Come Away to the Water

Come away little lass, come away to the water. . .

~Glen Hansard

The rain is so, so rainy.  I don't think there are other words.  I met a thru-hiker yesterday who told me that even his food was wet.  He asked me about the weather.  I said, "Well, it's supposed to be good on Sunday."  "It's only Wednesday," he said.  Poor guy.  I know he got a ride to a shuttle, and from there?   I wonder if the rain hasn't driven a number of AT hikers off with its unrelenting presence.

Us, without tents and sleeping bags, we have kept on keeping on.  None of us seem to really care that it rains.  The children were thrilled to sit by the foggy valley and eat their sandwiches.  We were at Grayson Highlands State Park, after all, and there was the promise of ponies and waterfalls.  Seems the ponies must have escaped, or someone left the gate open. . .

We had our sights set on Cabin Creek Falls, and this was the perfect day for it.  Every day has a little bit of perfect in it, if you look for it.  Sometimes, you have to look backwards to see it.  Anyway, this trail had "several stream crossings" which turned out to be most of the trail.  We dodged the terrible rain that has flooded Western NC, but we've still been plenty wet.

And here are the falls.  With my zoom lens, I can't do a whole lot, but you can see other photos here on my instagram.  They are about 25' high, and there are cascades that go on for some time, which is really breath-taking in person.  It was gorgeous.  As always, there was a wet rock to sit on and take in the view.  I always take great care, too, to stress to the children how very dangerous waterfalls are.  Nature school, you know, awe with an ounce of caution.

This was the trail leading from the falls along the Cabin Creek loop.  It was either sheer rock face or a set of tree root stairs.  The trail became even more rocky and boulder-ly for a bit longer.  I told Roan I expected goblins or trolls to come out of the rocks at any time, just like in The Hobbit.  Soon enough, we began a gentle climb back to the meadow and the ponies at Massey Gap.

Here's a little sticker I got in the mail.  I'm doing a 52 Hike Challenge for 2018, invited by Stacey.  I'm up to nine, starting at the end of April as it was convenient.  I seem to average 2-3 hikes a week right now, so I'm not too worried about meeting my goal by the end of the year.  Hiking and walking feed my soul right now, and I work in some every single day, rain or shine.  I told Willow that hiking would be a great treasure for her some day, and I hope that prediction comes true.  The land has so much to teach us.

Rivers and Streams

With the lark in the morning
And the dew upon the dawn
Well, a-home we came a crawling
With our sickness and our song

~"McCormack's Wall" :: Glen Hansard 

Most mornings, I take a walk to my special places right outside my door.  I walk through the wet grass to the fruit trees, remembering and dreaming.  Music has been my nearly constant companion, and I do often carry my phone with Spotify playing (yes! I have a phone now!).  If Glen Hansard has had anything to do with it, I've been listening to what he's had to sing.  At least one of them even became prophetic for me.  I first learned of him when NPR covered the excitement around Once back in 2007.  The songs drifted in and out, but they were always there in the background.  I guess songs that stare hard feelings in the eyes are the kind of soundtrack I need right now. 

I don't know what I am trying to say here, what I am trying to filter out or include.  There is no sadness in leaving an awful marriage.  There is sadness in cleaning up what is left over, in starting again after such a long time.  I get told how brave I am, and I think that I had no other choice.  There was no one else to do it.  I am weary.  I have become more social, more pro-active, tougher.  I have felt that I needed to be purposeful in my actions, since life felt more like things that happened to me, rather than I things I chose.  That has had mixed results, of course, as putting ourselves out there opens us up to risks.  All the same, it is good to take them.  I'd hate for my life to pass and think that I had not tried.

I guess I am still waiting for the next step to find me, even though I have taken so many steps into the future.  There's a song for that, of course.

Topophilia

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness . . .
 
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~Maya Angelou :: "A Brave and Startling Truth"

A love of place seems to surround all I do lately.  I share places with people, like they are favorite songs or prized possessions.  I talk about places, I visit them, I avoid them, I cling to them, I daydream about them.  I lay myself bare to places.  I redefine them.  I walk into them with my fears cast aside, and then return when I am broken, seeking healing.

Even though I love the land, it is the people who have shared that land with me that give another level of meaning to my places.  My life has had some very deeply intense moments in it lately, ones that have taken every bit of bravery that I could muster.  This whole year has been so unexpected to me.  It seems everything I have know has been turned on its ear.

I have reached great heights, tall peaks with grand views, only to find myself in the valley all over again.  My heart feels as though it might burst.  I have to remember, even with all my topophilia, to keep going back to my places.

Dawn

I arise from rest with movements
swift as the beat of a raven's wings.
I arise to meet the day.

My face is turned from the dark of night
to gaze at the dawn of day,
now whitening in the sky.

~Iglulik Eskimo Poem :: Wassail! Wassail!  Early American Christmas Music

So many beautiful sunrises this week.  I have been listening to a lot of Glen Hansard and The Swell Season lately.  He's a wonderful live performer, and somewhere he said that happy days are often blank in journals.  I do some private writing these days, but I completely understand what he says.  There are things that are so hard to put into words.  All the same, I've felt some documentation was essential.  Pardon my silence and poetry, but know that I am so very happy.

Come wind, come rain, we're off again
Our muddy boots plod down the lane
The snow has snowed, now the grass has growed
And it's time that we were on the road

~ Vashti Bunyan

We took a little excursion with Katherine yesterday, up to Hidden Valley Lake.  The road to our beloved Laurel Bed Lake washed out in the Winter rains, so this was our consolation.  The area has more open views, but we stuck to the lake this time around.  I do hope to go back and take in the sights, and maybe that will happen this Summer.  All the same, our children enjoyed the very wet conditions and the plethora of tea berries growing by the woods.  They had games of hide and seek that ended with Laurel meeting up with the mire, but we cobbled together new clothes for her.  The battery on my car died, miles from anywhere, but I was able to flag down help on the lake road and we were soon on our way.  It was a beautiful day to break down and we were a merry bunch, in spite of it all.

Pause

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gyspy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~"Sea-Fever" ~ John Masefield :: As taken from The Waldorf Book of Poetry

The children saw the ocean for the first time on Sunday.  It was both new and old to me, as I hadn't been in such a very long time.  We camped right in front of the water at a place that goes back to my mother's childhood.  It was a trip that left me feeling torn--I was anxious to keep on with things here.  I knew getting away was needed, like the final step of a long walk or an intersection between trails.  I'll call it a pause, then, a chance to spend some time in daydream and reflection before getting back to work.

I'm now a "long walks on the beach" person, and I took one at the end of nearly every day.  I went under the guise of photographing my dad's kites in action.  The waves gave a wonderful backdrop to my own thoughts and small revelations.  I think people see my situation as a very sad one, but it isn't.  It's glaringly, staggeringly hope-filled.  I have to stop myself from running wildly into the future.

Coming back to the mountains, back to feeling "hemmed in" again, was emotional.  Willow teased me a little, but I do so love this place.  It really is forever a part of me, as much as some other places beckon me to visit.

 

There's a place called Far-away Meadow
We never shall mow in again,
Or such is the talk at the farmhouse:
The meadow is finished with men.
Then now is the chance for the flowers
That can't stand mowers and plowers.
It must be now, through, in season
Before the not mowing brings trees on,
Before trees, seeing the opening,
March into a shadowy claim.
The trees are all I'm afraid of,
That flowers can't bloom in the shade of;
It's no more men I'm afraid of;
The meadow is done with the tame.
The place for the moment is ours
For you, oh tumultuous flowers,
To go to waste and go wild in,
All shapes and colors of flowers,
I needn't call you by name.

 ~"The Last Mowing" :: Robert Frost

My path to enlightenment is paved with waving grasses and the sweet violets of Spring.  It rained all week, setting the grass to seed and giving me a weekend full of mowing.  That's my primary work, at the moment.  A woman with a mower and a wide-brimmed hat.  If a man with a plow walked 5+ miles to an acre, well, I guess that's me, too.  I mowed the berry patch and peach orchard today, and I felt it looked like heaven.  The thick grass, the blooming trees, the promise of things to come.

I've been reading The Old Ways lately, a book about walking and places. Robert MacFarlane walks all manner of places, both local and abroad.  He talks at length about melancholic people walking to cope with the world.  I suppose it is my dream life.  I have been taking the other good weather time to see the wild places, alone and with the children.  I will walk my way to the sublime, whether it be on a gentle hillside or the shores of a lake.

I feel the strong need to be alone lately, like I could never get my fill of it, though I know I will.  I have been alone a long time, though this is new.  I guess what I want is privacy, the chance to have complete thoughts and get lost in daydreams.  I can see visions of my life to come and visions of the lives that once tended the places I mow.  I have been doing that a lot lately.  Some pictures are so clear, I hardly know what to do with them.  "Time will tell" is my new maxim.

Seven :: Gifts

On the day of your birth
You were given gifts,
The seeds of your own will,
To sow upon the earth,
That through your work
The seeds might grow
Into a fruitful garden
Protected by the Tree of Life
Whose branches hold up heaven.

Now your roots grip solid ground,
Glad to be alive.
Your head bears a golden crown
Like the sun that lights the sky.
Your breath weaves in and out
Like the ocean tides,
As the fountain of your heart
Sings the song of life.

You crossed the rainbow bridge,
You left your heavenly home
To walk the green, fruitful earth
Beneath the starry dome.
You know this is the place
To give all your gifts away,
Scattering them like golden seeds
Unfolding every day.
Seed-deeds ripen beneath the sun
Rooted in fertile will
To become the Bread of Life
When the seeds are milled.

~William Ward :: The Waldorf Book of Poetry

Snail Therapy

That's the Western half of my little town down there.  It's quite hilly, though I live on the flat-ish karst side that the mountains hide from this view.

Spring is spring beauties right now.  Other flowers are slow in coming, but I expect a bumper crop of Dutchman's breeches soon.  Otherwise, the woods up high are still pretty silent, brown places.

Whether the winds or squirrels made this little cache, I love it.  I know it was the wind that swept most of the leaves away, leaving plenty of treasures uncovered.

Always snail shells.  Always.

The children re-wilded, if you want to call it that.  They were so happy to be in their place again and worked tirelessly on their vintage bottle and can collection.

The buckeyes are always the first to leaf out and always get burned by the frosts.  I think, if I were a tree, I'd be a buckeye.  Not because I am purported to be half poisonous, but because I am always so anxious for the next phase of life. 

If I could be more like the moss, patiently making my way, now that would be something. 

When despair for the world grows in me 
and I wake in the night at the least sound 
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, 
I go and lie down where the wood drake 
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 
I come into the peace of wild things 
who do not tax their lives with forethought 
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water. 
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time 
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~Wendell Berry

A Song from the Suds

Queen of my tub, I merrily sing,
While the white foam raises high,
And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring,
And fasten the clothes to dry;
Then out in the free fresh air they swing,
Under the sunny sky.

 I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls
The stains of the week away,
And let water and air by their magic make
Ourselves as pure as they;
Then on the earth there would be indeed
A glorious washing day!

Along the path of a useful life
Will heart's-ease ever bloom;
 The busy mind has no time to think
Of sorrow, or care, or gloom;
And anxious thoughts may be swept away
As we busily wield a broom.

 I am glad a task to me is given
To labor at day by day;
For it brings me health, and strength, and hope,
And I cheerfully learn to say- 
'Head, you may think; heart, you may feel;
But hand, you shall work always!'

~Louisa May Alcott, as taken from The Waldorf Book of Poetry

Unimagined Bridges

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder...

Rainer Maria Rilke :: Ahead of All Parting, translated by Steven Mitchell

I love this photo--it may be as close as we get to the maple festival this weekend.  The forecast promises snow, and Whitetop always gets more that its fair share.  This page is from one of those old National Geographic Society photo books that they made in great quantities in the 70s.  I picked up several for free at the thrift store, along with others I have been given from family.  Their photographers did such a wonderful job at capturing an America in a golden age, before things changed so swiftly with the increasing dependence on technology.  The photos of small town folks of all ages send me back to my childhood, to a time that feels so far away now.

Can I tell you that it has been a hard week?  Oh, it has.  It seems each passing week gets more difficult, instead of easier.  The weight of it all, the unexpected things that keep coming up.  It feels like everything is condensed into a small stretch of time, and really, it is.  A month from tomorrow, I'll be divorced, not in the married club any more, no longer able to refer to anyone as "my husband."  I've kept quiet about many things, but I do think it does help to share some of what this burden is.  An at-fault divorce moves quickly, and all those loose ends need tying up at a brisk pace.

I feel like a lost ship these days, and other times I am firmly anchored.  I am happier than I have been in years, and yet I feel such sadness.  I guess that is the way of it for many people, such freedom and then so many doors that feel closed now.  The part of me that is optimistic feels that there must be great wonders waiting for me.  And there is another part of me, that melancholic me, that feels I have come to some sad dead end.  I guess it is not like either thing, and probably a little of both.  The road that I have walked feels like has been paved with small miracles.  That I do know.

Home-Making

I wish I had a window over the bay
And a dreamy eyed cow to fill my milking pail
I wish I had a cockerel to raise me at dawn
And a little bed to sleep in when the curtains are drawn

~Vashti Bunyan

Our home has transformed in the last while, in unspeakable ways and in ways that are very visible.  Willow has, at long last, her own room.  I have mine, too, which seems so new and bright and strange.  I don't think I have to say much more, or that I should, but we are here and moving forward.  We are finding simple pleasures in our new spaces, and we are taking extra time to connect and keep to routines, as we all should.  Prayers have covered us, just as the fresh snow blankets things today, and we are doing well.  I'm not sure I'll ever be able to talk about it in this space (how does that all work?), but changes come and we keep on going.  Here I am, going.

Crafting On

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the the ever-new dawn!

~The Waldorf Book of Poetry :: Edited by David Kennedy

Knitting has a real balm for me this Winter, and so I've kept at it.  There are many things that I cannot say right now about how my life has changed in the past while, but suffice it to say that it has changed tremendously.  Knitting, along with the daily things of school and meals and love, has kept on.  I started the Hap Blanket last week, and it has been coming together easily.  A big square of garter stitch has a way of doing that, and I hope the edging will be as kind.  This is a blanket-shawl for Spring, for all that it means and for what is beginning in our lives right now.  It is a Winter season of life for me, on the verge of something very new.  The above words from The Waldorf Book of Poetry have been a wonderful comfort and reminder.

For more crafting, visit Frontier Dreams.

January

~ Be Blest: A Celebration of Seasons :: Mary Beth Owens

Noel

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale. 
The world was blind, the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.


~J. R. R. Tolkien

December

 This is the month when hills turn white,
When scattered barns hold candle light,
At four in the afternoon!

When fields lie sown with gleaming grain,
When trees stand washed in silver rain,
In the light of the Long Night moon.

This is the month when apple boughs
Crook elbows north and the orchard mouse
Sleeps tail wrapped, small and warm.

When chimneys smoke on back road places,
And children wait with dreamy faces,
The eve when the Child was born.

~Enki Grade Two Poetry :: author unknown

Each month, Willow is putting a poem in a little practice book.  They're seasonal poems, and so far, we have used ones that are titled for the months.  October was a piper, November was a spinner. . . I like that.  It feels tidy to me, but it's also fun to see what joys each of the months bring.  This is her poem for December and it has been wonderful to see snow while she is working on it.  I guess South of here, they got a even more snow.  This was the perfect kind, sticking to every twig and leaf, just right for snowballs.  There is more in the forecast for Tuesday and I am looking forward to it.

Nature School :: Roads Go Ever On

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.

Still 'round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

~The Hobbit :: J.R.R. Tolkien

The children and I took a little walk for our nature school yesterday.  We hiked the CCC Trail at Hungry Mother State Park, which is just over the hill from us.  It's just a little connector trail, but I like it.  We walked as far as we wanted and then turned to go back.  The trail crosses the same little stream several times, so there were several bridges.  We kept going just a bit farther, to see what might be around the next turn.  I like walks like that.  It was just what we needed to brighten our spirits.

I guess now is the time of year to call back to older times, to times that may have never happened, but live in our imaginations.  I can still hear my father read this poem to me (what is here is not its entirety).  I guess he must have really treasured those books to read them so diligently.  Having seen the older movies in my college years, I can't say that I cared for them.  The mood of the actual writing is different, for sure.  Movies are always like that, aren't they?  Like we need some shocking thrill to get us going on the story.  I prefer the pictures I have made in my mind.

We are expecting snow today through Sunday and I am, of course, very excited.  It seemed all the snow was going South, but we were smiled upon, after all.  I think a bonus nature school is in order, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise.  Willow will have to squeeze her toes into her old snow boots one last time.

Rose hip November
Autumn I'll remember
Gold landing at our door;
Catch one leaf and fortune will surround you evermore

~Vashti Bunyan

The final blaze of color is over, I think.  Heavy rains this week, and the winds that brought them here, have taken care of that.  Laurel's birthday was the last day, I think.  The leaves were just barely hanging on.  We made the leaf crowns around lunch time and then the leaves showered down all afternoon.  I took these other photos over the weekend, on a little drive alone.  It feels like this Autumn, though late to come and spotty in appearance, has really been beautiful.

The time change, along with the damp weather has ushered in the time of year that I love so.  I am hopeful that this Winter will feel more like Winter than the last one did--one long, perpetual, fickle Spring.  It seems like the temperatures and moisture have been more of what we are used to in the few weeks.  There are no big swings up into the mid-seventies in the forecast.  Everyone feels more like hibernating, and more like having cabin fever, at the same time.

It's time for cranberry everything, like this cranberry mors, and tea every day, all the things that make a home and meal cozy.  I am trying to like tea again, as we somehow fell out of favor in the past couple years.  Chicken soup was met with rave reviews yesterday.  I'm now looking at my knitting plans and panicking, while Willow is making her list longer.  I'm glad she's taking off on knitting, as I think it is important to have such skills.

Nature school is going to be cold and wet today.  The rain overalls and coats are at the ready, along with parkas, so it's just a matter of getting us all dressed for it.  I am looking forward to a bit of a hike and maybe we'll see some rushing streams.  I would like a bit of sunshine, though.