Alexandersmap

    Tag: Foliage

    • A Sprinkling of Alive Time

      “Is life too short to be taking this shit, or is life too short to be minding it?” – Violet Weingarten

      I spent part of the morning walking in the woods, seeking out the quiet reflections on an inky black pond nearby. October makes those reflections particularly brilliant and I wondered at my solitude with the water and foliage. Tourists drive so far to see the colors of fall, when it might be hiding in plain sight just through the woods.

      October brings a gift to those who wander outside in New England. To stay inside seems unforgivable for those of us who seek the truth in the palette. Life isn’t meant to be lived in shades of grey, so why must we limit perspective on the world? Yet I found myself inside for most of the afternoon yesterday, in a room with a grey color palette, tackling projects that a family member fighting cancer is unable to tackle.

      I was happy to do it. To contribute in whatever way I could. I’ve seen too much of this lately. The C word. The stealer of dreams. What are we to do with it but decide how to live with the options it leaves you? My gift for the patient was my time and a bit of applied skill to fix some lingering problems in the house. Were I able to fix everything.

      Sundays in October offer another gift, the gift of sports. The pursuit of athletic excellence in your chosen sport. In New England we have many choices in October: The Head-of-the-Charles regatta, college sports, pre-season Bruins and Celtics, the second month of football with the Patriots, the postseason with the Red Sox, and unique for 2021, the Boston Marathon run in October instead of April. That’s a lot to choose from if you enjoy sports. In my family we enjoy sports.

      So I didn’t mind watching the Patriots game out of the corner of my eye while working under the kitchen sink. I didn’t even mind the two trips to the local box store for supplies, because the radio play-by-play guys were better than the national television play-by-play guys. Professional sports are a very nice distraction from the cold reality of managing cancer instead of eliminating it. And the Patriots and Red Sox served up a couple of nice wins when the family needed them. They collectively watched the ebb and flow of the games, focused on something besides the elephant in the room.

      Memento Mori. We all must die. But accepting that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t fight like hell for our alive time while we have it. To sparkle in brilliant vibrancy in the face of the long truth. On a sparkling day of foliage and athletic performance, we celebrated our alive time for the gift that it is.

    • On Foliage and the Passing of Time

      “Who made the world?
      Who made the swan, and the black bear?
      Who made the grasshopper?
      This grasshopper, I mean-
      the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
      the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
      who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
      who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
      Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
      Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
      I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
      I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
      into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
      how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
      which is what I have been doing all day.
      Tell me, what else should I have done?
      Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?”
      —Mary Oliver, ‘The Summer Day’

      Mary Oliver passed away in January this year, at the age of 83.  If I may say it, too soon.  With her passing, her question commands even more urgency than before:

      Tell me, what else should I have done?
      Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?”

      This afternoon I drove back from meetings in Boston, flipped open my laptop and diligently followed up on the list of items that demanded my time.  All save one, which required closing the laptop, stepping outside and finding foliage.  New Hampshire glows in orange, yellow and red in October, and I’ve spent entirely too much of the first eleven days of the month indoors or behind the wheel of my car.  So a walk down to a local pond on a gusty day felt more like living than crafting another email for somebody’s spam filter.

      Foliage stirs up memories of autumns past, and I try to push those aside.  Not because the memories aren’t mostly pleasant, but because there’s more than enough living now to occupy my limited brain cells.  And there’s only today; words we all know but seem to push aside for the distraction of the moment.  “What else should I have done?”  Indeed.  Take “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” and replace “life” with “day”.  For really, that’s all we have, isn’t it?  The foliage illuminates the cold black water of a small pond nearby, and soon those leaves will float down onto the water, drift along the surface for awhile and then slowly slip quietly under the surface to return to the earth.  The briefness of this life exemplified in a single leaf.  Had I not gone to witness the foliage would the opportunity have been there tomorrow?  Surely that’s a trick question.