Category: Nature

The Space In Between

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We are human, not robots. So, we all do it to some degree or another. We reflect on seminal moments that have passed rather than living in the present.

In my case, that means occasionally remembering the full moon, which dominated the January horizon the morning my mother died in 2013.

Or–further back in my psyche–the sweet scent of magnolia blossoms, emerging in late March on the front lawn of my suburban St. Louis childhood home. Often, mother nature tricked them with an early April frost that turned the pink petals brown.

Oddly, when we aren’t contemplating the past, many of us focus on the future. We anticipate significant events–personal and social–that approach.

We ponder pressing issues ahead, such as paying the rent or mortgage when it comes due at the end of the month, speculating on the latest batch of troublesome news on the world stage, or waiting impatiently for medical test results.

Though I am a memoir writer–and soon-to-be-published poet (stay tuned)–once-unforeseen yoga sessions (which I now practice frequently on the aqua mat of my sixties) teach me that I am better off focusing on the space in between the memories and the what ifs.

It is the breathing in and out that keeps me whole as I write this sentence on the keys of my laptop. It is the random chirping punctuating my afternoon in the palm tree outside my back door.

It is the rushing water of life, which currently swooshes through the normally dry Salt River gulch in Tempe, thanks to frequent rains in the Valley of the Sun and melting snow from Arizona’s high country.

At this moment in time, I need to remind myself that it is all of these things–happening now–that make life rewarding and meaningful on an otherwise gauzy Wednesday in March.

Late Bloomer

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It’s March. The Christmas cactus adorning our den is definitely a late bloomer–and so am I. I turned 65 in July, but that number hasn’t deterred me from continuing to write, sing, and create.

When I close my eyes, I can still channel 18-year-old unaware me. Tall and thin with long straight blond hair in 1975. Seated in an uncomfortable wooden fold-down chair. Legs crossed in Middlebush Hall on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

I was an aspiring journalism major. One of a few hundred freshmen and freshwomen taking a required business course. Bleary-eyed from guzzling too much beer and demolishing late-night Shakespeare’s Pizza, we listened to our Marketing 101 professor.

He waxed on about demographics and American consumption. We doodled in our spiral notebooks.

What I remember most is that he told us the range of consumption occurred between the ages of 18 and 65. That’s when Americans had the most disposable income to spend.

The implication was that life, purpose, and relevance stopped after that. After retirement. After 65.

Of course, these days, life expectancy–for those who live to be 65–is more promising. But nothing is guaranteed.

At any age, “seize the day” is a smart strategy. Especially in your later years when (at times) it feels like you are riding in a runaway wagon racing downhill. Even if on most days you are enjoying the freedom and wisdom that comes with age as the wind rushes through your greying hair.

All of this is preamble to tell you that I am on the cusp of publishing my 5th book. It will be a collection of my best poems. Many of them explore love, loss, identity, discovery, disorientation, transformation, realization, and acceptance–spun through the ever-present influences of time and nature.

I began writing poetry in 1993. I was newly divorced, raising my boys as a single dad, working long hours as a communication consultant for Towers Perrin in Chicago, dashing for commuter trains, grieving the loss of my father, and beginning to understand myself and my emerging gay identity.

I have written dozens of poems over the past 30 years. Stashed them in an ever-expanding Word file. (If you follow me, you know I have shared some of them here over the past four years. The act of doing that has fed the poetry beast inside me. He’s now ready to emerge.)

Yes, at age 65 it thrills me to defy the logic of my marketing professor. To assemble my poetry and share it publicly–all in one place–for anyone who chooses to consume it.

Stay tuned!

March Mellow?

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Hardly. The latest western winter storm battered Arizona last night.

It dropped temperatures, ushered in the wind, and dumped a few feet of fresh snow on Flagstaff. Sixteen inches on Prescott, less than two hours north of us.

While, down in the Valley of the Sun, heavy rains soaked our saguaros.

This afternoon, nature’s afterglow appeared. A brisk fifty-five-degree walk along the Crosscut Canal proved we are protected on the north and east by ranges adorned with snowy peaks.

Squint, beyond a woman texting while walking her dog. See the tops of the Superstition Mountains thirty miles east? They won’t stay white for long.

A Better Place

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“Dogs have no idea how wonderful they are. They walk all around us and make the world a better place.”

***

On a chilly, but sunny, Thursday morning in Scottsdale, Arizona, this was Yumi’s thought of the day.

How serendipitous that our instructor should choose these two sentences as inspiration for Tom, me and six others on February 2, 2023, as we stood on our mats and began our weekly seventy-five-minute journey into yoga.

On Ground Hog Day fifteen years ago our basset hound Maggie crossed over the Rainbow Bridge.

When it’s your pet, you never forget the highs and lows long after the calendar pages have come and gone.

The frolics with Kirk, Nick, Tom, and me in the lush green of our backyard … the comfort of her velveteen elongated ears as I stroked her coat … the gnaws and crunches of rawhide bones and petite carrots as she gobbled up another evening snack, after racing to welcome us home at the kitchen door.

Then along came that sad-and-snowy suburban Chicago morning in 2008 when our dog endured another–particularly horrible– seizure.

After the shaking had stopped, she looked up at me with resignation from the tile of our kitchen floor without the energy or inclination to lick the maple syrup off a breakfast plate.

Soon after, Tom and I scooped her into our sedan, arrived at our vet’s office, and whispered goodbye to her as she sprawled on a blanket on the floor.

***

Today, seventeen hundred miles and a lifetime away from the northern Illinois home she patrolled and dominated, I recall the “glue” and comic relief our dog provided (through her warm fur, misshapen front legs, and bellowing howl).

She was the antidote for our non-traditional family: two men (in a loving relationship just doing our best to coexist in a less enlightened world) with my two sons zooming in and out of our life as they grew.

Our dog simply demanded our constant attention and stood by our sides witnessing it all.

It was the love and companionship of Maggie and the litany of her daily adventures–walks, feedings, treats, medicines, rabbits, squirrels, accidents in the hall, and countless cuddles–that magically connected us all.

Certainly, from 1998 to 2008, our dog made our world a better place.

Still Everlasting

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Love and loss are universal human conditions. If we feel the first, we can’t escape the grief associated with the second.

I wrote You Everlasting in December 2009. It was a gift for my eighty-six-year-old mother.

I remember the surprise and delight on her face that Christmas Eve, after she slowly unwrapped the framed contents in tissue paper cradled in her lap.

“You wrote me a poem,” she said quietly.

In 2016, three years after she passed, I published the poem in From Fertile Ground. It is a book inspired and informed by grief.

Today, on the tenth anniversary of Helen F. Johnson’s death, the time is right to share it again.

The imagery of flowers, trees, and animals comforts me. The verse provides much-needed continuity from her past existence to the reflections and influences that live on inside me.

The poem reminds me of that wise, nature-loving woman, who carved a resilient path for me to follow.

I still feel her presence today and can smile with the knowledge that, though she left on a frigid-in-Illinois, January morning in 2013, I carry the warm memories of her in my Arizona desert life in 2023.

Perhaps these words will prompt memories of your own loved ones, who are gone but never forgotten.

***

You Everlasting

You are the comfort of nature. Eternally pressed.

The first magnolia petal of spring.

The last gingko leaf of autumn.

The determined orchid that flourishes.

The lingering annual that endures. Perennial.

You are high and low tide. Remarkably present.

The hidden, tranquil meadow.

The crackle and thump of fresh melon.

The dancing firefly in a warm Carolina sky.

The soulful howl of a January hound waiting by the gate. Undeniable.

You are the simplest wisdom. Gracefully proud.

The tender touch of summer days that melt but never fade.

The breaking dawn of blues and greens forever in my memories.

The resilient path carved and captured in my heart.

The polished gem of hopeful dreams. Everlasting.

In December 2008, one year before I gave her the poem, my mother enjoyed another holiday celebration with her family in Illinois.

Nearly Ten Years

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Nearly ten years have passed since she passed January 26, 2013.

As this seismic anniversary of my mother’s death approaches, I feel a degree of grief’s numbness reappearing.

The time is right for me to sprinkle this space with reflections on Helen F. Johnson’s life: how much I loved her; what I learned from her; and why I still miss her.

I watched my mother grow in wisdom and shrink in physical presence–simultaneously–in her final ten years.

In those poetic moments–especially 2004 to 2009 when we visited at her condo in Winfield, Illinois–the two observations felt incongruent as we sat side by side on a park bench reflecting on her love of family, nature, photography, and letter writing.

But they don’t anymore.

Now that I’ve surpassed the midpoint of my sixties–favoring the quietest moments of life over all the rest–I see and feel the same transformation happening within me.

I’m far more inclined to record the moments that happen around me, because–like her–I have the time and the interest. She has left me an invaluable gift: a recognizable path and impulse to emulate.

My life has changed immensely since she died. I’ve retired from corporate life, married Tom, moved across the country, survived a heart attack, lost forty pounds, written four books, endured Covid, and built a new life in the desert.

Yet, it is when Tom and I spend time with my sons Nick and Kirk–her only grandchildren–that I am most aware of how long she has been gone and how much she loved us all.

They were both in their twenties in 2013. Searching. Unsettled. Preparing to launch. On the cusp of new personal discoveries and adventures. Since that time, they’ve traveled, found new loves, new jobs, new homes.

Kirk is now nearly 34; Nick almost 39. How she–a lover of plants and trees–would have loved learning that her oldest grandson stopped by our condo last Friday to pluck grapefruits, oranges, lemons, and tangelos from our citrus trees.

Or that Nick coached a Boys and Girls Club basketball team last year.

Or that Kirk traveled to Vanuatu with the Peace Corps in 2014 and more recently has found his counseling stride in a small practice in Chicago … helping patients who’ve experienced some sort of trauma.

Over this past weekend, Tom and I watched Milo and Miley (a friend’s two Shih Tzus) again.

The dogs are sweet, lovable characters. But I needed a little time to escape on Sunday to my thoughts and devices. So, I drove to Chaparral Park and walked around the lake for about an hour.

As I rounded a bend of pine trees which Tom and I love, I spotted an older man. He sat quiet, content, and alone on a park bench.

Seeing him reminded me of the moments my mother cherished in her eighties, pondering the world from a park bench. She could simply sit, enjoy the shade of the trees, read the newspaper or gaze at passersby.

Or she could wonder about the lives of her children and grandchildren … long after she was gone.

Fresh Batch

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New Year’s Day’s rhumba of rain and hail–with a rainbow sideshow in between–has left the Valley of the Sun soggy with champagne memories.

Enter a fresh batch of magnificent, cottony clouds to blot the skies over the Crosscut Canal and reveal January’s sparkling possibilities waiting on the horizon.

Chirpy Flock

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For the past two mornings, a chirpy flock of rosy-faced (also called peach-faced) lovebirds has descended upon our feeder. They sway and frolic under the eaves, near our gnarly fig. It’s lost it leaves.

Like last-minute holiday shoppers, the lovebirds push and shove. Jockeying for position–with thrashers, finches, and woodpeckers–to pluck precious seeds on a forty-two-degree morning outside our north-facing window.

These vivid, high-pitched creatures aren’t native to Arizona. Some are daring escapees from past caged lives; others released into the wild by careless owners. Who knows why.

Either way, the carefree lovebirds have assimilated. They flourish in the Phoenix area, and on December 11, 2022, they brighten our view as Tom and I sip coffee and split a delectable, just-ripened tangelo, snatched from the trusty tree near our community pool.

Eleven Moments

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No ordinary Tuesday, but eleven moments (5:05 to 5:45 p.m.) captured as the end of the first day of the eleventh month draws near in our south Scottsdale neighborhood. Displayed in reverse order. Clearly, what the Sonoran Desert lacks in vibrant fall foliage, the sky delivers with kaleidoscopic splendor.

My Fortunate Life

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I lead a fortunate life. I don’t mean that in a material, financial or social sense; like many of you, I am concerned about inflation, the bear market, high gas prices, potential fall-out from the mid-term elections, and global and domestic horrors eroding personal freedoms, savings and investments, and a general sense of security for you and me.

Still, I acknowledge I have more to be thankful for than most people: a modest-but-comfortable home in a warm climate; a loving and supportive spouse; two adult sons who are gainfully employed and contributing members of society; a diverse community of friends; and the time to pursue and develop my literary and musical interests.

Plus, I’m a relatively healthy, sixty-five-year-old male. I make it a priority to exercise regularly, eat smart, and see my doctors as needed. Though it’s been more than five years since I suffered a mild heart attack, I haven’t forgotten the trauma of July 6, 2017, or dismissed the gratitude I feel for that team of doctors and nurses at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri–people I likely will never see again.

That painful experience no longer defines me. It has paled somewhat. Yet it informs my choices, perspective, and sense of gratitude. It has morphed into a badge of survivorship, which I feel an obligation to share with the universe through my writing and day-in-day-out personal encounters.

Occasionally, I receive a fund-raising or participation request from an Arizona contact with the American Heart Association (AHA). We met in 2018.

A few weeks ago, she asked me to share my story of survival–virtually–with employees of a large retail organization on October 17. To explain that donations to the AHA aid lifesaving research that allows heart and stroke survivors–like me–to enjoy longer and more complete lives.

So that’s what I’ll be doing on Monday. Twice … once in the morning; once in the afternoon. Telling my story of survival in three to five minutes to a large group of employees via video conference.

I figure it’s the least I can do to pay it forward and possibly ease the pain for some other unsuspecting man or woman, who with the help of the AHA might live longer, breathe more easily, and witness a few more breathtaking sunsets in the Valley of the Sun or elsewhere.

On October 5, 2022, I captured this Sonoran sunset in Papago Park on my walk with Tom a mile from our home in Scottsdale, Arizona.