Coming to Terms

It’s about time that the same thing happens to all of us, regardless of everything. I find it not so much like looking in a mirror, but more like looking down at my own body. I keep it moving—things have not changed so much for me, you see. I am still following the trail of ants near my garage door as I wait for my dog to relieve himself in the yard. I am still upturning stones to find the snails. I am still laughing at the mud on my dog’s fur and tilting my head, squinting my eyes, at lichen. Amidst all this waiting, there is no waiting. I come home from an excursion in the woods, make some soup, and my fiancé is then done with work with no commute. He joins me at his own simmering bowl. The clock becomes somewhat frivolous as I tell time by how many rows of a blanket I crocheted in the morning, then I log in to work. I have no desire for anger. I have no desire to rally. Although my eyes roll on a daily basis, I then roll on to the next thing. I walk by my 2020 bucket list 20+ times a day, walking into and out of the kitchen. Not one thing is crossed off. But I am not cross about it. One of those things, my own wedding. But I do not let it get me. Instead, I learn new words: thole, Windigo, and the phrase sitting in the catbird seat. Just because, I research negro spirituals and learn the various, evolving lyrics of Oh Susanna. The nonsense in that song: the sun so hot I froze myself.

I think about my parents. I imagine them like pieces on a game board. My father in the kitchen, going for a crab cake. My mother splayed out across her bed, watching The Weather Channel, but now she wants to refill her cup of coffee. She passes my father at the refrigerator. Maybe she says something like we’re having roasted chicken and green beans for dinner or he says Tina, there are five turkeys in the yard. And maybe they’ll go look at the turkeys. Maybe looking at the turkeys will make them think of me. Then one game piece goes for the phone, the other idling nearby.

Susanna, don’t you cry.

I go into the woods sometimes searching for something specific only to end up finding a different form of magic. Looking for morels, I found chaga—as innocent as us—clinging to the thin bark of a birch tree. I approached the tree, careful not to trample on moss because it takes so long for moss to make itself known. I smiled at the chaga and looked around as if there were an audience. And there was an audience if you consider the surrounding trees and wetlands and cattails and mayapples as him or her. Chaga looks like it is in pain. It looks scorched, like it could weep at any moment, like a festering scab. I look down at the ground only to discover a detached piece of the chaga, like a gift. No switch of a knife, no work necessary. I place it like a baby bird on the ground in the middle of the trail and continue my walk. I’d bring it back home with me if it is meant to be. I knew no one would take it. Because no one was there.

Sometimes, I walk into the kitchen just to admire the chaga sitting on my counter. Like caring for an infant, I do not know where to put it, how to really take care of it, and it always looks uncomfortable. It looks quite depressed just sitting there next to the jar of sugar and the paper towels, strings of old spider’s web helplessly adorning it. Looking at it makes me grateful that my fiancé never questions the things I display or bring into our home, be it rocks that gather dust, a porcupine skull, dead insects, or the bowl of lemon seeds in water. I know I’ll make tea from the chaga, but it is such an abundant amount. I decide to pawn some off to people I love. One is not so interested. The other would rather go into the woods with me for the adventure—as she put it—of harvesting her own.

I have been covering less miles, but that is okay. You can take that in any way, literally or figuratively. I meander through the woods, looking under discarded sheds of bark. I sit on logs and watch water continue its journey. I drive less. I sit on my balcony and admire my neighbor’s tree. I admire the starling even though many despise him. When I do go to the office, I stand at the printer and have the time to admire the work it does. I wonder how it does what it does. I begin watching “How It’s Made” on HULU to learn how so-called mundane things become what they are as I crochet a very ugly blanket. Sometimes, under my breath, I’ll sing.

I come from Pennsylvania with a blanket on my knee.