On Things

 On Things

Ian,

You've been on my mind in a troubling way, like a finger running through the silty bottom of a pond, stirring me muddy. It's close to Mother's Day and my mind arcs away and into the tannins of longing again. It happens. Especially around holidays and symbolic times when families are supposed to be together. No matter how much time I get to have with your brother and sister and the loveliness of being with them, there is a quiet emptiness where you should be. As if, even in the sweetness of loving them and feeling the joy of these two distinct humans, something is not quite right. Like the picture is slightly unfocused or someone has taken scissors to it and cut you out of the frame. And when is see it again (it cannot always be ignored), the joy runs out of me.

 And here I am missing you again. It gripped me coming home from seeing Kenzie and the boys, perhaps because I have the belief that everyone is going home to someone and I am not. My sorrow cranks out the story that it is only with these people, my children and their children, that life is really happening. Indeed that love is really happening. That I matter. That I am loved. To go a bit further, I fall into a story that tells me that love and meaning only really exist when I am in the presence of them.....because of the past we share and the times that came before. When I fall into this pit, all the other components of my life seem to dim and become less. I forget the rich tenderness of this life that I have made. I tell myself I am alone, and that I shall be alone forever. I sometimes tell myself this, but it is not true.  

I pull into my driveway; coast to a stop under the the canopy of Elm and Oak, and I am home.

This is my home. Always, even on the really dark days, I feel a soft relief at this precise moment, when I turn off my car and let the dogs out. I take myself inside.

Relief floods me; I've never really quite understood why, but it begins with just a feeling  not unlike being among friends; in the presence of love. Yet no one is here. I begin to unknot and feel the presence of my things. I am not alone. 

 Around this place reside all the living and seemingly non-living components that make my life work. Outside in my yard, an almost perfect sense of belonging under these trees; of being wrapped in their arms as if I am a baby. It is intimate and calming. There are the old grandfather oaks, that were alive and present before cars or houses; and also the demur and elegant redbud beneath lanky elms.

Then there are the newer things.... grasses and flowers that suddenly show up sometimes in Spring, never seen before; Where did they come from? Layers of green can be seen into infinity when I sit on the back porch, leaves shimmering and awake. Nothing is ever exactly the same and yet everything seems constant. I walk my yard, especially in the early morning and at the dimming of the day, hearing birds speaking. Different songs for different times. Occasionally when I cannot sleep, I move through the yard in the stillest of hours, 3 or 4 am, when the strangest and most solitary are awake; the owls and whippoorwill, or a single rustling woods creature. Every time I bother to go out in this special hour it is magic and in the stillness I am not alone.

Inside my furniture; my things seem to greet me, each one a bit of me. My fish are here, but also the quiet hum of their air pump always giving the reminder that water is nearby. Life. They flop and swish in the mornings and grow quiet and drowsy at night, just like me. Objects that have personal meaning, and others that are just practical, like my coaster, where coffee always sits. My favorite pen., books read and not yet read, and some that never will be. A favorite throw for Henry, and always lots of pillows on my couch. This old couch, that sags and smells funny,  has been my favorite spot to read or watch shows over and over. We all piled up on her then, and I still do now. She is a womb.  Pictures and whimsical pieces sit just-so, all around the house; a rubber rat with a bone sword in his front paws; he will always sit on my mantle. He reminds me I am still delightfully weird despite my pain. Rocks and art, always art. Mine and Chris's, and yours and Kenzie's. Things made by our hands, each moment frozen in time and precious as gold.  There is more than a sense of familiarity, it is a recognition that creation is another form of love. Maybe this is why I hang onto all these things, I feel the life in them and the active way each thing in my world still speaks to me. And I am not alone.

Maybe things really do love me back?

 I know there is something special about my bed. You gave me the mattress pad to hold onto for you once when you had to move suddenly, until you got your own king size bed. That was 6 years ago, and in this life you will not claim it again, so it is now mine. The foam is soft as a bird's nest, especially covered in my old cotton sheets Irene gave me. I move into it at night and it embraces me like a baby or a lover. It feels so perfectly good that it must have feelings, too. My bed loves me, I know it, and I know it is infused with your DNA and very self.  Your big strong arms around me all night long. I remember this miracle each night as I lay down. And I am not alone.

 As I sit on the back porch in the chair you and James made me eleven years ago, I study the shiplap ceiling Chris installed. His carefulness and precision is still evident. Beautiful, sturdy, tightly fit, I believe it loves to be seen and admired and appreciated. It is the most perfect ceiling ever made, and it knows it. Did you know that the chair you made sits at the perfect angle for me to see the many and varied bird feeders hung in purposeful disarray? They are placed for the convenience of the birds, not for us. This draws them in for food and drink...and love comes right along with them, as well as the occasional smell of feather oil and seeds. They are so happy and comfortable that very often they do not notice me sitting and watching. And did you know that the arms of your chair are perfect for my coffee cup, my books and journal? You fashioned it perfectly when you were just 16 in shop class. That is a miracle of love too, my boy. My chair loves to cradle me and my things just-so

Is it possible that it is actually more that I am feeling than just the love that poured from you and Chris and Kenzie and I? The things, living and otherwise, the Thus-and-Such of all days spent here now actively giving back to me what once was, and more? Not so much a bank where love was stored, but a greenhouse of love that is generative and dynamic and alive.  As if our love fed, and was fed by a community of things who might actually have a consciousness,  bursting with meaning and sentient as fuck. Love that overflows and swells with mutual admiration as we all live together, my things and I, giving and receiving. And maybe, to go a bit further, this is the essence of the universe, ever expanding and fueled by attention and seeing that which we love, and loves us back. So we are all connected, and we are not alone. Love is, after all, the DNA. The consciousness within the consciousness.

    Hazrat Inayat Kahn said:

"Everything in life

 is speaking; is audible; is communicating, in spite of  it's apparent silence."

So to those who think that my hanging onto a feather, shell, jeweled frog, rubber rat,  broken necklace, heart-shaped rocks, fading notes and dried flowers, sweat shirts with cigarette burns, wind chimes, coffee mugs, old dead tree stumps, sagging sofas, crystals, fishing lures, and all the other relics of love, is a sad obsession with the past, I say to hell with that idea. These things are more alive now, and in all ways, than at anytime, anywhere and ever. They pronounce love and feed me when no human can. They are my family of sorts; a river of consciousness that never disappoints as long as I can pay attention. As long as I can stay awake to it, I am not alone.

Today, I opened my eyes again, took a breath and looked again. And all the universe, God, everything, and every one that ever was, including you baby, are right here again.

                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                       Love, 

                                                                                                                              Mom