Pride & Prejudice

The Church Lady on Garden still hovers.
     I brought her mixed nuts but she refused. Another day she offered me $5.00 and politely asked to buy her a “medium black coffee with a raspberry danish from Hot Oven Bakery.” She was that specific. She rejected the sugar. And implored me to take away an unopened bottle of Polish grape juice.
     I was humbly and sheepishly reminded that everyone can have a preference despite their life circumstances. During this weekend’s delivery, I truly wondered how her body continues on, but it does and so does her will, as she asks when I’ll be back. 

Inspired by Thanksgiving.
Photo by Wendy Whelan.

Did he fall or was he pushed?

Just as I suspected: trees can control when they drop their leaves . . . and maybe even if. In fact, it appears they don’t so much drop them as push them away. Of course, I base this entirely on an observation of the single tree in our front yard, upon which, after all its leaves had fallen this year, I noticed a single dead, dangling branch with every leaf intact. They were also all dead, of course, but still sticking fast. The tree had probably wanted to get rid of them too, but couldn’t.
     Is there a metaphor here that I’m missing?

Inspired by The Return of Little Gerry. Image by Image Creator.

The Return of Little Gerry

L.G. is 14 years old.  He grew quickly, then left home to live with Angelika when he was six. This summer he returned to us because he was feeling poorly.
     “He's better,” I said to her. “You should take him back.” But she refused, so he lived outside.
     The fall nights are getting colder, obviously he had to come in.  But now he’s a hefty sixty pounds, and it’s very hard for him to get up the stairs, thus we emptied the back room.
     For a plant.
     We’re squished like sardines. Gerry got an $850 chair to keep him company. 

Inspired by Mums. Image—Can I pee on it?—by Laurie.

Courage 2

A spring evening in Krakow, a long lineup at a local restaurant. I invite the elderly man behind us to join us at our table. He is friendly, his English halting. He was an engineer and once lived in California. I ask how, in communist times, he could move to the United States. He explains that he built a radio transmitter for Solidarity during martial law. When Radio Solidarity was busted he escaped and lived in exile until the regime fell. All this in an unassuming, almost shy voice. You must come visit my house, he says when we part.

Inspired by Courage in the face of authoritarianism. Photo of the Solidarity memorial in Warsaw by Ron Thompson.

Mums

I so want to buy those overflowing pots of mums. Lots and lots of them to bedazzle my house with yellow and russet. But they don’t last long and then I’d be stuck with dead flowers and too many plastic pots. Instead, I try to notice them. To appreciate their ephemeral pop of colour in the Autumn sunshine. To watch the trees in their glory and bear witness when the last of their jewelled leaves fall. To be fully present when the world turns and nature succumbs to November’s relentless grey. To be still hopeful a cleansing snow will follow.

Inspired by Urban Escape. Photo by Nancy.

Urban Escape

How to escape the urbanity of artisanal beards and authentic gym-made muscles by working the land, working the earth then be rewarded with callouses, whole body aches, trickles of blood—which sound like discomfort, yet are still more tolerable than ails garnered from a desk job because it makes sense to wince when branches of prickly ash whip across my face or wild rose thorns jab through clothes into skin whereas I can't solve the mystery of why my lower back aches from sitting in front of a computer. Unlike purchased authenticity, the real thing often makes you bleed.

Inspired by La feuille d’or. Photo by Fred Ni.

La feuille d’or

Dear yellow-orange leaf, there you blow.

It pains me to see you, such resistance I have to your change. 

I know you will flood me with warm days and cool nights. 

With sights and colours that leave me in awe.

But on this sweet September morning, I don’t want you to be there. 

This hazy breeze will soon be no more. 

The childhood freedoms that recirculate through our veins will recede again.

The serious Fall and fridged Winter, they twinge my heart. 

You will fall dear leaf but you are not dead.

Resting in a deep sleep, awaiting your rebirth.

Inspired by Out the Window. Photo by Wendy Whelan