Over the bare hill In the fog Beyond the dark trunks of the persimmons Beyond the dens of the red fox Beyond the pond with its crust of ice The new year lies waiting Tonight With my birthday in tow Perhaps a barge for this new octogenarian Or a skiff Or a kayak Or a sailboat To sail into the future December 31, 2022
Blog
-
New Year’s Eve 2022
-
Let There Be Light
It is December, with the winter solstice approaching, the season of light!
But I am having trouble producing light here on my hilltop.
First it was the four walk lights edging the pavers leading from my car park. All four lights were working, and then suddenly one evening, they were not.
I went out to the electrical corner the next morning. The transformer was plugged in and its face was glowing, meaning it was getting power. I tried turning the switch to off and then on again, and the walk lights came on. I set the timer to six hours, and that evening the walk lights worked.
But two nights ago, the walk lights were off again. I tried the same rescue operation, and last night the walk lights were shining again. For how long is anyone’s guess.
Inside the house the Christmas lights are frustrating me. The set of wax candles on the mantel has fresh batteries but I can’t get the remote control to turn them on at five pm, for six hours.
I am having the same problem with the battery-powered candles in the windows. They all have fresh batteries, but I can’t get the remote control to work their timers either. Two worked, but not the other ten.
Yesterday after reading the manufacturers’ instructions online, I learned the secret: you have to turn on all these candles manually at the base first before using the remote to set the timers. I waited until almost five pm, and then followed the instructions. And it worked. The house was lovely with flickering light. I will write a note of instruction and put it in the storage boxes, so that next Christmas I will not be frustrated. I am almost 80, and I forget things.
Yesterday I also brought the Fraser fir inside, set it in the stand by myself, and put on the strands of small clear lights. First I plugged in each strand to be sure the whole strand of 100 was working. But when I got the first strand carefully draped around the top most section of the tree, the second 50 lights were dark, so I had to take the lights off, muttering and climbing on and off the step ladder, and replace it with a new strand.
Finally I had all the lights on the tree, and I sat on the couch to admire my work.
Bill had always put the lights on the tree, and Bill had set up most of the window candles—his favorite Christmas decoration and one that he was not in a hurry to take down after Christmas. Sometimes the window candles were up until Easter; they were the old plug-in kind.
This is my thirteenth Christmas without Bill, and it is hard even after this passage of time to make the light shine without him.
I sit in the dark living room, the lights shining on the tree, the candles flickering on the mantel and in the windows, signaling to the dark sky and to the stardust that I am here.
December 12, 2022
-
Where Do You Come From?
October 7, 2022
A few weeks ago, I was at a dinner party and toward the end of the evening, I launched a question: where do you come from? where have you lived? where has been your home? Each friend responded, and their stories revealed facets of their lives we previously did not know. Many of them moved frequently, due to parents’ jobs or vocations, and those frequent moves shaped them. A few grew up in just a few homes, in the same town or a few towns, and that also shaped them.
I returned to my own home that night, and thought about where do I come from. I grew up as an Army brat, and although we did not move as frequently as some military families, we moved about 15 times before I graduated from high school, living in five different states. You have to learn to make friends fast, or you don’t have any. You have to learn to be flexible and adapt quickly. It also provides perspective that growing up in one town does not give you. I certainly saw my segregated high school town differently from my classmates who had lived there all their lives.
A song floated into my head the night of the dinner party, a hymn that we sing at my UU church. The title comes from a Paul Gauguin painting: Where Do We Come From?
Where do we come from?
What are we?
Where are we going?
Mystery, mystery, life is a riddle and a mystery.
-
Passages
The tattered books are over fifty years old Thick board books, with moving wheels Showing trucks and fire engines Beloved by my son And I hand them now to Kevin the store clerk Kind and caring to me at the wild bird store Whose little boy Henry was two yesterday And who likes books… That the adventure may go on. Kristin Moyer July 12, 2022
-
Summer, 1972, Washington DC
Pre Roe v. Wade
We lined up on the Mall In the hot summer sun and waited In our white dresses and slacks and shirts With our signs Freedom of Choice And finally the march began to move Off the Mall onto the streets, all of us chanting, Around a narrow corner where enraged faces Screamed and shook jars of tiny bodies Then onto Constitution Avenue And the marble dome of the Capitol Floating like a mirage of Justice Kristin Moyer June 24, 2022
-
Deep Diving
In the darkened room Gel cold on my chest “Hold your breath” And like a diver looking for treasure I hold my breath and turn my head to see for the first time Beating for eighty years The chambers of my heart May 5, 2022 Kristin Moyer
-
Fall 1926
The man walks down the lane Between the rows of elms he planted To the mailbox by the dusty road Opens the door on the box Empty No letter from his girl His first born child so little at birth Tears had come to his eyes Fearing for her life But she survived and grew Smart as a whip A good girl Now off in the city Gone to college Too busy to write The man turns Empty handed Chores to do in the barn No foreshadowing Of the stroke that will come In the spring Kristin Moyer For my grandfather
-
Web of Life
March 5, 2022 With every wedding we attend We are there again Facing our loved one Our hands clasped Faces aglow And with every deathbed we attend The river smooth or storm tossed We are there again Holding a hand Seeing the light fade held in this cradle Of memory and love Kristin Moyer
-
Passages
March 3, 2022 I unzip the case, remove the dulcimer Sleek and shining, walnut and redwood Lay it on my lap, take up the pick Strum the simple melodies from memory The lone wild bird Shenandoah The ash grove Amazing grace And my dying friend in the bed Closes her eyes and smiles “The lone wild bird in lofty flight” I sing softly “Is still with thee and in thy sight” I never sang for you, dear mother, on your hospital bed Or for you, dear father, dying alone in the nursing home But I sing for my friend “Great spirit come and rest in me.”
-
Journal of the Plague Years, continued
February 1, 2022
We have entered the third year of the pandemic. Last winter the covid vaccines started rolling out for adults, and we thought we could see the light breaking out. But then Delta hit in the summer, and that variant made people much sicker than the original virus. Boosters were recommended, and in the fall people lined up and bared their arms again.
But not all people. A minority of Americans but still a sizable number were anti-vaccine for various reasons, and some of that number also were anti-masking. Wearing masks was mandated in some states, and in other states such as Florida governors banned mask mandates.
However, covid rates were dropping. By November 2021, the outlook was brighter. I attended a play at the Kennedy Center where everyone had to show proof of vaccination and wear masks while inside. There was a feeling of relief and excitement in the air at being inside a theater again, and at the end of the first musical number everyone in that packed house stood and applauded. The play was the musical Hadestown, based on the classic Greek tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Orpheus fails to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld. Perhaps a foreshadowing of what was to come….
Because about that same time a new variant Omicron arose in South Africa and soon swept around the world like the tsunami of all viruses. It was not as deadly as Delta but it was highly contagious, and even those who were vaccinated and had received boosters contracted covid. And although most cases could be treated at home, the sheer numbers packed hospitals. In some places hospitals had to ration care. People went back to meetings and church services via Zoom.
Now covid numbers are dropping again, but unevenly by state. In the United States over 886,000 Americans have died since the pandemic began. The global number of deaths is over five million.
When we finally emerge, like Orpheus from the Underworld, we must not forget these years and all that has been lost.