All posts by Wildtrumpetvine

Nature

The Lambs and Lions of March

2 Comments

Spring arrived officially on Sunday. Yet here in Northern Virginia, the gentle lambs and roaring lions of March continue to alternate play, as they have all month long. A day of languid warmth and breezes bearing the sweet essence of the Caribbean is followed by one of bracing chill and icy gales. Dim, mist-shrouded dawns give way in an instant to brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies. A late afternoon that would be unremarkable in June is followed by a morning straight out of January, complete with sudden, swirling snow. But of course, this is March, every bit of it: dramatic, capricious, impulsive, dazzling March.

Recent nights have been clear and beautiful. Around midnight, when I’m typically awakened by Kiko pawing at my bed and looking confused, the late-rising moon is relatively low in the sky, enormous, heavy and golden. Just before dawn, it’s high, cold and distant, casting its final shadows on our lawn. And there is Venus, in her usual morning spot, seen glowing brightly from our front windows. Our daughter, ever the stargazer (she minored in astronomy), texted last night that Orion was emphatically visible from her apartment porch. It’s comforting to know that the same moon and stars are shining on her over there in Maryland.

March marches on. We’ll soon say goodbye to this month of many seasons and lightning-fast about-faces. A few more winter days may well tag along with April. No doubt some flashes of deep summer will be summoned, as well. But with luck, the first full month of spring will bring true spring, in all its pleasant, more even-tempered glory.

Welcome spring. We need you.

Community, Nature

Ukraine Sunflowers in the Snow

4 Comments

I’ve been struck by how much the Ukrainian flag resembles a field of golden sunflowers under a brilliant blue sky. Was it so inspired, I wondered? No, apparently not. The blue over gold bands were first used in the flag of the Slavik twelfth-century Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, located in what is now portions of Ukraine and Belarus. Sunflowers were a later addition to the landscape.

The sunflower, of course, is the national flower of Ukraine, and the country is one of the world’s leading producers of sunflower oil. Native to North America, the seeds were brought to the old world by early explorers. Ukraine’s general lack of humidity and its dark, rich soil make it an ideal place for sunflowers to flourish. Big fields of the flowers began to be planted there in the late 1700s in response to the Orthodox Church’s prohibition of the use of butter or lard for cooking during the Lenten season. There was no such ban on sunflower oil, and the golden fields became widespread.

Any image of a field of glowing sunflowers now evokes for me a vision of the Ukrainian flag. I felt moved to paint my own version of sunflowers beneath a blue sky. By the time I completed it, a late winter snow had fallen in our area, a product of the “bomb cyclone” that moved up the East Coast over the weekend. It seemed fitting to display the painting in the snow, propped against the ragged remnants of the old maple stump in front of our house. The Ukrainian flag, like a bright field of sunflowers, has become an emblem of hope in the midst of terrible adversity. As I watch the crisis intensify and become more tragically dire day by day, I feel helpless. I hear that line of the Lord’s prayer over and over in my head: Deliver us from evil.

May the sunflower-field flag of Ukraine continue to fly as a beacon of hope, and may the people of Ukraine be delivered from evil.

Community, Covid-19, Faith and Spirituality, Nature

Ash Wednesday, Again

I wasn’t going to write about Ash Wednesday this year. I thought I’d exhausted the topic, never a crowd-pleaser, in years past. Didn’t I write about it just yesterday? See here for last year’s post. These days it seems like it’s always Ash Wednesday.

The pandemic has put us in a holding pattern of perpetual Lent. Just when we think the deliverance of Easter is about to arrive, it vanishes like a mirage. Perhaps, finally, the light at the end of the covid tunnel may no longer be that of the oncoming train. Could it be that this long, limbo season would at last be brought to a joyful conclusion? It seemed like a real possibility.

And then Putin began his invasion of Ukraine. Our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, anticipating the rebirth of spring, as we all do, are faced with the desecration of war instead. They must confront terrible choices: whether to fight or flee, whether to stay or to pick up hurriedly and go, leaving homes, businesses, farms and beloved animals behind. The enormity of the emerging loss must be confounding and overwhelming.

The path ahead is perilous and forbidding. For the Ukrainians most emphatically, and to a lesser but still substantial degree, for those of us who watch, anxiously, from afar. No easy solution is at hand, no matter how much world-wide support is forthcoming. There will be no feel-good, happily-ever-after ending to this crisis, which will have long-lasting global implications. Lives are being lost, and the losses will multiply as the conflict escalates. It’s hard to imagine any scenario in which Putin might back down.

These are dark days. But Ash Wednesday urges us to look, steadily and without flinching, into the darkness so that we can rediscover the grace of God that searches us out to lead us back into the light. It reminds us that hope remains, even during the darkest days. Even in death. Ash Wednesday tells us not to underestimate the power and persistence of love, light, and life.

Today I saw an interview with a Ukrainian woman sheltering in a communal space in Kyiv with her children, the youngest of whom was an infant, asleep in her arms. She said that the presence of her tiny daughter was a blessing to her and all the others there with her. The baby, she said, was living proof that innocence, that something good, something kind, still exists in the world. Ash Wednesday tells us that evil, despite its bravado and air of military might, is no match for true goodness.

This morning I came upon a patch of bright white snowdrops among the dead brown leaves in a friend’s garden. I hadn’t seen these humble little flowers in years past.

Their sweet, quiet beauty reminded me of the sleeping Ukrainian baby.

Snowdrops, like God’s grace, like God’s love, are persistent. They’ll be blooming before long in the forests of Ukraine.

Community, Friendship, Holiday

An Old Love Note Inspires a New One

Several years ago I wrote about opening an old childhood stationery box to discover some vintage love notes written to me by a fellow classmate, when we were both in third grade. Recently I came across another such note, by the same sender. I knew him back then as Danny. We’re still in touch on social media, and now he goes by Dan. In this one, young Danny had opted for the uniquely inventive approach he had chosen in another of the letters. Typed on onion skin paper, it began boldly, with an all-caps declaration of love. What third grader was typing in 1970? An urban sophisticate like Danny, that’s who. He’d recently gained access to his mother’s cutting edge IBM Selectric. Below the greeting, the top quarter of the page is occupied by identical lines like this:

1oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Below these lines appears the word TIMES.

That’s a lot of love times.

And then this humble admission: I LOVE YOU MORE THEN YOU LOVE ME.

And, typed, but then unsuccessfully erased, is this:

Kiss me After School Greg ? or Danny

The absence of all-caps suggests that this is more of a whimsical wish than a demand.

The reference to a possible after-school kiss appears in another of the notes, and it baffled the adult Dan. He thought of himself a shy kid, certainly not one to request, or to expect, such a thing. Greg’s name is found in another of the notes, as well. The adult Greg cannot remember conspiring with Danny in the composition of love letters. That’s not surprising, considering that Dan and I have also forgotten many of the circumstances surrounding the making, sending and receiving of these decades-old dispatches.

The notes were compelling enough for me to save, and to keep, for all these years. They’ve become artifacts that bear witness to past selves, even though memories of that past have dimmed.

And they still have power. My husband was impressed. No matter who was responsible for the “kiss after school” line, it struck him as a great idea. This Valentine’s Day, inspired by the youthful audacity of Danny, or Greg, or both, he made me a card that read:

Want to kiss after school? With who? (Select one)

Below were three boxes to check, each beside his own name.

What would my third-grade self have done? Probably kept quiet, done nothing, except file the paper away safely, as I did with Danny’s letters. But the older me knew what to do. I checked all three boxes.

************************************************************************

For the earlier love-letter posts, from March 2014, see:

Young Love, Old Love Notes, Part I

and Part II

Friendship, Nature, Travel, Walking the Dog

Foggy Morning, Foggy Memories

2 Comments

Out with Kiko on a recent damp, cold, foggy morning was like being immersed in a grisaille landscape painting. The world was drained of all color. Branches were inky black against a silvery sky, and distant trees were soft smudges of gray.

I was reminded of the few months I spent in Cambridge, England as a grad student while researching my dissertation. I remembered standing on the bridge over the River Cam, watching the form of King’s College Chapel slowly materialize through the mist, and realizing that those blurry shapes nearby were cows grazing on the Backs. I recalled the sharp, bone-numbing chill of the wind that blew across the Fens. I will never forget that intense cold of a Cambridge November, which overwhelmed the meager heating system in my rented room in an old house on Panton Street.

That part of my past is so distant now that sometimes it seems like it no longer belongs to me. Perhaps it’s even more remote because of its contrast with the predominantly home-bound sameness of the last two covid years. Did I really live for a year in England in my twenties? Did I travel in Britain and Europe, examining Gothic illuminated manuscripts in ancient libraries, having adventures and staying in seedy, ramshackle no-star hotels? Was that young woman really me? I have photos to prove it, as well as assorted associated memories. But some experiences, no doubt, cannot be recalled; they’re gone for good. Others can be only glimpsed; they’re in the process of dissolution. And with every passing year, they become more tenuous, wispy and ghost-like, threatened by the fog of time.

I’m resolving to reclaim that past before it’s lost. This winter I’ll look back on those photos and re-read my dog-eared travel notes. I’ll need help to make sense of them, because my own haphazard archives will be insufficient. I appeal now to those friends who adventured with me during that long-ago year in England. Let’s reminisce and compare memories; together we’ll reassemble portions of some of those old days piece by piece. They’re too precious to be forgotten. There will be missing pieces, of course. And missing companions. Sadly, not all of us have survived. All the more reason to start the process as soon as possible.

Family, Nature, Walking the Dog

A Snowy Start for 2022

2 Comments

The first two days of 2022, here in Northern Virginia, like those at the close of ’21, were damp, gray and mild, with temperatures reaching the mid-60s. There was talk of snow to come, but it seemed highly unlikely. The pattern of dull, sunless days had been established; it was hard to conceive of it ever changing.

But just as predicted, snow began falling in the early-morning darkness of January 3rd, accumulating quickly.  It coated the bleak landscape with glistening white frosting that piled up, and up, elegantly and artfully.

Our yard and house soon acquired the Christmas-card aspect they had been missing all during December.

Kiko’s first steps in the snow were tentative and uncertain. Mine were, as well. The older we both get, the more actively I work to avoid a fall. Our morning walk was slow and halting, as I tried to keep him off the many icy spots on the road.

Once we made it back to the fresh snow near the house, he embraced it gleefully. Seeming to regain his youth, he pounced like a fox through the soft powder.

At sunrise and sunset, sky and snow tend to take on a luminous pink glow.

On the night of January 6th, our old house gleamed as white as the snow. Now that all twelve days of Christmas have come and gone, our exterior illumination is history. I’m always sad to hear that final click of the lights as they go dark, not to shine again for another eleven months. I’ll keep the decorated trees up for a while. Their soft light will be a much-needed comfort in the winter darkness to come. For now, the brightness of the snow, visible through the windows, provides some extra consolation.

I can’t help thinking about how much our daughter would have appreciated being at home for this particularly lovely snow. A few years ago, she would have reveled in the luxury of a few days off school, with time to savor the glories of the surrounding winter wonderland. But she returned to Maryland on Sunday, and awoke the next morning, as we did, to the blanket of white. We swapped snow pictures. Her days of simply cavorting in the snow on a weekday are largely in the past. The demands of the job were calling, a job not well-suited to remote working. Her car, in the uncovered garage, would have to be dug out. It’s too bad that no one thought to send her back to her apartment with a snow shovel. She used a dust pan instead.

But hey, I’m impressed. I didn’t know our girl owned a dust pan. Clearly, she’s an adult now.

Community, Covid-19, Faith and Spirituality, Holiday, Nature, Walking the Dog

Return of the Live Nativity

The animals were back, after last year’s absence, at our church’s live nativity this Christmas Eve.  Joining us again were a burro, a small ox, a sheep, a goat, and, of course, a camel.  Because of ongoing covid precautions, no human actors were featured in the tableau. . .

. . .except for camel’s handler.  Delilah was the camel on duty this year; her colleague Samson was engaged elsewhere.  She was as friendly and patient as we’ve come to expect her to be.  

Kiko enjoys the live nativity primarily for the multiplicity of smells it affords. The animals responsible for them are of less interest. Our dog rarely looks up, and the camel’s great height puts her well out of Kiko’s radar. He seems oblivious to her presence.

Delilah isn’t especially curious about Kiko, either, but she never seems to tire of posing for photos with a parade of curious onlookers. If encouraged, she offers a welcoming nuzzle.

The furry little donkey has a cuteness quotient that rivals any dog’s.

Evidently the group had a busy holiday schedule. The sheep was drowsy, and the goat was sleeping soundly, until Kiko got close and woke him. The goat was startled, and Kiko was even more so.

One family brought along their big white bunny, whom they eagerly introduced to Kiko. The rabbit didn’t appear enthusiastic about the meeting; his air was more akin to that of a sacrificial victim. Our dog had never seen a bunny before, and he wasn’t sure what to make of this new creature. Should he consider it an equal, as he does the sheep, goat and donkey? Or is it more like a squirrel, something to be pursued? After several encounters, he seemed possibly inclined to think it was the latter. At that point, we made sure he kept some distance from the bunny, who was, no doubt, relieved.

Delilah opens her mouth for a big yawn. Her shift is coming to a close; it’s nearly time to get back into the trailer for the next gig. She wishes everyone a lovely Christmas Eve and a merry Christmas!

Faith and Spirituality, Holiday, Walking the Dog

On Winter Solstice, A Need for Christmas light

6 Comments

This shortest day of the year has been gray and bitterly cold here in the suburbs of our nation’s capital. I spent a good part of the afternoon out with my elderly dog, making halting progress around the perimeter of a grocery store parking lot.  One of the abiding pleasures of Kiko’s old age is a ride and a walk, followed by a snooze in the car while I shop.  Having underestimated the chilling effect of the breeze, and not expecting to be out for very long, I was inadequately dressed.  Every leaf and every square inch of sidewalk seemed to be calling out to my dog’s discerning nose.  He sniffed, and sniffed, and continued to sniff some more.  Yet there was no resolution.  Never a suggestion of a lifted leg, nor even the briefest of squats.  An unlimited number of intriguing smells, yet none deserving of Kiko’s unique canine signature.  We made our usual circuit and then continued on around the assisted living facility.  Still nothing, so I put him back in the car and headed into the grocery, my fingers numb, my patience tried, my temper short.  I knew that once we got home, Kiko would need another outing.    

Sure enough, as I was dealing with the groceries, Kiko strolled confidently into the kitchen and pawed at the door. On his placid, expressionless face, I read smug entitlement. I love this dog, I thought, but why? By then it was dark, and even colder, but I bundled up as if for an arctic expedition. Fortunately Kiko remembered the reason for the walk, and we were back quickly.

Back into the indoor warmth and the cheerful, comforting lights that currently adorn nearly every room of our house.

On this first day of winter, and on the short, dark days ahead, I’ve found that I need the soft, glowing lights of Christmas like I need food and water. Like my old dog needs his slow, rambling walks. The lights of Christmas are a heartening reminder that in our chaotic, angry, crazy world, God’s love endures.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

–The Gospel of John, 1:5