Summer nights

Two nights ago I went walking in the woods down by the river*. There was a full moon, bright enough to throw deep shadows, but beneath the trees it was dark enough that I could only just see the faint shapes of the tree trunks ahead where they were outlined against the sky beyond, and I had to make my way along the path mainly by feel and memory. It was dark enough that the fireflies swirling around me looked like spotlights, and lit the foliage around them as they glowed.

I had the great pleasure once of witnessing a grown man's first encounter with lightning bugs, and I hope I never forget his wonder and excitement. I remembered that last night, and wondered what the first European settlers to this area must have thought of them. The whole place felt like a fairyland, with the rich warm air filled with swirling lights, and the river rushing just alongside, in the deep shadow of the woods. There was a lot of the kind of loud silence and peaceful busy stillness you get on summer nights in the South.

While I was there I noticed that a feeling of wellness, of mental health, maybe, had crept up on me when I wasn't looking. (It feels important not to look, or else it might not come at all. Like waiting for Santa, or the Tooth Fairy. I guess my perception of Mental Health is that it's a wild magical beastie that must be believed in softly, and not looked for too hard. You have to prepare for it, you have to put out the cookies and leave the tooth under the pillow, but then you have to just go to bed, and hope for the best.) I had this unexpected and gentle realization that I was ok, and life felt ok, and I wasn't afraid of it, for once. It was a perfect moment, apart from the fact that I had to leave the shelter of the trees and go home.


Last night after my shower I went out onto the deck in my towel to look out into the trees and listen. Most of the fireflies had turned in, but I could hear a few varieties of owl off away to the left, and the wind. One of my favorite things about a clearing in the woods (like the one where we live) is that you can hear and see the wind coming. In the city or in the type of suburb that's devoid of trees it usually just appears, and then stops. In the woods, especially on a high deck in the middle of a clearing, you can hear its approach from far away. The trees begin to rustle in the distance, and the rustling grows louder as the wind approaches. You can watch its exact path as these trees begin to sway, and those others remain still. You can see its height where the taller trees dance, and the lower branches remain at rest. You can watch it pass and make its way off into the night, and see what direction it takes. It always feels like I'm a witness to some great magic.

















*I was there to play Pokemon Go, if you must know. But in my defense, I started playing again so I'd be more likely to take walks like this one. I had forgotten how much I love walking in the dark. The world and my well-meaning husband are always conspiring to make me afraid of the dark and the world outside and of other people. I don't want to be too reckless, but I'd like to take those things back. I am not interested in living in fear.

My mother is a genius.

I have had a cold, and she has been in New York City. When she came back I asked whether she knew of any way to temporarily remove the left side of my head (earlier I had been thinking front left quadrant, but I realized that that was too conservative an estimate), just until the swelling went down in my sinus cavities. She said no, but she asked what I had been eating and informed me that all of my responses were mucus-producing and/or acidic, and when we got home she brought me a little peppermint oil on a tissue and told me to breathe it in and spread a little under my nose. She explained that peppermint is anti-inflammatory. I know this of course, but my brain doesn't connect the "I have a cold" > "my sinus cavities are inflamed" > "I need an anti-inflammatory" > "peppermint is an anti-inflammatory" dots. So anyway, now I feel a little like someone is holding a chunk of dry ice under my nose, but the stabbing sensation inside my sinuses has subsided, so that's nice. On the plus side, I can now move air through the left side of my head. On the downside, it is becoming increasingly difficult to move air through the right side of my head.


On another unrelated note, I bought a new camera for Scotland*. My old one is still functioning, but seems to be on its last legs--and if it died during or just before the Scotland trip, I think I might kill someone. So really this is all** in the interest of homicide prevention.


With my mother in NYC, I had to get up earlyish this morning to help my dad get ready for work. This worked out well, as I began waking up as a side effect of the cold around 7:30. My point though is that I tend to forget how much I love mornings. How gorgeous they are. How delicious they smell, even through my current haze. It was lovely. I also always, always utterly forget how amazing the morning light looks in the fall, when the sun shines in through the trees and fills my bedroom with a deep red light. That was closer to six, when I wasn't quite as conscious as I now wish I had been. It was really beautiful.






















*For my trip to Scotland, I mean. Not "for Scotland," exactly.

**I put hours of research into this decision. Do you see what a good civil servant I am? Completely selfless, even if I do say so myself.

Northstar (and life) notes.

First, before I forget, let me mention (not for the first or the last time, I'm sure) how much I love, love, love winter light. Also, to be technically correct, late fall light. Maybe it's the warmth of it and the way it falls in such contrast to the coolness of the air--beautiful for the same reason that the flame-colored leaves are beautiful in the chill winds of the season. I feel such joy when I see it slanting through the light curtain on the front door, falling into the mirror or onto a pair of cold-weather boots shed in the hallway.


Now, notes:

She mentioned the passage which says, among other things, to "love your neighbor as yourself," and pointed out that this is written as a simile--comparing a thing it is assumed that we know to another thing which it is assumed that we do not know: here, how to love our neighbor (assumed that we don't know) equated with how we supposedly love ourselves. The thing is that we don't really understand what loving ourselves means, or how we should go about doing that. If I really understood this, I probably wouldn't eat a half of a pint of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting, for example, or lie in bed until 11 am for no reason whatsoever. And it occurred to me (through some prompting) that really loving yourself well does not equate to giving yourself whatever you want whenever you want it (exhibit A: Ben & Jerry's), or smoothing over every discomfort that arises without addressing the real issue at hand at any given time. Therefore it follows, at least according to the verse above and also to the Golden Rule, that loving others well does not mean giving them whatever they want, making nice, and smoothing over all things unpleasant. Loving well isn't necessarily comfortable--it is just good and healthy. And it is rewarding.


At one point someone asked, in response to something Theresa had said about controlling our thoughts, whether controlling one's thoughts is actually possible. I had a difficult time following her response, possibly because the immediate answer in my mind was a resounding "yes." I had been practicing this for years when a metaphor was dropped into my lap as I read (forgive me) Eat, Pray, Love a couple of years ago. Gilbert had the same disbelieving question: how can a person control their own thoughts? Surely, she thought, such a thing is impossible. A friend helped her realize that your mind is like a port; your mind is your own safe harbor. Can you control what ships approach and ask to enter? Maybe not at first. But what you can control is what ships you welcome, embrace, unload and savor and revisit, and what ships you turn away immediately. If you habitually rebel every time your boss corrects you, then yes, the next time your boss corrects you you are probably going to rebel. But your choice when this happens is whether to embrace that feeling, to get into an imaginary (or audible) argument and storm out and meet up with your best friend for a beer-soaked bitch session, or whether to remind yourself that you aren't perfect, that everyone needs correction sometimes. Or even if your boss is legitimately out of line, to remind yourself that you can handle it, that it isn't worth ruining your day, that you shouldn't give him/her such control over your emotions. Because, after all, the only person responsible for your emotions is you. And you are the master of your own mind.


The next miniature revelation I had related to limits and boundaries. There was a psalm up on the overhead projector which I didn't write down but which made reference to boundaries falling in pleasing places. (I'm sorry, that's as specific as my memory gets.) I then had a realization that has been quite long in coming: often my feelings of being trapped come from the fact that I have been throwing myself like a moth battering a window up against the completely reasonable and incontrovertible walls of existence: time or money or body or law, which set impassable boundaries around us all. It is simple fact that limits do and will exist for each of us, and hurling ourselves against these kinds of limits is never going to be healthy or comfortable or pleasant. If I eat nothing but cheeseburgers or chips, my health will suffer. There isn't really anything uncertain about that. Or if I spend all of my money recklessly, I will suffer. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to play twelve hours of video games or watch as much tv or waste as much time online and still take care of my bodily or emotional needs like sleep and exercise and community. There isn't anything bad about any of the above limits (particularly considering that when you stop and pay attention, you just may find that there is very little that is actually enjoyable or rewarding in any meaningful way about consuming junk food or spending money or watching tv), but they're really going to seem terrible--and I am really going to feel put-upon and sorry for myself--if I spend all of my energy throwing myself against them. That is, of course, something that I have thus far spent a lot of my life doing.
Now I'm hoping to teach myself to stop leaping with disdain over the clear, even, peaceful path that winds along within spitting distance of those walls, because I am tired of picking my bruised and bitter and angry self up off the ground in preparation for my next utterly imbecilic rally and attack. Maybe I could learn to stroll and maybe I could remember that it is human nature (or, at least, it is my nature) to hate and to rebel against any imposed boundaries. Boundaries that I choose, on the other hand, make me feel (and make me be) strong and secure.