.  It helps us know the best we can do; the worst gets so much publicity. 

As life progresses, there are certain things we just have to get used to.  

"Something that is loved is never lost."  Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

"You are never stronger . . . than when you land on the other side of despair."   Zadie Smith (b. 1975)

It's easy to love life when everything is new to you, but surprising to still love every day as I get older. 

We don't live to ourself or die to ourself.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Romans 14:7-8

How wonderful when you realize that you can save yourself.  How amazing it is to be brave without forethought.  

Learn to stop rushing things that need time to grow.

Sometimes just going forward is superhuman.  Give yourself credit. 

A Star led the way to the Light of the World.   

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

A SAINT'S PRAYER FOR US

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

 Saint Teresa, Spanish mystic, prays for us:

May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith

in yourself and others.

May you use the gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us. 

Thank you, Teresa, for praying for us; for sending your prayer across the ages to each one who reads it; for speaking directly to me. I have read every line slowly.  I will trust that I am where I am meant to be.  Word by word, what you wish for me is what I wish for myself.  To know the love of God in my very bones, so that they are never dry.  How did you know? 

With appreciation, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

TOO MANY THINGS TO DO

 

I've got too many things to do

On my list, in my head.

Real things, imagined things.

So I've run away to the beach, to the woods, under the covers,

To clear my head of silly lists and chores,

Of memories, disappointments, hauntings. 

That circling spy me out, in a dream.

Wheel upon wheel of interpretations and reinterpretations.

Endless quests to understand 

What Happened and Why.  

Does it matter, still?

Someday. 

Out here beyond the shore, the trees, the bottom of my bed

Is only love.

All within my body, so soft, so forgiving.

Nothing to do but breathe.  

Hydrangeas and White Sky

 

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!