Spring is a time when the fallen trees and branches from winter storms that didn’t require immediate attention become an eyesore. Time to cut them up and clear them out. Time to check fences, sharpen the shovel, and get at the root of things. Digging up and taming blackberries, bittersweet, and wisteria. The seedlings are doing well, and more are started.
This is my rugged week, when muscles grow weaker and brain fog is thick.
It takes effort to live and blossom, and many don’t know that we know that it isn’t magic but a combination of grit and resilience, and gratitude and patience, along with basics — shelter, food, water, sunlight, and night skies.
Bloom
By Emily Dickinson
Bloom — is Result — to meet a Flower
And casually glance
Would cause one scarcely to suspect
The minor Circumstance
Assisting in the Bright Affair
So intricately done
Then offered as a Butterfly
To the Meridian —
To pack the Bud — oppose the Worm —
Obtain its right of Dew —
Adjust the Heat — elude the Wind —
Escape the prowling Bee
Great Nature not to disappoint
Awaiting Her that Day —
To be a Flower, is profound
Responsibility —
Holding Valerie Sonnenthal in the light as she faces treatment. Thank you for all you have offered, and for creating Peaked Hill Studio. The Kaiut Yoga classes will continue online thanks to the support of teacher Billie Burke. Sign up online at peakedhillstudio.com.
Thank you to all of the authors in our community. We can meet author Patti McCracken on Wednesday, April 16, 11 to noon, at the Chilmark library. Her book, “The Angel Makers,” is an important read that asks us to think. Set in the 1920s in an isolated community, it tells the story of an unlikely murder ring led by a midwife that used arsenic to poison its victims.
Thank you to Pathways for keeping the light on and offering us two more weekends to listen to music and dance. This Friday, April 11, 7:30 to 9:30 pm, singer and songwriter Lucy Mayhew opens, followed by Dave Willis and the Down Island Band, featuring Jim Eddy on guitar, Erik Lowe on bass, Phil McAndres on drums, and guitarist vocalist Dave Willis.
Thank you to Randy Ben David and Rebecca Gilbert. On Sunday afternoons, 1 to 4 pm, all are invited to Native Earth Teaching Farm, 94 North Road, to visit with Rebecca Gilbert and the chickens and goats, and lend a hand with the chores.
Thank you to Matt Dix and Rebecca Miller, and your daughter Ruby Dix, for North Tabor Farm and the clever signs.
Pizza Night continues at the Chilmark Church, and services are Sundays, 9 to 10 am.
I am pleased there will be an additional service on Easter at sunrise, 5:45 am, in Menemsha. Of course we will have Sunday school during the regular service, followed by an Easter egg hunt.
Wishing you all a good week.
If you have any Chilmark Town Column suggestions, email Claire Ganz, cganz@live.com.
