Why do we not let ourselves be held?
Are we afraid of the fallout?
Of the softening
that occurs with the slightest
of pressure on the hard outer shell
Cracking the protection
we have absurdly built up
Thinking we can fool
the shadows that lurk
just out of sight
A touch, a push, a gentle squeeze
and it all comes rushing to the surface
Releasing the tension
that does nothing but tie us up
There is that anticipatory moment,
when the kettle sings and I rush to snap the stove top knob shut,
the satisfying gurgle of the hot water overtaking the tea bag
pixshark
The two to three minute steep time seems an eternity
and yet not as long as waiting for the first sip
that won’t scald the tongue
Too soon and there is an acrid taste on the tip of my tongue for the rest of the day
Too long and the water is lukewarm, a let down after such hot expectations
There is a small window,
an optimum sipping time
Bright hot, but not burning
Satisfyingly warm, but not wimpy
My impatience often gets the better of me
and after a few near misses of steamed nostrils and blistered lips,
I move on to something else,
my mug mellowing on the coffee table.
When I remember and/or return,
I am able to gulp several swallows at once.
Not at all the way tea is meant to be drunk.
The taking in of tea is meant to be an experience.
As important as its ingestion is the warming of the hands around the mug,
the waiting, the inhaling,
the sensory experience.
Not the amount of things to be ticked off the to-do list while I’m waiting.
Timing is everything –
but sometimes it’s also about letting it stop.
Just before Samuel Slater arrived in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and unleashed the Industrial Revolution this side of the Atlantic, women made all the clothing needed by their families. Not for hobby, not out of a profound sense of affection, but out of necessity.
Jennifer Butler Basile
She would pick the flax she’d grown in a plot just outside her door, she’d separate the seeds from the soft fluff she needed to then card, spin, and weave on a loom – to then measure and sew the actual garment. A process which took one to two years.
One to two years! For one garment of clothing!
Our tour guide at the Slater Mill historical site told us that weaving five yards of fabric a day was only one of a woman’s daily duties during this time period. She also tended to the garden – weeding, harvesting, maintaining. She rose well before the family to start the fire in the hearth – the only heat source for cooking – and continually tended and adjusted it throughout the day according to their needs. She baked bread. She scoured the wooden troughs from which her children communally ate. She cleaned the house. And she, you know, mothered.
Around the time we viewed the loom larger than my bathroom at home, I got the sense that I could never complain again about loading and emptying the dishwasher. An overwhelming heaviness overtook me, thinking of all the duty and drudgery to which a woman of that time was subject.
We modern mothers are overcome – stretched to the limit with carting and carrying, worry and work, busyness and pains in the butt. But really, if we don’t get to the watering and our lettuce wilts at the root, we can go to the drive-through and buy a salad in a pretty plastic clamshell. It is not a matter of life or death. We can order clothing online and it magically appears at our door. Knitting is done for fun, for stress-relief.
But, still, it’s hard.
So how do any one of us – down through the eons – complete the insurmountable task that is nurturing and growing a family to fruition?
Did the woman who sat at this now-wavy glass window lament her daily list of chores? Did she wish to prick her finger and fall to sleep indefinitely? Or did she revel in the present moment – unhindered by history and future? Handing herself over to the inevitability of the the task at hand and the survival of her family?
Jennifer Butler Basile
Another mother chaperoning our trip said they must’ve prayed for berry season. ‘Berry salad for dinner, kids!’ ‘Even they had to find ways to make life easier, right?’ Perhaps they did. Perhaps they created their own historical life hacks. Their artifacts and traditions live to tell their tales so something stuck.
I should feel my life is easier in comparison to what I saw that day. In the thick of my own mothering melee, I appreciate the lesson, but don’t yet feel it in my bones. Still, I do feel solidarity with all the mothers down through the eons who have and do fight the good fight.
It is woven into the fiber of our being.
I sometimes wonder if the fates send us a sickness to slow us down.
A break in schedule.
A pass on commitments.
A pardon for obligations.
Congestion, exhaustion,
a detached, dizzy, light-headedness –
simply unable to function.
And when it lifts,
euphoria at a new lease on life,
reinvigoration,
excitement for all the possibilities –
once I can get out of bed.
from adventureswithgastroparesis.com
The formative moment in my running career is a failure to pace and subsequently puke after a grade school event it took me many years to live down. While I can run, I am no runner. Still, I aim for a modicum of fitness and when my daughters’ school hosted a 5K as a fundraiser, I signed us all up. Here’s what the experience taught me.
Ironically, this year is probably the last I was in shape. Photo by Jennifer Butler Basile
The news of my junior-high-turned-life-long-friend’s father’s death shocked me. It shook me for its suddeness and the blow it served to my friend, his brother, and mother. It also pulled me back into a fold I hadn’t been part of for quite some time.
This family gave me first, the friendship of its younger son, then older brother, deepened by the quasi-adopted status of daughter in a family of boys. Through a childhood bond of the older brother and the wheeling and dealing of the younger, it gave me my husband. When our band of merry men wasn’t tearing into the cul-de-sac in front of their house, we were storming their vacation cottage in the mountains. We ate, drank mai tais the old way, and managed to meet up around the country and world as life took us on its various roads.
But year spooled into year, and suddenly it had been over a decade since I’d visited their home. I didn’t think it would affect me until our car slid into line with the others at the curb, much like it did when we’d jockey for position years ago. Stepping over the threshold from the breezeway to the kitchen, a wave of emotion rolled over me. The same wallpaper, the same linoleum, the same smell. The books, the airshow posters, the tea bags and coffee press. The fresh air billowing in the bathroom window overlooking the backyard. The same futon where three of us had crammed to watch German subtitled movies for English class.
We gathered around the table on the patio and drank the sweet, slushy lemonade of our childhood with a splash of rum from Pappy’s reserve. I don’t think I’d realized how much a place can take on a life of its own. But really, what this place gave me is a better appreciation for the people and times that made it so special.
Andrew Apuya
When a knit stitch pulls through smoothly, with satisfaction
The strength of a bond pulled taut, in spite of the miles
Connection
Certainty
Sun on your face
A wind rushing through the trees,
upturned eyes searching for a brief blot of the sun,
finding an osprey soaring high above
An upsurge of soul,
a welling of emotion
Fleeting, yet profound
We must seek these moments for all they are worth.
I will not feel guilty for doing what the Spirit moves me to at any given time.
I will revel in the mindless work of plucking pine needles from fingers of moss.
I will lose myself in the monotony.
I will let my mind drift along meandering paths –
I will write for the pleasure of it,
I will not let unfinished business ruin the relish of the deal on the table.
There is no sense in feeding our souls if we are constantly counting calories.
Jennifer Butler Basile
Nature, fate, the universe, the Spirit – has a way of prevailing.
While we humans fret that we may impede it,
that if we do not clear the ground and make way,
the right way will not progress –
we give ourselves too much power, too much credit.
All shall move forward on its own course.
We just need to stay that course.
Chopping Potatoes 