The trees stand tall and broad. Strong, silent, comforting sentries.
In this quiet season of an isolating time, of all the trees visible from our home, the trees in the nearby cemetery offer me the most solace.
Winter is their time, when their rugged beauty and subtle shades contrast with their surroundings.
Snow outlines their limbs. Their outer bark flakes off to show new, tender bark. Mottled pale grey, warm tan and hints of moss green offer color against the stark white and ice blue of the winter landscape.
Knowing them by Name
What is their name? I’d like to learn it.
For a long time, I thought of them as sycamores, perhaps feeling their connection to sycamores like the ones growing beside a trout stream in central Pennsylvania in a beautiful, special place where I left my grief behind. They comforted me as I walked among them.
These trees that line the short sides of the cemetery behind our house have undoubtedly witnessed much grief.
These particular trees have a lot of sycamore characteristics. But the more I learn and study about sycamores, I’m leaning away from thinking of them as true, native sycamores. Their bark buckles and peels like a sycamore, but is too dark. They don’t have the sycamore’s dramatic, ghostly white outline against the winter sky.
A sycamore in its winter glory at Greenwood Furnace State Park, in Huntingdon, Pa.
I suspect they would have been planted when the Presbyterian cemetery was established.
They are probably not native to Pennsylvania, which means they don’t provide as much habitat or ecological benefits as a native tree.
Yet, “our” cemetery trees are majestic shade trees in their own right.
They have a few dried seed pods left on their branches.
Soon, the raspberry of spring-blooming redbuds will outshine those colors. Their shades will remain recessed through the lush greens of summer, then gold, crimson and oranges of autumn.
In winter, we can see and appreciate their bones and shape. Their rugged stillness, visible from our kitchen window and my office window.
On my morning walks, their roots provide reliable, knotted and gnarly beauty.
American settlers reportedly found the size of New World sycamores “astonishing” according to “Lives of Trees,” an Uncommon History by Diana Wells. Old, native sycamores could be hollow and still grow, and sometimes even provided shelter for people and livestock.
Can you imagine?! Talk about resourcefulness and making do.
Oriental plane trees offer comfort and gnarly beauty, but are not native to Pa. This one has a small, native Eastern redbud showing spring buds beside it.
“Our” trees have thick, full trunks of six feet across, so not quite big enough to move into. Yet, if these trees are left alone here to silently grow, perhaps this is possible.
They are mighty. And every morning, in the light of new days and changing seasons, their bark and roots provide a new, nourishing image to me.
Yet — after all these years and daily walks, through the seasons, I’m reminded of Joni Mitchell singing about clouds, and I wonder if I truly know them at all.
Raucous, pop-art flowers in hot pink and and orange with bits of green and turquoise caught my eye. Happy satin atop the platform high heels with a peek-a-boo toe. These shoes were made to twirl, dance and start a dance party.
A bunch of college girlfriends and I were at the Macy’s in downtown Chicago, on the Magnificent Mile, if memory serves, doing some recreational shopping on a crazy-fun trip more than a decade ago.
I’ve lived in small, rural towns for a long time. So downtown, department store shopping just for fun with the girls is quite rare. Nor always fun. I’m often practical and pinching pennies, working hard toward a bigger life goal that’s more important to me than stuff.
And when it comes to shoes, I’m quite content with my two mainstays: Great sneakers and comfortable black clogs that go with everything.
Just for fun, I slipped those high heels on, took a few wobbly, teetering steps and cracked up laughing. This got my girlfriends’ attention.
“Oh, you have to get those!’ they said.
So I did. They stayed packed in the car the next week while we visited an island in Lake Michigan that called for Teva sandles and flip-flops. My kinda place.
Display-worthy
After vacation, back in central Pennsylvania, I opened the box, releasing that department store scent, a mix of “brand new” and the fragrances those ladies in white coats spritz into the air.
I unwrapped my fun “girlfriend” shoes from their delicate, white tissue paper and displayed them in a prominent place in the closet.
They can pull a fun outfit together. I’ve worn them maybe twice, and kicked them off after a half-hour.
They’ve survived many closet cleanouts, when the rest of the poorly fitting, uncomfortable shoes landed in the trash. These days, my feet scream without the Vionics shoes that properly hold my heel and arch in place. My heel-wearing days have mostly slipped away.
Yet, I’m not parting with my “Betty Boop” girlfriend shoes. No way.
Their job is neither to be comfortable, nor even shoes.
Their job is not to lift my arches, but to lift my spirits with memories of fun nights with my girlfriends and inspire hope for future, raucous evenings of laughing and dancing together. Some days, they work their magic from the top of my desk.
They are made for strutting out, a quick snapshot and starting the party. Then being kicked off into the grass.
Simpler Times & Guilty Pleasures
One summer night, before the Chicago trip, these girlfriends and I took over the dance floor at a club in Boston and danced for hours to the ‘80s music of our teen years. We shimmied, and twirled, swayed and stepped, waved our arms in the air without a care in the world.
I was still single then. Those simpler days are over. Our bachelorette parties are behind us.
Now — to be clear: I am a happily married, content woman living a beautiful life. Living my dream. I am absolutely serious and clear about this. My family is healthy, thank God, and we are so lucky to not worry about our next meals, or water or heat.
To even reminisce and daydream about dancing these days feels like a luxury and guilty pleasure.
Yet, this helps me get through.
Our lives are more complex and richer now, in a way that makes a night of dancing challenging even when we no longer have to worry that breathing each other’s air will spread a deadly disease.
Love that Holds Up the Sky
We’ve reached a different life-stage. One with silver hair for some of us, and bodies quite strong and able. Such an amazing time to be a strong woman. Our spirits help hold up the sky.
We have lives in which finding a night when we know our kids are OK, and our parents are OK and our spouses are OK is — shall we say — tricky.
Three of my girlfriends have survived breast cancer. We have endured divorces and many of us have lost parents.
We have walked through the fires of life. Which makes the dancing all the more joyous, right? Just look what we’ve survived! Look what we can accomplish! Hallelujah!
I don’t want to go backwards or get stuck in the past — just to dance with my girls again for a night as if we’re single and as if life is simple.
In my mind’s eye, it’s a summer evening with fireflies.
We laugh so hard we squeal and wipe our tears away. The beat lifts us onto our feet and takes over our bodies. We kick off our shoes because they slow us down and dance barefoot in the cool grass.
We don’t know when that dance party will come — just that it will. It must.
When it does, my girlfriend shoes are ready to kick off the festivities.
~~~
When it’s time for the dance party, are you in? Got your dancing shoes? Who will you invite? What music do you want to put on the playlist?
I’ll get this party started.
For Jen in Seattle, the center of our college coven that met in Chicago
My last pie was a deep-dish monster of an apple pie with a thick flaky bottom and top crust, cut-out hearts on top and a filling of sliced McIntosh apples cooked with brown sugar into a sweet, syrupy skyscraper-high carbohydrate count. Too much of a good thing?
That depends.
Not for a big family dinner like our annual Thanksgiving-in-February bash for 25 people at the nearby hunting camp where many of our family are members. For that evening, we lower the hinged lid of the built-in firewood box and convert it to a dessert buffet.
That deep-dish apple pie plus a chocolate cake and a bowl of red-foil-wrapped chocolate hearts sweetly finish a big dinner with our extended family.
But with our big dinners on hold, it was the just the two of us left alone with that pie.
Pie for Breakfast
We are empty-nesters for now. My husband is determined not to waste food. A slice of “breakfast pie” likely shot his blood-sugar sky-high then drove it off a cliff. Not so good. (Especially if you adore your husband, as I do.)
While pie is meant to be shared, a big pie is too sloppy of a thing to share with our neighbors — at least not this oozy apple pie.
Yet my urge to make and share pie from scratch right now remains quite intense. Pie-making seems to be sponging up the energy I’d typically be spending on prepping for a big family dinner, and it’s a way to connect — so important!
I’m hoping to use this quiet time to become “pie-proficient” — meaning I can make a pie or two in a typical day without a lot of fuss, angst, or flour all over the kitchen and myself.
Someday, we’ll presumably return to lives full of engagements and potluck meals for which I’d like to feel more prepared, with a pie or two ready-to-go in the freezer. Like on those Sunday mornings when I realize I forgot all about the potluck lunch after the church service.
Maybe it’s this simple: I live in Amish country, so I should be able to make pie.
Ice Storm Ahead ~ We’ll Need Pie
On Monday morning, with an ice storm due to start any minute, we would need pie. Naturally. So I snuck in a half-hour to make pastry before heading up to the office.
I settled on smaller pies so they would be easier to share. My husband was relieved the plan left no pie behind in our kitchen.
Since it was a big batch, I experimented with using the KitchenAid stand mixer, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. McDowell suggested still mixing the water in by hand and the stand mixer bowl isn’t well-suited for that.
The pastry rolled out beautifully on the kitchen counter, just like last week.
A single crust worked just fine for my 8 and 3/4 inch, shallow tin plates, with scraps to make cutout snowflakes.
That seemed fitting given the sleet that now encased our cars, clung to tree limbs and made the driveway an ice rink.
The sleet stopped overnight and by this afternoon, the sun had melted much of the ice off the trees. I hope the two neighbors who received surprise cherry pies on this icy day felt special.
I hope it wasn’t too much sugar, and trust they’ll in turn pass along some of that sweetness.They are doing me a favor. Tomorrow, on my lunch break, I’ll mix up more cherry filling for the final two crusts.
If we’re neighbors, you may want to lock up all the places I can sneak a pie into. Like when it’s raining zucchini in August. This February, it’s raining pie.
Coming Next: the Vegan / Dairy-Free Pie Dough, and playing with adding spices to doughs, like pumpkin spice or cinnamon or gingerbread.
~~~
Who is that “pie person” in your life? Who brings the pie — or reliably brings the sweetness to any gathering? Leave a comment!
My challenge is to post a love note or story every day this month.
Your part: Please leave a comment below or on my Instagram or Facebook pages, @lisaduchenewriter. (The “f” and camera buttons up top, on the far right of the red bar will take you right to the page.)
For awhile Saturday evening, my husband and I enjoyed playing Scrabble. But then it once again became a “supposedly fun thing” neither one of us wanted to do any more.
I was losing by a lot when I pulled the “Z” tile then wracked my brain, trying to catch up in one play. My turns were taking a long time. Mike lost patience. (And he is an incredibly patient human being.)
His sighing broke my concentration. I became frustrated. I probably cursed.
We both left the game while we still had letters, which means it technically wasn’t over. A dud activity on a date night.
The problem: Mike is a really good Scrabble player.
I am not.
This drives me bonkers. I should be good. I love words! Words are my life.
If I was a better, faster, more competitive player, we could really enjoy this, particularly while we’re staying home so much during the pandemic.
Could the language of love be COMPETITION?
“Everything is Figureoutable”
A few weeks ago, I listened to a great interview with Marie Forleo, author of “Everything is Figureoutable,” which is a mindset of relentless optimism. I’ve not yet read the book. But I love this idea, which is already inspiring me to simply tackle whatever is bugging me.
Pie dough that easily rolls out? Yep! Re-designing this website? You bet.
Becoming competitive at Scrabble? Absolutely. I am the least competitive member of our family of athletes. But that just might be changing. A little.
I need strategies. When I look at my seven letters, my mind assembles them into familiar words I’m likely to write or read in prose. Interesting words with multiple letters — not necessarily words that work with what’s already on the board or score high points.
During our Valentine’s Day game, that word was “color” and I leapt at the chance to play it. I love that word! The points? An after-thought.
See my problem? My enthusiasm for these words, unfortunately, is a liability.
Two Letters Spell Cutthroat
When we played tonight, I drew the Q and held onto it for several turns, awaiting a “u.” Quilt. Squint. Squeal. All great words. Wrong approach. I scored well that turn with “quid” but still lost the game. Again!
So I googled Scrabble strategies, and learned about words like “qi” the bodily energy in Chinese medicine and “jo” a Scottish term for sweetheart. (WordFinder has a cutthroat list of “7 ways 2-letter words boost your Scrabble score.”)
WordFinder’s list of two-letter words is printing right now.
Study the Dictionary? Mmmmmm. How I love words and the thought of becoming a fierce and formidable Scrabble player. A worthy opponent for a strong player.
•••
Do you enjoy playing Scrabble? Can you share any tips!?
This cold, slate grey Saturday morning in central Pennsylvania reminded me of winter days on the coast of Maine when sea smoke rises from the harbor. The sea is a part of me I have not visited for awhile.
I spent my 20s on the Maine coast, launching my adult and professional life, hanging around harbors, learning, exploring, talking to scientists and fishermen about how the Gulf of Maine was changing.
They were already seeing effects of warmer water temperatures, though we didn’t yet call it climate change. So much is changing as the Gulf of Maine warms faster than 99 percent of the global ocean. Maine shrimp are all but gone. Lobster is moving north to cooler water temperatures.
Among the rocks and waves, and all that raw energy of nature, I found my own footing and a wild peace during my 13 years in Maine.
Last weekend, we watched the movie “Cast Away.” Tom Hanks plays a man marooned on an island who survives because he learns to build a raft strong enough to withstand the smashing waves of the surf. If he can get beyond those waves, he can reach open sea where he is rescued by a ship. This all takes about four years.
The movie nailed the raw, punishing power of the waves. Man versus sea — an age-old story that reminded me of the all the people I met who make a living from the sea.
Soon, I’ll get to introduce our family to Maine this summer.
My husband and stepsons have never been to Maine. My stepsons, both hunters and fishermen, are launching lives of their own. My older stepson is newly married. His younger brother graduates college this spring.
Before we head inland to the mountains and lakes, with a little luck we can get out into the Gulf of Maine. Monhegan Island, 10 miles off the coast, is calling. I picture us hiking the rocky cliffs, watching the crashing surf and sharing that sense of wild peace and possibilities of the open sea.
