Lazy W Marie

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

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thunderstorms as hints that miracles are coming

Happy Fourth of July! Today is our 112th day of Covid Quarantine. Are you celebrating today and tonight? We opted for avoiding crowds, possibly driving later tonight to watch a small town fireworks display from a distance. Then tomorrow evening, part of my family will join us at the farm for swimming, sparklers, and a good outdoor meal. I am pretty excited for that. We are all good at making the most of bizarre circumstances.

Our sky last night, just before sunset, was everything we needed. I had just spoken with Jess for almost an hour, trying to absorb her grief and fresh anger and help her navigate an exponentially difficult season (is there anything easy about 2020 for my girls?). Her heartbreak is absolutely heartbreaking to me. I have not spoken with Jocelyn recently, but she too is on my mind and in my prayers constantly. As always. I know she is hurting in deep and inexpressible ways.

Last night after that phone call, Handsome and I walked around outside, looking for an Amazon delivery that was delayed, giving thanks for a million different amazing blessings. We saw bright, dense storm clouds far on the horizon. These do appear pretty often but dissipate without coming to fruition. We asked aloud for rain, saying both to each other and to God how wonderful an overnight thunderstorm would be. Then we walked some more. Then we closed up the farm, made coffee for morning, and went to bed.

I’m telling you this because God answered overnight. It was just a thunderstorm in the wee hours of the new day, a musical surprise heavy with rain and absent hail, but it was exactly what we wished for.

Sometimes I feel like small, specific answers like this are encouragements that the big ones are coming. And friends, we have some big requests right now. I imagine you do, too.

This morning I cracked open an old book I first read in my late 20’s. Not quite a devotional, it’s a daily entry style book geared toward women: Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

One of the passages I explored was about being purposeful in the pursuit of happiness. She writes about the differences between dreams and expectations and explains some mechanics of releasing to the God the exact results of our hard work. “Living your life as a dreamer and not as an expector is a personal declaration of independence. You’re able to pursue happiness more directly when you don’t get caught up in the delivery details.” I love that.

My workout today was split between the very very very crowded lake (so crowded I ended up leaving) and the treadmill. I felt great! Seven easy miles with a low heart rate, comfy feet and legs. You might like to know that on my drive to the lake I came upon a herd of cows blocking the road. There were at least 15 calves in the group, all teeter-tottering and scampering. As oblivious to pandemic as yesterday’s wild meadows.

The cows were easily herded into this abandoned, fenced yard.

“Drop by drop fills the tub.”
~French proverb
XOXOXOXO

our easy day off & freedom is a gift we choose to accept

Friday, July 3, 2020. Quarantine Day #111.

State offices are closed today, but our bodies don’t know that, so we woke naturally up at 5:13 a.m. Handsome, Shepp, and I spent the next two hours taking in the day slowly. We drank our coffee, watched cartoons, explored the gardens, and watered and fed the animals. Little Lady Marigold, our new sheep, made another good attempt to meet me at her breakfast bowl. She always backs off at the last second, but every day the distance shrinks. I love her slotted pupils, stick-straight legs, and puffy, matted fleece.

Temperatures were still mild in the early hours, mid seventies, and the skies were painterly blue and white. Our first harvest of the day was five eggs, 2 bright yellow squash, seven heavy tomatoes, and a few cups of ripe blackberries. There is always a second harvest in the afternoon.

Mid-morning I grabbed a 5 mile progression run on the treadmill (felt great, zero pain!) and half an hour in the gym. Meanwhile Handsome played around with the art of motorcycle maintenance. I cannot vouch for his Zen, though, because apparently my little green Honda had been sitting too long and now has a fuel line gummed up. Did I ever tell you that I got my motorcycle license? It is one of the biggest shocks of life, truly. Sometimes when I think about it I start sweating and trembling spontaneously.

We decided to break some monotony and take a short drive to Wellston, Oklahoma, just under an hour away. There is a locally famous barbecue stand there, an outdoor restaurant, really, that serves food from an old school bus.

We enjoyed the steamy drive in a topless car but declined to stop and eat because the parking lot was at capacity, swarming with people. We are distancing pretty strictly still, so that was a hard pass. Instead, we drove and drove, loving the sunshine and the undulating country roads flanked by corn fields, hay meadows neatly adorned with giant round bales, and tiny, almost delicate cemeteries. We accidentally joined up with Memorial road where it suddenly becomes heavy gravel, so we slowed way down. The careful pace allowed me to see the roadside meadows better: Vitex and Indian tobacco growing wild. Pecan and Red Bud saplings wilting in the heat. Thick ornamental grasses, tickseed, and Virginia Creeper, all tangled up and blissfully unaware of pandemic. I soaked up the rural house gardens when they appeared. Mostly orange day lilies and pink crepe myrtle bushes. I imagine they are generational perennials.

Back home again, we ate regular food from our well stocked kitchen and were perfectly happy, ha! The heat and humidity returned and our work was caught up, so we spent part of our afternoon in the pool and on the deck.

I finished reading Cold Mountain, the Civil War novel that many people remember as the movie with Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. The book is beautifully written, a weirdly motivating read if you like manual labor and general human suffering, or the perseverance through suffering. And it is so humbling. The circumstances people can survive, it just amazes and inspires me.

“That’s just pain, she said. It goes eventually. And when it’s gone, there’s no lasting memory. Not the worst of it, anyway. It fades. Our minds aren’t made to hold on to the particulars of pain the way we do bliss. It’s a gift God gives us, a sign of His care for us.” ~Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

“Waste not thy liberty.” One of my all time favorite, short and sweet mantras. Tomorrow is Independence Day. I have been thinking a lot about freedom lately, about being free, about being set free from all kinds of earthly bondage.

As a thought experiment lately, every time I catch myself saying or thinking that I have to do something, my goal is to replace it with I get to do something. It’s a small but powerful word swap. I have been liberated and set free from so many things, so many hardships and limitations, so much silencing, so many real fears. Not only am I free in the political or social sense; but more importantly I am free spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally, so long as I continue to choose that state of living. My thoughts and habits can either cultivate or surrender this gift every day.

Liberty is not the wild absence of discipline; in fact being free invites a more authentic version of self rule. Being free from outside controls requires and encourages us to set our own controls, some that make sense and are harmonious with our values and circumstances. At least that’s how I see it.

Okay I hope you are well, thank you for reading! I also hope we have popcorn for dinner soon and watch a movie.

One more thing, what do you think would happen to a person’s body if she were to only eat watermelon and cashews? I mean, mostly those two things?

“I am full of freedom.”
~Kellie Sperry
(I owe you this story soon, friends!)
XOXOXOXO

a few coping exercises

Hello again, friend, and happy Sunday! According to my journal, we are at day 64 of the quarantine in Oklahoma. It has been a curving, intuitive, stumbling walk through unfamiliar woods, right? With a few bumps and scrapes along the way? But it’s okay. It’s different, but it’s okay. I hope you’re okay.

I just wanted to pop in and offer a few thought experiments and coping exercises that I love, in case you could use a fresh approach this coming week. Take what you like, leave what you don’t, and feel free to share your own ideas!

Here and Now: I close my eyes and imagine an actual X-Y axis and put myself in the center of it, safe and surrounded by Love. I am here, in this beautiful place, today, in this moment, and this time is both fleeting and elastic. It will never come again. I am safe. I imagine each of my people in this space too, either in their own X-Y axis or in mine. Then I open my eyes and really pause. Friend, try to remind yourself that most worries and fears are about the future, the conjured up what ifs, and most sadness is about the past or the imagined or magnified losses. Not all of them, I admit; life is brimming with very real grief and I do not mean to diminish that. But if you can harness your energy and imagination and pour it all generously into the present moment, the current situation, you will walk more powerfully and deal with that grief better. Worries tend to dissolve in the heat of mindfulness. You will also be primed to more fully celebrate brand new joys!

Attitude of Gratitude: Bob Goff has some great explorations of the word attitude in his stories about small aircraft. He explains well the importance of small, imperceptible degrees as you set your course and how they change the plane’s trajectory, its ultimate destination. This image helps me remember that attitude is more than a flimsy notion about our thoughts, more than an invisible flavor; attitude is literally how we shape our path and progress in the world. And gratitude, as we know, unlocks all kinds of blessings. It’s an amazing combination.

I was given the chance to catch some bees this week! I was nervous and excited. Definitely grateful for so many aspects of this project. Those emotions shaped the whole experience.

Pretend This is All Your Design (befriend the moment): Do you ever feel trapped? Especially if you are really quarantined, right? This exercise is surprisingly helpful for me in lots of circumstances. It draws me out of a frustrated, victimized state of mind and helps me see how much is actually going in my favor. I do this in small, common moments, and I do this in the grander scheme of things too. It helps. Try it! Just literally pretend for a few minutes that everything you can notice was your idea, no matter how weird, no matter how “good” or “bad.” In fact, in this fantasy everything is good. Pretend that you had a secret and deliberate plan for everything to be exactly the way it is, and somehow your mind will begin to fish out the hidden benefits. You can (at least temporarily) become sold on the upside to every perceived limitation and obstacle. Results will vary, haha, but if you can get your creative juices flowing, then you can begin to see that some things are not so bad after all. Some difficulties really are blessings, or at least opportunities for growth. Life should not always be easy, right? Let’s scrape out all the benefits of weird times. Have fun with this one.

Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your life. ~Eckhart Tolle

Sensory Inventory: This practice not only refocuses me into the present moment; it helps keep words and phrases fresh and active in my mind. I try to do it at unusual times of day, too, not just the obviously poetic moments like sunrise or the golden hour. Invest a few minutes taking stock of a particularly stressful or unpleasant chapter of your pandemic life, and you might find some humor or hidden beauty there; you may even find a profound message. Try this practice when you do not feel the least bit poetic or particularly observant, so you can develop those muscles. Write down seven categories: Everything you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. Now add your thoughts and emotions, for they are certainly part of your private landscape. Take a good, honest inventory and do so without judgement. Allow wide eyed observation and curiosity to take a high-resolution snapshot of what is a truly happening in your life. If I had students or children at home, I would absolutely be challenging them to write Senses Inventories at random times throughout quarantine, then keep those little scraps of paper in a memory book to read twenty years from now.

Move Your Body (in a new way): Oh man, haha! Okay, I have had to cut way back on running due to some spicy Achilles and ankle situations, and it took me some time to remember how good it feels to truly indulge in other physical activities, I mean indulge in the fullness of them, without the exhaustion of high mileage. After a few weeks of pouting then a few days of choosing joyful movement, my body feels good and lively again. I dare you to try this ahead of necessity. Move in all directions. Flex and stretch and allow life’s energy to literally flow through you, then make sure you are nourished and hydrated in your favorite ways. Our minds and spirits and bodies are already all one being, no doubt about it. Nurture that and enjoy the benefits.

Remember The Book of Joy that we ready a couple of years ago? My Mom is reading it now, on my brother Joey’s recommendation! I love it when we all devour the same goodness.

Okay, that’s what I have for you today! How are you finding a bit of calm in the chaos? Please share. I wish you vibrant health and abundant joy this week. Hope to talk again soon.

“Although the world is full of suffering,
it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
~Helen Keller
XOXOXOXO

an easter week we will never forget

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, easily my favorite holiday of the year.

Easter represents world-changing miracles and promises kept despite every opposition. Easter means new life. The best life, in fact, springing from absolute grief and apparent defeat. Easter is the resurrection of every good and pure thing, a celebration of the immovable power of Love.

Traditionally, Easter is fresh flowers and home cooked food, baskets filled with chocolate bunnies and colorful gifts, egg hunts and gingham and lace.

(a lifetime ago)
(one of our passover traditions)

Holy Week is also somber remembrances and Bible readings, “blood” around our front door, and white cloth on the cross. This holiday week has always been  busy with church activities and family gatherings, and the details sustain me. They all bind me together in deep places, providing that rhythm of renewal that we need over and over again. (There is no shame in needing renewal, by the way. We are designed for it.)

In many ways, I love Easter more than Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year, combined. Now is when everything actually feels new.

Easter is different this year, in quarantine, but it’s different in some magical ways. I feel it and smell it and hear it coming like birdsong at daybreak. We are renewing ourselves more than ever, despite the changes and limitations. Maybe because of them?

I hope you sense it too. I hope you are able to rest and breathe deeply, still capturing the essence of this special season. I hope you take all the time you need to distill and celebrate the best gifts, because they are still being offered.

(apple blossom)

I am not too upset by missing out on some of the man made trappings of Easter weekend. Traditions are, after all, just outward expressions of what matters to us, physical things we do to rekindle emotions we hold dear. We are all more than capable of accepting new circumstances and applying our imaginations and resources in new ways, to still conjure up those feelings. Maybe even amplify them. Maybe build some magic in brand new ways.

(our dessert tomorrow, for just the two of us)

How are you holding up? Or are you, actually, thriving in this weird time? On a cellular level, safe and hidden from the news cycle and statistics and angst about what is temporarily lost, are you at peace? Are you encouraged and nourished by what is being offered to us, and happy about what is right around the corner? I am. I feel it, like a heartbeat. I am breathing it in, like ozone and honeysuckle and fermenting sourdough. I see the green shoots of New Life bursting through clay and unfurling, silently. Surely. Right on time.

“Heaven took a deep breath and held it,
because everything was about to change.”
~Bob Goff
XOXOXO

recalling the powers of “what if” & a reminder to choose joy

Following several days of pure bliss, I succumbed on Sunday to a few hours of good ol’ fashioned What If Anxiety. I kept forgetting to breathe, as my husband calls it. It was a trifecta of external stimuli: a couple of failed side dishes I had cooked for beloved friends (minor in the scheme of things but disappointing); a rouge, really violent hailstorm that did some mean damage to my beloved vegetable and flower gardens; and (the biggest What If of them all) waiting on health news regarding one of our most beloved young people.

I definitely kept forgetting to breathe. My mind kept rolling over the worst case scenarios for each of these, projecting into the future all the most terrible extrapolated consequences: They’ll never come to the farm for dinner again and probably think I am a kitchen fraud. I might as well give up gardening. I am definitely a fraud. She has something very wrong with her health but won’t reach out for help. Then I’d furiously resist those negative thoughts and scold myself for the struggle, because I know better than that by now. And that resistance created more tension. So I ate a second helping of dessert and got mad at myself for that too because vacation is over ma’am and you are so weak and also not a very good runner. Healthy living fraud.

Wow. Only one of those external stressors really mattered to life; but worry has a way of sneaking in through tiny openings to crack open the door and let the big stuff in. Have you ever been in such a tailspin?

As Sunday evening drew to a close, the biggest What If was silenced, and we went to bed thankful and exhausted. We were happy to be home and safe and ready to approach the threshold between all those previous days of bliss and the fresh, brand new work week. I muscled my thoughts back into the light. And I finally remembered to breathe.

?

Monday morning after Handsome left for the Commish, I plunged into all kinds of chores around the house, allowing the physical activity and sweetness of domesticity to drum up more positive vibes. Eventually Klaus and I walked around the farm, just to survey the storm damage with calmer eyes. The weather that morning was much more like early October than June. Bright and crisp, soft breezes, mellow. I could barely relate all of that crystalline brilliance to Sunday’s low, black canopy, woolly humidity, and violent wind and hail. I noticed a clarity inside myself, too. The storm had passed and everything felt fresh and good again.

The facts followed suit. Once I had the fortitude to really examine my gardens, I found only minor damage. Some broken vines and torn leaves, sure, and a few marshy beds that were begging for a stretch of warm sunshine to dry out. But all of it was more of a shakeup than a tragedy. And I had to laugh at my Yesterday Self for being so devastated at nothing. I also had to stop and give lots and lots of thanks for all the good news we had received concerning the much more important worries in life.

So I walked around correcting small injuries to various plants and re-threading tomato vines, harvesting slashed-off zucchini blossoms and deciding that the fallen stone fruits (still unripe) would be great to crush and feed to the hens.

I recalled so many other times in life when my worries turned out to be far scarier than reality. Often the anxiety can be quieted with just some time, some breathing, and lots of deliberate trust. Things really do tend to work out. But resisting fear is different than choosing faith.

Choosing Joy.

How wonderful to remember all of this. The mental games of What If are powerful. It is up to each of us moment by moment to choose to put that power to good use. We can funnel our vast imaginations into fears and worries and extrapolate terrible future chains of events; or we can harness the same exact power inside ourselves and project incredible future outcomes.

We can visualize and aim for beauty, strength, success, progress, healing, connection, abundance, and miracles. We can see the damage and exaggerate it with our dim perspective; or we can see the damage and give thanks that so much can be recovered, that circumstances, just like the weather, can so suddenly turn around.

Choosing our thoughts matters, in case you need the reminder today like I could have used it on Sunday. Our thoughts can steer our feelings and our behavior. They can literally shape both our perspectives and our circumstances along the way.

Choose Joy. It won’t always come easily, but it is always available.

Choose Joy over and over again, no matter how things look and especially now matter how you feel, temporarily.

P.S. This blog post is dedicated to two of my best friends, who could not be more different from each other: Mickey, who had the presence of mind on Sunday to assure me that, in fact, some stress can strengthen plants and trees (so true). And Brittany, whose already gorgeous life is suddenly brimming with some mammoth What Ifs. I am down here in Oklahoma sending up magical possibilities and promises for you friend!

Choose Joy.
Magic is Real.
The Gardens will be Fine.
So Will She.
XOXOXO