From the Archives: A Moveable Feast

Poetry

Here’s William Stafford’s, “Quo Vadis” (“where are you going?”).

Journeying

During a Zoom call, my friend M. says, “I took a year where I asked myself, ‘what do I want? What do I need? What brings me joy?’ and then tried to live the answers.”  
“A whole year?” I thought. “Can you do that? Can I?”
The offer seemed too good.
Before we finished the call, I recorded her questions in my notebook. 
That afternoon at the gym, I started answering them.  Between sets of back squats, I wrote, “I need to feel that I’m essentially safe.”  This didn’t seem possible, but I thought it important to include.
While knitting, and without my notebook, I wrote on the back of a used sticky note, “space, time, a challenge, an adventure.”
Later, in my notebook, I added the questions, “What gives me energy?” and “How do I find rest?”
I began to answer those too.

Then my kids and partner left to visit his parents in South Carolina, a trip we had planned for me not to take.  I needed a rest, we would avoid the expense of boarding the dog, we wouldn’t have to get an Airbnb, I need to rest.  

Alone in the house, I listened.
In the quiet, my recording shapeshifted from questions and answers to presence:

The wind picks up, bringing humidity and triple digit temperatures.
I water.
I walk the dog early.
I find a bird’s nest blown from a tree.
I find a cherry tree with a sign that reads, “Too many cherries.  Free to pick.”
I pick enough cherries to fill the nest and bring both home.
I read a book about ancestors and their power over what we put in our mouths and carry in our hearts.*
I remember my mother’s cooking, the biscuits and sausage gravy, the cornbread.
I make myself some spoon bread and eat it hot with butter and sorghum syrup.
I cook white beans with onions, garlic, greens, and farmer’s market mushrooms.
I close the curtains against the heat and resign myself to air conditioning.
I listen to the rhythmic whir of the ceiling fans.
I lie on the couch, one leg propped on the back, over and away from the warm caramel body of my dog also stretched out there.
I think about how to reply to a text from my sister, who wrote, “I appreciate your honesty, but I am the same.  The same me I have been for 50 years.”  I want to say, “yes, I know.  And I cannot be what you want.  And it both breaks and mends my heart, my choice to be.”
The philodendron grows along the dining room windowsill, curling toward the light.
The dog pants and pulls me up the hill, my shirt soaked through, his tongue slung out of the side of his mouth.
I read a book about a man trapped in a sword and a woman trying to claim her inheritance and herself.**
I mix up a quiche with sautéed kale and onions.  I pickle the handful of sour cherries I brought home in the nest and eat them with circles of roasted sweet potatoes and a slice of the quiche.
I slip into the lap pool, cold after so much heat, and swim beside a lithe girl just this side of puberty, who slips through the water without a wake.
I “heart” and save the pictures my partner sends me of my kids playing pickle ball and tubing.  I feel the ache of distance and the desire to be here, alone and cool in this still house.
I run on the gym treadmill to stay out of the heat.  My breath comes evenly.  My legs move with little effort.  My mind is bored.  It casts about for some trouble or tension to worry.

And I wait.  For the heat to end in rain, for my family to return, for the answers to my questions.

*Crystal Wilkinson’s Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts

**T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart