a jeweled coat

Here I am this mid-July afternoon going home. And glad
to be going home. Surely I care little about home and never
have. Back to Nebraska to the hateful heat of summer, to
work day after day, to monotony most would say.
But glad!

This long silver train makes swift passage. It is streaking
across the flat Colorado country as I sit here alone. (Why
should I be so near to tears?) The whole trip to Colorado
is like a dream now. The whole thing drops from my
shoulders now like a jeweled coat, and I lay it aside
feeling I’ve never worn it at all.

-Margaret Gehrke
1948

I was quite spellbound by Ken Burns’ National Park series a
few weeks ago. And completely charmed to have met Margaret
Gehrke through the words shared from her diaries and the
photos her husband Edward took through the 20s, 30s and
40s. Imagine her words, if you can, being spoken while a
series of old photos flowed by and gentle music played. The
episode ended with those words one night, and I felt that I
had just listened to poetry. And that, as is so often the gift
of poetry, I finally had words for a feeling that has
often haunted me.

Do you know that feeling?

You are somewhere… somewhere wonderful.
And you are there….all there.
Present.

And then it is over….and it is gone.

(Gershwin under the stars with my mom…full
moon, balmy night, Gershwin…)

“The whole trip to Colorado is like a dream now.
The whole thing drops from my shoulders now like a
jeweled coat, and I lay it aside feeling
I’ve never worn it at all.”
-m.g.

(My show linens drying in the sunny breeze on one
of the last days of our Indian Summer)

I am so grateful for the spacious wardrobe,
generously full of “jeweled coats” that I feel
I have…if only I could find a way to slip those
coats back on now and then, and wrap myself
in their days and moments.

(Cosmos from the garden gracing my booth this
past weekend, where I met such lovely people!)

Do you know what I mean?

*Photo of me on the Squam dock by Jinny Sagorin.
Photo of and words by Margaret Gehrke from the book
The National Parks by Dayton Duncan and Ken
Burns.*