“Every familiar face was once a stranger across the room.”  ~Anonymous

Every Tuesday at ten o’clock, the two strangers arrived at Bean & Birch.

One came through the door carrying a canvas bag and wearing an expression of grave purpose. The other followed a minute or two later, ordered coffee, and went directly to the corner table. They opened their laptops, exchanged a nod, and spoke hardly a word for the next hour.

Naturally, the coffee gang had questions.

“They had a falling-out,” Martha declared on the third Tuesday. “Look at them. They want to talk, but neither will be the first.”

“Or they’re meeting in secret,” Toby said.

“From whom?” Erica asked.

“That,” Toby replied, “is what makes it a secret.”

By the fifth Tuesday, Sam had drawn a diagram in his notebook. It showed the corner table, both laptops, the front entrance, and a question mark beside the pastry case. Tom brought binoculars, which he claimed were for watching birds on Stillwater Gleam afterward. Unfortunately, he made this claim while looking through them at someone twelve feet away.

Maren came over with a fresh pot of coffee. “Are you all enjoying yourselves?”

“We’re concerned citizens,” Martha told her.

“You’re blocking the sugar,” Maren said.

The theories grew more ambitious. Erica suspected an old romance. Toby proposed international espionage, though he could not explain why spies would meet under a chalkboard advertising cinnamon rolls. Sam thought they might be rival authors secretly writing the same book.

Lucy, who had served the pair every Tuesday, listened to these suggestions while wiping down the next table.

“You could ask them,” she said.

The gang considered this for a moment and unanimously rejected it.

The following Tuesday, they arrived early and arranged their notebooks across their usual table. Tom left the binoculars in his coat pocket after Maren looked at him. Bear settled beneath Ethan’s chair with a sigh. Across the room, the two strangers appeared on schedule, ordered their coffees, and opened their laptops.

For forty minutes, the gang watched discreetly. Or as discreetly as six people can watch while whispering and repeatedly turning their heads in unison.

Then one of the strangers looked up. “You’ve had a better move for the last ten minutes.”

The other smiled without looking away from the screen. “I know. I was waiting to see if you’d notice.”

Martha gripped Erica’s arm. “A coded message.”

“No,” the stranger said, turning toward them. “Chess.”

The room went quiet. Even Tom lowered the binoculars he had somehow got out of his pocket.

“We’re brother and sister,” the woman explained. “I’m Nina. This is Paul. We play online so he can’t knock over the board when he loses.”

“I knocked it over once,” Paul said. “Thirty years ago.”

“Thirty-two,” Nina replied.

Their father had taught them to play at the kitchen table. Tuesday had been his day off, so Tuesday was when they played. After he died, the siblings kept the appointment. They lived close enough to meet at Bean & Birch, where the coffee was good and neither of them had home advantage.

For a little while, the gang had nothing to say.

Then Toby asked, “Who’s winning?”

“Today,” Nina said, “or since 1994?”

“Both,” Martha said, pulling out a chair.

Paul turned his laptop so they could see the board. Within minutes, Tom suggested a move that both siblings called terrible. Sam suggested one that made them pause. Erica fetched another round of coffee, and Lucy brought over a plate of cinnamon rolls. By the time Nina won, everyone at the table had claimed some share of her victory.

“I’d have won sooner,” she told Paul, “if your new friends hadn’t kept giving me advice.”

“Our new friends?” Paul said. “They’re clearly spies.”

The gang laughed. Paul set up another game, Nina slid a cinnamon roll between them, and Tuesday’s quiet corner table became rather less quiet.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It is dark outside the window behind my desk, and the day promises to be cloudy. I find myself thinking of my friends at Bean & Birch and smiling. I can picture Tom with those binoculars, Martha certain she has uncovered a great romance, and Lucy patiently waiting for someone to ask the obvious question.

Joshua Bell’s violin fills the rooms of the wee cottage with Dvořák’s “Song to the Moon,” one of my favorite pieces of classical music. My coffee is close at hand. For now, there is music, lamplight, and the slow gathering of a new day. What a lovely way to begin, eh?

Yesterday was a breathtakingly beautiful late September day. I thought about spending some time on the deck, but never quite made it out there. Instead, I opened the French door and the glass doors in the office. A fresh autumn breeze wandered through the wee cottage, and I enjoyed the afternoon from wherever I happened to be.

An old song came to mind: “those hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer.” I couldn’t tell you what decade it came from without looking it up. Yesterday, I would have changed the words to “those hazy, crazy, lazy days of September.” Except it wasn’t hazy. Just lazy.

Ah well. I think I need more coffee.

I’m glad I left the doors open yesterday. I could hear the trees moving and feel the cool air pass through the rooms. This morning calls for a lamp, a warm mug, and Joshua Bell. Tomorrow may bring something else entirely. I hope I’m paying attention when it does.
​
And so starts this day.

~Wylddane

“Not every darkness must be banished; sometimes it only needs a lamp.”  ~Wylddane

The argument began at 8:17 on Monday morning when Martha walked into Bean & Birch wearing an orange scarf patterned with tiny golden leaves.

It was a beautiful scarf. It was also entirely unnecessary. Outside, Lone Pine was wrapped in warm, humid air that felt more like July than the final morning of August.

Lucy looked up from the espresso machine.

“You do know it’s seventy-two degrees already?”

“Yes,” Martha replied. “But tomorrow is the first day of fall.”

From the coffee gang’s favorite table, Sam lowered his mug.

“No, it isn’t.”

Martha stopped.

She slowly turned toward him.

There are moments when a sensible person realizes that silence is the wisest course. Sam, though otherwise a sensible man, had never been especially gifted at recognizing those moments.

“Fall begins at the equinox,” he continued. “September twenty-second.”

“Fall begins tomorrow,” Martha said. “September first. Meteorological fall.”

“That isn’t real fall.”

“It has the word fall in it.”

“So does ‘fallen soufflé,’” Sam said. “That doesn’t make it a season.”

By then, the entire table had grown quiet. Even Toby had stopped buttering his cinnamon toast.

Maren emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of scones.

“What are we fighting about?”

“The first day of fall,” said Erica.

“Again?” Maren asked.

Apparently this had happened before.

Martha removed her scarf, folded it carefully, and placed it on the back of her chair. The removal suggested neither surrender nor discomfort. It had the solemnity of a lawyer setting down her briefcase before addressing the jury.

“Meteorological fall begins September first,” she explained. “September, October, November. Three complete months. Neat, orderly and sensible.”

Sam shook his head. “Astronomical fall begins at the equinox, when the sun crosses the celestial equator.”

Martha looked toward the others.

“He rehearsed that.”

“I read,” Sam replied.

“Instructions for power tools do not count.”

Tom raised one hand. “I would like to point out that neither the atmosphere nor the sun has consulted Lone Pine.”

“That is true,” said Liam. “Around here, fall begins whenever someone smells woodsmoke and becomes emotionally attached to a sweater.”

“Or when Maren puts pumpkin muffins in the display case,” Toby added.

Everyone looked toward Maren.

“They’ll be here tomorrow,” she admitted.

Martha sat back triumphantly. “The prosecution rests.”

“The prosecution has a pastry-based case,” Sam said. “That won’t hold up in court.”

“It would in Wisconsin,” said Erica.

Lucy brought a fresh pot of coffee to the table. “Personally, I think fall begins the first morning you step outside and say, ‘Ooh, it’s chilly,’ and then go back in for a jacket.”

“No,” said Tom. “It begins the first day somebody complains about people who like pumpkin spice.”

“I don’t complain about them,” Sam said. “I simply question their judgment.”

“Repeatedly,” Martha noted.

“And at considerable length,” Erica added.

Toby, who had resumed buttering his toast, said, “Maybe we need categories.”

He took a paper napkin and borrowed a pen from Liam.

Across the top, he wrote:

OFFICIAL SIGNS THAT FALL HAS ARRIVED

“First,” he said, “meteorological fall: September first.”

Martha nodded.

“Second, astronomical fall: the equinox.”

Sam nodded.

“Third, culinary fall: pumpkin muffins.”

Maren nodded.

“Fourth,” Lucy said, “wardrobe fall: Martha’s scarf.”

Martha nodded again.

“Fifth,” Tom added, “Wisconsin fall: the day you turn on the furnace in the morning and the air conditioner in the afternoon.”

Everyone nodded at that.

“Sixth,” said Erica, “emotional fall.”

Toby paused with the pen above the napkin.

“What is emotional fall?”

Erica looked through the front window. Across the street, the maples were still mostly green, although one small branch near the top of the oldest tree had begun to turn a muted shade of red.

“It’s when you notice the first changed leaf,” she said, “and something inside you changes with it.”

The table grew quiet.

Not an uncomfortable quiet. Bean & Birch had many kinds of silence, and this was one of its better ones—the silence that came when somebody had said something worth leaving alone for a moment.

Outside, a pickup truck rolled slowly down Main Street. Inside, the coffee grinder whirred, dishes clinked in the kitchen, and a soft jazz piano wandered beneath the ordinary sounds of the café.

Liam rested both hands around his mug.

“I suppose seasons rarely arrive on a single day,” he said. “They send small announcements ahead of themselves. A cool morning. An early sunset. One red leaf. A certain slant of light.”

“A pumpkin muffin,” Toby added.

“Yes,” Liam said gravely. “Even a pumpkin muffin.”

Martha looked at Sam. “So you admit that I’m right?”

“I admit that you are one-third right.”

“Two-thirds.”

“One-third.”

“Three-quarters.”

“That is not how thirds work.”

“It’s meteorological mathematics.”

Lucy returned with the coffeepot and topped off their mugs. She had heard enough of the debate to recognize that it was unlikely to produce a winner.

“Perhaps,” she said, “fall begins whenever you are ready to welcome it.”

Martha considered this.
Sam considered it too.

It was, they both realized, an intolerably reasonable answer.

“But that means everyone could have a different first day of fall,” Sam protested.

“Of course,” Lucy replied. “People have different first days for almost everything that matters.”

She moved around the table, filling one mug after another.

“The first day you feel at home somewhere. The first day a stranger becomes a friend. The first day grief doesn’t accompany you into every room. Those dates aren’t printed on calendars either.”

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Martha reached behind her chair, picked up the orange scarf and draped it around Sam’s shoulders.

“There,” she said. “Now it’s fall.”

Sam stared at her.

The scarf looked surprisingly handsome against his blue flannel shirt, although no one was prepared to tell him that.

Toby studied the napkin again and added one final category:

Bean & Birch fall: 8:43 a.m., August 31. Confirmed by scarf.

Maren divided the last maple-pecan scone into seven uneven pieces and passed them around the table.

Lucy refilled the coffeepot. Sam left the scarf around his shoulders, claiming it was only because removing it would give Martha the satisfaction of believing she had annoyed him.

Outside, the morning remained warm and humid. The maples remained green. Summer had not disappeared, and autumn had not fully arrived.

But around the favorite table, among coffee mugs, crumbs, gentle teasing and old friends, a small season of its own had begun.

It was substantive enough to matter and light enough to carry.

And perhaps that was all anyone really needed from a Monday morning.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

This final morning of August is quiet.

Warm and humid weather has returned, and the air conditioner hums steadily in the wee cottage. Beyond the windows, the morning is still dark. Inside, lamps cast their warm pools of light across familiar rooms.

Beside me, coffee steams in my Leona mug. Its aroma is rich and comforting. The first taste is deeply satisfying—the kind of small pleasure that asks for no explanation or defense. Before long the mug will need refilling, and that thought itself feels reassuring. There will be more coffee. There will be another small beginning.

Yesterday was a difficult day, although nothing particularly difficult happened.

I was lethargic—perhaps even a little depressed. Nothing interested me. I drifted through the hours, napping for a while, reading for a while, and then napping again. Even the thought of doing something felt uncomfortable. The day did not feel tragic or dramatic. It simply felt heavy.

Because that is not normally the way I move through my days, I notice its remnants this morning.

I do not know what caused it. Perhaps it was the end of August and the subtle melancholy that comes with any ending. Perhaps it was the approaching end of summer, even though autumn is my favorite season. Perhaps it was grief for my dear friend who died at the beginning of this summer—grief moving quietly beneath the surface, requiring no anniversary or invitation before making itself known.

Or perhaps yesterday was simply a low day.
Not every feeling arrives with an explanation.

We often believe that if we can name the cause of a feeling, we can manage it, correct it or usher it politely out the door. But the heart is not always so orderly. Some sadness comes without a clear story. Some weariness cannot be solved by making a list or thinking more positively. Sometimes the most honest thing we can say is: Yesterday was hard, and I do not entirely know why.

That honesty is not ingratitude.

It is possible to love one’s life and still have a difficult day. It is possible to recognize our blessings while also recognizing the shadows. Gratitude does not require us to pretend that darkness is light. Rather, it gives us a lamp to carry into the darker places.

And so, this morning, I count my blessings—not to erase yesterday, but to meet today.

There is the wee cottage, warm and softly illuminated against the darkness.
There is the steady hum of the air conditioner, keeping the returning humidity outside.
There is the Leona mug beneath my hand and the coffee within it, fragrant, hot and satisfying.
There are books waiting to be read, music waiting to be heard, friends waiting to be remembered and loved.
There is this quiet hour in which nothing is demanded of me.
There is September waiting just beyond midnight.

Tomorrow, meteorological autumn begins. Astronomical autumn will take its time, arriving with the equinox later in the month. The trees will follow their own calendars. One leaf will redden, then another. The mornings will cool. The light will soften. Sweaters will return, coffee will taste even better, and the wee cottage will settle into the season it seems to love best.

Perhaps we are like that too.

Perhaps our inner seasons do not change because a calendar tells them to. Perhaps hope does not always arrive dramatically. Sometimes it begins with one small sign: getting out of bed, turning on a lamp, brewing coffee, noticing that its aroma is pleasing, realizing that today feels a little lighter than yesterday.

That may not seem like much.

This morning, it feels like enough.

I can say goodbye to August with gratitude for all that it held—the beautiful and the difficult, the laughter and the grief, the abundant light and the shadowed afternoons. I do not have to decide that every day was good. I need only recognize that every day was part of the season, part of the journey, part of this life I remain grateful to be living.

Soon I will refill my mug.
Soon the darkness beyond the windows will soften into morning.
Soon August will give way to September, summer will begin its slow surrender to autumn, and the world will move forward—not hurriedly, not all at once, but one changed leaf at a time.

And so starts this day.

Not with every shadow banished, but with a warm light shining among them.
​
Not with all sadness explained, but with gratitude beside it.

Not with a grand declaration of hope, but with a steaming mug, a beloved cottage, the promise of autumn—and the quiet realization that this life, even on its heavier days, remains worth carrying tenderly forward.

~Wylddane



​

A Bean & Birch Tale

By seven-thirty on Saturday morning, there wasn't a dry umbrella in Lone Pine.

Nobody minded.

Rain had begun sometime before dawn—not thunderous rain, not the furious sort that hammered rooftops and sent water racing uselessly toward culverts, but a soft and persistent rain.

The good kind.
The kind that stayed.

It whispered through the maples along Main Street. It tapped against windows. It gathered on cedar branches until the droplets grew fat enough to fall. It darkened lawns that had spent most of August looking tired and defeated.

And everywhere, the earth seemed to be drinking.

At Bean & Birch, Maren had propped open the front door.

Lucy noticed immediately.

“You're letting the damp in.”

Maren continued arranging blueberry muffins beneath the glass dome.

“We've spent two months begging for damp. We're not shutting it out now.”

Lucy considered this.

“Fair point.”

Outside, rain pattered against the awning.

Inside, coffee steamed.

And soon the Saturday morning congregation began arriving.

Erica and Tom came first, Erica shaking an umbrella just outside the door.

“I stepped in a puddle,” she announced.

“You're sixty-something years old,” Tom said.

“I know.”

“On purpose.”

“Absolutely.”

Maren slid a mug toward her. “How was it?”

“Wonderful.”

Tom sighed. “She's seven.”

“I am temporarily seven.”

Sam arrived next, smelling faintly of wet flannel and cedar.

“You know what wet sawdust smells like?” he asked nobody in particular.

Nobody answered.

“Heaven.”

Toby came through the door a few minutes later but didn't immediately enter. Instead, he stood beneath the awning, hands in his pockets, staring toward the street.

“Toby?” Lucy called.

He raised one finger.

“Listening.”

So everyone listened.

Rain on the awning.
Rain in the gutters.
Rain against the pavement.
Rain whispering through the trees.

Toby finally stepped inside.

“Haven't heard that in a while.”

Nobody needed to ask what he meant.

Then the door opened and Martha appeared.

She had no umbrella.

Her jacket was soaked, and her famously fuchsia hair had collapsed against her forehead in several spectacular wet spikes.

Erica stared.

“Martha.”

“What?”

“You own an umbrella.”

“Three.”

“Then why—”

Martha peeled off her jacket.

“I have complained for six weeks about being dry. I refuse to begin complaining about being wet.”

She looked around the room.

“Coffee.”

Maren already had it waiting.

“Bless you.”

A few minutes later Ethan and Liam arrived from Stillwater Gleam with Bear and Mabel in tow.

Bear entered Bean & Birch with the swagger of an animal who had apparently discovered rain personally and was prepared to take full credit for it.

He shook.

Violently.

“BEAR!”

Half the room shouted it simultaneously.

Bear looked delighted.

Mabel, meanwhile, stood beside Liam wearing the expression of a border collie who considered precipitation a regrettable administrative failure.

Ethan laughed.

“You should see the lake.”

That quieted everyone.

“How is it?” Sam asked.

“Beautiful.”

Ethan pulled off his rain jacket.

“The whole surface is dancing. Little silver rings everywhere. And you can smell the cedars again.”

Liam settled into his chair.

“The shoreline is already darker.”

“Think it'll help?” Erica asked.

Liam looked toward the rain-streaked windows.

“It'll help.”

It wasn't a promise that the drought was over.

Everyone understood that.

One morning of rain could not erase weeks of drought. The rivers would not suddenly rise. The lakes would not refill overnight. The gardens would not forget the long, hot summer.

But still--
it was raining.

And sometimes still was enough.

They had just begun passing around a plate of cinnamon rolls when the door opened again.

A father entered with a little girl of perhaps six or seven.

She wore yellow rain boots and carried something carefully between both hands.

A small glass jar.

Maren noticed it while pouring the father's coffee.

“What have you got there?”

“Rain.”

The girl held up the jar.

Indeed, there was perhaps an inch of water inside.

“You collected it?”

The girl nodded.

“Why?”

She looked at Maren as though the answer should have been obvious.

“Because I wanted to save some in case it forgets how to rain again.”

The coffee table went silent.

Even Martha had nothing to say.

For approximately four seconds.

Then she whispered, “Well, hell.”

Lucy gave her a look.

“What? That was beautiful.”

The little girl and her father carried their breakfast to a table near the window.

Maren disappeared into the kitchen.

She returned carrying an empty jelly jar.

She opened the front door, stepped outside, and placed it beneath the edge of the awning.

“What are you doing?” Lucy asked.

“Saving some.”

Everyone laughed.

But nobody told her it was silly.

By nine o'clock, the little jar held nearly two inches of rainwater.

Maren brought it inside, dried the outside with a towel, screwed on the lid, and placed it on the windowsill behind the coffee bar.

Sam found a scrap of paper.

Toby found a pen.

Martha supplied the handwriting.

AUGUST 29
THE RAIN CAME BACK

They taped the little label to the jar.

For a while everyone looked at it.

A jar of rainwater.

Completely ordinary.

Utterly priceless.

Liam wrapped both hands around his coffee mug.

“Maybe that's what hope is.”

Ethan looked over.

“What?”

Liam nodded toward the windowsill.

“Saving a little of today for the next time you're convinced tomorrow will never come.”

Nobody spoke.

Outside, the rain continued.

Soft.
Steady.
Patient.

The thirsty earth drank.
The trees lifted their leaves.

Stillwater Gleam danced beneath a gray August sky.

And inside Bean & Birch, another pot of coffee began to brew.

Martha lifted her empty mug.

“Well, if we're saving miracles, somebody better save me some of that.”

Lucy laughed.

“Coffee isn't a miracle.”

Martha stared at her.

“Take that back.”

And the Rain Table erupted in laughter while, beyond the windows, Lone Pine quietly turned green again.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

This morning the coffee tastes especially good.

I am not entirely certain why.

Perhaps it is the cool, damp breeze coming through the open window. Perhaps it is because after so many hot and dusty August mornings, the air itself feels washed clean.

Or perhaps coffee simply tastes better when accompanied by rain.

The stereo plays softly, but this morning the musicians have acquired an unexpected percussion section.

Rain against the deck.
Rain against the windows.
Rain tapping upon the leaves of the towering oaks surrounding the wee cottage.

Beyond it all comes the indignant squawk of a blue jay, apparently determined that even a drought-ending rainstorm will not interfere with his morning commentary.

Somewhere farther away, a cardinal offers his gentler note.

Music.
Rain.
Birdsong.
And coffee.

Not a bad way for a day to begin.

For weeks now, this corner of the northwoods has lived beneath the word drought.

We have watched lawns fade, gardens struggle, rivers shrink and lakes retreat from their familiar shorelines. We have watched clouds gather hopefully only to pass overhead carrying their rain somewhere else.

After a while, drought becomes more than a meteorological condition.

It becomes a mood.

You begin expecting disappointment.

Perhaps that is why this morning's rain feels like more than water.

It feels like hope.

Of course, several hours of rain cannot undo an entire summer's thirst. Stillwater Gleam will not rise magically by noon. The rivers will need more. The trees will need more. The deep soil will need more.

But this morning, none of that diminishes the gift.

Because sometimes hope does not arrive as the solution.

Sometimes hope arrives simply as evidence that change is possible.

A drop.
Then another.
Then another.

Until suddenly the roof is singing.

Perhaps our lives have droughts too.

Times when inspiration seems absent. Times when kindness feels scarce. Times when the world appears determined to become harsher and noisier and more frightened. Times when something we have quietly hoped for seems no closer than it was yesterday.

We wait.
And wait.

Eventually we may stop looking toward the sky.

Then one morning--
rain.

Not necessarily enough to fix everything.

Just enough to remind us that nothing stays exactly as it is forever.

That may be one of hope's greatest gifts.

Hope does not require us to pretend the drought never happened. It asks only that we remain open to the possibility of rain.

Outside my window this morning, the leaves of the oaks tremble beneath the droplets. The garden looks refreshed. The world beyond the wee cottage is gray and wet and beautiful.

And somewhere beneath all of it, roots are drinking.

There is something comforting about that thought.

Much of what restores us happens quietly.

A conversation.
A friend's laughter.
A beautiful piece of music.
A bird singing from a rain-soaked branch.
A cool breeze through an open window.
A cup of coffee held between two hands.

Small things working their way down toward the roots.

The rain continues.

I think I will leave the window open and listen.

There will be time enough later for whatever this Saturday asks of me.

For now there is rain.

There is music.
There is coffee.
There is hope.

And perhaps that is plenty.

I reach for my mug and discover it is nearly empty.

Well.

Hope may sustain the soul.

But the coffee pot is considerably closer.

And so this rainy August day begins.

~Wylddane

“We may move the hands of the clock, but the sun keeps its own time.”
~Wylddane

The trouble began at Bean & Birch at precisely 8:07 on Thursday morning.

Or possibly 7:07.

That, Ethan would later argue, was the entire problem.

Outside, the August morning had finally brightened over Lone Pine. Sunlight slipped through the front windows of Bean & Birch and fell in long golden rectangles across the wooden floor. Inside, Maren was behind the counter steaming milk, Lucy was arranging blueberry scones beneath the glass dome, and the usual coffee gang had assembled around the big table near the window.

Ethan arrived carrying the expression of a man who had already found something wrong with civilization before breakfast.

"Daylight Saving Time," he announced.

Martha looked up from buttering a scone.

"What did it do now?"

"It made morning dark."

"Morning gets dark every year," Toby said.

"Not unnecessarily."

Ethan removed his jacket and sat down.

Maren arrived with his coffee.

"Careful," she said. "He's been thinking."

"Before coffee?" Lucy called from behind the counter. "That's dangerous."

"I had coffee at home."

"Then there is no excuse," Martha said.

Ethan took a sip.

"This morning I woke up, wandered toward the coffee pot, and realized how dark these late-August mornings have become. And once again I asked myself the obvious question."

Everyone waited.

"What exactly are we saving?"

Toby raised a finger.

"Daylight."

"No," Ethan said. "We're moving it."

"We're saving it for later."

"Where?"

Toby hesitated.

Ethan leaned forward.

"Is there a daylight warehouse somewhere?"

Sam looked thoughtful.

"Probably outside Eau Claire."

That was when Martha decided the matter required judicial intervention.

She picked up a teaspoon and struck her coffee mug three times.

"Order! The Bean & Birch Court of Temporal Affairs is now in session."

"Oh, Lord," Maren murmured.

Martha pointed the spoon at Ethan.

"You may proceed."

Ethan stood.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury—"

"We don't have a jury," Toby said.

"You are the jury."

"Then who's the defendant?"

"Daylight Saving Time."

Lucy leaned over the counter.

"Can we convict it?"

"We haven't heard the evidence," Sam said.

"I've heard enough."

Martha banged the mug again.

"Order!"

And so began The People of Lone Pine versus Daylight Saving Time.

Ethan presented Exhibit A: morning darkness.

Exhibit B: people stumbling toward coffee makers while their bodies remained convinced it was the middle of the night.

Exhibit C: the general absurdity of pretending human beings could alter the amount of daylight by changing numbers on clocks.

"We have electric lights," Ethan argued. "When evening becomes dark, I perform an astonishing technological maneuver."

He paused dramatically.

"I flip a switch."

Lucy applauded.

"Remarkable."

"And then?"

"The light comes on."

Maren shook her head.

"What will they think of next?"

Toby, appointed counsel for the defense because nobody else wanted the job, attempted an argument about summer barbecues, evening softball games, and sitting on patios until nine o'clock.

"Electric lights," Ethan said.

"Baseball fields have them," Sam added.

"Patios have them," Lucy said.

"My deck has them," Martha said.

Toby frowned.

"This courtroom is hostile."

"It is also caffeinated," said Martha. "Continue."

Ethan then introduced the biological evidence: human circadian rhythms respond strongly to natural light, particularly morning light. Standard Time more closely aligns clock time with the solar day. Bright mornings help tell the body that the day has begun; darker evenings help tell it that the day is ending.

Sam nodded.

"So basically the sun has been setting the clock correctly for several billion years."

"Approximately."

"And we decided we knew better?"

"Apparently."

Martha sighed.

"That sounds like us."

There was silence around the table.

Then Toby made one final plea for the defense.

"But don't you like those long summer evenings?"

Ethan considered this.

"Yes."

"Aha!"

"I also like chocolate cake. That doesn't mean I should reorganize the Earth's rotation around dessert."

Lucy laughed so hard she had to put down the coffee pot.

Martha struck the mug.

"The court is prepared to rule."

Everyone became solemn.

Even Maren stopped wiping the counter.

Martha cleared her throat.

"Having reviewed the evidence, consumed one blueberry scone, half of another, and approximately fourteen ounces of dark-roast coffee, this court finds Daylight Saving Time..."

She paused.

"...guilty of impersonating time."

The table erupted.

"Sentence?" Sam asked.

"Immediate deportation."

"Where?"

Martha considered this.

"Arizona."

There was another explosion of laughter.

Eventually the conversation wandered elsewhere, as conversations at Bean & Birch always did. Someone mentioned the weather. Someone else wondered whether the drought would finally break. Lucy brought another plate of scones. Maren changed the music.

And outside the windows, completely indifferent to clocks, legislation, congressional committees, summer recreation schedules, and the Bean & Birch Court of Temporal Affairs, the morning continued arriving.

The sun climbed higher.
A raven crossed the brightening sky.
Somewhere beyond Lone Pine, an oak released an acorn.
And time went quietly on.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Earlier this morning, before Bean & Birch existed anywhere except in imagination, I wandered through the wee cottage toward the coffee maker.

It was dark.

These late-August mornings are noticeably darker now, and because I am a morning person, I notice. I want morning light. I want that first pale illumination along the eastern horizon, the gradual revelation of trees, the transformation of black windows into windows again.

Instead, I switched on a lamp.

And while the coffee brewed, the first music of the morning began.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending.

There could hardly have been a better choice.

The violin rose gently through the darkened cottage, tentative at first and then soaring, as though somewhere beyond the windows the day itself were gathering courage.

Coffee poured.
Steam rose.
Music filled the room.

And I found myself thinking about time.

Not time in the great philosophical sense, but that peculiar human invention by which twice each year we march through our houses adjusting clocks and pretending we have somehow altered daylight.

We haven't.
We cannot save daylight.
We cannot manufacture morning.
We cannot store July sunshine in some celestial account and withdraw it during January.
We merely move numbers around.

There is something almost endearingly human about that.

We take the immense machinery of the universe—the turning Earth, its journey around the sun, the tilt of its axis, the changing seasons—and announce:

We have decided it should be an hour later.

The universe presumably continues without comment.

Perhaps that is what bothers me about Daylight Saving Time.

My clock may say one thing.
My body knows another.

The birds know.
The oak trees know.
The lark certainly knows.

There is an older clock inside us, one that existed long before watches, smartphones, railroad timetables, congressional legislation, or microwave ovens flashing 12:00 after a power failure.

It is wound by sunlight.

Morning light says: Wake.
Evening darkness says: Rest.

And perhaps there is wisdom in allowing ourselves to belong, whenever possible, to that older rhythm.

We modern humans are very good at fighting darkness.

We have lamps.
Streetlights.
Headlights.
Fireplaces.
Candles.

The warm pool of light from a desk lamp.

The golden windows of a restaurant on a winter evening.

The welcoming glow of home.

Darkness arriving earlier does not frighten me.

There is something wonderfully comforting about the wee cottage when evening settles around it—the woods disappearing beyond the windows while inside there is warmth, music, a book waiting to be read, and light enough for everything that needs doing.

But morning light is different.

Morning light is not merely illumination.

It is announcement.

The world is beginning again.

And now, as I finish these thoughts, the darkness that surrounded the cottage when I first poured my coffee has disappeared.

Outside my window, the towering oaks are softly illuminated by yellow-gold morning light.

The woods have emerged from shadow.

The day has found me.

Then--

TOCK.

An acorn hits the deck.

Apparently one of the oaks has decided that Vaughan Williams has had quite enough time on the program and percussion should now begin.

I smile.

Coffee beside me.

Morning light through the trees.

The last notes of The Lark Ascending somewhere in memory.

Perhaps the clocks can argue among themselves.

The sun knows what time it is.

And so, apparently, does the oak.

Tock.
​
And so starts this day.

~Wylddane

It was Wednesday morning in Lone Pine, and Bean & Birch was unusually subdued.

Not silent, mind you. Bean & Birch was never silent.

The espresso machine hissed like an irritated cat. Cups clattered against saucers. Someone near the window was trying to explain to someone else why the Packers were either going to have a magnificent season or a disastrous one, apparently with no possibility in between.

But underneath it all was music.

Dolly Parton.

Maren had chosen it that morning. Lucy hadn't asked why.

Nobody needed to.

By the time the coffee gang had assembled around their usual table, Dolly was singing “Jolene.”

Martha arrived last, carrying a blueberry scone large enough to require its own zip code.

“Well,” she announced as she settled into her chair, “if Jolene looked anything like Dolly described her, the rest of us never stood a chance.”

That got the first real laugh of the morning.

“I always liked ‘9 to 5,’” Erica said. “That song could make you want to overthrow capitalism and dance while doing it.”

“Which is pretty much what the movie did,” Tom added.

“Oh, that movie!” Martha cried.

And suddenly everyone was talking at once.

They remembered Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly plotting revenge against their horrible boss. They remembered the fantasies about what each woman would like to do to him. Martha began reenacting one scene with such enthusiasm that Lucy called from behind the counter:

“Martha, whatever you're doing, please remember this is a licensed food establishment.”

That brought another round of laughter.

Then the music changed.

The opening notes were softer now.

“I Will Always Love You.”

The table grew quiet.

“I think that's the thing about her,” Erica finally said. “She could be absolutely hilarious one minute and break your heart the next.”

“And she wrote it,” Liam said. “That's what people sometimes forget. She wasn't simply a singer. She was a remarkable songwriter.”

He took a sip of coffee.

“She understood people.”

Perhaps that was it.

Dolly understood people.

Not people as demographic groups. Not people as political constituencies. Not people as markets or audiences.

People.

The poor mountain child who needed a book.
The gay kid who needed to hear that somebody famous thought he was perfectly fine just as he was.
The working woman who was tired of being underestimated.
The person who needed laughter.
The person whose heart had just been broken.
The person who simply needed a song.

They talked about the Imagination Library and the millions of books placed into the hands of children. They talked about her support for medical research. They talked about her willingness, over the years, to stand beside LGBTQ+ people when others found it more convenient to stand somewhere else.

“She made kindness look easy,” Maren said, joining them with the coffee pot.

Liam shook his head.

“No. I don't think kindness is ever easy. I think she made it look natural.”

Maren smiled.

“That's better.”

Lucy came over carrying a plate of warm cinnamon rolls.

“And she was funny,” she said. “Never forget funny.”

“Oh, I've got one,” Martha said.

Everyone braced themselves.

She raised one finger dramatically.

“Dolly said, ‘I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb…’”

Several people around the table joined her for the ending:

“…and I also know that I'm not blonde.”

The table erupted.

“That,” Martha declared, “is wisdom.”

Another quote followed.

“Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”

Then another:

“I never tried quitting, and I never quit trying.”

For a while nobody said anything.

Outside the windows of Bean & Birch, Lone Pine was beginning another ordinary Wednesday. Cars passed along Main Street. Someone walked a dog. A raven flew over the rooftops. The clouds hung low over Stillwater Gleam.

Inside, coffee steamed in mugs.

Dolly sang.

And a group of friends sat together remembering someone none of them had actually known and yet, somehow, felt they had.

Perhaps that is one of the strange gifts of certain people.

They enter our lives without ever entering our rooms.

Their songs become attached to summers and heartbreaks and road trips and kitchens. Their words become things we repeat without remembering where we first heard them. Their laughter becomes familiar.

And then one day they are gone.

But not entirely.

Martha stared into her coffee.

“I saw something online this morning,” she said.

There was a dangerous twinkle in her eye.

“Oh, Lord,” Tom murmured.

“Someone said God took the wrong eighty-year-old.”

There was a moment of silence.

Martha shrugged.

“I don't know about that. I strongly suspect God wanted Dolly…”

She paused.

“…and has been screening the other fellow's calls.”

For half a second nobody moved.

Then Liam snorted.

Erica covered her mouth.

Tom nearly spilled his coffee.

Lucy laughed from behind the counter.

And Maren, trying unsuccessfully to look disapproving, simply shook her head.

“Martha.”

“What?”

Dolly kept singing.

And somehow, on a Wednesday morning in a little coffee shop in Lone Pine, laughter and sadness sat down together at the same table.

Which, come to think of it, was probably exactly the way Dolly Parton would have wanted it.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"The Glorious Pieces of Good"

It is still dark outside the wee cottage.

Rain fell sometime during the night. I can see its traces beyond the window, and perhaps when daylight comes the world will look freshly washed. It wasn't enough rain—not nearly enough for this thirsty Northwoods summer—but it was rain nonetheless.

This morning, I will accept the gift for what it was.

My coffee is beside me.

The cottage is quiet.

And Dolly Parton is singing “I Will Always Love You.”

This morning those familiar words sound different.

Yesterday, the world lost an extraordinary human being.

There are people whose deaths seem to leave an unexpectedly large empty space behind them. Not because we knew them personally. Not because our daily lives will materially change without them. But because their existence offered a kind of reassurance.

They were out there.

Somewhere.

Being decent.
Being generous.
Being funny.
Doing some good.

Dolly Parton seemed to be one of those people.

She possessed extraordinary talent, certainly. But talent alone doesn't explain why her passing feels different. The world has never lacked talented people.

What seems rarer are talented people who remember that talent can be used in the service of something larger than themselves.

Dolly gave children books.

She helped fund medical research.
She stood beside people whom others rejected.
She made people laugh.
She wrote songs for broken hearts.

And through it all she somehow retained that wonderfully mischievous ability to laugh at herself.

Perhaps that is why the words in the image before me seem especially appropriate this morning:

“I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.”
~Dolly Parton

Great, glorious pieces of good.

What a wonderful phrase.

And what an important thing to remember.

Especially now.

Because goodness rarely shouts.

It doesn't demand the microphone.
It doesn't pound its fist on the table.

Often it is simply a book placed into the hands of a child.

A friend welcomed instead of judged.
A neighbor helped.
A stranger treated gently.
A song that makes someone feel less alone.
A cup of coffee shared.
A flower noticed.

The smell of the earth after rain.

Perhaps making this world better was never meant to be one enormous heroic undertaking.

Perhaps we do it one glorious piece of good at a time.

Dolly did.

And maybe the finest tribute we can offer her isn't merely to play her music today—although I certainly intend to do that.

Maybe it is to notice the opportunities we are given to add our own small pieces of good to the world.

To be generous when stinginess would be easier.
To choose acceptance when others choose judgment.
To laugh.
To encourage.
To help.
To love.

And perhaps most importantly, to notice that despite everything that troubles us, goodness has not disappeared.

It is still here.

Outside my window there is rain clinging to leaves.

Somewhere beyond the darkness, morning is preparing itself.

There is coffee in my mug.
There is music filling the wee cottage.
There are people I love.
There is still beauty.
There is still kindness.
There are still, as Dolly reminded us, so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.

And this morning I am grateful that for eighty years, one of those glorious pieces of good was named Dolly Parton.

Her voice fills the cottage now.

I Will Always Love You.

My coffee mug needs refilling.

Morning is coming.
​
And so starts this day.

~Wylddane

The trouble began with Erica saying:

“Tom, there are wasps going into the house.”

Tom looked up from his coffee.

“They're not going into the house.”

“I just watched six of them go into the house.”

“They're probably just investigating.”

Erica stared at him.

“Investigating what?”

Tom considered this.

“Real estate?”

And that was how the Great Waspisization of Stillwater Gleam began.

It was late August, one of those bright Northwoods afternoons when the lake glittered deceptively peacefully beyond the windows and the world seemed incapable of harboring anything more sinister than an aggressive blue jay.

But above the large living-room window, yellow jackets had discovered a tiny failure in the caulking.

To a human being, it was a chink.

To a yellow jacket, it was apparently the entrance to a gated community.

Erica stood inside and watched the traffic.

One arrived.
Another departed.
Two more arrived.

“They've established an airport,” she said.

Tom came outside carrying a can of wasp spray.

“I'll take care of it.”

Erica remained inside.
This was not cowardice.
This was marriage.

There are moments in a long relationship when one recognizes that the most loving thing one can do for another human being is stand behind a closed door and allow him to discover something for himself.

Tom aimed.
He sprayed.

A great white stream struck the window, ran down the glass, and left behind an impressive oily smear.

The yellow jackets continued flying.

Tom sprayed again.

The window became dirtier.

The yellow jackets became angrier.

“Any luck?” Erica called through the screen.

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I've established dominance.”

At that precise moment Tom ducked violently as a yellow jacket flew past his ear.

Erica closed the screen door.

Over the next two days, Tom conducted what later became known as the Stillwater Gleam Campaign.

There were multiple assaults.
There was reconnaissance.
There was a ladder.
There were several cans of spray.

At one point Tom emerged wearing work gloves, a heavy jacket, safety glasses and a wide-brimmed fishing hat despite the afternoon temperature being somewhere in the eighties.

Erica studied him from the doorway.

“You look ridiculous.”

“I look protected.”

“You look like you're going ice fishing during a solar eclipse.”

Mabel, their neighbor Liam's border collie, who had been watching all this from the shade beneath the maple tree, raised her head.

She looked at Tom.
She looked at Erica.
Then she put her head back down.

Mabel had lived among humans long enough to understand that some situations could not be improved by participation.

Unfortunately, the yellow jackets had chosen their fortress well. The nest itself was hidden somewhere behind the siding, inaccessible through the narrow opening in the caulking.

Tom sprayed.
The yellow jackets flew.
Tom sprayed again.
The yellow jackets flew.

And the once sparkling lake-facing window developed such an extraordinary collection of streaks, spots and chemical residue that Erica finally announced:

“Well, congratulations.”

“For what?”

“You haven't killed the wasps, but you've killed the view.”

That afternoon she called an exterminator.

The exterminator arrived the following morning.

He stood beneath the window.
He watched.

One yellow jacket entered.
Another left.

He walked closer.
He examined the chink.

“Yep,” he said.

Tom folded his arms.
Erica waited.

The exterminator prepared his equipment, applied the proper treatment into the opening and explained what would happen over the next several hours.

The entire operation took approximately twelve minutes.

Tom looked at the ladder.

He looked at the collection of spray cans.
He looked at the exterminator.

Then he looked at the window, which now resembled the windshield of a truck that had driven nonstop from Duluth to Albuquerque during bug season.

“So that's it?” Tom asked.

“That's it.”

And then the exterminator used the word.

“Well,” he said cheerfully, gathering his equipment, “you've been waspisized.”

Erica's eyes widened.

“I'm sorry?”

“Waspisized.”

There was silence.

Erica turned toward Tom.

“Did you hear that?”

“I heard it.”

“Waspisized.”

“Yes.”

“That may be the greatest word I've ever heard.”

By evening the air around the window was quiet.

No yellow jackets arrived.
None departed.

Stillwater Gleam shimmered peacefully beyond the glass.

The house was theirs again.

Mostly.

Erica stood looking through the enormous streaked window.

“You know what this means.”

Tom sighed.

“I have to clean the window.”

“No.”

He looked at her.

“We survived.”


By Friday morning, the story had reached the Bean & Birch.

Naturally, Erica told it.

Maren had barely finished setting their coffees on the table when Erica announced:

“Our house was waspisized.”

Conversation stopped.

Martha lowered her mug.

Toby leaned forward.

Sam frowned.

“Your house was what?”

“Waspisized.”

Tom closed his eyes.

And Erica began.

In Erica's version there were thousands of yellow jackets.

“Hundreds,” Tom corrected.

“Thousands.”

“There were maybe twenty.”

“They darkened the sky.”

“They did not darken the sky.”

“There were moments,” Erica continued, ignoring him, “when survival itself was uncertain.”

“You were inside.”

“I was coordinating.”

“You were laughing.”

“Morale is important during wartime.”

By the time Erica reached the part about Tom's protective clothing, Martha was laughing so hard she had to put down her coffee.

“And then,” Erica said dramatically, “our exterminator arrived.”

“Our exterminator,” Tom muttered, “who apparently possessed knowledge unavailable to ordinary mortals.”

“Twelve minutes,” Erica said.

“Don't mention the twelve minutes.”

“Twelve.”

“Erica.”

“Minutes.”

Even Maren was laughing now.

“And then,” Erica continued, “he announced that our house had been waspisized.”

There was a reverent silence around the table.

Toby finally said:

“I don't know what that means.”

“Neither do I,” Erica replied. “But I intend to use it whenever possible.”

Martha nodded solemnly.

“I think we should all try to get waspisized at least once before winter.”

Tom lifted his coffee.

“May I remind everyone that I was the person actually fighting the wasps?”

Erica reached over and patted his hand.

“Yes, dear.”

Then she looked around the table.

“But I'm the storyteller.”

And somewhere beneath the table, Mabel gave a small contented sigh.

She, at least, knew the truth.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

We Are the Storytellers

This morning, sitting at my desk in the wee cottage in the woods, I find myself chuckling at Erica and Tom and the Great Waspisization of Stillwater Gleam.

Outside, it is 48 degrees.

Although darkness still lingers among the trees, there is enough light now to begin seeing the shapes of things—the garden, the trees, the quiet outlines of another August morning gathering itself beyond my window.

It promises to be a beautiful day.

A dry one, unfortunately.

We desperately need rain. The earth needs it. The rivers and lakes need it. The gardens and trees need it.

Yet little or none appears in the forecast, and there are some things, after all, that no amount of wishing can change.

My coffee is beside me.

Philip Glass's Metamorphosis Two moves quietly through the wee cottage, its repeating notes somehow both melancholy and hopeful, circling and returning, changing almost imperceptibly as they go.

Metamorphosis.

Perhaps that is an appropriate word for this morning.

Because maybe that is something storytelling does.

It transforms.

Carll Tucker writes:

“Right yourself by writing yourself. Reason yourself into gladness, gratitude, joy. Feel good about yourself by being good or, at least, better. You can’t change your facts but you can their appearance. You are the storyteller of your life. Invent your own happy ending.”

You are the storyteller of your life.

I like that.

We cannot always change the facts.

Sometimes there are yellow jackets in the wall.
Sometimes the window gets filthy.
Sometimes the rain doesn't come.
Sometimes life hands us things far more difficult than any of those.

But perhaps Tucker is reminding us that the facts themselves do not get the final word.

We do.

We decide whether the dirty window becomes merely another aggravation or evidence that we survived the Great Waspisization.

We decide whether the coolness of an August morning reminds us that summer is disappearing—or that autumn is quietly approaching.

We decide whether the absence of rain makes us forget the beauty of the morning that actually arrived.

And perhaps this is why I write.

To take the ordinary pieces of a life—a coffee mug, a cardinal, a flower, a friendship, a memory, a dirty window, a ridiculous word—and hold them for a moment in the light.

To look again.

To discover that perhaps what seemed ordinary wasn't ordinary at all.

Writing does not change what happened.

It changes how we see what happened.

And sometimes that is enough.

The coffee is still warm.
Philip Glass is still playing.

The darkness beyond my window continues its slow metamorphosis into morning.

Then, somewhere outside, rising above the music, comes the unmistakable fluting call of a cardinal.

I stop typing.
And listen.
There it is again.
Clear.
Beautiful.
Alive.

Perhaps the cardinal knows something about storytelling too.

It takes one small breath and sends a song into an enormous world.

Maybe that is all any of us can do.

Take what this day gives us—the beautiful, the ridiculous, the difficult, the tender—and make something of it.

A story.
A laugh.
A kindness.
A memory.
A little gratitude.
A little joy.

And maybe, if we're fortunate, a happy ending of our own invention.

I take another sip of coffee.

Outside, morning has arrived.

And somewhere in the trees, the cardinal sings again.

What a wonderfully lyrical way to begin a day.

And what a wonderful day it is to be alive.

~Wylddane