A New Start To The Day

The news ain’t great these days.

Most mornings as I wait the recommended four minutes before I can press the coffee, I scan my email inbox. Along with the tantalizing smell of freshly ground coffee brewing, my senses are assaulted with the latest New York Times Breaking News Headlines. While there is the very occasional headline that to my heart constitutes good news—the swearing in of Judge Katanji Brown Jackson—most of the time what I read breaks my heart a little more—the past two weeks have almost put me under—and hope is hard to find.

It’s not a great way to start the day.

So, I changed it.

I unsubscribed to The NY Times newsletter.

I subscribed to Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s A Hundred Falling Veils: there’s a poem in every day

This morning I was greeted with my first poem from Rosemerry, about, of all things, hope. (You can find her poem, Longing to Be Seen here)

How we start the day matters. Along with coffee and time with my husband and our dog as the sunlight first hits the meadow, I’m choosing to start my day with poetry, and a little hope.

Maybe you will too.

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(Now before you go jumping to any conclusions, it’s not that I don’t want to be informed about the goings on in the world. I am simply choosing not to start my day there. Being part of a well informed citizenry matters to me, and it should matter to you too. Our democracy depends on it. There are good sources of news, as in real information as opposed to opinion and rhetoric out there, and, spoiler alert, they are not found on social media.)

The Sound Of Silence

Silence.

It has been one of the most profound markers of this global pandemic. Not simply the lack of surface noise, but the presence of a deep quiet. It is, as many have noted, as if the Earth is catching her breath. Not gasping for air, but quietly inhaling and exhaling in the way one does when in a deep and restful sleep.

It is as if silence is the container in which creation is meant to reside, and it must have been here all along, as in forever. But it took the absence of manmade sound for it to quietly slip into my awareness. In just 6 short weeks I have come to depend upon the presence of this ancient silence. It has permeated my interior landscape and quieted my inner thoughts, and I never want to lose it again.

This morning, for the first time in many weeks, that deep silence was broken. Shortly after sunrise the sounds of big equipment rang across the valley. Someone, somewhere nearby, was dropping trees and moving dirt, the sound of human voices raised above the mechanical din, and try as I might, I could no longer locate the silence. It has been punctured by the sounds of people engaged in work that must have felt important to them, and yet in that moment I was filled with the kind of sadness that accompanies the loss of someone or something precious.

It was grief, pure and simple. The silence was gone.

It was tempting to place blame on those doing the work, or find fault with the people pushing to lift the restrictions meant to safeguard us too quickly. Doing so would have felt far better than sitting with the sadness. However, as the equipment continued to do what it was doing, I tried to let that sadness do what it was doing. As painful as it is, our sadness always points us toward something we hold dear.

Even as I understand that we must carefully begin to emerge from this time of quarantine and sheltering-in-place, I am deeply afraid of losing what has been gained during this time of mutual sacrifice for the common good. Of forgetting what has been remembered, and of discarding what has been discovered. Silence is one such thing.

Whatever work was being done just beyond the trees surrounding our property came to an end. The sound of heavy equipment and the people operating it stopped, and there it was. The deep silence, that container within which we all reside, was still there. And it always will be. If I lose touch with it again, there is no one to blame but me.

The Christmas Tree

Every year since building our home, we’ve bundled up and headed out into the woods to cut our Christmas tree. I’m kind of picky about the tree, so we usually have to wander a bit to find just the right one. It isn’t about the perfect tree. It’s about finding one the right one. I prefer pine over fir, and ample space between the limbs to showcase our motley crew of ornaments illuminated by little white lights. Along with the tree the house is decorated with greens, candles, a nativity scene, Christmas blankets, Christmas mugs for sipping toddies and such, and a host of other decorations we’ve gathered over the years.

This year however, the day before we were going to cut our tree we went to an open house held by a local non-profit that we support. Along with hot cider and cookies, there were already cut Christmas trees for the taking. Trees cut as part of an effort to create a healthier forest, which seems like a Christmas present to all of us.

We took one home.

Tonight we put it up.

With lights.

Period.

Some years are made to pull out all the stop

Others to simply stop and savor the quiet darkness of this holy time.

This is such a year.

(With gratitude to Mt. Adams Resource Stewards for our tree and everything you do to make the world better.)