Kayaking Blackwater Creek

It was a beautiful afternoon on Blackwater Creek... Did you know there is a canoe launch at Hollins Mill Park? 

Did you know you can paddle up the Creek? In and out of shadows and the relentless Southern July sun, thru the mimosa arches dropping their fluffy pink Dr Seuss puffball flowers into the water...

You can watch a wood duck lift his improbably large body into panicked flight, barely escaping gravitational pull long enough to make it to the further bank and make a comical, beak-first crash-landing into what may be his winter house. Or weekend condo. Or batcave. Or whatever wood ducks have on the opposite banks of creeks, across from the nest you surprised on this side as you paddled past.

You can paddle up and up until the kayak bottoms out and you have to step out and sink ankle deep into the softly clinging silt, filling your sandal, gritty between your toes. You can haul your kayak up over your head like the intrepid explorer you are... only today. Not usually this much of a risk-taker, preferring mostly to read about intrepid explorers, rather than emulate them. You can rock-hop your way past the shallows to the next stretch of deep water and keep paddling on.

Or you can slowly turn around and float back down the current, surrendering to the elements, eyes unfocused, slightly drunk with the heat and the motion of the water. You can let the blazing southern sun burn the fire of hurt and grief out of you and float along the water and stop trying so damn hard for one lazy hour of the week. You can take selfies under the mimosa tree and admire the pink-fluff-covered water and breath in the mud-wet-pollen-laden air, and be for a few effortless minutes a Harper Lee heroine, or a William Faulkner character who has a predetermined story arc already written for them, instead of a 44 year old woman still trying to figure out how to write the next part of this insignificant story.

Resignation to the New Year

 And so the New Year limps up my front walk-- no fat jolly baby, is 2022. This Year is thin, gray, wet, and naked. She shivers on my porch, hesitant as to her welcome, as well she might be. The past two years have felt little welcome here, bringing grief upon grief upon loss upon loss. No wonder that she hesitates, dripping.

I stand on this side, and she on that, and we glare at one another through the doorway. The mat on the floor in my front hall says 'Welcome,' and we both understand the inevitability of her entrance. I am no fool, thinking I can hold back the march of time across my doorstep, but for just a brief moment we hesitate and pay homage to the power of the threshold and a householder's invitation. 

"Fine," I say. "You might as well come in." She gathers up her stringy, sodden hair, wringing out streams of brackish water and steps gingerly onto the Welcome mat. I can see her give it a brief side-eye. "Well," I say, "You definitely aren't quite what we were hoping for, but now that you're here, we might as well get to know one another."

I hand her a towel, and a blanket, and a glass of rum. She may not technically be old enough to drink yet, but she's probably going to need it, if past experience is any indication. Her two predecessors were quite the boozers-- with good reason. We sit, more or less next to each other, by the fire, and I fill her in on what she's up against, feeling a little sympathy, in spite of my resentment. This poor kid. Is it her fault, really?

"Hey, listen," I say. "I'm not blaming you, exactly. It's just that were all a little worn down, you know? Maybe you could just try and go easy on everyone. At least maybe a couple gorgeous snow days, and then an early spring? And fewer wildfires? Or maybe just only ONE new variant? If  you could arrange that, I bet we could come up with some fireworks, or maybe even a parade for you when you're on your way out next December. What do you say?"

2022 looks at me through her lashes (is that a glint in her eye?). She wets her lips gingerly (or did she just lick them?) and gives me a grave, quiet smile (are her teeth POINTED??), and holds out her glass for a refill.

"No promises," she says (is that a low growl??), and stares into the fire.

what have i done

Joy #6

 It's a slow spring this year...

 In Virginia, spring is often a "wham, bam, thank you, Ma'am" affair of two weeks' gorgeous weather in between blizzards and suffocating heat and humidity, but this year we've been gifted with a slow trickle of perfect days. It's almost as if Lady Spring understands what we've all been through in the last ten months, since she last left us. Perhaps she understands that our bruised selves would startle and shy away from her usual sudden glorious appearance and equally spectacular departure. We are all, like abused children, a little nervous of the sudden, the glorious, the spectacular. Afraid to trust, after long-deferred hope, the glimmer of a new horizon ahead.

So this year, Spring is dropping two, or maybe three, beautiful days into each week. Chilly nights, followed by clear, bright mornings-- like waking up inside a watercolor painting. We keep forgetting where we are in the year and leaving the windows open all night, waking up to a legitimate need for fuzzy bathrobes and slippers. By early afternoon, we're shedding sweatshirts and hauling t-shirts and tank tops out of drawers, and heading outside to soak up all sunshine we've been starving for this long, dark winter.

In deference to our precarious emotions, Spring seems to retreat every so often-- a night or two in the 30s and 40s threatening the dogwoods, the lilacs and the pears; giving us a moment to collect ourselves, to acclimate to the danger of hope. Or, perhaps gives us a foretaste now and then of what's to come-- an afternoon of blazing 80s and sunburn, firming up some weak resolve, stiffening up a spine here and there. She dances in and out, teasing gently, slowly lifting our bowed and weary hearts toward the summer, asking us to trust her promise of a coming end to our long ordeal.

Joy #4 and #5: bending and letting go

Through my entire life I've been surrounded by the metaphor of parenting as archer, launching his arrows (a quiverful of them, ideally) into the world; by faith, extending his/her influence into the generations to come. That metaphor came to define my life, as it progressively inspired, challenged, eluded, and then tortured me, as it became evident that God and I didn't see eye to eye about the size of my quiver, and I realized that arrows can frequently (heartbreakingly frequently) fall from quiver, straight to the ground, un-launched, never held in the archers hand.

Today a friend shared this poem with me. I read it, ugly-cried for about twenty minutes, and realized for the first time in my life that I have long misunderstood the metaphor. 

I'm not the archer.

I'm the bow.

All that is required of me is that I bend, to the breaking point perhaps, and then... Let go. I do not need to see the target. I do not need to aim anything. I do not need to make the arrow, hold the arrow (my heart!), string it correctly-- no skill of mine is required. His is the quiver, his is the watchful eye, the strength to launch, the wisdom to test the wind, proof the arrow, and guide it true to the heart of chosen target. All that is asked of me is that I devote my life to bend and bend and bend under the hand of the Archer; who loves me, and these Arrows, which are His, not mine. Bend, and then, by God's grace, let them go. 

On Children

Kahlil Gibran - 1883-1931

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And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
     And he said:
     Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Joy #2

 Foundations are comforting. 

Our house is closing in on its one hundredth birthday and, while the pipes are leaky, the floors are creaky, and the electrical system is one you really only want to look at with your head on one side and one eye closed; the foundation is solid. It's drafty and worn-down, but the walls are thick and you can tell it's weathered many a violent thrashing from both inside and outside weathers of various kinds.

The last three years of our first twenty years of marriage have been difficult, to say the least. We've tested our relationship in ways I never imagined, or wanted, but the foundation is solid. We're both exhausted-- soul-weary-- and we're definitely in a mood to circle the wagons and hunker down with our small brood inside this tight protected center of five. But I've realized that what we have created over the years through mutual sacrifice of self and willingness to bend and mold to accommodate each other is a solid, intertwined foundation of shared beliefs, priorities, ideals, and experiences that is still weathering this season of heartbreak and testing-- from both inside and outside weathers of various kinds.

The deepest testing this year has come, fittingly, to the foundation under the foundation; the bedrock on which the foundation was laid nearly twenty years ago. My faith has taken a beating this year. Brought fully into the glaring light of public demonstration and public scrutiny, my faith in the church and her people has been turned upside down and shaken hard. A lot of dirt fell out of places I wasn't aware existed. I gradually realized that my Christian identity had  been set on a layer of quicksand; cultural similarities, community of common experiences, and comforting notions of easy externalities. The problem with wearing Christianity like a mask is that when push comes to shove and the masks fall off, sometimes you just don't recognize the faces underneath. Sometimes they are hard, shiny, and unsmiling.

But. Also. Under that layer of shifting sand, my faith in the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting or shadow, found a solid rock. A cornerstone. This foundation, too, has withstood millennia of violent thrashings from both inside and outside weathers of various kinds. It is good to remember that this latest storm, although the first for me, is only another in a long series through which Christ has brought His Bride. Battered she may be, and worn, with painful truths revealed and laid bare; reviled and rebuked for her sins, but Redeemed and continuously Reclaimed, nonetheless. And the promise remains:

The church’s one foundation
is Jesus Christ, our Lord;
we are a new creation
by water and the Word.
From heav’n he came and taught us
what perfect love can be;
through life and death he sought us,
and rose to set us free.

Still, schisms, tribulation,
and hatred fuel our war;
we wait the consummation
of peace forevermore.
The saints their watch are keeping;
their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.