A small notebook is opened to another page, full of blue ink, the page opened slightly elevated above the rest.
June has come to an end. What an obvious statement, I know. Yet, in-between the spring revelry and August drudge, standing still at the end of summer’s Dawn is refreshing. Being present in the moment is a battle for my mind. Even as I write these words, in dusky late-sunset light; I do not want to be here. An alarm sounds for my batch of tea – a cat walks over my pen, her poly-dectal feet pawing the page & ink as if they were her toys. She is the “main character”, and all the light touches is hers. Yonder, the frogs and crickets are attempting harmony; and here am I.
A small notebook is laid on a white background. This page is full of blue ink. At the top is scribbled the title, with two leaves doodled on either side. There are several typos but at the bottom right corner is an ellipsis ending in a little butterfly.
The first thing to notice is the sun. The light, hiding all winter, lingers longer and longer over the budding trees. Soon, their dark shells melt from petals to sprouts. These take up the branches, shrubs, even stumps, preparing their summer life. Then – with neither roar nor rumble – June awakes.
Nothing more lovely in the world than a June bride. Though personally, September seems the preferred month. Yet, June’s wims & mostly gentle skies are most idyllic for a wedding. I did not sit to write of weddings ~ so you can see how my rambles can lead.
The same notebook is opened to another page, still full of blue ink. Some letters are more heavily inked than others, indicating corrections made by the authoress.
In June, blue skies are indeed prized. However, her rains are also refreshing after a dry spring… or feared after a late-melting winter. She stands in the middle of the year, giving punctuation to two seasons.
This June provided such a moment. The rain had come quickly, though thunder had given notice near an hour ahead. I took an umbrella to check my little garden (aphid-torn kale & pristine snap-peas); when did I notice the rain? It was pelting my umbrella liberally. At some point, I walked to the end of our property, allowing the warm water to pelt my face. Then – I stopped by our little grove, lowered the umbrella, and listened.
Unlike the pages before and behind, this page is severed from the binding though its edges are not badly damaged. A very minimal sketch of a couple of tree trunks, some underbrush, grass, and leaves adorns the top. Still in blue ink. The corner is crisscrossed as so the reader can see the butterfly from the page before.
‘Neath a spiky-leaved oak, the sound of water pouring off leaves was symphonic. Brush ripe with green contributed to the music. Far away, the hum of a highway was literally drowned by the rain & a few feet full of trees. Nothing drew my voice to sing stronger than that unrelenting melody, & at the same time, nothing stilled my heart quicker than to hear creation sing.
The small notebook is opened to another page, about three-quarters full. There are little doodles of a couple daisy-likes and again a right-corner butterfly.
June is full of many things. Lives beginning, journey taking, plan-making, only to name a few.June is full of every-days,, just as she is full of wedding days. Each moment an opportunity. Because, just as May and April & all who came before ~ June leaves & does not return the same.
Thank you, Father of Light
For giving us the inward sight
to praise you with rain
even if the rain be tears
Author’s Note: Thank you for bearing with the typos. If you had not noticed, I am leaving them in the post intentionally. It is more encouragement to better my writing as much as possible. This is long overdue, as the fresh leaves I wrote of are saying a short goodbye- but here lies some early summer warmth.
A small hand bound paper notebook stands on a day-lit window sill. Several pine trees stand blurry in the background, and script in blue ink is on its cover. The words read “Perfection is ever a pursuit. This will not be the destination of these words – but their journey I hope will bring forth wisdom. Less is more.” A tiny smiley sits sideways to these sentences. In the bottom right hand corner, there reads “Radicle ” in print and below that, “Life” in cursive.The aforementioned notebook is opened to its first white page with black ink script. The window is bright in light. There are two definitions: the first reads: “Radicle: (Noun) Botany: the part of a plant embryo that develops into the primary root. Anatomy: a root like division of a nerve or vein.” The second definition simply reads “Life: (Noun).”The hand bound note book is opened to another page, titled “Worthy of Mention, episode 1.” The window basks the entire journal in bright light as more blue script etches below.
The month of May has always been a busy one. Full of birthdays, end of school-year preparations, and Memorial day, our family scarce could take a breath. Especially adding in the chores. Spring cleaning, gardening, (Mother’s day flower planting as well), and, for a season, refreshing a chicken coop. This was my summer hearkening. Yet the brightest moments in May which shine to the front of my mind – is helping my momma fill her clothesline.
The notebook is open to its next page, blue script across its face. Afternoon light brushes the entire top edge of the light. The words are below, typos and all.
I have no calendar year to mark my first laundery day. I remember my favorite textile to hang were the sheets. Row upon row of soft cotton polyester blend, some less wet than others – all tenting perfectly across my parents’ back yard,
The clothesline hung north to south on a slightly raised hill. Adult Lydia would define it as a ‘mound.’ But our child hood definition still lingers. Racing down the hill by way or running or rolling was a near-daily occurrence. That is – unless the clothesline was full. Sheets, pants, shirts, it mattered not. A banner was above my head And it would not be ignored.
The next page of the same hand-bound notebook, brown and cream thread peeking at the left side of the screen while sunlight kisses the right. Words in blue script are spelled out below. There is a little sketch of a clothesline strung between two poles and a draped sheet being blown in the wind.
The sunlight, fresh & warm from a long winter sleep, dried the sheets in a series. The thick, damp/possibly dripping season was (a) cave under a war zone. The near-dry but still very much not time was after a storm on the high sea. At last – the final hour or so before they could be harvested, the sheets were castles and woods and starships. How could I resist? I was never alone on these journeys; at least, not for a long long time.
The next page of the notebook is opened with more blue ink script. Light douses the top right corner obscuring some of the words. It is slightly cut off at the bottom for some reason.
Perhaps you, reader, may observer how little hanging the clothes & such on the clothesline has featured in my mentioning. Choosing the right basket size for the load, ensuring minimal breakage of our weathered pins – being less than tall enough to hang items over the line & requiring an older (or younger) sibling to assist – making sure my momma did not need to go downstairs… this ritual is not a precious one to most. But it is a lovely one to me.
Now here I am, with my own clothesline north to south, my own struggles with baskets & running our of clothesline (continued below)
A scrap of paper is layered from the edge of the notebook, not bathed in the afternoon like as the other entries have been, and more blue script. At the end of the cursive is sketched a small flower, perhaps a peony or hydrangea.
(layering is a necessity) & all I can think of is how my mother has loved Spring.
These words are little in the grand scheme of world and men. Yet still i feel the need to bring a light on some memories. As my mother’s birth month branches into June, the simple joys & gratitude she taught me is Worthy of Mention.
A tiny piece of paper leans against a sunny window. It is a sketch depicting window panes, a stretch of telephone lines, and a tiny blue bird perched on them. A row of trees peeks from the bottom of the paper. There is writing on the reverse side back lit by the light, but not decipherable.
Thunder rolls overhead as if on wings. It takes nothing back – and it gives nothing in and of itself. It fills a vacuum, speaks louder than rain, and provides a voice for otherwise silent clouds. Yet the waters of heaven have a longer song to sing, for the grass is greener from their embrace. Petals turn to fruit given time, and even the clouds shield earth from the sun.
Though, in thunder’s emptiness – those pauses between light and rain – there is music. In the shadow of the clouds cries a melody of ancient rites and psalms the entire creation can understand. Planes echo the majestic roar of wind being siphoned into a wild cry, but truly nothing can quite mimic it. The beauty envelopes my mind during a rainstorm to where it almost hurts to breathe.
However, that beauty is also a breeding ground of danger. Tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes may send their harbinger before them, allowing the world a moment to realize the soon to be destruction. The sudden downpour of water washing out a field,
I think some memory relates a great deal to thunder. There are vacuums in our mind which need to make ‘sense’, to ascribe a voice to the shapeless clouds for which we have no true name. Whereas some vacuums fill with innocent words- as in the conspiracy that Berenstain was ever Bernstein – some lightning strikes are full of pain. Pain so sharp that even the idea is a blank no amount of noise can constitute.
This is not a long winded thunder trail, Those rumblings through my mind, moments I can only see myself running from, never being in, are not for dwelling in yet. Such is the wild dance of ‘what if’ which bridges fear from the past to the present quicker than a rain can drop from heaven.
Yet.
Love and bravery are both action filled emotions. You rise to brave the tempest so as to protect that which you love. Even if it means allowing the clouds to break, the sun to wither, so that strength rises from weakness – for there is music in the thunder.
for they who dream of riding in the clouds, thus making cities of light and distance a reality – if only for a moment.
Memories are strange beasts. Separating them from the human existence creates another condition – those who cannot remember. Dementia and Alzheimer are destructive diseases, and their impact is felt throughout a community, even more on the individual families who go through it. However, it is the sense of loss of the person themselves due to their own lack of awareness which can be even more painful to live through.
My memories live strongly with me. My mind recreates a feeling with more life than my words can promise you; which is why the Bush played such a key role in it. I laid out my feelings in the post before, a sort of love letter to a fixture in my childhood. This episode, I wanted to showcase where the divergences in memory currents happen – as they differ from every human brain which encounters an event. Even when all these currents were within the same family.
My eldest sister lives quite distant from me. For most of my childhood, she was the adult who was rarely home to visit. Her perspective on home has a mosaic of pain and love which is not to be quaintly defined by even her little sister. As adulthood let us both into the same world, I asked her about her thoughts concerning our childhood, specifically revolving around the bush. She said that in your mind, things from your pasts tend to “stick out” because they represent something to you, For me, the bush meant a world of wonder and difference. For her it was an escape from a reality of caring for upwards of 4 siblings at any time and an elderly grandmother. It was a place where the neighbors would come over, bringing over exotic snacks and stories of their respective schools. While not outright rebellion it was freedom and individualistic – words undefined beforehand.
My older brother had very similar memories to my elder sister, yet for him it was more a place to test strength and skills. It was a place to relax, to dream alone, to catch privacy from the world in which he was thrust. He recalls literally jumping into the branches if only for a few seconds to get the smell of cedar, before church in the morning or a doctor’s visit for our grandma. He was an older sibling as well – so his responsibilities were vital to the running of the house. Mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning water out of our Michigan basement – and the bush brought relief. Solace. His life is a much fuller one now – marriage, life in general, post-military – but his memory of the bush is something which also invoked friends coming over and filling it. It was a retreat and yet also a place to test one’s strength. There had been a storm where the bush had been struck by lightning. One of her heavy limbs fell, causing a hole through which you could now see the sunset. This surprised my brother, who had jumped the limbs day in and day out – yet one storm altered the face of a familiar place forever.
The second sister of mine has so much to say she deserves her own book. Her memory of the bush is something akin to mine, yet also blended with ‘the older ones.’ She reminded me of how the bush was the feature we would tell people to look for when giving directions to our house, Evergreens could be found in nearly every front lawn on our street, but not so as any house would be nearly lost behind them. Her observations were related to the color, the smell, the feeling of the ‘leaves.’ The bark bit the fingers, but the leaves were soft as butter – while a layer of them lay brown and somehow still soft on the ground. Sunlight found its way into the cove of green, and so did life. Decay was not in the bush’s DNA. My sister watched as the world of the elder siblings spun into Volvo-tires and pavement, and another era of childhood began on the front porch. I wonder how much both our eyes are still focusing on those broken steps from between the branches.
The last sibling I brought into this whirlwind had a genuinely unique importance in his life. Though he does remember the evergreen fondly, it did not paint itself in his mind in terms of endearment. It was there, but at the point of time where I was almost obsessing over it, he had moved on to another place. It was not the front yard generally but rather, the driveway. He recalls hours that we spent on rocky-asphalt, bouncing half-full basketballs into an old hoop which towered over our heads; his thoughts of how we would get chunks out of the edges – eroding due to rain and Northern winters – to be used in our Real People and ‘chemistry’ games. His memory was not about the bush as much as it was about how the driveway was set in our lives. The day my parents repaved the driveway – the first time in over 40 years of residing at their home – is a day that my brother realized just how important the driveway had been The change of scene from being so familiar – it was not about maintenance or better aesthetic, or even better for the house in general. All those my brother would agree with. Yet, in all that good, is the loss of what was.
There in lies a great truth. The loss of memory means the tearing of reality. It is a scary moment relived over and over, or an emotionless field where nothing ‘sticks.’ I do not need to opine on this topic – only to state how important remembrance is, how cherished family history can be, but also how poisoned it can become. How changes are affected depend on what people do in the changes they find themselves. this is not necessarily a story about losing memories – that is a tale for another day. This story is about having them – even when the reality was different.
What is it to say after all these words? The love we siblings have for home, for the intimate details of an every day journey between the sun and the moon, I think is mirrored in others views on old school grounds, old play grounds turned into shopping marts and hospitals. Yet, these are things deemed outside of your control in an easy fashion – governments and communities decide together on differences. Even if you choose not to attend the meetings, they usually occur. Changes to a property alive still in all of our minds is more personal. While the decision involved you the children to some extent – it is our parents house, They did what they thought was right. It is not a ‘wrong’ choice which allows my momma to sit on her new front porch. It is not a bad thing that my father is able to walk on a smooth driveway free of holes his children may or may not have encouraged (I am sorry Dad – the asphalt made excellent ink though). Both of my parents are managing health concerns which are rapidly changing the way they did things before. Regardless of the endearments of some things, renovation is necessary. These changes cast the whole in a shadow – the 2d rendering of an impression in our mind became a model with features and movement. It became a model of the relationships woven through the recollections, the memories, the people. Change is not always a bad thing – it is what we do with it which matters to any ending. Is that not what growth is all about?
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to Karena, Jiles, Donielle, and Caleb for putting up with my rambling questions, terrible internet at the time of interview, and the love and support they have given to this little episode.
The Bush sprouted in front of the house long before my infancy. It had been there when my newlywed parents signed their first mortgage, when my eldest brother was in kindergarten, and as child after child joined our growing flock, the evergreen seemed to push itself to accommodate them all. At times I wondered if the tiny plant had just wanted a place to rest, a safe haven, disturbed only by the occasional bird. Whatever its original dream, it was blessed to be the guardian of a hoard of children. My mother quickly deemed it to be an eyesore, but at the same time stressed that the front yard was not to be played in under any circumstances. “Too close to the road,” she said, over and over.“You could get hurt.” So, the Bush became a playground, rocket, even a babysitter at times. A prickly, rough governess, but imaginative to its visitors.
All this happened while I watched in her shadow. The sweet, soft fern-like leaves fell over me like a curtain to my personal theater. Every time I tried to slip in, I hesitated with the fear of falling to the ground, not tall enough to swing into the cockpit of my siblings’ world. I pressed my face against the sun-speckled screen door, waiting for someone to reach the handle for me. Then I would creep to the edge of the cool concrete of the Porch, ’til, at last, I could reach the first branch and swing into Never-land. My youngest brother and I fashioned hats of the leaves and swords from sticks, displaying our summers worth of shells all along the grassy edge; somehow we failed to notice that, one by one, the nest was being emptied.
The day came that my mother got her wish. The shovels and six hard-muscled men arrived in the early morning, as if they had been whisked out of a bottle to do her bidding. From my room, I watched the limbs of the Bush recede, thinner and thinner, until at last they crumpled into a pile of twisted roots and green feathers. As the day turned over on its side, showing the red of her smile against the gold of her eyes, the Bush left the world in a spicy, fresh-cut grass assault on the senses, its bald place in the front yard tilled under but still full of her memories. My mother was overjoyed for the potential to get a new porch, unable to mourn the plant with any greater loss than “The shade was nice.”
The evergreen’s death bought an adventure of the house getting a face-lift. Aged yellow vinyl — not the kind you put music on, the kind that falls off a house every weekend — became caramel siding, plaster white was painted sienna desert, another bathroom and bedroom were added, yet the front remained a graveyard. It may have been filled in with rocks and the occasional sprinkle of flowers — contrasted by a shiny new door with a heron posed in frosted glass — but the old concrete was still there, bare and bleached by the sun as it had never been before. Yet our house was deemed improved because the Bush was gone, even when my mother’s new porch had to be postponed ’til the van and trucks were in working condition. Perhaps after the back deck was finished, or maybe when the ponds were all cleaned out would allow for some time. Summer after summer, fall bled into winter over and again for 9 years, eating away at the little porch until my mother fell on the now-shattered steps. At last, the concrete went the way of the screen door. Chocolate-brown and cream aluminum would be replaced by a wooden construction. As the house gained its many coats of appeal, it seemed to lose the charm and character it had once held behind the Bush.
The destruction and rebuilding of the walls changed the home in more ways than how it looked. My mother, due to her fall, found herself more and more often lying on the couch, hardly sleeping due to her pain. My father decided the lawn needed more attention than anything inside. A garden was planted and harvested, then allowed to go to seed. There was more than enough room for all of us now, but I still felt silenced, hushed. The door had been closed on me for so long, but I knew I was not going to wait any more years for the hole to be filled in my life. I was ready to move out of the shadows and find my own roots.
Life is not a concrete brick to be chipped away, moved from place to place ’til all that remains is a shadow of dust. It is a season of seasons, leaves that layer upon each other. Shells are buried, uprooting happens, clinging to a withered leaf allows for nothing but suffocation. I will always love my mother’s soft, hazel eyes and the twinkling in my father’s smile; the sunrise is just as amazing from their new porch as those long-lost sunsets. But I am not writing their story anymore.
Nothing proved this more than the view from my window. It wasn’t the familiar arms of a friend waving back at me, but the back of a rigid tree long since dead. A beautiful mummy, but only a band-aid over what used to be; when I would sit on the highest branch and watch the explosions of color in the 4th of July night sky, or a sunset on a Tuesday. Wrapping myself in what could have been is as blinding as merely dreaming of what could be; while I was waiting for somewhere to let me grow, all I had to do was turn toward the light.
The day kisses the clouds goodnight, as the heavens quiet from an airshow in town. The screeches of airplanes, literally louder than cracking thunder, pulled the afternoon into thin strings for anxiety-edged ears. Standing in the warm, humid air, I was pulled back into my childhood. The roaring jets placed me in the volunteer tent at a similar show in New York. The great field was a mess of people and distant fences where planes were resting their wings as the odd helicopter cycled visitors over the massive event. Concrete and tarmac everywhere that was not huge stretches of near-dead grass. All of it was trodden by tennis shoes, military-issued boots, and delicate sandals, while many consumed the free water bottles and cheap granola bars the volunteer tents handed out. My eleven-year old eyes followed the uniforms running about in awe, even the normal shorts and tank top outfits a little foreign to my modest upbringing.
The memory is not worthless, nor surprising as both memories served a concurrent passage- an air show. It is literally my mind saying ‘oh, this? you have seen it before.’
Ray Bradbury wrote ‘Jump!’ dozens of years ago at the end of an overt preface to a book which found its way into my hands a week ago, and I have still yet to read entirely. However, the moment I read the word, my poly-dactyl cat jumped onto my desk. Suddenly I smelled my chamomile mint tea touched with honey, still too hot to drink; I felt the ache in my shoulders from leaning over a computer keyboard too long; I watched the cat stride over a cluttered desk – and wondered. ‘I just read this…’ In one word, which was defined in the first movement seconds before.
Now it is a coincidence, and not a wrong conclusion to draw. Yet such coincidences have made for beautiful creations. Such coincidences rise strong in the last day of the month for yours truly, the sky-screaming jets rattling memories through my very core. The jumping from one memory to another – from a plastic white tent to a huge mulberry bush – is the launching of stories to be shared. In these moments, I can almost hear the voices of centuries ago calling the world to ‘Jump!’
Mr. Bradbury meant his readers to push off themselves- and I am pushing off of my own spark in order to dig a little deeper. For a seed must be buried before it can grow.
This is a simple introduction – but it was a lovely moment which I hope you find value in. See you on the other side. Thank you for reading, for I am sincerely,
Lydia Grace
References:
Bradbury, Ray. Zen in the Art of Writing, Joshua Odell Editions, Santa Barbara, CA, 1996, pp. xv-xv.
Radicles 