WordSisters

Tag: wordsisters

  • Fall Morning

    Earlier this week I ate breakfast, sitting in a chair on the deck, wrapped in a fleece blanket. With a morning temp in the lower fifties, the conditions were not exactly perfect and I did not care. These beautiful days of early fall are too precious to waste. Three weeks ago, our temps still tried to top ninety and in three weeks from now the mornings may well have forties at seven. Maybe we’ll flirt with hot temps before the big dive.

    The birds are becoming scarce. The wild turkeys are an exception. They peck our windows and doors to protect themselves from themselves. Yesterday they jumped to peck at the car’s sideview mirrors. Out in the water ducks are gathering in large numbers. In Minnesota the geese migrate honking good-bye. The tourists are here for fall festivals with freedom to drink alcohol and dance in the streets. Summer residents have started their migration to permanent addresses or warmer places. 

    Peacefully alive is what I call being wrapped in that old blanket, eyes closed, listening to breezes in trees still covered by leaves. A neighbor’s dogs are making noise. A deer cautions people and dogs to back off. Her six-month-old fawns independently forage and explore but will stay near her through the winter. They have already eaten our Hosta and hydrangea and other flowering plants. Food will become more difficult to find.

    Summer’s bookmarks will not all be featured in this year’s photo calendar. Kids, grandkids, families and friends get all the smiling pictures. My husband had a one-month bout with kidney stones including two surgeries in June/July and now is in week three of a back injury.   Our dog passed in August. We had weeks of forest fire smoke topping off the hottest summer in meteorological measures. Except for bugs and heat, summer mornings eating breakfast outside were pretty fine as well.

    Enjoying a cool drink or the comforts of a cozy blanket and something to read are treasured simple activities. Don’t forget everything that can be seen was covered by 33 inches of snow just six months ago.  

    A serene forest scene with trees displaying vibrant green and yellow leaves, creating a rich autumnal atmosphere.

  • She Did

    On the day of our sale, when the buyer signed and I knew—really knew—that our home was sold, I felt the pressure of years gathering in my chest. Tears burst out.

    I was standing in the kitchen of our RV when the weight of it hit me.

    I was not four years old, or eight, or ten, or a teenager. My twenties were behind me.

    My survival had become a life. A home. A marriage. Children raised in safety. Love sustained over decades.

    How did this girl who came from dirt, chaos, filth, take care of a home for thirty years?

    How did this girl, who knew nothing about how to keep a relationship together, stay married for twenty-eight years?

    How did this girl, who was so abused, not abuse her children? Not allow them to be abused? Not raise a hand to them?

    How did this girl, who was not raised by love, raise with love?

    How did this girl insist that her children learn how to protect themselves? That they had a duty to protect themselves?

    How did this girl, whose body belonged to everyone else, keep her soul her own?

    She lived through their abuse, their dislike, their disdain, their ridicule, their name-calling. She lived through it.

    Slowly, steadily, methodically, she took the next step. And then another.

    She built a life the same way she healed—one small choice at a time.

    Her saving grace was realizing she could finally say:

    No more.

    I don’t need you.

    I don’t need to mother you.

    I don’t need to be your keeper.

    I don’t need to be needed by you.

    I am enough by myself.

    And then she began to see possibility. To see life.

    Jody.

    A relationship that mattered. One worth fighting for.

    She learned to communicate. To apologize. To stay when staying was hard. To work things out.

    Her healing continued because that responsibility belonged to her. No more giving up her thoughts. No more giving up her right to decide what was right for her.

    She would decide.

    She would become her own best friend. Her own witness. She would build a relationship with her spirit, with her soul.

    Thirty years later, standing between what was and what will be, she understands something fully:

    They did not get to decide who she would become.

    She did.

    The little girl who survived became the woman who lived.

    Tae Kwon Do, a family affair
  • The Ducks Will Return Without Us

    The Ducks Will Return Without Us

    Every spring, the shout goes up.

    “Ducks are back!”

    For thirty years, this has been a constant. Snowmelt pooled on the pool cover before spring fully arrived, and the mallards landing there every season, trusting this small temporary pond the way we trusted the house.

    It could be startling, sitting quietly on the deck, reading or meditating. Then the silence would break: quacking, the whuff-whuff-whuff of cupped wings slowing descent, ducks materializing out of the sky in a downward swoop. Sharp orange feet skittering across the wet cover — slap, slap, slap, scrrrch. Splashing and rippling. Finally, the settling sounds: little shakes, bills dipping into water, softer quacks, even a low gurgle from the mother duck.

    Most often it was a pair, though this year we’ve seen as many as four drakes in the pool with no hens in sight. Lately it’s been just one drake returning, again and again, during the day and evening.

    I wonder if he, too, feels the pull of change.

    This year, their return feels especially poignant because it is our last spring here. Our house has sold. All the rooms are empty except Crystel’s. Last in, last out, I tease her. She’ll dawdle with the ducks as long as she can until it’s time for both of them to move on.

    With the cover peeled back, open for swimming, the ducks still come. Gliding across the open water, bathing, napping, resting. There will be an ending or a moving forward for us. A final day. A final jump in the pool.

    Our house has a heartbeat. It is not just wood, walls, windows, and yard. Its heartbeat has been the four of us. Jody and I brought Juan and Crystel here when they were babies. We built a nest. We raised them. They pulled themselves up. Took their first steps. For twenty-four years, this house held us through changes, noise, laughter, growing up, letting go.

    The house has been saying goodbye to us, too. The lilacs bloomed their fragrant light purple. The flowering crabapple tree burst open in dark pink blooms. White blossoms on the back apple tree were in full regale during the open house. Peonies bloomed in time, as if giving us one last gift.

    Juan and Aryanna

    I am writing this under the shade of the apple tree in the backyard. I hear the schoolchildren next door, the birds singing, the quiet drift of clouds overhead. So much is the same, even as everything is changing.

    In a few days, we will close the door on making more memories here. But this is not really goodbye. The house will go on. It was alive when we came, and we have been good stewards. We filled it with love, with children, dogs and cats, hamsters, fish, and an indoor playground. Many projects were completed. Many dreams realized.

    What I will miss most is not the house, the landscaped yard, or even the pool. I will miss the four people we were here: Jody, Juan, Crystel, and me. We were the pulse. The collective heartbeat.

    The house will look different in thirty years. New voices will fill it. A different timbre will shout, “The ducks are back!” But the ducks will keep returning. The lilacs will bloom. The trees will flower. The house will keep beating.

    And so will we.

    Like the ducks we will shift to the next stage the season asks of us. We will circle back to each other, returning again and again.

    Crystel's final jump
    Crystel’s final jump!