Summer Girls I see summer girls in splendor Walk footbare on fields of green Sea-wet hair dried by warm breezes Swirling through an open screen. I see summer skin sun-ripened Under flowing loose white gown Mound of freckled salt-stiff breast Hair at nape of neck like down. I see summer girls in laughter After yellow ball spins round Voices murmur in the twilight Fever rising with the sound. I see summer rain on faces Sleep-soft bodies stir in morn Stain of virgin seed and berry Strut of sainted youth reborn. I see you summer girls and dread The day veils will turn heartless No more to open on blue hills When I lie down with darkness. ~Joeseph Dunphy
I know I am but summer to your heart
I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime. ~Edna St.Vincent Milay
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Does the Song of the Sea end at the Shore or in the Heart of Those who listen to it?
"Father and Sister Mary and I walked to the church thru the beauties of the sunny spring Sundays. I have forgotten what I was taught on those days also. I was only a little girl, you know. But I can still plainly see the grass and the trees and the path winding ahead, flecked with sunshine and shadow and the beautiful golden-hearted daisies scattered all along the way. Ah well! That was years ago and there have been so many changes since then that it would seem such simple things should be forgotten, but at the long last, I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all."
Summer is passing over now. The flowers have all grown leggy. The tomatoes are ripening at a rapid pace. The morning light has a different look, softer and more diffuse. Evenings are coming on a bit faster, a bit cooler. That feeling you have in April, to uncover, open up and empty shelves; to let in the light and breath of summer is being replaced by the desire to stock up, tuck in and hunker down. Too soon the winter winds will howl. Too soon will summer be lost again for another year.
It has been a glorious summer here, hot, sunny, green, the flowers lush. I've enjoyed every minute and really hate to see Summer go. I've spent the season much as I did as a child, letting the days slip by in lazy succession while I drowned myself in books. I found myself rereading The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It's been 35 years since I read them, and my perspective has changed considerably over the years. I was a young woman full of romantic notions then, vastly different from the woman I am now. And as the years pass I find the memories of those long ago days come more often and are twice as sweet.
Like Laura Ingalls Wilder, I've lived in many little houses in the West, and my mind often returns to the ones I loved best. One in particular is very dear to my heart, a little white clapboard house in Loveland, Co. It was 1974 and I was 14. John Denver was on the radio, Nixon was about to be impeached and magazines were filled with quilts and granny square afghans. The "back to the land movement" was at its zenith. Natural was the way to be and live.
The house was old, how old we never knew, but we found postcards in the attic dating to the early 1900's. It was just 2 bedrooms, an oil stove, a pantry made over into a bathroom with a claw foot tub, and a real Wizard of Oz root cellar. Poppies and raspberry canes lined the white picket fence, and the entire backyard was garden. I remember my father coming home to find Mom barefoot and knee deep in mud, a straw hat on her head, pulling bind weed. He said she looked like a Chinese woman at work in her rice paddy.
Mom never conquered the bind weed, but she did cultivate a peach tree. We canned everything from pickles to peaches that fall, and mom carried every dishpan of peelings and pits out to mulch her garden. Hence the tiny peach tree that sprouted the following spring. I can still smell the damp dirt of that root cellar and see the rows of jars on the old crooked shelves. String beans, corn, tomatoes, bread & butter pickles, peaches, pears, applesauce. Jelly jars of raspberry, strawberry, plum and tomato jam. That plum jam was something that dreams are made of, and I have never stopped craving the taste of sweet tomato preserves, ruby red with bits of lemon rind spread on toast. To this day nothing gives me greater pleasure than stocking my pantry. Mom called it my full larder syndrome, some holdover instinct from those long ago days of stocking up in preparation for winter I guess.
It was in the little house on Harrison Street, that I came to know the Ingalls family. I was smitten, entranced. Maybe it was the house. Maybe it was my romantic, impressionable age. Maybe it was the times we were living in. But something about all of it came together in a very special way there when I began to read those books, and it changed me, molded me, impressed me in a way nothing else ever has. I feel as if I've been on one very long journey back to that time and place and girl ever since. Rereading about Laura and her family took me back there to that little white clapboard house at 309 Harrison Street and my years within its walls and those that came immediately after.
We'd left the only neighborhood, home and friends I'd ever known and started life over in a small tightly knit town that had remained nearly unchanged for decades. Change was slow in reaching Loveland, but change was coming and in a big way. Those little front range agricultural based towns with their one block main streets and one local high school, where everyone knew each other and no one ever left and no one new ever moved in, were on the verge of disappearing forever. They would meld into one very large sprawling suburban entity where all bits of individualism were lost, the mom and pop stores became Walmart out on the 4-lane and farmland became rolling hills of cookie cutter homes painted taupe. I nearly wept the last time I saw Berthoud, Colorado. I had always dreamed of owning one of the big turn of the century homes that made up the tiny town square, but it was gone, swallowed up by housing developments and nothing I recalled from those days when I'd attended the livestock auctions with my friend Irene remained.
“I began to think what a wonderful childhood I had had. How I had seen the whole frontier, the woods, the Indian country of the great plains, the frontier towns, the building of railroads in wild, unsettled country, homesteading and farmers coming in to take possession. I realized that I had seen and lived it all—all the successive phases of the frontier, first the frontiersman, then the pioneer, then the farmers, and the towns.Then I understood that in my own life I represented a whole period of American History. That the frontier was gone and agricultural settlements had taken its place when I married a farmer. It seemed to me that my childhood had been much richer and more interesting than that of children today even with all the modern inventions and improvements.”
~Laura Ingalls Wilder, October 16, 1937~
Library's were good friends to me back then. Some of my best book memories come from my loneliest leanest years. Why after years of passing up Laura Ingalls Wilders books, I suddenly decided to give them a try I have no idea. And at what point it went from being a singular experience to my reading them aloud I can't answer either. It just happened. I have never forgotten the night Mom and I stayed up till the early morning hours as I read The Long Winter aloud. We just had to know that Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie and Grace made it through all right. Or how we cried at Mary's blindness and the death of Jack the brindle bulldog.
Money was very tight for us, but Mom understood why I just had to have my own copies of the Little House books. I hold those tender paperback copies in my hands now, the covers worn, the pages falling out, each marked $1.50 on the cover, and I remember the nine months or more it took to buy them. Mom tucked those quarters away for me, and we'd make a trip to the bookstore downtown once a month or so for the next book, and then we read them all again. I can even remember catching mom reading them on the sly when I came in from school. I'd find her sitting at the kitchen table, book in hand, wiping tears from behind her glasses.
I don't think I ever really realized how hard my parents were having it financially during those years. I remember good times more than bad. Laughter. Love. Good food. I don't remember wanting for anything. Mom bought a winter coat for me at the old downtown J.C.Penny's and paid on it all summer. That was the first I'd heard of "lay away." I brought that coat home just in time for the first snowfall. (later that coat would be stolen from my locker, but that's another story). Mom and I took trips to collect pine cones, yucca and milkweed pods in the hills, packing sandwiches and our schnauzer, Buttons along with us. Mom spent long days and evenings crafting them into wreaths she sold to pay for new glasses. I picked cherries for a day in the summer of '75 and all I earned was a sunburn so severe I was physically ill. I baby sat for a young mother with two little girls who drove a Volkswagen bug with no heat, her guitar tucked in the back seat. She'd left her husband and gone back to college and I thought she was utterly fascinating. Probably the closest I ever came to a real life hippy. We watched the Watergate hearings on television an lived through the Big Thompson Canyon flood in July of 1976.
My oldest sister, Gloria and her husband Bill, left Colorado for the wilds of Montana to make a living off the land. Bill worked skinning logs and running a small welding business, while Gloria tended goats, rabbits, and a huge vegetable garden. I still remember her Blue Hubbard squash with skin so thick they could break a knife anf her kohlrabi that my mother dubbed Sputniks. She and her chickens worked side by side unearthing grubs and pulling weeds.She baked bread and made butter and grew her hair in braid that reached down her back. I remember her letters home and Mom reading them aloud at the kitchen table. Another sister was living on the plains of Kansas and the third raising a brood in Buena Vista.
Letters were a big deal back then, photos too. Who knew how all that would change? You sat there at the kitchen table, beneath a light bulb buzzing with summer insects or windows blocked with blowing snow and held in your hand those pages filled with a loved one's handwriting, maybe a couple photos too. Phone calls were expensive. There were no cell phones in your back pocket. I can't imagine what the phone bill was then, but I'm sure it never came close to the one I pay today.
Before long the lure of Montana called my parents too, and the next thing I knew we were packing up and leaving that little white house and heading over the Rocky Mountains to a little green house near Hamilton, Montana, that came complete with its own cat. But Montana didn't stick. Dad couldn't find work that paid enough, my parents savings was diminishing and I think Mom and Dad grew fearful they might lose everything. In less than a year we were headed back to Denver. Back to a house in the suburbs. Back to familiar locales. But things were never the same after that. Some dreams died back then I think. The years flew by and Dad was gone by 1989. Mom's gone now too. Rereading the Little House Books I was there again at that kitchen table in Loveland, with zuchini bread and a glass of milk. Buttons asleep in the old blue chair, and plenty of food down cellar in a teacup as Pa Ingalls would say.
Those may have been hard years for my folks and sometimes lonely ones for me, but they were also filled with excitement, promise and adventure. And lots of love. We touched again that pioneering spirit that was not only part of our family heritage but seemed to permeate those times as well. I think back and wonder what in the world my sixty year old parents were thinking uprooting like that. We moved five times in rapid succession and I attended 3 high schools in one year. And then I read about Pa and Ma, Mary and Laura again and I see the American Spirit at work. The looking to better times, to starting fresh, hard work and the rewards it brings. Maybe Mom and Dad were just looking to the simpler times they remembered as farm kids growing up in Minnesota. Simpler times before the world became so very big and full of itself.
I remember those years with great fondness. I was convinced I'd find my own Almanzo Wilder in Montana and end up a ranchers wife. I remember long letters written and received from friends I left behind. I remember being the big city girl in a tiny town where ladies still dressed up to go shopping, no one had heard of John Denver, the Captain and Tennile or feathered hair. There was a lifestyle there that appealed to me. The pioneer spirit was certainly alive and well in places like Hamilton, Montana. Life was about hard honest work, caring for your neighbors and community, value of family. Things that I'd never experienced except in books. There was also a backwardness and distrust of outsiders, the being made to feel odd that was hurtful,. But always there was Mom and Dad, the security of home wherever we were together and it didn't matter where that home was.
They were years filled with an abundance of love and laughter. I was growing up and those times molded me into a woman who would continue to love adventure and suffer wanderlust. That woman who loves parks with evergreens and swings, root cellars, the smell of barns and sheds with dirt floors, old libraries with stain glass windows and real card catalogs. Country fairs, quilts, canning jars, orange cats, picket fences, painted porches, windows you prop open with a stick, wainscoting and squeaky stairs. Maybe there was a me that lived once before, a long time ago, and that's why it felt so right and so familiar in so many ways. I am thankful for those little houses and those days, and I cherish the memories I carry of those late summer days all over the west.
In one of her final Missouri Ruralist columns published on August 1, 1923, Laura expressed her gratitude for the home of her childhood and its love, which still nurtured her as an adult.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
(Herrick)
“Out in the meadow, I picked a wild sunflower and as I looked into its golden heart such a wave of homesickness came over me that I almost wept. I wanted mother, with her gentle voice and quite firmness; I longed to hear father’s jolly songs and to see his twinkling blue eyes;I was lonesome for the sister with whom I used to play in the meadow picking daisies and wild sunflowers.
Across the years, the old home and its love called to me and memories of sweet words of counsel came flooding back. I realized that all my life the teachings of those early days have influenced me and the example set by father and mother has been something I have tried to follow, with failures here and there, with rebellion at times, but always coming back to it as the compass needle to the star...
...For when tests of character come in later years, strength to the good will not come from the modern improvements or amusements few may have enjoyed, but from the quiet moments and the “still small voices” of the old home.
Nothing can ever take the place of this early home influence and, as it does not depend upon externals, it may be the possession of the poor as well as the rich., a heritage from all fathers and mothers to their children.
The real things of life that are the common possession of us all are the greatest value; worth far more than motor cars or radio outfits; more than lands or money; and our whole store of these wonderful riches maybe revealed to us by such a common, beautiful thing as a wild flower.”
"We indeed found that women holding their partner's hand reported significantly less pain than holding a stranger's hand or inanimate object..."
"It's amazing to me that love can have the same effect as Acetaminophen, as Tylenol."
Antropologist Helen Fisher says love is better than Tylenol! Fisher, who has looked at love for years, says affairs of the heart are often functions of the brain."In simple terms, one of the parts of the brain involved in rewards and cravings - the ventral tegmental area (or VTA) - is flooded with the chemical dopamine when you do something pleasurable (like, say, eat chocolate) or see someone you're in love with . . . no matter how many years you've known them."
"The brain is built to respond," Fisher said. "We are an animal that is built to love."
Fisher and neurologist Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York also scanned college students in the throes of young love, and found that the part of the brain that makes true love so durable also makes rejection so agonizing. "When you've been dumped, you're still madly in love with the person," said Brown. "As a matter of fact, looking at a picture of the person still brings you some reward. And that's part of the problem. I wish it didn't!"
Science can't completely save us from heartbreak, but according to author Tara Parker-Pope, it can help. "I think science teaches us the value of love and can help us make better decisions," said Parker-Pope. Her upcoming book "For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage" (Dutton) describes the science behind relationships. "...there's a whole lot going on beyond the conscious mind, beyond conscious decision-making, when we find ourselves drawn to another person and attracted to another person."
But beyond animal attraction, there's a mathematical ratio that can predict whether love lasts: 5 to 1. Five positive interactions to every one negative, like a critical comment, said Parker-Pope:
"A pat on the shoulder or a squeeze of the hand or a 'Honey, you look pretty today' or 'Gosh, I'm proud of you' or 'I like you in that suit.' Those little moments are highly protective of a marriage, and good marriages have them at least on a 5-to-1 basis.
What does all this have to do with me?
Life took an unexpected turn for me. A turn toward a younger more innocent time. Towards happier days of long ago. And because it did, the life I have now became more pleasant. I walk around with a smile on my lips nearly all the time, and my head full of conversation, jokes, and wit. To share so much with someone is stimulating. Enticing. Euphoric. Addicting.
Apparently, if the above studies are to be believed, this connection has triggered my dopamine levels. I realized I haven't felt like this in a very long time. To someone for just a little while, I am interesting, funny, smart, and amazing. It's been a long time since I felt anyone gave a damn about me that way. It is eye opening. It makes your heart beat faster, your step lighter. It's like I put glasses on. Not rose colored ones, but big magnifying ones so that I can see all the nuances of the life I'm living. How stifled I am. How psychologically harmful this life has been. I don't have a 5:1 ratio in my relationship. Mine would probably be the opposite. Five negative to one positive. No wonder I spend so much time apologizing.
A door has opened and on the other side is a secret garden. I can see through a little crack into the life that might have been. And the life that might yet be if I let myself move on. I don't know yet if I can open it all the way. Don't know if I have the strength to break the bonds that bind me to this side. I'm so afraid. I've lived like this for so long it seems normal. That world out there is very foreign and frightening. There is safety in the shelter of continuity and repetition. Comfort in the arms of the everyday. It too is a very strong drug.
But from this new self-discovery, I've learned other things too. That I could bloom again in the right environment. That there is sun in freedom. Fresh air if I open the window, and how wonderful it feels!
My life is a journey. My journey. A series of lessons on humanity. The good, the bad and the ugly. Kind of like a choose your own adventure book. You pack your backpack and pick a road. As obstacles and opportunities arise you make choices. A shortcut. Down a cliff or over a mountain? Proceed with caution or leap without looking. You must live with the consequences. All of them. And there will be fallout, that's a given. And there will be guilt, loads of guilt. Never look back with regret but learn from your mistakes. Put the bad choices behind you, and don't carry the guilt. It's far too heavy. Let it go. Take only the love.
I think of God as my traveling companion. He gives no opinions, doesn't lesson the fear, prevent the sorrow or carry a map. But, he does hang on to the rope! Recently, he and I had a conversation about my life choices.
I thanked God for connecting to my past again. That if tomorrow it disappeared back into the mists of time, that for a while I had laughed out loud again with joy. My loneliness had been eased. That I felt like that 18 year old girl again, when life was brand new and fresh with no mistakes in it. I told my parents I loved and missed them. That I hoped I wasn't a disappointment. That I was trying hard to be strong but it was hard. The road I was walking on was terrible rocky at the moment, and causing me much pain. Why Mike? Why this life? I wasn't angry, just sad and confused. I felt cheated. I had a bad case of the "what ifs". I was missing my father's counsel, comfort and wisdom.
In the early morning hours my father came. I have not seen him smile like that in such a very long time. He gave me his whole body to lean on. I woke crying with his arms around me and one of his very large hands cradling my head as if I were a little girl again. He said that I should remember that I had Elisabeth and Sarah. They were the reason it was Mike. They needed to be exactly what and who they were right now. It's enough. For now.
My journey has placed me in a precarious position. My life ship is lost at sea. I can see the shore but I am unsure of how to reach it. Do I stay the course? Or do I chart a new one?
-Tigerlily
"Looking for a Mate.
Sail with me through life my dear, Hope shall guide and love shall steer,"
Unchained thoughts, wishes, musings, prayers, wisdoms and humor from a knitting,scrapbooking,movie watching, cooking, mother of two, pug and bulldog loving geek.
