Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Evolution

Revisiting, reacquainting around my 'hood:


--the golden azalea, velvety and perfumed
--Stella, who always barks at me
--the plum tree where for years I gathered windfalls in September
--a house on blocks, foundation under construction
--the fig tree on the corner, fully laden this year
--the hedge whose blossoms smell like cocoa-butter
--the Rabbi's house, empty
--the peek-a-boo tree

So many gone now from those lickety-split-quick years of child-rearing:

--Mark, Carol, Marilyn, Pat, Mary, Ben, the Durans, Mr. Nelson -- died, divorced, foreclosed.

And those of us still present:

Candy, Linda, Guy, Tom, Roy, Chrissie, Pam. Assorted young-adult children. Assorted young and spirited new-comers with fresh paint and toddlers, with an energy and endurance I used to claim as my own.

This brief Robert Frost poem came up in conversation at work yesterday, apropos to the subject at hand:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

8 comments:

  1. I'm shocked to hear that you have no resident Rabbi. Our village presbytery has been priest-less for years; it's now let to holiday makers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I remember the Girl Scout song, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold."

    Such memories you have in this neighborhood...many more to come, I'm sure. A new chapter, a new leaf. Who knows what's next?

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is such nostalgia in this for a time that was. In my corner of the world I feel it too. It feels like loss but really it is just life moving through its stages, inexorable.

    But we are not alone in this. Not here. Love to you, friend.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cro, I have to chuckle when I imagine hoiday-makers in the rabbi's house across the street from me....

    In any case, I hate to see a house like that empty in a city where so many are homeless. Just doesn't seem right.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tara, I'm beginning to feel a new enthusiasm, finally, just inklings but it's breaking through at the edges....

    (And yes, I remember also that Girl Scout song!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Angela, love back to you.

    As Tara quoted, "Make new friends...."

    Happy to be here with you. This community has been my lifeline these past two months.

    xoT.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very moving, T. The sound of your breathing is better, less constricted. Every word you've put down is like a paving stone laid on the path to your future. You have been amazing. xo

    ReplyDelete
  8. Life goes on, doesn't it....and how nice to be able to return to a place you love. Not many get that chance.
    love,
    Ima

    ReplyDelete