Stories from the Swamp

One of the first trees we planted here was a swamp oak. There’s an open area on the property that is easiest to access by first walking alongside the road. Behind a utility pole, you can duck into the hedge and follow a deer trail into the sucking mud. It’s been so dry this summer, but when we walked back there the other day it was still wet. This area is where we planted the oak. At its base, a mix of native wetland ferns, skunk cabbage, and invasive grasses. Nearby, some red twig dogwood. I think this is the only oak tree on our land. There are two volunteer saplings on the other side of the road that we intend to transplant before the township mows them over.

Recently, I found a few small acorns rolling around in the bottom of a bag. Later, I dreamed of a grown boy leaving home. He and his adopted father pulled up wooden floorboards in their apartment, unearthed a plant the boy had grown there, and replaced it with an oak sapling they’d dug up together.

Stories from the Swamp

A star of the night, a child of the moon. The surest way to get her to bed is to stand at the darkened window. As the sun descends, sleep follows. But, we have found, that when full moon seeps through the white cotton curtains, she inevitably wakes.

Tugging at sleep, she rolls and rolls. I know how you feel, little one, I whisper. After years and years of insomnia, I actually slept well for a good while. That is until, within me, she rolled each night at midnight. And so, I am not surprised at her full moon dances and only work to soothe her restlessness until sleep beckons once more.

Darken the room. Black it out. This is the advice we’ve found. But I resist, thinking of how I first found a rhythm in the converted garage we lived in for a year and a half that had no curtains.

Let her be wild. Let her dance with the moon. And in the morning, we will sleep and eventually wake, wrapped in softness of clouds.

Stories from the Swamp

We live on a crossroads, C________ton Corner, as it is unofficially known. Our neighbor for whom it is named passed away earlier this month. At the end of his life, he lived out of his purple truck, which he parked in front of the large barn across the street.

The barn looms over the corner. White and green, I spotted it from the air on my last plane trip. As the highest point in our hollow, it has a lightening system that regularly conducts strikes into the ground. Inside? We’ve heard stories of immaculate oak woodwork. “It was restored by a make up heiress who summered here,” the neighbors say. Revlon? Avon? They never remember.

I’ll admit, I’ve peeked through the open side door. An antique sleigh collection, an enormous copper eagle, a wooden boat, they’ve told us. Akin to a cave of wonders. I’ve seen a carved path through their collections, but never the treasures inside. The roadside is scattered with trinkets. Antique washing machine $40, weathered teddy bear $5, a faded framed Blink82 poster $25. The yard shelters a handful of decaying cars, and a pirate ship serves as a shelter for 22 cats. A couple guys have made offers on the Jeep since we’ve lived here, but it continues to sit. A throne for the orange Mainecoon mix.

These neighbors have been fixtures in the neighborhood since the 80s. He used to own our house, the barn, and another parcel. She tended to the horses, and then they stuck together, clinging to the barn when the other parcels sold. Their names are the same as my parents’ names. She even has the same birthday and Aquarian attitude as my mother. These parallels have felt important in making this place our home.

Over the decades, they’ve fostered stories on the corner. Neighbors still race through C_______ton Corner, squealing their tires, sometimes honking horns, dredging up old feuds and stories of his traffic abatement strategies. Coal dust and nails, he advised us. Others neighbors tell us of open houses during the holiday season. The thirty foot bar (now gone) served drinks, and he would host tours of the green and red painted rooms dressed in period clothing. They look at us expectantly when they tell us this, and we blankly smile back, pretending we missed the hint.

They’ve been good neighbors to us in these last two years. Probably, the state of the barn partially contributed to us being able to afford this house, and for that I am grateful. She reports on suspicious activity and chases foxes away from our chicken coop. Yelling at drivers that crush my plantings, she cautions them not to mess with me. I appreciate her adding my wrath to the identity of the corner. He told us stories of the house. Details we would never know without his history here. I have thought of them as guardians, of life, of history.

The other day, we were walking by, Zak, Yara, me, the dogs, and she pointed out a butterfly that hadn’t left her alone all day. “Maybe it’s him,” I offered, and she told me of the all feathers she’s collected since he passed. Messages he’s left for her, telling her he’s still around.

I wonder now if he continues his role of guardian. Has he joined the watch of the shadow on the porch? Will he walk through our halls, confusing the living of his timeframe in his period clothes? “Is that Johannes Englehart?” The name signed on the wall. “No, no, that’s T__ C_____ton, you know, the guy the corner is named for. He’s the guy that discovered the signature.”

I started writing this to contemplate the ephemeral pond behind the house. A story for another time. A story he shared with us.

Stories from the Swamp

I painted this study at the height of summer, the height of green. Full jungle, as we like to say. But now, the black walnuts have already started to turn. Too soon, we say. Too soon. And yet, the cooler evenings are a relief, our breaths more full at night. The bedroom vibrates with the sound of crickets as a new frog song joins the grumble of the bullfrogs.

When we bought the house, almost two years ago, I will admit we lamented the young walnut grove. Late to leaf, early to fall, they drop the curtain on the green season. Greedily, they claim the earth we said, pushing other species to the edges of their root span.

But as we live, we learn, we see. The full jungle green that envelopes the land? That’s the walnuts. We find the native plants that find harmony within their thrall. We keep the nonnative ornamentals by the roadside anyway. And when autumn falls, early as it may feel, the walnuts clear the stage for the mists that will caress our stone walls, leaving vivid dreams in their wake. This old house fits in the black walnuts. Afterall, a witch lives here.

Stories from the Swamp

I used to give a lot, you know. So many words and images, a daily practice of sharing. Funny, that, when I look back. Prayers, journals, machines. Low-weight, high-rep. I was learning to open my heart space.

When the world stopped I stopped myself. I pulled back, and in that pulling back, I curled inward. I left for the most part, and there’s a poem where Mary Oliver writes of the death that comes for artists that retreat to the trees. I hear what she’s saying there, but I think perhaps it’s more so that inward curl, wherever we are, that takes us when we fall from our webs.

I’ve learned that spiders curl when they molt, not only when they die. And oh, how my shoulders ache these days as I open my arms to welcome the day, to welcome the night. I faced death while giving life. Thresholds upon thresholds, I’ve left a lot behind.