5:59

6:00

Then put your little hand in mine. There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb.

Babe.  I got you babe.

I’d like you to try and tell me you haven’t thought about this scene once or twice, in say, the last six months or so. Please feel free to hold your hand up admitting you, too, feel like you are Phil (Bill Murray) stuck in Punxsutawney reliving Groundhog Day over and over and over and…

Sonny and Cher ringing in the new day on the clock radio feels exactly like life under COVID.  Sure we’ve got a few “distractions” along they way BLM, RBG, EU v UK, JB v DJT.  We’ve had our equivalents of Phil bumping into Ned and stepping into the puddle, Phil learning piano, Phil learning French poetry, Phil learning ice sculpturing, Phil trying to hook up with Rita /Andie Macdowell (why he’s so nuts about her is a whole other mystery surrounding that film). Definitely there’s been as much eating during COVID as Phil’s bingeing scene at the Tip Top Cafe.  All these distractions yet none to help us find a way to shift the day forward –to a new song at least.  

It’s all wearing a bit thin and I wanted to let you know I’m right there with you. And maybe, it’s because of this, I’m seeking guidance from my 1970s (from whence that song comes) upbringing to see if I can summon something to grab hold of to help push or pull me through the next stretch of this seemingly endless event.

You know I wander in the woods.  Walk Winston. Admire the birds, my local flora and fauna.  Carry on about trees. Soak it up at the beach.  Marvel in the cuteness of the cats, but really the elephant in everyone’s room these days is COVID-19 (not the Chinese flu by the way – it’s the corona virus. It’s a worldwide issue, just sayin’).

Now don’t worry, self-isolation, 2 metres distancing, face masking, virtual hugging, 6 people bubbling, track n tracing and hand washing has not addled my brain completely. It’s not forcing me to find some kind of meaning in Sonny Bono’s lyrics to I Got You Babe it’s there for all to see if you just look.  I’m deep, but not that deep (nor are Sonny’s lyrics).  It’s just that the song has stopped haunting my Groundhog Day-ish existence and instead has become more of a, dare I say, anthem worthy of sharing.  I Got You Babe.  Happy for you to shorten it to I’ve Got You (if the babe is starting to bug you).  Doesn’t everyone one want to feel like that right now?  Like someone’s got you? Got your back? Got who you are? Got this one?

Okay, try and stay with me.  Because Sonny is not only giving me a catchy tune to hum and keep me company, but his song is reminding me of his famous ex-wife, Cher, whom I’m also finding inspiring.  Cher is leading me to what I think all of us are looking for, in fact, need.  Nope it’s not her belting out, Half Breed, Believe or If I Could Turn Back Time (although that could be kinda helpful). Nope, it’s not her songs but her name, Cher, as in, Share, which is how I thought it was spelled when I was a kid and was allowed to stay up to watch her show with Sonny. I always thought the show makers had made a spelling mistake only I had been clever enough to spot (it was shocking but I was willing to accept grown ups aren’t perfect).  Share, as in share and share alike or even better:

As in the Swedish proverb, “A joy shared is a double joy. A burden shared is half a burden.”

Being the third of five kids meant we were raised on sharing.  Sharing clothes, sharing TV time and the Power of God (aka the remote), sharing bedrooms, sharing bathrooms, you get the idea.  Then there was the other kind of sharing. I can’t tell you how many times my dad would say, “Many hands make light work” as we all stared at our plates and we knew it was time to take it to heart. Meaning everyone had to help share with doing the dinner dishes and clean up. Sharing the work across the seven of us did make it go a lot faster and easier and, in truth, more pleasurably.  My mom always said although she loved our dishwasher, she didn’t mind hand washing and drying stuff cause that’s when some of the best conversations came to be (you know where I’m going with this) shared.

And c’mon, as I’ve taken you back to my parents’ house, I can’t miss mentioning, double stick popsicles. Although at times we might’ve wanted the lion’s share of a popsicle, splitting those doubles into the singles to make the box last longer on hot summer nights definitely worked out for the best.  I could never manage the doubles – I can’t bite ice and if I attempted the double, more often than not, I’d end up with most its melted flourescent coloured-dye sticky stuff running down my wrist.  Sharing the popsicle (ice lolly in UK) also meant everyone got to enjoy “the good” colours and not just get stuck with banana.

While I’m thinking of 70’s summers, I can’t help but transport us as well to Tony and Scott’s snack bar at Middlesex Swim Club.  My dad happened to be the manager of the club one year and he told Tony and Scott (who were college kids at the time) that if they could make the budget he set them for the season, they could keep anything over the top…Meaning they could have a share of the profits.  Genius.  And I’m telling you those guys, who’d already been dazzling us with the best grilled cheeses (not to be confused with cheese burgers, Mary Kate), hot dogs, milk shakes, fries, and frozen Charleston Chews, took that idea and the snack bar to a whole new level with the prospect of that kinda sharing.  We only lived a block from the swim club so ended up eating at home mostly, but for special treats, my mom gave us snack bar ticket books to last us all summer. Most of my tickets went to the aforementioned Charleston Chews.  Tony and Scott would freeze those babies until serving. When you ordered one, they’d crack it on the counter so you could fish out perfect bite sized pieces to fit in your mouth and even better share with your friends.  It really was the only way to make it through the 8 inch bar of nougat, caramel and chocolate without it going to goo; a sorry waste smeared inedibly into the wrapper.  

So what can we share now?  You know. Responsibilities – wearing masks, supporting all those sharing in the education of our children, share in the care of each other, share in the sorrow of loss, share our stories, share our worries, share a smile, share a thought, heck, share a joke.

I was looking up that Swedish proverb and the google universe sent me this video from 2014.  I think it’s funny and definitely a good example of how sharing something, perhaps seemingly unsurmountable, even with strangers, seems to be made all the better for sharing. Watch it even if just to remind you of what the unmasked past looks like or what The Bumblebee Tuna Song, Gangam Style and What Does A Fox Say sound like…

Lastly could I suggest you share an experience? Definitely share in this seemingly endless marathon of an experience.  

Which draws me to my concluding point to share with you.  I don’t know if you heard but they held the official London Marathon this weekend.  It was rescheduled from April and was run COVID style.  Around 100 “elite” athletes ran the 26.2 miles on a special course around the city while another 43,000  from across 109 countries virtually ran the race on courses of their own choice/making.  I think there was some special app they could sign into and make it all official.  Anyway, I heard about this one lady who made it through her course in 4 hours and 46 minutes (the elite do it in closer to the 2+hour mark).  4 hours and 46 minutes.  That’s incredible in my book. When I heard she persevered for that long I had to ask –How? How in the torrential rain and far colder temperatures than the April she would have trained for did she do it?  How did she have the stamina and determination to carry on for that long? Well, I’ll tell you, she completed the whole marathon with her family and friends meeting her at different points across the race and running with her for awhile. She literally shared the experience across the people and the space and time to make it to the finish line.

I reckon COVID catches up with us all (right, Donald?) in more ways than testing positive.  Hope this post goes a little way in letting you know you’re not alone.  There’s a finish line out there even if it’s a bit theoretical at this time.  For now, just rest easy, I got you, Babe.

I keep thinking about how I stink at counting.  I mean it.  Counting calories even with a handy dandy fitness app, counting steps – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve grimaced to realise I’d forgotten to put my fake Fitbit on and missed out on getting credit for my grocery store shop (you can really crank up the steps there) or morning stroll through Toys Hill with Winnie.  When friends used to try and share the goings on of their statistics classes at university, my eyes would gloss over as the numbers and calculations just jumbled from their mouths, pinball-ed around my brain and dribbled out, I guess, through my ears…Nowadays I stand in utter fascination as Skyler and his Maths’ tutor, Ms Chapman, confidently discuss SURDS, completing the circle and differentiation – throwing in mental math calculations to quickly identify the answers. I can’t even keep up in my own home.

But I’m actually not bad with numbers.  Give me an event to run and I’m your girl on the spreadsheets tallying up costs and affordability of a ball, an eighteenth or our annual Christmas party.  I guess it’s more that I am uninspired by numbers as much as I am ignited by words.  I can hum along to the Ten Duel Commandments from Hamilton with the best of them (you really don’t want to hear me sing) or recall the Twelve Days of Christmas as sweetly as the true love who received the gifts, but taken out of context, numbers just don’t stick in my head.

If I’m forced to remember numbers,  I physically have to write them down.  Funny enough, though, I do appreciate their importance even if my brain’s not wired to retain them.  I appreciate the numbers in our bank account (for instance) and Nick even more so for working so hard to earn them so we can pay for the incredible life we lead (please see above parties). I appreciate numbers for keeping track of beats of music, monitoring temperatures and speed limits, and for where we are in history. In fact, I’m good at anniversaries and dates. But if I need to start counting numbers on my fingers or a calculator they start to boggle my brain. Numbers counting new COVID cases, COVID tests, COVID deaths.  I get confused how to keep track of them all.  Numbers counting the contributions to furlough schemes.  Numbers counting the days we need to self isolate if we are diagnosed with COVID which differs from the number of days our bubble then needs to quarantine.  Numbers of people in England we are allowed to meet with inside or out (okay I can do that one – 6).  Numbers telling us the time pubs need to close to safely to contain the spread of the virus – which does beg the question can COVID tell time?  I wouldn’t put it past it.  

Funnier still, although I am not so good at counting numbers, I want to be held accountable and not only that I want to count.  I want the way in which I am conducting my life to count for something.  To register in the Big Book of Accounting of Life if there is one.  I strive to be considered an asset and I definitely do not want to negatively impact the world or others. And I don’t just hold myself up to measure.  I want people who can actually do something about the numbers that effect the world…COVID cases, increase in CO2 emissions, balance of Supreme Court justices, Parliamentary, Senate and House votes, Presidential votes … I want them to show some accountability.  I want them to take some ownership for the roles they’ve been given by the highest count of votes they received from us.  I want them to stand up and be accounted for. I want them to take this time in history to do the right, just thing.  To use the power of the numbers they have supporting them in the best way possible.

With honour. With integrity. With the intent for the good of all.

“United we stand, divided we fall” still rings true for me no matter what nation you hail from or live in.  Humanity needs a way to work it out.  I’d argue to find, not only good health for us all, but quality of life including equality of life.  

And while we’re at it, please could we give voice to those who cannot speak(or indeed count) for themselves?  Please, please can we find a way to look after the 1 place we all live on? However you divide, multiply, subtract or add it all up, in the end, don’t we all want the same result?

Balance. Equal share of resources and responsibility. Respect for ourselves and others. Honesty. True guardianship of our planet. Fairness. To be listened to and heard.  Are all some of the factors I’d consider worthwhile outcomes.

2020 has been a year laden with meaningful numbers. So much to count with so much we are counting on…ultimately a vaccine, fingers crossed a new president  – definitely each other.

Perhaps the best way I can make it all make sense is to count one thing I know, big or small, counts the most. My blessings. Even though they are innumerable, taking the time to count and give thanks for them is absolutely worth it. 

For Jennifer and Robb

I spoke to my step-mom, Judy, last week.  We had a great conversation.  I especially enjoyed hearing how much trees resonate with her as much as they do me.  So much so, Judy has named the tree outside their house.  The one overhanging their patio, the birdbath and feeder, the wetland waterway bordered by pluff mud and filled with the briney water found between sea and the inland bay of that South Carolina lowland.  Next to the Crowders (the best neighbours anyone could hope for) the tree growing on Broomfield Creek, Lady’s Island. We always say Dad and Judy found paradise as they overlook the waterway running alongside their property teeming with dolphins, rays, sharks, crabs and shrimp caught by the net-full off their dock.  They enjoy the days with bluebirds, painted buntings, hummingbirds and cardinals visiting the feeder, ospreys nesting and egrets strolling, freezing and dipping to feed at low tide.  They watch stunning sunsets over the Sparta grass to see out the evening.  They measure the seasons of the year, not so much by leaves turning red in the autumn and renewed with green buds in the spring, instead, they can tell by the state of grass what time of year they are in. They watch it all through the frame of the dangling Spanish moss swaying in the breeze off the limbs of what Judy calls ‘The Sheltering Tree’.

If you know one thing about me you know how much I love trees; their dignity, their stoicism, the bounty of all they give to us as fuel, as food, as paper, as breathable air!  I love Judy’s connection that trees are also a shelter, physically and mentally, for us.  I can’t but count my blessings I am surrounded by magnificent trees and can regularly walk in the woods with my dog, Winston.  Where the awesomeness of the ocean humbles me in its vastness and power, the intimacy of the woods is one I find so accessible.  A soothing, restoring, hands-on touch with Nature.  The Japanese even have a phrase for it, “shinrin yoku” or forest bathing, which connects for me with the feeling of refreshment we can get from a walk in the woods.

I’ve learned other words like ‘bower’ and ‘dappled’ through walks in and amongst the trees.  You know how you can learn a word from the dictionary, learn it by sight but to really get to know a word sometimes takes an experience to truly understand it?  It took walking to that quiet place emerging in amongst a thicket of brown, grey, mossy trunks to a sacred space amidst the trees, hidden from the world absorbing the sounds and worries of the outside to properly breathe deeply and purely to realise I’d found myself a “bower”. When I first read Keats’ poem, Endymion, at university in Virginia I had to look up the word to appreciate the poem more.  From my strolls around Toys Hill I realise how perfectly Keats choose it.

In those bowers and beyond, the woods have their own soundscape.  They buffer out the pull of the weight of the world filling it instead with birdcalls, rustles in the underbrush, breezes pulling through the treetops to sound just like the draw of a wave across the shore.  Listen and you will hear it too. The squeak of the branches that rub against each others bark, the drip on the umbrella of a canopy in a rainstorm.  It all feels like a filter where thoughts can be examined, played with, fetched like the stick I throw for Winston.  Reminiscing comes easily for me in the woods settled by the pace of my steady walk.  I feel I can tap into my resources but never drain them there.

And it’s nice to know I’m not alone.  The BBC has made 2020 The Year of The Tree covering stories examining “The Power of Trees” in our world on their nightly PM show.  People show the presenter their favourite tree and explain why it is so.  I’m in good company, I reckon.  People getting a kick out of trees’ Spring blossom or Autumn harvest.  I’ll take trees any time full of leaves, evergreen or leaflessly hibernating through the winter.  They find me where ever I go.  Even at Yoga, where Kay has been coaching us to plant our feet in the mat, ground ourselves so we can bend and sway like palm trees.  

And it is good to know we’re not alone.  Especially when those you love and hold as dear as the upright towering redwoods forever strong fixtures in the structure of your life are no longer there.  As strong and solid as an oak remembered best at his home on Oak Grove Lane (believe it or not), my best friend’s father who we lost this week.  When someone like Jim Miller comes into your life and loves you like his own, kids with you and supports you even from afar when your own children grow up.  When a presence like that is felled out of the blue, you feel the tear of his roots exposed from the ground into the air like the shock of a raw gash in a tree snapped at the trunk.  Mr Miller was one of the trees in my stand of friends and family. With him down, I can’t help but feel the gap he has left in our lives.  Just the size and shape of him.

At times like these you wish for the ‘hugging trees’ as I’ve named them.  Especially the pair just above the pond before you get to the horse gate.  A pair of trees that have grown so close they are entwined and hold each other upright even when one is weakened.  It is something to behold.  Unabated, undeniable support.

So I turn to the trees like friends and I hope in touching one, the love and support I feel for those left standing find its way like ‘treelepathy’ and grant them some peace as safe as the haven of an arbour. I search for words to ease and lighten the loads of others but sometimes my own are not enough.  Instead, I thank my friend, Suzanne, for knowing just when to share Mary Oliver’s poem, When I Am Among The Trees with me just when I needed it.

Whatever you are living with or through, may the grace of trees find you and grant you the shelter you seek.  May you bathe in their beauty and peace and emerge renewed.

We’re back from holiday and I’d say re-entry has gone reasonably well.  We found and moved our oldest into a flat in London, dropped off our second down in Cornwall to indulge in the beach before uni kicks in and kitted out our youngest for Sixth Form – suited and booted – no mean feat in the Summer that is 2020.  Re-entry is my best friend’s term from old space shuttle jargon.  It’s that state between finishing a holiday and re-entry to your real life.  Sometimes re-entries are seamless and other times I’m left wondering if my heat shield is gonna hold. Feel like it marks another part of the year – summer vacation done and dusted, tick.  When we got back I was glad to see that all our animals and, of course, our tomatoes are thriving.  Last count I had thirty-five on the vines just waiting to turn red. Not bad from the slice of tomato I placed in some compost back in April.  I’ll keep you posted on what they taste like…crossing my fingers Miracle Gro doesn’t leave a residual flavour… Oh, and there’s beans galore too.  If you want any runners or ‘french’ beans, let me know, they’re coming out my ears.  What really surprised me though was the lawn.  We, and I say this with great gratitude to the gods of weather, have had the sunniest and warmest English summer that I can remember in thirty years.  I don’t like to jinx it. However, as we pretty much swam through late winter into the spring, I guess we were due for something a little drier.  

Anyway, the grass, my goodness, the heat took a toll on it.  If was as brown as it could be two weeks ago. It crunched when you walked on it.  There was literally no sign of life.  Nick couldn’t bear it so he asked me to make futile attempts to revive it with a sprinkler or two in the early morning or evening.  But it was to no avail.  It was as dry as the soles of my feet feel these days of home lockdown, sporting sandals since March and no pedicure in sight.  At any rate, believe it or not our lawn is now looking like the scene from the old Star Trek movie with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.  You know the one that made you cry when Spock sacrificed himself for the good of the Enterprise and then his body got deposited down on the planet, Genesis, which ended up being a planet that was revived from the dead; a virtual Eden? Yeah, that one.  Well, that’s what’s happened to our lawn since about ten days of off and on rain.  It’s glorious.  So luscious. It makes me want to lie down in it, James Taylor September Grass style and just feel its freshness, its softness, its vitality.  The come back kid.  It’s left me wondering if we could harvest whatever it is in grass that helps it revive so well? I mean I’d love to apply some ‘grass’ DNA to my body, maybe my hair, add some water and come out looking all Benjamin Button young. I think whatever is in grass should be modelled for resuscitating anything that is spent and tired and looking like a lost cause.  It really is so inspiring to see the grass taking off in tufts first and then the whole lawn new growth green.  The blades are long enough now to even get a cut now – talk about thriving.  

After these last two weeks especially, it puts my mind to wishing the grass goodness could be bottled and applied not just to me but liberally to my home country, the United States of America.  I feel like it could use some TLC and a good soaking of gentle rainfall to cool it down and refresh it.  The conflagration that is the presidential race of 2020 is becoming inflammatory.  The state of the union, the state of the economy, the health of the population, the nation, the soul of its people is looking pretty beaten up and dried out right now.  Some of the stuff is truly deep rooted.  Some of what’s flaring up (rightfully so in my humble opinion) is like the dandelion weeds, prickly and thriving in the drought.  But, I like to think the majority of the American citizens (like the electorate of 2016) is made of solid-er stuff and hardy grass-like stuff that can be rejuvenated in the right conditions.  I like to think the majority of my fellow citizens want everyone to thrive, want everyone to flourish, want everyone to be able to live up to their fruition.  This time of year I watch on Facebook as all my friends set their kids up in college housing.  I image the on-line IKEA orders they had to do this year instead shopping in-store to stock up on dorm room essentials.  I imagine how they discuss a strategy plan on how to social bubble and distance and remind each other to wear masks and wash hands.  I imagine how even though it feels a bit scary we all want to encourage our kids to enjoy this special time in their lives and maybe even give them ‘the doorstop speech’.  You might have heard of it.  It’s the one that reminds students living together to keep their doors open so they can connect to others maybe even make a friend or two.  I keep thinking about those gray wedges we shove under the door when we’re moving them in.  Suggesting they leave them in place to begin with so they’ll be accessible and able to stay involved with others, not feel too isolated after we kiss the goodbye and tell them we’ll see them come Thanksgiving.  

I like a doorstop wedge.  It’s easy to move and does the trick pretty efficiently.  What I don’t like are wedges forcing people apart.  What I don’t like is what that wedge of a human being, Trump, has done to America.  I hate how he’s done the opposite of keeping a door open of connecting positively with others.  Instead he’s like that wedge a woodsman uses to split a log.  That wedge to break apart something sturdy into kindling.  Kindling for his fiery rhetoric to scare people and blatantly lie to them.  I hate that wedge he’s placed between me and those I love who voted for him and might be considering to do so again.  I hate how his toxic behaviour has stymied conversations about our country.  He’s made them too contentious with his scaremongering tactics trying to convince people that only a country headed by himself will save the country from the very chaos he has created.  He’s a living non sequitur in his logic.  

Believe it or not, it’s hard even for me not to get swept up in the negative.  Luckily, I have this expanse of greens to gaze upon while I settle my thoughts.  It’s the Sunday before Labor Day, the new school year awaits and instead I am deciding to focus my energy on hoping.  I am hoping this time around the popular vote in sixty-five days will match that of the electoral college. I am hoping with a full change of the seasons from the 3rd of November onwards, America will live up to its fruition.  I’m praying America’ll soak up the nurturing it needs and get back to its grass roots.  It’s time for all to flourish. It’s time, dare I say Spock-style, for all to Live Long and Prosper!