Welcome back! The long winter’s rest if officially over, and I’m so happy to be back to blogging. It’s been a long and strange winter, but beautiful nonetheless….Thanks for joining the blog for another season!
According to one of my college literature professors, the song of the dangerous sirens Oddyseus so longed to hear harkened to the forbidden, sensual experiences life offers up: illicit affairs, drug-induced highs, over-indulgence. For me, the sirens were never about that. They were about the aspects of life we are not ready to face, as much as they draw us in. And strangely, when I imagine the call of the sirens, I think of spring peepers. Their chorus starts up as the indoor work of winter wraps up, making it hard to concentrate on math lessons, on French grammar. And my ears want to hear them, even while I am spooked by them.
The song, while beautiful, is disconcertingly sobering. It tugs on the morose side of my personality, pulling me from life’s distractions and wrapping me profoundly with the heavy subjects: thoughts of life and death. In spring I remember listening to the peepers while visiting my farming neighbor Sanford out on the road, shovel in hand, repairing the dirt stretch in front of his house from winter damage. In my memories, his hearing aid whistles, and he smells of turpentine, his personal remedy for arthritis. From my perspective as a child, and then a teenager, and then a young woman, this is the time of year when I would wonder how he confronts the burst of new life when faced with his own aging. Why get all wrapped up in the new, I would think, but never say to him, when it has to remind you of years faded away, of your own life fading, of the fact that you are dying? I wanted to run away from these thoughts: to bury myself in homework and tests, but for those peepers…. that incessant, rhythmic cry that I could not resist, screaming that life cycles on and on and on, with Sanford, or without him…. With me, or without me. Scary thoughts. But I could never stop listening.
The spring eventually came when Sanford wasn’t standing out on the dirt road making repairs. But I was a new mother by then, breasts swollen with milk, mind dizzied by lack of sleep, house in disarray, with a wondrous child to succor and marvel at. The peepers called, but I was often asleep before I could listen. And I found this was the best way to deal with the macabre thoughts they incited. I could work myself until I was too tired to ponder them. That is how I came to confront them in my adult years: equate them with labor, with busy-ness, with waking from a long winter with much to do.
But this past winter was exceptional. It began when the cardiologist told Mom she needed a new heart valve for Christmas. And then following the surgery, Mom and Dad temporarily moved in with Bob, me and the kids over the holidays, so we could help them out more.
And there was so much unknown. We didn’t learn about the depression, anger, anxiety, and fear that accompanies heart surgery until it was too late to turn back. We didn’t know that the anesthesia could cause so much forgetfulness, long after the surgery. Mom was a trooper in working through all of it, but we didn’t know how much of the side effects were going to be permanently with us. The day after Christmas, with my brother and sisters’ blessings, Mom and Dad asked Bob and me to take our multi-year farm transition plan and enact it in seven days. We all needed the farm to continue, but they needed to focus on getting better.
And so it was, with Christmas lights blinking in the sleet and snow outside the lawyer’s window, that Bob and I sat with Dad and the attorney and hammered out our agreements. And the holidays were spent running from lawyer, to bank, to accountant, with quiet, meaningful glances passed between Dad and me. All we wanted was to catch a smile on Mom’s face. If we caught one, it was a good day.
And then, the papers were signed. And the next thing I knew, there was a farm checkbook in my hand. Sap Bush Hollow Farm became Sap Bush Hollow Farm, LLC, an official four-way partnership, with me at the helm. I was setting up a new chart of accounts, transferring bills to my name, planning how I will keep the books balanced.
It was a relief to see the smiles come more frequently on Mom’s face. But there were times, as I faced down the enormity of first quarter farm expenses, I couldn’t help but feel the smiles were in mirth: See what I had to put up with all these years? And you think you can do better? I wanted this to go better under my leadership. I wanted to improve things. But then, I started to dread the phone ringing, I dreaded seeing Mom in the cafe, because she’d hand me another farm bill, or tell me who I needed to call, who I needed to meet with. I felt like a workhorse, here to make the money and make the ends meet for the rest of the family. A permanent knot took up residence in my stomach. At night, I’d lie in bed with a hot water bottle to soothe it.
And then in the midst of all this, comes my own visit to the doctor, where he scrutinizes once more the age-and-sun-damaged skin on the tip of my nose. “I don’t like it,” he tells me. “We’ve waited long enough. It’s time to biopsy.” He schedules me to come back the next week.
And I don’t think about it, because I have to meet with our insurance agent to change the liability coverage on the farm and the cafe. And I have to get the menu ready for the weekend. And I have to do Ula’s eye therapy, and Saoirse’s math lessons, and there is a problem with the bank and the new payroll system.
And Mom calls and says, “I can drive you to the doctor for your biopsy.”
And I say, “No, because I have a meeting right after.”
“Then let Bob take you.”
And I say, “No, because he has to do Ula’s therapy and do the lessons with the girls.”
And she says it again. “So let your father and I take you.”
And I say, “No, it’s no big deal.”
And she says, “You shouldn’t drive after.”
And I say, “It’s a little novocain in my nose, and a little incision. Easier than getting a filling.” And I rush her off the phone and go back to entering expenses and returning emails. This scenario repeats itself every day for a week.
And then, the night before my appointment, I am standing out in the woods, trekking through the snow, when something occurs to me. I have a mother who wants to take me to the doctor. And only a few months before, I didn’t even know if I would have a mother. And then only a few weeks before, I didn’t know if she would be able to move through the trauma of her own medical experience to think of anything beyond her own suffering. And here she is. Calling me every day, wanting to take me to this stupid no-big-deal biopsy. How incredible is that?
I go back inside and call her. “You can take me to the biopsy.”
Early in the morning, she and dad come to pick me up. Bob and the girls kiss my nose before I duck into the car. We arrive at the clinic. I follow the nurse, fully expecting my parents to stay in the waiting room. But Mom directs Dad to stay. She follows me in. She talks to me while we’re in there: about which customers came to the cafe, about how many piglets we are expecting in the spring, about the price of pork, about what we’ll be serving next weekend. She’s doing her best to distract me.
And then the doctor comes in, and he injects the novocain.
And for a moment, everything is fine. And then it starts to go to my head. I am on the cusp of fainting. He finishes the procedure, and Mom is at my side. She’s directing the nurse to help me. I don’t remember much, just getting tipped back. And then the shakes, all through my body. It doesn’t matter that there are doctors and nurses. Mom takes command. She ushers everyone out the door, takes my hand. “What do you want?” She’s asking me.
“I need food, and this will stop,” I assure her. “But I want them to leave me alone.” Within moments, I have water and chocolate. And the door is shut, and it is just my mom and me. And she leans over and kisses my head.
She kisses my head.
And I think that I can’t remember the last time my mother kissed me. And then I realize something. All these years, there has been a part of me that thought my job was to take care of them. Take care of the business. Grow the farm. Make it profitable so Mom and Dad can be comfortable. Stay close so they can have their grandchildren close. I did it because they love their grandchildren. And I did it because I love them.
And then, here, in this moment, I realize something huge. She loves me. It doesn’t matter if the farm is in the black or in the red. It doesn’t matter if I succeed or if I fail. She loves me, and she wants me here. With her. That’s all. That’s what this adventure is about: Our family, enjoying each other.
I walk out of that clinic with a sore nose, two stitches, and two permanent scars. But the stomach ache has gone away.
The biopsy turns out negative, and mom’s recovery has been amazing. She has color in her cheeks, she’s keeping up with the speedy pace of the cafe, and last week she went for a hike with me and the girls. And I’ve come to a conclusion about our family farm business. I want us to be more profitable, but less busy. Because this spring, I want to hear the peepers fully. I go outside in the pre-dawn hours to watch the stars and listen to their song. I take longer walks with my family at night, waiting for them to start up. I crack the window beside our bed and strain to hear them from my sleep. Like Oddyseus, I want to hear their beautiful call. But unlike him, I am losing my fear of the darker sides of life that they awaken within me. Because those are the parts of life where we grow, where grace touches us in the most unexpected places, where we find gifts of strength and love that make every spring even more glorious.
Very happy to see you are blogging again! Glad to hear that even though some specifics have changed, things with you and yours appear on a good course for the coming year. I enjoy your blogging very much and this one, for me, was especially nice. Keep up the good work! MB
Love you
Dear friend, there is no stopping walking the road from Here to There, birth to death. There are always rocks in the road, ruts, puddles and the occasional Nastie Beastie. The trick, which it sounds like you’ve found, is to remember as early as you can that we walk this way but once. (Yes, I believe that the soul reincarnates, but “Joellyn” only gets ONE SHOT down here. Whoever the soul is next time, it won’t be “me.”)
So I make sure don’t miss one peeper. I take extreme joy at the first lilac bloom.. that day that the backyard and the hayfield are all one mass of emerald after so much brown… the run up to the longest day of the year before it starts to shorten again…the plaintive wheedling of this season’s baby crows as they follow the parents around under Ma Feathers’ Seed-n-Suet Diner.
I am finally facing that my jawline is drooping, I am getting neck folds and wattles, my hip pains me most days and there is no mistaking that I am physically farther down the Road that my eternally-thirty-year-old-mind wants to admit. But if I’m smart, I’ll cherish these too. Because being an Elder Stateswoman is as much a don’t-miss part of that road as the rest of it.
My husband, now ex, one night took me by the hand and lead me down the road to a shallow stream. As we got closer I could hear an unfamiliar noise getting louder. I asked him what it was. He told me they were spring peepers. He wanted to stand there for a few minutes holding me, listening. Its one of those romantic moments. My heart becomes full with the sound of peepers even though he is no longer in my life.
Now Canada Geese have changed their effect on me. Last year for some strange reason, I haven’t figured out yet, when they leave I am sad. As they practice their flight patterns and call out my heart does too. I don’t want them to go. This spring when they returned, I became happy and welcomed them back.
Something is changing inside me. I like it.
Listen to or read the lyrics to Urge for Going by Joni Mitchell, and sung by Tom rush.
So good to have you back!
Thank you, Ailsa! It’s good to be back!
Glad you’re back, missed you!
We have made many “peeper” runs over the years, even just last week.
SPRING is finally here!
Dearest Shannon….You have such a way with words. Tears just well up in my eyes as I read about your family, your mom and dad, and all the love. So happy to have you back sharing your heart with us. Because what you wrote is from your heart to ours and a gift. God’s gift to you to help us open up and really see things more clearly. Maybe my tears form because my mom lives away from here now and although I talk with her every day, I am not able to see her. She is still the beautiful woman, the woman with poetic words she memories to share with others, now the woman who colors beautiful pages in coloring books and shares these with family and dear friends. She will be 101 on June 12th and was, years ago, your neighbor. May, the lady who lived in the little farmhouse around the bend from your family farm, who sat in the window typing and waving as neighbors drove by. I am sure you remember this wonderful woman. My mom, like your mom, who loves me and your mom loves you. So we treasure these moments and savor the memories we keep deep within. God Bless you Shannon…..Please keep writing to us!
Carol! Thank you for sending news of May, who made my heart sing all those years ago….hoping that some day I could have as much joy in my soul as she has in hers. She is a wonderful woman, and I’m thrilled she’s doing so well!!!!
Dear Sharon — Thank you for sharing this poignant story, ostensibly, about peepers. I too notice the peepers when they begin, though with joy and relief that they somehow represent for me the cycle of life. They bring into my memory my childhood growing up with my grandparents in a rural upstate NY village, much like Middleburgh though smaller.
I guess I have come to make my peace with my own impending mortality despite the loss of grandparents, my own parents, and other family members and close friends and the deep and often revisited sadness these losses have brought to me, and how much I miss them and would love to speak with them again. And hold them close. But perhaps I have felt rejuvenated by the ongoing and deeply satisfying connection with our two grown children and our new grandson, though he and his mother (our daughter) live across the country.
I am reminded of the vast and majestic and unfailing cycle of life that I am a part of. I revel in the flocks of geese honking their way inscrutably through the skies in the spring and fall, streaming down their hellos and adieux as they make their faithful journeys to places I will never see. They always send a thrill to my heart. I am reminded of our cycle upon hearing the morning birdsong, calling on the sun to arise, and their seemingly joyful chatter and chorus in the evening at sunset as they settle into their nest for the night. Tomorrow will be another day.
And when I hear the peepers on an evening that is barely 60 degrees though feeling balmy by contrast with evenings of recent weeks past, I am reminded again of my own childhood evenings of lying in the dewy grass, arms and legs outstretched, listening to the peepers, and waiting for the stars to appear while the rotating earth bends them across the sky. The cycle is on, evergoing. I am in it. You are in it. All the generations before and after us are all in it.
I kissed my grandmother every night at bedtime. I kissed our daughter and son every night, and still wish I could wrap them in my arms as I did when they were babes. I’ll bet your mother has some of those same wishes.
May blessings and grace be visited upon each one of you and your family as you rehearse and relive all the cycles of your being.
Dear Shannon — So sorry I miss-typed your name as ‘Sharon’. Please forgive me.
Shannon, so glad to have you back again! Missedcyou, but pretended I was in the cafe, enjoying one of your delicious meals. That ground beef dish looks really interesting. Even though I live in the ‘burbs, we have plenty of peepers here. Soon we’ll we the tiny green frogs that are so cute. They often appear on our house and sometimes in the house! I nudge froggie to hop on my hand so I can take him outside. No froggie fare inside, but it’s fun to see him looking at me with his little throat going in and out. Last week our beloved hummingbirds came back and they know where the feeders are! We get to enjoy Rachel and Ray as they feed outside and we feed inside, only a couple feet away. Happy Spring!
So glad your nose is OK! All those loving kisses were likely the reason… 🙂
Thank you.
Yay! So glad you are back! Love reading your beautiful words. Happy to hear you and your family are doing well. <3
Beautiful, Shannon, thank you. As spring comes to Germany and we celebrate every new day toward health that brings my husband closer to putting his March 2 stem cell transplant behind him and moving toward older and not recovering, I hear your peepers and slow down just a bit.
So lovely to read your words after your winter blog writing respite. Peepers, dear friends and parents mark our rich lives. Isn’t funny that as parents we love our own children fiercely and yet we forget that we are as intensely loved. Congratulations on the farm transfer and good luck in your new role.
So good to read your stuff again, as always enjoyable and about the things in life that matters, love, kisses, hopes, dreams, prayers of goodness in all good things, miracles, spring and peepers. I heard the first one this year as soon as winters snows melted, just one little guy, then it got cold and I guess he went to sleep, the day before the blizzard there it was again and then the snow came forcefully, when that left I kept hearing more and more of them. I like to think that God sends that one brave peeper to send us the miraculous message that it is the little things that matter in life, they bring such joy to us and staying on the path to enjoy them is key. Glad you found your way and felt all the love, love is such a good thing and the blessed thing on the journey that matters. No matter our lives we all get the same question, what good did you do with what God blessed you? Good, bad or indifferent it is the love in trying and hoping that matters. Happy Spring, Happy Easter, Happy Peepers, and Happy life-much joy always!