Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Things I Know As Well As Things I Don't

I don't know if fall is my favorite time of year but I do know that it's always a joy when the sky turns that washed-denim blue and the trees are still holding on to their green so that the contrast of colors is at its maximum and perhaps, that is what I love the most about it.

On my walks I see lots of blooming wild flowers this time of year, more actually, than in spring, as well as the beauty berries, the polk berries, and the dog fennel which brushes the air with its feathery leaves.

I am more apt to see deer as well, usually mothers and their offspring, frisking across the path in front of me, taking me by surprise so that I am always given a jolt of electricity down my spine. They disappear into the woods before I've quite focused on them and they make me wonder how many other animals I am missing, plodding along. I just learned this weekend at the Jr. Museum that foxes can climb trees. I have seen foxes, trotting along the path, but I never once thought to look up into the surrounding branches to see if one was napping there like the ones we saw on Sunday, comfortably snuggled into the fork of an oak, high above the ground.

There is so much I do not know.

I do not begin to understand this economic melt-down we seem to be experiencing and I don't know where it's going to leave us, from a world-view to a personal one. I do not think it's going to be good but I don't think there's one damn thing I can do about it except to take my garden even more seriously.

I've got the fall garden mostly in and I've planted quite a variety of green stuff. I put in the usual collards and mustards and mesclun greens, as well as the arugula and turnips. I also planted rainbow chard because wouldn't that be beautiful, growing, as well as on the plate? Beets, too, which Mr. Moon hates (they taste like dirt) because I want to pickle them and capture their ruby color in jars. I planted a half row of baby bok choi, too, and I hope they come up and thrive. Yesterday after I finished my planting, my tucking of the seeds into the ground and patting the dirt on top of them, it began to rain and I know I felt blessed.

I don't understand how the polls can be running so close on our presidential election and I don't know that I trust our voting process. I don't know what to think about this country that I am supposed to pledge allegiance to. I'm not even sure that I quite understand borders or why we are so intent on defending them, I don't understand "them" and "us" very well.

But I do know that I love to open my house up to this fall air and filtered light. I love the way they wash my walls. I love the way opening the house up is inviting the outside in with its sweet smells and the noises of the birds and the crickets, the frogs in the swamp, even the trains, shaking the house as they pass.

I know that I am surrounded by riches, no matter what the economy is doing. I know that the air I breathe and the water I drink and the thoughts I think are not constrained to borders or countries or theologies or philosophies or political theories. Nor are the birds or the butterflies which visit my yard to fuel up on seed and nuts and the nectar of the cardinal flowers before they take off to wherever it is they are going, which is another thing I do not know.

But they do, which is what matters.

I don't know what my brain and my heart are doing from one moment to the next.
But I do know that they are here, part of who I am, or perhaps precisely who I am.

I don't know exactly how I got here or where I'm going, but I know I am here. I know I am going to cook soybeans for dinner. I know I love my husband and my children.

I know I will die someday.

I doubt it will be today.

I know I'm glad of that because it's fall and they sky is so blue and the magnolia leaves are so green and the cardinal sitting on the feeder is so red. And because the clothes are hanging on the line and drying in the bright sun and the cool breeze. And because it's supposed to get down into the low sixties tonight which means we'll sleep so peacefully with the window above our heads open to the outside.

I know all of those things. The older I get, the more I realize I don't know, but the more I am sure of the things I do.

And I know it's fall and I know that's good.

And I know I'd like to hear what you know, for certain. If you'd like to tell me, I know I would.

6 comments:

  1. I know that people are mostly good. I know that there is no better way to spend a lazy day than with a toddler on my lap. I know that the roses I planted this year are some of the most incredible I have ever seen.

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  2. Hello??? Madame Yu See here, that's pronounced U-C, as in 'uncertain,' as in I'm not sure about ANYTHING, never have been, probably never will be. Oh, it would be so nice to be sure about something! To say 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet,' and to mean it, or to become a born again Christian, or something - anything - but, that's not who I am. The few moments you hold a toddler on your lap, beautiful roses, sure I can do those. Maybe those types of things are all there are to be certain of.

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  3. I know you are at peace,

    come hell, high water, hanging chads, dirty beets or winter.

    Fall does that, it settles us. I can't even write now- you said what I was feeling.

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  4. i know that i love.
    i do not know why i love.

    i know that i fear.
    i do not know why i fear.

    i know that i am.
    i cannot fathom what it means to be who i am.

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  5. Those are all so beautiful and what I need to hear. Madame U-C- my point exactly. I only know the "little things" for sure.

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  6. "I know that I am surrounded by riches, no matter what the economy is doing."
    That is all you need to know, really.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.