Tag Archives: Change

There It Stood

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“Past, present, future, all appeared
In harmony united…” (“Yarrow Revisited”)

—William Wordsworth (1770–1850). English Romantic poet who saw profound meaning in ordinary life, memory, nature, and place.

There it stood, heavy with decades of growth. Ten feet or so tall, even when arching gracefully under its own weight. Five feet or so wide, triumphant on the forest edge. Fargesia Jiuzhaigou. A shade-loving, cold-hardy bamboo that could manage ten below zero.

There it stood, sentinel over the koi—swimming the depths of the little pond—whose mirror-surface broke over and over again as water cascaded down the fall’s mossy stones.

There it stood, softening the massive sandstone rocks that gave the waterfall its heft and that teased the dwarfed hand-hewn, lattice-windowed granite lantern at the top.

There it stood, blocking the view from where we sometimes sat on the little patio facing the pond and everything that stood beyond where it stood on the other side.

There it stood, hugging the flagstone pathway beside it, and bringing into question the path itself and any destiny to which it might lead.

It had not always stood thus.

I remember when it arrived, black-bucketed, six scrawny canes spanning six inches.

I remember when I troweled out a hole beside the koi pond and planted it in the hope that over time its greenness would tower and soften the stone-edged waterfall, the bank down from the forest floor, and even the pathway leading to uncertainty.

I remember when it stood there, dwarfed by Quan Yin—the goddess of compassion, mercy, healing, and peace—standing tall on the ledge jutting over the water’s edge.

I remember when it stood there, intimidated by the jade chīshǒu—a Chinese dragon-head–spouting its melody against the pond’s splashings.

I remember it through all the seasons, through all the glorious and trembling growth spurts and even through all my timid prunings.

And I remember it exactly as it stood on the morning of the very day I came to know it could stand there no more.

“Gary, it’s got to go.”

“What?”

“The bamboo standing there.”

He looked at it, then at me, understandably as reluctant to nod agreement as I was hesitant to undo what had been there for so long.

Gary and I both knew what stood beyond the bamboo and beyond the pathway whose inward curve lay hidden by the outward arching clump.

He and I had spent weeks landscaping all that was unseen on the other side of the bamboo. We extended the dry-stacked rock wall. We pruned the rhododendrons. We mulched the sloping bank beneath and the ground behind, curving the edge and weedwhacking all the way to the woods behind.

We knew exactly how all those changes looked–once we walked our way past the bamboo. And we loved its open spaciousness.

But sitting there on the little patio by the koi pond where we sometimes sat, the bamboo seemed to wrap us—cocoon us—in the protective cloak of a well-established past.

What would it feel like, sitting there without the bamboo?

What would it look like sitting there, without the bamboo but with all that lay behind it and beyond it, exposed and in full view?

“Maybe just prune it back a little?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see once I get started.”

My mind was made up, I thought, and early morning proved it. I set about the task with fierce resolve. Before long, my legs could not be seen beneath the cut canes that surrounded me.

Each time I carried a load to the Gladiator, the bamboo lowered itself closer and closer to the ground. Lower. Less. Nothing.

And in the moment of my final return to where it once stood, the landscape opened before me alive with unexpected potential.

I could see the first stone wall I built there, toppled in part from time and winter’s heavings but still secure in its footing.

I could see the pond’s block foundation stretched over with liner.

I could see tubing snaking its way up out of the pond, up the bank, behind boulders, and into the base of the waterfall.

I could see all the inner workings of a past that had served well but that had, at the same time, outgrown the landscape it was built to enhance.

I could see what needed to be done.

I kept what remained strong. The footing. The block foundation. The boulders too massive to yield to whim. I pulled away what had failed, reset what had shifted, and rebuilt the old wall stone by stone.

The work moved quickly now. Four long slabs of flagstone reached out over the pond, parallel to one another but each at its own height. The exposed tubing disappeared behind stone. Two copper cranes stepped onto the lower ledges. Quan Yin and the granite lantern, no longer dwarfed, took their places in the open landscape.

Then the water ran again. It slipped over mossy stones, fell into the pond, and broke the mirror surface just as it always had. The waterfall was not new, but now I could see its sound.

More than that, I could see where a rich and aged past met a shiny and reimagined present.

I was confident that time’s inevitable patina would marry both.

Standing near where the bamboo once stood, Gary and I could see through the garden now, through it all. All the way through. Clearly.

There it stood.

Always an After

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No “after” has ever failed to come.
—Brent L. Kendrick

And did they know that darkness would fall upon the land and that stars and moon would shine and day would break come morrow?

And did they know that day would become darkness again?

And did they know that clouds would one day cover the sun and rain would fall and the sun would shine again?

And did they know cold and drawing together for warmth?

And did they know hunger, that first emptiness within?

And did they know the first fullness that followed?

And did they know thirst and the sweetness of water?

And did they know weariness and sleep and waking?

And did they know pain?

And did they know fear?

And did they know safety?

And did they know loneliness before they moaned its name?

And did they know the comfort of another body near?

And did they know the wonder of touch?

And did they know desire before they knew what it wanted?

And did they know the heat of flesh against flesh, the urgency of bodies discovering what bodies could do?

And did they know afterward the quiet of lying together?

And did they know love?

And did they know that love would make one human being need another?

And did they know anger and the turning away?

And did they know the silence between them?

And did they know the reaching back?

And did they know laughter?

And did they know tears?

And did they know joy?

And did they know sorrow?

And did they know the swelling of a belly and the waiting?

And did they know the first cry of new life?

And did they know the astonishment of seeing themselves somehow continued in another?

And did they know youth?

And did they know age?

And did they know health and illness and the watching through the long night?

And did they know that sometimes morning would bring healing?

And did they know that sometimes it would not?

And did they know death?

That first stillness.

That first body that would not awaken.

That first calling of a name that brought no answer.

And did they know what to do with the body?

And did they know what to do with themselves?

And did they know that darkness would fall upon the land that night just as it had fallen before?

And did they know that stars and moon would shine?

And did they know that day would break come morrow?

And did they awaken hungry?

And did they eat?

And did they walk again upon the earth?

And did they ever believe–even once–in all their knowings, that there would always be an after.

To Mend or Not to Mend, that Is the Question | Poor Brentford Has His Notions

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“Some things serve us best by finishing well.”
— Poor Brentford Lee (b. 1947. Advisor on matters requiring both thread and judgment. Maintains that things well used are best released with gratitude.)

Poor thing. It was just hanging there in the closet.

My favorite purple linen shirt. It was freshly ironed, as it always is, because Gary cares and continues faithfully to press it into presentability even though we both know the collar has grown thin, the threads worn nearly bare, the fabric softened beyond persuasion by years of loyal service at the neckline.

It hangs. Right beside the better ones, right beside the best ones. It still looks handsome at a distance. The color holds its dignity. The linen remembers its authority.

But up close, the collar tells the truth.

There I stood, looking at it, wondering whether I might wear it out in public one more time.

“Dare I?”

I suspected not.

Still, the idea would not entirely leave me. Gary has shown more than once that he knows his way around a needle. I have seen evidence of his skill. A careful stitch here, a thoughtful repair there. Nothing dramatic. Simply competent and reliable.

I couldn’t help but wonder:

“Could Gary save my collar? Could he perform one more act of restoration that would allow me to parade around in public in my old faithful shirt?”

I stood there longer than any sensible person should reasonably devote to a worn piece of linen, quietly debating whether dignity required retirement or reinforcement.

And that was when Poor Brentford arrived.

He did not offer advice immediately. Poor Brentford rarely rushes. He prefers to ask me questions that seem innocent until I attempt to answer them.

“Are you quite certain,” he asked mildly, “that this is a path you wish to explore?”

I did not answer because I knew what direction he was about to take.

Poor Brentford’s memory is longer than I care to admit, even when it comes to fabric.

“Don’t you recall other occasions,” he continued, “when well-intended mending produced unintended outcomes?”

He did not need to specify.

I knew. But I chose to give him that blank stare that always works for me when I feign innocence.

“Remember your sister’s dress?”

Of course, I did. Judy needed something special for an important high school occasion. She had a lovely white dress–a hand-me-down from an older sister. Elegant, well made, perfectly respectable. But what teenage lady wants to wear a dress that has made its public debut already?

“Surely you remember the persuasive talk your resourceful mother gave her?”

“‘Judy,’ she whimpered with soft confidence, “I can transform that dress into something so stunning it will look brand new. A packet of Rit dye is all I need. Pink will be breathtaking on you.'”

Poor Brentford need not have refreshed my memory further. I remembered all.

My mother prepared the dye, immersed the dress, and waited the appointed time.

Judy and I walked out into the back yard with my mother as she hung the dress on the clothesline.

“Oh, Judy. It’s stunning!”

Judy looked, not terribly convinced, even less so when she walked around to inspect the back of the dress.

“Mama! Look! The back doesn’t match. It’s a much deeper pink.”

She was right. The front embraced a gentle pink, while the back pursued a darker vision of the same dream.

Judy was crying. I was laughing. And Poor Brentford? He had the nerve to offer encouragement.

“Listen here, girl. Two shades of pink simply mean twice the fashion. People admire originality.”

They did not. But Poor Brentford was not to be undone. To this day I can still hear him applauding my mother’s sincerity all the while admitting that a new dress was what the day—and Judy’s event—needed.

“Stop pining away over your purple shirt,” he ordered as I continued to stand and stare. “Sometimes, some things are best left alone. Have you forgotten Audrey’s sewing machine?”

How could I not remember. My sister had talked about it often.

As a newlywed, she was proud of her sewing skills but lacked the mechanical companion she believed her talents deserved. Rather than come right out and ask for a sewing machine, she mentioned casually that if she had one, she could mend his tattered garments while frugally extending their wearability.

Poor Brentford understood her plight and reminded her:

“A sewing machine is never an extravagance. It is an investment in continuity.”

And so it was. Repairs followed. Patches appeared. Shirts and trousers acquired energetic embellishments that coworkers described—not entirely unfairly—as reminiscent of a coat of many colors.

But the decisive test came when a funeral required that Audrey shorten Bobby’s dress pants. She took careful measurements and made her sewing machine sing. She was certain that she had completed the alteration with seamstress precision. When her husband tried on the trousers, one side was several inches shorter than the other.

Poor Brentford, never inclined toward alarm, regarded the matter calmly.

“Length,” he observed, “is sometimes a matter of perspective.”

Audrey made every effort to restore balance. She even added fabric at the bottom, but she could not hide the seam that was required to extend the length. Her husband never made it to the funeral, but he never forgot the trousers that he never wore.

By resurrecting these two historical family moments, I knew what Poor Brentford was doing. He was reminding me of the disappointment I would face if I insisted on saving what time had already altered.

“Well-intended mending,” he whispered gently, “does not always restore what we hope it will restore.”

We stood there together, looking at the collar Gary had pressed with such quiet care.

“Surely you’re not thinking that the collar could be reversed?”

It was as if he had read my mind.

“Don’t even go there,” he continued. “Allow the shirt to go down dignified.”

Poor Brentford has always understood something I am still learning. Mending is not always accomplished with needle and thread. The dress was altered beyond harmony. The trousers were improved beyond wearability. The collar had been laundered into truth, its edge now softened to the point of surrender.

“Some things serve us best by finishing well.”

Poor Brentford said nothing more. He did not need to. He has always known that mending takes many forms.

We mend by stitching.
We mend by adapting.
We mend by honoring.
We mend by remembering.

But, sometimes, we mend best by releasing.