Sunshine and conversation

This weekend, I sat on the grass in a southern city, watching brown-and-gold leaves drift down from the trees, savoring the touch of sun on my bare arms and bare feet. The colors seem muted compared to the brilliant fall foliage we get in the northeast, but still, the landscape was more beautiful than I had expected.

The friend I was visiting seemed happy to indulge my wish to be outside, so we spent hours just wandering around parks or sitting on the grass, talking, moving every time the patch of sun moved. City parks are great for people watching, and I couldn’t resist analyzing the people we’d see. The most telling was the young father walking with his toddler son. The little boy had fallen and was crying. The father kept saying to him, “Shake it off! Shake it off!” and never so much as gave the kid a hug.

“Wow,” I said. “I bet he’d act different if that kid was a girl. He’d pick her up and give her a hug.” 

“Yeah, it’s easy to see how gender stereotypes get perpetrated,” my friend said. A few minutes later, he pointed to a girl who had fallen while walking on a stone wall. She was immediately surrounded by family, who were giving her all kinds of sympathy.

It felt like summer in the park. Whole families were running around in the grass, often accompanied by barking dogs. Groups of little kids had gathered for football practice, their skinny bodies hidden under shoulder pads and helmets. We could hear the repeated crack of a bat from the batting cages on the other side of the field.

Saturday, we walked along a wide creekbed filled with a fascinating pattern of rocks and water that led to the remains of an old textile mill that burned down during the civil war. Five stories of brick walls rose above the rushing water. We climbed around the rocks, staying out in the middle of the stream to enjoy the sunshine, talking while we wandered around. Too soon the sun disappeared behind the trees, and it was time to hike back to the car before darkness fell. Even in the south, November days are short.

Just a bit more sunshine

When my kids were little, I’d send them outside to play any time we had sunny autumn weather. “This could be the last nice day,” I’d tell them. I knew that cold rains and then snow would keep them inside soon enough.

This fall, I’ve tried to follow my own advice and spend as much time outside as I could. What’s worked out well is that my weekend trips have been in geographic order, from north to south, so I’ve managed to find that last beautiful day in several different regions. During September, I drove north to Maple Leaf Country for a conference: the weather was warm enough to eat outside with my friends. During October, I went north to the mountains, where the leaves were turning bright yellow and red. Last weekend, I drove south to get to the monastery for a weekend retreat.

Tomorrow, I am flying south to a city where the temperatures are expected to reach the 60s. I’m hoping for one more weekend of sunshine before winter begins.

When the shadows reached me

My weekend retreat at the monastery included a Saturday afternoon hike down the steep trail to the river where Nurse Friend and I could sit in the sun on the flat stones and listen to the rushing water. Close to the ground, the air was warm. I rolled my fleece up to use as a pillow and took a nap, waking up when the shadows reached me. 

In the barnyard

Morning walk at the monastery

Saturday morning at the monastery was cold but sunny. I wore my winter coat when I went for a morning walk. Frozen blades of grass crunched under my feet as I walked along the fence towards the sheep barn. The sun began melting the frost on the pastures, but icy spots still remained in the shadow of the barn and in round spots under the crooked trees in the apple orchard.

After wandering through the barnyard and taking photos of sheep, I went into the chapel to get warm. As I walked down the stone steps into the crypt, I heard voices. A class of school kids were gathered in the little back room. Brother Tractor was telling them stories about the early days of the monastery. He came in 1961, the year I was born.

“We wore robes all the time in those days, but we kept ripping them when we were doing farm work. Mine would get caught in the tractor. So we had a meeting and they voted that you could wear pants when you were doing farm work or using a ladder,” he said. He added, “One of the brothers said that I was always carrying a ladder around just so I could wear pants.” The kids laughed.

"Why do you sing and chant?" asked a girl. Brother Tractor said, “Do you like it? The music adds something to prayer that words cannot.”

Once I was warm, I went back outside to wander over to the sheep pasture and walk up the road in the sun. The wind that rose was cold, and it wasn’t long before I was ready to go back to the guest cottage where I’d sit in the sunny window with a cup of hot tea and a book.

Monastery in November

At the monastery, the monks are preparing for winter. The big barns are filled with stacks of hay. In the lobby of their bookstore, visitors can buy cider made from their apples, candles made from beeswax, and mittens made from wool. The trees in the orchards have been picked clean, and the vegetable garden turned over. The sheep that graze outside the chapel are fat and healthy, with thick wool coats. 

Nurse Friend and I arrived on Friday evening just in time for Compline, the last prayer of the day. The bell was already ringing as we hurried through a cold wind and up the stone steps of the chapel. I pulled open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the warm, musty air. That familiar smell of old incense and melting wax always makes me feel at home.

The evening prayer service ended downstairs in the crypt, with the monks in their dark robes standing in a semi-circle around a low stone altar that holds a fourteenth century stone statue of Mary, the room lit by the flickering flames of votive candles that visitors have placed on the altar. When the chanting was done, one monk climbed back up to the ring the bell, and the monks left quietly to return to their living quarters. Nurse Friend and I went back out into the night to go unpack our car and get settled at the little guest cottage where we’d be staying.

Last burst of orange

before the world turns white and grey.

Music on a Wednesday night

We don’t often go out during the week, but tonight my husband and I went out on to listen to some jazz. We ate at a wooden table in a restaurant that had old brick walls and big glass windows under curved arches. The room was filled with mostly older folks, although across the room Red-haired Niece and some of her friends had gathered to eat and drink, a tableful of young people amidst the greying heads. Smiley Girl sat with us, eating salad and listening to the music.

Shaggy Hair Boy, of course, was sitting at the keyboard. He’s the pianist for the Snowstorm University Jazz Ensemble. Wearing the black dress shirt that belongs to his older brother, his long curly hair pulled neatly back into a ponytail, his hands danced across the keys while his head moved to the rhythm of the music.

It wasn’t quite the same as the Big City Like No Other jazz clubs: the restaurant could have used some thick velvet curtains to improve the acoustics. But the young music students sounded pretty terrific, and the crowd clapped like crazy after they played their last number.

Shaggy Hair Boy plays the piano several times every day, so I hear his music all the time, and I often fall asleep at night to the sound of his playing. But it was fun to watch him play with the ensemble, to an audience of people who love music. It still comes as a shock to see him up in front and realize that my little boy has transformed into a poised, confident young man.

Or perhaps an owl

I had a busy day — a breakfast meeting, an appointment with a student, three 80-minute classes in a row, and then another meeting. I never even had time to turn on the computer in my office and check my email. It was getting dark by the time I got home, changed into sweatpants, built a fire, and made myself a cup of tea.

When I finally grabbed my laptop and checked my inbox, I saw an email from this morning, a friend asking if I wanted to go to lunch tomorrow. I started to reply to the email, but then I stopped halfway through writing the message when I realized that the address was her work email. I knew she was already home from work, and I wasn’t sure if she would check her work email from home. But I needed to plan my day for tomorrow.

I went over to her facebook page: it looked like she’d been online earlier. I found her on my cellphone with the plan to send her a text. I squinted at the first three digits of her phone number and realized that it was a local number, which meant a landline. I checked twitter, and thought about sending a direct message, but I wasn’t sure how often she checks twitter. I checked google chat, but she wasn’t online.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I picked up the telephone and dialed her number. Suddenly, I heard her voice and we were talking directly! It took us less a minute to make lunch plans.

And I didn’t have to type anything.

And the days get shorter