Mark calls from Charleston, where he is at a conference, on a September Wednesday. It is hot, he says, ninety degrees and muggy.
Jim and I look at each other. It is ninety degrees and muggy in southeastern Ohio, too.
But by that Wednesday's end, change comes. Winds whip and then rains come, and Thursday's temps drop by thirty degrees. Mark's plane lands in Columbus at 10 p.m.; he is home by 11:30. He comes in wearing shorts and a golf shirt and shivering.
"What happened to summer?" He asks plaintively. "It was here when I left."
***********************
I measured this summer in tomatoes—-tomato plants which I started, from seed, late in spring. They were enthusiastic, those seeds, and they loved up the sun in our windows—peeking out onto the back stoop, looking out front at the occasional traffic passing by. They grew taller and woodier, and we knew, by July, that we'd have to put them outside soon. But first we wanted to build them an enclosure.
The building took, of course, longer than planned, with work pretty much limited to weekends, and with weekends bringing rain or obligations that called us away from home. But the enclosure (the Pig Pen) grew steadily, as we moved plant from egg cartons to small pots to bigger, sturdy ones, and finally, in August, the tomatoes were transplanted one last time into their forever home.
Just a couple fragile plants didn't make it, but the ones that were left swiveled their stems and shook their leaves in the afternoon wind, and they sang a riotous song to the late summer sun, and they were, we could tell, happy.
More and more yellow blossoms appeared, and then, in September, hard little green tomatoes emerged. Mark nailed mesh over the top of the Pig Pen to keep marauding squirrels away from our bounty.
And warm sun shone down on the now-hearty plants, and we started thinking about all the wonderful things we will be able to do with our backyard tomato explosion. The summer seemed unending.
*************************************
This was a summer of roof sounds, too, of pounding and scraping, of the swooshing sound as old tired shingles, loosened by sun-darkened workers, slid off a templed roof. The hailstorm that barreled through in the spring pitted cars and pocked house paint and wreaked true havoc with our roofs.
Suddenly, days after the storm, roofers from as far away as Cincinnati were in town, driving up and down streets, looking for customers. Signs went up in yards: Mel's Roofing. Family-owned since 1967.
And somewhere, in each neighborhood, every day, the sounds of new roofing began and ended and began again. We'd leave for work in the morning and workers would be swarming over a neighbor's roof, ripping off the old covering, exposing bare wood.
When we arrived back home, the house would be preening, serenely, new roof sunning, and every trace of the workers who'd wrought the transformation gone.
We felt for the roofers, exposed every day to the bright sunlight of a summer that wasn't unbearable, but was consistently sunny and hot.
Summer stretched itself, and roof sounds rang throughout September.
********************************
And then, in the time it took Mark to fly from Charleston to Columbus, to drive himself home from the airport, the seasons abruptly changed.
Summer, that flirt, brings with it a little bit of amnesia, a little of the sense that this long lazy season will never end. Relax, says Summer. Let's have some fun. There's time.
And then Summer is gone, leaving us bereft and remembering, shivering in a now-brisk wind.
***************************
The summer morphs into autumn, and I have to step back, move off the path for a moment, and consider. What do we bring with us into this new season: what do we need right now, what should we save for next year, and what do we cast aside?
And so we clean out drawers and pack up clothes to drop off at Eastside Ministry, and we fill a box with electronics that serve us no more. We pull the dry and dying plants from the window boxes and replace them with vibrant little mums in bright jewel tones.
There's no more spinach at the farmers' market, but there are apples and potatoes, carrots and onions. I change the menu from Italian wedding soup to beef stew.
I pull out cold weather shoes, put sandals away, air out blazers and jackets, and I start to feel excited about the cooler weather to come. I trade that endless sense of summer freedom for a cozier feeling of autumn closeness, of safety, hunkered down in a house where stew bubbles and apple pie bars bake.
We keep the barbecue grill out, though, and twice this week, Mark grills our dinner meat.
There are some things I'm ready to retire. There are others I can't quite let go of,--not, anyway, just yet.
*******************************
Seasons melt away and morph into others. Years do, too, and I have been thinking, lately, of eight-year spans.
A lot can happen in eight years.
****************************
Eight years ago, in 2014, the Winter Olympics opened in Sochi, Russia, on February 7. A month later, the Paralympics opened there, too.
Eight years ago, in 2014, there were shootings, explosions, and mass kidnappings. Three hundred people died when a ferry capsized off the coast of South Korea; 16 more died in an avalanche on Mount Everest.
The Catholic Church declared itself some saints. Bombs detonated, and people died. Others died, too, in stampedes, attacks, and mine disasters.
New kings and patriarchs rose to their thrones. Planes crashed.
Games opened. The earth quaked. An orbiter launched into space.
And babies were born, too. In Ohio, little Hazel Grace was born in Cleveland at 10:11 on 12/13/14, one of two wee girls born in the States at that exact, auspicious time.
And some people got married, and some got unmarried; kids went off to college. Drugs swirled like a poison, and people succumbed, while others wrestled with the problem, striving to stem the tide, to turn it.
Some people mourned, and some struggled with physical and mental health issues, and some people turned a corner and found themselves at that perfect, exact place where the pieces come together, and everything, for that shining moment in time, feels RIGHT.
Some things were different in 2014, and some things were not—some things are very much the same today.
***********************************************
Mark turned 60 in 2014, which was a fact we had to roll around in our hands like a hard, shiny stone, warming it with the heat of our bodies, trying to make that new birthday feel like something familiar and reasonable. Sixty! What exactly did THAT mean? How would life change, melting and morphing into a new and transitional decade?
Matt was in his thirties eight years ago. Jim was 24.
I perched, in 2014, on the very far edge of my fifties, looking down into the roiling, mysterious waters of the future. I was, even knowing I had no choice, a little worried, afraid to plunge. I was three years away from 'official' retirement. I needed some tools to help me navigate this passage.
I started blogging in 2014, hoping I'd build a discipline, and hoping the practice would help me capture errant threads and pull them back into the fabric.
I started a blog because I hoped it really would help me catch my drift, arrest a tendency to float along, instill some mindfulness into a somewhat reactive life. And it did,—through upheaval and reconnections, through losses and celebrations, the act of sitting down and trying to capture the essence of what a week had wrought made me more aware and more grateful.
Blogging gave wheels to pandemic days, and it helped me identify joys and conundrums. I felt, always, through all the quickly passing time, like a new blogger, so it was a shock to see the name on my blog site (Pamkirst.2014) one day, and to realize I had been blogging for eight full years.
*******************************
We did some research, last weekend, on how best to protect our tender tomatoes from the cold. I was thinking of heavy canvas drop cloths, but Internet reading advised against them. Four different reputable sites said, "Plastic."
Plastic lets in the sun, keeps out the chill, gives our vigorous late-bloomers a chance to reach their full potential. Last night Mark and I unrolled a 9x12 foot sheet and draped it over the top of the Pig Pen. I cut duct tape, nature's perfect tool, into strips, and Mark securely taped the plastic to the wooden supports.
Temperatures dropped to 41 degrees Fahrenheit last night, but we slept soundly, knowing our little tomato friends are covered. Seasons are changing, but we're bringing the fruits of the summer into this autumn. And with a little care, a little nurturing, they will flourish and nourish us.
**************************
Eight years melted away, a season in a life, maybe, and, as with summer's end, their closing brings me to a resting point, a kind of meadow, a time to consider. What comes with us? What stays behind?
In those eight years, some dear friends and family members said their last goodbyes, and not one of our cries, of "Don't go! Come with us!" changed that truth.
I stepped out of one career during those eight years and discovered another, unexpected and deeply enriching. Mark retired and went right back to work. We entered the pandemic lockdown, and we learned what we could live without for, at least, a time.
In the last eight years, James went from searching to finding a niche. Matt found a new job; Julie earned a degree. Our granddaughters grew. "There are no BABIES left anymore!" one of us might have wailed, but it was a momentary sorrow, because each instance of these kinds of changes brings its own unique charge of joy.
In the resting spot, I realized that some commitments have run their courses, and a time to embrace new challenges had emerged.
And I thought about blogging—thought that maybe, in some ways, I really had started to catch my own drift.
But there are more connections to make and there is much more to learn, more to spread out in that boney mind cavern and try to make sense of.
******************
I make a kind of shrine for the people wrenched from us. Then I make a small pile of disposable things to leave behind, cover it safely, nudge it to the side of the road. I hope someone will pass by, rummage through those left-behind items, and maybe find one small thing that they can use.
"Hey!" they'll say. "This is in perfect condition!" and they'll walk away carrying it, humming a little.
I picture that pile growing smaller and smaller.
And I lift my pack, resting time over, to head back out, to keep booking right along. But one of the things that comes with me, for the foreseeable future at least, is this blog.
****************************************
Eventhistory.com, "What Happened in 2014"
Abcnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment