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One year, 1 month & 19 days in -- I don't want anything to change

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Good early rainy evening, all, one night before the last night of this fateful year. I am bone-tired and covered with emotion – it has been that kind of week and that kind of day. For the past several weeks, my employer has not had much to do, this being a doubly slow time in the landscaping business – between planting and mulching and surrounded by the holidays. And so to maintain gainful employment, I have picked up small projects from friends and they have paid my employer to pay me. Small pretense, small salary, long days in the sun, outside the “house”. It’s still all good.

This week, those projects ran out. And so I have paid myself (from what was left from the money I made for my report on substance abuse-related community improvements in the Four Corners area, for a Navajo-heavy project in Farmington, NM) to donate my time to two places where my work would help.

The first was at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, that small parish (with the large parking lot), uphill from the Titans stadium. St. Ann’s has been my church since entering the “house”, the place where my weekly attendance allows me three extra hours outside on Sundays. I am not an Episcopalian; I am an
animist. Unfortunately, my “church” doesn’t print a bulletin I can turn in to justify my three hours of Sunday religious reflection. And my God(dess) has no entomed dogma – just a warmly enveloping ever-presence. But St. Ann’s is a worthy surrogate, committed to social justice and evolutionary social change. The sermons are good and the music is excellent, even as I sit or stand there with my eyes (and mouth) shut. The congregation looks mostly hereditary Episcopalian, that is except for the many gay and lesbian couples, the single large poor east Nashville family, the solitary homeless man with the unhealing foot and the African women and men who add color and flavor to these whitest of worshippers. I pride myself on adding my own sociological coloration to this uneven rainbow, even if it is black-and-white, and horizonally striped.

The church’s flower beds are numerous, but not well-tended. And so, for the past month, I have quietly left church after the sermon and spent an hour on my knees (nearer my Goddess) in those beds, pulling weeds. I used to spend that time on Sundays in the garden at the Turnip Truck, but those beds will have to do without me now. I like to see the progress that even a short time each week can bring to the church’s unkempt flower beds. But this week, I have had the time to make a major dent in the creeping bermuda grass invading the mulch, the dandelions and other winter greens that spot the thin layers of wood chips
spread around the roses and the dead and dry long leaves of day lilies. The weeding is easy and since the bulbed flowers are already pushing up their young, green spikes through the mulch, I have worked with some confidence that I am doing good, without doing harm, to what work came before. Yesterday, I spoke with the parish member who tends the roses and made plans with him to prune those roses in a month so I can get to the last clumps of bermuda, pulling their loose roots up and out of the beds. I am pleased to be able to give back this little, little bit, to the place that gives me refuge from the boredom and routine of my “house” away from home. There is more to do there, and I will continue for as long as I can, until I get a real paying job or my funds (or my freedom) run out.

The second project has been even more rewarding, revealing and reflective. I have a young and growing friendship with a fascinating young(er than me) woman who has moved back into an east Nashville house that she has owned for a while. (My Shoshone and Arapaho friends count time in old men – my lady friend and I agree that we count time in lovers and the spaces in between.) With her life changing once again, she and her two sons have moved back in to her “house” and started over. To accommodate the three of them and her own celebrated career, she has made a major addition to this house. And in its unfinished wake, there remained a pile of rubble in her back yard, disguised as rich brown earth but filled with large pieces of bricko block concrete and firehouse red brick, old staircases, bits of pressure treated wood and torn (both new and old) roof shingles. There was much rich dirt in that pile but first it had to be separated, shovelful by shovelful, one wheelbarrow load at a time, from the construction chaff. Tedious, time-consuming work. Sort of like breaking rocks in the hot sun. I was just the man for that job.

And so I offered myself in exchange for her presence for most of this week, giving her (and that big pile) a few hours of my time each day, spreading the good earth around her backyard, filling in the holes and smoothing the depressions that were waiting when she returned there. Thinking about what I might do with the space and the soil – where I might site a garden to take advantage of the little sun that reaches her ground – but mainly just smoothing out the edges without any firm plan or agenda. Making a molehill out of her mountain.

Day after day, I made my way there, pulled shovel, mattock and rake from the truck, broke another small part of that mound free and sorted the refuse into a pile to be moved later as I spread the good dirt around four small sections of her backyard. On two of those days, I shared morning tea and late-morning lunch
with her. And we got to talk a while, about lots of things. After the first day of sharing time with her, she left for work and I took some little time to write a note for her, leaving the words of thanks onto a piece of brown paper sack I left behind. When she returned, after I had gone, she read it, liked it deeply, folded it and put it away, Safe, and solitary.

The third day, she left town to attend to family-and-friend holiday business back home (for her) in Kentucky. She left me with the key to her house, to let her kitty out. That day, instead of working, I took a short nap on her couch, with her kitten comfortably resting on my chest. And then I got up and walked slowly around her sunlit home, admiring all the artwork, the photographs, the toys and talismans, that fill her shelves, her walls and windowsills. I ate an orange and drew a hot bath, the tub taking its own sweet time to fill as I finished my rounds of quiet introduction and affirmation. My second bath in thirteen months – boy, what a blessing.

She was gone for parts of three days (or so it seemed), and so I accomplished more on the backyard in her absence. Thinking all the while about my path, about the kind and easy obligations of proper friendship in the midst of all that life is these days, for her, for me, for all of us. Wanting to plant this young friendship tree in a well-prepared place, with plenty of good earth to let the roots grow long and deep, at their own pace. I know how beautiful the flowers from these friendship trees can be, because I have planted them with several people who are still in my life, and who always will be. It’s good to think and act as a farmer and a steward of the land at times like these. To not expect to harvest something that has only just now been planted, to taste the fruit when the seeds have just reached the earth. To know that whatever has been planted might only grow to be a small comfort and a kind memory, or that the act of planting may be the only harvest I will witness. But knowing that all these warm experiences are also in short supply, and so happy to be able to
make the effort.

This morning, I returned to her house one more time, in the early morning east Nashville quiet dawn, when it was empty. I filled the back of my pick-up truck with some of her refuse to haul away to the country to fill up a hole that needs filling on land that means much to me. I smoothed the waiting piles of earth to fit more snugly I into the existing contours of her land. And then I left, leaving a voice message later that said, “Thanks for the time we shared this week. Before I wear out my welcome, I will give your yard some time to
settle, let the rains that are coming the next two days smooth everything down, let your fat and happy earthworms learn more about their new homes, a few feet away from their old homes. And then I’ll be back, at a time and for a time that works with you. Take care and thanks. Thanks again for everything.”

We should strive to be stewards of everything we touch, of every moment that touches us. It is never possible to know where anything or anyone will end up, but if we do the next right thing, whatever happens will be what was supposed to happen. A fleeting fanciful moment or a flowing friendship – what seeds do
we sow? We never know, most especially at planting time. But if we’ve been there before, and remember the journey, we can do right by the seeds. And that can be enough. The planting and the smoothing of the soil can always remind us of those heartful harvests that have come before. And that might come again.

With this full week coming to a close, I must head back to the house, and to whatever drama awaits me there. (Hopefully not much.) This morning, at 3:00 am, I asked a new dormie, snoring loudly across the room that was full of other awakened inmates, kindly to roll over on his side. His response was to threaten me loudly and long, to remind me where I am. So I have that to look forward to, to see if the time today has loosened the too-tight spring that is this newest resident, halfway to nowhere. Or if another round of testosterone two-step awaits me at the “house”. I sure hope not. Because I prefer to stay where I am
at this moment, remembering a full week of giving back to a small congregation of Christians the best gift that this nature-worshipper can give – some of his time in their dirt. And to remember how pleasant a short time with a kindly and caring, a beautiful and radiant woman can be, over a first few cups of milky
sweet, warm tea.

I want to leave you with two things this evening, ways to share this feeling I am bathing in, at least a little bit. All of you who live in or near a city with a decent cinematic selection should see an absolutely beautiful film, “Sweet Land”. It is the sort of movie I hope to see again with several special people, in San Francisco and in Santa Fe. It is the story of an abiding love that formed on the fertile ground of a Norwegian immigrant community somewhere in our country after WWI, the seeds of which came wrapped in the brunette curls
and deep warm eyes of a mail-order bride for a shy and handsome man who was willing to do the work, at a pace which they both set themselves, despite the harsh times and harsher tongues of their neighbors. It reminded me of Mallick’s “Days of Heaven” in its homage to the bounty of the prairie and what it takes to tend it. But unlike that other movie, the young couple in “Sweet Land” knew just what they wanted and what they were doing – and their dreams came to be, borne by the Northern lights and the migrating flocks of geese and swans above their sweet land, paired for life.
The second thing to share tonight is a gift that awaited me when I returned to my truck, after another day of thinking about what I’ve had, what I’ve lost and what I have today. My old red Toyota pick-up truck finally died this week and in its stead, I have a new (for me) 1986 Nissan, with power brakes, power steering, lights (and windows) that work, and a functional radio (something I have not had for six years.) All for $600 and the kindness of my neighbor. It runs so smooth and the automatic transmission may help me keep a few more miles on my left hip that is wearing out as fast as the clutch on my old truck.

Tonight, as I got into the truck in the early evening rain that presages more needed wetness here in middle Tennessee, I heard these words that helped punctuate the mood and the memories of this week and of a time long ago, for Norwegian immigrants whose love lived long after one of them had gone on to be part of the sweet earth and to prepare a place for the other. And for a deep hollow failed marriage that flowered briefly two decades later and then was gone again. My friends and family, I give you Bonnie Raitt, who brought me “I don’t want anything to change”. Tonight, I don’t want anything to change (well, not too many things), certainly not the warm moments with, and memories of so many of you. And even those things that never were, those things that came and went and those things that are (as yet and perhaps always will be) unformed. It is all a gift. Good night.

Bonnie Raitt: I Don’t Want Anything to Change
(written by Maia Sharp/Liz Rose/Stephanie Chapman)

Sleepless nights aren’t so bad
I’m, staying up I’m staying sad
I like it lonely I like it strange
I don’t want anything to change…

You left a mess you’re everywhere
I’d pick it up but I don’t dare
I don’t want anything to change…

There’s nothing I would rearrange
I don’t want anything to change

I can feel you fading
But until you’re gone
I’m taking all the time I can borrow
The getting over is waiting
But I won’t move on
And I’m gonna want to feel the same tomorrow

I know the truth is right outside
But for the moment it’s best denied
I don’t want anything to change…

And I don’t want anything to do
With what comes after you

I don’t want anything to change….

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