I don’t remember writing the story in 2012 or so. What I do remember is that early on in our relationship I might say to Steve as we hiked, “Ah, we’ve come to a fork in the road. Which one do we take?” And his response was always something to the effect, “If there’s a fork in the road, pick it up.” Not so helpful a reply in the moment but more helpful creatively than I ever imagined. The seeds were planted so when one day a little girl asked me to make up a story about a stone in my rock collection … well, the following story somehow evolved. https://www.creativity-portal.com/articles/cynthia-staples/long-walk.html
Posts Tagged ‘life’
the long walk revisited
Posted in Inspiration, tagged color, fantasy, forks, green, imagination, Inspiration, journeys, life, musing, musings, storytelling on August 14, 2022| 3 Comments »
life
Posted in Inspiration, tagged compassion, food, friendship, Inspiration, life, relationships, storytelling on April 22, 2022| 2 Comments »
Usually, in the morning, I let … I mean that I empower … Steve to roll out of bed, make coffee and cook me, I mean us, eggs over easy. Always one egg on one piece of toast and maybe some fruit on the side. Kind of spartan but it works. But in recent times I noticed the number of eggs in the fridge were diminishing at a faster rate. Now Steve’s tai chi instructor Jon makes occasional house visits because it can be a bit of a trek for Steve to make it to the dojo. Jon can come in the mornings usually after I’ve left for work. One day I called home to ask Steve if Jon had shown up. He said, “Yes. I cooked him breakfast.” I did a double take. “Aren’t we paying him to come over and give you a workout?” “Yes, but I asked if he was hungry and he said yes and so …”
Now what I remember from ages ago, after Steve’s surgeries and he could appear and was indeed pooped all of the time, is that for a visit with company customers he pulled together (without me being present as sous chef) an amazing fruit and cheese grazing platter BEFORE they all went out to dinner and THEN returned to our place for a nightcap that he orchestrated. He was in heaven. When I described this scene to his PCP she nodded sagely and said, “Some people are energized by being hospitable.”
And so this morning as I raced out of bed (alarms didn’t go off) and raced about to make coffee and check the egg situation … well, there were three eggs. I knew Jon was coming by for class. If Steve and I had one each that would leave just one for Jon. So I put the container back in the fridge and decided we were having smoked salmon and cream cheese on toast. Steve, without even knowing the egg situation, said that would be just fine.
When I returned home, I looked in the fridge. One egg in the case. I asked Steve, who was in another room, and already knowing the answer, “Did you fix Jon breakfast?” “Yes,” he shouted back. “He said thank you before we went outside to practice with the kendo sword.”
I smiled and closed the refrigerator door. Gotta buy some more eggs this weekend.
in these three years
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, tagged companionship, death, family, grief, healing, Inspiration, life, love, musings, Photography on July 7, 2021| 7 Comments »
Yesterday Steve and I were looking down at a single sheet of paper. His last will and testament dated August 2018. In that year during that month just a few days before that will was completed we had sat in a doctor’s office, the top in his field. He stared intently at a scan of Steve’s brain. He eventually nodded and essentially said I see where it is, it is growing fast so how about we do the surgery early next week.
What followed was this blur of activity as Steve kept us focused on the practical like preparing his office to be without their scientist, contacting financial institutions, filling the fridge, making sure I knew passwords, and of course sharing the news with family and friends. We had been in the process of updating his will and doing my first will anyway. But there was no time to complete that process so the lawyer coached him through what to put on that single sheet and to sign with witnesses present.
As I have told Steve over the years he attracts a strong team and the medical team was strong for the surgery. And they were strong for the unexpected second brain surgery that took place the following year and the subsequent intensive physical therapy. In between the two surgeries my youngest brother died in Virginia. Steve couldn’t travel with me. Following the second surgery my second oldest brother died. Steve determinedly made that trek. He could not do so when my eldest brother died only a few months later of cancer during the midst of the pandemic. Nor could I.
And in the midst of all that we closed on a house just as the pandemic struck. It was one of the most onerous processes I’ve ever been through. We moved ourselves in. The backyard was a demolition area but we managed to use every nook and cranny on the side of the house to grow a garden. Steve had his tomatoes and basil. I had my herbs and flowers. I accidentally hoarded eggs instead of toilet tissue and Steve was able to work in the basement and build us a dining room table. We zoomed zoomed zoomed like everyone else for work and to connect with family and friends. We did make excursions around the neighborhood with me constantly snapping at Steve to pull up his mask. We were cautious but not afraid. In a sense we were resolute … you deal with what comes at you because that’s all you can do.
Before August, nearly three years later, we will have our official wills completed. That’s why we were looking at that older document, to remind ourselves, and to reflect, “Wow. Three years? Is that when this whirlwind journey began?”
The yard that was a demolition project is now a full-fledged garden with different raised beds that Steve built. He has retired, more or less, and now enjoys the ability if not the outright necessity of impromptu midday naps. I was able to remain employed and of late have been given leave to do more writing and historical research. I’m committed to resuming photography and more creative writing, with what extra time I don’t know.
Soon Steve and I will go outside to pick some basil. Pesto will be made along with dinner. He moves a little slower in the kitchen in the evening hours so I will be sous chef and perhaps take some photos for instagram. I’ve had more pesto this year than in all the earlier years of my life. I can’t complain. I don’t think I can complain about much of anything.
three mints two thymes and …
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, tagged gardening, healing gardens, herbs, Inspiration, life, musings, Photography, serenity, storytelling on July 17, 2020| 3 Comments »
The backstory is that Steve and I moved just as the pandemic struck the U.S. and everything began to shut down around us. Given that he is a cancer survivor and over a certain age that put him at high risk. But we still had to daily get from point A to point B, continue (luckily) to work from home, pack a mammoth amount of stuff (mostly books), navigate in a necessarily socially distant world … and try not to confuse shortness of breath due to anxiety with shortness of breath due to the virus.
lemon verbena
We made our way into our new home where I immediately began ordering bookcases because neither of us realized that between our two book collections we could probably start our own bookstore. The previous owner had built out the interior of the home wonderfully but the back yard … hmmm … three plus months later we’re still waiting on a contractor to come in with a caterpillar to remove debris and put down loam and on and on … and all of that stuff takes time!
thyme
Now I tend to come across as a rather calm person but I can be as anxious as any other human and one of the coping mechanisms I have found in my life is gardening. Probably goes back to childhood in Virginia being in the vegetable garden with my dad and helping my mother plant the flowers. Anyway in a time of such great chaos on so many fronts I was determined to have a garden. Steve’s only request was to plant tomatoes and basil.
lemon basil
spearmint and orange mint
We’ve managed to do that and a bit more. The neighbors must think I’m crazy because I’m outside almost everyday to peek at the garden and take photos, and even Steve has gotten into the habit of asking me each morning, “How’s the garden doing?” I’ve forced him … I mean invited him … to put so much hard work into it that even now he owns it.
There is no rhyme or reason to the garden though I tried to be thoughtful at first. Keeping in mind pollinators. Keeping in mind bee-friendly. Keeping in mind full-sun, part-shade. Keeping in mind natural pest control. It became too much in this time. I just planted what would fit and tried to err on the side of edibility. The contractor is supposed to come next week. We’ll see … Chaos is still all around … in our personal lives, in the global realm … but for now there feels like space to breathe and to think and to consider planning. 
I don’t feel like planning into the distant future right now but I can think about the seasons and what we might plant now to harvest in the fall and what we might plant now that will pop up in the spring. I think that’s good enough for now. 🙂
swaying in the wind
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged beauty, butterflies, creative process, flowers, gardens, Inspiration, life, monarchs, musings, nature, Photography, procrastination on October 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »
I don’t think the landlord’s landscaper purposefully planted the cosmos in the frontyard garden so that from the second floor I could stand at the kitchen window and find comfort in their pale purple color and swaying form down below. In the light of an overcast morning they appear pastel-like, soft and dreamy. I sometimes want to ask my landlord, can I please cut them so that I may place them in a vase and sit that vase on a desk just for me to see? But even if he allowed such a thing, those cosmos would no longer sway in the breeze. They would no longer offer sustenance to the creatures that feed upon their pollen. They would no longer be available to view by the landlord and his family who live on the first floor and from whose kitchen window they too can see the garden, though from a different perspective. They would no longer be available to view by the people on the street who pass by, on foot and by car, or who wait at the bus stop which is right there too. They would become a private thing, in decline in still waters, instead of public and vibrantly alive in the soil.
In the garden there are also sunflowers, some open and dying, and others yet to bloom. Milkweed is tucked here and there attracting (yay!) Monarchs, the first I’ve seen in a long time around here. The leaves of the lilies persist vibrant green though the flowers have long since had their glory in profusion. They line one wall of the garden while the other wall is lined by lavender. It is rectangular this garden. Not big, just big enough.
When I sit at the kitchen table, as I do now to write this post, I cannot of course see the downstairs garden but I can see my little upstairs indoor garden. And through the window I can see the the branches of the towering oak. It grows on an adjacent small plot of land, its shade not interfering with the garden at all. I enjoy the dark green of its leaves. I think the acorns have mostly fallen or been eaten by squirrels and blue jays. When winter comes and those leaves are gone, if I am still here in this place, I will be able to plant a whole new indoor garden in the hallway because light will stream in past the then-bared branches. My microgreen sprouts await, their seed packets tucked in a cool corner, awaiting their chance to thrive before I harvest them to add some spice to some winter soup or such.
In writing this post, I am procrastinating. Arrayed around me on the table are books and papers and pretty markers and a calendar or two. I have deadlines to meet on several writing projects. That’s a whole different side of my brain than the one I use for photography and design. That work is more free flowing. The writing has to be structured and I struggle to be in a structured place at the moment. I want to sway like the cosmos, go where the wind takes me but … I need to plant my feet (or actually my bottom to this chair) and focus. My writing deliverables are clear and to be honest not that hard to complete. I just need to do it, and stop contemplating about public and private spaces or the tumult that is this present world. And most of all I should not try to track down my crusty watercolors and try to paint purple cosmos and yellow sunflowers. At least not today. Alrighty … back to work. 🙂
an unruly garden
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Uncategorized, tagged fun, indoor gardening, Inspiration, life, Photography on July 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »
The heat is making me and my little tabletop garden a bit droopy. But we’re hanging in there. Unruly or not, it’s nice to see that spot of green next to the window. Next major gardening goal is to plant the nasturtium seeds that my cousin gave me. I’ve got the dirt now I just have to find the gumption … which will most likely happen after the temperature falls tomorrow. 🙂
by the pond
Posted in Inspiration, tagged community, homelessness, hope, Inspiration, life, storytelling on November 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I sat by the pond in Copley Square. It was just late enough and just chilly enough that few other people sat by the water that day. The light was low and golden. It bounced off the water to beautiful effect. Leaves drifted by in different colors and when they circled the concrete stretch they’d catch the light and glow.
Fallen leaves in swirling waters. I’ve photographed those a lot but that day I did not have my camera. Just food. I was kind of glad because then I could just eat and behold the beauty without trying to “capture” it on the screen. No camera also gave me freedom to look around me and so I noticed the woman across the pond, on the sidewalk side, next to Boylston Street.
She gazed in my direction but I do not think she saw me because she was quite focused on cleaning herself. She was deliberate and calm. You would have thought she stood in her own home staring into a mirror. First brushing her teeth and then flossing. A wet brush through her dark brown hair. Then a wash cloth to her face and other exposed bits of flesh. Just a quick wipe here and there. Like I said, it was cold that day. She did not fully take off her coat or the many layers beneath. All of the items she had pulled from a plastic ziploc bag which she tossed in the trash after cleaning herself. Then, after collecting several large trash bags, with great dignity she walked away.
Then my gaze fell upon the man who sat not too far from me. He was well-dressed. I imagined he was taking a respite from his workspace in one of the neighboring office buildings. I yearned to borrow his thick wool blazer as the wind created eddies in the pond. In his hand was a notebook. On occasion he would pull from his knapsack a pouch full of fancy pencils. I recognized them from one of my favorite stationery stores. The pencils were all sharpened and the page of his book was blank. He would take out pencils and then put them back and I wondered what vision he was hoping to realize on the page. In between reaching for the pencils he would reach into his pocket. At first I thought maybe for an eraser but instead he pulled out a little bottle and downed it in one sip. He didn’t toss it on the ground like I’ve seen some of the guys on the benches do. No, he simply gently placed it back in his pocket and reached for a pencil again.
By the time I finished my lunch the man had emptied several small bottles, and as I rose I could see the large brown bag tucked next to the brown leather of his shoes. Something to take home I guess. His head remained low the entire time. Only his hands moving really except for the quick tossing back of his head.
As I walked away, still, there was nothing on his page.
“even God had to pee”
Posted in Inspiration, tagged charity, compassion, faith, Inspiration, life, Pine Street Inn, shelter, storytelling on October 8, 2017| 1 Comment »
I think the lady meant Jesus, but in any case …
I heard her coming before I saw her. She made her way up the ramp with an awkward sliding gait, using a cane for additional support. I walked over to greet her. A small woman — a good wind could blow her down — but she exuded presence even when she wasn’t talking. Now when you enter the building where I was that day one of the first things you might see is the No Public Restroom sign, a not uncommon sight in the heart of Boston. And it was when she saw that sign that she made her declaration about God and peeing but she quickly moved on from that topic to talk about life more generally. And as the air around me became lightly perfumed by the scent of alcohol, I gently interjected to ask, “Ma’am, I see, but how can we help you today?” She seemed perplexed by the question so I added, “Would you like to sit in the sanctuary for a bit and maybe pray or something like that?” She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Of course!” Now when she went in, I did peer through the window to make sure that that was all that she was doing. She sat with head bowed and I let her be. Eventually she did come out and as I held the door for her — she was trying to coordinate handling several bags as well as her cane — she asked, “Now where’s the bathroom?”
After letting my colleague know I was going to be occupied for a while, I guided her to the restroom. It was a long walk because as she explained several times, she can’t walk fast anymore. As we came to the stairs, she held onto the railing for support. At one juncture, I took one of her bags. And all the while she talked to me, telling me of her daughters, her son out west who was buying a house where she might stay one day. As for today, she was waiting for a bus. “And I planned it just right,” she explained, “so that I have time to come here to pray and then go to the bathroom and then get to the bus stop. I got plenty of time. Cause you see I don’t like to be rushed.”
“Where are you going on the bus?” I asked. And when she said to the shelter, I asked which one and she said Pine Street Inn. I could only say, “I’ve only heard good things about Pine Street.” And she nodded.
Now by the time we make our way down the stairs, there is no railing for support and so I say, “If you need to, you can hold my arm.”
She leaned her whole self against my side and took my hand.
Resuming our slow walk toward the bathroom, she apologized, “I don’t walk fast anymore.” I said, “That’s okay.”
Eventually we made our ascent from the restroom, back up the stairs.
She said, “You’re a lot like my friend Sue. She doesn’t mind that I’m slow. She never rushes me. Sometimes she lets me stay at her place. I can take the bus there too. She’s got her own place you see. She’s the best friend I ever made at Pine Street.”
Finally back in the lobby she adjusts her bags and we agree after looking at the wall clock that she still has plenty of time to make it to the bus top for her journey to the shelter.
“What’s your name?” she asked. I told her and then I asked her name. With a big smile she said, “It’s Theresa. Like Mother Theresa. Maybe I’ll be a saint one day too.”
And then she was gone.
random musings: silence
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged Inspiration, landscape, life, musings, nature, Photography, silence, sound, storytelling, travel on August 23, 2017| 1 Comment »
This morning I woke to … sound. Phone alarms going off on multiple floors inside the house. Outside, car horns honking, then the cursing that usually follows honked horns, the beep-beep-beep of delivery trucks backing up and so on and so forth. Life in the big city. By the time I made it to the kitchen table and sat with my first cup of coffee, I’d decided that today I was going to write about silence! Not silence as in the absence of all sound but as in the absence of mankind. I wanted the silences that I had just experienced along the Eastern Shore and in the mountains of Virginia. I scribbled some notes about birdsong and humming insects and water lapping at rocks. I was getting darned poetic. But even as I tried to wrap myself in that real yet also romanticized silence, I could not help but remember sounds I had experienced just two days ago, just one day after returning from my travels.
shore birds
The morning began calm enough. Home brewed coffee is always a good start. But then suddenly the air was filled with the sound of heart-wrenching sobbing. I rushed to the window to see a woman walking away from the neighboring police station. Every few steps she’d turn and look back, her hand sometimes pressed to her heart and sometimes over her mouth. After a while I turned away, not wanting to speculate about the source of her grief. Later that same day I walked into Harvard Square and there too was a woman crying. She sat huddled next to a storefront with a beat up cardboard sign. It said something like, Please help me eat today. She’d propped the sign against her knees. Her hands covered her face, muffling her cries. Her body shook just as hard as the woman I’d seen that morning.
At one point the woman in the morning had thrown back her head, I think to ask God why?, at least that’s what I deduced from her creole. As she stood there for that short moment, the wind whipping her white dress about her dark skin, she brought to mind the Haitian man whom I’ve written about before, the man who regularly travels past the place where I live and who, even in the rain, will lift his face to the sky and sing joyously, perhaps to God as well, songs like Ave Maria.
eastern shore of virginia
The woman in the square was quite young, probably a teenager based on her ragged jeans and t-shirt. Red wavy hair spilled over her hands as she cried. Some people walking by placed money in her cup, but her tears did not stop, I think, until another teen sat down next to her with his sign.
My hearing these women did not change their circumstances but their crying did affect me. I was humbled because no matter what aches or pains or grievances I may have, the sound of their tears reminds me how awfully lucky I have been in this world. It is too easy to shut out the cries of those around us. I do want, and maybe even need on occasion, that special quiet of wild places but I also want to remain aware of the aches, pains, and joys of the loved ones and of the strangers around me as I hope there are those who are aware of mine.
white tailed deer in virginia
will you give me a hug
Posted in Inspiration, tagged compassion, Inspiration, life, musing, storytelling on April 10, 2017| 2 Comments »
The man knew why security and I escorted him to the door. He was drunk and that meant he could not stay on the premises especially not with the beer he held tight in its brown paper bag. “I want to make a change,” he said, voice cracking. “I want to stop.” He sounded sincere, as sincere as the friends and family I knew who struggled with alcohol. “I believe you,” was all that I could say, then added. “I wish you well.” He shook the security guard’s hand and then he turned to me. “Will you give me a hug?” What else could I do as he leaned down but to embrace him?
After my shift ended I wandered around the building and there he was. Close, so close, to another door where he could have received help. Instead, he stood there in the damp of the day and opened the bottle.
The child did not utter the words, give me a hug. She just walked up to me with no other expectation than what was to be. If she were to lean against me but of course I would wrap my arms around her. Had I not done that the whole of her short life?
Somehow the child felt heavier than the man. The weight of her promise waiting to be fulfilled versus all that he had lost perhaps. “I’m tired,” she said. “I know,” I replied. “You can lean here for a bit but no sleeping. I might have to tickle you so we can get you home.” There was a giggle but the weight remained in my arms a while longer. And that was alright.
In my dreams I sometimes try to hold people. It is the gift of paupers and probably no greater gift. I hope so.
Words + Images 