A June Musing

(This is not part of the series I am writing, just something that needed to come out and be shared.  Enjoy!)

 It’s in the back alleys of town that I find the solace I need to notice the beauty of the season we are in currently.  It’s not the arduous task of climbing up, up, up out of the valley, and therefore allows me the freedom to study the flowers.  For that is how I note the passing of time, by what the flowers are doing.  The early summer roses are waning now.  Crown vetch, sweet peas, daylilies, and lavender are in high bloom.  Some hydrangeas and varieties of peonies are in the process of exploding into fireworks of incredible color and complexity.  Yes, here in the less traveled parts, the trees are less dust-covered, the people and cars in motion are fewer, the din of small city life is muted more, and I can work through my internal thrashings with a deft and experienced hand. 

Summer has never been my peak season, and yet I can appreciate some aspects of it, as long as it isn’t absurdly hot.  It was during summer a few years ago I discovered all the wonderful things there are to eat if one takes the time to wander all the crisscrossing streets-plums and cherries, giant blackberries, small, but super sweet strawberries, concord grapes, mulberries, apples, and black cap raspberries.  Summer is when I found the trails to the old quarry and spent the next several months exploring, all the way into the first snows of winter.  I can enjoy swimming in the creek, or, when the water is too low, I can hunt down crayfish and beach glass. 

Today found me not quite up to the chore of scaling the hillsides to escape town, but with a need to escape nonetheless.  So, to the alleys, then, to find flowers and quiet and just enough solitude to get me through.  Even Brou seemed grateful for the reprieve of town’s endless noise.  One thing about our alleys is they don’t always connect, so sometimes, we have to go up or down to get from one to the other.  This was good for me, as I’ve been rather a slacker about leaving footprints lately.  See, I’m trying to work through a small grieving process, nothing serious, just a goodbye I don’t feel ready to make, and I have two ways I can go about it; one is to curl up on the couch and let an endless river of tears flow until exhaustion puts me to sleep, and the other is to plant one foot in front of the other and let the rhythm of life flow until I can look up and notice the flowers.  For a few days, I chose the former, though in my defense, I did at least try to get up and accomplish small things. 

One evening, I felt the need to move, the restless itch to walk out of my own skin for a while.  I waited until it was very late, past midnight, and set myself in motion.  And that time, I did climb up, up, up.  I left behind the loud nightclub and its pounding music, left behind people screaming at others on cell phones, left behind car horns and screeching tires and all the nails through the brain sounds that were driving me batty.  I walked, with nothing, no dogs, no music, no water-just me and my churning thoughts and a few songs I know by heart in my head.  I made it to one of the best meditation spots I know of, my oldest and most favorite place on Martin’s Way, which has a spectacular view of all the valley as far north as one can see.  I stopped to sing a song I recently wrote with a friend, and to talk out loud, and hope someone was listening.  I had to be okay with the unfolding circumstances.  I also had to have the right to feel the grief that was building hard in my chest, in my eyes.  I asked for something, anything, to give me a path out of the gloom.  I breathed in the night, felt the gentility blowing on the wind, let out a sigh, and continued up.  I ran out of up eventually, so looped around to start heading down.  I could smell it before I saw it-honeysuckle in full season.  As I rounded a bend, I saw the beginnings of what was an entire hillside of honeysuckle.  Someone’s whole yard was just burgeoning with it.  I stopped and stood in awe of the sight, of the scent.  I asked permission from the plant and then started to pick some, just to carry with me to sniff on the way home, a reminder of the beauty that can still exist out there, when one takes the time to go find it.  I thanked everybody I could think of for this incredible creation, bowed my head in gratitude, and worked my way back down, down, down.  I chose alleyways to get home, took my time, sniffed my treasured gift.  In some of these places, streetlights are few and far apart, so I would be hidden in complete darkness for short times.  It was still a bit scary, even at my age, though I think my monsters have gone from the horror movie kind to the more human kind, the kind with knives and bad intent.  So, naturally, my pace picked up between light spots.  It was fun, and challenging, and I felt secretive and cool, sneaking around in the dark, looking at the back yard lives of people.  As I got closer to home, I could hear the noise of civilization as it came back gradually to my ears.  Part of me was very tired, and yet, part of me wanted to keep going, to walk completely away from all of it, to walk until all I could see was beauty. 

But I know where home is.  And I know I must go there, and tend to the affairs of the life I live in reality.  I can make it, I know, as long as I can have nights to wander in the shadows, and days to saunter through the alleys and admire the flowers in their seasons.  One day, I will have to find other streets, new roads.  I have been in stasis, on base, for far too long, and it is only a matter of time before my true gypsy nature calls me to come find beauty, to come find the open road.  I think it’s time to head west, and so I must plan, and help Joe find a way to make it happen. 

Home.  Yes, I know home.  I know it with great intimacy, and sometimes, beyond the filth and the noise and the occasional cruelty, or brutality, of it, I can find why I stay.  And also why I must go.  And in between, I must find a way to make it from streetlight to streetlight as best I can.

Love and light and flower blessings to you all,