At Home Now on This Flatland

I had lived for seven years in a Pennsylvania valley before I moved here to east central Illinois in 1997.  In those seven years I remember watching a sunset once: I was somewhere near the mall at a point high enough that I could see the sun go down behind the mountains.  I don't know if I could have seen the sunrise; besides,  I don't think I woke up early enough very often.

When I moved here for my first (and current) full-time faculty job, I lived in a townhouse that had windows facing east and west.  I lived on the southern edge of town, and from the window of my second-floor study, I would watch the sun rise across a cornfield as I got ready for my long day of teaching.  

Watching the sun come up in that big sky, I felt like a child who had recently been swaddled but was now all limbs.  I missed the embrace of the mountains and felt exposed on this flatland. 

As the years passed, my relationship with the big sky changed.  I became used to the openness and began to think of the sky with its changing clouds and colors as the mountains of the Midwest: a formation of white clouds in the winter might look like snowcapped mountains. The sunsets I often watch as I leave work are part of the familiar delight of the end of the day. 

Earlier this month, on my first day back after the winter break, I noticed the brilliant sunset once again and had to stop and take photos as I left the campus. The campus and the landscape are now home to me.

The Comfort of the Prairie

On two recent afternoons, I walked the familiar path through the prairie in Meadowbrook Park. 

On the first day, the clouds were thick as I parked the car by the popular play structure where a few children played despite the cold.  As I turned off the ignition, the drizzle turned to a steady rain, and parents began hurrying children to the cars, some bundled in their arms.  I had grabbed my raincoat as I left the house; with the hood low over my face, I looked down at the ground and walked on the familiar path.  I was sad, and the weather mirrored my mood.  The rain seemed just right, and the path beneath my feet grounded me. 

Twenty-four hours later, I was back on the path.  The sun was brighter than it had been in days, the air was crisp, and I felt lighthearted and wide awake.  I walked again on the path that has become a kind of meditation for me. 

On this last day of 2014, I am grateful for this prairie to which I return all year round, where I listen for the creatures that share the space, and watch the grass that blows in the wind.  

November

The prairie on the last day of November.

Starting thirty years ago—when I moved to the United States after growing up in the warmth of India and Kuwait—November became the nondescript lull between the brilliant oranges of autumn and Halloween and the lights and sparkle of the holiday season.  Until Thanksgiving and my birthday arrived at the end of the month, November seemed merely grey and increasingly cold. 

This year, on a Saturday in early November, just when the trees had lost most of their leaves and the wind seemed to freeze my bones, this month of transition reminded me of the hope and faith it takes to move through our days. 

In the morning, Marilyn and I attended the church wedding of a middle-aged couple.  The ceremony was brief, but we could all see that the exchange of words had transformed the lives of the couple.  As they walked out of the sanctuary together, their smiles were wide, their faces nearly aglow.  With faith and hope, they had made promises that were to last them their whole lives.  Their whole lives. 

At noon, Marilyn and I walked to our neighborhood park, where an Indian family that lives two doors from us was planting a tree in memory of their beloved daughter and sister, who had died just before her twelfth birthday after a brief illness.  She would never marry.  She would not even be a teenager.  Her whole life was done.   

As I shoveled some dirt around the root of the tree and then watched her young friends and her six-year-old brother do the rest, I thought of the hope and faith with which we love the people in our lives. We plan for our lives together.  And then, sometimes, we are devastated by how our plans have to be laid aside. 

At the same time, I thought how planting that catalpa tree, which in November was bare, just a collection of skinny branches really, was an act of hope and faith.  In the spring, the tree will bloom.  In a few years, it will cast some shade.  Eventually, children may sit under it and have a picnic.  As we held hands in a circle around the tree, all of us, whose lives were touched by this young, bright, loving girl, imagined that tree.  One person had brought bulbs of white grape hyacinth to plant under the tree, and the children placed those around the roots, helped by the adults.

After the tree was planted and the kind men from the park district had set the memorial plaque in place and laid down the mulch, our small group hurried down the street to our neighbors’ house.  There we ate simple Indian food, sipped on hot apple cider, and found some comfort in being together. 

When Marilyn and I came home that Saturday afternoon, we worked on the annual task of moving the furniture from our deck to our garage.  As I moved the heavy umbrella stand in the red wheelbarrow, I imagined bringing it out again in the spring, imagined setting out the deck furniture and hanging up the backyard swing in front of the blue spruce trees.  I have faith spring will come again—and I hope it brings only what we are able to bear.

As I pushed the wheelbarrow, I noticed berries from the hawthorn tree gathered by November rain.

Being Still

🎓

Last month, as summer ended and fall began, monarch butterflies visited the purple butterfly bush in our back garden. One day, when I stayed home sick with the sore throat and chills that seemed to be sweeping across our campus, I ventured out into the backyard in pajamas, wishing for the sun to heal me. 

I noticed three monarchs at the butterfly bush. They would move around, weaving through the branches, and then settle on a bloom for a while. I walked up as close as I could without startling them.  As I watched their busyness, I stopped for a while. I stood completely still.

Stillness is what I have yearned for all through October, the month that seems busiest in the academic year and when the long weekend around Thanksgiving feels far away.  I have raced from one deadline to the next, still enjoying watching my students learn, very much enjoying the communities coming together in the classroom.  And stopping and being still when I can. 

On a recent afternoon in Meadowbrook Park, I  walked around a curve and was offered another invitation to be still. 

The Peace of Knitting

Knitting my first cardigan with this blue-violet-turquoise Malabrigo is making me very happy.

The repetition of knitting brings me peace. Looping yarn around needles, feeing its softness and its weight in my hand, watching a skein turn into a hat, a blanket, a scarf--I have found pleasure and comfort in this process for a dozen years now. When I spot a knitter waiting at the airport or in a clinic, I feel a kinship with this stranger and find comfort in watching her hands move.

Recently, I began knitting my first cardigan. I am taking a class at my local yarn store, Klose Knit; the teacher is a new friend I made at a knitting retreat last January, when I spent an entire day among knitters and learned how to cable for the first time.

This is the final stage of the hat I knitted after I learned how to cable.

Here are some photos from the early stages of the "Sheer Beauty" cardigan I am knitting. I began with 665 stitches; I have begun the decreases, but, still, it's a very good thing I love the process of knitting. Completing each row is a triumph, and it will be months before I'm done.

Knitting on the deck in the September sunshine while not knowing what time it is--one definition of paradise.

A Gift

Downtown this afternoon, a large, yellow butterfly circled around me and then settled on a flower. I walked around the bush to look for it and then watched it for a while as its wings opened and closed. It was still on the same flower as I walked on to my car.

A lovely gift at the end of a week of many transitions, including preparing to teach classes that begin next week.

Prairie in bloom

The prairie in bloom at Meadowbrook Park yesterday evening: gorgeous views everywhere I looked.