“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a [person] perfected without trials.”—Seneca

Greetings Dear Ones!

The Witnesses are lining up and testifying one by one: first the snow drops, then the daffodils and hyacinths, now the tulips and peach blossoms—each with scents and blazes of color to be inhaled and entered into the record of Evidence. The pears are next and the apples buds, like siblings with a secret, are bursting to tell. Beauty, in a crisp new suit, argues for Life! I leave the jury box to sprinkle azalea food on blueberry roots, utterly Complicit.

The trials of Life continue. Seasonal circles carve their turns. A robin has made a cozy round nest in the evergreen wreath that has been hanging by the back door since December. Winter is the home for Spring. A fresh egg is laid in the tiny cup of Death.

The outdoor bathing season has begun, which is a darn Good Thing! After grooming the boys at the hitching post and taking Gus & Otis for a yoked evening stroll, I am covered head to toe in downy cattle fur. They are shedding like mad. I could be mistaken for a yeti. Twilight deepens as I fill the buckets. The evening chores are almost done. One sheep refuses to enter the barn. The grass outside is too green. Like me, he just wants to live outside all the time now. After letting them all in and back out several times, enticing them with three dinner’s worth of grain, I simply cannot bribe them any more without the risk of giving them tummy aches. In frustration, I leave the rebel outside, hoping he will get lonesome, regret his choice, and want to come in later. The rest of the flock beds down for the night. I trudge—sweaty, furry, furious, and stinky to the cast iron tub behind the house and fill it with the garden hose that runs from the hot tap in the basement. Soon, I am immersed in Epsom salts and bubbles, listening to Barred Owls claim their real estate and watching the stars appear one by one.

It’s heavenly to listen, darkly anonymous in my tub on the hill, to the owls and the peepers and the distant traffic from the highway two miles away which provides a vaguely “planetary” soundtrack to the night sky. The drivers have no idea that frogs and owls and a middle-aged woman like a soft-shelled crab in a cast iron shell are above, on a hillside they pass without thinking. They are rushing somewhere else. We are Here. Listening. The sounds tell us a lot about each other—who is horny, who is boasting, who is warning intruders away from their patch. There is a balance to be struck between announcing “we are here!” and accidentally inviting our own tragedy in the form of advertising hot supper to a predator. It reminds me of a story my dad used to tell:

“Once upon a time, a kindly woodsman came upon a little song bird who was severely chilled in early spring. The bird lay like dead on the path. The kindly woodsman picked it up and realized it was still alive but just needed to get warmer, so he found a relatively fresh cow turd and tucked the bird into the steamy center. After a while, the bird felt a bit better and began to sing. That’s when a coyote found him and ate him.”

For such a short story, it had a lot of morals, which my father loved to expound upon: Firstly, that those who get you into deep shit are not necessarily your enemies. Secondly, those that get you out are not necessarily your friends. And finally, perhaps most importantly, when you find yourself up to your neck in ca-ca, DON’T sing about it!!

As I lie there quietly, thinking of all the parts of my day I am not going to sing about, I become aware of a large presence near the tub. A dark head, eyes gleaming with worry, appears. It’s the sheep. He’s found me. He puts his head over the edge of the tub and begins to take a long, slurping drink of the bubbly water. I splash. He spooks. Soon, he is back. He’s lonesome, afraid of the dark, and hovers near the tub like the regrets I am trying to dissolve with Epsom salts.

I finish my scrubbing and think about how I long to return to my high school and give a commencement speech, if only to speak to my former self who wanted to be a veterinarian. They always ask Important People with Distinguished Careers and Achievements so the chances of them inviting an exhausted, naked (but Clean!), rural seamstress who has sheep drinking out of her bathwater are slim. Nevertheless, I start rehearsing, preparing my case. I want to tell them that Unexpected Things will happen to them—Life is a bigger trial that they think. Not many of them will get to be veterinarians. In fact, very few will wind up where they think they want to go but unanswered prayers are often big blessings in disguise—like not having a working bathtub in the house. The Good News is that everyone has a gift or a skill they can hone. And hone they must! We need those skills! They will need to do some mending of hearts, minds, fences, and britches in their time. Skills come in damn handy for that.

I’ve taken to giving little speeches to the prom girls, especially the seniors, who are heading off to college. I wish I could tell them the bird story but I don’t. I tell them that life is a trial. (Trials seem to be an especially relevant metaphor at the moment.) Sometimes you get to be the defendant, sometimes the witness, sometimes the jury. Be aware. Get your facts straight. Sometimes you’re just a middle-aged woman who discovers how deafening it is pass gas under water in a cast iron tub. (Talk about confusing the night birds!) Try not to Judge. You will discover that most people running around hooting and screeching and humming and buzzing are about as innocent as fifth-graders and as territorial as owls. We are all, as my son once said, “just trying to get over what happened to us in Middle School.”

To one girl worried that she wouldn’t measure up in “the Real World,” I admitted, “We aren’t expecting as much from you as you think. Adults can be a bunch of jerks. You think we would be Responsible by now. Most of us aren’t. Show up on time. Do what you say you will do. Enjoy the little things. These are the Big things. Be radically Honest and your Good will be plenty Good Enough. ” She was shocked. No one had ever told her this before. “Do you watch the news at all?” I ask. “No,” she admits, “I play hockey.” “That’s pretty much the same thing,” I say. “No matter what, you are Needed, Wanted, Loved. You’re part of this Team.” She laughs and asks if she can give me a hug as she leaves.

It’s still prom season (last one is May 18th!) but I’m not going to sing about the glitter or the rack sagging under stuff that needs to be done. I’m warm and cozy under this pile of work. I hope you are too.

Keep Mending, Dear Ones!

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

P.S. The sheep followed me back to the barn and went peaceably to bed with the flock. He is safe; all is well.