honeybees & reveries

I ran two miles today. It’s not that far, but I’m proud of myself because it’s been awhile since I’ve gone out. I’ve mostly been walking.

I think the thing that running teaches you is that no matter what distance you cover, the effort dissipates overnight, and the next day you are back to building up the distance you’ve lost.

It’s truly a Sisyphean activity.

But then this amazing thing happens – a few days or a week go by and you notice you feel better – your rear end is tighter and your thighs feel stronger.

It’s as if your body is saying, just be patient and the benefits will eventually catch up with you.

But mostly running builds mental fortitude in me. And it gets my creative juices flowing.

When I plod through the neighborhood, my mind is usually casting about for new ideas.

It’s poking around for something to look forward to, or just some little thing to get excited about.

It seems I have to do this in January.

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This weekend, my husband and I drove down to the North Carolina coast. We were on a mission to scope out the perfect beach house for our yearly family get-together.

The landscape was a bit depressing.

We passed acre after acre of forgotten farmland, weathered farmhouses, and tiny, tottering shacks. There were rows of limp, muddy collards in the fields, and some rickety vegetable stands.

Tractors were stalled indefinitely in the deeply flooded trenches.

There were no people about – the only traces of life were farm tools and the children’s toys that lay abandoned in the front yards – and the Christmas lights that were still strung.

And I think, these people know patience and planning more than anyone. Because they, too, are fervently looking to the future.

Anyway, down the road, I noticed an entire field full of crows strutting about. With their jaunty heads cocked, they nimbly gleaned the leftovers from the past season.

And that is me, I’m looking to snatch up the one shiny thing or new idea that might kick-start my year.

Are you the same?

We look back on the past year and decide what can be dismissed. We sift through old activities and events – to see what to let go of, and what to expand upon.

We plan what new crops to grow.

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Anyway, my husband and I finally met up with the realtor and we chat for a bit. She tells us that she loves this time of year – and I get it. No tourists like us.

But as she talks, my mind is already on fast forward:

I listen to the gentle waves of the October tide, and I picture my son napping under the beach umbrella.

I imagine my grandson, digging in the sand with his shovel, or maybe in the pool, kicking his little froggy legs.

I see a glass of white wine, sipped on our private deck. My eyes are closed, but I’m aware of my family all around me, making noise two floors below.

I watch the apricot moon dip into the water and disappear.

I am a lucky woman, this I know.

But in January, if often takes some imagination to see it that way, to see the coming year in full. To look ahead and believe.

To take the dry pits and plant them.

The sky is puffed grey, pregnant with the possibility of snowfall.

On my walk, all around me, there is a sense of pause, of waiting.

The dogs in the yards are silent, waiting for me to pass.

Neighbors venture out, stepping carefully to avoid the slippery rime that has coated the black places on the road.

They wait for the forecast and the possibility of time off from work.

The children wait with their sleds, as they practice on the dry, grassy hill.

Even the birds are silent, waiting for the storm to pass.

And when I look up at the sky there is a blankness, with no mood or transience. Only a dull sameness.

The grey threatens to blanket my mood, too.

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When my son was home, over the holidays, we went for a walk on a trail in Hillsborough. We were casually birdwatching and he showed me an app on his phone that helps identify bird species by their calls.

This particular day, there was a cacophony of birdsong – it was so loud I couldn’t differentiate a single bird. But that was the beauty of it – the phone could pick out one solo voice and identify it.

It was a dream for me, a person who gets overwhelmed with sounds. But I came away thinking of all the individual species that cross our ears, that we never identify. They are everywhere, thousands of varieties.

I think about this on my walk today, how easy and even necessary it is to sometimes block out the beautiful things in life. How easy it is to succumb to the vast grey, when there is something beautiful that can’t be heard.

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For me, January is a month of waiting.

Waiting for the year’s schedule to flesh out.

Waiting to plant a garden, after the ice clears.

Waiting for the start of a home renovation.

Waiting for positivity and purpose.

Waiting in anticipation of what new things I can create this year. I don’t want to stagnate, I want to keep creating – to keep writing.

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Life is about waiting, it just is.

And somewhere between the question and the answer is everyday life. As grey and dull and unremarkable as today, sometimes.

But today, it doesn’t bother me so much. I can pull the one birdsong from the sky.

I feel hope.

And now heading home, I am careful of the black ice on the sidewalk that could easily upend me.

A bird titters loudly in the frozen branches. I can’t see it, but it is so clear, so dissonant, that it pierces my thoughts.

The sky has darkened, and still the mood comes back to me, like a birdsong:

What will be? What will be? What will be?

This year, my son comes home the week before Christmas. And first thing each morning, we walk a mile to the neighborhood coffee shop.

One small oat latte, to go, please.

On the way home, he sips the hot drink as we talk. About nothing, really, just everyday bits and bobs. But I feel close to him during this simple ritual.

I know these walks will stay with me for a while.

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Later, I FaceTime with my 89-year-old dad, and he is bright and upbeat. He tells me about all of his political activities and the goings-on at his retirement home.

His face is nearly unchanged to me, his energy is timeless, and his eyes are twinkling with humor.

I try hard to slow down and really listen, and to be present to the moment.

Because always in the back of my mind is the realization that these visits are finite, and I wonder how many we have left.

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On another day, my daughter calls to tell me that her entire family has come down with a nasty stomach virus, and could we please come by and take our grandson out in the stroller.

So we bundle up and pull into their drive, making the transfer from house to stroller very carefully.

I notice how the rosiness in his cheeks is gone, and he seems a bit listless. But he brightens up when we put Bing Crosby’s music on the cell phone.

Then he starts to sing Jingle Bells, with a wide-open exuberance in that sweet toddler voice.

And then we are off – taking in the neighborhood lights and decorations. He is transfixed by the reindeer with mechanical heads that move side to side with beady, life-like eyes.

And when we take him home, he cries and says, go back!, meaning he wants to keep strolling. And who can blame him for not wanting to return to the boring, sick house.

But he finally succumbs to his mother, and goes inside, but not without a teary wave from the window as we drive away.

I want to remember the expression on that little pink face, and recall this whole, sunny afternoon, forever.

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And finally, on Christmas Eve, my grandson insists that I pick him up to examine the creche on our fireplace mantle.

He is fascinated by the animals and the wee baby carved out of wood.

I let him play with the pieces on the floor. He has the donkey talking to the fox, and the angel hiding behind the barn, and little baby Jesus riding the sheep.

Watching him play makes me realize that these pieces were meant for this – they were meant to be brought to life by a little 2-year-old.

And so I savor this little scene of scattered mayhem on the rug.

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Later that night, all my chores done, I lie on the couch, exhausted, with my little black kitty nestled on my blanketed legs.

It’s been over a year since we found him at the shelter, half-starved and with a cone around his head. And now he is my shy, but attentive companion, especially through these winter nights.

He stretches, then darts beneath the Christmas tree, making me laugh as he corners and chases a small bit of fragrant evergreen.

This past year I have loved his entertaining antics.

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The holidays go by in a whirl.

In January, I always find myself wondering where the past few months went.

If you’re like me, you think in big strokes – cleaning and decorating the house, and putting up the tree, or trying some special new recipe for Christmas Eve dinner.

Choosing the right gifts, writing the annual card – all of these things are meaningful, but they don’t really leave an indelible mark.

Rather, it seems to me that it is the small act – the coffee run, the long phone call, the kiss of a tearful child – that will stay with me the most.

It seems to me that it is the small act – the coffee run, the long phone call, the kiss of a tearful child – that will stay with me the most.

So, I want to catch these ordinary moments as they fly by – because life moves so fast, and I want to pay attention to these small things that I love.

These poignant fragments of time, they are like the soapy bubbles that my son waves in a huge wand for my grandson to catch on Christmas Eve – they are so exquisite, so fragile, and so fleeting.

I lie awake in bed, with obsessive thoughts scrolling through my head.

It’s been a long two hours of this:

Was I a good mom?

Can we afford the big remodel of the house?

Why didn’t I ever have a career?

When should I have that hip replacement?

Oh my God, when my grandson graduates from college, I’ll be 82.

I wish I had been better about using sunscreen.

Whatever happened to Mike, my boyfriend from high school?

Sleeping pills are a crutch,

maybe,

maybe not.

Does my dog know that I love the cat more than him?

My writing is stupid.

Why don’t I have a yoga practice?

I hate yoga.

How much longer does my dad have?

Will I get to say goodbye to him?

My upper arms look fat.

I should do yoga.

I love yoga.

I think I see a cockroach crawling on the door frame.

Better call pest control tomorrow.

Is it too late to save the planet from global warming?

How can my husband sleep through all of this?

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Anyway, these nattering thoughts unspool, one after the other. And now I need a break, so I get up to get a drink of water.

And after climbing back into bed, the snarled skeins of worry seem to have come loose, and there is space to untangle them.

First off, I can’t undo the sunscreen thing – it’s just too late.

Second, the parenting issue – that’s too late, too.

Also, I may be around to see my grandson graduate, and for that I will be lucky. Let’s hope that happens.

Next, boyfriend Mike definitely broke up with me, so whatever – what a jerk.

And no, I never had a career, it just didn’t happen, get over it. I’m on my path.

And I’ll call my dad tomorrow.

It’s interesting to me that these ghosts periodically haunt me, but usually with the exact same set of grievances. And I can almost hear them coming when they enter the room, they are so familiar.

They come when I feel anxious, or insecure, or overtired.

I’ve tried to meditate them away, but the scripts are baked in. Simply the consequence of an overactive mind.

In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge faces his mortal demons and becomes enlightened by what he encounters.

After grappling with the years he has wasted, he is finally gifted with a conversion.

I kind of want something like that for me, for some kindly Spirit to guide me through my life and make all things clear.

To absolve things I’ve done wrong, to erase my insecurities.

But really, I am certain that the answers will never come from a ghost. The answers reside within me.

And in the end, I look to the words of the same Charles Dickens, who wrote:

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

And so, I’ll take these words, simple and pre-packaged and ready to absorb into my restless being.

These words are the answer to my questions. They are the answer that helps quiet the late night voices.

They are the answer that soothes me – more than yoga, more than sleeping pills, even more than a talk with my sister.

The answer is easy: the answer is love.

Each season, it seems we have a distinctly different relationship with our outdoor Christmas lights.

When we had babies, the lights were a fun way to introduce holiday symbolism. And through their shining eyes, we travelled back in time to our own childhoods. There was a joy in creating a new tradition.

And then, with the school aged kids, we strung the lights together and helped them learn the ins and outs of de-tangling, and showed them how to drape them just so across the branches.

And then there were the high school years when it just felt like a big chore. With the kids busy and our schedules packed, who really cared about the outdoor lights? What a hassle.

And then, after our son and daughter went off to college, it fell to just the two of us, and it almost felt like the lights were more important than ever.

Our way of saying, so much in your lives has changed, but this stays the same.

Then there was the year we returned from living in Switzerland. Coming off of a pared down living situation in Bern, we were dazed by the excess of decorations and light in the U.S.

And driving down the street, coming home from the airport, we marveled at all of the neighborhood decorations, a little sad to think that our empty house would be bare.

But no, our son Lewis had climbed up on the roof (!) and draped thousands of tiny lights outlining the entire house.

A tear came to my eye, it was like we’d been visited by Santa. And it was like the passing of a torch.

And this year, now that we’ve downsized our house, the temptation is to give up on the Christmas lights – to minimize our traditions altogether.

But I think there is a longing at this time of year, a yearning to bring optimism and light into the cold of Winter. I mean, what a year we have been through, and who knows what 2025 will bring.

But when I walk around the neighborhood I see hope. I see light transforming the night. We are saying no to the darkness and yes to joy.

And now, the thing about having a grandchild is that no matter how depressed and cynical you might be over the state of the world, you can’t stay discouraged for very long.

You see his eyes light up and the excitement rubs off on you. The wonder is huge. Young ones see the magic and only the magic.

And so, today, back at home, my husband heads out to the hardware store with an elaborate plan to construct lighted mesh balls to hang in the tree in the front yard.

And it lifts my spirits. I’m excited for our grandson to see them, to look up and point at the branches, and to tell him that his Poppy made them glow just for him.

In the end, I think the Christmas lights are a reminder to connect with a positive spirit, if I can. But if I can’t, then maybe my sadness can earmark something sweet and rare – the fact that I kept going, and I persisted, even at the darkest times.

Parts of this past year were tough. I look back to the Spring, in the long weeks after COVID, and how hard I struggled to stay hopeful, desperate to hang on to some kind of positivity.

How now, how easy it is, to forget the bad times, when I am well. How hard it is to recall exactly how difficult a day, an hour, even a few minutes was. And how that unique pain of depression can chase all optimism away.

So I guess that this is my hope for the holiday season – not for an erasure of negative thoughts, or an ending to all sadness, but for being grateful that I simply made it through the year.

And that I found a bit of ease when things felt hard, that I kept going even when making an effort seemed futile. That I held on when dark depression was pulling me down.

And maybe this season, as I gaze upon the Christmas lights, I can appreciate both the light and the dark in my year. And that, even for just a moment, I might take the opportunity to remember to feel alive, to feel loved and to feel whole.

Happy Holidays

xoxo B

It feels like I’m hungover today on my morning walk through the neighborhood.

The fog has settled in, it hovers and hides what is in the street right in front of me.

The election placards on peoples’ lawns are limp and dripping from the rain. I can’t stand to look at them.

A bicyclist passes me and it makes me think of being 10, flying though the streets of my hometown, without much of a care. Is that when all of this started? When I let my hands off of the handlebars?

When I took for granted that things would go well. That government was good and democracy was forever.

I still want to believe that all of us in this country want similar things – clean water, good schools, enough resources for everyone.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped paying attention. Maybe I hadn’t noticed that the Dream wasn’t really big enough to include everyone.

And how we’ve been more divided than apart.

My generation was the Reagan years, full of the gluttony of consumerism and gross military might. We were selfish and we took too much.

And now what do we have to offer our own kids – no affordable housing, an insecure job market, negligent healthcare.

I paint things simply.

But last night, having dinner with friends, it was like a solemn wake, only one without a body. And what were we mourning? And to whom could we offer our condolences?

And now, this afternoon, my grandson is teaching me to be a bird. At the park, on the swing-set, he wants me to push him higher and higher, like he has wings – soaring to the top of the sky.

And with his chubby arms extended. He says “cheep-cheep”. And he says, “Look how high” and “birdie is so high in the sky”.

Over and over.

He laughs and I want him to feel like this forever.

A bright baby bird, with auburn hair flying – fragile, but brave.

I’m free, he says.

I’m free.

I stoop to retrieve the small pink shell from the frilly edge of the surf. Upon rinsing, I see that it is perfect, without flaws.

Years of being scraped along the ocean floor, tossed upon the waves, it comes to me as a delicate bit of ephemera.

Late afternoon, I walk up to the beach house, dusting the sand from the shell inside my pocket. Such a delicate thing, yet, further away from the beach, it takes on a different weight in my palm.

And days later, at my kitchen sink, I display it. And days after that, the reality of the actual treasure starts to fade from my mind.

Treasured memories of my son sleeping under the umbrella, my husband stretched out with a book. My grandson shrieking in the waves with his mommy.

In some way the shell is more real to me than those remembrances. The shell is like a bone from an animal unknown, dead but substantial.

Last weekend, I placed the little shell inside my cardboard shrine on Dia de Muertos. I arranged it on my simple altar that I set up every year to honor my mom, who died in 2013.

I placed it next to some flowers, a glass of wine, several old photos, and a ring she’d given me. And I drank the glass with her and I gazed at her beautiful face, and I tried to remember.

And I reached to sift through my mind, to find connections among the items. I touched the relics.

I remembered her at the beach, how she hated the water, until we made her go out with us. She would always thank us for “making” her get in.

Her deep brown skin. Her flowered bathing cap.

The gift of freedom she allowed us – never fretting for our safety.

How strange that her body is gone, and that I can’t hold it like an insignificant shell tossed and tumbled across the sea floor.

And today it feels like the sand is shifting through my fingers and nothing seems permanent. But for the glow from the candle that reminds me to hold on, to think of her, and to remember.

Anyway, I want to believe her spirit is resting gently here with me, or somewhere in between, or maybe somewhere else completely.

But no, I want her to be here, I pray that she is here.

And, in my pocket, my fingers probe the slight weight and fragility of the shell – a sandy talisman of the permanence and the impermanence of it all.

Call me sentimental or nostalgic or whatever, but listening to Kamala Harris’s recent speech and how she was talking about women’s power and freedom and agency, it just made me feel so badass. Like back when we were pre-teens in the 1970s.

In those days, my twin sisters and me were still playing with dolls and Barbies, we hadn’t formed our Charley’s Angels Detective Agency just yet. But we had all the makings of a smart, sassy, unbeatable trio.

Because it was clear that 3 was always going to be a tricky number. Three young girls – negotiating consensus, avoiding gossip, rooting out jealousy – even then we knew that those things could undermine sisterhood.

But it wasn’t until five or six years ago, as adults, that we forged an alliance and we made it happen. We became a kick-ass team. And now we check in daily, have each other’s backs, and come to one another’s defense in any situation.

Meet me, Jill (Farrah Fawcett), and my sister Kelly (Jackie Smith) and the youngest, Bree (Kate Jackson). We formed this trio during a tough time in our family’s life, and we’ve been action-packed ever since.

It started with the dolls.

Someone sent them to us recently and we just went crazy with the storylines and the outfits. Inside jokes that were definitely only hysterical to us.

To us the three sisters.

We ordered extra clothes, posed them in various locales – you name it, they went on many adventures. At one point Farrah broke her hip (torn at the upper femur) after a nasty encounter with the dog.

But anyway, over time – no more familial triangulation for us, no gossipy back-biting, and no more not showing up for the gritty emotional stuff.

Now we’re a tough trio, and we pack guns.

Yes, I was a little taken aback by the fact that Kamala Harris owns a gun and even that she would shoot it if her life was in danger.

But we get this.

In fact, we’d love to take her out for a ladies lunch at the firing range – so we can all put bullets in those men’s silhouettes. What a rush. And a mimosa afterwards (no martini, James).

We’re there, call us Madame VP.

But guns aren’t the main thing really, it’s mostly about strategy and timing and physical prowess (gymnastics helps). Kelly can instantly snap a perp’s wrist with a well placed kick to dislodge a gun. And Bree can cold-cock any guy around, or lay them down with a swift, well-placed kick to the cajones.

And another thing, we don’t need or want any Charley or Bosley as a boss, we do just fine without those orders to dress in skimpy evening dresses.

And no more spending all of those hours in the makeup chair. These days we prefer a good moisturizer, and our Hanes 100-per cent cotton briefs. And our Skechers slip-ons actually serve us pretty well.

Make no mistake we are still pure glamour – it’s just all in the attitude.

The natural glow that Kelly gets when she knees a crotch, or when Bree goes undercover as a man – well, the fact of being 60 just disappears. And for me, Jill, there is a certain gravitas in sporting a grey lion’s mane that instantly radiates respect.

And that’s what our dolls give us.

They remind us of why we played with them and how much joy and possibility they gave us. The freedom of choice (lame’ or stretch one-piece) was right there in our grubby hands.

What goes around comes around – and be careful what you joke about (Bree’s hairdo) because the power always rises. The little hand that patiently brushed that hair out, grew to understand that beauty is less in the hairdo and more in the flexibility of the the hip flexors.

Oh, and the accessories.

Jill treasures that skateboard and it saved her ass in Malibu on several occasions. Kelly’s ever changing scarf is simply a revelation on tough spy cases. And while there’s not much you can do with Bree, her smug smirk is a perfect match to those no-fuss stretch jeans.

Seriously, I love my Angels and I highly recommend that you find a Mattel (or whatever brand) character to pretend with, too. It’s a stress buster – and so fun to pose them in precarious cliff-hangers for Instagram.

It’s just a campy nod to the past, it’s retro-restorative, it’s simple girl-power fun.

It’s all of that.

It’s sisterhood.

Just about now, you can almost hear the collective sighs of the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s kind of a dark joke where my sister lives.

Yes, the mums have come out.

Summer’s on the way out – cue the long Winter of cold and snow.

The bright annuals are perched and ready in the doorways, like a shield of defiance from the cold.

It’s a wistful goodbye to summer with a last bright spot of yellow.

We mark our weather and the seasons like we mark our moods. The routine and flow of this keeps us on track, and reminds us of where we are in nature, and in our bodies.

Being over 60 is a bit like this. I know this next season of my life is here, but I can’t resist a parting shot of color. It is born of pride and a bit of stubborness, maybe.

I still keep trying to run, like always, but it’s been downgraded to running/walking and is now morphing into brisk walking. With a strained hamstring and other ailments, I wonder what this next stage will be like.

Old age.

Today I thought that maybe I’m looking at it wrong. It’s not, Oh no, not another long Winter.

Instead it crossed my mind – how many more times will I buy these flowers?

We seem to think we have infinite time, perennial seasons.

But we don’t.

I do know that I want to be able to get down on the floor and play with my grandson. I’d also like to scamper across the sand at the beach and swing him around.

Okay, maybe that’s a little ambitious.

It’s funny, whenever I sit and read with my grandson, he grabs the saggy skin on my forearm and squishes it and he pinches it throughout the entire story.

The first time he did it, I reflexively started to comment or explain – for being old, I guess. Seriously.

But I didn’t. I treasured the moment.

As Robert Frost wrote, Nothing gold can stay.

So today, I’m trying not to fixate on the state of my body next to the young runners on the trail, or going crazy with free weights in the bedroom.

I’m simply trying to slow the steps down and appreciate the sno-cone like mums, popping up so joyfully, and so briefly, all over the neighborhood porches.

The hottest of afternoons, and just too damn humid to go outside with a toddler.

Wet, sticky hair on the back of my neck. A brain prickling with thoughts about climate change.

The dog pants on a continuous loop, cicadas scream. A young hawk perches limply at the birdbath.

Another hurricane, another election, another crop of young high school athletes running their hearts out on a blistering track.

Still today, bright music streams out from my stereo speakers, and my 18 month-old grandson is poised like a young disco star, ready to dance.

One chubby arm extended above his head, he waits for the beat. Red-faced, he stomps and sways and twirls through the songs.

And when he moves on to his toy train set, I stay and listen to the last song, and I tear up thinking about the wasted planet.

One light, one sun
One sun lighting everyone
One world turning
One world turning everyone

One world, one home /One world home for everyone /One dream, one song/ One song heard by everyone

One love, one heart
One heart warming everyone
One hope, one joy
One love filling everyone

Today, Raffi is what I need.

Old Raffi – from a childhood 30 years ago – the same innocent melodies of hope, the same reassuring voice.

A reminder of how much has changed, and how much is exactly the same.