On mowing the lawn

As has become our custom this summer, Tal and I rise very early on mowing day in order to finish our work before the summer heat gets its daily grip on the landscape. This morning, while the early temperature was lower than it has been of late, the humidity was extraordinary, the dew so heavy that the decks, steps and sidewalks were wet and the downspouts ran with water coming off the roof. It was the sort of humidity that made breathing itself a noticeable chore.

Although our riding mower has at last been repaired -- the belt that runs the blade reattached and the deck leveled (sort of), I chose to walk behind the small mower, leaving a 19" swath of short grass in my wake, pass after pass. It's a meditative exercise, actually -- a "one foot in front of the other" plodding, uncensored thoughts slipping unto consciousness as, watchfully, I keep the front edge of the mower aligned with the ever so satisfying just cut row.

Today as I worked at outlining the edges of the back yard I became aware of an oak leaf on the grass toward the middle of the area I was cutting. My first thought was to get a photograph. My next thought was to self-scold -- a rather long and harsh "conversation." You need to get this job done, Janet. Stopping the mower means restarting it ... This is mowing time, not camera time. You get the idea.

Round and round I went -- on the grass and in my mind. It wasn't until the last possible instant, when one more step would have put the mower over the leaf, that I stopped walking and released the hand grip that cut the engine, the sudden silence somehow intensely loud.

Then it was across the lawn up to the house, into the garage, off with the wet, grass-covered shoes, through the house for the camera and tripod -- and back again. The result isn't great, but it's pleasing enough, I think more for the fact that the taskmaster in me didn't win for a change than for the image itself.

I had a spiritual director once who told me many times during the years that we talked together that what captures our attention is important. A slant of light through trees, the music of a mountain stream, the fringe of a baby's eyelashes against its cheek, the sound of a winter wind around the eaves of the house ... It is those things -- and millions and billions of others if we're paying attention -- that whisper to us something of the divine, that give us hints of the eternal.

For me today it was mowing the lawn and a single leaf spotted with beads of heavy dew on the wet grass.

The tools you need

It has been months since I last posted to Meanderings. There are many reasons for that, which over time I will likely address, but for now let it suffice to say that I am back. Today is a rather significant day, my father's funeral having been two months ago yesterday. It's a hot June morning, the kind of hot that almost squeezes the life out of a person. Despite that, however, I feel as though, in some strange way, I am beginning to live again. This essay was originally written for the June edition of a newsletter published by the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina for retired clergy, "From Friends to Friends."

I am grieving the death of my father. It is a time of conflicting emotion which I know will go on for a long time. Even as I have made my way along sorrow’s path since late April, however, I am finding the expected sadness to be tempered wonderfully by unanticipated and unbidden memory. One instance in particular seems to be intent on claiming sustained attention from me. With over twenty years having passed since the actual encounter on a Saturday afternoon, the date long forgotten, I am pleased and strengthened to be discovering new meaning in an old story.

It happened when I was visiting my parents for the weekend. I was involved in a divorce at the time and recently had moved into my first apartment. One of the things I had “inherited” for my new place was a small bistro table and four cane-bottom chairs for the tiny dining area at the end of the kitchen. Over our Friday night dinner I had entertained Mom and Dad with the tale of my trying to reassemble the table without any tools. My first attempt at a meal seated at that table was a wobbly one. The table leaned; the table gyrated. We all laughed at the story, agreeing that seldom does anything go right the first time.

After breakfast the next morning, while my mother and I visited and accomplished her usual Saturday morning tasks, my father disappeared into the garage. At lunchtime he reappeared – and not empty handed. With gentle ceremony he presented me with a red metal toolbox. When I opened it my eyes beheld a variety of tools, from a couple of hammers and several screwdrivers of varied sizes and type to a set of wrenches and a hand-crank drill. I was touched, needless to say, and delighted. My own toolbox. Dad downplayed the gift, telling me that none of the tools were new, that they were extras he didn’t use any more. I was still delighted and he was obviously pleased with himself.

At the end of the weekend I returned to Columbia – and successfully shored up that table! It was also during that week that I told my therapist, David Stewart+ (God, rest his soul) about what my father had done, about the box of tools I’d brought back to my apartment with me from that visit. David’s response was simple, direct and true: “Your father has given you the tools you need.” I got it; David didn’t have to explain. That statement was true about the heavy, brightly-colored box of tools, AND that statement was also true about my having been given – over the course of my childhood and youth – what I needed to know about getting on with my life.

Since Dad’s death and with this memory having come to the fore, I have to say I’ve come to understand another way of appreciating that gift of a tool box. Dad did downplay his gesture, wanting me to understand that what he was giving me was from among a large collection. He not only had his own tools, he also had those of this father and his uncle. To give me a tool box to use in my new apartment (and in the ensuing years; I still have the toolbox) he only had to walk out to the garage. No purchases were required; it was all right there in his workshop. To allude rather loosely a line from a prayer I used at Dad’s graveside, Dad lost nothing in that act of giving.

As I begin moving into the phase of my life I’ll live without my father and as I mine that toolbox memory, I am coming to realize that it’s not so much the toolbox as it the workshop that’s ultimately important here. A metaphorical workshop, mind you. The workshop – containing tools – being represented by me.

I wonder about what’s bountiful and extra in this workshop. And, I wonder how well and to whom I’ll give that extra away.

New eyes

It's rather a pleasure to come home after more than a week away and to see the place with new eyes. Yesterday afternoon, even though the afternoon was sunless, I spent an hour strolling around the yard, finding subjects aplenty to photograph. Like Wilmington and Baltimore, we are having a fine autumn.


There's a tulip poplar volunteer growing near the screened porch which displays its own lace, letting the observer see the intricacies of the vein pattern in this prominent disintegrating leaf.



The Japanese maple is one of my favorite specimens in our yard, the leaves showing both red and green, sometimes in the same leaf.



Getting this shot required flattening myself on the ground in front of the dandelion and red leaf -- and ending up sort of disheveled looking.



The crepe myrtles are giving us double colors in the same leaf, some red and green, here showing yellow and green.

Over achievers

With a plan to get a head start on the day I sprang from a warm bed at the first alarm and arrived in the basement to discover the treadmill, stationary bike and elliptical machines already in use. ("Grrrr ... over achievers," she muttered.) Not wanting to venture outside in the cold dark and into unfamiliar territory, I took to the halls and the stairs. While a circuit of three times from the basement to the 9th floor and back didn't take nearly the time I would have spent on the treadmill, it certainly got my heart rate up, turning my legs to rubber in the process.

Still thinking about adaptability I enjoyed first conversations with my mentees immediately after breakfast, two new relationships which will demand very different things from me -- from the knowledge I carry around to new areas (psychic, theological, ecclesiastical) I'll have to explore, from directing at one moment to letting a realization emerge over time, from addressing the complexities of family life to encouraging a social life outside the parish, from meeting face-to-face with one and via Skype with the other. The same calling, the same profession, the same vows, the same desires (maybe) to service coming to life along dramatically different avenues of expression and in a variety of outcomes.

Somewhat akin even to the early moments of my day, with the treadmill unavailable the stairs satisfied my need for exercise and discipline, these relationships will be a wonderful challenge. At the moment another helpful maritime image or term comes to mind: I shall have to develop sea legs in this mentoring role.

The art of navigation

I awoke in the still-dark at the second of two alarms (my cell phone followed by the glowing, buzzing digital clock on the night stand) this morning and spent 45 minutes in the fitness room on the treadmill. When I emerged from the basement and that virtuous experience, I was delighted to discover sunlight -- the first in days and days and days.

At breakfast I had another conversation with one of the two harbor pilots from Bermuda with whom I shared the shuttle from BWI yesterday afternoon. He was like a just-struck tuning fork in anticipation of the simulator this morning. I learned more about the inherent difficulties posed by the new cruise ships: the vessels are dramatically larger than the older boats in the fleets, but the channels through which they must move in advance of docking are not. It's much better to determine if they'll fit in the channel by using the simulator than it is to try it in real time and space.

It's interesting to me that during the course of our day we have talked about the role of a mentor to new priests from all sorts of angles, trying to define what it is we will be doing and why it's important. By the time I meet my two "mentees" tonight I think I am going to feel ready to begin these new relationships and do so with a fairly clear idea of what it is I have to offer them. In rereading my notes during a break this afternoon I noticed that I'd written the word "navigate" a couple of times. We are helping new priests navigate their early years in the church, finding their way into congregational patterns, over supervisory bumps, through the vagaries of continuing education and giving themselves permission for some self care along the way.

And, here we are having this orientation in a place the primary purpose of which is readying sailors, harbor and river pilots especially, to navigate pricey ships through dangerous and tight waters. One of the pictorial displays (of which there are many) along the walls of the classroom building halls celebrates the pilots of the Columbia River and bemoans the mouth of the Columbia River. The display is complete with navigational charts and photographs of wrecks, the two most dramatic being those ships, old and fairly modern, lost on Peacock Spit and on the Columbia River Bar. To my eye the most notable photograph is of the 1892 Columbia River Lightship (as opposed to lighthouse) which came loose from its moorings in November 1899 and ran aground, where it stayed until the spring of 1901 when it was moved overland by a local house mover some 700 yards and repositioned, a marker for the mouth of the river once again. (Click on the highlighted name of the ship to go to a great link and the full story, which includes the photograph in question along with several others.)

So, the art of navigation is what we're about, a fact which leads me to the photograph of the day. This is the sign on the door outside the entrance to the All Weather Navigation Simulator, an 8-ship interactive blind pilotage simulation program employing Norcontrol Polaris Automatic Radar Plotting Aids and shiphandling simulator. For sure it serves as a warning to those pilots who (in fear and trembling?) enter the simulator.


It's also, I believe, a profoundly theological statement. And, I hope I can help my two "mentees" avoid a collision or two through the years we work together, saving more than a few days from ruin.

Drooping eyes

Much more of this kind of fun and I'm going to keel over with exhaustion. So, the briefest of notes.

Yesterday's wedding, reception and evening picnic were lovely. Ida had moved up the coast leaving the weather cool, damp and grey, but the major rain event ended in time not to ruin anything. I had to be at the church by 9:30 before the 11:30 liturgy and the picnic ended at 9:30 in the evening. Although Tal and I weren't "on" all of that time, we weren't able to completely relax between things, making for a long day. As the hours and events progressed I was grateful to have had a 30 minute walk on the beach shortly after 7:00AM, entering the day with my spirit well oriented. The sun even tried to come out (this photo taken on that early morning walk), but this was all it could manage all day.

Today Tal dropped me at the airport in Wilmington at 9:45, staying long enough to make sure the flight to Baltimore was going to go. Wouldn't that be a disaster, combining being dropped off and a cancelled flight ... Anyway, USAirways was on its best behaviour and I hopped from Wilmington to Philadelphia to Baltimore without incident. And, so far, the Maritime Institute is measuring up to the all the positives I'd heard in the run-up to this meeting. In fact, I was on their shuttle from the airport with two men who will be learning to pilot the new generation of cruise ships, which according to them "don't fit very well anywhere."

As we were approaching the buildings where the conference center is housed, I spotted a remarkable tree. After checking in, hanging up my crunched clothes and double checking the schedule (wouldn't want to be late or in the wrong place for anything), I walked back along our route to find it.


A stunner, even with my late afternoon exposure troubles. I'll try again in the morning. An Atlas cedar, I think?

In good voice

Well, good might not be quite the right word, but ...

As you can see from the photograph which I shot yesterday from the covered porch on the second floor of the main building, the apartment Tal and I are inhabiting is perched atop the yacht club's kitchen and eating porch. To me it looks a bit like some depictions I've seen of the cabin on Noah's Ark. Amusingly appropriate, given the weather.

We've been out only twice today, having had breakfast between here and the waterway with a friend. The Causeway Cafe, warm enough inside to fog my glasses as I entered, is pure local color and my big bowl of cheese grits and shrimp hit a hungry spot that needed to be hit. Mostly, though, the day has been low key with both of us wading through our respective books.

Overnight yesterday's heavy rain moved up the coast, replaced by wind, gusting, relentless and bearing a soaking mist. So, along with luxurious hours of reading, we've also listened to the changing voice and location of the wind. In the early hours of the day the wind buffeted the apartment's northeast corner; now the sound is concentrated in the southeast, farther away from the living room. At times the sound has taken me to winter storms in childhood and the sad moan around the eaves of the house during the night at Brookgreen. Less charming and bordering on alarming, I've had the distinct impression that someone might actually be just outside revving a chain saw!

Since our arrival we've not even stepped foot on the beach.