RETURNING: The Physics of Deciding

Portland to Peacham 

8:00 am Pacific Time. Portland OR_5.8.2016

Conflict and Contentment

Dearest Readers,

I have decided to return to Vermont, my homeland of ancestors and wild nature-love. I begin my drive back on May 18th. VT is a crazy place that some say is difficult to like; frigid for long periods of the year, and far from big population centers with their diversity and variety of offerings. Nevertheless, culture abounds, quiet surrounds and choices are simpler for me than city life.

 

Asking Myself the Questions, Acrylic on canvas, stretch jersey, stuffing, glass beads, silk, fringe_2005

The decision to go back was like being an observer at a tennis match. One day I’d face the “stay in Portland” side of the net, and another day I’d whiplash to the “go”. I had a counselor here to speak with, and friends in both places who love me, and want me to be with them, like my Shambhala Center's Aging Group friends below, and ME Fitness friends.

Me top left, then clockwise Stephanie, Jan and Linda_part of the Shambhala Meditation Center's Aging Group

ME Fitness Senior Strength and Balance Group: left to right-Cindy_Deborah_Linda and Gloria

The hard part is leaving my daughter, her partner, and especially my grandson and granddaughter who see me as a natural part of their lives.

The kids in Portland:left to right_Henry, Joel, Ayla and Iva Mae Hazel

I keep the door to my garage apartment unlocked so little Henry can pop in. He kicks off his rain boots with verve. We read, we play and he takes off as easily as if I’ve always been here.

Ni-Ne (Me) and Henry sewing

Baby Iva May Hazel smiles at the sight of me, and stares from her stroller into my eyes through an entire hour-long walk, (if she stays awake).

I.M. Hazel in her stroller smiling at me (my daughter Ayla's hand)

Sigh. What’s missing is a sure thing. I wish a crystal ball of certainty existed to assure me that going home is better that not, or vice-versa.

Last week, Krista Tippett interviewed the American Nobel physicist, Frank Wilczek on her public radio podcast “On Being”. He spoke of the quantum notion of Complementarity in which two opposing properties of a thing can exist together and both be true. Normally in our “surface world”, the opposite of a truth is a falsehood, but not on the sub-atomic level. Light can be both particle and wave. Time flows forward and back. Both are true, but not at the same time. (huh?) I think I understand that right. Our human brains cannot wrap our heads around such ideas, but the math bears it out. The world is beautiful, and elegant the physicists say. Frank Wilczek loves the uncertainties, but most of us lay-folk do not. I want a neat little solution–clean-cut like a catechism question and answer, with all the shoulds and self-expectations of what a grandmother is and does spelled out.  Maybe the conundrum of seeing both sides of the coin is the actual truth.

So, dear readers and friends, I leave you this time with what I feel inside, which is a roiling sense of contentment, and a quiet knowing within this act of returning. I will be back, again and again.

WEATHER AND THE SOUL

10:00 am Pacific Time. Portland OR_3.31.2016

Warm, sunny and brilliantly hopeful!

Sunny sky from my Portland studio skylight

Dearest Readers,

Portland and Vermont share a weather-intensive focus that envelopes the soul, and affects the conversations of friends. My mental outlook the past two years in these beautiful places reflects the abundance of precipitation and the preciousness of sunshine. I have a touch of seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) that I keep in check with daily “medicinal” walks in natural light, whatever the cloud cover might be. Last year it was the continual snowfalls that dominated my temperament, and which I counted in 63 facepost postings. This year it’s the blanket of rain, a near-daily phenomenon of the coastal Northwest in late fall, winter and spring. 

Neighbor on NE Mallory with a palm tree growing

The climate is warmer than I expected with a variety of woodsy and even tropical vegetation, species native to the region...

Sequoia-ish conifer along my dog walk route

Little umbrella shaped tree just before blooming 

Giant begonia perhaps, or species of hydrangea???

and lots of rain-loving moss and mushrooms. 

Neighbor's mossy, fern-sprouting rock wall

Mushroom sundaes by a mossy fence

Carpet of moss along my street 

I love the imperviousness of Portlanders to the rain. Life goes on with the proper gear, as it does in the Vermont snow.

Rarely do I see a traditional lawn with hedges around the foundation, or a totally white house. 

Fall plantings along NE Mallory St.

Neighbor Margot's house last October with a selection of shrubs and trees

Spring front yard plantings on NE Mallory St.

Portlanders in my area prefer colorful house paint in bright or muted tones with contrasting trim on homes with a variety of dormers, overhangs, and gables. There’s a creative spirit in my urban landscape.

 The sun has emerged from weeks of intermittent rain. This remarkable occurrence was the topic of conversation at my senior fitness class, with lots of jokey comments about the persistence of Portland precip, and high hopes for the beautiful summers.

My friends in the neighborhood fitness class-Senior Balance and Strength-left to right
Cindy, Deborah, Linda and Gloria

A week ago I snapped a nearly full moon on a clear night. My soul leapt!  

Night moon through my studio skylight

From the perspective of a new-bee, there is joy in the garden arrangements, humor in the house paint, friendliness in sunshine, which beats back the potential depression of this long period of somber weather. 
The plants seem to love it and blossom through the filtered light. 

Our new pear sapling in bloom last week despite the gray days

My new granddaughter Iva Mae Hazel and I take our frequent jaunts in a rain-outfitted stroller. She’s dry and content, and so am I. New life, nourished by water and now some sun quickens my soul.

On a walk with Iva Mae Hazel under the stroller's rain cover

Ready for a sunny spring walk with "Miss Hazel" in her open stroller

DOING LENT

Lenten Rose (Helebores) in bloom in my Portland neighborhood–Right on time

Communion

During Lent, season of discipline,

I drag myself early out of bed, ride

to Mass with Mom and Mrs. Crivello,

warm in the front seat between their

woolen coats, soothed by familiar perfume.

Headlights carve the ebony darkness.

The women talk in low tones

about people I don’t know, the thrum

of their voices reassuring. I doze

for seconds that seem like minutes.

In the half-acre lot, we park among

a small band of cars huddled near

the entrance of St. Monica’s. Inside,

stained glass windows, a feast of color

in daylight, are black. The church is barn-cold.

Candles burn, bells ring, prayers are murmured,

songs sung. The church warms slowly. I sit,

stand, kneel between the two women,

rituals washing over me like soft waves

on Lake Michigan in August.

Later, I carry the sacred mood

out on my route, dispensing papers

like Communion to my neighbors.

-Lawrence Kessenich

Dearest Readers,

When I was a kid, Lent was a time of daily Mass, denial and hope for Easter.  Like the poet Lawrence Kessenich above, I too hold deep memories of attending pre-dawn services on weekdays with my Mom or Dad. The weather was still cold in Jersey City. Nature was waiting to explode. 

These days I’ve discovered St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in my Portland neighborhood. I wrote about my search for spiritual paths in a recent blog entitled Pilgrim's Progress, as one of several necessary ingredients in getting grounded here.

St. Andrew's with a focus on Hispanic outreach, and social justice

I’m surprised at what I’m discovering in this church. Has the whole organization shifted so dramatically from stressing sin as it did when I was a child, to a worldview that emphasizes social justice, mercy and our kinship with all peoples? It's a good thing. 

My small way to help in my community is to quietly pick up trash on my morning dog walks with Etta. I carry two plastic produce bags from the supermarket–one for 'dog do' of course, and one for the refuse that appears out of nowhere each day in the neighborhood.  Seven of the eight blocks on my walk route are already looking better, and so easy to do little-by-little.

I also use the Lenten Rice Bowl iPhone app to daily ponder ways to be kinder, to pledge small amounts of alms to combat global hunger, and to offer it in a portable cardboard “bowl” on Easter Sunday.

Lent, like springtime is the season for renewal, whether you are spiritually-minded or not. Buddhists say the lotus grows from the mud at the bottom of the pond–the grit of life. Many Christians, and Catholics in my personal experience, use these six and a half weeks to consume less, do good deeds and practice charity as strategies for personal growth and the greater community good.

I feel like I’m connecting with the world as I dive deeper for the muddy root.