bright (bright) bright (bright) sunshiny day

it's a sticky, damp, peaceful and noisy day depending on what gets your attention . work is being done on the leaky skylights at last, men climbing up and down ladders, hammering up a storm. a weed whip and a silly little speedboat compete for loudest contraption. shouts from the bridge, followed by shrieks and splashing. every now and then those cranky geese explode into "i want it all for me"outbursts.

there's a great breeze. water rolls in in long streams of deep blue satin. summer in full swing.

the tiny garden just outside my windows is glittering and glimmering with butterflies and hummers. a lovely serene place to rest your eyes. and i know if i could get closer i'd be able to hear the whir of their wings and their sharp little territorial chirps.

Little Journeys VI

as promised my brother john wrote about his (often) weekly date with spouse pam to the Fredrick Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, in grand rapids where we all grew up and where, of the six of us, he still lives. this week includes photos of john's gorgeous children- my nephew and niece alex and pauline, also of grand rapids.

After a few no shows of the past few weeks Pam and I were able to make our journey around the gardens tonight. Like most people we haven't seen it quite some time - it was a beautiful evening and people seemed to enjoy the night and the Chihullys. Not much in the exhibits has changed but we met a young volunteer who was taking short surveys of those wandering the park. Learned after bantering with him that he is an intern from Aquinas College. After discovering you can get people to work for you for free, I decided I needed an intern for my work as well.

So now I have to find a school creative or crazy enough to let me have one. I think i could put them to great use doing research on how many gas station/convenience store were sold in Michigan in the last 5 years, how much they sold for and who the buyer was. Important stuff like that. Or I could find out how many electric motors are in use that run the ventilation and cooling systems for all the nuclear power plants in the US. Then I could sit back or play golf while billing my clients megabucks for all this high value information. Probably not but Chihully gets my creative juices flowing.

Anyway, we had a nice visit and told the volunteer we tried to be there every week and other assorted trivia.

Can't wait to arrive on Sunday and looking forward to having most all the Harrington siblings together. Pretty awesome! Love, John

p.s. -john, you got derailed my man from covering the gardens to how to swindle interns. so i'm posting a couple of Chihullys even though you don't prefer them. back to nature writing, please.

mutual regard

every morning at dawn or even earlier marty and our australian shepherd francie go trotting out the front door and down the road to greet the day. an important part of this ritual takes place hours later with marty telling me in great detail about that day's walk, as i am just waking up and sipping a steaming cafe au lait from a tiny ceramic cup banded with a parade of geese. his report today was so especially special i asked if he would write it up and he graciously obliged.

This morning Francie and I went down the road, framed by two celestial events. Over the blazing east hills, the sun was just about to come up. To the southwest, a huge full moon was starting to go down. It was quite chilly but crystal clear with nice high pressure and lower humidity than we've had in weeks. As we neared the fox house, Francie began a continual nose-down snuffling that could mean only one thing: foxes are close by.

No sign of them at the fox house, though, so we turned onto South Dyer Neck Road to go over the short bridge and partway up the hill on the other side. As we neared the bridge two crows started shrieking alarm calls from the big old oak along the road beyond the bridge. Sure enough, sitting in the road under the oak like he owned the place, was Mr. Fox, staring at us. As we kept heading directly towards him, he sauntered across the road towards the Sheepscot River, and when he went out of sight in the trees, we could track him by the hysterical hovering of the two crows. Francie, of course, never looked up from her sniffing of the dry dirt on the road shoulders.

The fox trotted across the bottom of the open pasture where the geese often hang out and disappeared into the trees on the other side. Once we reached the big oak, I looked across the pasture and sure enough, there was friend fox, just at the edge of the tree line, watching us intently.

This afternoon, I decided to return to the same spot, even though there was no chance of a fox staying in one area nearly that long. Just where the fox had been in the pasture this morning, were the geese, standing still with their heads pointed up. Knowing the culinary predispositions of foxes, I thought it would be a good time for a beak count. It came out at 11. How could that be, since there used to be 13 and 3 got eaten? I counted again, and as I came again to 11, I noticed, standing in the middle of the flock with his neck straight up like a vigilant goose, was Ronny Foxy Baby! Now a bachelor, our fave duck seems to have found a new gang to hang out with, and although the geese never seem particularly happy to be in each other's company, nobody was bothering Ronny.

bed with a view

here is what i see whenever i open my eyes. there's a flower pot right inside with the blue morning glory - a tiny garden in a clay pot made for me by my helper amber and her family with a tripod of drumsticks from her musician spouse for the vine.

just on the other side of the screens are two long window boxes brimming with annuals, lots of cosmos and snapdragons and all sorts of other beauties, created by wishes from me and mainly terry with her super-duper green thumb, behind which are two well-used hummer feeders thanks to terry and sarah my other sister. a little glimpse of paradise all day long, not even counting the whole salt marsh and river beyond.

they're back!

foxes! several sightings over the past few days at the grange and vacant house, which suggest they've been around all along. they sit like a dog does and casually watch marty or terry with francie. the kits are growing. excitement ripples through the 'hood again.

l'oies avec arbres

here are four of the five majestic firs across the river from our house with tide coming in, about half way so far. it was overcast when marty took this picture but of course it is gorgeous and sunny now as i write. all the geese are present, 8 or 9, but you can't see most of them. so all in all not a great photo but i insisted he take it anyway. better ones to follow. the pile of dried grass you can see is one of several on our spartina "lawn", where kingbirds and red-winged blackbirds nest and sleep.

annuals and perennials

there has been magnificent gardening going on at our house, a real team effort of full support from marty, wishes and plans expressed by me, and shopping, planting and care - the real bulk of the work - coming from terry. because it is all so gorgeous and new, visitors, friends and caregivers have shared a lot of thoughts and preferences when it comes to gardening. i have especially been tuned in to people's opinions about annuals vs. perennials.

all of this conversation has been going on around my bed in the context of the new garden - it is a knock-out, if i do say so myself. everyone involved in the gardening buzz knows about my illness and prognosis. yet the only people who really seem to get it are terry and marty (julia and sam don't count because while they ooh and aah over the pretty flowers, they're not into plants). there is a prevailing view that perennials are superior to annuals because of course they last longer, returning year after year, whereas annuals, no matter how beautiful, have only a season.

like me, in all probability.

a few times i have wanted to call out, do you know who you're talking to? or more likely, talkng over or around. is it such a sin, such an awful waste of money, to buy something that can only be enjoyed a few months? because there are some exquisite flowers, annuals, that can't be topped by perennials for beauty, cheer and color. some friends go on to point out that there are perennial varieties that don't bloom the first year or more, but no worries, they're worth waiting for, dropping in this factoid with no apparent awareness of what i'm facing.

i have always loved and planted annuals, decades before ALS. my favorite flowers are perennials - hydrangea, peonies, lilacs, and in california, calla lilies, poppies and fuchsia. and we're not gardening only for me - i want perennials for marty to enjoy for years to come and whenever he sees them, be reminded of me and that i was - and am - thinking of him and his future whenever they bloom. but still.

what i really mind is not the miserliness in some of the comments people make, nor even their insensitivity to all the conversational implications about me they seem to miss - but what seems to be missing most is a penchant for short-lived beauty, ingredients for a fuller life - indulgent pleasures, dripping joy - flowers that bloom for a summer, the singular night of the full moon, the small season of a firefly.

Little Journeys V

as promised my brother john wrote about his (often) weekly date with spouse pam to the Fredrick Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, in grand rapids where we all grew up and where, of the six of us, he still lives, followed by some observations from sister-in-law pam, always welcome, in which john is busted - i mean, really, john:

We had a lovely but hot walk through the gardens last night. After having so much rain a few weeks back, the dry season must be upon us. Has been in the 90's since last week and no rain. So the ponds are growing green stuff but the ducks and geese don't seem to mind. The Chihully blocks in the large pond are getting a good coating of the "gunk" - maybe that was planned. I'm sure it will be a challenge to the volunteers who have to remove it all. Even in the heat there were many people out mozzing around. Kids playing in the fountains and the great lakes exhibit. We actually dipped our own hands and feet in to find refreshment. The flowers are all in bloom amid the sculptures and natural growth. There is also a miniature replica of your favorite work in the Gallery - I must get back and send you a picture- looks really cool up close where it can be easily viewed and touched. Love, John
***
Since it is Tuesday , John and I went to Meijer Gardens tonight. It was hot, but there was a nicebreeze and it was worth it. Some of the flowers are in their glorious summer prime, and the little ducklings have all become teenagers already. John had to terrorize the frogs- I imagine he did this as a child, and also, perhaps to his sisters. This side of him rarely comes out as he is such a kind and gentle soul in his heart. Love, Pam

sweet williams, jasmine, cosmos

Many years ago I went to hear a talk by Stephen Levine, who has written many books on death and dying, including “Meetings at the Edge” and “Who Dies?” When I went to hear him speak, he told a story about a Zen Master, and this is how I remember it. The teacher was confronted by a fierce young student who demanded to know, “What is the point in living, since sooner or later we all die? Isn’t this life just a cruel trick, since no matter what we do, no matter how good we try to be, no matter how much we learn or how wise we become, still, we will die. So what is the point, what is the purpose of life?”

The teacher picked up a glass and held it out to the student. “Look at this glass. Right now it is whole and useful, you can drink water from it, it is lovely to see. If I tap it with a spoon, it makes a wonderful sound. But at some point it will no longer exist, it cannot last forever; at some point someone will drop it and it will break, and that will be the end of it. We don’t know when, but we know for certain that this will happen. So you could say, it is broken already. It is smashed and gone already.”

The teacher went on. “What will I do? I can admire this glass and drink from it, make use of it while I have it, or I could just get it over with, throw it to the ground, since I know its ultimate fate.

“And here you are, young and vibrant and full of questions, but someday you will die and decompose and return to the earth. In that sense you are dead already. Already dead, what will you do with your life?”

I think of this story as I ponder the coming months; I could focus mainly on that I'm already gone, or about to be. As I look around my beautiful rooms, I could dwell on what I'll be leaving behind, and the fear, sorrow and heartache. I think of this story as I look at everyone I love; we are gone from each other already? Already gone from each other, what will we do with our time together?

When we were packing to leave California and move to Houston, I realized I had already left our house. So I decided to plant flowers. On the deck and front porch were all sorts of hanging baskets and wine barrels and large pots and planter boxes which I filled every spring with fuchsia and bougainvillea, jasmine and gardenias, Sweet Williams and cosmos. They were all empty except for the dirt and a few broken twigs and lots of spider webs. When I mentioned to Marty that I was going to fill them all with plantings, he clearly thought I was a bit crazy. “Why do that when we’re moving in a few months?” It could be seen as a waste of time and money, if you go on the assumption that we were gone already. On the other hand, we’d have months of being surrounded by all that beauty and the scent of those white flowers. While we were living in our house, we were living in our house.

And so it is with my people, my animals, the marsh. and all the ways my friends bring me the world in their writing and visits. While we are together, we are together. I want to savor every moment, before it really is over. And who knows what that means, anyway? The longer I live and dream and contemplate, the more curious I get about what's on the other side. I can't believe I will lose all the powerful chances I have now to touch and love and be touched by beings and the world. William James, Huston Smith, Carolyn Bourgeault, Kaya Mclaren and colleagues are reminding and reassuring me that love never dies.

mysteries solved

i apologize if you've been on the edge of your seat since june 13 , wondering and worrying whether the GBH (great blue heron) landed outside my windows so it could munch on baby birds or their eggs nesting in the spartina. in the course of my research i learned herons feast on fishes, frogs, salamanders, lizards, snakes, small mammals, shrimps, crabs, insects -and birds. Yikes! but i still think my first guess was right, that the june 13 heron stopped off out of curiosity, to check out theo our resident parrot, rather than to raid nests. the heron's also made a second fly-by since then to case our joint and parrot further.

and through my version of extensive research (we have approximately 4,000 books on birds to skim), i discovered we do have two avian families occupying the tidal meadow on our side of the river: red winged blackbirds and eastern kingbirds. they are of similar size, both mostly black. obviously the well-known blackbirds are trimmed in red and yellow at the base of the wing, while the kingbirds wear tuxedos with black backs, white undersides and a white band across the base of their tail that looks like ric-rac in flight. they all dart about quickly which is why it took a while to ID the kingbirds - they're fast and not so binocular friendly, and i of course must rely on others with swift feet to dash to the windows when i shriek it's the right time to get a closer look at somebody.

kingbirds compete with GBH's for food a little, eating frogs, small fish and aquatic insects, while their marsh meadow neighbors the red winged blackbirds live on seeds, grain and insects like dragonflies and mayflies. when nesting they both do their utmost to ward off GBH's. maybe that's where theo comes in handy, a loud, colorful, exotic distraction, unintentionally protecting the marsh nestlings by distracting the GBH so artfully from his perch inside.