Month: March 2020

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Delycia often says that she tries to notice things when she’s out on hikes – not just ‘see’ the outdoor world she’s passing through, but truly notice – pay attention to – the little and large miracles around her. On our walk this morning, which took us through a portion of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Conservancy, we came to a small, silent pool almost concealed beside the trail. We paused for a few moments, and I took this picture …

but I must admit that I didn’t really ‘notice’ many of the details in the scene – especially the faint shades of green scattered around. They were the miracles of these first spring days, but my eyes, I guess, were blind to the beauty of them this morning, and not until I saw this photo on my computer screen at home did I see – truly notice – the slight signs of growth among the trees. I missed those miracles this morning, just as I have missed, I am sure, millions of other miracles in my long and lucky life.

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So when I look at this photo, also taken on the walk this morning,

I am noticing– and what I notice is the true stateliness of everything. The old and young trees, the stones of all sizes that have been sitting in peacefulness for perhaps centuries, the leaves that are lying in a somewhat solemn manner precisely where they should be, and the lady standing in an imposing and impressive way – all are resplendent with the effortless majesty that makes nature sanctuaries so wonderful too walk through. Perhaps, at 78, I am starting to notice in new and better ways!

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And here’s a scene from today’s walk that makes me think I should write a children’s story called “The Stones that Nobody Noticed”.

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Below is the route of our walk this morning …

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Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels. — Bertolt Brecht

Monday, March 30, 2020

These days, when we are faced with the scary disorder of the coronavirus pandemic, I’m finding it helpful to think of the power of discernment – the ability to look deep into the usual mishmash of life and pick out what’s truly valuable. The pandemic has thrown up an immense bramble of predictions and worries and fears, and it’s important to be able to see through the tangle and find the calmness that can help us discern the best path to take. On our walk this morning along the Mystic River, we passed some places where jumbles of reeds and trees made it hard to see the river shining in the distance …

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but the river was there, sure enough, peacefully flowing as it has for centuries. All it took was for us to stop walking, stand still, and quietly focus our attention through the reeds and trees to see what was there in the distance. The pandemic is scary, for sure, but if we can find some stillness, we might be able to see through the fear to the power of acceptance and equanimity that’s always there for us, just as the trustworthy Mystic River was there this morning, just behind the confusion of reeds and trees.

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Saturday, March 28, 2020

On our morning walk today in Noank, overlooking Fisher’s Island Sound, I had the same wonderful feeling of freedom I almost always have on our daily walks. I felt free almost in a wild way, as though I was just part of the wind that was whipping around here and there, or just another wave like the ones I could see in the sea down below. Later, back home, I was looking at this photo I took on the walk

and I suddenly saw a crazy wildness in the tree that seemed similar to what I was feeling during our walk. This old, gnarly tree seemed wonderful to old, gnarly me, and I thought of how beautiful its spring blossoms would be, and how beautiful my blossoming spring thoughts and activities would be in the coming weeks. I look forward to passing it many more times, and pausing and making a small bow of respectfulness, as I’m sure it will do for me.

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Friday, March 27, 2020

I try to avoid using the word “God”, since its meaning has become so  fuzzy over the centuries, but there surely is a non-material force (or Force) in the universe that, again and again down through history, has allowed gentleness and serenity to overcome fear and affliction. Occasionally I think about the Bible story of the men who survived being thrown into a fiery furnace, and I start to wonder: What future fires, what pain and grief, may await me, and will I be able to survive, and even, as the boys in the story did, somehow flourish inside the flames of my suffering? Will I be able to face future troubles with poise and inner stillness, not by pretending the troubles don’t exist, but by understanding that there’s a calm and loving force in the universe that’s far stronger than any suffering I might experience?  I think of the Bible story strictly as an allegory, in which the fiery furnace stands for any situation that seems to surround me with hopelessness.  The men in the allegorical story were able to feel fully the power of unison and peace that pervades the universe, from the farthest star to the smallest cell in our bodies, and somehow that power easily erased the disharmony of their situation.  The fire in their lives had no power when put up against the non-material power of peacefulness, and I hope that will be true of the various physical and emotional fires that will surely flare up in my life in years to come. 

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Our front yard chalkboard poem for today …

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Thursday, March 26, 2020

            The word “permit” derives from two Latin words meaning “flow through”, which makes me realize that I should do a lot more permitting in my life. I especially need to permit thoughts and situations to flow through my life as effortlessly as they naturally want to do. Thoughts and situations, after all, are not stationary objects, but ever-moving events in the endless procession called life. They come to us, but with surprising speed they always go from us, passing away and usually leaving just a mist in the memory. My problem is that I often don’t permit my thoughts and situations to flow in their effortless, inexorable way. Strangely enough, I seem to set up barriers, so that thoughts and situations, especially the worrisome ones, are blocked from flowing through, and instead, stay solid and real in my life for far too long. I need to remember that everything passes away soon enough, including thoughts and situations. I should probably sit more often on the bank of the river of my life and give it permission to flow easily – like the little bubbling streamlet below, which we passed on this morning’s walk, flows effortlessly into the Mystic River.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Here is a poem written by my grandson Louis, age 8, a lad with an abundance of talent, including a bountiful appreciation for the music of words …

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LAVISH STICKS AND LEAVES

On first glance, the photo below may not bring to mind the word ‘abundance’, but when I paused this morning on our walk in the Peace Sanctuary, a nature preserve on the Mystic River, and focused on this simple scene, there did seem to be a wonderful plentifulness in it. Yes, it is only leaves and sticks, but we might also say a splendid sunset is only sky and light, and the silliness of our statement would be instantly obvious. The truth is, this photo shows a small sample of nature’s unreserved exuberance, a profusion of its shapes and textures and colors. These may be just humdrum leaves and sticks, but there’s a simple kind of lavishness here that I’m glad I paused to look at this morning.

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GRACE AND GLORY

I’m not a church-going person, but I do recall hearing, in a passing conversation with a Christian friend, something about “grace and glory”, and, surprisingly, those words occasionally came back to me when I was doing the daily work of a middle school English teacher (as I did for 45 years). I think of grace, not in a religious way, but in an everyday, commonplace way, as the quiet gifts I regularly receive, gifts of good thoughts and helpful feelings. When I was working with my young students, continuous useful ideas somehow seemed to flow toward me, and feelings that made good teaching possible were given to me in astounding abundance. I have no idea where all this comes from, all this munificence of spirit that I still make use of each day, but I feel it fully, moment by moment. This, for me, is what grace is – the nonstop giving of a universe that seems so full of goodness the giving might never stop – and it is this grace that caused me to feel the simple and straightforward glory of teaching. I’m not talking about big-time glory, like superstars seem to bask in, but rather the calm glory of seeing a student send out a stream of smiles because she finally understands a Dickinson poem, or watching a boy break through his hang-ups about writing and just set down his thoughts with liberty and delight. The glories of English class were as small as a student holding a chair for another student, or the shy thank-you’s I sometimes received at the end of class, or the creation of carefully shared ideas during discussions. It’s a simple thing, I think, to feel the glory given to any person blessed enough to be a teacher. They were all around me in my classroom — constant, rousing gifts from anywhere and everywhere. 

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Tuesday, March 24, 2020

I sometimes wonder if gaining wisdom isn’t as hard as I’ve thought. Perhaps it’s like simply opening my inner eyes and looking through the very wide windows inside me. The problem is that there seem to be countless other windows inside me – tiny, narrow ones – and I spend most of my time squinting through those, always seeing only obstacles and endless mazes. Perhaps wisdom comes when we turn to the wide windows, the endlessly wide ones, and see the truly vast panorama of reality.  The scenery of my life sometimes seems surrounded by borders and restrictions, as though I’m living in a small and mystifying maze, but wisdom occasionally wakes me up, and then I can look through its vast, wide-open windows and see how immeasurable my life and all lives really are.  It’s like suddenly standing on the summit of Mt. Everest and seeing reality, all of it, spread out in endless vistas below me.  That’s what wisdom does when I simply open up life and look through the right windows. 

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I see openings in each of these scenes from this morning’s walk on the hills of Mystic:

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Monday, March 23, 2020

            I’ve come to see, as my 78 years have passed, that confusion can be good for me – that it can give me more gifts than problems. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, since the word “confuse” derives from the Latin word for “mingle together”, and aren’t all things in this world mingled together, in some way or other, and isn’t mingling usually a constructive activity? Grass blades make fine-looking lawns by growing in a confused way, all mingled together, and the stars above us show the beautiful confusion of togetherness and endlessness. Cars on roads mingle in a seemingly confused manner, and yet the chaos of the traffic – what we might call the resourceful confusion of it – usually produces a steady and smooth movement of vehicles. My days, too, so often seem composed of haphazard things and thoughts, and yet from that confusion has come, and still comes, the blessings given by this good life. It’s a similar confusion, I guess, to that of oceans that bring beauty out of swirling waves and organisms, or of fields of wildflowers that show splendor in the midst of seeming disarray. It’s a lucky kind of confusion, and I’m lucky to usually be feeling it. 

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We passed this scene on our walk this morning in Noank (CT), and instantly the word ‘sad’ came to mind, due to the shelter-skelter appearance of everything – the ragged, rambling weeds, the wild-looking house, the tattered trees. But then I thought, how strange, to instantly label the scene with a single word, as though that word thoroughly captures the substance of it. Why wasn’t I able to just quietly look at the scene, welcome it into my mind, notice the countless shapes and shades of color? Why couldn’t I see how all the parts of the scene were fused together in an undisturbed partnership? Why must I so often miss the miracles of life by applying my easy-to-use but essentially meaningless labels?

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And here’s a scene, again in Noank, with what might seem like a confusion of clouds in the sky and waves in the sea, but the confusion is, in its own special way, utterly beautiful. This helps me remember that, when I feel like my life is falling into total confusion, perhaps I can think of the loveliness of these confused clouds and waves, and perhaps smile, and even praise, my confusion.

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I’m not confused, I’m just well mixed. – Robert Frost      

Sunday, March 22, 2020

We walked in one of our favorite places this morning, Elm Grove Cemetery, bordering the Mystic River estuary. Walking the perimeter is about one mile, with inspiring views of distinguished gravestones, venerable old trees, the magisterial estuary, and historic ships and graceful clouds in the distance. We did a bracing, frosty total of about three miles, and felt lucky all the way.

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WRITING WITH A BOUNDLESS VIEW

The artist Paul Klee once said that art should be like a holiday – something to give the artist the opportunity to see things differently and to change her or his point of view – and I have gradually grown to feel the same about writing. Now, in my 78th year, when I sit at my computer and start tapping the keys, it’s as if I’ve set out on a holiday escapade, as if restrictions have been rescinded and boundaries broken down. The words seem to lead the way, and I just cheerfully follow along to see what surprises will show up. These days, when I begin writing, it’s like I’m leaving behind rules and strategies and boundaries, and simply wandering in a boundless land. Writing for me has become a sort of free-wheeling adventure, a time to celebrate the unlimited freedom of thought that all of us possess, a time to revel and carouse with phrases and sentences to see what wonders might arise. It’s my daily holiday in retirement, a vacation in the wide-ranging kingdom of words.

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During my long career as a teacher, it occasionally occurred to me, right in the middle of a class, that everything was happening exactly as it should – that it was a perfect class. Of course, this didn’t happen when I was mired in a small-minded view of things – when I was seeing the class and my lesson as a piece of complicated machinery that depended on only me for its efficient operation. When that was my line of thought, nothing was ever perfect – not the lesson, not the kids, not the distracting sounds in the hall, not even the songs of birds outside. When I was looking at my life in the classroom with a shortsighted, disparaging lens, defects bordering on disarray seemed to be everywhere. There were times, though, when I felt the strange sense of being far, far above the classroom and quietly looking down on the comings and goings of me and my students. With that distant, wide-angle view — one that took in not only the small classroom in the Connecticut countryside, but the fields and cities of the state, the spreading earth itself with its endless abundance, as well as the continuous stars — all seemed right in Mr. Salsich’s Room 2, just as all seems right with any sunset or wave in the sea or wind in the trees. Small-minded views pass judgments; big-picture views sit back and appreciate. 

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Our front yard chalkboard poem for today …

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… and a single-minded gardener (Delycia) viewing old rose bushes that need to go …

Saturday, March 21, 2020

For some reason, I’ve always been especially fascinated by the big boulders I’ve seen on woodland walks, like those in the photo below, seen on our walk on Barn Island today. When I see boulders, I often pause to study them for a few minutes, and I sometimes have felt like I was waiting for some answer from the enormous stones, as if they were teachers that could tell me truths I needed to know. After all, boulders like these have been sitting – patiently sitting, I would say – precisely where they are for thousands of years (millions?), just staying put, simply sitting, right here and right now, moment after moment, hour after hour, century after century. Wars have come and gone, epochs and eras have passed, and these stones – silent and strong – are still right here. I guess – as silly as it might sound – I admire their patience. If they could talk to me, they would say, “Just wait, Ham. Sit still and watch and wait. We love doing it! It’s an amazing experience!” I guess boulders like these have been my meditation teachers for many years. They seem to know that patience can prepare you for miracles.

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And here we are, patiently trying to get a good selfie on our walk today.

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