Rapture

April 14, 2019 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 6 Comments

Everyone was outside today. In all her golden beauty, Spring returned. I left my library door open, with a few patrons in charge, and walked down the dirt road to post a sign about state reps coming to visit the library in a few weeks.

The melodies of blackbirds followed me.

Rapture, as near as can be…. all afternoon, my nearly 14-year-old daughter and I were out, in a day so suddenly hot. Yes, she’s a teen and wonders why I gnaw the edge of my thumb, there’s blue paint on the edge of my t-shirt, and is possible that I’ve shrunk? I say the word necklace with the wrong intonation of vowel. The knees of my jeans are stained, possibly with coffee.

And yet, on this particular day, I can see clearly how strange a creature I am in her eyes — who is this strange woman and how did she birth me? Likewise, I wonder, who is this miraculous not-girl and not-woman, and how did I birth her?

For the moment, though, there’s this afternoon, there’s just the two of us — as much rapture as I’ll likely ever deserve in this life.

We must risk delight….
We must admit there will be music despite
everything.

— Jack Gilbert, “A Brief for the Defense”

Spring in the Body

March 22, 2019 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 4 Comments

After a day inside, a flock of geese flies north over my head while I’m at a gas station, standing in a few sprinkles of rain, breathing the damp, soon-to-snow air.

North.

The birds flap steadily. I’m too near the interstate and Route 100, crazy with commuter traffic, to listen for honking. But for that immeasurable moment, it’s just me and the geese — none of what so often consumes me: the steady thrum of work, the wild sprawl of my family’s emotions, the incessant chatter of my own thoughts.

River valley, snow-crested mountains, those little tepid raindrops falling on my face, wet breeze, myself: the collective body of us beckon spring. The geese wing over the river, imperturbably.

This dewdrop world
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet . . .

— Issa

Photo by Molly B.

Sign of Spring: Honda Takes Flight

March 13, 2019 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 6 Comments

A pale blue Honda Civic, circa 1985, parked along Route 14 not far from our house, has flown that nest.

The Honda had quite the winter, parked between an apartment building and the busy highway. The car was completely buried by snow at least twice. The back window was left cracked open. Someone removed the hood and then replaced it, repeatedly. One sunny afternoon, a young man washed its rear window with steaming hot water from a kitchen garbage can.

People have moved in and out of those apartments all winter, by pickup and U-Haul. Now, the Honda.

Craigslisted? Simply ready to roll?

While winter and road salt have eaten into Vermont, here’s an old Honda, hopping back on the road — or so I’m believing.

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;

I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

— From “The Pasture,” Robert Frost

House town offices, snowy Sunday morning

The Twisty Road North

March 9, 2019 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

Late afternoon on a Friday, I take a winter road trip north, nearly to Canada, along Route 14 so rutted with frost heaves my little Toyota bounces. The pavement and passing cars are bleached with road salt — rust, pernicious rust, I keep thinking, apprising the mortality of my vehicle.

My daughter and I return in the dark from her concert. It’s 8:30 pm, but might as well be midnight. No one’s on the road but a tractor with blinking lights before a barn. This is farming country. The few gas stations and general stores in the small towns we pass through have all snapped off their lights, shut up, gone home.

Even in the dark, this highway is familiar, although we rarely drive this way anymore. In the dark car, eating crackers, we swap stories. My daughter tells me about the high school she just visited and its long locker room. I point out the state’s largest landfill. Whoo-hoo, my daughter says. A claim to fame. We pass a farm where she once believed Santa’s reindeer lived. I was so sure of that! She tells me about a tiny turtle on Lake Memphramagog I’d forgotten. She repeats the story with precise details; in a flash, I remember that brilliant April morning, the black and white checked dress she wore and loved.

Listening to her, at age 13, I hear her imagining a different life. What would it be like to live here? I think of her as so young, but I’m wholly wrong. Her stories keep flowing. Along this road we hardly ever travel, she has a whole history already, a detailed map of her past.

What an age 13 is: so full of wonder, of mystery: which direction will I steer my life?

To move, stay put, say the Buddhists. To see, stop looking. Don’t imagine paradise in the sky. Make paradise in the kitchen.

— Kate Inglis, A Field Guide to Grief: Notes for the Everlost

A sampling of our everyday snowbanks this March

Making Sense?

March 5, 2019 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

At dusk, after washing the dishes, my daughter agrees to go on a walk with me — she is clearly good-humoring me. It’s cold, and I sense she doesn’t care all that much about the gorgeous blue horizon.

Plus, she’s 13. Having once been 13 myself — albeit in the last century — I know 13-year-olds cannot wear hats.

Walking, she asks me why is this necessary? I offer my usual lines — that it’s pleasant to walk in the evening, that a little cold and adversity build character (my dad’s line). I remind her of my amazing wealth of character.

So, she says, you have character because you froze your ass off?

Put that way, I admit that perhaps not all the pieces of my thinking always hinge together perfectly. Or perhaps they do….

Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.

― Basho

February Yields To March

March 3, 2019 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 4 Comments

The snow lies so deeply around our house I might be wrong about that slender path, first through the transplanted hydrangeas from Susan and then along the milkweed behind the garden. Down the hill, through the wild tangle of pine and boxelder, I see a single porch light every night. Come spring, I imagine, I’ll walk in my boots through the melting snow, stand at the edge of the forest, and see whose light that is.