DOMAIN: the late Full Strawberry Moon or perhaps the early New Buck Moon

The pool water is rippling wrong; I notice as I glance out the window amid removing clothes from the dryer.  I've seen this before and it doesn't bode well for some small critter.  Usually a mouse, occasionally a frog or rabbit, the poor animal cannot find a way out of the prison that is our in-ground pool.  I venture out bravely hoping that whatever is in the water will be alive and not a RAT.  Please, oh please.  Let it not be a RAT.

The water ripples have stopped and to my surprise what is before me is a baby groundhog. He is tired, resting his head above the water on the pool steps.  I make some size and weight calculations and realize that I cannot get him out alone without the risk of hurting him or him hurting me.  I dial the Buddhist- my phone reads "ICE" as I dial, my label for his number- "In Case of Emergency".

He answers and I ask how soon he can be home.  My voice gives away my urgency and he asks why and I answer "because there is a live groundhog in the pool."

I suppose that is not something I have ever uttered before and as such, my spouse alters course and arrives home in minutes.  He looks, surmises, leaves, and then returns with a shovel. A second later the very wet and tired little critter is out.  But something is not right as the critter just lays there splayed out all wrong. It's breathing but just looking at us.  Some motherly part of me is touched and I want to swaddle the little fella, rock him gently to groundhog sweet dreams of clover and flowers, Maybe even sing a little groundhog lullaby...but then I notice my Black-eye Susans have been mowed down and I am sure the culprit is our little almost-drowned pal.  

I SIGH.  Because Black-eye Susans (rudbeckia hirta for you Latin lovers) are my favorite flower. The flowers want to live.  Yet, this little animal wants to live.  AND they both want to live HERE. 

AND so do I.  Yet, I did not ask the inhabitants of the acre I "own" if I could move in 16 years ago,   I simply moved in to the empty nest (house) and took over domain.  Ooops! pardon me kind readers while I correct what is the very essence of a lie.  I took over "domain"! hehehe! As if!!  As if I could control the birds, the bees, the rabbits, the mice, the spiders, the bats, the weeds, the flowers and this poor little fella who slipped into the wrong kind of water hole.

It is all in conflict.  Me. Groundhog. Flowers. Birds, Frogs, Bunnies, Fox. Yet, it is as it should be. Compassion is present and my "ICE", my spouse, shifts seamlessly into a game warden and fetches fresh garden lettuce and a space heater (YES- a space heater) to dry and warm up our little critter. And I look on in awe as the Buddhist really is an ICE.  

An hour later, the groundhog has fled back to his home...the same home as mine and I acknowledge that I am going to need to learn how to share because this isn't a yard, it is nature preserve . 

Hylia versicolor

Twilight is fading and the birds are settling down.  The Buddhist and I are sitting on the patio, enjoying libations when we hear a sound.  We both stop speaking, hold our breath and the silence is pierced again. A shrill sort of vibrato...first to the left of us and an answer call to the right of us.

The Buddhist and I instantly exchange glances.  His lips are tight, almost in a smile, but more like a smirk. I know what he is thinking but my facial expressions do not reflect his thoughts.

I feel my eyes bulging open and my lips are in more of an "oh" shape as if I am thinking "Oh shit"... which in fact I am...
because they are back after a two year absence...
the unwelcome, hot tub loving, stick to my sliding door, FREAK me OUT creature of my nightmares...
the dreaded Hylia versicolor.

AKA Gray Tree Frog.
AKA Bren's hot tub pals
AKA reason Bren nearly drowns in two feet of water in her hot tub

The Buddhist is trying hard to not show it, but I know he is finding this amusing.  He says what we are both thinking "That was a Tree Frog, wasn't it?"  I nod but the answer is really that it was TWO Tree Frogs. As in plural. More than one. A tribe of sorts. An INVASION.

And they are corralling us, cutting off escape, ready to HOP on me, and destroy any semblance of my ego as I scream "get it off me! get it off me!" at the top of my lungs while I spin around furiously until I finally trip over a chair leg and fall.

My hubby is smiling outwardly now, as if he just read my mind.  He knows me too well after so many years. He can be so annoying.

"Maybe this year, the Tree Frogs won't like the hot tub." he voices with a banter that we both immediately identify as wishful thinking.

"Maybe." I add, willing it to be so, "Maybe."


If you have an interest in what the call of the bedeviling Gray Tree Frog sounds like, give this a click:
Freakish Tree Frog Call

Hopscotch; a new year under the waning Wolf Moon

By all appearances, I am a productive adult.  But I've got a secret.  An old secret. 

Deep down, I am just a wounded child looking for a friend to play hopscotch with.  

I bite my lip and watch from the sidelines as children who don't look much different from me but somehow are "different" play and laugh together.  I want to join them but my inner child is so very cautious, so very careful to not show any emotion that I have constructed a calculated facade.  I'm both protected and trapped by my clever ruse to fool people into thinking I'm indifferent.  From pain felt ages ago, I developed a dispassionate mask.  

Yet, look behind the curtain, and there is a small girl, a very passionate and creative girl, trying hard not to cry because she can't figure out why she is not the right kind of girl. She's not the girl that gets included. She's not the girl who gets invited to parties. She's not the girl who gets to play hopscotch.  And even if she was invited to, she might defer because no one has taught her how. Another chance to get laughed at. Another opportunity for others to see how she is not the right kind of "different".

But you feel it too, right?  This isn't simply the story of my childhood.  It is the story of all of us. We are adults hiding our wounded inner children.  The wounds come in many sizes and colors.
Not smart enough.  
Not pretty enough. 
Not thin enough. 
Not athletic enough. 
Not strong enough.  
Not bold enough.  
Not good enough.  Yes, so very very not good enough...

But we are good enough.  Each of us is unique and capable of great things, beautiful things- but it takes dropping the mask, showing our inner need to connect, laugh and play. It requires giving the inner child a hug and telling her/him  that TODAY is different. TODAY we can play hopscotch. TODAY we are good enough. All we need to do is smile and politely join in.  

Imagine a world where everyone is included. Imagine a world where everyone believes in their talents. Imagine a world where we don't spend the lion share of our energy hiding and shielding. How stunningly brilliant would that be??

I've found a good sized stone and you've got some chalk...
Will you play hopscotch with me?

Eyebrows; End of the Harvest Moon...

I look at my reflection.  All I see are eyebrows. Not the birthmark that normally consumes my gaze, or the chicken pock scar near my mouth, or the sledding scar poorly stitched along my jaw. No. Just eyebrows. 

There! See them? Dark slants of hair arching from the bridge of my nose. They are so OBVIOUS.

I sigh and examine them closer.  Just a slightly different color and the white ones that were giving away my true age are gone.  Dyed.  Brown.  Not the brown my eyebrows had been, but some hairdresser shade of brown to match my hairdresser shade of brown hair. 

Brown but not my brown.  I blink and stare some more.  They are painfully obvious.  

The Buddhist arrives home and I wait for him to comment on my abhorrent eyebrows.  

"I like your hair", he says matter of fact, as he dives into the fridge looking for food.  

"But don't you notice anything else?" I ask.  He blinks.  He looks.  He blinks some more. He knows he supposed to notice something but he can't find any difference but my hair cut. He stares some more wondering what will happen if he never sees it, when I cut him off from further blinking.
"My eyebrows!!" I exclaim, frustrated that he cannot see how weirdly OBVIOUS they are.

"Oh yeah. They look good too." he adds.  

I shake my head in disbelief.  "No. They are weird. Like really big or out of proportion or something..."  I stare at my reflection.  EYEBROWS stare back.

He laughs "No. They look the same.  Your hair is darker though."  

I look at the reflection and notice how much darker my hair is.  Whoa.  It's almost black in some of the low lights.  Huh.  I stare some more.  The eyebrows recede and BLACK taunts me.  I stare more, losing all my features to black strands of hair.  BLACK.  Wow.  That black is really OBVIOUS.

Then a thought hits me.  What good is having vision if it is so willing to be persuaded by our insecurities?  Can any of us look in the mirror and see our true reflection?  Or is it always the assemblage of our various beliefs about ourselves?  AND where else is our vision skewed by our predispositions?  Are we capable of objective vision at all??

I look in the mirror and for a second see all the light and goodness that I embody. I smile, but in a flash, it is gone, replaced by a middle aged woman with oddly dark hair and brown eyebrows.  
But at least she is smiling...

The Blackness; the waning Harvest Moon

"That is not part of me" I say to the young warrior who is holding a lump of black rot in his hands.  He pushes the lump at me.
"No" I repeat. "That is not part of me."

I am knee deep in a lake, surrounded by warriors who are gathering pieces of me adrift in the water.  In a rather dramatic shamanic dismemberment, I have been shattered by a waterfall drop and these young divers are bringing back the parts of me that have drifted away so long ago.  

Yet, this rotted lump of black must clearly be a mistake.  THAT is not a part of me.

I resist again and in a flash, the goddess Kali has called the whole thing off. She is part mother, nurturing but critical; part warrior, irritated and aggressive.  Right now, warrior Kali is exasperated and she asks pointedly "Are you only made up of sugar and spice and everything nice?"

Her appearance is frightening yet so very familiar to me by now.  Her lips are red and glossy; not with lipstick, but blood.  Her own personal struggle with bloodlust is the very reason she resounds with me.  

"No, I'm not just nice. You and I both know that, but that black oozy stuff must be a mistake."  I try to think to my sins; clearly, none of them are THAT bad.  

As if she hears my thoughts, she says "You don't know how your actions ripple.  A small unkind word here. A bit I anger there.  Loss of patience.  And the worst crime is your indifference..."

The words settle over me and I cannot argue.  I know I'm a practiced veteran of indifference. I'm the three monkeys who avoid evil by covering their eyes, ears and mouth...except I forget to cover my mouth...

World events overwhelm me with their horrors so I choose not to acknowledge them.  Hunger everywhere except in my kitchen.  Do not see it.  Do not hear it. Innocent by ignorance, right?

The blackness floats toward me.

Kodachrome, the waning Harvest Moon

Fifty digital photos and I am still looking for the perfect capture of sea and tide.  The Buddhist is perched above me on this coastal rock, his face buried in a book.  He looks up at me and smiles, unaware of my inner frustration.

The waves form a pattern and I wait for the moment to hit that little round button on my new ever so clever phone. 
There!  Click. Fifty one.
Now. Click. Fifty two.  
Hmmm.  Timings off...
OK.  NOW. Click. Fifty three...

All at once, I am transported back to a trip to Maine with my family in the mid 1970s.  I am thirteen and have my Kodac 126 camera dangling from my wrist, an up grade from my old Brownie camera (which I would kill to own now).  Babysitting money and allowance have combined to grant me two cartridges of film- a whopping forty eight photos for a one week trip.  I am fully aware that more babysitting and allowance will be necessary upon my return to extract the images from the cartridges. 

Forty eight photos?  How did I ever decide what was worthy of setting my eye to the view finder and pressing down the button.  That "Kodak Moment" sign was yet to be in vogue, so I had to rely on my instincts.  Not too many photos the first few days.  Make it last! Make it last!  Followed by too many photos of something stupid on the last day...

Yet, the beauty of this primitive photographic system was that I was present every second of my trip.  I experienced the rocks and the tide through my eyes, not a camera's lens.  

AND I had to wait a week after vacation to see the results of my photo prowess.  No do overs. No obsession.  I wasn't musing over memories while still making them. 

I laugh, turn my phone off and wave to my spouse.

Moonrise Kingdom; the Full Harvest Moon

I shift in my seat, bored, as I wait for the show to start.  We had arrived early to claim a good seat, and time was moving painfully slow.  I glance to my right at my spouse and smile as I realize my pet name for him, The Buddhist, is spot on.  He sits calmly with his eyes open and his shoulders erect. By comparison, I fidget, shift, slouch and sigh.

A couple near us is making quiet conversation about someone named Sheila.  It creates a kind of white noise to the otherwise silent space.  More people arrive, find seats, and finally the house lights dim, if ever so eloquently so.

We are on a cliff, one hundred feet above the ocean, facing East in Acadia National Park.  The Buddhist and I are on camp chairs, but most others have stadium seats or blankets.  We all seem to be perched here for the same show: the Full Harvest Moon Rise, yet that can't be confirmed as there were no tickets, no posted show times.

Obscured from view by the cliff, the last of the sunset fades into the west giving the sky and sea a serene sepia tinge.  I grow expectant as I have never seen a Moonrise. In my usual haunts,the Moon must top trees or mountains for me to see it.  I wonder how it will begin and think to ask those around us if anyone has seen this before.  But the couple has stopped talking and the quiet is enveloping.  

The foretold time of the moon rise is at hand and both my partner and I scan the horizon for signs. Will it be a glow?  Or just a big shiny quarter rising from the sea?

Minutes pass, then tens of minutes, then a half hour.  Did the all knowing internet give us false information?  Are we missing some subtle shift to indicate that the Moon was on its way?  I gaze sharper, aware that no one else is moving or shifting.  I see a star, then several, as peace sweeps over me.  I note my stillness.  The impatience is gone.

As the sky blackens around us, a chill sets into my bones. I see a pocket of sky clear and there, briefly, is the Trickster Moon, already risen and going about its trajectory. The sky closes like a curtain.  The show was over before it had begun.

"There" I say, pointing.  The Buddhist nods, having seen it too.  Low clouds on the horizon, unseen in the changing twilight, had concealed the very thing we sought.

"That was beautiful" he says and I smile and agree.