Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Archives for April 2016

literary saturday: late april reading

Books:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Status: AAAGGGHHHH!! I have this purchased on my iPad, so I use it to put myself to sleep during especially difficult bouts with insomnia. It’s that interesting. Sorry, I know this is purported to be a genius undertaking, and I can see how the tiny threads of different far-flung stories are or will eventually be somehow connected, but the inner dialogue is just so dense. Like, quite dense. And I generally enjoy inner dialogue! Laboriously crafted characters, too. And I groove complex people! Maybe I should try reading this in broad daylight, filled with energy, on actual paper with ink. Maybe that would help. For now, this is firmly on my “difficult reads” shelf. The marathon of book attempts.

Freedom by Johnathan Franzen. Status: Completed. This book was beautiful. Absolutely orchestral in its telling and weaving of generational patterns, love stories, and self actualization. I need to talk about it. Gen? Available?

freedom

Sweet Surfing:

Ever since spending that luscious week with Jocelyn in Colorado, watching her transform her adorable cabin kitchen, I have had small spaces on my brain. Hers is so pretty, so perfect for a single young woman finding herself and exploring her world. I read Joy the Baker’s memories on her many tiny kitchen spaces and loved every conjured image. All the Kitchens We’ve Lived In.

joc kitchen

Do you ever read Live Your Legend? Oh man. It’s worth keeping on your list of  weekly haunts. Go back far enough and read forward and you will have quite a feast for mind and soul. Recently the website posted “10 Ways to Do Your Own Impossible Daily“ and I adore it. “Beliefs are not facts.”

Dee over at Red Dirt Ramblings adds new material often, which is wonderful for her readers! This article is several weeks old, but it bears mentioning again this weekend because now most of us are getting serious about summer garden planning. “Beautiful Foliage Carries the Summer Garden” is perfect for anyone in Oklahoma who craves consistent lushness despite the heat and wind and humidity and bugs and, well, Oklahoma-ness. Thank you Dee!

Dorothy Beal writes Miles Post, a running blog that reaches deep into my happy guts. The author writes directly, without pulling punches, about topics ranging from body image to food, family, and travel. In “An Uncomplicated Guide to Running and Life“ she just nails it. Easy peasy.

With few exceptions, Handsome and I greatly prefer eating at home. This piece by Fit-Fluential gives us lots of reasons to feel even better about that habit. We have yet to jump on the fresh-ingredient-delivery bandwagon, as this article suggests, but some of our friends swear by it. Also? This piece says wear your apron. Amen.

Did you know I sell handmade apron sets? Drop me a line. I would love to set you up with something cute. xoxo
Did you know I sell handmade apron sets? Drop me a line. I would love to set you up with something cute. xoxo

Okay my next link is not for reading; it’s a TED talk. I hope you’ll give it a listen. Handsome and I heard it together while driving somewhere west, and we agreed it is lovely. “The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers“ by Adam Grant actually does have some surprising research to offer. My favorite line has to be, “Doubt the default.” Yes!! Yes, please. Friends, every time you sense a default setting in your life, care enough about yourself (about everyone around you) to re-examine it. Make sure periodically that the habits you have established continue to serve you and the people you love.

I would be so happy to get a glimpse of what you’re reading, too.

Now… I am off to do some average farm stuff then prepare for our pup’s first birthday party. Watch for photos! Then a girls’-night-out. Then some romance with Handsome. Very excited for every bit of that!

Happy Weekend to you!

Doubt the Default
XOXOXOXO

 

marathon monday: gratitude trumps regret

Friends, to those of you who ran any of the amazing events yesterday at our City’s beloved Memorial Marathon, congratulations!! I hope you had the most wonderful time! I hope you were safe and felt happy, energized, and appreciated. Weather conditions Sunday morning were challenging, with high humidity and strong winds, but that just makes your accomplishment so much sweeter, right? Close to twenty people I know or sort of know were among the almost twenty-five thousand runners. Wow! Watching your updates made me super happy. This is, after all, much more than any road race; this is an act of remembrance and a declaraion that love overcomes hate. That communities can heal.

This chainlink fence stands all year long and is constantly adorned with flowers, wreaths, letters, and stuffed animals to remember those lost in the 1995 Murrah Building bombing. Runners in the different Memorial Marathon races also pin their paper race bibs here.

I am disappointed to not have participated this year. No doubt. My enthusiasm was so high going into training, and I had been learning so much about myself (mind and body) this past year, that I really believed this April would be a big deal. I harbored pretty fantastic ideas about how things might go down, around Lake Hefner and along Classen especially. But that ankle injury changed everything. Thankfully it is pretty well healed now, just not in time to build up the stamina needed for long distance. And that’s all I want to do, really.

 denial run

I was tthhiiiisss close to registering anyway, last minute, without even warning my husband. It was Friday night and I was clicking on links left and right looking for options. Maybe the half?

But then I scrolled through the hundreds of photos on my phone. Having spent the previous week with Jocelyn in Colorado, I was overcome with gratitude and in many ways still felt like I was there with her. We had such an amazing eight days together! I visited her fit and healthy enough to really enjoy exploring her version of paradise. Hiking up snowy mountains with this beautiful young woman is a pleasure I could never have predicted. It is beyond a dream come true. So… deep gratitude for health and love and life in general quickly overwhelmed that nagging race regret.

My ankle and stamina were not lacking; they were exactly where they needed to be.

joc me hike

I halted all plans and mind games about desperate registration and actively gave thanks for the time spent with her, for being healed and strong enough to really enjoy Colorado with her a second time and makes some irreplaceable memories.

false peak

Isn’t life amazing? How wonderful that gratitude is so consistently powerful, too.

Once again, friends, my warmest hugs and congratulations if you ran any of those events on Sunday!! It’s quite a feat. Also congratulations if you trained for something and had to bow out for any reason. I now understand how frustrating that is. Take care of yourself and look to the future with me, okay?

More importantly, let’s look at the present moment and count our abundant blessings hard. Let’s invite gratitude to fully overwhelm all our stabbing little regrets. It feels so nice.

 

 

It’s As It Should Be.
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

the legend of how the iris survived a famine in japan

Have you heard the legend of how the elegant iris survived a famine in Japan?

I am going to paraphrase it for you without bothering to fact check, because the best legends possess more magic than facts, anyway. xoxo

Once upon a time in feudal Japan, either a century or five or nine ago, the people were starving. The land was stricken hard by famine. So little was growing, and yet the population was exploding so greatly, that the government made a decree: In order to maximize their limited farmland it was ordered that only edible plants could be cultivated. The island nation could afford to waste no fertile soil on ornamentals like flowers.

But the Japanese people loved their flowers, their irises especially. Irises were heritage plants, like they are for us now: Legacies handed down from one generation to the next with great care. Beautiful, fragrant, voluptuous tissue blooms growing year after year in the toughest conditions. The villagers could look at their irises and glimpse decades and centuries of familial connection, a vital life force in their culture. To many villagers, growing irises seemed as important as growing food.

So they found a way.

The people gently unearthed their coveted rhizomes from garden spaces that would then be dedicated to growing food exclusively. They secreted the woody treasures up to the thatched roofs of their homes. In little pockets of earth out of view of the soldiers and farm overseers, they maintained their iris legacies.

Food grew below, in the open, and the famine eventually passed. The land healed. And irises grew above, in secret, and their legacies remained in tact. The people healed.

irises april 2016

As I sit here typing this story a very old cut-glass vase faces me, filled with yellow and white iris blooms. I brought them inside yesterday, and they have been perfuming the downstairs ever since. Like most people, I grow irises that were gifts. Some are from my Mom who got them three decades ago from my Dad’s grandmother, whose parents brought them over from Germany. Some are from my wonderful gardening friend Kevin. A few are wild transplants, but not many. All of them are gorgeous and strong. Resilient. Colorful in different ways but all heady with that unmistakable scent.

Plants come and go in our lives and in our culture for a variety of reasons. Lots of people are quick to dismiss a loss or even to claim “brown thumb” when growing conditions are tough, as they frequently are here in my home state. Okay, gardening isn’t for everyone. But beauty takes many shapes and can come and go in our lives for a variety of reasons. The next time you are faced with losing something beautiful and precious that perhaps you could salvage, take heart. Consider the faith and determination of the Japanese people when they were faced with losing something dear to them. The evaluated their resources, re-purposed everything, and found a way. They made a way. They valued beauty as much as sustenance and then quietly, without fanfare or violence or a noisy protest, fulfilled the desires of their own hearts. And it was plenty enough.

This story speaks to me on many other levels too. If you were here drinking coffee with me we could talk it over for a few hours! But we both have stuff to do, right? I’ll leave you to it and get on my way as well.

Seek beauty, friends. It is a meaningful gift. Live with beauty. Aim for legacy. Seek it. Value it. Make room for all of it in your life, even if you have to secret things away to your thatched roof for a season. It can heal you.

Happy springtime wishes from Oklahoma
XOXOXO