Memoirous

In the winter I’d come home from work, fix food, and go to bed. These days I stay up later. I’ll have a tea and take a walk in the yard or around the block—depending on the moonlight. The blood flows faster. The senses sense. Spring. I cup the cup of hot tea and listen—wind ruffling the top of the pines. The ground is still cold, mossy wet but there’s something there—a hidden green.

Friday night to Saturday morning—apparently it rained. I was up under the eaves fast asleep. I awoke early to write and found the world weirdly silent. I opened the door and even without the drip drip of rain sensed wetness, the smell of water. I grabbed a headlamp which did nothing to penetrate the darkness, but I knew: the backyard was flooded as happens in the spring. Vernal ponding because of the amount of clay underground. We’re also in a little bit of a bowl. The last owners left us with a sump pump—for good reason. We’ve needed it in the spring and after large rain events. This time we had both. When the sun came up, dreary and bleak weak, I was able to see the edge of the pond licking the fire pit only feet from my Tiny House. At just that moment my daughter called to say there was water in the basement. They have a sump pump but it must’ve failed—just as we have a sump pump in the backyard and at the moment it too must’ve failed. I texted our neighbor to say we were bailing ...

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This past weekend brought another visitor out from the city. And, another fresh batch of snow. I was a little conflicted when all the snow melted during our “Spring Break.” Nothing says cozy better than snowflakes the size of feathers falling all around, while holding a hot cup of coffee. Well, we got our chance when a Clipper came through unexpectedly and brought a fresh groundcover of white. Not so much that our boots sank up to the shin, and not so much that we shivered inside layers of coats. But just the right amount to make everything cozy again. We picked up coffee from Château and continued walking onto the River Trail recently extended from Grand River Ave. to Okemos Road. Readers of this blog (both of you) know I love this path, the tall trees, and the chance to escape from cars and traffic. My friend and I walked through the woods sipping coffee all the way to the movie theater where we checked in for a weekday matinee of Wuthering Heights. From the woods of snowy Mich...

You can feel it. Long and slow. The heat, the leaf, the locusts in the treetops, singing for rain. High and low, crescendo and allegro. Soaking in the kiddie pool, we all know. It’s the lack of purpose, the sense that soon it will be over that makes us lazy. Malaise. Paper leaves, withered by drought, fall, and it reminds me of Fall. Behind the heat, beyond the cloudless bleached sky there hides crisp nights, early morn schedules, wrapped sandwiches, student backpacks. Hecticity. But, for now, we sit and sweat and close our eyes while rubbing a glass of sweet tea along the edge of our jaw.

In five years I’ve gone from never having a garden—in fact, saying I’m NOT a gardener—to having a garden several years in a row. It all began out in Oregon with my millennial roommate who, using his Amazon account, ordered in a bunch of stuff for making a garden. He knew nothing. I sort of felt sorry for how naïve he was. I kept thinking: This isn’t going to be easy. You’ll be disappointed. It’s going to fail. Well, it didn’t. I thought, How can someone grow anything when they’ve never done it before? That’s when I became a believer. My first year in Michigan at the townhouse, I did veggies in pots—first in the back yard and then moving them to the front where there was more direct sunlight. My first two years at the Tiny House my garden did so-so. Come to find out all the trees in Michigan can put a damper on the garden. This year I planned even better and built raised beds along a section behind the shed and the neighbor’s fence, where there is no tree obstruction. Wow! Wow...

Drifting down, cottonwood fuzz Gathering into snowbanks of fluff Whirled into the corner of the garage Entangled with leaf debris, the stray stone Wooly mounds turn summer into winter.   Drifting down on the back deck, bubbles Reflecting the sun, casting prisms My grandson stands in the midst Fluff, drift, colored bubbles, baubles Gifts from the sky, impossible to hold.

It was a long winter and cold, wet spring. For example: it was 42 degrees last Friday, only 4 days ago and the winds were howling. I’d like to think nothing keeps me down, but when the weather’s bad, I generally do not exercise outdoors. Thus, it’s been a few months since I rode my bike more than 10 miles at a stretch. Today in preparation for taking the bike to Sleeping Bear Dunes next weekend (June 1-4) I did a 35-mile loop this morning. I can tell you about half-way through (17 miles) my legs were already toast. That being said—it was a GREAT ride. I did feel fresh most of the trip and didn’t really struggle even at the end. But I could tell all the parts of me that weren’t quite ready for 35 miles. The feet got sore and tired, my bum, the thighs burned.   The weather and temps were perfect, as they will also be next weekend in the Traverse City area. It felt good to dust off the cobwebs physically and let my mind go for such a long stretch. I look forward to more rides—ju...

Weather service have yet to determine if the severe storm May 15/16 was a weak tornado—I can only say that when I woke up Friday a.m. the damage was considerable. That being said: I slept through it. The Tiny House held. Thursday had been a beautiful albeit HOT day. I’d run and biked and made food on my day off, which also included a playdate with both grandkids. That night I folded up lawn chairs and covered my fledgling tomato plants because I’d had a couple alerts that a strong storm was going to come through. In bed I checked radar and it said about midnight. I was way too tired and closed down for the night, thinking if I heard it I’d get up and check the garden. I did hear it! My phone went off with a National Weather Alert—but I was too out of it to put 2 and 2 together. I told myself to ignore it, the garden would be fine, there was nothing I could do about it, etc. Not once imagining I could be killed. The next morning I went out to inspect the garden and everything was ...

Those stray white petals carpeting my floor   Sounds very pretty But they are tracked inside Stuck to the bottom of my shoes And glue themselves to the tile So that my Dust Duster finds it impossible To suck them up and I have to Bend over and scrape with my nail The flimsy, papery petals, now discolored, And roll them up like a booger and Throw them away, this little bit of spring Which I waited and waited for and longed— Now a curse beneath my feet Those stray white petals carpeting the floor

 Spring Snowfall   Who’s surprised? It happens every year. After April 1. Only a fool would be fooled. One day it is sunny and sixty and the next . . . below freezing. The deck slippery. The brave daffodils bobbing above slush. The children’s picnic table brought out in a flurry of excitement for the changing season—now coated in white. A cascade of emotions overwhelm me. The first: Nooooooooo! The second, a jaded sarcasm: Of course. The third, one of despair: When will this end? In my right mind, I know it won’t last. It’ll melt by noon. By the end of the week we’ll be in the 50s. All of this is solace for the soul, but does nothing for my cold hands, the white wet clinging to my slippers, the never-ending sense of being so over this. I haven’t run for about a week. Of course, nothing is stopping me. Except for the cold, the fact I might fall, The simple idea, I don’t want to, Not until it warms up. Not until spring actually arrives. Not until the sun comes out....

There was a day last week that when I came home from work and ate my supper, I didn’t feel like turning up the heat only to turn it down in an hour before bed—so I changed clothes and immediately climbed the ladder to my loft bed. You see, the higher I go, the warmer it gets under the eaves of the roof line. I was warm and cozy up there reading or playing with my device.   This morning—after a garden workout the day before—I lazed about listening to the tap tap tap of rain drumming the roof as I lay abed. The room grew from darkness to dim. And, I knew I didn’t have to get up any time too soon, as my original plan had been to continue working in the raised beds I’d built the day before. No chance of that with the forecast. There are noise machines that offer just what I was experiencing: relaxing rain, the occasional bird twitter, non-confrontational thunder, a low settling rumble as if clearing its throat, shaking out wrinkles in the meteorological universe. I could lay th...

After a serious storm, the next day, the streets were carpeted with red buds, little pomegranate-looking seeds. It reminded me of a ladies necklace, of spilled coral beads, washed out over the roadway. On the back deck on the lounger left out, there was what looked like bird puke. At least that’s what flashed across my inert brain, then, I thought, no, it’s come off the trees. —Seeds are produced inside bean-like pods and can remain on the tree into winter.   Once you've seen a redbud tree flowering in early spring, you will not forget it. Redbuds cover their branches AND parts of their trunk with tiny pinkish-purple flowers. Redbud flowers emerge as early as February or March—sometimes beating daffodils. A member of the plant family Fabaceae, AKA the “Pea” or “Legume” family, the lavender pink pea-shaped flowers are what Redbuds are best known for. Flowering in the spring before the foliage emerges, barren branches explode with colorful blooms.— The strong winds raked thro...

Slowly the tide is turning. Temperatures in the 40s this week, rain in the forecast. I’ve begun work in the new garden. On the first warmish day in February I ordered a set of box planters. What seemed like a great location when I first planted 2 years ago has turned out to be a bust. Once the trees leafed out the seedlings were sun-starved. The tomatoes and everything else planted there became stunted and kale leaves lacey with blight. The plan this year is to create a whole new space back behind the shed where there is a strip of grass that receives abundant sun. I removed the top layer of grass and dug up the old garden and transferred some of the soil to the denuded path. Then I can rake some leaves over it and let it mulch for the next 6 weeks until planting (sometime after the first of May). The new path is approx. 8 x 4 I’ll continue to use containers for the tomatoes, peppers, and thyme. There will also be porch mint and basil. The seedlings wait-on their little heat ma...

It is early days—of what? We don’t know. My soul senses some impending doom. It hovers above the migraine and my twitching eye. I have no words, it seems, as I continue to write, type, fill up the page. First there was the build up to Halloween, trick or treat night, then baby’s birthday—now 1 year old—then my birthday, 66 (I’ll be 70 the next presidential election). And the aftermath of this election. The trees are mostly bare. First there were the colors, latent and sparing this year, then the latter rain (after a dry September and October), then the wind, which brought down the last of the leaves. After the hype, the string of busyness, the frenetic running here to there—is over; we tuck into shorter days, longer nights, and learn to love . . . these November days.   Fall, leaves, fall Emily Brontë   Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree. I shall smile...

In mid-October my daughter and son-in-law celebrated their anniversary—5 years—and went away for the weekend, leaving me with 2 children who do not sleep well at night. Sooooo, I said to myself, I’m going to tire these kids out. Except for a dry autumn, it decided to rain. On Sunday morning we got up and because everything was so early we had a long breakfast and indoor play until the baby grew cranky and I knew the best way to get him to sleep was to push him in the stroller. There was a break in the rain and we left in milky light for the woods. Early Sunday morning and there was no traffic on busy Grand River Road. Our tires made sizzling sounds on the new blacktop path in the hushed woods. As the sun slowly broke through the clouds the sky between the tree canopy was a Capri blue. A flock of wild turkeys gobbled and ate their way back into a copse of trees. Glittering leaves lined the path, gems red, orange, and gold. After cresting a “hill,” Jack said his hands were cold. I ...

One of my earliest memories is my dad strapping blocks of wood onto the pedals of a tricycle so that my feet could reach and me pedaling up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. Flash forward. My 3-year-old   grandson Jack on his Strider balance bike pushing his way through the woods—5 miles! When I first got him the balance bike in the spring he was flush with excitement, but then the glow wore off. I realized he was tired of just going on our street; he needed to branch out. We rode around the “block”—he on his bike and me on mine. Next we rode to Playmakers, where I work, then through Indian Hills the residential track next to ours along the Red Cedar River. Then . . . I loaded his bike onto the trailer and we rode across busy Grand River Road and at a trailhead through the woods I’d stop and get Jack out and his bike and we’d ride. The path was recently paved as an extension of the Lansing River Trail. The trail winds up and down some sloughs and drainage ponds a...

Yesterday I pulled up most of the garden. Truthfully, I should have done this in August as the tomatoes were terrible this year. The stalks were limp and brown and could hardly hold the fruit. Something (a bug, worm, beast?) got to my kale and made lace out of the leaves. The beans refused to climb or grow until the last minute and put out a handful of fruit. Not a single cucumber, same as last year. I got about 4 or 5 squash, but have now decided I do not like squash. No matter what I do, they turn out wet and awful when prepping to eat. Also TOO MANY seeds inside, though soft and edible. The whole experience was like eating over ripe okra. I’ve been thinking about next year’s venture (always) and have decided I will move the garden to the side of the shed and do a raised bed. There is just not enough sun for the poor garden at the side of the house because of the big trees. It seems doable in the spring, but then they leaf out and it rains and the soil doesn’t dry out and moss grow...

 Colors of the Sky   early morning the sky is dishwater grey the sun is coming later and later in near darkness I start the kettle and set out my cup with one tea sachet Where does the time go, the end September, almost October   in one burst Jack pushes open the door Grandma! Grandma! Come look at the colors!   Together we stand on the deck and watch the sky change from bruise purple to mauve to butter clouds scatter revealing a tablecloth of blue   Wow! Where does the time go? photo by Lyda Jackson, Lake Michigan, Chicago lakefront, colors of the sky provided by Helene, the storm that ravaged the southeast US

I reported that last weekend me and my grandson went to cheer on runners at the Capital City River Run. It reminded me of early mornings, getting up before the sun is up to go downtown for the Chicago Marathon. Either to run or support runners. We had a support tent for Run for Change—runners raising money for Cornerstone Community Outreach, the homeless shelter I volunteered at. I’ve been asked to be lead bike for the Autumn Classic taking place Sept. 29 for the 5K—a little over 3 miles. Again, I’ll have to get up early and ride to the start line. I’m a little anxious, as I’ve never done this before, but I’m certain I’ll be able to stay ahead of the lead runners. Anna, who talked to me about the event, explained many of the participants are walking it. I love being part of these events. The comradery is infectious—making all those there want to keep moving. Keep moving!