Linking up today with the very sweet and clever Mama Kat… enjoying the prompt to write a blog post in just twelve lines.
Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo
Linking up today with the very sweet and clever Mama Kat… enjoying the prompt to write a blog post in just twelve lines.
This morning I was sitting in one of my red wicker lawn chairs, near the herb bed, drinking my last cup of coffee and making messy but intricate lists of things I want to do in all of the gardens. So many ideas, from lots more edibles to dedicated “wedding” flower beds, plots for animal foraging, and much more. The skies were moody and quiet, the clouds low, the animals in a muted kind of suspense. Then as I sat there enjoying the kaleidoscope visions in my head, a seductive little rainstorm washed over the farm. From the low northwest corner uphill to southeast, right on top of me and my myriad lists. It soaked my trusty spiral notebook. It washed the dirt off of my bare feet. It brought me gently back to reality.
Obviously this necessitates a Senses Inventory.
See: Black ink smudged on my lined paper. Raindrops splashing with abandon into my coffee cup. (I have mixed feelings about this.) Badly painted toenails. Bright yellow and orange marigolds, green pole bean vines, and red cannas in the herb bed. Wonderfully voluptuous mounds of basil and sage. Piles of withering weeds outside the herb bed, pulled this morning. An empty tuna can licked clean by Fast Woman. A purple haze of feathery prairie grass in the middle field. Low clouds in every shade of navy blue and charcoal. Seraphine looking at me with those arrogant but beautiful llama eyes, as if the rain was my idea.
Hear: I heard the rain before I felt it; it was hitting the metal loafing shed downhill in a syncopated, excited rhythm several seconds before I felt the first cold drop. I still hear that chorus, as well as the birdsong of cardinals and crows and our neighbor’s turkey gobbling and our own roosters crowing.
Touch: Zero breeze again. The morning feels like New Orleans in so many lovely ways. I feel cool rain tapping my shoulder and running down the back of my neck and the fronts of my shins; the fringe of my cutoff denim shorts tickling my legs; and the squeak of the painted wicker on the stool beneath my bare feet. The air feels brackish… Warm overall with pockets of cool. My notebook gets heavier and heavier on my lap as it soaks up the rain.
Taste: I sill taste minty toothpaste kisses collected from Handsome before he left for the office, and of course perfect sweet, creamy coffee. Also a New Orleans memory.
Smell: Most fragrances this morning are green, green, green… the grass, the trees, the gardens, especially the herbs. My hands smell like oregano and lemon-thyme from grooming the plants a few minutes ago. I love this smell… But so near the pool I also smell a nice bleachiness. And so near the animal fields I also smell a nice manureness.
Think: My mind’s eye sees the gardens overflowing with so much delicious, healthy food that I can’t share it or sell it fast enough. I’m thinking about the reflective properties of the Universe, that the more freely you give the more you will have for giving. I’m also thinking of some fun construction projects Handsome and I are planning for the pool area, things that will make gathering our loved ones even more awesome. I’m thinking of my girls, grown, coming home for the weekend with friends, boyfriends, husbands, grandchildren. Just coming home.
Feel: Happy. So, so happy and truly relieved from some recent heartsick worries. Feeling deeply refreshed and powerful. Wide eyed and aware of how good life is. Thankful for how real miracles are.
Tiny Mr. T celebrating the Fourth of July at an Oklahoma car show. |
I hope you had a wonderful holiday yesterday! We sure did. It was by comparison a quiet Fourth for Handsome and me, but a very happy one. We have needed and enjoyed easy holidays lately.
Redeem you time today, friends! Redeem your liberty, in every way that it presents itself. Soak up the detailed beauty all around you.
“I am chained to the earth to pay
for the freedom of my eyes.”
~Anotonio Porchia
xoxoxoxo
I sat down this evening with the intention to write about the recent influx of pests in my garden. The past three or four days I have paid my potagerie very little attention, and now I’m paying the price. So I snapped a million photos of the insects that are thrashing my little speck of Eden and planned to share them and my attendant complaints about what each of them are doing to my personal happiness.
Maybe, I thought, I can share some worthwhile information about organic pest control. That’s the sugarcoating, my flimsy excuse to vent. Here’s the ugly truth: Maybe, I thought, I can scratch this itch of rage by whining and moaning for a while, in gushing abandon all over my innocent keyboard. If I tell everyone how pissed I am (about this and other things) then surely I’ll be happy again.
Just scripting in my head what to say about bugs and loss and organic methods felt incredibly negative and, ironically, poisonous. The more I walked around outside, dwelling on the problems crawling at my shins, the less I could see the beauty around me. I saw only grasshoppers and forgot to celebrate yellow squash, straight, bright, and perfect. I saw only an herb bed full of grass and failed to notice until a while later that Dulcinea was running down to the pond, back uphill, and down again, splashing in the mud just for the fun of it. I failed to notice how many flowers have made colorful progress this week, despite my inattention.
I cursed the mud on my bare feet instead of relishing the moisture.
Then I came inside, made a desperate cup of coffee for dinner instead of food (Handsome and I are not sharing meals today), and started downloading the garden photos. My mean spirit was ready to spew a bunch of complaints and possibly even some vulgarity to the internet, thinking foolishly that getting it all off my chest will make me feel better. Not even caring what it would do to you. Or my husband.
In those simmering, ugly moments I happened on this photo that I barely remember taking. The wild orange day lilies that flank my vegetable garden entrance are blooming heavily right now, and at this time of day when the sun hangs serenely over the pond, the most glorious light is cast over this scene.
The combination of a decades-old rusted bike with trumpet vine and day lilies makes me feels so at home. |
This is probably the only beautiful photo I took tonight. And seeing it took me completely by surprise. So I started meditating on a good bit of poetry or strong quote to pair with it.
Do you know what I found, almost immediately?
Exactly what our book club has been studying lately, and what I have been gleaning from other good sources too, in so many ways. The message is that combating my negative energy with more negative energy is futile. I have zero hope of vanquishing sadness and anger with complaints and cursing. That behavior will only make everything worse, for me and my loved ones. For Handsome. And dwelling on the weird things I fear is more likely to bring them to fruition rather than “prepare me for the worst,” as my brittle ego declares it will.
Obviously, tonight I am upset about far more important things than just garden insects. My heart has been dry and heavy. I was consumed with worry and shame, emptiness and just good old fashioned sadness. And I have felt weak, selfish, angry, sorry, rejected, indignant, and powerless to combat it this time. Tempted to shut everything down externally and just quit trying to be positive. Quit trying to matter and be so annoyingly buoyant. It’s exhausting. And lonely.
So the insects are kind of catching my wrath right now. Deservedly, I guess, because as small as they are they have the power to destroy my Eden. If I allow them to.
I have a grip now. I remember that light is constantly available, and it is our strength.
Light is in abundance, too. It’s not a limited commodity. Darkness is powerless against it, so let it in whenever you have a choice. Which is every moment of your life.
Thanks for listening, I hope I didn’t inject a bunch of sadness into your world.
And if you happen to have any organic gardening tips, send ’em my way! Find this blog on Facebook and post, post, post those ideas. I have a murderous week ahead of me.
To my husband, if you read, this, I love you. To my children, if you read this, I love you.
To my book club girls, thank you.
xoxoxoxo
When your husband mows and grooms the back field path where you run, and he asks about your weekly schedule to help you find more time for running, and maybe he even comments on how you need new running shoes… is he calling you fat? Maybe. It certainly feels that way for a minute. Or, as Handsome recently said (rather defensively), he just knows that you’re in a much better mood when you run regularly.
He’s absolutely right.
Anyway.
The point is not just to do some slimming; it’s to stretch some boundaries. Experience those feelings of accomplishment and transformation.
The slimming will happen naturally because with that much consistent activity and challenge, your body will crave better food and more water. and you’ll be shocked at what changes happen in two weeks.
“Lack of activity destroys the good condition
of every human being,
while movement and methodical physical exercise
save it and preserve it.”
~Plato
xoxoxoxo
Early this morning, while my full household is still in a deep sleep, I tiptoe outside with my first big cup of perfect coffee and notice a million wonderful things.
Beach towels, socks, and tee shirts hang around the south lawn like gypsy caravan curtains. Wild birds chirp a lilting, effervescent soundtrack against the breeze combing through the oak trees. Romulus (our daddy llama) strolls through the shallow edge of the pond, splashing just a little. The sun begins to pour his molten blessings over the day, over every building, every tree, every fence post, every flower. Every thought and emotion.
The same light breeze that combed through the oak trees now ruffles my un-brushed hair and delivers a slender blue dragonfly to my shinbone. I secretly hope that the sugar and cream in my coffee will attract more visitors, like maybe the hummingbird from yesterday, so I sit very still for a long time.
The red wicker chair and footstool are for the moment the most comfortable seat in the world. The carrot ferns and potato plants are incredibly fluffy this morning. And behind me the squash vines have never been more lush. My gaze shifts forward, past the lower edge of my vegetable garden and toward the pond. The pond is so glassy and content looking this summer.
Suddenly but gently the thought occurs to me that without the recent years of drought I could not so fully appreciate the simple beauty of this overflowing pond. This small body of water would be common and unnoticeable to me instead of miraculous.
Then the thoughts follows that without so many violent winds in recent months I might be less compelled to sit still on a Sunday morning and enjoy the stillness and drink in all of this mild and otherwise common beauty.
And how can I ignore this next thought? That without the pain and echo of an empty nest, I might view two weeks of house guests as just extra work and thereby deny Handsome and myself the experience of so much wonderful pleasure and love.
My arms and legs are heating up now in the sun, and my coffee cup is nearly empty. Roosters are finally crowing on both sides of me… ours to the east and north and a neighbor’s to the west. A smaller dragonfly now hoovers near the yellow coreopsis at my elbow. It’s definitely time now to rouse my temporary family and get them ready for church.
But I feel like I have already had church here by myself.
What abundance do you have in your life at this moment that you are able to more fully appreciate because of a loss or a previous difficulty? How many prayers have been answered in ways that buoy your hope for more?
xoxoxo