Lazy W Marie

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

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end of season garden decisions & personal weirdness

This is a true story, but I don’t know whether to start at the end (is there ever really an end?) or at the beginning (where is the beginning, exactly?).

It’s about gardening, personal restraint, and fuzzy memory that is either regret or relief.

Yesterday after my run, I stopped to browse the clearance sale at Earl’s, my favorite gardening center. Their greenhouse shelves were thinner than usual, but what they still had was as healthy and beautiful as ever. I loaded my arms with a tray of fluffy, deeply hued coleus and lantana, all quart-sized beauties for a fraction of the original cost. I told myself they would look good until Halloween or later, the lantana would prossibly come back next year, and I could even take cuttings from the exotic coleus. A smart purchase, if I did say so myself.

Then I wandered over to the shrubs. My mouth watered over the long limbed climbing roses and thematic viburnum. I quizzed myself about some icy blue tinted evergreens and how good they would look with a red crepe myrtle. Then I saw forsythia.

Fall gardening is where my mind is for vegetables, but spring gardening is where my landscape needs a planning boost. As most gardeners would agree, forsythia could go a long way toward providing that. At just $19 per three-gallon shrub minus a 25% clearance discount, I could make a solid investment in springtime cheer for less than the cost of instant gratification coleus and lantana.

So I put all those plants back where I found them and walked around for another ten minutes, consulting myself and getting quite dizzy because I had just run fasted after a full morning of chores and was hungry.

I walked around the herb tables, tried to remember what else I was going to buy for the fall garden, and got in a little argument with myself about where I would even plant the forsythia if I bought them.

Eventually I walked to the cashier, empty handed. She recognized me.

“Oh hey, how are you? We haven’t seen you in a while!” That was true. I had not been in since early June. I’m not mad at them or anything! I just had enough plants and have been trying to limit extra driving. But I wasn’t mad at them!

We chatted like old friends as I confirmed the sale price of the forsythia, then I smiled, said thanks, and proceeded to leave without buying anything. This might have been the first time I ever visited Earl’s without buying anything.

This sweet girl’s bright smile fell all the way into a frown, and she furrowed her pretty brow. “Oh, ok? Bye?”

As if resisting the urge to buy plants wasn’t enough of a demonstration of free agency, I also resisted the urge to explain myself. I just walked toward the exit, free as a bird.

Well, almost.

As I pushed open the glass door I said in a way too loud, way too high pitched voice, “I’ll probably see you Friday or Saturday!”

“Oh ok!” She smiled again and beamed. I wanted to give her a hug, but I took my sweaty, hungry self to my car.

That was all yesterday mid-morning. I drove straight home and went about my day doing housework and planting fall greens, bathing Klaus, talking to the horses, coordinating weekend plans, etc. Normal Tuesday stuff.

Fast forward several hours.

In the early evening, our area enjoyed a sudden rainfall, and I thought to myself, “How nice that those coleus are getting a good drink already!”

To which I obviously replied, “No, you didn’t buy them!”

“Oh right.”

Handsome and I had a late and offbeat dinner, watched some tv, and slept soundly. Early this morning, I woke up in a slight panic, worried that I forgotten to plant the forsythia. Because, you may recall, I couldn’t decide where to plant them, so there was no clear image of them anywhere in the ground, in my mind.

“No, remember, you didn’t buy those either?”

“Oh right.”

So now I want them again. Who else will buy them, like they are puppies up for adoption?

The End, Probably.

some garden & parenting advice

Jessica started her fall garden a couple of weeks ago, and my gardener-mama heart has been so full. Daily, we have been chatting all things soil, seeds, sun exposure, needed growing weeks, frost expectations, compost methods, you name it. This is a wonderful exchange for many reasons, as you can imagine. But something stands out.

Just a short bit into the thrust of her efforts, I caught myself praying that her fall harvest would be abundant. I asked God in kind of a pleading way to reward my baby’s efforts with lots of perfect vegetables and flowers, just all the good, beautiful rewards of hard work well done. I nearly begged Him to give her the “things” that would encourage her to keep going. Proof, you know?

((daily harvest, eggs already in the fridge xoxo))

He corrected me immediately.

The best rewards of a garden are not necessarily included in the harvest.

Gardening in its purest form is an ongoing cultivation of Life, a physical expression of art and science, a balance of need and provision between man and Earth and insects and God, of creativity and learning. Gardening is an adventure of trust in natural cycles. And much of this can only be learned by trial and, mostly, error. Lots of valuable error.

I know this.

So why would I deny Jess pleasure of learning on her own? Why would I swerve her away from the immense value of the journey itself?

My Grandpa Rex was a lifelong gardener and a lifelong student of, well, everything he could get his eyes or hands on. He was famous for being okay with not having all the answers, and yet I trusted him to always eventually find the answer and call me back. He trialed new ideas in his various gardens right up to the end of his gardening years, and he had wickedly specific reasons for even the paint he used on his shed. I think of that daily. I love how he never seemed to grow the same garden twice, and he thrived through it all. I want that for Jessica. Grandpa’s life showed the fruits of his labor far beyond his beautiful tomatoes and larkspur. I want that for her, too.

((little girl jess & not yet married Jess, always playing in the garden))

I will be here to guide her as much as I can, and to share my growing adventures alongside her own. And I will help her find good answers to her excellent questions. But I will not pray merely for a good harvest. Now, I am praying for a good experience, too. For good lessons and soul checks. For epiphanies and understandings, connections, realizations. I am praying for her good LIFE. It all matters.

Then, if she pays attention and has a little luck, she’ll get fresh produce, too.

Whew, I am thankful for that mild correction. He always knows what I need to hear.

“When we plant a seed,
we plant a narrative of future possibility.”
~Dr. Sue Stuart Smith
The Well Gardened Mind
XOXOXOXO

anniversary telepathy

Around 7:10 a.m., morning chores long since finished and second cup of coffee cooling and almost empty, BW was laying in the mild light with his phone, exploring the non-work-related internet, also making reservations for steak dinner tonight. The dogs were alternating between gentle wrestling matches and shade naps. I had just polished off Ada Calhoun’s Also a Poet and was reading back through my notes.

Something small and bright alerted me. I looked up from my book like a meerkat and said, “Something smells delicious!” We were in the yard and on the deck between the herb garden and the cottage, and there was no evidence of anyone nearby cooking outside. It was a vivid fragrance of grilled meat and eggs and cheese with maple syrup. My mind imaged for me a partially wrapped McGriddle from about sixteen years ago. Summertime, Dallas, Texas.

“That’s funny,” BW said, “I was just thinking about McDonalds.”

I believe the two of us are closely linked enough to trade sensory impressions like this, even fleeting ones. Or maybe our trip to Frontier City yesterday and the attendant nausea from too many whirligig rides just reminded me of a Six Flags trip from early in our marriage when I made the mistake of eating a rich and greasy McGriddle right before a long day of extreme roller-coastering.

And my cute husband often does consider McDonald’s for breakfast on slow, easy mornings like this.

What I’m saying is, maybe there’s a rational explanation for our common thought.

And yet, maybe we do share a few non-physical but nonetheless strong and solid connections.

Maybe both. Maybe the latter is as rational as the former.

Whatever made us share two sides of the same idea this morning, I love it. And I am loving our slow, piecemeal morning together. And I am loving him and our lengthening marriage. Twenty one years today!

My guy wrote this in the sand for me while on a business trip early in our marriage. xoxo

I am loving this life we have both constructed and stumbled into, this happiness we constantly nourish and protect. I am loving this rollercoaster love story, even the mild nausea we sometimes get, all of it scented with memory, pleasure, and unspoken understanding.

I love you, babe,
Always Now and Forever.
Happy Anniversary.

stream of consciousness, early july 2022

I have been in one of those pleasant storms of coincidence lately, one of those brief and lovely seasons that feeds you layer upon layer of soul food, from a surprising variety of sources, at just the right moments. Books, interviews, conversations, and spiritual affirmations have been flooding me for several weeks, and I am so grateful. I’m trying my best to harness it all, to capture not just the words and themes but also the symphony of sources, because that has been much of the beauty. I feel humbled to receive encouragement from people I respect and love. I feel thrilled to discover actionable ideas from people who know more than me about things I care deeply about. And I feel hopeful that I am on the right path, maybe more than ever before. This all is a full spectrum pleasure, a refreshment and fortification which I have desperately needed.

In between it all, summer is in full swing in Oklahoma. Most days, the work at hand entails just keeping the farm alive and hydrated, animals safe in the extreme heat, gardens somewhat productive, beautiful enough to enjoy privately. We are very much at that point of the year when I find it hard to remember what a deep freeze feels like. The other day I dug around for something in a coat closet, moved a pair of winter boots, and laughed at how far away it seems that I was spending five minutes bundling up in layers just to go do one quick round of frigid feedings or habitat checks.

The book How to Do Nothing by Jenny O’Dell happened across my path right as I was losing my appetite for the trappings of social media. Not losing my appetite for connection, just the junk and noise of it all. You know. This book deserves a full review, which I will share soon. Then Red Dirt Kelly, my friend and a brilliant woman we feel lucky to know, invited me and two other women specifically to read a unique book by Ada Calhoun, Also a Poet. This book is bearing more heavily on me than I could have guessed it would, and I am very excited to soon meet my two new friends, hug Kelly, and discuss the first half next Saturday. Also a Poet is almost a biography within a biography, or a memoir within a biography, or something like that. Fascinating characters and clean, insightful prose. Mostly, it has fully rekindled my desire and calling to write.

Then I had a waking dream just as I was finishing up a round of antibiotics for (probably) salmonella poisoning. It had to do with book cover art, and my hands shook as I told my husband about it.

We had another brief health scare with Chanta. He is a sturdy but undeniably aging horse, and gosh we love him. Every year we love him more, and every year he seems to slow down a bit, which is to be expected. Maybe I need to get him to read Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra? Anyway, this threw me into more equine reading material, which actually calmed my heart so much. Our horses are doing great, all things considered. And we will give them the best possible days for as long as possible. This all led me to send a thank you to our friend Tracy who is always there to answer horse questions when we have them. Then I started reflecting on all the many questions I have been able to answer for gardening friends. Which led me to think again, and more gleefully, about how good the world is because so many people dive headlong in their passions. I want to be a lifelong learner of as many good topics and skills as possible.

Perhaps, like me, you are noticing more and more “prepper” advice in mainstream media. Lots of people are responding to rising food process and interrupted supply chains with foreboding advice about growing and preserving, hoarding, prepping, saving, you name it. IIt often feels unnecessarily panicky to me, but then I admit to having an allergy to fear mongering and anger generators. It seems like we have enough of those two types of energy to keep us alert, you know? Victory gardens, sure. Yes to growing a garden, no matter what your economic status, yes to learning a few new skills no matter what your upbringing. And actually I think this generation has many advantages over our great grandparents, who survived the Depression and World Wars. We have more general and specialized knowledge, we have a communal sense of urgency, and we have recent history to show us the dangers of soil depletion, chemicals, and monocropping, among other things. In order to harness the edge I believe we have, all we really need to do is slash distractions, go deeper instead of broader, and get to work. Be resourceful, creative, and diligent.

This is where How to Do Nothing was so useful to my thinking. That we can accept the invitation to live according to our natural design and just use technology as a tool, not let it rule over us. That we can reclaim long stretches of time, immediately, for our own private consumption, owing nothing to anyone,  is just a luscious, greedy, deliriously happy idea to me. I love it. I am here for it, as the kids might still say.

Do the kids still say things? Or are they too sad, as a group?

Overnight, we lost Rick Astlee, the one eyed duck. We are heartbroken, as we always are to lose any farm-ily member. He was special. He survived ice storms and bathtubs residencies. He chose to live with the flock when given the opportunity to float on the pond. He survived that goose attack, of course, which is what left him one eyed and limited in navigation skills. He had a best friend named Mike Meyers Lemon, who must be even more sad than I am today. Handsome and I are thankful to have had that beautiful little boy for as long as we did, but we are definitely going to miss him. He is buried in the front field, in wildflowers alongside the meditation path.

In happier news, today the llamas enjoyed a long, drenching afternoon beneath the sprinkler. Romulus especially luxuriated in the water, and it made me happy to walk out and see him standing or lounging in the spray. All day he turned his body and let his woolly self get soaked. Little Lady Marigold seemed offended by the offer, honestly.

Look closely and you might be able to see the water spray headed for Romulus.
It reached Meh, too.

So much can change in such small windows of time. We are constantly on the knife edge of transformation, even if it often seems like change takes forever. Miracles happened constantly, sometimes overnight. One phone call, one bold decision, one enthusiastic mindset shift or eye to eye conversation can be what triggers a detour to a better storyline, and I love that. Keep chipping away at your biggest desires. Keep dreaming them and believing in them. Pray, too, as you work. Imagine them perfectly fulfilled.

In my garden, in my marriage, in our family, in our community… With hopes and dreams to be what we were designed to be, to live more fully and love more deeply, I want every drop of it.

More soon, friends. Thanks so much for dropping in.

If these words can do anything
if these songs can do anything
I say bless this house
with stars
Transfix us with love
-Joy Harjo
XOXOXO

river not reservoir

Will you follow me on a short, meandering train of thought? This all occurred to me simultaneously, early this morning.

Are you, like me, a borderline obsessive list maker and goal tender? I keep a planner and myriad lists and charts for habit tracking, miles and paces ran, farm projects, holidays, seasonal work, animal needs, garden jobs, you name it. It helps me “stay on track,” I tell myself, but really what it does is soothe lots of insecurities about my contribution. It gives me an inky representation of my work, because deep down I know that I don’t do enough. Or maybe sometimes I do plenty, but I need the written proof, because no one else knows. Maybe if I die suddenly and someone asks, “What did she do with her life?” they could look at my multicolored planner and see. “Oh, good those habits seem very tidy. Nice.”

What if instead of keeping lists and calendars, instead of charting accomplishments and habits to make myself feel like a good enough person, I get back to counting blessings?

I had this thought early this morning, between a few picturesque moments. I lifted the east facing blinds to see the cotton candy daybreak, and then I walked outside with Klaus. The air was fresh and sweet, the cats were stretching on the sidewalk, campaigning for belly scratches and breakfast, and the birds were singing. SINGING. They produced actual music, not orchestrated by any human, and really beautiful. My mind was mechanically in gear about what to do first today, but the beauty of the moment, the safety and abundance of my life, quite undeserved (Or do I deserve it, a little? Have I fought hard enough for this, evolved enough finally?) overwhelmed me. I came back inside to make two very different cups of coffee, and the thought burst into my mind: “What if you stop counting the things you do and return to counting your blessings?””

I cannot tell you how scary this though felt at first, and then I judged myself for being scared of it. “Why? What is wrong with you?” I demanded of myself. What a clear message, that I have been relying so heavily on self and have been so feverishly feeding my ego, that I need to prove to my own mind so many ridiculous little things. No one else ever sees my lists; it is all for self assurance and carrot motivation.

And then there’s the notion of flow.

A few years ago, just before Pandemic actually, I had an unsolicited and overwhelming experience of Love that has stuck with me and taught me many lessons, the more I reflect on it. Part of the experience was being personally showered with specific encouragement about the ways I had impacted the lives of my friends and family. Dozens of people contributed, and I cried and cried. I wrote something at the time about “Leak Stop” in order to prevent my usual fleeting confidence from forgetting or dismissing it all. I tried to muscle myself into hoarding it all in my heart, you know? And that worked, to an extent. But I don’t think that’s what we’re really supposed to do with Love.

I don’t think we’re supposed to collect Love and keep it for ourselves, just be un-leaky reservoirs that receive lots of water and share it only in emergencies, or maybe grow stagnant. I think we’re supposed to be more like rivers that flow free and strong like the Thompson in Colorado. I think that instead of stopping up the leaks so I could keep more Love for myself, for bad days, I was fine being flexible and open, to share Love more boldly. Receive, give, receive, give, and flow with life giving energy day after day after day. How wonderful to be aligned daily with blessings and purposes. This has been one of my prayers for a few years, and I see it manifesting constantly. Weirdly, haha, I found a way to make that meditation into a task as well. Cool.

And maybe being obsessed with lists and accomplishments ironically stunts my contribution; maybe this lifestyle keeps me too oriented to self and keeps me from allowing Love to flow.

Counting blessings opens me up much more to wonder and gratitude, to magic and limitlessness. Not just small gorgeous details but also catastrophes avoided, abundance realized, joys fulfilled. I know this. I have known it for years, and still I sometimes need the reminder.

Our family has been in a little storm this past month that challenged my ability to stay in the moment and asked me to demonstrate what I have been learning these recent years about prayer, imagination, faith, trust, and free will. Will I spend energy worrying, regretting, and spiraling into what-if scenarios, or will I redeem energy for miracles? It’s been a private and inward job mostly, but the effects are very much three dimensional, very real and impactful to loved ones. What I’m saying is that prayer is a real force. Thoughts are things. And so, it matters where we focus. We have influence, but only by accessing Love. I am so thankful for the redirection this morning away from tasks and ego and back to the Absolute, the Source, the Field, as so many books refer to Love. Back to God.

How scary to realize the thinness of that line, the difference between trusting myself and trusting God.

And how wonderful to relax into being a conduit for power rather than needing to be a source of it, which is obviously impossible. There is only one Source.

Ok gotta go. I have a certain number of miles to run and a list of chores to finish, Ha! Otherwise I am not a real person, ok? I’m mostly kidding.

Harness your thoughts. Direct your energy. Love your life. It’s all here for us to enjoy and share, flowing back and forth.

XOXOXOXO