I stayed outside at dusk the other night for a long while, looking and listening, steeping in the rose-tinted mild evening air. The end of autumn is always poignant to me but it’s especially so this year. Perhaps you feel it, too.
With so much uncertainty, loss, and anxiety in our world, we’re all a little frayed and tender. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that we want whatever’s next to happen. We want next week to be over. We want the election behind us, we want all the votes counted, and the results to be fairly, legitimately resolved. We want, especially, to know which way we’re going.
No matter how things turn out, the road ahead will be hard. There will be more losses to come, more work to do, and so much grief and anger and failure to process. There will be chaos and confusion. I’m trying to hold onto faith there will be healing, too, and mending, and building. I try not to let myself get too hopeful. At the same time, I definitely do need to hope.
I felt quietly hopeful on that evening last week as I lingered in the yard watching the last light drain out of the sky. There were still golden leaves clinging to the maple tree that stands silent guard outside our kitchen and, for a moment, just before the sun went down, the leaves seemed to glow as if lit from within. That tree is as much a part of our days here as the view of the mountains, the hum of the freezer, the sound of the back door slamming shut. I know this old friend well – its graceful curves, the secret owl face hidden in the bark if you know how to look from just the right angle, the way the squirrels chase each other through the branches, the way the nuthatches travel headfirst down the trunk, foraging for insects.
And, after days of raking, tarping, hauling, and mulching leaves, I also knew we weren’t quite done. Getting the yard and garden ready for winter is a long, physically demanding process. Always, the radiant maple is the last tree on this hilltop to drop its golden leaves, signaling the end of one season, the colder, darker beginning of another. Tomorrow, I guessed, or the day after, the maple, too, would finally, silently, undress. It is the last of October, after all.
As I stood there, sore and tired from a long afternoon of yard work but reluctant to call it a day and go inside and start dinner, the sky around me became suddenly alive with birds. First a few and then more and more arrived, as if summoned by some invisible bell. Swift and straight as arrows they flew, small black silhouettes in the shadows, approaching from all directions, slipping without pause into the maple’s sheltering branches until surely there were a hundred birds or more enveloped in the tree’s embrace.
The sight of all those birds winging their way home to roost filled me with awe. We have lived in this house for fourteen years and I’ve never once seen such a sight. And yet, for all I know, it happens every night. I turned at last to go indoors with my head full of questions. What kinds of birds were they? Would they all remain tucked in there together till dawn? Does this great homecoming migration happen all year long? How could I have missed it? And: what else am I not seeing?
In this year of staying home, my own roots in this place have grown deeper, my awareness of its rhythms heightened. The more I look, the more I see. The quieter I become, the more I hear. The slower I am, the more attuned I become to the eternal pulse of nature, to the slow turning of the seasons, the movements of animals, the cycles of life that sustain and shape and support us here on this mysterious, intricately balanced earth.
Lately I’ve found it almost impossible to sit still long enough to write more than a text or a grocery list. Every time I turn on my computer, I’m awash in a sea of words – entreaties for money for good causes, another batch of emails to answer, breaking headlines to process, polls and scandals and tragic Covid numbers to absorb, thoughtful articles and essays by writers I admire and long to read. And, too, a sense that there’s never enough time to give any of these things the attention they deserve.
And I will confess: All of this writing, analysis, information, and projection only increases my jangled sense of overwhelm and anxiety. My fight or flight response quite often leads me away from the screen and straight out the door, where there is always physical, tangible work to be done — a garden bed to be cut back, pots to empty, another load of leaves to haul to the compost pile. And, too, where there is always beauty, silence, and a kind of holiness. At my desk, in my house, or staring at my phone, my heart is often heavy, my jaw clenched, my stomach flipping. Outdoors, though, it’s a different story. With the sky overhead and the earth beneath my feet, I become part of a larger narrative, a longer, deeper one in which my own place in things falls back into perspective. We humans are so small, so briefly here.
One way or another, we’re all white-knuckling our way toward Tuesday. I’ve probably made too many impulse donations to candidates I believe in, but I regret none of them. My husband, son, and I have written letters and held signs. In our small town, we’ll don our masks and vote in person. Beyond that, my approach during these last days has been to stay outdoors as much as possible. I can’t control the outcome of anything that matters, but I can keep the birdfeeders full. I can sweep out the shed, rake up the leaves, and pull out the petunias. I can stay grounded in the simple, necessary tasks of my own life. And I can look at the sky, at the now bare maple tree, at the snow that covers the ground this morning in a frosting of white, and trust in the forces at work in the world that are far beyond my own limited seeing and my own narrow understanding .
One day last week, I rounded the corner of the house pushing the wheelbarrow and was stopped in my tracks by the sight of fifty or sixty robins hopping about in the front yard, a gathering as uplifting to me as the determined crowd of citizens who have showed up downtown every Saturday all through the fall to stand in silent solidarity with Black Lives Matter, voting rights, and democracy. When we looked up from breakfast a few days ago to see a herd of deer just outside the window, they seemed almost like silent messengers sent to remind us that we share this time, this place, with others and that we’re all connected, for better and for worse.
I stood in the garden one day last month surrounded by Monarchs; two weeks later, I watched a lone butterfly alight on a stalk of fading verbena, certain somehow this would be the last one until next year. I’ve watched chilled bees wobbling from one late-blooming cosmos to another. I’ve born witness to every sunrise, gazed at clouds, dug in the dirt, searched for the season’s last nasturtiums, made salads from the garden’s final gleanings, and potted up geraniums to carry inside for the winter. I’ve watched the landscape change from lush green to fiery reds and golds to brown and bare. As the last leaves drifted down, I was there to catch them. This morning I stepped outside and lifted my face to the year’s first snow. And then, as always, I headed back indoors feeling a bit more centered, a bit more able to take in the truth of everything else that’s happening at this fraught moment.
For today, even with so much at stake, I must summon some trust in the enduring cycles of things. Trust there will be both another spring in our future and healing in our country. Trust that somehow justice will prevail. There is so much we don’t know. And yet there’s also a kind of knowing, or faith, that comes with opening to what’s right here, right now. Paying attention means being reminded, again and again, of how transitory this all is. Change will come, one way or another.
Although our waking hours may feel suffused with politics, pain, and outrage, the opposite is also true. There is energy and kindness and fierce commitment in every corner of our country. Good people are rising up. Together, we will breathe our way through this hard season and find our way into the next, whatever it turns out to be.
In the meantime, may we continue to take good care of ourselves and of each other. May we mend the part of the world within our reach, hold each other up, welcome every fleeting moment of delight, and embrace the mystery of being here for all of it. For this, dear friends, is our time. A time not of our choosing but the one we have been given, to make of what we will.
We Did Not Ask For This Room
We did not ask for this room,
or this music;
we were invited in.
Therefore,
because the dark surrounds us,
let us turn our faces toward the light.
Let us endure hardship
to be grateful for plenty.
We have been given pain
to be astounded by joy.
We have been given life
to deny death.
We did not ask for this room,
or this music.
But because we are here,
let us dance.~ Stephen King (for the TV adaptation of 11/22/63)
Hopefully and cautious – I guard my heart. I am ap peace of what may come.
One giant YES to everything you wrote. Thank you for sharing your feelings & thoughts, all of which so many of us share. And most importantly, thank you for reminding us that we will indeed breathe through this hard season. We have to. Love you.
Thank you, Katrina. Beautiful in every way. I love so much the balance between your ability to find peace in nature and your acute awareness of the urgency in the political landscape. All of it matters and depends on the other. Sending so much love and gratitude to you.
much love,
Pamela
(Amrit Nam)
Thank you, Katrina. I love every word you wrote and feel at peace in the world now. In spite of the worries, the daily sorrow at not seeing my mother, my grandchildren, time going by, preciously, I can surrender my heart as well.
Thank you, Katrina. I love every word you wrote and feel at peace in the world now. In spite of the worries, the daily sorrow at not seeing my mother, my grandchildren, time going by, preciously, I can surrender my heart as well.
Thank you for your beautiful post🌹. No matter the circumstance I MUST keep hope for without hope there is no life. Love to you from the Finfer Lakes of western NYS
A perfect meditation for the day–next week has exhausted me already before it has even begun. Cary & I are a good bit older than you so we’ve begun gathering pictures, readings, memorabilia in case one or both doesn’t have much longer to dance in the rain. We each found a poem that suits ourselves, Cary’s is Dr. Alice Kutzin’s “Secret Weapon”, and mine is Merritt Malloy’s “Epitaph”. Somehow, these actions cushion us from the angst of this season’s campaign. We don’t have nearly as lovely an environment as yours, but we have found great contentment in walking together every day that has no rain for 2-3 miles. Sometimes we talk, but mostly we remain quiet, content to be in each other’s presence. Here’s the last three lines of Malloy’s poem: Love doesn’t die; people do.
So, when all that’s left of me is love,
give me away.
Thank you for writing this, and for sending me to “Epitaph.” However, I am having trouble finding “Secret Weapon.” Would you be able to offer a link or possibly to copy it out? Again, thanks.
You always speak to my heart. I thank you for your thoughts and let’s lift one another up in the days ahead.
With you. Thank you for the words.
Oh Katrina, I, too, feel your words and the depth of their hope and their message of resilience when faced with uncertainty and imminent change in all things. The metaphor of the changing of seasons – saying goodbye to fall and hello to winter and how we do that year after year after year is palpable. It just is what we do and what we must continue to do. No matter what. After I read your passage the line “I’ve watched chilled bees wobbling from one late-blooming cosmos to another” made me smile. I recall watching those same bees, their bums to the sun as they stumbled with flight for one more dip into what they know. I still smile thinking about them. They give me perspective and another reason to pause in a world that needs so much of us right now. Though I am writing to you from my home in Canada I wanted you to know that I am with you. I am with you through it all, through whatever will be. Though we live in different countries we live in the same world. We look at the same moon and wish upon the same stars. We all need love and peace and hope for better days ahead. Even the bumblebees. Sending my love from Canada.
Thank you Katrina for your words of hope and encouragement during these anxious days. I pray for better days ahead .
I was pleased to see your post in my inbox. This week I was thinking of you and thought it had been sometime since your last post. Love your writing. I share your thoughts about nature and our current events. You state them so eloquently. I really need your hopeful words as I try to stay centered and positive. Wishing you many blessings in the days ahead.
Thank you Katrina. If I could write anything myself these days I would have said much the same things, if less eloquently. No matter what happens next week, we will still be here, and we will stay and keep working to make things better for those who can’t do it by themselves.
Jean,
I love your statement, “no matter what happens next week, we will still be here, and we will stay and keep working to make things better for those who cannot do so for themselves.” So powerful and inspiring. I feel better after reading your impactful words, than I have felt in weeks. Yes, this is exactly what we will continue to do—help others like we always have. Thank you!
The high point of my day, your words! Thank you for drawing us closer together at this moment when isolation and fear are often ‘driving the bus’ within us. Hello Dear Ones! Thank you for sharing this time of wobble with me!
Thanks Katrina! Nature has been important to my family’s mental health the last few months as well. We kept a daily watch on nesting swans on a nearby river cove, and then observed their 5 fuzzy babies grow big enough to leave the nest and swim longer distances, and finally become as big as their parents. We also followed a loon family with one baby, who, over the summer, learned to dive and to make its own little version of a loon call. Yes, we have also joined protests, written GOTV postcards, and advocated for anti-rascist changes in our city too—reform in zoning in particular. We will get through this pandemic and this election.
Thank you for your poignant post. Your words are eloquent and true. I could picture you in the various vignettes and envision myself in my own space with similar thoughts and reflections. Always a pleasure to read your posts. Much thanks.
Oh Katrina, So wonderful to see your post. I, too, spent yesterday making too many donations to candidates. I don’t regret it, come what may. As I prepare to leave my beloved NH for the winter and head to Texas this morning, as every year, I wonder what this year will bring before I can return. I could never have imagined this year. I miss my grandchildren, my friends, I miss life as we know it. I find your words very comforting. Stay safe and keep your parents safe….and your children. Please keep that spark of joy to share with us who need it.
Holly
Dear Katrina, as always you speak kindness, wisdom, and a quiet determination not to give up hope. As a ‘friend across the pond’ our problems here in England are both the same and yet different to those you are facing in the US. I pray that the trajectory of the last 4 years in the US will be completely and utterly destroyed on Tuesday so that people of goodwill will be able to start the healing work you need so badly. Blessings to you and your family
Liz Day, Wiltshire, UK
Oh, Katrina. Bless you and thank you. On this early Sunday morning, my shaky and uncertain heart and mind have been soothed a bit. I’m so grateful and send you much love. ❤️
I love your description “my shaky and uncertain heart” That certainly describes me too! I am doing what I can to broadcast love. It’s helps to know there are others feeling the same way. Thanks!
Your words are holy. Thank you.
Thank you, Katrina. As always, your words capture what is in all of our hearts and minds. Thanks for sharing with us a feeling of hope!
What a stunning, beautiful, thoughtful, eloquent and hopeful piece that lifted me out of a heavy, fearful heart. As a nature lover I find much solace outside too. However, as I recently watched a bee bumble its way around a lone aster, I found my heart sinking knowing its days were numbered. Perhaps with all the death and loss around us it felt symbolic of the loss we cannot control. It’s too easy for my mind and heart to go this way during these dark days. The boundaries between joy and sorrow, beauty and pain, are more intense and tender. You remind me that we must hold onto hope. Many of your words moved me, but this line felt particularly helpful: “Although our waking hours may feel suffused with politics, pain, and outrage, the opposite is also true. There is energy and kindness and fierce commitment in every corner of our country. Good people are rising up. Together, we will breathe our way through this hard season and find our way into the next, whatever it turns out to be.” Thank you dear Katrina for the many gifts you give us during these ordinary and not so ordinary days.
Thank you, Katrina, for your wise, timely words. I am 76 years old, a long time activist for all the current frontline issues. But the last few days I have become peaceful and accepting. When I read your words as they arrived last night, you touched me and I felt we were together in heart. But, the most meaningful part to me is ALL these comments I read this morning reflecting how many are feeling the same way. Longing for this to be over, hoping for a better tomorrow, willing to put one foot ahead of the other and keep hope alive. Thank you and peaceful blessings on us all.
Thank you Katrina! Your words are thoughtful and eloquent.
Thank you for your gentle words.
Thank you, Katrina. Your words calm me.
Dear Katrina,
I don’t want to tether you to your computer longer than is necessary to say thank you. For your books, your story, and now foe these words. I’ve taken up with a tree at the park recently. I spend time each day stretching beside it, asking it to hold me up and give me strength. Nature is grounding. So are your words. I appreciate them immensely.
With gratitude.
Rachel
Observant, but not passive; Keen, but not sharp.Thanks for your effort and ibeautiful sense it gives.
Loren Fishman
As always, Katrina, I look forward to your posts and the wisdom they hold. Today’s is no exception. Thank you.
I remember once sitting on my deck, looking at a sky full of stars, and for a brief moment, the questions were silenced. The evening was filled with awe – at the distances between those stars, how long it took the light to reach my eyes, the vastness of what we don’t know. Rather than asking all of those unanswerable questions, including those of our future, I simply felt immense gratitude at being a small part of it all. It was healing to bear witness without any expectation of outcome. It was peace, and in times like these, I try to find quiet time to restore it before being pulled back into our world of inevitable distraction.
What a beautiful essay to wake up to this morning on the first of November! I love your descriptions of our beautiful Mother Earth and her calming influence, she centers and grounds me each day with her abundant beauty and gifts! Your pictures sent my heart soaring!! How I miss the change of seasons while living in the desert, but I too and greeted every morning with a flock of birds, joyously greeting the new day. All will be well, this too shall pass, and in the moment, let’s all breath and flow and look towards the wonder of nature to soothe our souls. Love, light and peace to all!
Thank you Katrina for putting words to many of our feelings. In this way we feel validated and comforted, knowing we are not alone. Last evening one of my grown daughters expressed. A feeling of depression and not being ‘centered’. I told her I was sorry she felt so low, but that she is not alone. I had spoken with two friends that day, that worried about the depth of anxiety and depression they were experiencing. I tried to comfort both if them as well as my daughter that these are very trying times for most of us. It is a world of sorts that we have never had to deal with before and it’s unsettling. I feel it’s like a child just learning to walk…grabbing a table to steady ourself or holding fast to the wall to remain upright. But we will come through this stronger, stand straighter and lift our heads to the heavens knowing with thanks, we never were alone.
Prayers of comfort to all. -SandiO
It was good to hear from you, Katrina.
It’s been a hard year, and I fear the divisions, the hatred, that seem to have risen up to sap the strength of this great country in its hour of need. I obsess over the polls, and hope that this time they are right. But even if they are, I wonder whether this winter of our collective soul will end.
I find myself thinking of this snippet of dialog from “The Fellowship of the Ring:” “”I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” Like you, I have contributed, and will vote. But it feels so inadequate to the moment.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=jy-aVrTpC2s#
I’ve read your books and absolutely love your writing and keep your post of February, 2015 entitled, “When The Going Gets Tough” on my bulletin board – (the words read like a meditation or prayer to me and are particularly heartfelt now!) As human beings it is counterintuitive to alienate ourselves during a crisis – (I was always taught to run towards the roar!) – but we find ourselves physically distant and more solitary. Perhaps these times are teaching us to go inward to find peace – peace that will eventually heal the world. When Mother Teresa was asked what each of us should do to promote world peace, she answered, “Go home and love your family.” She is so right! Less is more – it allows us to listen more, tend more, notice more, care more, “within our reach.” I believe we will emerge from this crisis stronger, more loving and more patient. And definitely more grateful. No matter the external outcomes that are beyond our control! We, each of us, can take better care of each other. That is real power! Thank you for your words of love.
Thank you for this thoughtful and insightful post. Nature is such a gift! For both body and soul!
Gail
I am giving this the attention it deserves. Grateful🙏🏼
Thank you , thank you, thank you. Awww….. your words are a balm for my soul.
I needed this so much today. We do all need each other. And we will all get through this, whatever happens.
I heard a wonderful talk from Matthew Fox a few days ago, (he has just written a book about Julian of Norwich by the way who lived through the Bubonic plaque ) and I am reminded again and again that ” All shall be well.”
I was delighted to see a post from you in my feed – thank you! Of course I love your words, and the photos (so very different from the views I see in suburban Atlanta). and I was drawn to comment because of this line “I can’t control the outcome of anything that matters, but I can keep the birdfeeders full.” Katrina, full bird feeders matter. smiling at the delivery person matters. and I cannot lose hope that kindnesses, lined up end to end to end, will shape a better outcome. everything matters. hugs! – Mary
I waited until today, Election Day, to read your post and I’m so glad I did because it’s today more than any other that I need your thoughts, your caring and your hope! I will pass this on to all my friends who also are in need-thank you so much!