Grounded And Glad
Though tardy in noting the official celebration of Earth Day on April 22, I know that Earth is our Home. Every hour, every minute, every second.
How fortunate, I now fully realize, that I’ve spent the last year mostly outdoors—up early and on the move when nature asks me out. Growing increasingly down-to-earth, I dress for it, walk in it, venture through it—listen to birds, crunchy leaves, the wind. Earthbound while gazing skyward, if I let go, the world swallows me whole. Deer and dove, rain and wildflowers, rocks and me. Home again. A human, being.
I remember friends (never me) “grounded” by their parents, miscreants now forced to stay home, far from the party or overnight sleepover. Oh, ground me now, I’ve hoped for a year. Plant me firmly on the earth, secure and steady. Merciful grounding has lightened this year. I come more and more to my senses. Hello, yellow pollen, you beautiful dusting. Yo, sweet stink bugs. Green weeds. Pink moon. Chocolate mint. Tart radish. No longer out of it, now into It—out of society, now into the world. Feeling the beat of grounded feet, I remember a favorite wise guy.
“You can be it, at ease in your own life” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, presented by Stephen Mitchell). True words ring out, clear and simple, from Ancient China. Rather than attempting to bend the world my way, I melt into it. “Less and less do you need to force things” when in the flow of Life’s energy. Nature’s rhythm swoops me up and carries me. Butterfly and hawk, bees and birds’ nests, thunder and rain, poppy and periwinkle, you and I. Rocking in the cradle of constant movement, everything changes and renews moment to moment. Freer and more fluid, no longer bossed around by fear—I “trust my natural responses.” A slow dance begins and lasts.
All comes and goes, rhythmically back and forth, the center holds. The center holds All.
Sip… Slurp. Stop… Start. Sound… Silence. Slow… Shimmy. Sit… Stand. Soft… Sharp. Straight… Swerve. Slip… Steady. Supple… Stiff. Shifting… Settling. Sunrise… Sunset. Shush… Shout.
Patches, apparently deputized by Lao Tzu 2600 years ago, sometimes works in my grandmother’s memorial garden. His “labor” appears effortless as he moves in a give-and-take, here-to-there, now-and-then cadence. We talk—we remain quiet. We laugh—we discuss hardship. We move—we freeze when, at our feet, a dove gathers nest materials. Taken as a little boy by his mom to the park to feed ducks, Patches still relies on nature as his chief source of entertainment and relaxation. Whether playing baseball with his children, canoeing alone or with his wife, fishing for bass or red drum, Patches is at home. A professional chef, the gardener can also whip up Caribbean and Asian specialties. Gumbo and crayfish boils, red beans and rice.
Early this week, we sat together on a soapstone bench. Patches talked. I listened. Peace comes to his busy life when living in the moment—gardening, cooking, listening to music. He values storytelling and humor, integrity and empathy. He plays the trumpet. He endures ongoing, double-barreled prejudice as a “half black, half white” man. And, Patches philosophizes: “The idea that so many life forms can coexist and provide perpetual beauty.… Not only is this Garden beautiful—it’s necessary. Life’ a garden… a living, eternal metaphor. It’s all in how you tend it.”
Ground us, Mother Earth. Root, hearts. Bloom, love.
A couple of takeaway poems and songs. “I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries / that can be celebrated every day,” Wislawa Szymborska admits in her alluring “Possibilities.” Every day celebrations, may they skyrocket and multiply. Marge Piercy bows in soul-stirring reverence to “The Common Living Dirt,” pleading with us to care for the earth. “As I kneel to put seeds in / careful as stitching, I am in love.” Patches and I chose tunes for you to turn way up. Marvin Gaye, in 1971, worriedly questioned “What’s Going On?” and begged us “You know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some lovin’ here today.” Marvin’s lament continues, “Ah, things ain’t what they used to be /Where did all the blue skies go?” in “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).”
Dave Matthews rouses us to live without regret in his guitar duet with Tim Reynolds, “Lie in Our Graves.”
“When I step into the light / My arms open wide.” Dave’s blown away. Me, too.
Told with McCarty’s characteristic wisdom, marvel, exuberance, and good will, Leaving 1203 is about navigating that way through. The author draws on all available resources—friends and strangers, food and laughter, life lessons learned in the very house she now empties, and, not least, her newly-inherited West Highland terrier, Billy. McCarty simultaneously learns and deftly teaches the fine arts of remembering, letting go, and holding on to what matters most. She not only finds the way through, she shows the way.
the greatest gift an author could give a reader… lessons of a universally philosophical and existential kind… a touching journey… a welcome, upbeat ride
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