Silent Night

I have a new friend named Caroline who loves all the same things that I do. Things abandoned and crumbling as well as things alive, blooming, growing, thriving.  This is Caroline. She is a professional floral designer, among many other talents.

photo of Caroline in action by Sally Burton

So it was only natural that I take this lovely friend around to two of my favorite spots

 to find wood and odd iron

 and an old forsythia putting out flowers brave and unexplained in December

some most excellent coy-wolf poop, full of deer hair and PERSIMMON SEEDS and even some bluish persimmon pedicels.

This was almost the piece de resistence but it would get better. I know. Better than fruityhairy coy-wolf poop? But how??

We made a pilgrimage to the Waxler Church to see its quiet interior.

                                                         photo by Caroline Waller

It being close to Christmas, and we being fresh from a wassail party where I discovered that the girl could sho nuff sing, we punched RECORD on my iPhone and executed a carol as a little hymn to the silence. We didn't practice first. We are both mezzo sopranos and perfectionists (one of the things that binds us together!) but we decided it would be what it would be, and we held hands and jumped off the cliff together. I took the harmony part. The phone was too close to me. C'est la vie.

Click here to hear.

While we were singing, Chet Baker trit-trotted around the church interior, listening, and then decided to scratch his Christmas-sweatered back on a bathmat. So if you hear snorfling and thumping that would be Chet, and me and Caroline trying not to laugh.

What a goofball. Merry Christmas! 

Chet in Church

In my last post, I demonstrated Dogtography, Mode I, the Fashion Photog mode, where I put the camera right in Chet's highly aware little face, talk to him, coach him and snap away. That's fine for what it is, but Mode II is when the neatest stuff happens. 

That's when I turn off the sound on my iPhone camera so he can't hear the (fake) shutter skazicking, sit back and just let what happens happen. It becomes an exercise in composition, with Chet composing the shots for me. A synergy with this little animal and the place we love that is nothing short of magical. 

Witness:

On this rare, rare sunny morning the light was pouring in the Waxler Church like honey, and Chet was deciding where to take his sunbath.

Here might be best.

When he finally folded onto the dusty wood floor, he looked like nothing so much as a reverent little lamb.

And yet there was an attentiveness about him that made me think he was listening to something from beyond.

Who knows what a dog thinks about when he's sitting in the sun?

Perhaps nothing at all. Perhaps he's hearing a conversation between spirits. Nose to the wall, ears turned backward, he's hearing something. 

The simple interior of Waxler Church has a timeworn perfection that draws me back again and again. I am so grateful to the people who keep it standing. Who leave it unlocked for the wanderers. I know why they do that. Because otherwise, someone might break in. Lock it, and you're inviting destruction. Leave it open, and they don't have to ruin it to get inside.

 I wish these caretakers could somehow know what this place means to me. How it soothes my soul. How its perfect woodwarm acoustics give my wavery, sometimes thin-in-the-higher-register voice wings. Here, where nobody can hear me, is where I come to sing. And, in my own way, worship. Hosannas to light, one after another.

More slate shingles and part of the belfry siding came off in the last storm, the same one that tore the panes from my greenhouse. I'll do a preemptive strike, and will tape them in place with clear Gorilla Repair Tape tomorrow. According to my Guardian Storm Angel, Christmas Day will bring winds of at least 40 mph, to pluck and pick and tear at the fragile little structures I love and need most. 

  I know that this church will not grace its windswept hilltop forever. I find it more careworn with every visit; the ruffled slate roof rougher, the floor a little more rotted under the old central stovepipe.  I mean to appreciate it while it is here, because all good things seem to come to an end. If passing 50 teaches you anything, it is a full appreciation of ephemerality.

Whatever Turns on Ya

My old friend Walter Sweet used to say that. "Whatever turns on ya." A play, of course, on the swingin' 70's saying, "Whatever turns you on."

Any more, it's pretty simple. Sun. Flowers. Being outside. Not being cooped up because it's raining and gray. 

Hey, if I can't whine here, where can I whine?

Today (Sunday December 7) was stupendously clear and sunny. I felt like an appliance, dragged from a dark cupboard, plugged in and ready to do my thing. I felt like a mixer. A Cuisinart. An electric knife. Gimme something to do.

Which turned out to be a five-mile run with the dog, a photosafari and hymn singing in the old church, and a trip to Athens for a concert, dinner and frozen custard. Whoot! 

While I got ready for my day Chet had a good chew with his boy. 

He's kind of cute when he chews, with that little white glove and that spaced-out face. He's in Chewspace. 

The aquarium is looking thrifty of late. Maybe I'll do a tank post here in a bit, when the new fish settle in. 

Speaking of things turning on ya...

My primary winter coping mechanism is badly out of whack this season. The Groanhouse is driving me nucking futs again. In the last huge wind (gusts in excess of 60 MPH), three panes blew out of it. Because the stupid rubber weatherstrip never fit in the channels in the first place, they were more prone to blowing out. And, surprise! I couldn't get the panes back in right without disassembling the entire structure. So I had to force them back on (as opposed to in) and duct-tape them more or less in place. 

Disassembling the Groanhouse. And then trying to reassemble it.

This is something I can't even think about doing. Talk about diminishing returns.

On top of that, the new heater I got is way, way too much for the space. And it has thermostat issues. The temperature swings from 56 to 80 within a few minutes each time the damn thing kicks on. It won't keep the temperature even in the space.

You can imagine what my poor plants think of that. When it's cold outside, they literally cook, their leaves scorching.

All of this is my fault for buying what looked like a good greenhouse, which turned out to be impossible. I just can't win for losing with this structure. And then buying the wrong heater. It seems every time I have something figured out, something else goes wrong.

So I've moved all the plants into the house until I can get something figured out with a new smaller heater. That will happen this week, I hope. I don't know what to do about the Groanhouse's propensity to blowing apart. Who can predict the next gale? And what if I'm in Costa Rica when it happens? 

And on this ridgetop, it WILL happen.

Everything dies?

blaaaaaa

Bill has sweetly promised to put his head together with Tools and present a solution. Tools, y'hear that?

Marcy!! Now is the time for all good countrywomen to lend me their man!!

Thankfully, a few select plants like Hibiscus "The Path" have come into our living space and are doing what they can to cheer me up. The rest are in the tower room, where they'll get cool temps and plenty of light, but no extreme swings. My Fitbit says I climbed 125 flights in one day. Part of that was bringing plants from the Groanhouse to the Tower Room. I was wondering why my knees hurt...

Even when I had the heating situation figured out last winter, The Path never was able to bloom in the greenhouse. Temperature swings were too wide, punishing. But oh, she's blooming in the living room. For her, it's all about having an even ambient temperature. Or at least not being chilled, then cooked 30 times a day. The Path is a plant in perimenopause. She gets a pass.

Honey, if you make 7" wide flowers that look like that, you can demand anything you want of me. Daily spraying for aphids? You got it. Warm watering water? Check. Kisses right on the pistil? 

Yup. Mwah!

So, not being able to futz in the greenhouse any more, and having a deadline that is breathing hot fire down my neck, I've poured myself into work on the new book. It's called Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest. It's due April 15, 2015, and it'll take a full year for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to produce it. So it's due out spring 2016. I know, a long time. But not to me! I've been working on this for 13 years. What's another year to a writer? What's time to a hog?

I get a lot done in these quiet days, especially on the gray ones when being outside isn't so alluring.

Working on the book is life itself. It's so affirming to paint squirming young birds in dark December, to paint them growing and changing and becoming birds before my eyes.

But a sunny day...ahhh. So rare, so fine, so desperately needed when one finally comes around.

 This Sunday Dec. 7 was the last day of gun season. I wrote a little haiku couplet in its honor. 

Gun season's last day

Orange men, pickups in full force.

In thickets,ears twitch. 

They filled their bellies last night.

Legs folded, hearts still.

Tonight, under a Yule moon

They will dance again.

The Light, The Moment, The Dog

We move along on this June morning, headed back home. Chet starts to turn down Stanleyville Road, always a favorite destination for its cattle and barn cats. "No, honey, we're going up to the church," I say, and he immediately corrects his course and bounds up the Waxler Church driveway ahead of me. It's so good to have a dog who understands English.

We visit Ada Hune first. Of course you'd plant a sweetheart rose over a 14-year-old girl. 

Chet comes and sits with Ada for awhile while I tell her how beautiful her rose is today. She doesn't send any rainbows or orbs, but I feel her presence intensely. 

We go to the door, and there's a tattered old spicebush swallowtail resting on the lintel. It isn't afraid of Chet. He wouldn't hurt it anyway. 

Virginia creeper curls and purrs around the front stoop, wanting in.

I go in and sing a new song I'm working on, a cowboy song. The prairie gets songs out of me every time. Writing a song is sometimes the only thing that gets to certain aches, puts gentle pressure on them until they release just a bit. Singing it helps, too.

Chet lies down to doze while I work on it in the resonant space of the sanctuary. I love being far from anyone, able to sing unheard. This is my rehearsal space, among all the other things it means to me. I marvel that it stands here unlocked, and I can rent it any time I want.

He gets up and finds a spotlight of sun, as Boston terriers are wont to do. I believe he is aware how photogenic he is.

The light in this place kills me, every time. The light and the fusty smell and the presence of so many spirits. The walls are painted the lightest, most subtle mint green, perfect with the worn brown pews. It's such a simple place, but it fills something in my heart to be here, to visit it in every kind of light and weather. But for the mice I could probably live here. There are a LOT of mice.

My favorite shot of the day, Chet turning to go outside and see what's what. His neat little paws, his lovely shiny coat, the shadow he casts, the fluid motion implied, the perspective of the pews...the outside beckoning. Can you hear the catbird singing, preaching in the multiflora hedge just beyond that open door? 

Before we head home, we snoop around an old farmhouse that's now used as a hunting cabin. 

Listen, pry, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. We are not here long. --Walker Evans

When we had our kitchen renovated in 1999, I wanted a linoleum floor. I chose a single-sheet Congoleum that looks like tile. Our contractor, a respected friend, didn't think much of that; he doesn't like building materials that are trying to look like other materials. He advised ceramic tile. "But tile breaks everything you drop on it, and this is going to be a hard-working kitchen, a baby (Liam) underfoot too. I need a kinder floor than tile." Of course, it was to be my floor, so I won in the end. I'm fine with Congoleum. That looks like tile.

But I thought of Dan and felt his point being driven home as I looked at this marvelous...stuff, this, um, covering, so badly wrapped around the back of the old house. I don't know what you call it--asphalt shingle sheeting? Whatever it is, it's trying real hard to look like brick.

 Epic fail. But a great backdrop for Chet. And yes, the porch is sloping that badly.

Those neat little paws again. 

He is a picturemaker, a perfect muse, walking through every painting I see, pausing just long enough to let me record each fleeting mood and moment. Sometimes I'll miss the moment, and I'll have to ask him to go back for me. I did that in the shot below. Well of course. I'll go back. How's this alert look?

 I'm always flabbergasted when I try to photograph any other dog. They simply don't get how to have their picture taken, or hate the way the camera stares at them and actively try to thwart it. It's nearly impossible to get a decent clear photo, much less the evocative portraits I make of Chet every day. Other dogs never stop moving; they poke their noses at the lens; they bowl me over; they constantly turn away. And I realize that this little dog is actively working with me to make these images. He stops still and poses on purpose.  He knows what makes a good shot and he gives me that.  

What a gem we have in Chet Baker. I treasure him more with every passing day, every pat of his sleek hide, every new gray hair on that dear wise brow.

Ada Speaks

Such a string of dizzyingly beautiful days, all in a row, have graced the end of May. It's the perfect time for me to get back into running in a big way. So much has been going on. I'm feeling pulled in many directions. When I feel like that I have to take a few hours each day for my body and spirit. It's always more than worth the time. Saving oneself, always worth it. :) What's that they say about the oxygen mask? You put yours on first,  and then help your kids with theirs. It's not a selfish thing. It's how it's done. 

I never know where I'm headed until faced with the decision at the T intersection at the end of the driveway, then at the end of the township road. Regular route or long run? If a long run, to the old farmstead or down Dean's Fork? Off to visit the grasshopper sparrow, the red-spotted newt pond, the bluebird trail or the Waxler Church? How about all of them? There are destinations, and decisions must be made. 

As always, my hardy companion leads the way. He deeply appreciates the long runs, the new places, and he'll take the lead instead of lagging behind. Dogs get bored with routine, too! 

I feel incredibly blessed to have so many different possible outcomes to a morning's jog, all reachable on foot. It pains me to think of the years I did not explore my little patch, the years I wore a rut in the same 45-minute hike around our land. And yet I got a book (Letters from Eden) out of that, and that route I called The Loop seemed incredibly rich to me then, tied as I was to nap and meal schedules for the kids when they were little. My mind and horizons have expanded some since those infant and toddler days. I now have a 7-mile radius that I explore, which is still a fairly modest home range for a large omnivore.

How lucky I am to have this vista to contemplate! The hill's bowl acts as a perfect amphitheater for birdsong. By the time I reach here, only 1.3 miles from home, I'm usually up into the 50's on my bird species count. It's a game I play. I let the birdsong pull me along. I know where I can "get" each species, and I wait to hear them call or sing. It may seem silly, but as a result of this little game, I have an incredibly detailed mental picture of exactly what species breed where in this landscape. I usually beat 60 in May, and may hit 72 before the day is over. Huzzah!

 I think one could do this almost anywhere, map a series of runs or walking routes. My home in Appalachian Ohio just happens to be a place where the routes are painfully beautiful, especially in May. 

A golden--backed snipe fly, Chrysopilus thoracicus. It's always a good omen for me. They're my little F-16's, bejeweled fighter planes. Predatory on other insects. Often found coupling on sunny mornings on the ground or low leaves. Luucky.  He's got a scary monster shadow, this one. 

I stop to inhale the grapey aroma of Mr. Funk's irises, and remember that it is high peony time, and I have some peonies to visit at the Waxler cemetery. Old peonies, maybe special ones.

The first thing I find is some iris that have been discarded, probably from graves, off to the side. Oh, how sad. They're lovely. But probably too weedy and too much work for whomever maintains the cemetery to bother with. Lifting iris every year to get the weeds out of them is a huge drag. Which is why the only iris I currently grow are the slim dark blue Siberians.  I'll think about adopting a few of these waifs. I like plants with history.

The Stauch peony is out, and it's just like my heirloom from Dean's Fork.

A shell-pink outer ring of petals, and a rose-scented white pouf in the middle. Mmmm.

No need to come get an eye off that one. I've got two at home.

The Bruny peony isn't out yet. I can't wait to see what it will be. Probably like the medium pinks I have at home. But you never know.

And then there's Peter Gruber's peony. Might be the same as the Bruny peony. But again...the mystery pulls me along. They're not out yet. I'll have to come back. Darn.  

I remember I need to visit Ada Hune, my friend, forever 14. I tell her her rose is leafing out, despite the horrible winter it endured. I tell her about the indigo bunting that's singing nearby, whose mate probably built last year's nest that's peeking over the left corner of her stone. I kneel to shoot a photo and go on exploring without looking at it.

And Ada sends me a sign. Once again, I don't see it until I get home and upload the photos. Five pink orbs that I definitely did not perceive as I looked steadily at her headstone. The granite is dull. It's not reflective at all. The lights are simply there, dancing on its surface, perhaps for only my iPhone to see. Lucy from Minnesota looked at this and says Ada may be sending me a sign that she and her family are with me as Phoebe prepares to leave.  It's one interpretation, and I trust Lucy, but I can't be sure what it means. Maybe she's just telling me the Peter Gruber peony will be pink.

 There is something very special going on at Waxler Church Cemetery with me and Ada Hune. Why I am privileged to behold this phenomenon I don't understand. Maybe it's because I stopped to talk with her in the first place. I never have the hubris to expect it. Like the song of a grasshopper sparrow in an unexpected place, it happens or it doesn't, and I'm thankful either way.

I turn around and see some cornsilk yellow iris, also discarded in the back lot. I see a photo there.

 It's as if the tableaux wait for me, for the perfect day, the perfect light, and reveal themselves. My spirit, kept wide open to the thrust of grace. Nothing in my head but the beauty, flowing over and around me. It's a peace that goes beyond describing. It has nothing to do with anything, but it is essential for me to imbibe, so I can keep going with all I have to handle. The oxygen mask, descending mysteriously from above. 

I don't know how I would survive without all this useless and utterly essential beauty.

I still haven't cut that piece of white landscape fabric. It's part of the composition now. I'm starting to like it.

On the way home I climb the high hill where the grasshopper sparrow has been singing for more than a week now. And he's singing still. I look down on The Three Graces dancing far below, and know that, at least for me, it doesn't get any better than this. A grasshopper sparrow,  a hilltop, three graceful trees, those ranks of clouds, marching away into forever. My home is way out there, where the horizon goes white.

But my home is here, too, in these places that sustain me.