Lazy W Marie

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

beautiful start to august 2020

Hello, happy August! Our monthly threshold was made rich and beautiful from heavy doses of quality time, both with a few special loved ones and with each other. For these well spent hours I am deeply grateful.

Now we are charging our batteries for a very back to business work week. I suspect this first slice of solid routine, sans the visitors and staycation partying which pretty much defined the fun, gorgeous month of July, will be much easier than it could be, for two good reasons: 1.) We now have very fancy and futuristic high speed internet (wahoo!) and 2.) our weather is supposed to be especially mild. We’re talking crazy low humidity and daily temps from 65 to 89 degrees. This is almost unheard of for early August in Oklahoma!

And the gardens are at that luxurious stage when I just walk past and they pour out basketsful of zuchinni, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and flowers. It is a non stop harvest lately, with watermelon coming soon. I plan to spend plenty of time in these upcoming mild days “working” outside. Heavy on the air quotes there, it is so much fun.

My gardening jobs this coming week will include: Weeding, pruning, feeding and watering literally everything, all the raised beds and blackberries especially. Excavating and rethinking the east facing flower bed. Mowing and edging the people-ish areas of the lawns. Scraping and scooping manure in the middle field and collecting chicken litter to add to the compost heaps, also flipping the compost heaps. Trading out the honeybee boxes and doing a hive inspection. Sweet talk the horses into having their hooves trimmed. Sweet talk the chickens into laying more eggs. Sweet talk Little Lady Marigold into, well, loving me.

This is a fun but ambitious list, and I very much want it finished before next weekend. Good thing I have nowhere to go!

midsummer harvest in my Eden

Are you gardening this summer? I want to hear everything! Tell me what you’re growing. What surprised you. What disappointed you. What inspired you. Tell me what is coming next in your garden.

And please share how you are approaching this fresh new week! Tomorrow is a full moon, by the way. An excellent time to release anything not serving you well. Burn regrets. Halt waste. Feel the fulness of your belssings, health, and happiness.

“He who keeps a garden
still his Eden keeps.”
XOXOXOXO

a restful, healing week

“It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.” -Rebecca West

This past week was the first time in many years, outside of a few occassions of convalescence, that we have enjoyed so much quiet, uninterrupted time with Jessica. (Although my husband might passionately argue that very much of our time was quiet, ha!)

It was luscious in every way. She and Bean went home today, and the farm is so quiet. We already miss them very much.

Image may contain: Jessica Hartley

Of our many exceptionally deep and fascinating conversations, one that has been echoing in my heart was about how humans are designed to crave beauty, how it is a natural appetite and a healthy inclination. We measured it against passion-gifts, too, like art and science, cooking and gardening and nesting, against caring for ourselves as women, and travel and the craving to explore this big world, and much more. We agreed that a hunger for beauty and a drive to pursue our unique passions can lead us down the best paths, if we watch our motivations.

My daily devotional entry from July 20th says, “Seek my face and you will find all that you have longed for. The deepest yearnings of your heart are for intimacy with me. Do not be afraid to be different from other people. The path I have called you to travel is exquisitely right for you.” (Jesus Calling)

This past week I was able to see the farm, and our home, through Jessica’s eyes a bit more deeply. A bare bones routine became soothing, not boring. I watched her slowly unwind and shed a landslide of stress from her body and spirit. She soaked up every day, morning till night, and every meal and activity we laid hold of, with a joyful kind of mindfulness that really inspired me. She allowed beauty and pleasure to overtake her, and more than ever she reflected and magnified all kinds of beauty, just by being herself, natural and free and untethered for a while. It was like watching overstressed plant rehydrate, turn emerald green, and bloom before your eyes.

Her health and happiness, and Jocelyn’s, is everything to us. This well timed investment of time and rest was so wise on Jess’ part, and I know that she was engaged enough in the retreat process to retain the feelings, to translate the efforts to her daily life and normal routine, in ways that only she can do.

I would like to chat more extensively about the pursuit of beauty in life, in the world at large. About how the deepest purpose in our various callings, is maybe to reflect Love? Soon, I hope. I am sleepy now and can feel my thoughts unraveling a bit. Thank you, friends, for the love you send our girls.

XOXOXOXO

in a continuum, where does the story begin?

“The good news is that the heat seems to be exhausting our five million grasshoppers. Wait, let me back up…”

I was around nine years old, barefoot and in the middle branches of Mom’s mulberry tree, right there on the west edge of the house against our neighbors’ driveway. My hands were stained black with the wonderful inky juice, my skin brown from summertime and my hair probably tangled in the back. I was worried that something deep and important was wrong with me because I could never figure out the correct beginning of any story. I was fundamentally flawed, though I didn’t know the word fundamental yet.

I marveled at how people could just dive in and tell any story fluidly, discerning with confidence how to begin the tale and what details to include. To me, to my nonstop thoughts and conveyor belt lines of questioning, every beginning was really just the middle or end of something else, everything was very literally connected. Nothing, not even in fiction books, had a believable and well formed boundary.

It’s why I still have trouble telling stories. I never know where to start. What history can be excluded, can just be trimmed away as if it didn’t happen, as if it doesn’t matter any more.

What details matter not just to me, but also to the listener or reader? What details would be missed, if I attempted some economy? What precious context supplies the understanding that makes all the difference?

Nothing happens in a vacuum, and no man is an island. We all affect each other, and we are all affected by each other. That’s not a flaw; it’s part of our wonderful design.

As for how you tell me stories, tell me everything. Leave nothing out. I want to hear it all, even if it barely seems relevant. I want to understand the background stories, the moods and flavors, the weird implications, the spider webs of complicated stories that led up this exact moment.

The grasshoppers are numerous, but they are slowing under the weight of Oklahoma summertime. And the tomatoes are thriving. Tonight we ate a pretty delicious galette made with a few of those tomatoes plus fresh garden basil and a parmesean-cornmeal crust.

And we sat with and loved on our friends whose story is changing. Not suddenly, and not in a vacuum. I do not grasp where it begins, really, and maybe they don’t either. Tonight, though, we have this part of it, of this one part of a big and complicated story that is far from over. This moment in a continuum, this chance to do the next right thing.

I very much wish that someone would have told me, at nine, barefoot in that mulberry tree, that it’s ok to not know where a story begins. No one knows. We just get to dive in right where we are and pour ourselves out lavishly.

“You never know how hard it will be.
You never know when it will end.
You can’t control it.
You can only adjust. And, he added,
No one gets through it on their own.“
~Angel, Born to Run, Christopher McDougall

come what may

Today is our nineteenth wedding anniversary!!

This snapshot was taken in the French Quarter at a very cool little artists’ walk we both love. He was refusing to let me smooch him like I wanted to. Then he grabbed me and held me up in the air. xoxo

When I reflect on the last nineteen years, my heart feels overwhelming gratitude that so much of our marriage has burned brightly with real and true passion, with romance that’s more than an undercurrent; it has been the theme, the mood, our day to day vibe. We enjoy a warm and safe, balmy, equatorial connection. I refer to brackish water a lot, meaning that we have a mix of fresh and salty water in our life. But it is almost always warm.

And when we have found ourselves swimming in the colder, more violent waters of grief and trauma, chaos and general stress, we always manage to choose each other. We are always drawn to the safety and center of us. That is an easy thing to take for granted. This magnetism is the reason young couples cannot stand to be apart. But the older we get, the more I see how powerful and beautiful it is to also consciously choose both each other and “us,” and to know that the other person will do the same.

Complimentary spirits and personalities, different gifts that make a good team, that’s real. And being greater then the sum of our parts, that’s also real.

What else is real is the history we have built together, in just nineteen quick and beautiful years. We now share almost as many memories together as apart, and I love that. We share so many dreams, still, that we will need to live to 150 at least to see them all to fruition.

As we go, though, the day to day is plenty for me. Our simplest days are my favorite.

Today after perfect coffee at daybreak and a near miss with a skunk, he oversaw our final electrician repairs while I ran at the lake. Then we fed and played with the animals together, and I started removing all the artwork from our downstairs. (He recently gifted me a gorgeous new area rug, so obviously let’s just start from scratch now.)

It will not look this way for long.

This afternoon we delivered a mattress set and picked up seats for the Batmobile then, instead of eating our anniversary meal at a restaurant, stopped at Crest for steaks and shrimp. Once home, I worked on potatoes au gratin while he chopped up ripe garden fare for fresh, warm, homemade salsa, one of his specialties.

I can’t really share every good detail, because they are innumerable. Every hour feels important. Every detail worth capturing.

Mostly, we are home together, happy. And we know that we will sleep in the same bed tonight. Then have perfect coffee together again at the next daybreak. And we know that we are both praying and trusting for the same things, our energies and intentions fully supporting each other’s needs and wants and dreams and goals. These are gifts for which I am wildly, humbly thankful.

Happy anniversary, Handsome. I love you more than ever, and I love that we are on this adventure together, even on the simplest days.

XOXOXOXO

lightning strikes again, running comfortably, clean hair, & a question

Another overnight storm, what? We did not see that one coming. The boys had been up for about an hour when I awoke to a wall-rattling chorus of rolling thunder. I rubbed open my eyes and was greeted by an extra dark upstairs hallway with strobe-light flashes of lightning. Gorgeous.

I love summer storms so much. I love the deep watering they provide, the drama, and the perfume. I especially love when they happen overnight, leaving us (and the gardens) free to soak up the heat during the day.

I am less enchanted by having our house and air conditioner struck repeatedly by such powerful bolts of lightning that electronics are ruined and mechanical apparatuses literally vaporized.

As I type this, Handsome and our electrician friend are outside making repairs. We are thankful that it is a repair we can make and that the lightning didn’t start a house fire.

This morning, to celebrate the dark skies and mild temperatures post storm, I ran seven slow, pain free miles with a nice low heart rate. This is more progress. I felt not so much as one tender Achilles or even a hint of aching feet, and my energy has stayed high all day. It feels like my body wants to run again, whereas for several weeks it was so scary or uncomfortable that I only did it here and there because I felt like I needed to, or in order to test my core strength. Now it’s a happy release again, and I am thrilled. I hope to gradually sprinkle in some short intervals and work up to a baby long run soon.

Crucial detail, if you are following along for the running injury saga: I was able to heal my body over a couple of months and regain all kinds of comfort and refreshed energy without changing running shoe style and without adding orthotics. Also I never took one one painkiller. I did trade my $1 Old Navy flip flops for more supportive flip flops from Amazon, which was a long time coming. I am only sharing this with you to say that some injuries are over-compensations and body imbalances, and we can do hundreds of things to cooperate with our bodies, rather than fight against them. Okay. That’s enough on that soapbox for today.

Related to both extravagant summertime living and running, today I washed my hair. Might not seem like a blog-worthy topic to you, but trust me. The more weird buildup you have of Sun-In, OFF bug spray, dry shampoo, mousse, chlorine, sweat, and who knows what from the farm, multiplied by how many days you wait to properly shampoo and condition your hair, equals the level of religious experience that cleaning event is. Oh my gosh. Nirvana. Valhalla. Heaven on a Monday afternoon.

Would you please feast your eyes on our baby boy now, compared to five years ago? I showed this to my husband and he asked me why would I try to break his heart?

sleepy Klaussen, 5 years apart

Here is the question, for my bibliophile friends! I love this multiple choice thought adventure. I have been daydreaming about each of the possibilities:

I choose #4 but love them all!

Okay, thank you yet again for checking in here! You guys are making this blogging streak so much fun. I love reading your comments below and in messages and social media.

Stay engaged with your life, whatever is happening. Keep focusing on and magnifying the beauty around you. Keep cultivating your relationships and let your joy grow and expand. It’s pure magic.

“Your religion is what you do with your solitude.”
~William Temple
XOXOXOXO