Writing For My Life

 Sometime this spring, maybe last year, I reread Anna Quindlen’s book Write For Your Life. 

For some reason her book finds its way to me every couple of years. Each time I am inspired. 

As I read about her lament of the loss of letters it created an ache in my chest. I remembered hours spent with Philip in his dad’s attic, digging through chests, going through old packets of letters. Some from Victor’s mom, writing from Boonton, New Jersey, to who knows where WWII. She would write about the goings on in town. Who died. Who had to go to the hospital. New babies. What flowers happened to be blooming. Sometimes she would ask him to pray for her because she was feeling poorly.

We were especially intrigued by letters to his dad from George Lincoln Rockwell. Link. A pal and co contributor to Sir Brown at Brown University. Some complaining about the incredibly dull summer in his parents’ home. And please come so I have something to do! Row, picnic, have drinks and dinner. Later the letters complained about the horrible conditions in boot camp. How he longed for a conversation with someone from school because he felt rather intellectually superior to his mates. At some point the letters stopped. Victor went from Brown to Fifth Armored Division and liberating Luxembourg to a long career in journalism with the wall st journal. His friend, who was no longer his friend, founded the American Nazi Party. 

Whoa…

When clearing out Mom’s house to sell, I came across so many letters. One broken box had letters from my paternal grandmother, Pearl, to Harwood, my grandpa. Over a few evenings this spring, I read letters. What a trove! A little crush turned into a friendship. A courtship to engagement. Elk City, Oklahoma. Her little anecdotes of the day. Saying “I’m sorry my handwriting is such a mess but I have my baby sister in my lap!” Or, “I sure did love it when you took me to your favorite grove on your farm. It was so pretty.” And scattered throughout “haha!” Instead of lol. 

I got to experience my grandma as a teenager becoming woman, learning about her time working for her dad doing accounting and answering the phone in his feed store and mill. Which is how they met, that handsome farmer coming in to get some feed. 

I thought about my kids. We text all the time. The pictures, jokes. Interesting news tidbits. Instant and easy. Most of them are many miles away but we stay fairly connected through the phone.

As I read Quindlen’s book, then my grandma’s love letters, I grieved the loss of the handwritten word. I wanted more than anything for my children to have letters to hold onto someday. To chuckle over the trivial. To have some kind of historical record.

A few months ago I decided I would begin to write the kids. Send them a family recipe . Nothing deep or consequential. 

At first it felt odd. My handwriting is messy. Some blend of cursive and print and shorthand and gosh my wrist started to go numb writing on my lap in the chair in the corner. Found stamps. Had to dig for mailing addresses.

The other day I got a letter back from Madi in Boise. Today I got a postcard from Nils in Arizona. I cried both times.

Isn’t that silly? I felt privileged and loved. Pieces of paper with a stamp and a date and their handwriting. Bits and pieces of what they are thinking. 

Once a week or so I sit down with paper. I dive in and see where the letter takes me. What’s growing in the garden. What I’m cooking for supper. Any juicy tidbits, like the feral kitties let me pet them. Or it rained the other day and I happened to see so and so in the store. 

It all seemed very inconsequential. 

Until I found real letters waiting for me in my post office box. Wow…

Regrets, I’ve Had a Few

 I’ve just come in from an afternoon in the garden. Yanking the rest of the cucumbers. The remaining yellow squash and not all but most of the zucchini. The peas I planted the other day are now three to five inches tall! Lettuce and cilantro popping up everywhere. 

I find it rather funny how my wild, half assed chaos garden has produced so much bounty and half of it planted itself. Well, not really half but a bigger percentage than you might believe. 

Have you ever grown sweet peas? They vine like a regular pea, and produce flowers but not pods one eats. Old fashioned and so fragrant you can smell them from quite far. I want to say you can smell them from miles away but I guess that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But doesn’t good storytelling usually involve some exaggeration?? For years I have planted sweet peas. The flowers have adorned cakes and made sweet little posies for petit bijou tables, my window sill. But seems like in years past they would bloom for a couple weeks or so then die. They like cool weather. Delicate little things. I guess not a West Texas kind of thing.

Last fall was a very hard time of transition for me. Closed my business, had a wedding, mom broke her hip, we sold her home, and I started a new career. There was zero opportunity to clean up the garden at end of season.

This spring sweet peas popped up on their own accord. So did dill. And arugula. Zinnias and don’t get me started on the tomatoes. The tomatoes merit their own post. And everywhere the sweet peas planted themselves they thrived. I just picked a giant bouquet this afternoon. They are still blooming in September! Ever so fragrant. I gathered a good deal of seeds which I will store for next year. But if this year is any indication, I can share those seeds with others because the beauties have already started planting themselves.

I was listening to Nanci Griffith while sticking the wild bouquet into a giant coffee cup turned vase. “If These Old Walls Could Speak.” 

All of a sudden I felt a pain in my heart. It felt a lot like grief. Then as tears rose I realized it was because I deactivated my Facebook account. Yeah, bear with me. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous. I wanted to make fun of myself. But I am trying this ridiculous habit of paying attention to feelings before letting them explode or take up residence in my neck and shoulders. 

Back in Virginia, I remember the day I spoke to our priest about how disconcerting it was to see republican voters guides sitting on every pew. I told him I was planning to vote for Obama, and wondered if any other churchgoers, members or visitors, might also feel uncomfortable finding those there. Perhaps believing if they didn’t share the prescribed political beliefs there would not be a place for them. 

I was grateful he listened, the pamphlets disappeared. 

I haven’t been in that church or any other for years. But there was a day, actually one of the last times I ever went to church, the circuit priest in the very progressive Episcopal church I attended (and served in),gave a very politically charged sermon. I agreed with every point. It sickened me. I wondered how someone might feel if they happened to be in church that day, oh, someone like my parents for example. How they might feel quite ostracized, put into the position of the “other.”

Over the past ten or fifteen years, my Facebook world has grown significantly. Family. College friends, High school friends. Neighbors. Customers. I loved checking in for five to fifteen minutes in the morning and the evening. See what restaurants were open, were there traffic jams. Did someone else see a bear? 

Or how about being witness to kids growing up, getting married, grand babies. 

My friend group has always been quite diverse and that’s just the way I like it. One of the many reasons I moved to Alpine was because I found a “purple” town felt good and safe. A good blend of red and blue and lists of shades in between. I wanted my kids to grow up in a world that didn’t look exactly like our family. It felt good when folks would come into my home bakery, later Taste and See, and then Petit Bijou, and feel comfortable, even if we were worlds apart in politics and ideology. Yes, it got a bit rough sometimes when folks were cruel to my daughters because we gave a percentage of bakery proceeds to incarcerated black mommas. Or when we asked folks to wear masks back in covid days to respect the local mandates, and a handful of people got mad and ugly. But we didn’t turn them away. Or ask them to ditch their beliefs in order to be our customers and neighbors. We knew it was a rare thing and didn’t reflect the majority. 

For years there have been uncomfortable moments on FB. Old friends would write about how all democrats were this, or all liberals were that. Occasionally I would jump in and say, hey y’all! I’m one of those snowflake libtards over here! To which the response would be, well, but you aren’t like all them. To which I would respond, well actually, how do you know? Do you know exactly everything all them are thinking? Do you even know what I’m thinking? Then we would laugh and get back to garden secrets and the kids. 

The other day some fb acquaintances were expressing their anger that all democrats were joyful over the death of Charlie Kirk. There were some pretty big brushstroke accusations. 

I see these accusations across the political spectrum. I see folks who share my beliefs make broad over generalized accusations as well. Hell, I certainly get frustrated and mad and confused about so many things, like folks being dragged out of jobs like wild animals. Like people in Gaza, muslim and Christian, starving to death because of a bunch of rich people who have power to make choices…like some convicted felons felons getting more rights because they are rich and white. But I digress. Sorry. (Did I give a trigger warning that I am a bleeding heart liberal snowflake who actually knows how privileged she is to even be able to have the luxury of growing her own garden and the freedom to put a bouquet of homegrown flowers in her windowsill?)

To protect myself, my peace and well being, I deactivated my Facebook account. I considered pausing it, but couldn’t see how it could ever get better so I hit the delete button. 

I choose a life with real face interactions. And keep the instagram because how else will I see my kids photos? And get tips for curing my neck problems. And learn garden hacks and radish butter terrines. And don’t even get me started on the hula hoop guy in tutu and high heels…gonna keep the instagram. 

For the past few days I haven’t felt a twinge of regret or grief. 

This evening I realized I probably should have given a farewell. And then that song came on. And grief welled and tears rose as I thought of all the beautiful moments I have enjoyed thanks to the old FB.

So many friends supported us during the tragic time of my husband’s death. And all the love and hugs and prayers and good wishes and energetic love sent when I got cancer. Or Daddy died. Or Mom got sick. Omg, I was able to have a business because of free advertising on FB! And beautiful loving interaction with all the glorious spectrum of people who have come in and out of my life. 

I don’t regret shutting down my Facebook account. But I do regret not saying goodbye. I really love a lot of those folks out there, former neighbors, old classmates, parents of friends, and while I don’t understand their political choices, I do love the wholehearted humans they are. 

I am sad we live in a world filled with such tribalistic hatred. It has been my mission for decades to find a way to build bridges. Perhaps walking away from Facebook will make it easier to do just that. 

But it surprises me how sad I feel to have lost that connection. Ugh. Feeling feelings is embarrassing. 

Okay. It is so weird to be vulnerable and share my thought in a public format. lol hopefully I have been off the blog long enough nobody is reading it anymore and I am just speaking into the ether.

Next post I’ll keep it to tomatoes. The feral tomatoes that I swear are on a mission to take over the universe. 

Poorwhill. Poorwhill. Poorwhill.

 We don’t have loons out here. But I spent some time in the Adirondacks and even took the kids on a wild Canada camping trip once, which is another story all together, but that was my introduction to the loon. And after those trips my heart longed to hear them again. That lonesome cry on the lake.

Not a lot of lakes out here. This gal fell in love with the whippoorwill back in the hill country, sleeping on the front porch. No phone to scroll. No book to read cause: dark.

I remember camping out somewhere in Fort Davis, back in the 80s. Late summer and hot. Until the sun went down. And the tall grasses waved in a moist breezy evening. All things dark and still. And then.

“Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill.”

That song made me feel connected to something bigger than me. Magic. God. I would hold my breath waiting. And then smile.

I remember a time I heard that lonesome cry on the Virginia farm. It was a hard time. A scary time. A time I honestly didn’t know how I was gonna survive time.

Windows open, night time in summer and all that Virginia green. 

“Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill.”

A moment I knew we would be okay. Eventually.

Out here in the high Chihuahuan desert, I rarely hear a whippoorwill. What I hear, in mid spring and late summer, is the poorwhill.

Yes, they are related. And yes, you rarely see them. I guess it is way too dry in the desert for a full blown three syllable cry and they have to make do with two.

Last night I went on a cellphone google deep dive. The poorwhills and whippoorwills typically sound off, especially as the moon waxes, letting potential partners know they have what it takes…. Y’all get the drift? The males prove their potential by out singing their competition. I read the whippoorwill territory is around twenty acres or so. The reason they sound off so much around a waxing moon is because the extra light allows for better bug hunting, aka survival of the fittest and let’s make sure the future kids have enough to eat.

Moon is growing bright but tonight shrouded by a thin veil.

Some fella is doing his darnedest to let his gal know he can outlast the other losers out there.

Okay. Sexist. Stuck in the olden days. Oh, yeah. And I’m stretched out, typing on my iPhone, anthropomorphizing (is that actually a word?) crafting a romantic narrative for the little feathered creatures hanging out down the hill.

Loud guy has calmed down a bit. The whir of bugs and frogs and a very gentle breeze through the pinyon are the background music to my quiet Thursday evening.

Not so much magic or omens but actual real biological science happening. But wait. That’s pretty magical, right?

Reclaiming Space

As a kid I would take my pillow and blankets to the front porch to sleep.  Something in me needed to be surrounded by air and trees, nighttime noises and a breeze.

For years we would go down to Big Bend National Park and camp in the wild, sleeping pads on the ground, the Milky Way our ceiling. I haven’t been camping in ages. Maybe because now I live out in the country, over a mile high elevation, and don’t have the need to escape town. My home is my refuge.

Nora came home for a two week vacation after a summer internship in Manhattan. Two days in she came down with a horrible flu. Fever for days, miserable. I surrendered my bedroom, with ac and tv, and cleared out the piles of junk that had accumulated in my outdoor “bedroom.” Broken chairs, wind shredded outdoor rug, ugly pillows. IKEA daybed shoved to the side.

Made up the bed and moved my evenings to my favorite place: the outdoors!

A couple nights were so clear and bright, the stars felt like a cushion above me. Shooting stars. Milky milky Milky Way.  Several evenings so windy I had to cover my head with the blanket, a makeshift tent. The past few evenings so chilly I needed an extra blanket, and woke up in a fluffy grey cloud. 

Thankfully Nora recovered, just in time to head back to her senior year of college in upstate NY. Last night I had clean sheets and a whole bedroom all to myself. No more piles of tissues, cough meds and tea cups.

Guess where I slept last night?

PS I miss writing in the blog. I regularly journal and occasionally post on FB. Always too many words and probably not the place. A couple of you old timers have reached out to me, asking for more. 

Thank you for the encouragement. I love to write and share little snapshots of my world.