Recently, I attended my high school reunion. It was a big one…with a zero. I drove across four states to get there and looked forward to meeting up with people, some who had driven only a few miles, those who had made their life not far from home. It was great to see people, to catch up with their lives, their children’s lives. It was also wonderful to remember stories of the antics of high school, things we did and things we should not have done. Words like: “You haven’t changed a bit!” were bandied about but we all knew better. Life had been kinder to some. Many resembled a parent I had known and loved as a child. We had all seen some hardship and also great joy. It showed on all our faces. And we were happy to be in one another’s presence for a short time again. 

At one point, one of my classmates expressed the depth of feeling he had for the others present, a depth of feeling that seemed to surprise him. Looking out at the gathered group, I said: “Well, this is where we started.” This group of people had been in our classes from kindergarten on…for twelve years. Our parents knew one another and their parents knew many who had traveled far back in our family trees. It was a chain that led back a few generations and then forward to us. Some of us may have traveled farther afoot than others but some part of us always comes back to where we started. The people, the place, the soil and air of where our story began. 

Thinking of this reminded me of this poem by George Ella Lyon. It made its rounds a few years ago and never fails to cause me to stop and think of what I would write if given the task of describing Where I’m From:

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch. (Black, glistening
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush,
the Dutch elm
whose long gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

I am from fudge and eyeglasses, from Imogene and Alafair.
I’m from the know-it-alls and the pass-it-ons,
from perk up and pipe down. I’m from He restoreth my soul
with cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.

I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch, fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger
the eye my father shut to keep his sight. Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures.
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments —
snapped before I budded —
leaf-fall from the family tree.

Perhaps it was the zero in the reunion year that caused me to want to attend so fiercely. But mostly I think it was the deep need in all of us to connect to that place where we started. Though some may remember it more fondly than others, it is still a reminder of the beginning of a story we are all still writing, still living out…if we are lucky, if we are blessed to do so. We can see the seeds of what was planted in that early soil. We may want to rearrange the garden plot a bit, change the nature of how things have grown, weed out some of the less than lovely parts, give sun and water to others we still have hope will flourish. But our original soil still holds us. We are each leaves fallen from trees planted with the evolving history of who we are and of where we started.

How would you write a poem entitled “Where I’m From”? Whose names are tied forever with yours whose ‘faces drift beneath your dreams’? It is something to think about. It is something to cherish.

“I thank you God for most this amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is ‘yes’.”
– e.e. cummings

We are beings grounded by our bodies upon the Earth. We walk upright looking out toward the landscape that holds our attention, that holds our lives. We move here, live here, make relationship here, create here. And when we allow our eyes to travel upward, we are confronted with the blue expanse of sky, of what we think of as ‘the beyond’. This ‘beyond’ calls to our imagination in ways that is often shaped by those winged ones, the birds, that seem to live between landing on the Earth and lifting above it. 

What would it be like to be able to rise above our planted feet and soar over the ground that anchors us? I used to have a recurring dream of being able to fly…like the birds I watched and wondered over. It was not an anxiety driven dream. Instead, I would simply begin to move my arms as if I was swimming and before I knew it, there I was, rising above the Earth. Flying! It was exhilarating and carried an overwhelming feeling of freedom that stayed with me for a few moments upon waking.

Over the last days I had the joy of simply being able to watch the sky as I sat by one of Minnesota’s lakes. Once again, I was drawn to the magic and mystery of the sky. The expanse of it. The beauty of it. The colors being painted by light, weather and other elements I don’t claim to understand. Watching the changing shape of clouds and hues was mesmerizing. Standing on the shore with my feet firmly planted, watching the Sun slowly sink into the horizon of water, I was reminded of another time I stood with total strangers watching the sunset on Lake Michigan. All ages of people lined a bluff, mostly silent or speaking only in whispers, eyes trained on the sky. When the Sun seemed to dip into the stretch of water, everyone spontaneously applauded. I remember the joy that flooded me at this affirmation of Creation doing what it does everyday. Yet with these witnesses it became applause worthy. Observing the sunset show as I did this week, I applauded in my heart.

Sky. Clouds. Sunsets. Sunrises. We are poorer if we do not pay attention to their movement, their beauty, their magic, their mystery, their constancy. As land bound beings, it is wise to let our eyes wander upward and take a moment… or two… to give thanks for the blue that is our canopy. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” Indeed. And there are many ways to be nourished.

May we gaze upward this day to see how the Sky is offering bread for our eyes and, in turn, our souls.

“The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women…”
~Joy Harjo, US Poet Laureate

I would venture a guess that most people have engaged in the conversation of ‘what will you do when this ends?’ What will be rushed to first when this pandemic no longer holds us in its time warp? This question is likely tied to the other question that has been asked frequently: What have you missed most? I know that I have asked and been asked both of these queries. It has been easy for me to answer both as they have the same answer. As the pandemic lingered on, what I have missed is sitting around a table with other people, eating, talking, over something as simple as a bowl of soup, a glass of wine, a cup of coffee. Looking into the faces of friends, family, those I love, whose lives have traveled a similar trajectory as mine. This is what I longed to do.

This is why I was so drawn to this poem by US poet laureate, Joy Harjo. She says in words more beautiful and deep than anything I could ever conjure, what I’ve missed, what I want to run toward when the time is right. Sitting at a table. Eating. With other people. And I am so pleased to say that over the last weeks, I have had the opportunity to do just that. Twice I have been blessed to sit and look into the welcoming, beautiful faces of others as we shared a meal. The experience carried with it all the gifts of the past haloed with the golden glow of how precious this time is. Full of memory. Full of understanding of what we had lost, what we hoped to regain as we sat together. 

“…At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table…”

The act of eating together is one of the great levelers of being human. As the poet says ‘ we must eat to live.’ Over the last year we have been aware of many of the levelers…illness, death, fear, grief, uncertainty.  We have also seen the fractures in so many of the systems that are meant to help create a workable and livable society. Healthcare, technology, food sources and work all favored those of us with privilege. The tables have not been equal and the pain of the last months have once again been carried inequitably on the backs of the poor. It is something with which we must grapple.

“…This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. 
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.” 

Our tables have been empty. Our tables have longed to welcome us and challenge us. More and more, we are emerging from our homes to find our way toward living in ways for which we never knew we would yearn.  I hope I have learned to never take the act of sitting down at the table to eat with others for granted. I hope these months have helped us all to watch out for those who live on the margins and to reach out with care when we can, to work to change the systems that keep others at arms length, in shadows we don’t want to notice. We all have our own story of what it has been like to live through our varied experiences of COVID. May we look and listen with grace to everyone’s story, perhaps becoming that table that is ‘a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. May all our tables help us be birthers of a new world which is kinder, gentler, more compassionate and full of love for each ‘sweet bite.’