Month: May 2010

Memorial Day – Heaven is a Place on Earth

 

I like the way that Memorial Day follows the holiday tradition of ceremony followed by food.  Parades and visits to the cemetery lead into celebration of those who have left us with those who remain.  And for those separated by long distance there is the ongoing shared memory of everyone who is not with us, in heaven and on earth.  I remember my father by raising the flag, and my mother by making potato salad.  I did both of these things when they were alive and so doing them now makes that process more joyful and less bittersweet. 

Coming at the end of May, Memorial Day is as much about the promise of the burgeoning summer as anything, and this year the weather could not be more perfect – cool nights and blue mornings bring legions of peonies and irises into bloom, and friends gather at the in the dusk after an idyllic day in the sun and shade.  In a world rife with trouble and uncertainty, this weekend is a bubble I can cherish.

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Angry Garage

 

When I asked my daughter what she thought of this photo she said, “It’s yelling at me.”  I think so, too.  Like a cranky old man:  “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!”  Maybe it’s the door that needs paint.  Or the quality of the junk inside.  Or maybe that it has to face the street instead of the rolling hills out back.  Whatever it is, I love the expression, and the toy horse loitering around the side, too.

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A Love of Bricks and Ivy

The stucco house I grew up in had ivy all around one side and I admit to being less charmed by it then because pigeons were always flying in and out of the ivy and dancing on the air conditioner in my window.  But once I moved south to St. Louis and then out east I fell in love with the red right angles and the fluttering greens vying for attention, and there is nothing like the solid, cool  interiors and dappled light of a brick house on a sunny day.

I drive by this house situated behind a wall on what was once a vast estate (now merely a large one) all the time but there is no safe place to stop and take the photo, so on this stunning May morning I parked the car in town and walked a mile to get this and many shots I have been meaning to take.  More to come.

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Back to Go.

Looking for emotional truth is a solitary exercise that is never complete and promises no reward.  And when done among those who think the highest work of the mind is the doing rather than the feeling, even writing it down seems like an act of aggression.  The stronger the narrative in my mind becomes the more reluctant I become to write it down; the more I say the more I might have to take back.  And so the vast sheets of blank paper that slip by with each turn of the calendar indicate not that life is bad – on the contrary, it is the very sunshine of good times that burns the tender shoots of writing.  The warmth from above draws the oldest toxins to the surface, daring me to expose – what?  I don’t even know what is there, and most of the time I am convinced that it does not matter, and yet the only peace I have ever managed to achieve emerged from the process of forgiveness that comes from writing.  But the part of me that values stoicism tugs at me, and I value stoicism because I utterly lack it.  

 So there it is and there it isn’t.  I have now managed to write about not writing.

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