Im Nebel

Well, that title surprised me. Why do these minds of ours pull up things that haven't been thought of for years?

"Im Nebel" ("In the mist/fog") comes from my freshman year of college, best I recall. I was taking a German class. Poetry was not part of our class, but somewhere I had come across Hermann Hesse's poem in German and was working on translating it with the help of my kind professor. All I really remember about it is that at the time it seemed quite depressing to me. I remember thinking that Hesse must have been a lonely man. (The poem was all I knew of him at the time, I believe.)

Seems that early impression was right from the bits I've learned since then about his life, but I also read that he was greatly helped by therapy at one point, so that was good to learn.

At any rate, here are some pictures from a walk earlier this week, followed by Hesse's poem.

The fountain, barely discernible through the fog. Interesting that "im nebel," dark things show up better than lighter things.

Lamb's ear soaked in a foggy cloak.

The fountain's continuous splash was like fog for the soundscape.

One of my favorite trees in this park, and a favorite duck-gathering spot.

Do spider webs work when they're wet? Does anything fly around in the fog?

Feathery cypress, so green in all the gray.

The bench that seems somehow sacred and is definitely set apart, out on a little jutting peninsula that feels far away from houses and traffic, though it isn't far geographically at all.

You have to enlarge this to see the beauty of the fog condensed onto the branches. And the ducks swimming around.

At this point, it began to actually rain,

so I stopped under a cypress tree for a while.

Could such beauty come from randomness and chance?

Before I saw them, I heard them. Loud, blaring honking broke into the quiet morning. They came,

and came,

and continued to come,

seemingly out of nowhere, hidden by the thick fog until right above me,

and zoomed down to settle on the little lake, between forty and fifty, by my counting.

Dear Mr. Heron and I see each other fairly often, but he is very reserved and does not like his privacy invaded for very long, so this is the first picture I've been able to get.

He can often be found in the water near the gate to the secret island, where only official bird-sanctuary workers are allowed.

The thickest spider web I've ever seen.

my friend Jay said about walking in Florence, Italy, "Don't forget to look up!"

Good-bye, geese!

Good-bye, prairie dogs! (Oh, wait, those are cypress knees.)

Good-bye, ducks!

Good-bye, fountain!

And back into the people world, with smoke rising from the chimney of this newly-shingled house which smells so wonderfully of cedar each time I walk by.

I do find walking in the mists quite wondrous.

In the Mists

Wondrous to wander through mists!
Parted are bush and stone:
None to the other exists,
Each stands alone.

Many my friends came calling
then, when I lived in the light;
Now that the fogs are falling,
None is in sight.

Truly, only the sages
Fathom the darkness to fall,
Which, as silent as cages,
Separates all.

Strange to walk in the mists!
Life has to solitude grown.
None for the other exists:
Each is alone.

Surprise

Lycoris squamigera is their Latin name, but I have always known them as surprise lilies. They pop up practically overnight and bloom so quickly as to seemingly defy nature.

This particular specimen was a super surprise. It came up before I realized or saw it, and while doing some work in the area, I accidentally stepped on it so hard that it was horizontal on the ground and looked to my eyes as if it could not survive. I felt terrible when I saw it and felt I should complete the detaching and give it a proper burial, but I was pressed for time and left it there for later.

And lo and behold, that amazing energy that makes it grow so quickly must also have restorative powers, because even with its stalk partially crushed, it straightened itself up and bloomed, as you can see!

Tonight I look to the lily as a symbol for my blog. Not giving up, despite the thin tissue holding it together! Rising once again to surprise those loyal readers who inform me occasionslly that they've checked and not seen anything new for a while.

Some things in life are calming down a bit, so I hope to find a new rhythm for writing. Time will tell.

Lycoris squamigera. Never underestimate the power.

(And, no, I have never actually had a burial service for a deceased flower. I just love surprise lilies so much and felt so bad for stepping on it that a little goodbye and apology seemed in order.)

Out with the Old, In with the New

As I've been unpacking boxes, I've been letting go of some of their contents. Like these books from 2002. That was during the time I had left my "real" job in college ministry and begun building my piano studio and teaching Italian lessons, determined to have more time to myself, more flexibility, and more time to write.

The truth is, I didn't know what I wanted to do, because I had never planned on needing something to do at this point in my life beyond raising children, which was not happening, despite all attempts.

But I knew I liked to write. That's not quite right. I knew that all my life I had been writing, that I couldn't seem to function without writing, and that people had fairly consistently said good things about my writing. And an influential person in my life had challenged me to do more of it.

So, I bought the Writer's Handbook and Writer's Market Online as part of that endeavor. They're on their way to the recycling bin. I bought Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird--which I'm keeping, by the way, and someone else's The Writer's Life--on which the jury is still out, though I have a feeling it will end up out once the jury comes back in.

Anyway, for several months I had a routine of writing each morning. I don't remember now what exactly I worked on, though it's all here in the computer or on the shelf in notebooks. There was no one big Project with a capital P.

And then life happened. I kept teaching piano. I never got more than a couple of Italian students. At some point, a former professor encouraged me to start seeing clients in his office, and I did for a while.

And then came the year of losses, when five people I loved died in less than six months. And then I spent most of a year caring for the children of one of the friends who had died. And when it was all over, I felt more than ever before that at least for the time being, counseling was my calling.

So the books in the photo never really got put to use. They were there more as mascots, cheering me in my game, than as players that made it onto the field.

And in the picture, they are positioned on top of the binder full of manuscripts for the writers workshop coming up this weekend. I've done more reading than writing for this workshop, as I wound up sending in something written years ago--an article about the year of losses, actually.

So, time goes on, and circumstances change.

But I still can't function without a good deal of putting my thoughts down in the process we call writing. I don't know if anything will ever come of it beyond its role in keeping me sane.

But if that's the only purpose it ever serves, I must say that I for one consider it a worthwhile one.

Boxed In

(Note: photos are blurry to symbolize the effect this past 10 days has had on me. I'm tired!)

For the past year and a half and more, I have lived with boxes. And, yes, I have felt very boxed in.

In the past week, at least 17 boxes have been emptied. Friday over a week ago, Sue helped me move the full boxes out of my home office. Saturday over a week ago, Judy helped me paint the room. And over the past week, I have at last unpacked my books and files and put them in more permanent places.

And, yes, I have done some winnowing and pruning.

And now my muscles ache from the carrying of heavy loads and the day of painting. But my mind and spirit are lightened by no longer carrying the load of wondering when I would ever be free of those boxes! And by the lovely "quaking grass" green that now greets me when I walk into the room.

(What would we do without friends--and without Larry the plaster guy who got the walls ready so they could be painted?)

Road Trip

This is where I went today with my friend Judy!

I think it a most wonderful thing to be able to play the guitar.

And to have the name Emmanuel.

And to have lived a day like today.

More later, but now I can go to bed knowing that even though I didn't write last week, I made up for it. :-)

Interlude

Well, I haven't kept up my one-post-per-week commitment. On the other hand, it hasn't been quite two weeks yet, so perhaps I can squeeze in one tonight and one tomorrow to catch up?

As always, there are reasons for the silent interlude. In this case, I was sick for a while and got behind on things more important than blogging. And then my niece, bless her heart, was in a serious car accident. In addition to spending some time away from home to be with her and her family, I hope I may have vicariously absorbed some of the shock for her, because I certainly was not myself for the couple of days between the time of learning about the accident and finally getting to go see her for myself. There's just something very hard about being away from people you love when they are suffering. For me it was physically wrenching, as if I were literally twisted up in a knot until I got to her bedside and could hug the other family members and hold her sweet hand. Then everything untwisted.

She continues to recover valiantly, and life continues, so this week has meant catching up some more.

One of the highlights of my week is my piano lesson with my last-of-the-day Thursday student, Judy. You can see her curly hair silhouetted above on the Bartok she is working on.

And you can see the little sign I keep on our piano, as a reminder of exactly what it says. For my students and for myself. For learning to play piano, and for whatever else one might be feeling tempted to give up on.

I really just liked the way the sunlight fell on the paper today and made the little criss-cross pattern. Judy's lesson always comes at this time of day, and this isn't the first time I've said, "Keep playing," and walked out to get my camera. Maybe eventually I'll have enough photos for a series.

For tonight, though, I share this single photo in honor of my niece, who absolutely is not giving up. Ever. Ever. Ever.

A Year Ago Last Week

Well, didn't mean to wait this long, but here we are.

My last full day in Italy, last year, took me to Strove. I'd been there once before, in the spring of 2008, when my friends drove me down there for the day. Strove is Paolo's hometown. I saw the house where he was born, the school he attended, and the church that Tosca had given me a drawing of several years earlier. It's a sweet little town nestled in the area just south of the Chianti region.

This time I took a bus. The bus trip to Strove became more than a bus trip on a Sunday afternoon. Before leaving on this trip, I had been pretty heavily occupied with translating Tosca's memoir, her story of growing up in Tuscany, of being a little girl during World War Two, of meeting American soldiers, of close encounters with German soldiers, of hiding out in a cave for days, of losing family members in tragic bombings. At the time of my trip, the war was still going on in the part of the book I was in.

So driving past the American military cemetery, and driving through Poggibonsi, the town where Tosca grew up and many of her memories were made (though little remains of the Poggibonsi she describes, due to the bombing), and seeing San Gimignano from a distance, as she describes seeing it as a child--all made for a sense of sadness and somewhat surreal intensity.

But then the bus dropped me off, and Paolo arrived in his car to pick me up, and I was fully back in the happy present.

We had a lovely lunch, joined by son Riccardo and his wife Silvia and by Luciano, a family friend from Florence. Soon after lunch, Paolo and Luciano were off for a Sunday afternoon hunt. Paolo has a special license for hunting year-round a certain deer-like animal that has been invading the vineyards due to overpopulation. Riccardo and Silvia were off to I-don't-remember-what, and Tosca and I had the rest of the day and much of the evening to ourselves.

We went out for a passeggiata, a walk, along the main street that soon becomes a little road out into the countryside. We talked about our lives in the two years since seeing each other last, we talked about the plants we saw along the way, we talked about the Via Francigena.

At one point, Tosca pointed to a large villa on top of one of the nearby hills. "Do you know who is spending the month in that villa? Just guess." Of course I had no way of guessing, but she had a way of knowing, because Riccardo does the landscaping for the villa. "You won't believe it. Umberto Eco and Renzo Piano," with a pause for effect.

Well, I confess that though I may have heard the name Renzo Piano, I didn't know who he was (a world renowned architect). But Umberto Eco!--just before the trip I had been listening to an interview with him on his career, semiotics, and what he thought about computers. It was rather strange and amazing to think that Umberto Eco was staying up there on that hill not so very far away, and could have been looking down in our direction while sitting outside on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, for all we knew.

Besides looking up to high places, we also looked down the road at one point to see a group of pellegrini, college-aged pilgrims, with backpacks and an occasional walking stick, making their way toward us. One of them asked how far it was to Monteriggioni. Tosca's answer brought a tired sigh and an inquiry of whether they might be able to spend the night in Strove. They were from a church in northern Italy and were walking a long way, all the way to Rome. Tosca told them the town had a space for pilgrims and how to find it and who to speak with, and they went on their way.

We also met a Churchill-looking bulldog out for a walk with his person. He was very sweet and surprised me by jumping up to greet me. As huge and heavy as he was, I didn't expect he would be able to jump.

After a while, we headed back into town ourselves and ended our little pilgrimage at her house. We spent the rest of the evening going over the part of her book that I had translated, and having supper and visiting out on their sweet balcony. Paolo had informed me earlier that theirs is the only house in Strove that has a balcony, so it has become a very photographed site and is probably seen all over the world when tourists go home and show their pictures!

So, here are a couple of photos of the balcony from inside the house--not the views most tourists get, I don't imagine.

Tosca insisted on preparing supper by herself, giving me time to sit out on the balcony and wonder at the beauty of the evening and the strangeness of airplane travel. A week and a day earlier I had been in hot, humid Memphis with its car traffic and FedEx airplane noise, with the frustration of trying to find an office to rent for my practice, still unpacking boxes from our move.

And here I was, surrounded by roses, petunias, and begonias on this terrace in a tiny town in Tuscany, itself surrounded by sculpted hills as far as the eye could see without a tall building in sight, Umberto Eco up on the hill to my left, the only sounds those of a small village--the voices of the family eating dinner below me, the clink of silverware, Tosca's voice occasionally calling out to assure me she wouldn't be long, and the cooing of the doves on the roof of the house across the street. Peace settled over me, and gratefulness--for beauty, for friendship--welled up inside me.

It was a lovely evening, a year ago last week!

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today I spent nearly the entire day alone in Florence. My friends left in the morning after breakfast, and I left the guesthouse where we were staying shortly after. According to my journal entry, I was feeling exhausted by 2:45. My tired feet got mention more than once, as I was walking pretty much the entire time after the fifteen-minute-at-most bus ride into the center.

I also mention how much encounters with rude people can affect one's day. I wasn't able to reach any of my friends via telephone, and I was having trouble getting the public phones to work. I had also learned that getting out to my friends' house in Strove was going to be costlier and more complicated than I expected.

At one point I wrote, "The song title 'O Sactissima' comes to my mind, even though I don't know the music. It changes to 'O Stanchissima,' though! I am so tired in my legs and feet." (Sanctissima means very holy; stanchissima means very tired.)

The redeeming moments of the long day were talking with the artists near the Duomo, buying a backpack I'd found a few days earlier, and eating wonderful peach and berry gelato.

At the end of my entry for this day, I wrote about how tumultuous the past two years had been, knowing my job might end, having it end, working in a less than stable situation, moving to the new house, etc. Even the trip to Italy had come up rather suddenly as a possibility. My last two sentences are, "It is nice to be away. I don't think I've even thought that until just now."

Well, it was lovely to be away, and here are some photos taken after the ones from the previous post.


Carolyn and I spent the morning in the Oltrarno (literally "across the Arno" river) section of the city. Of course we crossed the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge.)


No, it's not a taxidermy shop, but a sandwich shop. And they did serve wild boar meat as one possible ingredient.


Santo Spirito, the church of the Holy Spirit.


We met back with Carolyn's husband and granddaughter at the Piazza Signoria.


And suddenly the skies turned dark!


And torrential rain began, and people were getting soaked. We huddled under the Loggia for protection with hundreds of others. Soon we were getting wet there, because of the strong wind, so we crossed the street to stand under the porch of the Uffizi. It didn't really make much difference.

We bought rain ponchos from the vendors who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, slogged our way down the street to a trattoria for lunch. Wet and bedraggled, we were seated. The rain stopped within ten minutes.


And the skies were blue and beautiful the rest of the day, except for another downpour later in the afternoon as we were leaving a DaVinci exhibit.


And blue and beautiful that evening. (I know it's blurry, but I think the color's worth it.)


The next day we saw the Casa di Dante,


spent a good bit of time in the Boboli Gardens,


and defied gravity walking up from the guesthouse to the church of San Miniato, just in time to hear the last several minutes of the monks singing their evening prayer service.







San Miniato way up on the hill, seen from the other side of the river (taken that morning),


and Florence seen from inside San Miniato (taken that evening.)


This is from the day when my feet were so tired. I had sat down to rest near one of the old city gates. If you look closely, you can see that the tiny white speck about 2/3 of the way down, in the center, is a soccer ball!


When I first went to live in Florence, my friend Jay said, "Always remember to look up. If you don't look up, you'll miss so much beauty." This is a part of the city I'd walked through countless times back in those days, but until a year ago, I'd never looked up at this particular point. Jay was right.


From the steps of San Miniato, from my journal.