All lit up in November

Today is Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. We will light candles tonight to take the place of diyas, the traditional clay lamps.

Looking out this sunny morning, I see a different kind of light: the trees aglow in fall color. Their flaming colors are perfect for Diwali.

Here are some photos I've taken with my phone the past two days.  May the light of Diwali and of this fall be with you throughout the year.

Flying Home

Last Labor Day, we flew back from a quick visit to Marilyn's sister in Virginia.  As we took off from Chicago, where we changed planes, and headed home to Champaign, I took these photos. 

When I moved to east central Illinois sixteen years ago, I was struck by the vastness.  Seeing the sun rise over cornfields from the window of my study startled me and left me lonely.  I was still new to the Midwest and felt exposed in the openness; I missed the embrace of the Pennsylvania valley I had left behind.  

Now, I look forward to the big sky and the view of the horizon.  This flatland is home.

When Someone Dies Young

                       

                        Today I thought about how everyone I know

                        is sad, how amazing that the forests and deserts

                        and plains can hold us as we get up and walk

                        from one season to the next.

  --From the poem “Sadness in Spring” by RobinBecker

Yesterday, a thirty-six-year-old woman who loved life and loved her young son even more died from cancer.  And I thought once again how final death is.  We can’t rewind to before, no matter how much we might want to. 

And we usually want to.  We want to ask questions.  We want to hear a familiar voice.  We want to show our love.  Did they know, we wonder, that we loved them?  Did we tell them often enough?  Those questions are clichéd--because they are so commonly asked. 

The young woman who died, Jennifer Arnold Smith, was a colleague of mine before her illness changed her life.  Jen knew for years that her death was nearer than it should have been. She fought it, looked for treatments, but she knew it was likely she would die soon.  So she lived.  In the time she had, she really, really lived.  She called it “living legendary.”  She wrote and self-published two books.  She told her story.  She supported others with cancer.  She went on trips and talk shows.  A year ago, she took her son to school on his first day of kindergarten; she had wanted to see that day, and she made the most of it when it came.  A week before she died, she gave her son an early birthday present, a motorized scooter that made his eyes open wide.

When my brother-in-law Mo died by suicide this past summer, I thought of Jen, fighting to live.  Jen wanted more time, more life.  Mo was done.   He could not tolerate life anymore.  I wished they could have traded.  I wished he could have given her the years he had left, and she could have given him a way to go.  If only it could work like that. 

I miss them both, Jen's lively spirit, Mo's sense of humor, both their gorgeous smiles.  And I have no choice but to say goodbye to them both. 

Kay Ryan, in her poem “Things Shouldn’t be so Hard,” writes,

“And when life stops,

a certain space—

however small—

should be left scarred

by the grand and

damaging parade.”

Mo and Jen leave their marks on us and on our world.  And we feel them.

Busy Bees on the Prairie

We walked in the prairie on Sunday afternoon and met these bees in the midst of the thistle and goldenrod. 

Baking on a Saturday

After a sleepless Friday night worrying about how I would juggle writing a conference paper with prepping and grading for my composition and poetry classes, I knew what I had to do on Saturday. 

I pulled out the old, steel mixing bowl and my favorite wooden spoon. I measured flour and whisked egg whites and rinsed raspberries. Soon my fingers smelled of lemon zest, and the kitchen of vanilla and warmth. 

Later, my shoulders relaxed in the September sunshine as Marilyn and I bit into muffins and listened to the ruckus of the birds in the trees. 

When I came in to wash the bowls and measuring cups, I knew I'd sleep well that night. 

Last Weekend in Three Photos

On Friday evening, entering the mall to run errands, I noticed this sign.   I immediately read it as, "One world separates," and thought, sarcastically, "Partition--at a discount!"  I have been transcribing interviews with family members who experienced the 1947 Partition of India, so the Partition has been on my mind a lot.

Crossing the street in Chicago on Saturday afternoon to attend a performance of The Book of Mormon, I looked up and saw this huge sign (a 2011 piece by Kay Rosen).  After watching the musical about missionaries in Uganda, I thought again about the idea of "doing good" for others.  What do we intend?  And what actually happens?

On Sunday morning, I read the paper on the deck, a favorite weekend ritual.  When I got up to go in, I looked down at the table and saw this. 

Looking up

I have been working on the patio of the neighborhood coffee shop, sitting in the sun to stay warm on this unusually cool August day. Just now, getting ready to pack my books and head to campus for a meeting, I happened to tilt my head back and look up. This is the sight I had nearly missed.