Category Archives: Meditations

Autumn watch

The autumnal equinox is a week away, and I am very aware of the rapidly shortening days. I don’t mean that I say to myself, Gee, we lost another four minutes of daylight today. Rather, my whole being responds to the lessening daylight : I want to sleep longer; my spirits are lower; I grow anxious if I can’t get outdoors for an hour or so while the sun is still high.

A couple of weeks ago, I planted some Swiss chard in our tiny little garden between our building and the building next door. It has been warm, and we have had plenty of rain, and the seeds sprouted and started to grow, but they have gotten spindly with that look that they’re not getting enough light. The sun has gotten so low in the sky that the buildings to the south block direct sunlight for all except half an hour a day. I don’t hold out too much hope for our Swiss chard.

I usually look forward to autumn, but this year I only seem to notice the loss of sunlight.

Morning

The gulls woke me up at the crack of dawn. Every morning they sit on the rooftops around our building screaming: Auw! Auw! Kee! Kee! Kee! Kee! Kyoh! Kyoh! Kyoh! Kyoh! With an effort of will I tuned them out and went back to sleep. I don’t know when Carol got up.

A cicada wakes me up much later. It must be sitting on the volunteer maple that sprouted up right next the the building behind us and which is now twelve feet tall. This cicada sounds just like the cicadas I listened to on hot summer afternoons when I was a kid. It almost lulls me back to sleep: zzzZZZZZ…. It seems to go on forever.

When it stops, I get up. I happen to glance in the mirror. If I’m not going to kid myself, my hair is more gray than blond now. It’s my day off and it’s still summer, so I forget to shave.

I stand in the kitchen. A cicada buzzes in the tree across the street. I hear a gull screaming in the distance. We bought a blueberry pie yesterday at the farmers market, and there is one small slice left this morning. I know I’m going to eat it for breakfast. There’s one slice of pie left, I say to Carol. It’s yours, she says, and looks back at her computer. I make a pot of tea, and slide the blueberry pie onto a dark green plate.

The last ones of the year

It was 3:30, an hour and a half after the farmer’s market opened. I walked around the corner and saw that there weren’t any lines of people waiting any more. It doesn’t pay to be late at our farmer’s market.

I stopped at the fruit stand. “No blueberries, huh?” I said. Just in case he had a few stray pints hidden away in the coolers in the back of his truck. He had pears and apples and peaches, but no blueberries.

“No, sorry,” he said. “I had a few pints earlier but they sold out quick.”

“Any more coming?” I asked, even though he had already said last week that this week would be the end.

“Nope,” he said, “That’s it, the end of the season.”

After I did all my shopping, I had cherry tomatoes for Carol, squash, Swiss chard, two loaves of bread, two dozen eggs, carrots, beets, and some sunflowers to put on the table at home, and a few other things. It was a lot of food to carry the four blocks to our apartment. It was a lot of food, but even so I kept thinking: I was too late for the last blueberries of the year.

On a busy day

In the course of my job, I sometimes get to do things that might actually make the world very slightly better, in very small ways. I was very busy at work today, and once or twice I might have made the world ever-so-slightly better, so I feel like I actually accomplished something. I came home to eat dinner on the run before I had to head off for an evening meeting, and while I was home I watered the chrysanthemums I planted last week in our tiny little garden. We have had no rain for two weeks, the soil was so dry it was like powder, the plants needed the water.

Of all the many things I did today, watering those flowers was without doubt the best thing I did all day long:– the sun was shining, the air was cool and delightful, and I knew the plants benefited from my actions.

At its height

This week has been filled with those perfect days we sometimes get in late August, when it feels like autumn at night yet becomes pleasantly hot by mid-day; when we are drawn outdoors to let the mellow sun drive the last of the New England cold out of our bones.

Summer is at its height: the parking lot for the Martha’s Vineyard ferry is as almost as full as you’ll ever see it; and there are as many cars as you’ll ever see over on State Pier near where the Cuttyhunk ferry docks.

A few tourists are even wandering around New Bedford, far from their usual haunts. Usually, tourists in New Bedford walk one block from the National Park’s visitor center down to the Whaling Museum, and then get back in their cars and drive away. But today, Carol and I saw several tourists in other, less-touristy, areas. We saw a man pushing a stroller on Macarthur Drive near Fisherman’s Wharf, where he was accosted by one of the more insistent panhandlers (the fellow who once, when I told him I didn’t have any money for him, screamed at me: “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!”). Only a perfect summer day could draw a tourist to walk along Macarthur Drive.

If I had any doubt that summer is at its height, at it sfull glory right now, that doubt would have been eradicated by the farmer’s market on Thursday. While I stood in line at each farmer’s table, waiting my turn, I looked over the biggest diversity of produce we’ll see all year: blueberries, plums, peaches, pears, summer apples, cataloupe; broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow straightneck squash, patty-pan squash, acorn squash, lettuce, kale, collards, pole beans, bush beans, garlic; gladiolas, sunflowers, and other cut flowers. There were so many things for sale I’ve forgotten them all.

Summer is at its height, yet the sun sets three minutes earlier every day; I keep getting surprised by how soon it grows dark. Summer is at its height, but yesterday I planted some more fall flowers, white and red chrysanthemums, and tied up the asters. And today I seeded our tiny little raised-bed garden with a fall planting of Swiss chard.

Annual end-of-vacation post

My summer vacation ended this morning at 9:00 a.m. Actually, it ended before that, because I got to work twenty minutes early. I hate the fact that vacation is over for another year.

Not that I dislike my job. Working as a minister is about the best job in the world. I don’t have to punch a time clock. I have very little worry about getting seriously hurt on the job. Like most ministers, my benefits include a certain amount of flex-time and flexiplace. And, best of all, I’m helping to make the world a better place (at least, that sometimes happens, on the good days).

Nor do I have any regrets about how I spent my vacation. Visiting my sister and my cousin and my aunt and uncle; cat-sitting in Cambridge; even cleaning the house — these were perfect ways to spend my vacation time.

Nor am I one of those people who wants to retire as soon as possible. I hope to keep working until I drop dead. I like working, I am not good with too much leisure time, I like the purpose and meaning that a job brings to life.

In spite of all this, the day that vacation is over is always an unpleasant shock. In a few days, I’ll be back in the swing of things, and all will be well again. But right now, it’s the worst day of the year.

Classic car night

I’m sitting in the Green Bean coffee shop, looking out through the big plate glass windows at classic car night in downtown New Bedford. All kinds of classic cars, from souped-up 60s muscle cars to lovingly restored Model Ts to brightly-painted Volkswagen Bugs, are parked with hoods open or driving down Union Street.

There are also all kinds of people walking around:–

A much-pierced man with assymetrical facial hair and a black heavy metal t-shirt smiles and chats with two elderly ladies. A small boy wearing a button-down shirt and a clip-on tie is standing on the street corner, waiting in line to ride on the Zoo Choo Choo, a little electric-powered train. A big man wearing an orange, yellow, and black Hawai’ian shirt rolls down the street in a powered wheelchair. A black man and a white man walk down the street together looking at car engines and talking to each other out of the sides of their mouths. Two of the car owners pretend to get into a fist-fight — they part, laughing, and the gray-haired man goes to stand beside his big muscle car with a huge supercharger sticking out of the hood, while the young man stands beside a sedate 50s-era Volvo. A big burly man wearing a red-white-and-blue bandanna and a Harley muscle shirt bends over to peer in the window of the Volvo. Two women (who, as it happens, recently got married) take a picture of the teal-green Mustang with their cell phones.

It’s like a poster for diversity or something.

What I did on my summer vacation

Summer vacation is too short. You don’t want to waste it on trivial things. You want to do things that will restore your soul. So I’ve spent the past two days of my summer vacation cleaning the apartment.

Last winter, I had bronchitis twice, so I was sick from October through April. It sucked the energy right out of me, and all I did was go to work and come home and sleep. From October through April, I did not do much housework. Then I spent May and June catching up on all the other things I hadn’t done while I was sick.

I spent so long not doing housework, I actually found myself missing housework. I said to myself: Hey, why not spend a couple-three vacation days cleaning up? I said to myself, No one uses vacation days for cleaning the apartment. But, I said to myself, an apartment that is clean will keep me in a better mood; you know I’m in a better mood when things are neat and clean. OK, OK, I replied to myself:– You win, I’ll clean the apartment.

Here’s what I did: I cleaned the bathroom. I cleaned the kitchen. I cleaned the floors, as in I got down on hands and knees and scrubbed. I cleaned the woodwork. I vacuumed and shook out rugs. I dusted. Here’s what I didn’t do: I didn’t wash the windows. I didn’t clean out the inside of cabinets or closets. After all, I am on vacation. I had to draw the line somewhere.

Summer

At noon, Carol went to the farmer’s market at Clasky’s Common. She got some beans, some peaches, and a perfect cantaloupe. She knows I love cantaloupe. She said: “The farmer told me he picked it at five this morning.” I cut it open almost as soon as she brought it in the door. It had one little bruise, but aside from that it was perfect, and perfectly ripe. I ate half of it right away. We did some housework, went shopping, went for a short walk. At four o’clock, I ate the other half. It was so good, I couldn’t resist. That was too much fruit to eat in less than four hours, and I’ll probably get the collywobbles alter on, but what good is summer if you can’t gorge yourself on melon?