yins and yangs

JuliaWith the cold snap last week, I was out morning and evening attempting to salvage my vegetable foolishness with a few buckets upside down on basil plants and an old thick flannel sheet.  After a few days, three little tomato plants began to flag.  Two of the three basil plants limped along.  Leaving me feel like a bad (and crazy) mother.  The lettuce, parsley and arugula were none the worse for wear.  Last night, with the promise of the high 30’s I didn’t cover anything.

Ah, the work we make for ourselves.  What is the work I am making that I don’t see?

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mistake

imagesRainy, damp, more March than April and my internet connection is very weak.    My desk is cluttered with unfiled detritus.  I’ve noticed that my couch, the uber comfortable nest of family life, is looking rather shabby.  Bought for another house with a bigger living room, it has always been a bit of an elephant in this living room.  Something to be slightly squeezed around especially when the clothes basket goes downstairs or a big box is delivered.  For a millisecond I wonder if the money that I just spent on airline tickets “should” have gone into some household item—Ach, the driveway!—but the cloud passes very, very quickly.

I bought airline tickets for Italy.

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sleep

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The night began so well.  I was exhausted, just wanting to get to bed and sleep.  The day was busy enough, physical needs up to date enough to climb into bed right after tucking Julia in.  I tuned into the next Doc Martin episode — my current favorite television — knowing that I’d be asleep almost before the credits were finished.  I would, a little later, close the laptop, thereby dousing light and turning off media.  Yes, I know, I’ve promised myself to keep media out of the bedroom but I was too tired to even open the book on the bed stand and I’d be asleep very soon anyway.

I was looking forward to a solid eight hours, possibly nine if the stars were in alignment and the prospect of getting back to even keel — I have fallen off ‘keel’ lately, working on just one more egg, indulging in electronics and google searches way too late, even when kept out of the bedroom, and walking around bleary on next days.

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ci vediamo dopo

IMG_3447One blog post and two days later, I have moved past “beginning to plan” and have three pages of references for an Italian adventure.  No, I haven’t booked flights yet.  It’s not time to book flights.  I am, however, in dreamy travel mode.  A heady time when everything is possible, every piece of art can be admired, every church walked through with hushed tones, every meal delicious. It is fun to indulge fully.  I haven’t found the dinosaur possibilities yet.  I will take travel books out of the library.  I take out a stack.  Later, I will buy one or two to carry, but first, I will abandon myself to the stack. Continue reading →

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journeying

DSCN1887I know I’ve announced this before, at other noticeable stopping points, but once again—ta-da!—I am coming more into myself.

The self that I am coming into?

I am chatting up more wait staff and baristas— this morning at the Target Starbucks, I noticed that Oprah has a chai but not a coffee and we, the barista and I, bantered.

I notice that I am grumpy.  It’s not the grumpy part that is notable but the noticing.

I am feeling oppressed about falling behind, way behind, responding to email and I actually realized that all I have to do is to answer a bunch of emails to feel better.

A code appeared just today on the dashboard of my car and I noticed it and called the folks who service the car.  I remembered that it was not there yesterday and I acted in a timely manner.

I want to buy show tickets for next fall and see touring musicals.

There is also the travel thing.  In the last few years, I have insisted that I wanted to travel far and yet have not done it.  Yes, we did travel to Mexico last summer but I corralled Cheshire and another young friend to go with Julia and I. Cheshire is fluent in Spanish and so was an excellent buffer between me and any semblance of un-touristy Mexico.  We went to a rather touristy part of Mexico.  It was a beach vacation, not the exploration vacations that I most enjoy.  And so, Mexico almost doesn’t count as traveling far.

And now, today, and for this whole week, I’ve begun planning a trip to Italy. Continue reading →

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process

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The warmth of the beginning of the week wanes into a more gradual spring-coming that demands a coat and suggests gloves without insisting.  Julia groans and inwardly I mirror her reaction.  We want spring.  During the weekend and again on Monday, I raked garden beds. I usually make myself rake the lawn in front of each bed and so I tend to drag my feet with the raking.  Not so this year.  I’m doing the beds, all the beds, first and then attend to the grass.  My reward, as if gardening needs any, was the first sighting of a clump of snow drops.  Not quite in bloom yet.  Tomorrow.  And Julia will be happy to see them.  We are aching for this spring; however, it is March and not really yet spring in Wisconsin.

In my neighbor’s side yard the daffodils are emerging.  They are some of the first daffs of the neighborhood.  The side yard is a microclimate — a small place that tends, because of protection or exposure to be slightly out of step with the land around it.  I wish for microclimates but I don’t really have any.  Still, I enjoy the early daffs and few tulips.  My plantings will come up eventually and it is so nice to see color even if it is not mine.

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self-indulgence

The-LightkeeperI cannot sleep.  Well, I slept for about an hour and a half and then lolled in bed for a similar amount of time, hoping to slip back into dreams.  I did not do enough yesterday and I am not sufficiently tired.

I did not do enough because I had a minor “procedure” on Tuesday — big toe nail removal — and although I am in no pain, I was cautioned to keep the foot elevated for the next few days.  And instead of elevating and reading or writing or figuring out the two web pages I want to put up, I indulged in television. Most unfortunately, the third season of Last Tango in Halifax which just finished airing in England is on YouTube.

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IMG_2616“Sometimes in my own practice I use the image of holding something very fragile, very precious, as if I had something made of glass in my hand. If I were to grab it too tightly, it would shatter and break, but if I were to get lazy or negligent, my hand would open and the fragile object would fall and break. So I just cradle it, I’m in touch with it, I cherish it. That’ s the way we can be with each breath. We don’t want to grab it too tightly or be too loose; too energized or too relaxed. We meet and cherish this moment, this breath, one breath at a time.”

#RealHappiness: The Power of Meditation

~Sharon Salzberg

For me the fear floods in when it is the past the I regret I and the future that I dread.  Paths not taken, leads not followed, hands rejected, potentials unfulfilled.  Futures unknown and unknowable, filled with loneliness, poverty of the spirit and mind, an inability to build anything new or permanent.  Stagnant and still.

My learning is to hold today as the delicate, ephemeral bloom it is, touch its beauty and richness now, and cherish it as it is.  However bruised and imperfect.  Not for what it was or will be.  Observing the now, living the now, fully present in the now.

My resolve is to do this for only this breath.  Now.

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a blue sponge

imagesI was going to write this very nice piece about mindful activity.  An practice that is only beginning to take root in my daily doings, but there is the kinda’ magical thing that is going on that I need to jot down about a blue sponge.

Back in the long ago, David and I were always on the look out for the perfect dish sponge.  David really loved washing dishes — very zen experience for him.  I didn’t like washing dishes but I do have this thing for good tools.  This was not a passionate search but a recurring, alway-short discussion surfacing whenever it came time to replace the tool we used to wash our dishes.  Over the years we tried many things. We rejected the wash clothes of my youth and the sponge on a hollow plastic stick that David’s Dad advocated.  Yes, the pleasure of washing dishes was, in this case, multigenerational.  We used plain manufactured sponges and the more natural ones.  I’ve never been clear on how sponges are made or their history.  We used scrubbies of different varieties and many sponge plus scrubbies.  Size and shape were always wrong, never comfortable in the hand—we cut some in half searching for perfection but that left us with something too small.  The sponge plus scrubby models were never pliable enough to get into the corners and crevices of cups and pots.  Forcing the issue would result in the untimely separation of the sponge from the scrubby.

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power & control

Sunday snow.  6-9 inches.   Why does it always look like more in my driveway?  Who measures and where do they do it?  I used the new-to-me snow blower twice for this snow.  It works well.  Much too loud.  It is almost three times as large as my old snow blower.  When we got the old one-the last gift that my mother gave me which is somewhat ironic-I chose a blower that I knew I could handle by myself.  David had already gotten his heart condition diagnosis and I was going to be responsible for snow removal in perpetuity.  I could lift the small blower and put it in the trunk of my car when it needed a tune up.  True it couldn’t handle any really deep snow but that was a trade off—going out to blow snow every few hours during heavy snows.

The new-to-me blower takes on more snow and cuts a wider swath than the old one but it is too heavy and too big for me.  Two months ago when I was shopping for something new, the very personable sales guy worked hard convincing me that this was the size that I should buy.  He was probably right in terms of efficiency of operation and cost effectiveness but I can’t move it around easily and after using it twice I have painful shoulders.  Today, I have really painful shoulders.  I guess I will either toughen up or, and much more likely, look for something smaller at the end of the winter.

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