Trails and Tunnels
I have nothing new to add, and I’m not going to write about this now, but I feel I must acknowledge what is happening in our country at this moment. Heartbreaking cruelty, racism, and injustice are stitched into the very fabric of our nation–it isn’t new–but now we can watch it on video in all its horror, and we have a “president” who encourages it. May we survive to see the end of him, the GOP, and the Covid virus...and then work to build a different vision.
“It’s a strange, dark time, indeed,” says my poet-friend Dan. “But there’s still light in it, and your grandson is that.”
Yes, my brand new grandson has come home. And so, in the midst of the sadness and worry, I’ve been given a generous shot of personal joy, and I don’t know how to reconcile things except to say that life, as ever, is full of contradictions.
Right now the sky is gray, and I am sipping ginger-lemon tea, and jacaranda trees are shedding blossoms like purple snow. I liked walking up the canyon with Françoise this morning, and eating ice cream in the bathtub, and talking to my friend and fellow-grandmother in England about the wonder and awe of our mutual grandson. I wrapped a baby gift in brown paper to be mailed from the post office tomorrow, by Monte, the one who goes into town.
I like wrapping parcels, a tangible and satisfying task. I remember as a child helping my mother wrap a present with twine and brown paper. I would place my finger snugly in the center of the string, press hard while she pulled the knot tightly, and I’d free my finger at the last minute. It’s such a tactile and detailed memory. I can almost feel the tingle of my finger, and the self-importance of having been of some small service. I can see our 1950s kitchen, the table covered with a bright patterned oil-cloth, a percolator with a glass knob on the stove, the narrow window looking out onto a fire escape, a clothesline, and an alley below.
Memories lead to memories, and I am enjoying their refuge, wondering why they occur to me so randomly. Now I recall being a little girl in my father’s car, going through the Holland Tunnel. The walls are shiny tiles, streaked with the reflections of car lights. My father has explained that we are under water, thus this passage is always accompanied by a vague element of fear, an eagerness to get through, and relief when we come out.
Maybe I feel a little bit like that right now. I’m holding myself in suspension, and looking forward to coming out on the other end, but there’s no certainty about the length of this tunnel, or where it is taking us.
And in the meantime, to again quote my poet-friend Dan, “Beauty still lies in wait, whispering under all the noise–lurking in ambush behind a distraction…”
And I’m thankful for all that beauty all along the way. And for the fact that anguish sometimes leads to transformation. And for the layers of moments, multi-dimensional, meandering trails of them, each with beckoning branches, and branchy digressions from these, and all of them unbound by time, happening always and always.