This past week I drove a loved family member to cancer radiation treatments, a first for me. One round of appointments was completed which, with agreement of the patient, was celebrated. Staff wearing silly headbands clapped as the patient rang a large bell. Lots of hugs and high fives were exchanged as music chosen by the patient played. Some folks danced. I took pictures for my relative’s wall.
Thankfully the media carried Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sharing smiles and high hopes in their political campaign because a lot of people need to see other people enjoying their labors, even twenty seconds of joy. I wouldn’t want their jobs unless something truly despicable was the alternative. I would love to spread some of their positive energy across all whose work is unseen or unknown. Work is work.
This Labor Day weekend I wish I could embrace every person who works where the emotions and decisions are so immense. For those who hug, shake hands, wear sparkly hair baubles, bring cold water, sit in the quiet of difficult times, may you also find comfort. For people carrying hard news to virtual strangers or closing the doors of valued places, know that emotions projected by the impacted are not personal. It is hard to be on either side of that work.
For the caregivers, the news bearers, everyone working to keep family alive, building tall buildings, fixing tires, mopping, cooking, gathering eggs whatever honest labor you do, thanks. Even the writers. We’re in this together. Happy Labor Day.
“I see you, Crystel,” I say. She’s hanging in the apple tree above me. I pause my reading. Decide to snap a photo to send to her. She flits away before I can reach my phone. Of course. She’s elusive like that. Later, I’m sitting in the living room when I hear, “Chip, chip, chip” through the open door. “I hear you, Crystel,” I say. She sometimes follows me when I walk the dogs. Flying from tree to tree as we make our way around the neighborhood.
Crystel is currently a senior at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Why am I a male cardinal?” she asks when I tell her that in her absence, she has embodied that symbol.
It’s simple. “Because I can see you. It’s hard to miss a red cardinal perched in our trees, settling on our fence line, or resting on electrical wire,” I tell her. Really, she could have easily been a yellow finch that visits our purple anise hyssop for their dried seeds, or a monarch butterfly that reminds Jody of her mother, or a dragonfly that dips into our pool for a drink.
“There’s Granny,” we all say when we see the colorful monarch. Jody and Crystel were at Granny’s gravesite shortly after she died. They were sitting on the ground facing Granny and reminiscing. A butterfly suddenly swooped towards their faces. There was no mistaking that was Granny.
For our wedding announcement 22 years ago, Jody and I used the dragonfly and a poem by Scott Russell Sanders: To be centered… means to have a home territory, to be attached in a web of relationships with other people, to value common experience, and to recognize that one’s life rises constantly from inward depths. The dragonfly represented transformation.
The male cardinal transforms my energy connection to Crystel into physical form. A sighting of the brilliant red birds and their distinctive whistle awakens my sight and hearing senses. I smile, laugh. Send her love.
Juan is a constant presence. His car is in the driveway. If I’m up early enough I can hear him leave in the morning for work and ask him how his day went when he comes home. Jody and I bring him keepsakes from our travels. He’s solid, steady, a known entity. I like having him at home. It’s a gift. I prefer he doesn’t become a symbol, though I expect some day he will.
When I first suggested that the WordSisters should road trip to Michigan in Beth’s still-a-dream motorhome, I didn’t really think it would happen. But now, more than a year later, I pull into the campground five miles from my new home in Michigan to see Beth sunbathing in front of a 28’ Winnebago. With the help of her wife, Jody, they’ve driven 10 hours from Minneapolis to visit me in tiny Byron Center, Michigan. Soon Ellen and Brenda emerge from the rig and I’m near tears. They’re here. They’re really here. The power of a 20+ year friendship is made manifest.
L: Sunbathing, R: Beth & Jody
A lot has happened over the two decades that we’ve known one another (no one can say precisely when we first met). I came to the writing group last (as I remember, but it might have been Brenda). There were other writers in the group then, friends and fellow writers who went their separate ways over time until the four of us remain, bonded by the love of writing, a mutual respect for the craft, and compassion for one another’s lives. We’re no longer just writing group acquaintances, but friends. Through our writing we’ve exposed ourselves to one another in ways we don’t to others.
A lot has happened, too, since that day in May 2023 when the idea of a road trip first took root. My husband and I emotionally dismantled three decades of living in our Minnesota home to move to a townhome in my home state. Ellen became a grandmother. Brenda’s daughter (who we met when she was an infant) successfully navigated her first year of high school. And Beth and Jody bought a motor home, which now sits before me in all its glory.
During the past year I also read Tom Lake (stay with me here) and had the privilege of seeing Ann Patchett at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, talk about the book, writing, and life with Kerri Miller for MPR’s Talking Volumes Series. At the end of the night, Miller surprised the audience by bringing Kate DiCamillo on stage. For a group of writers and readers, a surprise visit by the hometown star was, I suspect, the same feeling that music fans had back in the day when Prince used to show up unexpectedly at First Avenue. The crowd roared.
The dedication to Tom Lake reads: “To Kate DiCamillo who held the lantern high.” Patchett explained that while writing the book she and DiCamillo would exchange a short email in the morning and again at night. “She would always say, ‘I’m going down the rabbit hole. Good luck in the orchard today,’ and at the end of the day she would say, ‘It’s time to come out of the orchard. I’m holding the lantern up. Just walk towards the light.’ ”
I sat in the balcony of the Fitzgerald next to my book club members (another group of wonderful women I’ve known for over 15 years) and fought back tears. All I could think of then were Ellen, Beth, and Brenda standing at the edge of my proverbial orchard for two decades guiding me with their light. It’s who we are and what we do for one another as writers. So, on the last night of our way-too-short visit, we sit in my sunroom, and I give each of them a lantern. I want them to remember me, which I really don’t fear will be an issue. And I want to remind them to always “hold the lantern high.” I’ve bought one for myself as well, to hold for them as they make their way out of Guatemala, or the ER, or a spiritual labyrinth or one of the many places our life journeys will take us. I want them to know that I will always be there for them holding the light.
This time of summer talk turns to tomatoes whenever a few Midwesterners gather. Leaf color, plant height, fruit size, bugs, skin splits suggest gardeners dominating the discussion. The rest of us wait to add our dinner plate observations about juice, pulp, flavor, returning to juiciness. If you like BLTs, caprese salad, a plate of tomato slices, the conversation always features juiciness. A BLT that doesn’t drip some combination of mayo and tomato down the side of the bread is just a sandwich that could be made any time of year.
We’re having a mediocre tomato harvest in this part of the state. There’s tales about plants growing taller than their gardeners, producing a few blossoms, and two or three golf-ball sized fruit that stay green. More people had plants that developed brown leaves on the lower stem and minimum blossoms or fruit. A friend who usually pushes tomatoes and cucumbers on anyone who comes near his house has had about eighteen tomatoes this year from a half dozen plants.
The juice factor isn’t ranking as well as past years either. Caprese salad at a very good Italian restaurant last week had solid, almost too solid, tomato slices. Firm texture and minimal taste. Farmers market tomatoes had woody white streaks throughout the insides. The experts say these are signs of stressed plants as well as highly humid conditions during the wrong time of the season.
So our tomatoes are stressed. That condition we all understand. So many things out of our control, but we all do our best to do our best. Makes me feel kind of bad for dissing tomato plant output. At this time of summer, optimism for awesome fresh produce dishes stays high. Heading back to the market to bring home new tomatoes with great expectations. Maybe the plants found a happier time later in the growing season to forget their stress.
