Lazy W Marie

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

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may 15th already?

A few days ago, between dinnertime and sunset, my husband and I were meandering around the south lawn when I spotted a dangling bouquet of scarlet red strawberries growing in that narrow, sandy little elbow near the Chinese umbrella trees. I picked a few for us to sample, and we simultaneously exclaimed at how sweet and juicy they were. So sweet! So juicy! Then he finished chewing and swallowed his and said, with complete sincerity, “That’s like a free strawberry!” It’s why we garden, folks. It’s for the free strawberries.

Please enjoy this very typical photo of Meh aggressively smooching Jess:

Speaking of Jessica, on her invitation, I just devoured The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. It is easily one of the most moving stories and beautifully written books in my life, so far. It should perhaps be required reading for anyone thinking of adopting a dog. Bonus points to the author for layering in plenty of messaging about manifestation and mind power. I loved it and cried and laughed out loud and cried again as I sped through the pages. This is the second time Jessica will have read it, and we are excited to sit and discuss it soon. The first time she read it was during our dark chapter of separation, something neither of us chose or wanted. Funny how life can twist and turn and give us myriad ways to reclaim what we have lost.

Myself, I am rereading An Other Kingdom, which I first read the winter preceding pandemic. Its themes and pointed spiritual challenges are even more throbbing neon today. Then, they were exciting, counter cultural ideas; now they are expressions of what so many of us have learned (maybe the hard way?) these recent stressful months.

“My life is either the performance of a deathly liturgy or the possibility of something alive, a liturgy of aliveness.”

The 2021 Lazy W gardens are mostly in and growing steadily. No overnight successes or transformations here, but rather a steady stream of seeds disappearing into the fertile earth and flats of annuals and new herbs here and there to fill in the gaps. I have added six different rose bushes (who am I?) to various beds and replaced two big ornamental grasses that did not come back after the brutal winter. Otherwise, I think all of my shrubs and perennials made it, even the crepe myrtles, hydrangeas, and azaleas. The daylilies promise to be stunning this summer. This year my food growing efforts are very much blended in with my flower growing indulgences. It’s all a big crazy, celebratory mix, is what I’m saying. Especially because I neglected to label much as I planted, what we see week to week is what we are gonna get. It’s fine. My gardening mood this year is definitely chaos and color, with a hefty dose of welcome and abundance.

Both last Saturday and this morning, Handsome and I attended small, local car cruise ins. These aren’t exactly car shows; they are casual gatherings for car collectors to mingle, enjoy a cup of coffee and maybe a free donut. During covid shut downs and quarantines last year, we missed 100% of the scant car events, so being back out and about, seeing friends we hadn’t seen in a year has been wonderful. We made a new friend too, and she happens to live on our road out here in Choctaw! Wonders never cease. She is brand new to Oklahoma, so I am having fun getting acquainted and bragging about my home state.

I hope you are doing well, friends! I hope that your mother’s day weekend, however you were able to celebrate, was loving and happy. I was spoiled rotten as per the usual, and I got to spend quality time with both my parents and my youngest girl (and Bean). Jess cooked a beautiful brunch, complete with a set table and handwritten letter. What’s better than your little toddler baby bringing you breakfast in bed, is your grown woman child inviting you to her house for a perfect meal.

That, and my hopes and beliefs for Jocelyn are so strong and exciting right now, I almost cannot find the words to wrap around the feeling. I wake up every day knowing in my bones that if I don’t see her that day, I am one day closer to seeing her. And my dreams about her are radiant and strong.

For personal reasons, I needed a little reprieve from the writing pandemic stories, but now I am ready to dive back in. Two more are in the wings being edited, plus three or four potential new interviews, and I am excited to share them all with you. Have you enjoyed reading them? Everyone has been so vulnerable and forthcoming. I have gleaned much more from this whole project than I expected to.

Okay. Onward to the rest of Saturday. Thank you so much for checking in!

“Well being is the only stream that flows.”
~Abraham Hicks
XOXOXOXO

feeling challenged, nourished, hopeful (media consumption this week)

Hello, friends, happy Sunday! I am soon off for a solo long run in what might be the last warm morning for a while. Then Handsome and I have a fun plan for the cooler weather headed our way this afternoon. Battery recharging is our favorite hobby. What does life look like for you this weekend?

Below are some of the best bits of media I have consumed this week. I am feeling nourished, challenged, and truly hopeful. Marigolds, zinnias, and baby pumpkin vines help.

some flourishing “jack be little” vines in the spent tomato beds

Thursday evening, I finally finished reading To Shake the Sleeping Self by Jedediah Jenkins and wholeheartedly give it five out of five stars. Ten out of ten. All the stars! If either good storytelling or deep, spiritual inspiration are at all your thing, give it a whirl. Here is the review I shared on Goodreads:

I finally read this book after several passionate recommendations from a variety of people I respect. Loved it completely. It’s different than what I expected, and better. It’s a modern Odyssey, really, a young man’s physical adventure and waywardness made deep and meaningful by his journey inward and reconciliation with home and family, spirituality, himself. He connected to nature and to the world at large, and to God, the Universe. I was drawn in by his physical endurance journey, appalled by his travel companion, and fully romanced by the long trail of travel descriptions, of places I am unlikely to ever visit myself. Absolutely satisfying read, from the first page to the last. I am sorry it took me so long to read, but happy to have it in my bones now.

You had me at, “narrated by Woody Harrelson,” but that’s just one of many wonderful things about Kiss the Ground. Another stellar documentary on Netflix, it’s about soil health, carbon emissions, and the things we can do as people, governments, and corporations to improve things. Often, exposes leave me feeling defeated; this time I felt motivated, challenged, excited. Spoiler alert: COMPOST!

kitchen composting is a great lesson for kids
three cheers for well rotted manure!

The Daring Romantics podcast is one of my favorites. Author Lindsey Eryn always seems so casually approachable, so sweet and soft, yet her material is substantial, usuable, important. Often her message is a mix between Christian faith and the Law of Attraction, which is so right up my alley. This episode titled “Paving the Way for the Miraculous” is definitely worth a listen. Four accessible ideas. Grab ’em.

Handsome and I watched The Social Dilemma, and I have a lot to say, ha! Have you watched it yet? Are you surprised by any of it? Do you think these realizations will impact your online behavior, or if you want them to, how will you facilitate that? I am especially interested in learning more about the pleasure-pain balance theory. In this house, we are determined to facilitate more face to face communication with friends and loved ones, somehow, eventually. And we have discussed the value of inviting perspectives from people who seem to be very different from us. Here are two of my favorite quotes from the show:

“This is stupid, we can do better. It is the critics who are the true optimists.”

and…

“It’s going to take a miracle. And that miracle, of course, is collective will.”

Joy the Baker directed us to read an article on The Atlantic, How We Survive the Winter. Maybe you have already seen it? I read it this morning, was not surprised by the grim data, and actually feel uplifted knowing that if we face anything with some honesty then we can take control of our experience of it, even the worst stuff. I cannot control the big picture, only my contribution to it. So I will be writing my own Winter Survival Plan, and I hope you do too.

My friend Dee is a gardener after my own heart, for many reasons (she cointed that delicious phrase, English with an Oklahoma accent). This week she shared her thoughts and progress lately on growing a native prairie filled with wildflowers. Handsome and I are working steadily on transforming our front field into something like this, so Dee’s post was fun to read. By the way, treat yourself to viewing her blog on your PC, not a mobile device. Her homepage and photography are mouthwatering.

My mom, my baby sister Gen, and I are now reading Killers of the Flower Moon. So far it’s a crisp, dry read, a nonfiction history lesson about some unsettling events in Oklahoma Indian Territory. I will report back soon.

What are you reading right now? What have you watched lately? What podcasts do you recommend? Let’s consume good stuff.

Thank you for checking in. I hope you and your people are well.

XOXOXOXO

kicking off anniversary staycation

It’s anniversary week! Tradition bears that we spend at least part of it at alone the farm, soaking up summertime romance. Late yesterday afternoon, Handsome signed off from his Commish duties until one week from Monday. Ten days off, very hard earned, wahoo!!

Ten days at the farm after 118, ha! Despite the obvious jokes about quarantine sameness and farm work being constant and a general inability to halt certain routines, we are pretty excited. This time together has historically been a special time to reconnect and recharge. I love it. I love him. I love us.

Day One:

Johnny Ringo the nursing cat makes cuddling an extreme sport.
LLM is baaing and approaching more bravely.

We slept until 5 a.m., drank coffee with Little Lady Marigold, and went to Walmart for pool chemicals and a few groceries. We also sketched out a list of random lists we want to share with you guys, to document our 19 years of marriage. We promise it will be just as boring as it sounds.

Midday, Handsome got the mowing done while I grabbed an hour of exercise (a mix of treadmill and gym today, while watching gardening videos). We swam at high noon, exchanged a couple of fun gifts, then retreated to the air conditioning when our skin hurt.

Handsome surprised me with this colorful area rug he knew I was loving.
Klaus immediately claimed it.

I got to enjoy an afternoon Zoom with my family to discuss Where the Crawdads Sing. So fun! And I appreciate our baby sister Gen for gifting copies of the book to everyone. Really generous! That’s the book review I recently promised, by the way, so if that interests you please stay tuned.

How fortunate are my siblings and I that we are all friends, and that our parents will join us in reading and discussing books, even during quarantine?! I just love it. They are both voracious readers. They always read aloud to us, our entire lives, and they read their own books and papers in front of us, too. It was just a very normal and constant part of life. I am super thankful that we can share it now, still, in new ways.

This evening we watched the new Netflix movie with Charlize Theron, The Old Guard. So good! Imaginative action movie with a surprisingly inspirational message toward the end. We both loved it, and I hope it is becoming a series.

How about one quick piece of salad advice before closing up for today? Instead of adding toppings to the top of your bowl of leafy greens, start with them. That makes them bottomings, I suppose. It makes all the difference!

Just get a much bigger bowl than you think you need, ok? Tonight I assembled a pile of chopped sweet peppers, cucumbers, and gorgeous garden tomatoes, also some cooked chicken breast, and let it all sit in the fridge with balsamic vinegar. While I cooked Handsome’s dinner, it all became extra cold and flavorful. Then I just piled it high with greens and mixed it up. So much better this way! The tomato juice and balsamic provided more than enough slickness and moisture to skip dressing, and all the chunky bits were findable with my fork. Like treasure.

One more story: Just before the golden hour while I was folding laundry from the clothesline into a big basket, my industrious and forward thinking husband tried to remove some very full fly traps (the water bag kind) into sealed trash bags, but one of them fell and burst. It was, even from a good distance, easily the most startling and psychologically unsettling odor I have ever smelled. EVER.

To his credit, my man stayed calm and cleaned it up quickly. But much more than a whisper of the offense remains. The llamas are sad now. The tomato vines wilted. The cats are in a frenzy over the smell, but they are too young to know why. I fear the Little Lady Marigold will take this personally, because it happened so near where we have been making such progress with intimacy.

Back inside, we almost got into an argument over who was yelling too much or stifling their yells or what, because in the midst of it all a worried, newly homeless fly tried to burrow in my ear while I was delivering leftovers to the chickens. I did not handle it well.

Staycation is going great! See you tomorrow!

“The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man
who can’t read them.
~Mark Twain
XOXOXO

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (book review)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho had been on my reading list for over a year, nudged repeatedly onto the edges of my bookshelf from several different sources; but I never made time for it. Then our beautiful, mathematician-spiritualist friend Kelley did something to thrust it front and center.

At last year’s Lazy W Talent Show, between wild musical acts and hilarious 80’s trivia silliness, Kelley offered us a prose reading. She sat calmly on stage and spoke into the microphone a passage from the book.

summer 2019 xoxo

Her voice pressed evenly through the dark, and Coelho’s poetic words synchronized with the twinkle lights around the stage. I remember noticing the full moon rising directly behind her. Everyone was rapt. It was quite a moment. As she read, our other friend Kellie (that evening she and I had done the Walk Like an Egyptian number) pulled out her phone and swiftly ordered a copy of the book. By the end of the reading, the entire audience was stunned and fully absorbed. We all applauded and cheered, many of us promised to read the book, and Kelley rejoined the crowd, probably unaware that she had just inspired our next group book study.

can you see the full moon over her left shoulder?

Fast forward past a bustling holiday season, and a handful of us have now read The Alchemist for ourselves. This weekend we finally gathered for some delicious treats to catch up with each other and discuss it all. Nourishment for body, mind, and spirit. I want to mention, also, that we scheduled the gathering to coincide with the January New Moon. Since the whole thing started with a full moon, we felt like Coelho would groove this.

Ok let’s chat!

The Alchemist is a lusciously quotable inspirational parable, an allegorical tale about desert journeys and the meaning of life and passion and God’ will for us, plus our own power to co-create with God, and much more. It’s a framework kind of story that leaves lots of room for private interpretation and spiritual reflection. It’s one of those books you could (and probably will) read again and again, during different life seasons.

A big style point, so you don’t shun this book, thinking it’s dogmatic and preachy: Coelho skillfully braids wisdom from the ages and fables from several different world religions and historical periods to illustrate his lessons. We enjoyed recognizing details from the Bible, Middle Eastern teachings, mythology, and more. And he handles it all equally.

Another style point: Coelho originally wrote this in his native tongue of Portuguese. It was translated to English and dozens of other languages upon reaching global popularity and importance. Moreso than other translated works, maybe because it is poetic, there is some softness and rhythm lost here and there. It’s occasionally difficult to pinpoint why a sentence or paragraph feels stilted. (Mickey described it as staccato, which is perfect.) But overall that does not detract from the book’s value. In fact, it adds to the easy feel. (Declarative, Mickey said, and I agree. It’s a feel that gets you to just accept it and move on.)

For me, the timing of finally reading this little book was magical. I read it after Passion Paradox, which speaks straight to the heart of what motivates us, and in the midst of studying The Universal Christ, which is the intellectual antidote to so much church dogma frustration lately. The Alchemist has been a soothing and fortifying synthesis of the two. And the whole notion of alchemy itself, my gosh! You guys know how devoted I am to the importance of transforming what we perceive as negative into something valuable and powerful. I can’t get enough.

Kellie makes the prettiest and yummiest grazing boards xoxoxo

Our discussion group was extra small this weekend, but even so we enjoyed a wonderful array of viewpoints and emotional responses to the characters, symbolism, etc. I love hearing strong opinions about elements that strike me in very different ways. And I love getting to know my friends more deeply. As always, of course, the food and company were spectacular. We are very lucky humans.

whoa whoa whoa

If you have a few people in your life who are open to really sharing their hearts, this book would provide an excellent framework for some long, fruitful conversations. I challenge you to scoop up a few copies to share, set a date, and get to reading. And do this before the movie gets made!

Still not sold? Before I let you go, here are some of my favorite passages. You decide whether these sentences alone don’t seduce your brain a little bit:

“It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

“And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” (This passage is repeated throughout the book, and the resonance is powerful. How cool would it be to sit and discuss the Law of Attraction with the author!!)

“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”

“He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have… When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.” (I could talk for hours and hours and hours about this exact parable. Wow.)

“As he mused about these things, he realized that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure.” (Yes, choice!! We get to choose our thoughts, how we frame our lives, and the stories we tell ourselves regarding our circumstances. YES.)

“Because the crystal was dirty. And both you and I needed to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts.” (Lose yourself in the work. Go for a run too.)

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.” (WHOA.)

“…there was a language in the world that everyone understood… It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.” (This in on my dining room chalkboard right now.)

passion and purpose

“If I could, I’d write a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence. It’s with those words that the universal language is written.” (Have you and I discussed, yet, the burgeoning academic study of coincidence? Like, at actual universities? It’s real now. Recently.)

“People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.” (I still need to tell you guys about a dream I had two weeks ago, about Jocelyn, and about facing the unknown.) “This fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.” (Yes, I told God when He asked, I will be okay even if she is already home. But I still want her to know that I miss her and love her.)

“Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive… and it has a soul… in the crystal shop…even the glasses were collaborating in your success.” (So much echo to The Universal Christ here!)

“They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.” (ahhhhhhh yes yes yes yes yes)

“If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man…Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.” (Eckhart Tolle is definitely nodding warmly right now.)

Regarding oases and places of refuge: “Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees.” (Frame it well! Decide how you see things. Cultivate a stronger perspective. Appreciate needs because they help you focus on abundance.)

“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, bring with it an eternity.”

“Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.” (I believe this is part of the passage Kelley read to us last summer. Beautiful.)

“When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a person to achieve.” (I have been reflecting a lot lately on what kind of person I will have to become to both qualify for Boston and publish a novel, among other things. What about you?)

Okay, friends, I have smothered you with lots of quotes, despite my restraint. I have just one more, and it might be the one with which most people are familiar. It offers a powerful encouragement, a breath to catch if you are on the brink of giving up:

“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared n the horizon.”

Thank you, Kelley and Handsome and Mickey and Kellie, for starting the new year with me in this book study! It was magical.

Where your treasure is
There will your heart be also
XOXOXOXO

Educated, a book review

Five solid gold stars to this book for its social content, writing style, readability, relevance, and emotional impact. Wow.

Educated by Tara Westover

Often after devouring a book, I immediately want everyone around me to read it too, if only so I can then make them discuss it with me, haha. Educated by Tara Westover is no exception, but this time I have a few specific target audiences in mind.

Friends, make time to read Educated if you:

  • are a feminist.
  • don’t call yourself a feminist but want to understand your feminist loved ones better.
  • have ever struggled with fundamentalist religion.
  • appreciate your beautiful life situation (or are perhaps amazed by it) but feel you don’t deserve it, feel you don’t belong where you are.
  • are a survivor of an abusive relationship (not necessarily a marriage).
  • are estranged from either your parents or your children (though this could make parts of the book especially painful, it could be very healing too).
  • are not estranged from family but distinctly separated from them in some important way, and it hurts.
  • doubt your potential as a human being because of your life circumstances so far.
  • crave a wider view of the world, of written history, of society and family dynamics than what your personal world has offered so far.
  • simply enjoy lush prose and masterful storytelling.
  • appreciate memoirs that span time, geography, personalities, trauma, and triumph.
  • need some encouragement about the resiliency of average people and the length to which the Universe will go to assist us.

Okay. Does any of that include you? If so, please take my advice, as I took my sister Gen’s and her BFF Julia’s, and read this book. Page after page offers heartbreak, wisdom, good solid writing (even poetry), and plenty of universal truth and encouragement. Humanity stuff.

I can stand in this because I’m not trying to stand in it. The wind is just wind. You could withstand these gusts on the ground, so you can withstand them in the air. There is no difference. Except the difference you make in your head.

I’m just standing. You’re all trying to compensate, to get your bodies lower because the height scares you. But the crouching and the side stepping are not natural. You’ve made yourselves vulnerable. If you could just control your panic, this wind would be nothing.

The author is young, so her memoir only covers the earliest chapters of her life, which I hope will be long and only more fruitful. This is just her beginning. But in a little over 330 pages she manages to weave a page-turning drama and paint the emotional landscape of a life that could have continued on a very different trajectory, had fate or Love or (as she concludes) education not intervened. She views herself in a detached enough way that she can write with humility, almost too much of it, and a great deal of curiosity, just as if she is one of many human specimens worth studying. Curiosity is a vital element to good education, after all.

This is more than a coming-of-age story, so please don’t avoid reading it thinking that’s all it is. It’s as much about this one girl’s life as it is about her family, her family’s generational patterns, and their culture at large. It’s about ignorance and straight up mental illness. It asks really big questions about who writes history, what feminism could say to polygamy, how to discover self worth and exploit our potential free of labels, and so much more.

And because any true account of this much trauma and family implosion will certainly have more than one side to explore, you might read it with some skepticism. I did. The internet is brimming with skepticism about her stories. But what I found refreshing about this author is how diligently she examines herself, how brutal she is about checking her own motives and scrubbing clean her own processes. I never felt beguiled or cajoled into taking her side as I read. Even when I (incredibly) could perceive there was more to the story with her parents, I trusted her telling of the facts as she saw them, and this has led me down some healing paths in my own estrangement story. All of it is heartbreaking. All of it is beautiful, eventually.

Ok. This book deserves lots of deep conversation. I am so thankful to Gen and Julia for the push to read Educated.

Me, Gen’s hair, Julia, and Dad in the background,
exploring downtown Los Angeles last month!

And I am so happy that a few of my close friends are reading it now too, so we can roll it around together. Do you want to join the conversation? It is all so smart and beautiful and provocative.

Okay. Gotta go. Thanks for reading, friends! What else are you reading?

“First find out what you’re capable of,
then decide who you are,”
~Tara Westover
XOXOXOXO