As I write, my window is wide open to the cool breeze after weeks of a heat wave here in Alberta. I catch the heady scent of the linden outside, the top of which I can view from my desk. It is literally a beehive of activity. If I stand underneath its branches, I can hear the tree buzzing from the hundreds of fuzzy black and yellow grazers at the blossoms.
The other smell that comes in the window depending on the direction of the breeze is smoky, the scent of forests burning. Two fires are devouring the forests contained within Jasper National Park as well as the town itself – one of my favorite places on earth. Below are beautiful photos I took last fall— I wonder how these current fires will affect the landscape. I grieve with those who have lost homes and businesses and for all who love this place and feel the loss.
Parenting adult children and leaving them thousands of miles away is a challenge I never anticipated. While there are many moments of beautiful connection, there is so much at stake with every decision they make. I find it hard to only watch and not express my opinions or advice. Lord have mercy on all us moms navigating these stormy waters.
I read this and felt these words:
“I think I have been trying to cut something that simply needs to be unspooled. Maybe this phase of parenting is less like mission control at rocket launch, and more like flying a kite—a manipulation of the string, a letting out and pulling in. I am still a mother, full of love and instinct, but now unclear where to direct it. I move through my days lighter and yet not unencumbered—one eye always on the sky.”[i]
Alternative music is a special passion of my husband’s. Earlier this month we travelled to another city to go hear some legendary musicians play in an old church in the downtown core. Jeff Parker, a guitarist and composer astounded us with his mastery on his instrument. The sounds echoed off the old church walls, reverberated throughout the space. One piece in particular has stayed with me. Over a track of city sounds he played his haunting melody. Over a soundtrack of people talking, sirens, the hum of traffic, and the beep-beep of trucks backing up, his song could be heard.
There was a melody woven into the sounds of everyday life. If we listened carefully, we began to hear it over the recorded sounds of the streets.
I wonder if in everyday life, I get caught up in the sights and sounds all around, and miss what is going on over all that. Do I miss out on the beauty with my focus on the interruptions and the annoyances. I wonder if we took our time to listen if we could hear an ancient song playing endlessly through our days. A song celebrating order from chaos and life from the dust. A love song always present if we have ears to hear.
When my oldest daughter moved across the country to Toronto to follow her dreams in corporate finance, I went along to help with the move. She first lived on the 25th floor of a new high-rise in the middle of the entertainment district – The Bisha. I loved the view over the tops of the neighboring buildings, the bird’s eye glimpse of life on the streets below. I thought it would be quiet, being up there with the clouds. I expected to be insulated from the sounds of the busy city streets. It turned out not to be so. Even with the windows closed, the sounds of life in a metropolis drifted upward – maybe even were funnelled upward.
I live in a quiet small town on the prairies, where I can walk five minutes and be in a farmer’s field. So, I had difficulty sleeping those first few nights in the big city. Sirens kept me awake, and the garbage bin trucks with their beeping and clanging interrupted my sleep in the early morning hours.
It was a bittersweet time; setting up a home for my daughter in a city far away from where I live. We shopped for all the things she needed to create a home in the clouds of the big city. After a few days, the noises of Toronto receded into the background, our minds on other things.
This move felt like a severing – a clean cut fully excising my daughter from my life. I could imagine how this would affect our relationship going forward. I would no longer be involved in the daily and weekly happenings of her life, could no longer drop by for a visit. I would only get to see what she allowed. It would be a curated version of her life – similar to the one I offered my parents when I, too, moved across the country. I almost wished the sounds of Toronto could drown out my thoughts, so the leaving would be less painful.
I return back to my small-town life where I appreciate the quiet and the slower pace. And yet I feel the longing for those city streets and being with my girl amidst the ever-present wall of sound.
I wonder if she ever hears it? Does the song of the Creator penetrate the cacophony of a busy life in the big city? Above all the other voices and sounds vying for her attention, may she hear the melody – the song of rejoicing over her.
The linden tree out front has loomed large in my thoughts all month. This is partly because the scent from the blossoms is unavoidable. It wafts in through the open windows, when someone opens the front door, the scent sneaks in. There is also the sound — hundreds of bees descend for weeks gathering the sweet nectar from the blooms.
When we moved to this house 30-ish years ago, we had planted this little stick of a tree. It has now grown to encompass the whole front yard and provides shade during the heat wave of these past summers. The tree has inspired some reflections:
I lay on the sun-scorched grass, feeling the prickle of each blade on my skin as I seek cool shelter under the linden tree. The light struggles to penetrate the dense canopy. Lying beneath its boughs, only tiny patches of the expansive blue sky are visible. The air is thrumming, vibrating with the activity of dozens of bees as they collect pollen from the clusters of buttery blossoms. I inhale deeply of both the perfume the tree is wearing and the sense of peace I find at the base of its soaring branches.
The linden is the last of the trees to drop its bud casings in spring and late to relinquish its leaves as winter approaches. In the fall, it glows, as if lit from within, a brilliant yellow. Today the leaves are Granny Smith green where the light hits and deeper green in the shadows, a light-shifting umbrella stretching across the yard. Looking skyward, I notice the network of branches reaching up and out, forming its famous upside-down heart shape.
“Trees are an invitation to think about time and to travel in it the way they do, by standing still and reaching out and down”[ii] writes Rebecca Sonit. Anchored in this place the tree and I weather the passage of time and find our limbs reaching further and further out as our roots grow deeper.
Almost thirty years ago, we brought home what was little more than a sapling, dug a hole and planted it side by side with the hopes we had for this place we call home.
Years have passed, kids have come and grown alongside our little linden. The branches provide more and more shade as time progresses. A patch, barely large enough for a small child to find relief from the heat has grown, its shadow now spills over sidewalks and property lines.
When the kids were small, they would climb the narrow trunk to sit in the Y of its branches, and the tree struggled to bear their weight. Now the trunk has grown straight and tall, thickened over the years. The branches strong and sturdy, able to hold many children. Lichens now gather near the base, stretching upwards onto the larger branches. The bark is no longer smooth as it was when it was young; there are folds and ridges, blemishes and scars. We are alike, the tree and I, as we visibly wear the years on our skin.
In midlife with children long gone, I sit beneath the tree and it reminds me of days passed. I recall picnics under its branches, the bookish child climbing its boughs to enter another realm with her stories. Pictures taken which show the growth of small humans beside a youthful tree. We are witnesses, the tree and I, to beginnings, endings, and the passage of time.
What memories do these branches hold, what secrets might they be keeping? Does the tree stand with hope running in its sap in anticipation for what is yet to come? This linden may be reaching forward to the days ahead when small children will, once again, find shelter in the crooks of its branches. When other families will seek its shade, inhale its heady scent, and sit spellbound by the activity within its branches.
The linden stands immoveable amidst all that is shifting and changing. She will remain long after I am gone. Through many generations the tree will stand, a beacon of permanence in an ever-changing world.
And don’t we all need that right now - something of permanence and stability? But even the trees are not immune from disaster so we must look elsewhere for our hope.
Consider these words from Psalm 62:5,6
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
My hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
A Blessing for August:
May this month hold many moments or lingering,
Over coffee,
In a garden,
By the water,
Over beautiful words,
Or images.
May the busyness and clamor of the world be silenced for a few moments,
And time slow.
May your heart rate decelerate, your breath deepen,
And may our heart be re-calibrated to the “pace of grace”[iii].
Originally published on Substack.
[i] https://motherwellmag.com/2024/07/08/sons-room-college-empty-nest/
[ii] Rebecca Solnit, “Orwell’s Roses”
[iii] Phrase borrowed from Gem Fadling