Community

I often sat on the front porch over the summer months. On quiet mornings, I would catch up with my husband over a cup of coffee. Late afternoons, I sometimes made the time to read in the wrought iron chairs underneath the shade of the towering pin oak.

Several times, a lone bird landed just above me or flew close overhead to grab my attention from printed words on the page. The hawk that nests in the towering pine across the street came to perch and hunt, keeping the burgeoning chipmunk and vole population on high alert. A pileated woodpecker of startling color and size fed off the dead branches above, long claws digging into the bark and longer beak pecking loudly.

Once a blue heron flew above with long legs outstretched behind, and I felt blessed as if brushed by the gods. I even saw a bald eagle circling above, enjoying the view from the heights of the gorges that tower over the glacial lake below where the water in the stream next to the house eventually arrives.

In the safety and leisure of the summer months, each bird traveled alone to feed or hunt or monitor territory likely with young nearby loud with demands. Now, the birds are gathering together to form flocks which swoop together on a canvas of blue sky, forming three-dimensional shapes to delight the imagination. They land in trees nearby with a ruckus, clearing berries from the bushes before moving on.

Suddenly, the need has become urgent as the line at the bird feeder attests. The cooling temperatures and dwindling light signal the need for all of us to gather like the birds. The leaves gently fall or shower down in shades of red and yellow and land in piles blown to the end of the drive or into the corners of the stone walls. The clouds are gathering and lingering to soak the ground all day long rather than race through with strong winds as the passing storms of summer are apt to do.

I find the same is true for me. All my efforts and endeavors these days revolve around gathering, preparing for the well-being of my family and the camaraderie of community when days are sure to be laden with harsher tones and a vulnerability not so easily denied as other times of the year. I can and freeze and store provisions. I pack up cooler clothes and linens and replace the drawers, closets, and shelves with warmer gear of all sorts required by a species whose "fur" evolution had never intended for temperatures below zero. I plan and make gifts for upcoming holiday celebrations and seek out entertainment in the form of books or movies or games to pass the time when nature forces us to slow down indoors.

No longer satisfied to pass an afternoon alone on the porch, flying solo with  a bird above, I am looking forward to something I value among the most precious gifts of this abundant and undeserved life I lead: the gathering of community. Just as the birds flock together underneath the branches of the sugar maples, I love to bring together people, who may be family, the closest of friends, or a brand new acquaintance, under our roof to support in the midst of challenges, mark the passing of time and accomplishments, and enjoy the simplest of all human interactions in a story or experience, joke or debate, touch or look.to connect us in ways not possible otherwise.

So, I have come to the foundation of what a refurbished life must continue to uphold and expand for me, the gathering of community for a greater good. I had this realization on the porch over the summer by myself and know that in order to expand upon its inspiration and allow it to take flight with the flock, I will need to mull it over and discuss it deeply with my tribe in the coming months as we hunker down together in anticipation of the first signs of another spring and robin's return.

House

"The house determines the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute quality, colour, atmosphere, pace of one's life; it is the framework of what one does, of what one can do, and of one's relations with people." Leonard Woolf

As I refurbish an old home, I have been thinking about houses and reading about them, too. Although I don't completely agree with Virginia Woolf's husband, I do think a house is a framework within which we build a home, including all the memories assembled within its walls through the artifacts collected under its roof, the people invited within its walls, the experiences created in its rooms.

I had the opportunity of a lifetime to stay with my family and another family of friends in the Payne Mansion for two nights last weekend.

As the only guests in the 42,000 square foot mansion, the entire experience felt rather like the PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey.

Payne Mansion is situated on the Hudson River in the area where the Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, and Rockefellers all had summer houses.

The staff pampered us and allowed us to explore the entire house inside and out to our heart's content.

Every material used to build and decorate the house in the Beaux-Arts architectural style of the time around 1911 was brought from Europe and constructed to resemble an Italian Palazzo.

The weather was perfect every day and I enjoyed every minute, photographing numerous architectural details.

Everywhere I looked I found a visual feast of artistic delights like a wrought iron shell door handle

and ornately carved columns

and elaborate gold leafed plaster work

and unique sconces on carved wood paneling

and original and reproduction artwork in every room. 

Of course, now valued at 65 million dollars, a house of this caliber is really more a museum than a home, and I struggled to see how the owners ever felt anything but loneliness within its walls.

Perhaps this is why the house is filled with faces, companions of sorts.

In every material from wood to stone, I spotted carvings of figures,

some human,

some animal,

and some mythical.

I could never live in Payne Mansion, but I sure hope to visit again and imagine a life of leisure only available to a few.

In the meantime, I recommend a few books on houses that you might enjoy:

• House by Tracy Kidder
• The Language of Houses by Alison Lurie
• My Life in Houses by Margaret Forster
• The Making of Home by Judith Flanders

Brave

I have to admit that I breathed a deep sigh of relief when the girls went back to school last week and the house was completely quiet and mine for the day. As the summer comes to a close, I always long for the return to routine and nurture a deep nostalgia for school supplies with back-to-school shopping. Despite the stresses of schooling, I still appreciate the privilege and excitement of learning, something I hope to pursue my entire life in less formal ways.

After a cup of coffee, I set about to tackle the laundry and entered my younger daughter's bedroom, expecting to find a trail of dirty clothes strewn about as is her habit when the whiteboard above her bed caught my eye. She had made a reminder list for the morning of the first day of school, which included typical concerns for a thirteen-year-old girl:

• Jean shorts and pink shirt
• Hair?
• Make lunch
• Pack phone

Then, at the bottom set off in a box for emphasis, she wrote, "BE BRAVE." My younger daughter likes to write down her thoughts as much as I do and has never shied away from openly sharing her writing of stories, notes, school work, cards, songs, and more. I knew all about her anxieties about 8th grade, how once again she had been assigned to a different team from all of her close friends. My husband and I tried to bolster her up for the first day, knowing it would get better once she got there and saw that she would have no trouble managing the setting.

Still, I couldn't help but feel such joy and pride and awe at the two words, written in red ink from her hand: BE BRAVE. As an adult, I wondered how I might benefit from writing these encouraging words to myself more often. More importantly, I wondered how often I place myself in a setting or situation that challenges me enough that bravery may be called upon. Do I play it safe too often? Do I let fear get the best of me, thinking that safety is the absence of fear when the absence of fear is really stunting my growth?

Being brave is moving forward despite the fear. I know that. Now, I know that better, deeper after a reminder written by someone else, for someone else, caught me perchance and stuck. I love it when life lessons come out of nowhere and plant firmly in our souls. See, I am still learning. Let me write it here: I will BE BRAVE as I refurbish this wonderful, unexpected, and rich life. 

Sunflowers

The cool temperatures, steady rain, and blowing leaves meant I grabbed jeans and a sweatshirt over the weekend for the first time in ages as I lazed about the house. In the midst of autumn's unexpected preview, I found myself returning and holding on to an image from early August.

My daughters spent a week as counselors at a camp in the neighboring town, meaning an early a.m. drop off and mid-afternoon pick up for five days straight. To our delight, we passed two fields of sunflowers in full bloom each way. In the morning, their heads awakened with the sun to the east. By 3:30, the west beckoned the heavy blooms as daylight bent over the horizon in its slow but steady decline.

Motorists stopped to take photos or, at a minimum, slowed to prolong the view of each field bursting in yellow, and I understood why completely. The view was breathtaking in its beauty and provoked deep joy with each encounter. I began to look forward to driving back and forth each day, anticipating the fields of sunflowers just up the hill and around the bend.

Last week, I passed the fields again. Only this time, the sunflowers were brown and brittle, the blooms bent under the weight of seeds ready to let go, succumbing to their true calling. Perhaps, the sunflower seeds will be pressed into oil by the local farmer. Or, they may provide sustenance to rodents and birds of all sorts as they feed for migration or hibernation with the coming cold. Or, the seeds might find fertile soil close by or far afield to begin the cycle of life once again next spring.

I did not want to let go of my memory of August, of fields in full bloom.  I didn't want to appreciate gifts of sunflower seeds dried and shared freely, nature's abundance and cycle. And, I realized I feel the same of one phase of life now passing to the next. I still retain the photo on my screen saver of my girls not yet one and four, sitting on the bed with the younger in the arms of the older, their personalities already fully formed and jumping out from their angelic faces.

Yet, last week I took their first day of school photos, alone and together, one in the last year of high school and one in the last year of middle school. I felt a mixture of yearning for the years so quickly passed, pride in the young women standing before me, and excitement for the futures they both are yet to build.

All too soon, my daughters will move on. I will move onto the next phase of my life, too. And, I need to remind myself that the moving on is exceedingly good; only stagnation would be toxic. We will move on together not away from the core of who we are and the tie that binds us together always. I will be in awe of their beauty as their lives bloom, only the type of blossom remains unknown. In the meantime, I will appreciate the sunflower and keep memories of August close at hand.

***

In the Community Garden

Mark Doty

It's almost over now,
late summer's accomplishment,
and I can stand face to face

with this music,
eye to seed-paved eye
with the sunflowers' architecture:

such muscular leaves,
the thick stems' surge.
Though some are still

shiningly confident,
others can barely
hold their heads up;

their great leaves wrap the stalks
like lowered shields. This one
shrugs its shoulders;

this one's in a rush
to be nothing but form.
Even at their zenith,

you could see beneath the gold
the end they'd come to.
So what's the use of elegy?

If their work
is this skyrocket passage
through the world,

is it mine to lament them?
Do you think they'd want
to bloom forever?

It's the trajectory they desire—
believe me, they do
desire, you could say they are


to be this leaping
green, this bronze haze

bending down. How could they stand
apart from themselves
and regret their passing,

when they are a field
of lifting and bowing faces,
faces ringed in flames?