Heart's Horizons

We selected some healthy looking, good-sized vines about a half-inch thick at the base where they rose from among the thick mountain bamboo to latch onto the trunks and lower branches of cedars and oaks, then lace their way into the upper reaches. I clipped the chosen vines near the ground (3 vines and a backup).

 Then we put on our strong gloves, grabbed hold of the end of each vine and pulled hard - 4, 6, even all 8 hands at a time - then pulled again, then again with a "Heave-ho," and again, leaning backward in the middle of the road, pulling hard, bending the low branches! Shaking the whole tree! Then bending high branches! Then pulling more slowly as the high vine began to come away, even bending the whole tree sometimes!

Working together, pulling another long vine down out of a big cedar or oak tree -- pulling harder and harder as slowly the whole vine surrendered, at last coming away until it was laying in the road and Trio had done that great thing, with the high tree, all the way up the tree and now they had to handle that 15-meter vine from high in those branches-- Kids LOVE to do really BIG things!

 Kaya, Mitsuki and Miasa were going to make Christmas wreaths.

A couple of weeks before, while we were doing some winter prep work out in the garden and surrounds, Mitsuki had said, mid-task, out of the blue - as the Trio seems to do these days - that she wanted to make a wreath. I asked her where that idea had come from. She answered "Christmas!" which answered my question well enough; one can't really expect grown-up-minded explanations from little girls, who live so much in their hearts.

 Since the Trio and I were finished enough with our prep labors I went and got the clippers, a saw, a big basket and 8 strong gloves, then we went down the inner road, where I know there are a lot of longstanding, well-developed vines of fujii (wild wisteria) and akebi (akebia trifoliata) among the trees and bamboo.

 Once the vines were down, the Trio trimmed them, coiled them, tied them with the tendrils and put them in the basket, along with shiny clusters of holly leaves that also grow by the road. They got some good evergreen branches too, plus some perfect pine cones from my pine cone stash in the shed.

Back home, they got the tree ornaments and some ribbon from the closets, then sat out on the deck with the scissors and all those bright things scattered around them. I showed them how to choose a length for the wreath size they wanted, how to coil the strong vine into a wreath size, how to fix it here and there along its length using the thinner tendrils, and that this was the way you could make baskets too - fujii vine is great for baskets - then I went upstairs for a while to do some editing and forgot about the time--

 When it was growing dark I came downstairs into a silent house, saw the Trio still outside working even in the the darkling cold, engrossed in the task of crafting their very first wreaths, absorbed in the art of it. I just stood there watching the design ideas flow, turned on the lights when it began to get too dark. The Trio went on working until they were content with their basic wreaths and went inside to fine-tune the decorations.

 Natural ways, natural tasks involving natural interests like the endlessness of seeds, branches and flowers, insects and animals - instead of only brief gadgetry - simply confirm that there is no substitute for the natural reaches of life, the wellspring of thoughts and imaginings that lead always onward, with no end but the heart’s horizons.

In that spirit, Happy Holidays to All.

THE PAST, THE FUTURE AND ALL THAT STUFF

Another of the many and unexpectedly great funs of having grandies is the letters they now and then send like young bursts of life as they learn to write and want to communicate to us all the important events in the rush of their daily lives.

We just got a bright envelope full of little pages in all colors, shapes and sizes from Mitsuki, who appears to be quite the epistolarian: pages from little cartoony notebooks, kitty postits, pages with ice cream cone stickers stuck on them, bits of paper with drawings on them of grownups, kids, trees and animals, all scribed all over with kiddy thoughts meticulously wrangled out of a language's newlearned lettering... It's fun, intriguing and ultimately endearing to puzzle out the scripted elements of a cute new life learning about the world, the past, the future and all that stuff, just like you yourself did. And are doing, as you read.

One of Mitsuki's miniletters says she is well and asks are we also, the end, she seems to think that all her grandparents live together and intermingle all the time, she hasn't got that figured out yet like older sister Kaya has, without ever asking anybody about the facts of it all-- give Mitsuki and sister Miasa another year or two. It's astonishing each time you realize anew all the things kidlets have to learn - and do learn, without even trying - it all just falls into place in their heads and hearts, and they write about it now and then.

And in the inner sanctum of the cartoonly colored envelope bearing a cluster of interesting drawn-on stamps surrounding the genuine but uninteresting stamp, there is a treasurously small packet of paper wrapped and folded and wrapped some more that clearly contains something special and says on it Bob & Echo, and after unwrapping and unfolding and unwrapping all the layers that tiny hands love to take the time to place upon their treasures to keep them safe, there at the heart are four tiny glass beads of different colors: two for me and two for Echo.

This weekend I'll make a two-bead string necklace and wear it. Nothing like a bit of love around your neck.