Birds and cicadas

Several weeks ago, a neighbor wrote to our listserv asking if anyone else had dead black birds in their yard or noticed them around the neighborhood. She had two dead birds, one of which seemed to drop out of the sky; it crashed onto her balcony.

Other neighbors responded during the following days. They, too, were coming across dead birds, all black and rather large- like grackles or blackbirds.

Concurrently, the patient cicadas of BroodX started to surface. I began to see trees wrapped like mummies in fine-mesh netting but didn’t think more of it. Oliver has been very excited about the brood’s emergence, and through his eyes I saw the magic of these little creatures. One evening, he sat statue-still in a tree for nearly 45 minutes, quietly filming a cicada molt. His science teacher has talked quite a bit about BroodX, and Ol knew more about them than I did, again opening my eyes to a deeper magic and awareness of the theatre of the natural world all around us.

Not everyone is so sanguine about the cicadas though. I don’t love when they land and walk on my body, but I’m certainly not going to hurt them. They are so gentle and appear to be both incredibly earnest and kinda dumb. When you pick them up, to remove them from your body or out of a dangerous spot on the sidewalk, say, they make the funniest sound. It sounds like distress or frustration, and I cluck comfortingly until I manage to put each one as high as possible. Oliver says their goal is to go way, way up in trees so they can more safely lay eggs. Anyway, I tend to anthropomorphize the crap out of animals, so who really knows what their little grunts mean, but I like them.

Several days ago, as I was leaving to get Ol from school, a blackbird flew into an exterior wall of our house and fell into the window bay below. I didn’t have time to stop, but as soon as we got home, I told Jack to get a box and a towel and Ol to get a small bowl of water, while I donned gloves and lowered myself into the window well. The poor bird had crusty eyes and looked frantic. I spoke softly and gently clutched him in my gloved hands, managed to get out of the well, and placed him in the box. Before we could close it, he took flight and weaved drunkenly across the street. We saw him fly into a tree and drop several feet, and I doubt he was long for the world.

Today in the Washington Post, this article discussed the recent spate of bird deaths and blindness -the premise is a mysterious neurological illness striking them [an earlier article suggested West Nile via mosquito, but recent tests have come back negative]. Some have hypothesized that they are falling ill, going blind, and dying because of all the pesticides people are putting out to kill the cicadas. No one knows yet, but it’s concerning and sad.

The number of dead and dying cicadas alone has been tough enough to bear; I’ve been surprised by how sorry I feel about how many don’t make it. It’s like their entire evolutionary plan is mass numbers and instinct, neither of which seems terribly hopeful. Why do we need to kill them all? They’re an ephemeral presence, and they sing all day. Yes, it’s loud at times, but consider it white noise.

Little cicada corpses are everywhere, and now birds are going blind and falling out of the sky, and honestly, after 16 months of mass dying and suffering from Covid, I’m both weary and discomfited. Parts of the world are in severe drought; others are flooding; some are melting; others are starving. The planet is telling us something. I hope more people start to listen.

Creativity

In my last post, I wrote about anxiety, a companion for as long as I can remember. I imagine it should seem obvious, but I have just (!) made the connection between my anxiety and my creative spirit: when I have insufficient time to imagine or create, my anxiety increases. At this ripe age of 45, the lesson is, apparently, “never stop paying attention to your being because you still might learn some things.”

Perhaps this is why women seem to flourish in our later thirties, forties, fifties, and on. We start to make connections to and simultaneously honor our needs, desires, ways of thriving, and all the impediments to those that life, society, and family have erected: the expectations, shoulds, and very real responsibilities that sap us dry if we let them. But as life goes on, more and more women start to say, “Fuck this. I am tired, and I have done my damn part.” It’s liberating, albeit vexing at times; to let go, to consider disappointing or angering, to care less because you’re caring more for self. It can feel downright illicit though I suspect most of us describe our reactions towards self as selfish. Isn’t that rich?! Self-honoring as selfish. I swear y’all, women have been sold the shittiest grab bag of plastic crap.

Yes, there is entirely too much self-absorbed, self-preferencing, no-generosity-of-spirit in the world. Sometimes the social contract seems more than threadbare. But as I sit on my porch, relishing a day of breeze and birds and bugs and quietude (yes: my children have been away since 11a), it seems self-ish may be worthy of reconsideration.

There isn’t much in the way of etymological history regarding selfish. One of the earliest mentions I found was, perhaps not surprisingly, by a 17th century Protestant. Jesus, the puritanical guilt over everything. [Possibly, at that time, men experienced similar “guilt” as women, were they not “Christian” enough, but still; I am sure women experienced more. ]

Anyway, per an etymological dictionary, in the 17th C, synonyms of selfish included: self-seeking (1620s), self-ended and self-ful.” Firstly, it should be clear why I put that in quotes, beyond not wishing to plagiarize: IT HAS NO OXFORD COMMA! I was once a doubter but am now a fully-converted believer. Use the Oxford. Do you want to eat grandpa?

And secondly, let’s take a close look at those synonyms.

1. Self-seeking: could not this mean searching for a greater understanding of self? Methinks it could, and more power to the person seeking!

2. Self-ended: this sounds antiquated, vaguely sexual, and self-absorbed. This is a definite contender for an accurate replacement of selfish.

3. Self-ful: if one is not ful of self, one is, as it stands mathematically, somewhat empty. So, we could imagine that ful of self is totally self-focused. But is that bad? Could it mean that one is self-aware enough to fashion a self in part derived from Self and in part derived from identities related to others? Caring for, working with/for, in relation with/to? Perhaps self-ful could be considered as a holistic understanding of Self which includes a variety of interests and connection. Indeed, the -ful is “a quasi-suffix attached to nouns denoting a containing thing…” But is the containing vessel exclusive, or is it porous? This seems consequential to me.

Regardless, the understanding of selfish since the 1600s seems largely unchanged. I’m not here tonight to redefine or re-connote a word. I’ve had two glasses of rosé and my kids will be home soon. My point is that ugly self-absorption is not the same is understanding and honoring one’s self and one’s needs. I am never worse off emotionally than when I ignore myself. And here we can circle back to creativity and me. #selfish or #selfaware?

The pandemic has, essentially, been an experiment in forcing most people to ignore the lives they’d fashioned for themselves in the Before so as to “successfully” survive the WTF Now. In my case, the then was a tiny bit of time for me surrounded by the boys, Tom, the pets, our house, volunteering, and activism. It was tenuous, y’all. And then, a barbed sphere of profound assholery emerged, and my tenuous balance was shot to Uranus.

ASSHOLE!

I held up really well for a very long time. I am, admittedly, a high-functioning human. I’ve honed this well over decades of being judged and misunderstood and sheepish for and about my emotional self. To err is too risky; to be perfect smooths all seams.

But the hurricane, winter, Susan Fucking Collins and politics, more than 14 months straight of no school for Jack, and this girl began to crumble.

My internist: “How about calling a therapist?”
Me: “Please, what would/could that do? Nothing can change right now.”

My husband: “Do you want to call RS?”
Me: “Please, what would/could that do? Nothing can change right now.”

Some friends: “Do you want to call a counselor? Look into an anti-depressant? I have, I have, I have.”
Me: “Please, what would/could that do? Nothing can change right now.”

But you know what? Shit can get harder. So I called RS, and immediately everything was improved. RS is amazing. She is 85 years old, maybe more. She is an absolute beast of a Woman. I love her. She has white hair, is always impeccably dressed, always has fresh flowers and flourishing African violets everywhere, and has the most profound appreciation of boundaries I have EVER WITNESSED. I’m telling y’all, she will cut you off if you’re in heaving sobs and time’s up. I have learned a great deal from her.

The essential message was: “How are you tending your creative self? And how are you setting boundaries that are healthy for you?”

Readers, as you may have surmised, I was not at all tending my creative self, beyond the sporadic-yet-obsessive cross stitch session. #SoManyCrossStitchedThings And boundaries? 😂🤣

In the crush of everything, my natural inclination was, is, to jettison Me to keep everything else afloat. But that is just not sustainable, and though I seem to have learned some profound lessons at 45, others remain elusive. They remain in the realm of learned-over-decades-is-selfish versus live-well-and-Self-ish.

Yesterday, Dad and I went to the dump and unburdened ourselves of much material weight. I had lunch with him and Mom and taught Mom to sell things on Facebook Marketplace before going to Michael’s for some canvasses and gesso. Then, I returned home, kissed everyone, and set up my long-dormant easel in the backyard. I opened the art bin Mom made me decades ago: “Nichols” written in Sharpie on every brush; my glass Mona Lisa jar-with-screen brush cleaner still completely usable, including bonus solid residue from the last time I painted; an ancient jar of pink soap; a giant tube of Titanium White; my old smock; a palette knife.

To be honest, I felt sheepish sitting there, my easel and a canvas propped atop a cheap TV tray on admittedly-thriving fescue. What could I create? Who was I to make art without a plan on a sunny Saturday afternoon? There were baskets of laundry to fold, a birthday present to wrap, dinner to consider, and so on.

But, oh, my creative self: at this point just feisty embers but definitely there; pissed, tired, and in need of oxygen. So I sat with my self-doubt and discomfort and considered how much I love Hunt Slonem’s bunny paintings and how wholly Tom does not care about Hunt Slonem, oil painting, or bunnies beyond a cassoulet, and so certainly does not want to spend what it costs to buy one. I sat with all that, and then I just opened the tub of gesso and tried to recall all my years of art lessons with Ms. Melton.

I considered the strawberry soda I liked to drink and the confidence I felt in her room and the longevity of lovingly-stored brushes and paints and Lyquin and sense-memory. Afterwards, I looked at my painting of bunnies, and honestly? I was pleased. “Good” or “bad” isn’t the point. The exercise and product are.

What does it mean when we believe in what we once knew and act on that? On what we once could do and made time for?

Why do we stop doing those things and that? And what is the cost?

For me, at least, the cost is great. It is increasingly one I’m not willing to barter. Even if it takes a low point and RS to remind me of the value of holding my line.

I have always thought that artistic genius and mental “illness” are meeting points on a circle versus end points on a line. This is not remotely to say that I consider myself any sort of artistic prodigy or mentally unwell. What it is is but a reconfiguration of the denotation and an acknowledgment of the porous membrane between wellness and not. What was once selfish may actually be the self-seeking of a self-ful self. In that is plenty of room for love and compassion and care of others WHILE keeping one’s own core vibrant and alive.

In living a truest self, the possibility of isolation always threatens. Some will find your boundaries, your expression, your very being unappetizing. So. So! So? “So what!” is painful but also freeing. At least I think so, now. In this moment of delighted clarity, I urge you to go plant, paint, sow/sew, read, think, water, love, give, share and also to do all of that for your Self.

Earth Day

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry

Despite my enormous fortune, I would be lying if I said this past year was anything but enormously difficult. From cancelations that led to disappointments and distance to my parents’ loss in Hurricane Laura, from the staggering death toll of Covid 19 to the unconscionable and incessant toll of racist and Republican brutality, from the hundreds of days of “school” in distance learning to the relentless constancy of cook/clean/feed/console/decide/guide/repeat, I am running on fumes. Everyone I know is.

One friend who I’ve not seen for at least a year pulled up alongside me in traffic today. We rolled down our windows at a red light, delighted to see each other and yet stunned by our mutual exhaustion. Therapy, severe eczema, glistening eyes, warm smiles! Who knew so much could be shared in seconds at a stop light?

Back home, I began baking pies, one for a dear friend my age who just endured her first round of chemo. Her children are the same ages as Jack and Ol. My friend is effusive and vibrant. She is lustrous. She said pie sounded good, and so I got busy.

Meanwhile, after two days of school, Jack was home once more. He and I helped Mom and Dad move a few heavy items, and I kept my fingers crossed that Tom could break from Zoom long enough to get the pie out of the oven while we were out.

Home again, I found that one of my beloved trio of housekeepers got good news yesterday: she and her family were granted asylum here after being terrorized out of life in El Salvador. They had received videos, multiple videos, with pictures of each member of the family, identified, graphically threatened. I hugged her and saw more glistening eyes, these of gratitude for her family’s safety, yes, but also of profound exhaustion born of months and months of fear and uncertainty. I tucked a note and some money in her pocket, hoping it might cover a bit of celebration tonight.

On the way to pick Oliver up, I delivered my friend’s pie. She is beautiful as ever, but I have never seen her look so deeply fatigued, surely a fatigue also born of months of uncertainty and fear and that cautious hope that feels both essential and risky. We hugged so tightly, twice, and it almost felt criminal in this time of distance. But it also felt right, and I only hope the pie tastes good to her.

I, too, am tired. My heartbreak over this country, my worry for my friends and family, my sense of profound dislocation from self. It’s been a lot. It continues to be a lot.

One thing that holds me straight and strong though remains nature. My yard and the many tiny ecosystems it nurtures. The birds and squirrels who sing and chase and eat in picky fashion through the buffet of options I leave for them once or twice daily. The decomposing leaves, the perennials budding anew, the stubborn hope that is a garden shrugging off winter and throwing its shoulders back proudly in the advent of spring.

My Nanny always said that you could bury your troubles in the soil. Yes, you can do that. But I have found the process of burying to be even more profoundly healing and helpful than the entombing. And perhaps, probably, that’s what Nanny meant all along. I suspect that’s why my parents have always found gardening so fulfilling; you focus and give and plow and sow and then after a long while, or seemingly suddenly, you are rewarded with a clearer mind and a bounty that only nature can generate.

I struggle to relax. I always have. I am an anxious soul for whom action is often liberating, at least momentarily. Productivity, accomplishment, giving, growing. These things heal me and yet these are the very things I have found so horribly elusive since Covid struck. When you’re never alone, the opportunities to sink into flow, the way one does when hoeing and spading and weeding and amending, become the rarest of birds. For me, the lack of flow has been the more painful struggle this year.

And so, spring is such a balm. New growth takes time, and you must patiently, carefully watch. You must listen for the quiet tune. Each day I visit my gardens. I thank the worms, I exclaim over every new bud, leaf, shoot, speck of green promise. I send whispers on the wind to the monarchs and pollinators that the milkweed and Joe Pye and bee balm are all growing as quickly and mightily as they can. The penstemon and anemones and forget-me-nots are waiting. The Columbines are taking over again, the raspberries are betting the blackberries that this year they’ll claim more square footage. The irises have gone insane, as have the hellebores. It’s flora-fauna mayhem out there, and I delight in it.

Our county has banned Weed-and-Feed, much to Tom’s chagrin and much to be absolute satisfaction. RoundUp and Sevin should go the way of napalm, in my opinion. Let’s let nature do its thing; she’s only trying to keep us all healthy and well.

Tomorrow, on Earth Day, I beseech you to say thanks to the green spaces you see. Plant something or perhaps pick up some litter or pull some weeds. Listen to the birds and the insects, leave a little extra seed for the damn squirrels who really are so dear if you get past their voracious, crafty ways. Breathe deeply where you can, when you can. If we’ve not learned this past year that life is short and precious, well, force be with you. It is both, and we need to live well but also live for future generations.

Tomorrow, on Earth Day, Tom and I are making official our ownership of 72 acres in West Virginia. I am beside myself with joy and gratitude. With thrill over a truly magnificent parcel of land that I can tend and love, that my children can run across with unbridled freedom, that my family and friends can use as a respite of the sort only big nature can provide. It will be an honor to love and protect this land and to let it hold and heal us as we make our way back to ourselves and each other after such a hard time.

”Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” -Rachel Carson

Black Lives Matter.
No Justice, No Peace.
Know Justice, Know Peace.