Making Lemonade

The cut grass had been sitting there on the lawn long enough to dry, like a kind of hay. We were gathered between the stream and the enormous spruce which sometimes served as our secret hideout: my best friend, her sisters, and I. “Let’s make birds’ nests,” I said. I was the one who had to come up with a game we all could play. Otherwise my best friend wanted to play only with me, her little sister tried to join in, and their elder sister would go off and do her own thing.

So we scooped the hay into piles, or picked it up in handfuls. Shaped it into doughnut rings, with bottoms. Worked together to build large nests that could hold several of us. Abundant shade made the heat of the day bearable, and the sun seemed to sparkle on the running water as we spun in circles, tossing hay in the air just to watch it catch the light as it fell.

I built one nest on my own, shaped carefully to match the ones I had seen under the eaves of my grandparents’ house. I lined it with fresh grass to make it soft, and placed a leaf to look as if it might be sheltering an egg.

“Wow,” said the older sister. “You’ll have real birds fighting over that nest. They’ll want to use it.”

I don’t know if she meant it literally, or was simply trying to convey a compliment, but even then I knew better. It looked good, but there was nothing holding it together. If you tried to make it into something more, it would come apart as if it never had been.

Taken outside my front door this morning.

I slapped mosquitoes, one after another.

“I’m Buddhist,” you said. “I don’t believe in killing things. But at times like this I’m glad have someone around who doesn’t have that problem.”

I was embarrassed for years after the fact about the mad crush I’d had on you. These days, I consider you the first of my fabulous gay boyfriends.

A neighbour rang to say your dog was barking outside his house.

“My dog’s not barking,” you said.

“Well, yes it is!” he insisted. “It’s right here yapping. I can see it.”

You beckoned to your dog. Held her by the phone. Gave her a little squeeze until she let out a bark.

“Funny how she can be in two places,” you said.

These are last year’s. I was so busy sewing this year’s costume, I ran out of time to carve pumpkins with Acorn. Next year, I hope.

I chose to vote early specifically so that Acorn could go with me: I thought it would be a good chance to talk with him about how our government works. “We’re going to go vote for who we want to run our government,” I told him.

“Who will win?” he asked.

“We don’t know who will win, yet. We’ll find out after the votes are counted.”

He thought this over.

“We will vote, and I will win, because I am faster,” he said with an air of finality.

Maybe limiting the time you spend on emails will help.

Keeping your desk in order will doubtless help life run a bit more smoothly, as well.

Autumn.

I don’t get to touch it much these days. I didn’t even get to stop and breathe in the colours last week, when the foliage was at its glowing peak; and now it’s fading, every shade melting to brown.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Housman was speaking of spring, of course. But for me, the warm hues of autumn have always made for the loveliest of trees. Loveliest of trees, the maple now, ablaze with scarlet on the bough!

I used to love tramping about in the woods, most especially in the fall. The heat of summer was finally broken; the loud families had ended their vacations; and as the air grew crisp, I found my way into nature once more.

Now, of my fourscore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

I had but a score of years behind me then, or a few more. And yet it is not so many years now since that time — not so long that I don’t yearn for them, that my body doesn’t miss the clean air I found there just as my soul misses the rest it brought me.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Yet I never quite seem to learn that lesson. Year after year, summer passes into winter with hardly a glance from me.

That needs to change. I don’t yet know how. But when the opportunity arises, I need to remind myself of the snowy cherry, and the blazing maple.

Poem recited is “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” by A.E. Housman.

Pattern will be coming soon. It needs a name. Suggestions, anyone?

Where I am sitting: The bed. My desk is small, and thus gets cluttered easily. Also, the chair is filled with wool.

What is around me: Pillows and blankets, obviously. The laptop, ditto. Camera. Camera memory cards newly denuded of data. Card reader.

Books. Books from various continuing education classes, because it’s that time of year. My copy of No One Cares What You Had for Lunch. A room temperature reusable ice pack.

Paper. A stray post-it note. Notes from aforementioned classes. An opened letter.

One banana peel. Very fresh. I just ate it, and I can still taste its perfect ripeness. Delicious. And I’m putting the evidence in the compost, now that I’ve preserved it here.