June’s peony heart
Breaks open summer’s sweet face
Intoxication.
June 15, 2011
It’s a sunny morning, the first one for a week. We’re on the back deck drinking our cappuccino, the sun working its way up through the trees along the brook, leaf filtered rays of light shining on the grass.
I find the period after every word that I see used in writing overly bloggish (see it a lot in blogs) and lazy. Why not find grammatically correct and accurate language to express what it is that needs to be described? But this morning I can’t resist.
One. More. Day.
The Last Tuesday
“Good morning, sweetheart,” David said as he got up to make our cappuccino. “Last Tuesday.” He walked out of the room. He’s been saying that since last week — our last Thursday, last Friday, last Monday, now our last Tuesday at our jobs.
Tomorrow is June 15, the countdown date, the day that’s been drawing near just about here, the last day of our jobs for both of us. For David, it’s been a little over 10 years, for me, it will be exactly 30. I started at the Coalition on June 16, 1981.
When I decided a little over a year ago to announce my departure from my job, I’d thought of leaving in March. “Are you kidding?” Adrienne said. “Three months short of 30 years? Just do the 30 years.”
So I decided I’d leave in June, but couldn’t decide the date. “Look in the records at the Coalition,” a friend suggested. “Find out what date you started and make it 30 years exactly.” So that’s what I did, except I looked in my journals to find my start date, not in Coalition records. As I’ve said many times, maybe even here in this blog, I have a well documented life. Two shelves of the book cases in my study are lined with journals and diaries, in chronological order mostly, dating back to 3rd grade.
It was easy to find the day I started at the Coalition. Adrienne was six months old and I was heading back to work after being home as a new mother. Now Adrienne is the new mother and I’m a grandmother. After today, my life as the Executive Director of the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence will be one day from being over. Stay tuned.
Monday Morning Haiku
Peonies bowing
Buds bobbing upright in rain
Blossom abandon.
The Last Friday Morning
After a day of off and on thunderstorms, oppressive heat, and finally enough rain so I didn’t need to water my gardens, it’s a bright, cool, clear morning. Crickets are rolling their chirps over and over as a back drop to the clacking call of the bobolinks, the songs of catbirds and robins and chickadees and the complaining of the crows.
This is the last Friday morning, at least for now, that I’ll wake up relieved that the end of the work week is almost here. I’ve loved my job — the challenge, the chance to make a difference, the incredibly smart and dedicated women I work with both here in NH and across the country — but I’m tired. As I said at my farewell party on Tuesday evening, I consider my success at my job to be a result of luck, the great good fortune to have found a meaningful career that uses my particular talents to best use. Other than very occasional sticky situations, this job has never been hard for me, but I’ve worked very, very hard.
So for years now Fridays have meant I’m close to a couple of days of longer sleep, a slightly (though truly only slightly) more relaxed pace, and the chance to do something other than concentrate fiercely on continuing to advance the work to end violence against women.
I still have three more days of work next week, but the weekend is almost here, and by next Friday, I’ll be looking at an almost unimaginable number of days ahead when my concentration and focus can go elsewhere. Sweet.
Haiku Habit
Still getting up and squeezing in a morning run before a day of work, still finding only a tiny space for language lust in my brain, thus the continued haiku habit.
Wild blue flag iris
Loon laugh warbling overhead
Morning rain relief.
Farewell Party Haiku
My name up in lights
Thirty years gone in a flash
Time to ask what’s next?
Grazing Haiku
Morning horses graze
Calves stand at east pasture fence
Abundance ascends.
So Much Is Happening
Dusk is full on. It’s Sunday evening and this is my first quiet moment of the weekend. The sun is painting the horizon grey and deep blue against the last yellow light, and the four horses in the pasture are up to their knees in grass. In the last two days I’ve seen Adrienne and Emilio, my mother, father, three sisters, two brothers-in-law, two nephews, two nieces, a grand-nephew and a nephew-in-law. I didn’t see my other brother-in-law John because his father went into the hospital yesterday morning, clearly dying, and John spent the next 24 hours with his family gathered in the deep and transformative process of accompanying a loved one to death’s door. The door opened. I have 8 days of work left. I talked to Eric’s mother and cousin while I watered my gardens when I got home. Eric’s cousin talked about how much better he is when he’s working. It’s summer now and he teaches, so he’s not as busy as he likes, having so much time makes him “edgy.” I’m about to walk off that edge. Except it’s not an edge, and it’s not a final door, and I’ve been to that door and I’m still here. Emilio clearly recognized me when he first saw me yesterday, continually meeting my eyes and smiling as he was passed around among the family sitting in the sun on my sister’s deck. Does this seem like a lot for one weekend?
Another Haiku
So, I didn’t stop at 100. I’m still working, I’m still getting up every day and rushing to get out running, come back and make breakfast and lunch to bring to work, get in the car and drive to arrive on time at some meeting. The imagined days of waking whenever my body wants, slowly sipping my cappuccino and contemplating what to do with the waves of time washing over me have yet to come. In this still-hurried life, haikus work. The bit of creative space they carve out in my brain is just right. So, another.
Korean lilac
Smaller and later to bloom
Fragrance to savor.
Grace Mattern 