Buds of orchid from Rita Baldwin's Orchid House
***
Talking to Myself Twenty-Four May 31, 2020
Today we celebrate my birthday.
I turned eighty-three years on
Wednesday, but today my daughter
and her two children will join us
in our front yard and sit six feet
apart. Tim will buy “take out”
pizza, one meat and one vegetarian.
Lilly begins grad school in August.
Bobby will be a junior at his college.
We all like pizza. Tim brought
two chairs from his storage unit. He’ll
take out two of mine, old-fashioned
ones–one from my grandma. How
she loved me. She called me Judith.
How I loved her and those times
I visited her in Pittsburgh, and she
told me stories. I learned them,
too. What a life I’ve made. How
well I’ve lived. I trusted my heart,
and my heart thrived. We learn
on Tim’s TV how angry our
black brothers and sisters are over
one policeman’s killing of a black
man he was arresting for no reason.
Our president has been unjust, our
country divided and too many
people angry. It’s time to consider
justice and transformation. Enough
of using force to achieve what we
need. Remember Henry David
Thoreau and Martin Luther King
and Gandhi. It’s time to trust
the God Within.
Writer friend Sasscer Hill, as a child:
"You can't have my chicken."
Talking to Myself Twenty-Three May 24, 2020
Here is Yuri, writing me emails in Russian,
which I find I can read only occasionally
turning to the dictionary. Then he tells me
of a translation program. I find it on the web.
It works well. Another resource to learn
his meaning. He writes simply. So I
recognize most of his Russian words. Google
translates them quickly: Enlightenment!
No language in the world can keep me out.
We all adapt, stay in our houses, wear
masks when we venture out. Even I have
one, homemade by one of Tim’s fellow
workers. My broken toes are healing and
soon I can walk without the boot. What
a good life I have, even so. Old friends
write to me. We’re all still alive, getting
elderly, but still as active as possible.
Tim finds the food, the paper towels,
the medicines for the dogs; feeds and
waters the chickens. Janet carries Wag
out and is digging the grass out of our
flower garden. We’ll have zinnias
and cosmos, their lively colors, rising
again when the wind blows them
sideways. Our volunteer peach tree
by the back of the house has green
peaches already. The invading blackberry
bushes have have red fruit. The hydrangea
has its hundred florets. The rain
stirred its roots and sent out blooms,
and Yuri has me reading Russian again.
Here is Yuri, writing me emails in Russian,
which I find I can read only occasionally
turning to the dictionary. Then he tells me
of a translation program. I find it on the web.
It works well. Another resource to learn
his meaning. He writes simply. So I
recognize most of his Russian words. Google
translates them quickly: Enlightenment!
No language in the world can keep me out.
We all adapt, stay in our houses, wear
masks when we venture out. Even I have
one, homemade by one of Tim’s fellow
workers. My broken toes are healing and
soon I can walk without the boot. What
a good life I have, even so. Old friends
write to me. We’re all still alive, getting
elderly, but still as active as possible.
Tim finds the food, the paper towels,
the medicines for the dogs; feeds and
waters the chickens. Janet carries Wag
out and is digging the grass out of our
flower garden. We’ll have zinnias
and cosmos, their lively colors, rising
again when the wind blows them
sideways. Our volunteer peach tree
by the back of the house has green
peaches already. The invading blackberry
bushes have have red fruit. The hydrangea
has its hundred florets. The rain
stirred its roots and sent out blooms,
and Yuri has me reading Russian again.
Talking to Myself Twenty–Two May 17, 2020
It can all be done, I remind myself.
In a pandemic things slow down. My
proof copy takes three weeks. Then
three more to get a whole shipment.
I’ll change the pub date. My foot
heals. That was slow, too. I spend
more time looking at the green trees,
watching the hens who have learned
to hide their eggs among Tim’s
bicycles or in the midst of the flower
garden. The daylilies are rising, and
Janet and I are plotting to plant zinnia
and cosmos seeds to arrive in two
weeks. It means weeding and corralling
the hens, clipping their wings, mending
their fence, fertilizing, but that’s what
farmers do. It means work. I’ve been
idle because of three broken toe bones,
but they don’t hurt now. Let me
recover my strength and wits, feel
less helpless and more canny. Things
will grow even now, and slowly
our pandemic will let go.
Vera and Yuri Lebedev, my Russian friends from Kostroma
***
Talking to Myself Twenty-One Mother’s Day, May 10, 2020
I saw the word pismo (letter) when
I glanced over my shoulder. A Russian
letter from a Russian friend. Then I saw
Yuri. I hadn’t heard from Yuri in years.
He wrote to me after Mikhail died in
2015. They didn’t know–even his closest
friends didn’t know–that he was dying. They
learned too late. His wife and his son
cared for him that last year. I’d written
to him in January and sent my new
book, This River: An Epic Love Poem,
the Volga painted by Rumyantsev on
the cover, looking across to Kostroma.
They were connected by their childhoods.
Yuri explicated Russian writers of the
nineteenth century. Mikhail’s novels
explicated, and were saving, the Russian
soul. It can’t be faked, but it can be told.
When Mikhail left town, Yuri came
and took me to their apartment. They
fed me and put out honey for my tea
to heal my cough. We sat hours over
our meals, speaking, sharing stories.
I had very few Russian words, they
no English, but we used the dictionary.
Everything was told. We didn’t hesitate.
We played with baby Vanya. I taught
him to say, “Hi.” It came out, “Argh.”
How we laughed. Vera gave me a
mustard plaster. I’d never had one.
Then she brought in big art books
and showed me paintings while the
mustard plaster worked on my cough.
An apartment was found for me. Vera
showed me what was safe to buy and
what not. Yuri walked me to the university
so I could meet the Rector. At night
we talked and laughed and told secrets.
The rest of the family visited. We feasted.
When it was time for me to go home, I
cried. Yuri said, “Don’t cry, Judy," and I
cried more. Now comes a letter in
Russian, and photos of Yuri and Vera,
then the whole family. I am loved, not
forgotten. “We hold these memories
in our hearts."
Blue iris in Judy's garden 2018.
Talking to Myself Twenty May 3, 2020
What am I afraid of? In my dream
I couldn’t organize other writers
though I tried. They were all so different,
and they wouldn’t listen to me. Then
they disappeared, and I was lost. All
around me were huge stone buildings,
but there were no trains. I asked help,
but no one helped me. Then I was
alone. I didn’t know where I was or
how to get home. We all are alone,
and I’ve always been that way. I
wasn’t afraid. It was easy to love
other people, and they trusted me.
I need to heal. I am healing, It takes
time and patience. My body has
ancient wisdom in its bones. It
knows how to get better. I can’t be
lost if I’m alone. Alone I always
know what to do. A train will come.
Everything will be clear again. Some
few will listen to me. My words will
matter. The deep places will speak,
and many people will listen. I’m safe.
