In a world of distractions, scoundrels and deceit, nature casts a sliver of shade away from the heat.
On August 16, 2023, Poly–our community cat–reappeared and inspired this brief verse and montage. To read more of my poetry, purchase A Path I Might Have Missed on Amazon.
It’s a daunting task, trying to capture a full life–in this case, my mother’s–in one hundred words (and a dozen pictures). But, today, on the one hundredth anniversary of her birth, this is how I choose to remember Helen Matilda Ferrell Johnson, beyond our story that sprang From Fertile Ground.
***
Born July 26, 1923; High Point, North Carolina.
Child of the Depression.
Dutiful daughter. Responsible older sister.
Fine furniture lover.
1945. St. Louis, Missouri, bound.
Patient wife. Long fuse. Quick temper.
Attentive mother. Hard worker.
Loyal friend. Compassionate trailblazer.
Unintended, unidentified feminist.
Reliable next-door neighbor.
Proud mother. Devoted grandmother.
Smart saver and investor.
Advocate for the disabled and needy.
Southern storyteller. Avid letter writer.
Rock and shell hunter.
Animal advocate. Grateful green thumb.
Observant camera bug. Crafty potter.
Contented retiree. Resilient fighter.
Northern Illinois octogenarian.
Wise realist. Chair rocker.
Fading sunset lover.
Gone January 26, 2013; Wheaton, Illinois.
Full moon.
One half riddle … one half rhyme,
April muses … overtime.
One wanders in … to watch and wait,
Two falls at home … recuperates.
Three beams with friends … by candlelight,
Four’s born one morn … a pure delight.
If only they knew … what songs they’d sing,
If only they knew … what May might bring.
***
For more of my poetry, purchase A Path I Might Have Missed on Amazon.
Hello literary lovers. It’s time for me to stop teasing you about my upcoming book of poetry. Book number five–A Path I Might Have Missed–is alive!
The title and meaning? I chose the title, because it is a reference to the creative odyssey I might have overlooked (but fortunately found late in life and explored through my poetry). Plus, I just like the lyrical sound of these six words strung together.
The concept? It’s a wide-ranging collection of forty-two poems, which I wrote over a period of thirty years (from age thirty-six to nearly sixty-six). My poems cover a host of universal topics–love, loss, pain, discovery, truth, and transformation–with an eye to the ever-present influence of nature in our lives.
The content? The poems run the gamut. Some are reflective, probing, mindful, and deeply personal. Others examine the challenging times we face in contemporary society. I dedicated the book to my father, Walter A. Johnson. He was an unfulfilled poet.
The format? The book is organized into six sections: buds and blooms; fog and fire; magic and music; trials and trails; water and wonder; and stones and sky. I’ve included a photo of nature with each section, images I captured while living in Illinois and Arizona.
Just click on the embedded link below to reveal the cover of the book and purchase a copy on Amazon. Also, please leave your review online. I look forward to your comments and feedback. Thank you for supporting my creative endeavors. Happy reading!
The Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the U.S. is winding down. All over America, houseguests are preparing to pack their bags, return home, and file away memories of time with friends and family.
Our three-day adventure with Milo and Miley in our Scottsdale condo is drawing to a close. While our friend Austin visited family in Colorado, his lovable, ever-licking Shih Tzu pups followed us around the house, slept with us, tumbled on the floor, paraded on leashes near ripening fruit on citrus trees, and–occasionally–barked at passersby.
They even got to meet and play with Kirk and Nick my thirty-something sons, who joined Tom and me on Thursday for turkey, green beans, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple crisp, and World Cup viewing/prognosticating in our humble abode.
To be sure, the holidays are all about family. I’m thankful Tom and I had time with my sons. But it’s also about the furry friends (permanent or otherwise) that grace our lives, make us laugh, wake us at 5:30 … and even attempt to practice morning yoga before they return to the comfort and familiarity of their forever home.
Miley and Milo couldn’t quite get the hang of downward facing dog, but they sure enjoyed licking my face while I stretched on our sunroom floor.
Sunday’s touch of soreness in my right arm–from Saturday’s latest Covid booster–didn’t deter me from capturing 5,266 steps along the Crosscut Canal and this blue-sky, north-facing view of Camelback Mountain from the bridge.
It was the calm I needed and inhaled to organize my thoughts. Away from the world but planted firmly on it. Serenaded by a few distant Sky Harbor departures, slow stream of bikes buzzing by, and family of Gambel’s quail rushing down the embankment for Sunday brunch.
It was laundry day. So, this morning, Tom and I grabbed our pouch of wooden clothespins and walked five hundred steps or so to the landing behind our condo clubhouse.
For the next five minutes–shielding our eyes from the penetrating sun–we stood on the concrete there, hanging our just-washed, delicate shorts and shirts on the community clothesline to dry in the desert breeze.
Call me old fashioned. But I don’t mind doing this. In fact, I enjoy it. Especially as fall approaches and the air begins to cool.
More important, the plastic-coated clothesline connects my present life to my past. It represents the resiliency I’ve watched, absorbed, and carried forward.
It reminds me of the family members I’ve lost, but still love, and the survival instincts they instilled in me sixty years ago. What follows are excerpts from my book, Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator.
***
It was my second week of kindergarten, and I was just beginning to adjust to a new routine. On a warm and breezy mid-September afternoon in 1962–September 13 to be exact–I left my Mesnier School classroom and stepped aboard my regular bus for the trip home.
Within ten minutes, the driver arrived at the top of South Yorkshire Drive. She opened the door and several of us scampered down the stairs. I waved goodbye to a few remaining classmates still on board.
The driver closed the louvered door and pushed ahead. I meandered home. It was no more than a five-minute walk up our block and our driveway. Then, in an instant, a breathtaking late summer day transformed into an early fall for our family.
I saw my mother standing just beyond the backyard gate. She was wearing a sundress, lost in thought, uncoiling clean, damp towels and sheets from a laundry basket. Happy, our beagle-mixed hound, was out of reach too. He was sniffing the ground and frolicking miles away, it seemed, along the back fence.
“Your father’s had a heart attack.” Mom recited her words slowly and deliberately, like a woman treading deep water searching for a longer breath.
I didn’t comprehend what she had to say. But it couldn’t be good news, I thought as she plucked wooden clothespins from a pouch. She was working to keep her ragged emotions and the flapping sheets in check, preparing to clip wet linens to parallel plastic-encased clotheslines that stretched east and west across our yard.
Soon we walked into the house with our empty white-lattice basket, and I learned more. Dad had become ill on day two of his new job as a porter at McDonnell-Douglas. He was helping a coworker lift an airplane nosecone. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He was rushed to Deaconess Hospital on Oakland Avenue near Forest Park. That’s where he would recuperate for the next month …
Each time we visited Dad, he was bedridden. I couldn’t comprehend what could keep my father lying in one location for so long–unable to toss horseshoes, fly kites, or drive us to parades or ballgames. But Dad insisted he would rebound.
Like the popular song from Bye Bye Birdie that played on the transistor radio near his bedside, Dad told me, “Son, I’ve Got a Lot of Living to Do.”
***
The next decade was difficult for our family. Watching Dad drift away physically and emotionally, filled me with anxiety. He never recovered fully, though the man who fought in World War II and the Battle of the Bulge soldiered on until his death in 1993.
Meanwhile, my mother kept our family afloat financially. She went back to work in March 1963 and did her best to balance life at home and in the office. When she died in 2013, she left behind a legacy of wisdom that I cherish and share.
Watching my parents toil produced a silver lining. Seeing them tread deep water for all those years gave me something I never imagined: the will to face my own personal challenges, standing tall as a proud gay man, and surviving my own heart attack on my sixtieth birthday.
Of course, it all began in the suburbs of St. Louis in September 1962. That sagging clothesline swayed. But it never snapped.
And, here in the Sonoran Desert in 2022, another clothesline sways 1,400 miles west.
It’s a much less turbulent September day.
Around the age of fifty, Tom and I nurtured our creative ritual.
On cold Chicago-area Sunday mornings, we bundled up and drove east from Mount Prospect to the Barnes & Noble in Evanston to browse books and movies, sip coffee, play Scrabble, and imagine “what if.“
Fifteen years later, I’m living on the other end of the temperature spectrum. Today, in the oven-like heat of this Sonoran summer, we drove to Barnes & Noble on Val Vista Drive in Mesa, Arizona. It’s about fifteen miles from our Scottsdale condo.
Remarkably, they’re stocking my books on their Local Author and Biography shelves. It feels like I’m living a dream come true.
If you’ve ever doubted your ability or passion (as I certainly did when the grind of life had worn me down), don’t give up. It’s never too late to carve a new creative path.
It’s rare for me to rise to witness morning’s first light. But, at 4:45 a.m., I was thirsty and warm.
I peeked from our den window through the Sunday slats of our vertical blinds to see a line of doves welcome the day.
I heard the clock ticking in the hall, then reclined on the couch to check the news feed on my phone.
Soon after, I heard Tom stir. Bleary eyed, he staggered into the living room to check on me.
We resolved to soothe our parched throats with cold water from the fridge. That’s what you do in June in Arizona. You hydrate over and over again to endure the heat of the desert.
By 5:30ish, we had summoned enough energy to pull on our shorts and socks, tie our shoes, grab our floppy hats and sunglasses, and step toward the alley that would lead us to the Crosscut Canal and Papago Park.
Just outside our door, our neighbor Glenn happened by with Mason and Katie, his two gentle-giant Newfoundlands, tugging him along.
We exchanged good mornings. Tom patted and stroked Mason’s long back. Katie and I locked eyes. Most of the puppy’s brown fur has turned black. Soon she we will be full grown.
We said our goodbyes. Tom and I continued walking west. When we reached the canal at 5:45, my phone told me it was 84 degrees–on the way to 113 by late afternoon.
Scorching, yes, but any person in their right mind knows to stay inside (or at least cover up) when the heat spikes. June isn’t a month to be savored in the Sonoran Desert. It’s simply one to survive.
By 6:00, we had walked past a few joggers and the full length of the fence that separates the canal path with the Desert Botanical Garden. We decided to stop and turn around.
The sun was beginning to bear down. I paused, peered west, pulled my phone from my pocket, and captured the saguaros waking in the morning light.
On our return trip, a few monarchs danced and perched on the milkwood near the fence line. Tiny lizards skittered by as we chugged water from our bottles.
We retraced our steps, crossed the pedestrian bridge, welcomed shade from the Roadrunner apartment complex, turned the corner down the alley, and headed east to our cozy two-bedroom condo.
We knew it would be cooler there.
On Tuesday, April 26, 2022–the day Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for Covid without symptoms–I did too. But with symptoms: fever, headache, congestion, and fatigue.
Ironically, it was also about the same time Dr. Anthony Fauci declared we had crossed the pandemic bridge and entered an endemic world, where the disease rate is at an acceptable or manageable level.
At that moment, I don’t think I believed him. There was nothing acceptable about the situation for Tom or me. As you might suspect, my husband soon developed the same symptoms.
For the following week, Tom and I took turns playing nurse, while pumping a flurry of fluids, acetaminophens, decongestants, and attaboy encouragements.
We slept sporadically, texted my sons and our sisters, cancelled plans with friends reluctantly like two men waving from a desert island, and zapped each other endlessly with our digital thermometer–up to 102.3, down to 99.6, up to 101.2, down to 100.2, finally back to 98.6.
We rode out the storm together, quarantining in the privacy of our cozy desert condo. Two kind friends left wonton soup outside our front door, as they were dealing with their own trauma of repairing their car so they could drive east. Back to their home in New York.
Another sweet neighbor placed a bar of chocolate on the mosaic tile table between our two wicker chairs. I snatched it as soon as she left. She knows about Tom’s dark chocolate addiction and my wedding vow in 2014 to keep him supplied with a bottomless supply of it.
Through it all, I think you could characterize our Covid cases as mild, though my anxiety flew through the roof for seven days. I shuddered to think what the outcome might have been.
What if we hadn’t been fully vaccinated and boosted twice? What if I could never see Tom’s smiling face again or gaze into his beautiful blue eyes that nearly match the bluish-gray t-shirt I gave him that doesn’t fit me anymore?
***
About a million Americans have died of Covid complications.
We are two of the lucky few. But this isn’t a story about luck. It’s about truth and science.
The vaccinations we lined up for protected us, kept us out of the hospital, and forestalled any notions of two more premature deaths. By following the science and getting inoculated, we dodged two bullets. The universe rewarded us exponentially by giving us more time together.
This morning it feels like we are both back to normal. We’ve been symptom free for several days. We returned to the gym for the first time in nearly two weeks. I mounted the treadmill. Tom opted for the elliptical. I smiled as I watched Tom exchange his hellos with a community of patrons and familiar faces.
But earlier in the morning–when I leaned out the front door to water our succulents under the fig tree–there was a defining moment with an extraordinary animal, which I won’t soon forget.
Our feral friend Poly, the community cat that has lived on the fringe of life for a long time, meowed and came closer to me than she ever has. After a brief photo opportunity, Tom handed me the bag of cat treats and I sprinkled a dozen or so on the sidewalk.
Once I closed the door, Poly left the shelter of our eaves–safe in her own moveable, quarantining bubble–and approached the kitty kernels.
Unceremoniously, she glanced up at me as if to say, “I understand how you feel, all worried and frayed. But you’ve made it through. You’ll get by. You’re a survivor. Just like me.”
