Lazy W Marie

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

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pink houses, punk houses, and everything in between

Hey friends happy June! In many parts of my brain, it still feels like early April, with the cool mornings and extended rainy season; but it is absolutely, no doubt about it, the first day of the sixth month of the year.

A few days ago I had a moment when I realized how many of the things I long for all winter are tangibly available right now. Early daybreaks, warm weather running, emerald forests, animals that are slicked off and plump, chickens laying regularly, flowers in bloom, bats hunting at dusk, frog symphonies, the pool soon opening, you name it. I realized that this is what we have been waiting for, and if I’m not careful, I will speed my way right past it all.

Hey, we went to Luther, OK, yesterday with our dear friends Rex and Cathy. The purpose of our trip was to watch their Third Annual Pinebox Derby races, and that was so fun. But on our walk back to the truck I spotted this little pink house and wanted to tell you about it.

Then when I typed pink it came out punk over and over again, and honestly, soft pink is kind of a punk choice for a house color. John Mellencamp may be have been a different genre, but this kind of bold, authentic living doesn’t lie. My friend Trisha sparked a conversation about what kind of woman lived there and chose that color. She has, “the most amazing frames to her readers, who has aged with grace and laugh lines that can tell many stories… and she definitely has a cookie recipe she only shares with close friends.” I added she also has a secret salsa recipe and might have a parrot rather than a cat or dog. Only becasue her favorite dog, years ago, was irreceplaceable.

Fixing up the house itself is a certain kind of thought experiment; but the magic you could do with plants on a place like this. Man. So, since yesterday I have been mentally landscaping this tiny property. It would have zero trumpet vine, because good grief. And it would have boxwoods, native hydrangeas, lots of white gaura and impatiens, and hyacinth bean vines on that ramp. Maybe morning glories. The bed woud be curving and deep with room for herbs and flowers and just a handful of vegetables interspersed casually. The trees would be groomed back, making room for a big chain swing loaded with pillows for reading.

You know what? She does have a dog after all. Obviously. And all her neighbors love him.

Speaking of landscaping, I am waist deep in a brand new growing experiement here at our own place. Since Handsome built me a greenhouse in March, we have sectioned off a relatively large, full sun rectangle space adjacent to it for vegetables and wildflowers. It is proving to be more of a learning curve than I expected, and the challenge has also been much more fun than I expected. If you visit us anytime soon, please remember that the “Summer Garden” is in year one, and apparently I did not inherit whatever gene allows a person to dig a straight line.

It’s punk to grow in curves, ok?

As my friend Kelly suggested, some of the swooshes could be seen as little surprises in my timeline. The way life throws us curveballs that just beome part of our story. I’ll straighten some of the edges, but for Kelly’s explanation, at least one gets to stay.

I’ve read or listened to several good books recently, plus a few great ones. They have each nourished me in a dfferent way. Now, as per my summertime usual, I am about to indulge mostly in novels. So if you have any suggestions, please drop me a line!

I have also stacked up a few decent months of running and lifting that have me feeling healithier and more free than I have felt since way before the marathon last October, and I am on track to “run the year” again, at least so far. It’s truly wild how resilient and adaptive our bodies are. I still have nothing else planned, race wise; it’s just great to feel great. I know it’s a gift. I will admit, however, that dinner last week with some running friends left me feeling inspired to set a new goal…

A few hundred other things have happened that deserve their own stories, and I may get around to that gradually. We also have a pretty full summer calendar humming at us from the wings. I hope you’ll check in, follow along, and share your stories, too.

Cheers to a brand new month with brand new pleasures and lots of work worth doing!

“And then, one fairy night,
May became June.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
XOXO

hold what ya got

My husband says something that drives me crazy.

Not the… please shut the cabinet door or would you please put your dirty socks away kind of crazy.

(Not that he does those things.)

(I’m just giving you examples.)

More of the… Sleeveless tshirt, backwards ballcap, and stern business voice on work calls kind of crazy.

That kind of crazy that gives me shivvers.

Handsome behind the wheel on a country drive…xoxo

At various crucial times around the farm, he says to me in his deepest, most controlled, most deliciously mellow voice, “Hold what ya got.”

And I almost can’t focus. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I love it, ha!

This past week he said it to me while we wrangled Scarletta Jones into our makeshift squeeze shoot to administer antibiotics. My job was to hold the rope against her strenuous objections and then apply whatever full body tension I could muster onto the steel gates to keep her still. Hold what ya got. He just utters the phrase calmly under his breath, without making eye contact, focused on his side of the task.

Earlier in the week and again yesterday, he said it to me many times while we worked together on our little greenhouse build. He has designed and purchased and organized all of it. Planned every step. He gives me useful-feeling tasks along the way, often amounting to lifting lumber to the sky while he measures some mysterious distance or holding two pieces together while me makes an angle just perfect.

Hold what ya got.

Then inwardly, to myself, Focus, girl!

There are innumerable examples of him casting this atomic spell on me. He’s been saying it for years, and I only recently intimated how it affects me. He doesn’t get it. But that makes it worse. Or better.

I suppose he’ll keep saying it forever. I hope he does.

And I absolutely will.
XOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm, straddling seasons

Hey friends, hello! How goes your passage of time? The clocks here, and the calendars, still refuse to slow down. We often catch ourselves looking up with bewildered expressions, asking each other what day it is, what year, and again for good measure, are you sure it’s already Thursday? Already September?

That cannot be right.

Thankfully the days and weeks are packed with work well executed and memories well crafted. We are buoyed by extravagant laughter and nourished by even more extravagant food. So, if time seems to be accelerating, at least we can feel sure that we have redeemed it all for the best treasures. I do think we have.

((hydrangeas fading into their autumnal glory))

Here are a few headlines, in classic Friday 5 at the Farm style:

ONE: Handsome’s birthday week was rock solid and glittering and, worth remembering forever, covered with a lavish mountain of hypoallergenic foam and sprinkled with disco lights. We first celebrated with our hilarious neighbors who donned shark and mermaid costumes just to make him laugh, then at his office with the Pubic Utilities Division (forever in our hearts), at a gala downtown (we sat alone at a table for twleve but had great fun together), in Bricktown with a small group of fun seeking friends (only one bone was broken), at the farm with even more friends (barn movie and FOAM), and daily, just the three of us, in as many small, sweet ways as we could manage. We even indulged in a double date night with Jess and Alex. Handsome reported feeling very loved and celebrated, which makes my heart happy. He is the engine that keeps so much in this world running and moving forward, and he certainly tends to give more than he receives. So at least at his birthday, I love seeing him spoiled rotten!

TWO: The middle seasons have begun their long, slow ceremony of changing guard. Summer is folding up her threadbare and wrinkled flag solemnly, advancing one measured step at a time toward Autumn, who yawns and rolls her shoulders, blinking without an agenda. She is ready but in no hurry. Autumn will steal no glory from Summer, because she knows that once we settle into her embrace we will not look back. We’re all a little tired. Still, the landscape still boasts more saturated color than muted. Flowers are still blooming. Tomatoes, basil, and eggplants are still offering us their final promises. And our air conditioner is still keeping the house cool and fresh, for a few more days at least. This is the in-between, the bridge, the weeks in Oklahoma when anything could happen and often does. I intend to absorb and enjoy the details as they come.

THREE: I remain deeply thankful for a farm full of healthy animals. Chanta and Dusty are thriving in their fatness and rippling muscles, good teeth and less troublesome hooves. The cows are enjoying their preordained romance, to the extreme most days, and have you heard that Scarlett has been sleeping in the wild coreopsis? Most mornings, if I do not hear her mooing early for breakfast, she is still asleep in that especially tall, thick patch of yellow flowers on the west side of the big barn. I will admit that we have not collected a fresh egg in over a month, but that might be due to the flock being free range and definitely prone to laying in strange places, like open vehicles and soft hay bales. I recently discovered a clutch of fifteen eggs in a deep hollow below some Mexican sunflowers. Tricky girls. Mike Meyers remains the reigning champ of happy splashes.

FOUR: Speaking of gardens, whew! For someone who talks about this a lot, I sure do not seem to have any idea what I am doing, ha! That extra long stretch of 100-plus weeks with no rain was challenging, but still so much survived. Our water pressure troubles have been resolved, and I am back to watering on a cautious rotation. We have more cooling on the forecast, too, which will bring tangible relief. Now the name of the game is taking stock of what is still full of good energy and then babying those plants with every trick in the book. Any blank space that comes from removing weeds and spent plants will be given the chance to host broccoli, spinach, lettuces, carrots, kale, pansies, and a few more fall treasures. For the next several weeks I will be busy with the school gardens too, so available time to play outside might be limited this season. We shall see. Really, everything is fine. Not the lush and productive garden she was in July, but still beautiful.

FIVE: I have been a glutton for great reading and listening lately. Recently, I finished off another Abraham Verghese novel, this time Cutting for Stone. His writing is one of the most mesmerizing and thirst quenching reading experiences you can give yourself. Please choose a title, any title, and let me know how much you love it. I also finished The Stand finally, after many decades of wondering if it was for me It is!! Oh man it is. Stephen King is a crowd favorite character writer for good reason. I had forgotten. Also loving some good marathoning podcasts lately, but maybe I’ll save that for an upcoming running update.

Okay, friends, listen. As if to underscore how quickly time passes, let me admit that I wrote this “Friday 5” post exactly 8 days ago, intending to share it with you last Friday. Since then, we have enjoyed refreshing cool weather and more hot weather. I found the energy to run sixteen miles, most of it with my dear friend Sheila, the longest run I have tackled in a while. Jess and I had an incredible garden clean up day at her house then another spontaneous day of baking something extraordinary, here at the farm. We are all working and playing and loving each other left and right, even with an unexpected handful of sick days for my husband. Life is good. Life is beautiful in every way. I really that the days are so full we have to consciously stop and look aroudn to see what we are doing.

Happiest Friday ever to you.
XOXOXO

late summer beauty and reminders

By mid August I often feel confused about what my job is, about what is priority in the gardens and with the animals, about how it all relates to the outside world, and, crucially, what to do with my hair. I suspect this slightly unmoored feeling is generally owed to a stack of conflicting energies: Most of the world is hot with Back to School Fever, while the pool is still blue and I could eat at least four more watermelons. Also, our family is in a dense Happy Birthday season, with parties and special days left and right, while many members are enduring some damaging and deeply worrisome crises. We try to prop each other up and stay engaged with reality; and we work to celebrate and keep things moving, too, like always. Joy and grief and work and play, all at once. The delicious, brackish water we know so well.

Things are shifting, I can feel it. The same way things shift toward the end of winter, when we get a glimpse of change but then it all buckles down again to remind us we are not in control. An early thaw then a late freeze, that trick. At mid August we might get a glimpse of more serious color in the landscape, tighter, cloudier skies and just barely less daylight after supper, but we are still firmly gripped by summer. Our cars are still ovens for the commute home, and tomato vines refuse to produce new flowers until nighttime temperatures relax. We know that October is there waiting for us, just like April always follows closely after Februrary, but the weeks between could mean anything. So the moment matters greatly. How we spend it, how we feel about it, how we infuse it with meaning.

I feel all at once stifled and ready for change but also panicked, regretful and sad for the season soon ending.

I feel the loss of aggressive sunshine and limited clothing as well as excitement for autumn plans and traditions.

I feel the stunning passage of time as well as deep gratitude for the health of our animals and closeness of friends and family.

I feel like a failure for all the things I did not accomplish in my garden this year but this overwhelming amazement for what happens out there with very little intervention from me. I also feel childlike joy over the garden our girl has grown at her own home. There is nothing like watching that adventure take root.

I feel so happy for all the peace and stability our home has provided all summer long, for people and visiting pups and resident four leggeds alike; and simultanously I hope we travel a bit more in coming years. I hope we rediscover how to play and pause work and worry. I hope our calendar next year includes lots of time off for my husband.

I feel safe and loved and clear eyed about the future but also empty in the way that only a missing loved one can make you feel. It’s always hard to acknowledge that another season, and soon another year, has passed with out her. I have mostly learned to stop setting timelines on God, but occassionally the length of this hard season takes my breath away.

I feel like I spend so much of my waking hours on cemented daily routines, and while they serve us really well, when time feels suddenly precious I crave to break it up.

And so I find my paperback journal and write Senses Inventories, gluing the details of my moments to paper. I make lists of clear, specific blessings and prayers recently answered. I let it all build a crackling, electric awareness of and confidence in the beauty of my life. Life right now, life as the exact and unique gift that has been given. It’s a transformative exercise. It wakes me up and helps me shed the heavier feelings of this in-between season.

And I take lots of extra walks around the farm, with little expectation to be productive. Just looking and absorbing and remembering that this beautiful, imperfect, chaotic little rectangle of Oklahoma is our home. It is a childhood dream come to life, the details of which I barely have shared with anyone over the years, and it is okay for me to accept and enjoy it. In fact, I really should.

I try to see the gardens from new angles and internalize the shapes and colors for what they are according to Creation, not for how they measure against a list of jobs or design advice on some website. I try to rest in the long series of miracles that must happen just in the process of one tiny cosmos seed becoming this five foot tall, ethereal, glossy, fernlike, mysterious widlflower. Also, does anyone else get tranfixed by the word “cosmos” being used both for this pefect flower and for outer space, for all of creation?

When I feel like I have been sleepwalking through routines, I slow down and let Klaus lead the way without rushing him, instead of expecting him to keep up behind me. I pay attention to what he sees and what makes him smile, remembering his first puppy summers and how much he loves this farm, his home. His kindgom. How much all the animals trust him.

I take deep breaths and inhale the basil and manage to laugh at how I always expect the cute little bed shapes I plan in April to stay tidy and petite all the way through August.

I spend more play time with the horses and let them come to me, which they always do. I hug them and wait for them to them let go first, as the saying goes, accepting their massive necks on my shoulder and not fearing for my toes near their hooves. I give thanks for their health a thousand times per day and smell them and feed them extra apples and carrots and kiss them excessiveley when they accept fly spray. I listen to their complicated whinnying language and do my best to whinny back correctly. I look into Dusty’s eyes especially and wonder if he remembers her, if they talk to each other. I look into Chanta’s eyes and tell him thank you for being so gentle with children and small animals.

To stop time, I do my best to pause and text my frends when they cross my mind. We are all busy. Everyone. But my gosh life is rich because of our friends! I hope they feel how treasured they are.

I try to apply thought to details that connect my past to Jessica’s future, like morning glories. LIke so many plants and recipes and books and rituals. I remember her as a toddler so easily, like my mother surely remembers me. And the strands just grow and grow.

I make note of the many pleasures and comforts of living in a small town near other small towns with easy access to big cities, when the mood strikes. It’s common enough to moan about the inconveniences, but I always crave to get home as fast as I can. It’s my paradise. I know it all is such a lavish gift. I know that each animal is a once-in-a-lifetime friendship with a real soul and that their trust is no accident. So I try to hold their gaze as ling as they offer it.

It’s blazing hot now, and windy, and my feet are very tired and my hair needs a miracle and I have packed the next few weeks with about 27% more than it can easily bear. But it’s all perfect. Life is beyond good. I can actively will the clock to slow down just enough to catch my breath, and I can trade the moments and days for glittering jewels, while they are still up for grabs.

To put a dent in time, do things that time can’t take away.
XOXOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm: missed photos

First, here are two snapshots of Scarletta Jones providing composting services as I cleaned out a space for planting green beans:

((scarletta jones very interested in the fresh weeds I was pulling
from the vegetable garden May 2024))
((she mooed gently and followed me around the perimeter))

And here are at least five photos I missed recently because I didn’t have my phone in my pocket:

ONE: Rhett, standing to Scarlett’s immediate left, their shoulders touching, was licking her face over and over again like she was a popsicle. His eyes were wide open, and hers were closed, a contented expression. Their tails swished almost in unison, dismissing flies. I take lots of snapshots of them most days, but this is one I really regret not capturing.

TWO: Chanta driving all his weight onto his front legs in order to kick Dusty, vertical bucking bronco style, because he felt my ten minute tardiness in feeding them breakfast was for sure Dusty’s fault. Chanta’s coat is almost shiny now, very little winter fur remianing, and his belly is filled in luxuriantly. His leg muscles rippled when he moved to kick. His beachy mane flew wildly. I celebrate every day he shows such youthful vitality and always wish I had taken a photo of moments like this.

THREE: One of the Ex-Pat roosters from our sweet neighbors’ house next door has taken up residence with one of our bantam hens, who almost daily escapes the coop to be with him. There are at least three free range Ex-Pats, but this particular one is in love with this hen, and she clearly returns his affection. One morning recently she had gotten herself enclosed in a live trap (the kind you put out for raccoons, etc.), but I hadn’t noticed yet. I was working in the Circle Garden, and he traipsed up to me and tilted his head, clucked so politiely, with a quesiton mark inflection at the end. “Excuse me, Ma’am?” I talked to him for a minute then followed when he scurried across the yard and around an oak tree to the metal cage where his betrothed was waiting. I released her, reprimanded her gently, then watched them proceed to eat breakfast together. The food was nearby; he could have eaten without her but didn’t. I would love to have captured the look on his face when he approached me for help. And I would love to have a photo of them scratching up their shared meal, crisis averted.

FOUR: The early mornings have been foggy and rainy and moody, with smeared navy and grey skies and dramatic cloud patterns. I have taken zero photos of all the beautiful gloom, but I wish I had taken hundreds. Twice this week I did breakfast chores beneath a canopy of shimmering hidden lightning, and it was gorgeous. There will soon be a day when we are parched dry to the bones and crave this heaviness and thick moisture. I love it all but wish I had taken photos of the sky this week.

FIVE: I had a waking dream of Jocelyn again, and while that is not something you can take a physical photo of, I still wish I had it to see with my eyes over and over again. She will be twenty nine at the end of this summer, and despite the circumstances I feel intensely close to her. I feel her in my heart and against my skin, and in this waking dream I heard her voice. It is lower now, more womanly. Her girlish limbs are different. Stronger, more graceful. Her eyes have more maturity and experiece behind them, but they still sparkle, are still deep brown and glossy with ideas and grief and depth. I wonder if she has visions or waking dreams of me, too. If she has a sense for what has changed in her absence. If she knows how much she is missed but also how much she is trusted and loved and upheld in thought and prayer and conversaton. She felt preternaturally close to me during this vision, and I am so thanful for that gift.

“Keep joy in the front seat.”
~Courtney Dauwalter
XOXOXO