This is embarrassing for me, a former literary scholar, the holder of two masters degrees, a community leader, to admit, but I enjoy Oprah. I also watch Dr. Phil and Nanny 911 and The Apprentice and The Cut. I used to watch Jerry Springer until it got so extreme that it went to pay-per-view, and I won’t pay to see it. Particularly in the age of digital video recording, when one can skip right over the annoying parts, it is mesmerizing to see the eternal struggles of humanity played out in variations.
I read murder mysteries for the same reason. I put a lot of time and energy into trying to untangle human motivation by observing activity, listening to spoken and unspoken intention, and exploring how different people’s realities collide.
I relate to Oprah, too, because we are almost the same age. And like Oprah, I am healthier, stronger, happier and more beautiful now than I was five years ago. Yesterday’s show focused on women who were dramatically more beautiful than they were a decade before, and the physical transformations were indeed dramatic and inspiring. That extra thirty pounds lost. The intent to keep a strong and healthy body. The conscious presentation of self to world by choosing clothing, hair and makeup. The personal tricks and tips ranged from the unsavory (putting Preparation H on your face every night) to the athletic (a woman who could stand on folding chairs and do a backbend to pick up a glass of juice in her teeth, then drink it down). Overall, Oprah had a good time with the show and with almost no mention of cosmetic surgery avoided drifting into the desperate territory of a Swan, which I do not watch.
There were mind games to try—put your alarm clock across the room and your sneakers next to it. The idea is that if you were standing up, the sight of your sneakers would guilt you into activity. Personally, I have become immune to guilt rays delivered by inanimate objects, so I would make a personal rule to put my shoes on before I was allowed to turn off the alarm clock. But then, I used to sleep in my exercise clothes.
By far, my favorite tip was one I discovered last year—wear pretty underwear all the time. Get rid of the grannies. Who wants to see those? I can’t tell you how often the image of a wisp of magenta lace in the ladies room mirror has lifted my spirits. Or how deeply reassuring it is to face a board meeting knowing that you are wearing your best matched black frills. A difficult conversation seems so much easier when you wear that ridiculous pink thong with the rose on the back. I can’t explain it, but it is true.
It is the rare fifty-year-old who can get away with wearing miniskirts, and I am not one of them. After yesterday’show, I might go for the next level of bodily improvement, but discretion bids a certain degree of coverage. But my underwear is my own affair.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
Our own worlds
I have just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, which has impressed me more than any novel I have read in years. It seemed on every page there was some line about which I could write a whole essay. One of them was this concept (somewhere around page 197 in the edition I was reading):
Every single one of us is a little civizilation build on the ruins of any number of preceding civizilations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable—which I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because thos around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us.
I have had thoughts somewhat like this before, though not expressed so elegantly. When I get annoyed at colleagues who routinely ignore messages, who prefer to remain ignorant of points of view other than their own, who walk into an emotional firestorm rather than unwind the tangled strands of motivation and passion—and this is in the professional world!—then sometimes I am able to see that I operate by a different set of rules than they do.
Professionally speaking, I was raised in a world that prized both conflict and courtesy. It is conflict that gives rise to new ideas, to advancement of group thinking in service of whatever ideal we may wish to serve. It is courtesy that allows for the fact that someone else’s idea may have more value than we see at first. And it is courtesy that keeps us from killing each other. Recognizing that I may be operating by unconscious rules that the other players don’t even know has made it possible for me to learn better negotiation skills.
In the personal world, too, I have recently come to recognize the need to explain the rules of my world. Most member of my immediate family (that is to say mom and siblings) are on maintenance contact right now. A variety of perfectly reasonable other issues in life—divorce, illness, joblessness, moving, and just living with small children—have caused family relationships—at least the ones with me—to fall away until there is really not a lot of interaction.
Do I believe they care about me? I guess. At least they would show up at my funeral. But like my colleagues, they don’t answer e-mails. My mother reads my blog, but I don’t think anyone else does. And the truth is that the blog was started, as was the group e-mail that preceded the blog, as a way to reach out, to help them know me a little better.
The truth is that they don’t know me as a person, and apparently don’t care to. I get birthday cards and Christmas presents and an occasional visit from one or another. I feel obligated to send Christmas presents and the occasional birthday card and—for some reason I have been the one to visit, more often than not. I send recipes from time to time, or a quick e-mail to say “I saw this and thought of you.” Most do not get replies.
I am careful to be as positive as I can be about each and every interaction, sending thank yous and reinforcing invitations. I even went on a group trip to Disney World, which was about as far from my idea of a dream vacation as it is possible to go. But I did it for the sake of growing connections.
What I get back from most of these relationships, most of the time, is slim pickings. I don’t get thank yous for Christmas presents. And last year one sibling sent me What Not to Wear, with a long and flowery note explaining that this was not a comment on my dress sense, just something to enjoy. It would have made a fine Christmas present if not for the fact that the previous year’s present was the identical book with an almost identical note.
Maybe it is time I get more explicit about my rules for dealing with family members. None of this represents any threat in any sense. How can you threaten people with the withdrawal of your attention and affection when those very things have so little value to them? And I know that as life happens, what we each need, every one of us, is more opportunities to continue to connect, not lines drawn in the sand. Still, almost everyone—there is an exception or maybe two—is on the maintenance plan right now.
To my family. Not to worry. You will still get Christmas presents, the occasional birthday card (somehow I have trouble remembering those), e-mails from time to time, and so on. At least you will get them as long as I have addresses for you.
Every year one sibling—whose sole idea for maintaining contact is to have children scrawl their names on a card—almost goes off the Christmas list completely. And every year, at the last minute, I can’t do it. Because I do value my family. And because no matter how serious the parent’s neglect of the gentle obligation to keep in touch, I want there to be options for the children.
I want the door always to be open. Open for what? Well might you ask. If the price of greater interaction with family members is that I need to take sides against other family members, that is simply not on. If the price is settling in for a cozy chat about how awful somebody’s spouse or ex-spouse is, I am not interested. I will not trade one family member for another. And if the price is giving up my own needs for a little quiet time during a visit, that won’t work, either. I am an introvert, you know! Or maybe you don’t.
I will still make the effort to visit down South once a year or maybe once every two years, if I am invited. But having noticed that the total of all the visits I have received over the last thirty years since I left the South is some fraction of all the visits I have made—for a lot of perfectly sound reasons, but still we are all adults now and all have engaging lives—I am unlikely to make more of an effort. I have come to realize that no matter how often I visit or how many ways I come up with to maintain contact, there simply is not much interest.
I suspect that if anyone in my family does read this, the first reaction will be to call and explain that I got it all wrong. Please don't. I know all about the press of daily life; I have one, too. I believe that people vote with their feet, not with their intentions. If you want the situation to be different, just act differently.
This state of affairs no longer offends, no longer hurts my feelings, but it does baffle. I think I am a pretty interesting person. The blog I started in part as a way to reach out to geographically and socially distant family members has blessed me with a new surprise. Apparently there are many people in the world who do find me interesting. In this day of internet and e-mail, we find our opportunities to connect no longer limited by distance. What a blessing that is!
Every single one of us is a little civizilation build on the ruins of any number of preceding civizilations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable—which I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because thos around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us.
I have had thoughts somewhat like this before, though not expressed so elegantly. When I get annoyed at colleagues who routinely ignore messages, who prefer to remain ignorant of points of view other than their own, who walk into an emotional firestorm rather than unwind the tangled strands of motivation and passion—and this is in the professional world!—then sometimes I am able to see that I operate by a different set of rules than they do.
Professionally speaking, I was raised in a world that prized both conflict and courtesy. It is conflict that gives rise to new ideas, to advancement of group thinking in service of whatever ideal we may wish to serve. It is courtesy that allows for the fact that someone else’s idea may have more value than we see at first. And it is courtesy that keeps us from killing each other. Recognizing that I may be operating by unconscious rules that the other players don’t even know has made it possible for me to learn better negotiation skills.
In the personal world, too, I have recently come to recognize the need to explain the rules of my world. Most member of my immediate family (that is to say mom and siblings) are on maintenance contact right now. A variety of perfectly reasonable other issues in life—divorce, illness, joblessness, moving, and just living with small children—have caused family relationships—at least the ones with me—to fall away until there is really not a lot of interaction.
Do I believe they care about me? I guess. At least they would show up at my funeral. But like my colleagues, they don’t answer e-mails. My mother reads my blog, but I don’t think anyone else does. And the truth is that the blog was started, as was the group e-mail that preceded the blog, as a way to reach out, to help them know me a little better.
The truth is that they don’t know me as a person, and apparently don’t care to. I get birthday cards and Christmas presents and an occasional visit from one or another. I feel obligated to send Christmas presents and the occasional birthday card and—for some reason I have been the one to visit, more often than not. I send recipes from time to time, or a quick e-mail to say “I saw this and thought of you.” Most do not get replies.
I am careful to be as positive as I can be about each and every interaction, sending thank yous and reinforcing invitations. I even went on a group trip to Disney World, which was about as far from my idea of a dream vacation as it is possible to go. But I did it for the sake of growing connections.
What I get back from most of these relationships, most of the time, is slim pickings. I don’t get thank yous for Christmas presents. And last year one sibling sent me What Not to Wear, with a long and flowery note explaining that this was not a comment on my dress sense, just something to enjoy. It would have made a fine Christmas present if not for the fact that the previous year’s present was the identical book with an almost identical note.
Maybe it is time I get more explicit about my rules for dealing with family members. None of this represents any threat in any sense. How can you threaten people with the withdrawal of your attention and affection when those very things have so little value to them? And I know that as life happens, what we each need, every one of us, is more opportunities to continue to connect, not lines drawn in the sand. Still, almost everyone—there is an exception or maybe two—is on the maintenance plan right now.
To my family. Not to worry. You will still get Christmas presents, the occasional birthday card (somehow I have trouble remembering those), e-mails from time to time, and so on. At least you will get them as long as I have addresses for you.
Every year one sibling—whose sole idea for maintaining contact is to have children scrawl their names on a card—almost goes off the Christmas list completely. And every year, at the last minute, I can’t do it. Because I do value my family. And because no matter how serious the parent’s neglect of the gentle obligation to keep in touch, I want there to be options for the children.
I want the door always to be open. Open for what? Well might you ask. If the price of greater interaction with family members is that I need to take sides against other family members, that is simply not on. If the price is settling in for a cozy chat about how awful somebody’s spouse or ex-spouse is, I am not interested. I will not trade one family member for another. And if the price is giving up my own needs for a little quiet time during a visit, that won’t work, either. I am an introvert, you know! Or maybe you don’t.
I will still make the effort to visit down South once a year or maybe once every two years, if I am invited. But having noticed that the total of all the visits I have received over the last thirty years since I left the South is some fraction of all the visits I have made—for a lot of perfectly sound reasons, but still we are all adults now and all have engaging lives—I am unlikely to make more of an effort. I have come to realize that no matter how often I visit or how many ways I come up with to maintain contact, there simply is not much interest.
I suspect that if anyone in my family does read this, the first reaction will be to call and explain that I got it all wrong. Please don't. I know all about the press of daily life; I have one, too. I believe that people vote with their feet, not with their intentions. If you want the situation to be different, just act differently.
This state of affairs no longer offends, no longer hurts my feelings, but it does baffle. I think I am a pretty interesting person. The blog I started in part as a way to reach out to geographically and socially distant family members has blessed me with a new surprise. Apparently there are many people in the world who do find me interesting. In this day of internet and e-mail, we find our opportunities to connect no longer limited by distance. What a blessing that is!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Reciprocity
Life in the city is easy. If you need something done, there are phalanxes of service providers clamoring for your money. And all it really takes is money, maybe a little oversight of the project, and quick like a rabbit your world is back in order.
Living alone in the country is different. Any illusion of self-reliance vanishes with the first big snowfall or the first downed tree limb. Here in rural America, we need each other, and we know it.
Musing today, my friend wasn’t entirely sure what makes her so grumpy with in-migrants, but she thinks it might be the lack of understanding of basic country courtesies, particularly of reciprocity. Of all the people that her husband had plowed out, of all the bundles of wood delivered as welcome presents, of all the gifts of time and heavy equipment, too few have been recognized as worthy of gratitude, far fewer of reciprocity. One returned brownies for firewood, and is held up as model of the rare in-comer who gets it. Vermonters are not happy, witless folk looking for opportunities to show off their tractors; rather they are over-obligated hard-working people who nevertheless make the time for those in need of help, however hapless the appeal. And however ungrateful the response.
It is reciprocity that is the name of the game here where winter really can kill and where people have lived in such close relation for so many years that they have come at last to recognize that different persons harbor different gifts.
I shared with my friend the technique I use here. In comparison to these people who have all manner of knowledge of the practicalities of country life, I know nothing. I have skills to offer, certainly, but it seems skimpy to offer an apple pie or a computer spreadsheet in exchange for the gifts I have received. And so, when I ask for and receive the gift of help hauling old carpet to the dump or even last minute dogsitting, I am wary that I need to reciprocate. Often I try to pay, and I have found the following phrase sometimes cuts through shyness and pride: “Hon, I really have to pay you. You know I can’t afford what you are worth, but if I can’t pay you something then I can never ask you again for a favor.” Pride meets pride, we agree to set it aside, and we are human together.
It is a humble thing to need to ask for help. I have good friends here, not people who invite me to dinner parties and chatter about the latest latest, but people to whom I can turn when a tree limb falls to ask who do I call? People who help without hesitation or question when I appear in tears over some small or not so small threat to my tiny treasure of a world.
Miracles have occurred in my life over the past few days. A confrontation that left me in tears was met by good friends who said, don’t worry…if we have to, we can build you a fence in a day or so. Ignoring the in-laws in the hospital, the daily demands of a small business. Here, they said, is what you do. But don’t worry.
I’m sorry, from another friend, the one who meant to build my fence sooner. Working for pay, his time is fractured in this halcyon season, but in hours he was in my yard full of apologies and re-engineered schedules. I thought I was waiting for you, but don’t worry. We can make it happen. Whatever happens, don’t worry.
Don’t worry, said my musing friend. It won’t be today or even this week, but we can bring the chain saw and take care of that tree that fell in your yard. Sure, you could call someone, but they will charge you, and we will take care of you. Because you belong here.
Did you want help with that? Another friend, my neighbor. Could you use the wood, I ask, or could I pay you? Definitively no. You kept our dog a really long time. I had forgotten the dog that came with my house, the dog who stayed on for a few months after we came to take over her family's former home. I had forgotten that I had reciprocity banked.
I am rich indeed.
Living alone in the country is different. Any illusion of self-reliance vanishes with the first big snowfall or the first downed tree limb. Here in rural America, we need each other, and we know it.
Musing today, my friend wasn’t entirely sure what makes her so grumpy with in-migrants, but she thinks it might be the lack of understanding of basic country courtesies, particularly of reciprocity. Of all the people that her husband had plowed out, of all the bundles of wood delivered as welcome presents, of all the gifts of time and heavy equipment, too few have been recognized as worthy of gratitude, far fewer of reciprocity. One returned brownies for firewood, and is held up as model of the rare in-comer who gets it. Vermonters are not happy, witless folk looking for opportunities to show off their tractors; rather they are over-obligated hard-working people who nevertheless make the time for those in need of help, however hapless the appeal. And however ungrateful the response.
It is reciprocity that is the name of the game here where winter really can kill and where people have lived in such close relation for so many years that they have come at last to recognize that different persons harbor different gifts.
I shared with my friend the technique I use here. In comparison to these people who have all manner of knowledge of the practicalities of country life, I know nothing. I have skills to offer, certainly, but it seems skimpy to offer an apple pie or a computer spreadsheet in exchange for the gifts I have received. And so, when I ask for and receive the gift of help hauling old carpet to the dump or even last minute dogsitting, I am wary that I need to reciprocate. Often I try to pay, and I have found the following phrase sometimes cuts through shyness and pride: “Hon, I really have to pay you. You know I can’t afford what you are worth, but if I can’t pay you something then I can never ask you again for a favor.” Pride meets pride, we agree to set it aside, and we are human together.
It is a humble thing to need to ask for help. I have good friends here, not people who invite me to dinner parties and chatter about the latest latest, but people to whom I can turn when a tree limb falls to ask who do I call? People who help without hesitation or question when I appear in tears over some small or not so small threat to my tiny treasure of a world.
Miracles have occurred in my life over the past few days. A confrontation that left me in tears was met by good friends who said, don’t worry…if we have to, we can build you a fence in a day or so. Ignoring the in-laws in the hospital, the daily demands of a small business. Here, they said, is what you do. But don’t worry.
I’m sorry, from another friend, the one who meant to build my fence sooner. Working for pay, his time is fractured in this halcyon season, but in hours he was in my yard full of apologies and re-engineered schedules. I thought I was waiting for you, but don’t worry. We can make it happen. Whatever happens, don’t worry.
Don’t worry, said my musing friend. It won’t be today or even this week, but we can bring the chain saw and take care of that tree that fell in your yard. Sure, you could call someone, but they will charge you, and we will take care of you. Because you belong here.
Did you want help with that? Another friend, my neighbor. Could you use the wood, I ask, or could I pay you? Definitively no. You kept our dog a really long time. I had forgotten the dog that came with my house, the dog who stayed on for a few months after we came to take over her family's former home. I had forgotten that I had reciprocity banked.
I am rich indeed.
Families
“Four girls and four boys he had, robustious little heathens, every one of them, as he said himself. But good fortune is not only good fortune, and over the years things happened in that family that caused some terrible regret. Still for years, it seemed to me to be blindingly beautiful. And it was.”
Doesn’t that just say everything about families? Blindingly beautiful. And terrible regret. Inescapable.
I am reading Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and having the unaccustomed experience of savoring every page. I don’t usually have the patience even to read every page, so eager am I to get on with plot and life. But the woman has a gift. She understands what it is like to be alive, what it is like to live simultaneously knowing the blessing of your own life and the dismay when others judge.
“I don’t think it was resentment I felt then. It was some sort of loyalty to my own life, as if I wanted to say, I have a wife, too, I have a child, too. It was as if the price of having them was losing them, and I couldn’t bear the implication that even that price could be too high.”
People think I have chosen my life, and in many ways I have. I have chosen not to be whipsawed by others’ judgments, no matter how close to me they are, no matter how well-intentioned. But did I choose to be alone? Not really. Still, it has been a blessing to me to learn to love solitude.
I love my mother, my sister, my brothers, their families. I would like to know them better, as people rather than as the figurehead roles they prefer to play in my life. It is a source of unending sadness to me that they see me only as the one who left, the one who does not behave properly, the one who is to be judged and found wanting. I am expected to behave in certain ways because….well, just because.
I have definitively opted out of that game. But should anyone want to start a new way of relating, I would be all over that. Like white on rice, like a duck on a June bug, as they say down South, where I come from. And where I can never return.
Doesn’t that just say everything about families? Blindingly beautiful. And terrible regret. Inescapable.
I am reading Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and having the unaccustomed experience of savoring every page. I don’t usually have the patience even to read every page, so eager am I to get on with plot and life. But the woman has a gift. She understands what it is like to be alive, what it is like to live simultaneously knowing the blessing of your own life and the dismay when others judge.
“I don’t think it was resentment I felt then. It was some sort of loyalty to my own life, as if I wanted to say, I have a wife, too, I have a child, too. It was as if the price of having them was losing them, and I couldn’t bear the implication that even that price could be too high.”
People think I have chosen my life, and in many ways I have. I have chosen not to be whipsawed by others’ judgments, no matter how close to me they are, no matter how well-intentioned. But did I choose to be alone? Not really. Still, it has been a blessing to me to learn to love solitude.
I love my mother, my sister, my brothers, their families. I would like to know them better, as people rather than as the figurehead roles they prefer to play in my life. It is a source of unending sadness to me that they see me only as the one who left, the one who does not behave properly, the one who is to be judged and found wanting. I am expected to behave in certain ways because….well, just because.
I have definitively opted out of that game. But should anyone want to start a new way of relating, I would be all over that. Like white on rice, like a duck on a June bug, as they say down South, where I come from. And where I can never return.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Ungardening
The world and I have each done our share this weekend. I pulled out the knee-high weeds, carving out new garden vistas by what is no longer there, then mowed herb garden paths in more creative destruction. Finally, I put in a round of new plants, though this morning early I had to rescue one that Toby dug up to bury his morning milkbone.
I made a little headway on the lawn. I had to have it brush hogged, you know, after a month of wet weekends had spawned hip-high meadow that choked and broke my modest power push mower. The front is cut back to ankle height, and the side yard, but there are wide swaths of the back that are rapidly going back to meadow. Rapidly.
All the time, I worked around an enormous (think the size of a medium size tree) branch that fell in the night. Jeezum. How could a branch that big fall? Good thing it wasn’t closer to the house. This will be a new test of my emerging network of helpers. Who you gonna call? It has leaves, so does that make it good for firewood? Or do I just have a major disposition bill to face?
After a long day in the herb garden—but most satisfying as I reclaimed my paths and put in several dozen plants—I took a quiet walk over the the vegetable garden. I weeded only yesterday! Biomass has exploded everywhere, weeds flexing their vigor, robbing my poor little emerging veggies of water and nutrient. Gardening is easy in Vermont this time of year—which lasts only a few short weeks before the light changes, second cut comes, and we start to get ready for the snow again—but ungardening is even easier.
Entropy! Our only hope is to go with it.
I made a little headway on the lawn. I had to have it brush hogged, you know, after a month of wet weekends had spawned hip-high meadow that choked and broke my modest power push mower. The front is cut back to ankle height, and the side yard, but there are wide swaths of the back that are rapidly going back to meadow. Rapidly.
All the time, I worked around an enormous (think the size of a medium size tree) branch that fell in the night. Jeezum. How could a branch that big fall? Good thing it wasn’t closer to the house. This will be a new test of my emerging network of helpers. Who you gonna call? It has leaves, so does that make it good for firewood? Or do I just have a major disposition bill to face?
After a long day in the herb garden—but most satisfying as I reclaimed my paths and put in several dozen plants—I took a quiet walk over the the vegetable garden. I weeded only yesterday! Biomass has exploded everywhere, weeds flexing their vigor, robbing my poor little emerging veggies of water and nutrient. Gardening is easy in Vermont this time of year—which lasts only a few short weeks before the light changes, second cut comes, and we start to get ready for the snow again—but ungardening is even easier.
Entropy! Our only hope is to go with it.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Instant gratification
Is there anything better than this?
I put the broccoli plants in last weekend, or was it the weekend before. Today I ate the pizza, lovely whole wheat pizza with thyme-roasted onions and grilled eggplant and red pepper flakes and oil-cured olives and the very first tiny broccoli flowers from those greenhouse-fostered plants.
Honestly, can you think of anything better?
I put the broccoli plants in last weekend, or was it the weekend before. Today I ate the pizza, lovely whole wheat pizza with thyme-roasted onions and grilled eggplant and red pepper flakes and oil-cured olives and the very first tiny broccoli flowers from those greenhouse-fostered plants.
Honestly, can you think of anything better?
Bookworm child
I do appreciate Jean passing the book meme to me. From childhood, I have found my best refuge in books. The summer I turned nine my house was a bookmobile stop. I remember the bookmobile ladies coming to my birthday party. It was the birthday that I remember hanging upside down on the neighbors’ monkey bars singing to myself, “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” in mute protest.
It was one of the few occasions when my mother’s attempts to create a perfect child-centered word went badly astray. And who can blame her from trying? If I was nine, then my sister was six, the older of my two brothers four and the other a baby or not even. I was so excited when the girls up the road invited me to play, devastated when I came to realize that it was a put-up job to arrange a surprise party for me. I don’t think anyone has given me a surprise party since. And that’s a good thing. I was not a child who enjoyed surprises, nor do I enjoy them now.
An introverted and intelligent child, I never so much as tasted the easy cameraderie I saw others enjoy. Partly it was a numbers game, that in the tiny rural towns where we lived, there were few children with whom I had much in common. Partly it was the usual childhood stuff, learning to deal with the schoolbus bully and coping when best friends move away. But a lot of it was about learning who I am—introverted, intuitive, quiet but intense. I have a boisterous mask, but that has been slowly acquired to allow me to operate with people who are mostly very different from me. Those decades in New York were priceless in this effort!
From rural Georgia to Boston to Philadelphia to New York to Chattanooga and back to New York to here, my home in rural Vermont, books have been my best friend. From childhood, I curled up Jane Aiken Hodge’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, with Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, with Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. Like Jean, I initially missed the satire, but I craved the social observation. All these books I read over and over, along with anything that came as a Reader’s Digest book and any murder mystery. I loved plot and I loved characterization. I loved being taken to a different world. I still do.
1. Total number of books I’ve owned: Like Jean, somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand, but I have cut back to around 500 now. After years of hauling too many books around, I came to prize space and simplicity over objects, and disposed of all but the ones I really, really needed. This ongoing struggle against accumulation has required that I develop rules for what I really, really need, but in the degree that I successfully implement my own rules, I am free.
I have rules for clothes. If too big or too frumpy, it goes away. If you haven’t worn it in the last year, it goes away—unless you really, really love it. My rules all have the escape hatch for what you really, really love.
I have rules for food. If it’s not good for you, it doesn’t come in the house. If you ought to be eating it (vegetables!) buy it, plan a recipe, cook it, so that you have the option to do the right thing. Any waste is readily justified on the basis of option creation and compost.
And I have rules for books. Now I have my core books—probably no more than a hundred or so—and I have provisional books which are on their way through my home. Some of the provisional books are murder mysteries that I don’t need to own on literary merit, but it is handy to have a spare few just in case I hit a day when I have nothing to read and can’t get to the library. Some are home improvement or decorating or travel books that are handy, even if they aren’t—properly speaking—essential to my well-being. It got to be such a burden getting rid of books, that I have all but stopped acquiring them. Libraries fill the gap.
There are books I treasure because they bring me back to a part of my life. My foreign language dictionaries for college. Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy for business school. A bond math handbook for those years at the bank. The Book of Common Prayer. Christopher Robin and Le Petit Prince. A strange little novel, not very good, called On the Marais des Cygnes written by my great-grandfather. My mother recently sent me some volumes of a children’s magazine called St Nicholas from the twenties that I pored through as a child, particularly the stories told around any three random objects: a spider, a bicycle and a bad boy, say.
There are books I keep because they said something to me once, or because I sense that they have something yet to say to me, although I cannot read them now. The former includes May Sarton’s books and James Hillman’s and almost all of Annie Dillard, although these days I find Dillard overly wordy and mostly unreadable. The latter group are the books I tried to get rid of but they would not let me: Isak Dinesen and George Eliot and my complete Shakespeare plays comprise a few examples.
Cookbooks, of course, have completely separate rules.
2. Last book I bought: Kay Redfield Jamison’s Exuberance, because I need to own it.
3. Last book I read: I just finished Margaret Drabble’s The Red Queen. Margaret Drabble is one of those writers whose work I will always read. Her books stay with me—literally and figuratively—for a long time. It took me about three weeks to read this book, which is quite unusual, since most books don’t last me three days. I don’t think it is her best work, but it is extremely interesting in the interplay of multiple plot lines and the blurring of one story into another. I particularly relate to the theme that we are each writing the story of our own lives—that the way we tell our own story is of supreme importance and that stories clash in the ether.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. I wrote my master’s thesis on this book, which still speaks to me. Layers and layers and layers. If I had to pick only one book that meant the most to me, it would be this one with its echoes of Goethe’s Faust, its overlay of rose petal fragrance, and its exquisite rendering of the battle between light and darkness.
My favorite gardening book, Landscaping with Herbs by James Adams. Fragrance and flavor, wrapped up in beauty. And you can have it at home.
If I were able to pick something for the Christian tradition it would have to be Thomas Merton or CS Lewis or Thomas Moore or Henri Nouwen, but I don’t know how to pick. Maybe the Book of Common Prayer. The Bible seems an obvious pick, but somehow that is not so much a book to me as a more complex object, its impact both sharpened and blunted by how others have used it as an instrument of social conformity. Lately, I am branching into some Buddhist paths with Thich Nhat Han.
Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Puppet Theater is not so much a book as an essay, one that is so important to my world view that I quoted almost all of it elsewhere in this blog. http://vtdiary.blogspot.com/2005/01/end-times-in-garden.html
Among self-help books, I would have to pick Maggie Scarf’s Unfinished Business or Kay Redmond Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, or even Parallel Lives: A Study of Victorian Marriage, by Phylis Rose, because she gave me a way to think about what marriage is not. I agree with Jean’s pick of The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Aron, and would add The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney. Who could ever suspect that extroverts think we are ignoring them on purpose? We introverts are simply not particularly interested in extroverts’ flapping and fluttering, but that, I suppose, is what offends them. And who could have imagined that extroverts routinely talk without thinking first? I am offended by that.
Murder mysteries and cookbooks—I can’t begin to pick. The truth is that despite an MA in comparative literature and an MBA to follow, these are the categories of my daily fare. Maybe another essay another day.
5. Which five bloggers am I passing this to? Since we have already established in the previous section that I either cannot count or cannot play by the rules—or perhaps this overly conforming child is finally learning that I don’t always have to—I am passing it to any of you who want to do it. Despite my blog-absence of the last few months, I confess to feeling a slight reprise of those childhood slights that I wasn’t asked earlier. I was always the last picked for kickball, too. But I would have done this particular meme eventually even if Jean had not asked, since I am grown up now and I write about what I like. If something in my piece speaks to you, please do respond, but many of my favorite bloggers have done this one already. It would, as always, be great to hear from Robert at Beginner’s Mind http://beginnermind.blogspot.com/ or from Susan at Visual Voice-Net http://www.visual-voice.net/ but if I have missed your booklist in my absence, please forgive me.
It was one of the few occasions when my mother’s attempts to create a perfect child-centered word went badly astray. And who can blame her from trying? If I was nine, then my sister was six, the older of my two brothers four and the other a baby or not even. I was so excited when the girls up the road invited me to play, devastated when I came to realize that it was a put-up job to arrange a surprise party for me. I don’t think anyone has given me a surprise party since. And that’s a good thing. I was not a child who enjoyed surprises, nor do I enjoy them now.
An introverted and intelligent child, I never so much as tasted the easy cameraderie I saw others enjoy. Partly it was a numbers game, that in the tiny rural towns where we lived, there were few children with whom I had much in common. Partly it was the usual childhood stuff, learning to deal with the schoolbus bully and coping when best friends move away. But a lot of it was about learning who I am—introverted, intuitive, quiet but intense. I have a boisterous mask, but that has been slowly acquired to allow me to operate with people who are mostly very different from me. Those decades in New York were priceless in this effort!
From rural Georgia to Boston to Philadelphia to New York to Chattanooga and back to New York to here, my home in rural Vermont, books have been my best friend. From childhood, I curled up Jane Aiken Hodge’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, with Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, with Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. Like Jean, I initially missed the satire, but I craved the social observation. All these books I read over and over, along with anything that came as a Reader’s Digest book and any murder mystery. I loved plot and I loved characterization. I loved being taken to a different world. I still do.
1. Total number of books I’ve owned: Like Jean, somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand, but I have cut back to around 500 now. After years of hauling too many books around, I came to prize space and simplicity over objects, and disposed of all but the ones I really, really needed. This ongoing struggle against accumulation has required that I develop rules for what I really, really need, but in the degree that I successfully implement my own rules, I am free.
I have rules for clothes. If too big or too frumpy, it goes away. If you haven’t worn it in the last year, it goes away—unless you really, really love it. My rules all have the escape hatch for what you really, really love.
I have rules for food. If it’s not good for you, it doesn’t come in the house. If you ought to be eating it (vegetables!) buy it, plan a recipe, cook it, so that you have the option to do the right thing. Any waste is readily justified on the basis of option creation and compost.
And I have rules for books. Now I have my core books—probably no more than a hundred or so—and I have provisional books which are on their way through my home. Some of the provisional books are murder mysteries that I don’t need to own on literary merit, but it is handy to have a spare few just in case I hit a day when I have nothing to read and can’t get to the library. Some are home improvement or decorating or travel books that are handy, even if they aren’t—properly speaking—essential to my well-being. It got to be such a burden getting rid of books, that I have all but stopped acquiring them. Libraries fill the gap.
There are books I treasure because they bring me back to a part of my life. My foreign language dictionaries for college. Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy for business school. A bond math handbook for those years at the bank. The Book of Common Prayer. Christopher Robin and Le Petit Prince. A strange little novel, not very good, called On the Marais des Cygnes written by my great-grandfather. My mother recently sent me some volumes of a children’s magazine called St Nicholas from the twenties that I pored through as a child, particularly the stories told around any three random objects: a spider, a bicycle and a bad boy, say.
There are books I keep because they said something to me once, or because I sense that they have something yet to say to me, although I cannot read them now. The former includes May Sarton’s books and James Hillman’s and almost all of Annie Dillard, although these days I find Dillard overly wordy and mostly unreadable. The latter group are the books I tried to get rid of but they would not let me: Isak Dinesen and George Eliot and my complete Shakespeare plays comprise a few examples.
Cookbooks, of course, have completely separate rules.
2. Last book I bought: Kay Redfield Jamison’s Exuberance, because I need to own it.
3. Last book I read: I just finished Margaret Drabble’s The Red Queen. Margaret Drabble is one of those writers whose work I will always read. Her books stay with me—literally and figuratively—for a long time. It took me about three weeks to read this book, which is quite unusual, since most books don’t last me three days. I don’t think it is her best work, but it is extremely interesting in the interplay of multiple plot lines and the blurring of one story into another. I particularly relate to the theme that we are each writing the story of our own lives—that the way we tell our own story is of supreme importance and that stories clash in the ether.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. I wrote my master’s thesis on this book, which still speaks to me. Layers and layers and layers. If I had to pick only one book that meant the most to me, it would be this one with its echoes of Goethe’s Faust, its overlay of rose petal fragrance, and its exquisite rendering of the battle between light and darkness.
My favorite gardening book, Landscaping with Herbs by James Adams. Fragrance and flavor, wrapped up in beauty. And you can have it at home.
If I were able to pick something for the Christian tradition it would have to be Thomas Merton or CS Lewis or Thomas Moore or Henri Nouwen, but I don’t know how to pick. Maybe the Book of Common Prayer. The Bible seems an obvious pick, but somehow that is not so much a book to me as a more complex object, its impact both sharpened and blunted by how others have used it as an instrument of social conformity. Lately, I am branching into some Buddhist paths with Thich Nhat Han.
Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Puppet Theater is not so much a book as an essay, one that is so important to my world view that I quoted almost all of it elsewhere in this blog. http://vtdiary.blogspot.com/2005/01/end-times-in-garden.html
Among self-help books, I would have to pick Maggie Scarf’s Unfinished Business or Kay Redmond Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, or even Parallel Lives: A Study of Victorian Marriage, by Phylis Rose, because she gave me a way to think about what marriage is not. I agree with Jean’s pick of The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Aron, and would add The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney. Who could ever suspect that extroverts think we are ignoring them on purpose? We introverts are simply not particularly interested in extroverts’ flapping and fluttering, but that, I suppose, is what offends them. And who could have imagined that extroverts routinely talk without thinking first? I am offended by that.
Murder mysteries and cookbooks—I can’t begin to pick. The truth is that despite an MA in comparative literature and an MBA to follow, these are the categories of my daily fare. Maybe another essay another day.
5. Which five bloggers am I passing this to? Since we have already established in the previous section that I either cannot count or cannot play by the rules—or perhaps this overly conforming child is finally learning that I don’t always have to—I am passing it to any of you who want to do it. Despite my blog-absence of the last few months, I confess to feeling a slight reprise of those childhood slights that I wasn’t asked earlier. I was always the last picked for kickball, too. But I would have done this particular meme eventually even if Jean had not asked, since I am grown up now and I write about what I like. If something in my piece speaks to you, please do respond, but many of my favorite bloggers have done this one already. It would, as always, be great to hear from Robert at Beginner’s Mind http://beginnermind.blogspot.com/ or from Susan at Visual Voice-Net http://www.visual-voice.net/ but if I have missed your booklist in my absence, please forgive me.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Simply irresistible
If you were a perfume, you'd be named Simply Irresistible. Something in the way you move is just drawing admirers by the score. It's not just your overall pulchritude -- although there is that, of course -- but the entire package. Learn to own your charms, even if you're normally a more shy and retiring type. It's true, being impossibly charming does have its drawbacks -- although actually, who can think of one?
This is my horoscope for today, or one of them. I read several, always hoping to find the message from the universe that speaks to the most gnawing worry buried in my subconscious. Whenever I can tease those anxieties to the surface, I am better prepared to deal with them.
Goodness! There are so many! How can a person in good health with happy living circumstances and a fulfilling job have so many anxieties? My daily practice to count my blessings and count them again, and my considerable discipline (not always obvious to the casual observer) are powerful weapons against anxiety, but still the little monsters burble up in dreams of both the day and night varieties.
My best tactic to bring calm and peace to my life these days is walking. Springtime in Vermont is my vista as I stretch long muscles and click into a nonverbal space in my mind. When I return to my daily anxieties, I am always—every day—astonished at how small and warped and gnarly and irrelevant they are.
The stuff I fuss about mostly falls away, or gets slotted into a spot where I can deal with it efficiently. That’s stuff like the random $400 fraudulent charges on a credit card that I closed three years ago, but the company didn’t, resulting in my credit being trashed—despite twenty years of outstanding credit—and a month of unsatisfactory exchanges with the credit card company. It is fixed now, but I still have reservations about Chase/BankOne credit cards, although they have not quite hit my personal boycott list. Dell is still leading that list, although I have found a workaround: never buy a Dell and make sure that whatever computer you buy, you are not dependent on the company warranty. Annoying, time-consuming, but really very small in the grand scheme of things.
The big things you can’t fix. Serious health problems of family members. The little company in my area that imploded this week. Imagine that you are a talented furniture maker and you have been working for someone else but thinking about going out on your own. Your newest baby is very new (weeks, not months) and the baby appears to have some serious health problems, so you have put off launching your own business. Then imagine one day you go to work and you discover that your boss dropped dead over the weekend. Your paycheck is not there, everything is tied up in probate, and you—with difficulty—extricate your own personal handtools from the building before the doors are padlocked. Working for a small company in Vermont, you are always no more than one step from this reality.
What can I do for this guy? I can fast-track him with the small business counselor. I can refer him to potential lenders. I can intervene to get a faster response from unemployment…maybe. I can possible come up with networking possibilities for him, but to his credit, he has already pursued most of them. I can refer him—as much as he does not want to go there—for food stamps and aid to families with dependent children. I can even prioritize a small repair job that I need done at home because a couple hundred dollars makes a huge difference to this guy at this time. But most important, I can listen. And I can recognize that this life is really, fundamentally no different from mine.
The big stuff is really big. People we love suffer from health problems, from relationship problems, from the pain of watching loved ones suffer. All we can do is listen, help sort the small stuff from the big stuff, encourage, suggest more options, and agree that the big stuff is really, really, …..really big. What we can do is so very small in the grand scheme of things. But it is everything that we can do, and faith requires that we hold fast that it will be enough.
Postscript: Now this is what I love about writing! When I read my horoscope and sat down to write, I intended to write about how I came to Vermont for sex (it’s not exactly how that sounds, but close) and found that there are a lot of amazing and wonderful men in Vermont who seem to find me (yes, me! 50-year-old me!) irresistible. And look what came out of my fingers. Maybe tomorrow you will get the other piece.
This is my horoscope for today, or one of them. I read several, always hoping to find the message from the universe that speaks to the most gnawing worry buried in my subconscious. Whenever I can tease those anxieties to the surface, I am better prepared to deal with them.
Goodness! There are so many! How can a person in good health with happy living circumstances and a fulfilling job have so many anxieties? My daily practice to count my blessings and count them again, and my considerable discipline (not always obvious to the casual observer) are powerful weapons against anxiety, but still the little monsters burble up in dreams of both the day and night varieties.
My best tactic to bring calm and peace to my life these days is walking. Springtime in Vermont is my vista as I stretch long muscles and click into a nonverbal space in my mind. When I return to my daily anxieties, I am always—every day—astonished at how small and warped and gnarly and irrelevant they are.
The stuff I fuss about mostly falls away, or gets slotted into a spot where I can deal with it efficiently. That’s stuff like the random $400 fraudulent charges on a credit card that I closed three years ago, but the company didn’t, resulting in my credit being trashed—despite twenty years of outstanding credit—and a month of unsatisfactory exchanges with the credit card company. It is fixed now, but I still have reservations about Chase/BankOne credit cards, although they have not quite hit my personal boycott list. Dell is still leading that list, although I have found a workaround: never buy a Dell and make sure that whatever computer you buy, you are not dependent on the company warranty. Annoying, time-consuming, but really very small in the grand scheme of things.
The big things you can’t fix. Serious health problems of family members. The little company in my area that imploded this week. Imagine that you are a talented furniture maker and you have been working for someone else but thinking about going out on your own. Your newest baby is very new (weeks, not months) and the baby appears to have some serious health problems, so you have put off launching your own business. Then imagine one day you go to work and you discover that your boss dropped dead over the weekend. Your paycheck is not there, everything is tied up in probate, and you—with difficulty—extricate your own personal handtools from the building before the doors are padlocked. Working for a small company in Vermont, you are always no more than one step from this reality.
What can I do for this guy? I can fast-track him with the small business counselor. I can refer him to potential lenders. I can intervene to get a faster response from unemployment…maybe. I can possible come up with networking possibilities for him, but to his credit, he has already pursued most of them. I can refer him—as much as he does not want to go there—for food stamps and aid to families with dependent children. I can even prioritize a small repair job that I need done at home because a couple hundred dollars makes a huge difference to this guy at this time. But most important, I can listen. And I can recognize that this life is really, fundamentally no different from mine.
The big stuff is really big. People we love suffer from health problems, from relationship problems, from the pain of watching loved ones suffer. All we can do is listen, help sort the small stuff from the big stuff, encourage, suggest more options, and agree that the big stuff is really, really, …..really big. What we can do is so very small in the grand scheme of things. But it is everything that we can do, and faith requires that we hold fast that it will be enough.
Postscript: Now this is what I love about writing! When I read my horoscope and sat down to write, I intended to write about how I came to Vermont for sex (it’s not exactly how that sounds, but close) and found that there are a lot of amazing and wonderful men in Vermont who seem to find me (yes, me! 50-year-old me!) irresistible. And look what came out of my fingers. Maybe tomorrow you will get the other piece.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
The best day of the year
I count it a measure of my inexperience as a gardener that I still love planting day the best. Hours go into my garden plans as I scope out which plants like which others, how to lay out paths, what did well last year and what I would like to try this time. The fickle Vermont climate here in Zone 4 adds unpredictability, an insouciant invitation to try peppers and okra on the chance that this may be their year.
The Deep South, where I grew up, is so different in its seasonal sighs. There, flowering trees bloom every year in colors that are startling only in contrast to the gray, rainy winter. But here in Vermont, trees are blooming this year that last year did not. Old news to the locals that sometimes the blossoms freeze before spring, but this chilly truth requires an adjustment on my part. The higher peaks and lower lows of Vermont seasons also demand the observer’s keen attention, particularly if the observer wants to garden.
In the South, the long growing season allows for a more gradual slide from winter into spring, spring into summer, although most people still put in the largest part of their gardens all at once. The tradition is that you plant your peas on St. Patrick’s day, not that they are likely to do much before the heat of the summer comes. You plant most of your garden on Good Friday. In Vermont, our last reliable frost free date is Memorial Day, and there has been frost documented well into June. With this weekend’s perfect weather for planting, there must have been millions (billions?) of seeds nestled into plots and fields, covered over by a warm blanket of earth and gently nourished by last night’s soaking rain. Perfection!
We must be grateful for planting days like the last three. Now the race is on! Soon it will be the Fourth of July, sometimes barely warm in Southern terms, then August’s second cut of hay. And after the second cut, we feel the chill at our backs as we hurry to prepare for another winter. A critical skill for Vermont gardening is to read the back of the seed packet: days to harvest mean the difference between getting a crop and not.
I do love the planning stages. I love dreaming over my graph paper and my books, imagining the soft sweep of fennel behind a bed of tall marigolds. I love walking around my yard and pondering seriously the consequences of where I plant rhubarb, horseradish, and lovage. I will never plant Jerusalem artichokes again, and I am astonished that anyone would plant morning glories.
Sometimes I struggle because I so badly want to put seeds into the ground. At one level I am falling back into the seasonal patterns of my youth—surely it must be time! But I know that it is best to proceed systematically, laying in the paths, planning crop rotation and labeling as I go. Still I yearn to dream over the little seeds, to put them to bed as I conjure visions of tall, perfect specimens untangled by weeds.
Then one day it is time. This is it. There is soft sunshine in the morning and almost no breeze, but thundershowers are forecast for the afternoon. The garden is tilled, and the paths are laid out, if not quite properly clothed in newspaper and straw. A week of daily gentle showers has left the ground dry enough to work but moist enough to show a darker shadow of where the rake has been. It’s time to plant!
About two thirds of my garden is in. I am trying corn this year. There is a whole row of beans of different types, alternating colors so I can easily tell which is which for the freezer. I had no squash last year or the year before, so this time the whole bottom row, which tends to be wet, is a trial of three years worth of accumulated squash seed. There are beets and carrots and radishes. The vegetable garden gets the messy annual herbs, like coriander and borage and summer savory. And for serendipity, there are two kinds of melons. Maybe this will be their year.
I made some mistakes. According to my notes, sunflowers do not like pole beans and vice versa, but there is a long row of sunflowers behind the corn and the pole beans. We’ll see. Onion sets still need to go in, and maybe some seed potatoes for a new experiment. A big crop of garlic. And a variety of greens, which last longer for us than for Southern gardeners.
And the herb garden still waits. Seven of the eight wedge-shaped beds in the circle have been dug and prepped, and the planting plan which looked good on paper is evolving nicely. Having banished the weedy herbs to the vegetable plot, I am considering a veritable avenue of lettuces for this new garden just outside the back door.
There comes a day when the planning and the preparation aren’t done, but it is time to plant. So we respond to the day, we fling ourselves into the task. At the end of the day, we see that we have accomplished not only a good day’s work but also a turn of the season. And we turn our faces toward the joy of whatever comes next.
The Deep South, where I grew up, is so different in its seasonal sighs. There, flowering trees bloom every year in colors that are startling only in contrast to the gray, rainy winter. But here in Vermont, trees are blooming this year that last year did not. Old news to the locals that sometimes the blossoms freeze before spring, but this chilly truth requires an adjustment on my part. The higher peaks and lower lows of Vermont seasons also demand the observer’s keen attention, particularly if the observer wants to garden.
In the South, the long growing season allows for a more gradual slide from winter into spring, spring into summer, although most people still put in the largest part of their gardens all at once. The tradition is that you plant your peas on St. Patrick’s day, not that they are likely to do much before the heat of the summer comes. You plant most of your garden on Good Friday. In Vermont, our last reliable frost free date is Memorial Day, and there has been frost documented well into June. With this weekend’s perfect weather for planting, there must have been millions (billions?) of seeds nestled into plots and fields, covered over by a warm blanket of earth and gently nourished by last night’s soaking rain. Perfection!
We must be grateful for planting days like the last three. Now the race is on! Soon it will be the Fourth of July, sometimes barely warm in Southern terms, then August’s second cut of hay. And after the second cut, we feel the chill at our backs as we hurry to prepare for another winter. A critical skill for Vermont gardening is to read the back of the seed packet: days to harvest mean the difference between getting a crop and not.
I do love the planning stages. I love dreaming over my graph paper and my books, imagining the soft sweep of fennel behind a bed of tall marigolds. I love walking around my yard and pondering seriously the consequences of where I plant rhubarb, horseradish, and lovage. I will never plant Jerusalem artichokes again, and I am astonished that anyone would plant morning glories.
Sometimes I struggle because I so badly want to put seeds into the ground. At one level I am falling back into the seasonal patterns of my youth—surely it must be time! But I know that it is best to proceed systematically, laying in the paths, planning crop rotation and labeling as I go. Still I yearn to dream over the little seeds, to put them to bed as I conjure visions of tall, perfect specimens untangled by weeds.
Then one day it is time. This is it. There is soft sunshine in the morning and almost no breeze, but thundershowers are forecast for the afternoon. The garden is tilled, and the paths are laid out, if not quite properly clothed in newspaper and straw. A week of daily gentle showers has left the ground dry enough to work but moist enough to show a darker shadow of where the rake has been. It’s time to plant!
About two thirds of my garden is in. I am trying corn this year. There is a whole row of beans of different types, alternating colors so I can easily tell which is which for the freezer. I had no squash last year or the year before, so this time the whole bottom row, which tends to be wet, is a trial of three years worth of accumulated squash seed. There are beets and carrots and radishes. The vegetable garden gets the messy annual herbs, like coriander and borage and summer savory. And for serendipity, there are two kinds of melons. Maybe this will be their year.
I made some mistakes. According to my notes, sunflowers do not like pole beans and vice versa, but there is a long row of sunflowers behind the corn and the pole beans. We’ll see. Onion sets still need to go in, and maybe some seed potatoes for a new experiment. A big crop of garlic. And a variety of greens, which last longer for us than for Southern gardeners.
And the herb garden still waits. Seven of the eight wedge-shaped beds in the circle have been dug and prepped, and the planting plan which looked good on paper is evolving nicely. Having banished the weedy herbs to the vegetable plot, I am considering a veritable avenue of lettuces for this new garden just outside the back door.
There comes a day when the planning and the preparation aren’t done, but it is time to plant. So we respond to the day, we fling ourselves into the task. At the end of the day, we see that we have accomplished not only a good day’s work but also a turn of the season. And we turn our faces toward the joy of whatever comes next.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Vermont perfection
It was supposed to rain all this long Memorial Day weekend. But not so far.
Yesterday was one of those days that made me fall in love with Vermont. Bright sunshine, cool breezes, and black flies that respected my lavish application of Deet. I had to be outside, and I had loads of outside things to do.
The new herb garden—a circular design that makes the former above-ground pool almost worthwhile—is coming together. I’m taking this opportunity to visit local nurseries that have teased my interest for years, and I have some sparkly new dianthus, a look-at-me-wow vanilla allium, and a sample of each nursery’s idea of the ideal lavender to try in the new space.
The dogs are always happy when I spend time with them outdoors. Even Jake comes around, the old Lab the next house down who is alternately their buddy and their arch-nemesis. Max, somewhat recovered from last week’s ills, has happily buried, dug up, and reburied a piece of steak that I judged a bit too old for me to eat. We are still in the “all-the-cookies-you-want” mode, and after reading the current Ever So Humble http://everyday.blogs.com/humble/ I got both Max and Toby yet another cookie. Good dogs! How easy it is to lose patience with them, and how quickly they forgive!
The lawn mower is working again, and I have a nice, tidy border mowed all around the vegetable garden, preparation for the July explosion of green matter. The vegetable garden paths are in process, and in deference to the work required to get the new herb garden started, I am not even pretending to dig those raised beds this year. Let’s try the newspaper and straw right on trampled garden soil. Let’s just see. Gardening is a creative act, one experiment after another. The designs that seem so compelling indoors give way to new ideas that burble up while digging proceeds. What if and what if and what if. Some ideas work, and some don’t, and that is just fine.
A nap at midday (must preserve the magnolia blossom look) and another couple of hours in the garden, then it is time to put away tools. Lawn mower. Shovel. Fork. Wheel barrow. Garden plans. Was that a raindrop?
Raindrops gathered into downpour, soothing sounds of rain on the roof, the sun is back out, and there it is. The rainbow. In what I have come to know as the field where rainbows come. Somewhere buried in my brain, there is a line from Goethe that I cannot quite retrieve, but the idea is this. Should we ever experience a moment in which we say, “Stop, moment, thou art so fair…” we will have met heaven on earth, and we will cease to strive toward heaven. It wasn’t quite that moment, but for what it was, it was perfection.
Yesterday was one of those days that made me fall in love with Vermont. Bright sunshine, cool breezes, and black flies that respected my lavish application of Deet. I had to be outside, and I had loads of outside things to do.
The new herb garden—a circular design that makes the former above-ground pool almost worthwhile—is coming together. I’m taking this opportunity to visit local nurseries that have teased my interest for years, and I have some sparkly new dianthus, a look-at-me-wow vanilla allium, and a sample of each nursery’s idea of the ideal lavender to try in the new space.
The dogs are always happy when I spend time with them outdoors. Even Jake comes around, the old Lab the next house down who is alternately their buddy and their arch-nemesis. Max, somewhat recovered from last week’s ills, has happily buried, dug up, and reburied a piece of steak that I judged a bit too old for me to eat. We are still in the “all-the-cookies-you-want” mode, and after reading the current Ever So Humble http://everyday.blogs.com/humble/ I got both Max and Toby yet another cookie. Good dogs! How easy it is to lose patience with them, and how quickly they forgive!
The lawn mower is working again, and I have a nice, tidy border mowed all around the vegetable garden, preparation for the July explosion of green matter. The vegetable garden paths are in process, and in deference to the work required to get the new herb garden started, I am not even pretending to dig those raised beds this year. Let’s try the newspaper and straw right on trampled garden soil. Let’s just see. Gardening is a creative act, one experiment after another. The designs that seem so compelling indoors give way to new ideas that burble up while digging proceeds. What if and what if and what if. Some ideas work, and some don’t, and that is just fine.
A nap at midday (must preserve the magnolia blossom look) and another couple of hours in the garden, then it is time to put away tools. Lawn mower. Shovel. Fork. Wheel barrow. Garden plans. Was that a raindrop?
Raindrops gathered into downpour, soothing sounds of rain on the roof, the sun is back out, and there it is. The rainbow. In what I have come to know as the field where rainbows come. Somewhere buried in my brain, there is a line from Goethe that I cannot quite retrieve, but the idea is this. Should we ever experience a moment in which we say, “Stop, moment, thou art so fair…” we will have met heaven on earth, and we will cease to strive toward heaven. It wasn’t quite that moment, but for what it was, it was perfection.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Just till Tuesday
By the time people are my age, we have generally figured out how to live in our skins. Whatever our own peculiar mix of talents and attributes, we have adapted. For myself, I know that I have a high need to be entertained and that I do my best work in the morning. I know that I derive new energy from the free flow of ideas. Creativity is my thing. And I know that I am introverted, that spending time with other people drains me, and I need to be filled up again.
Feeling calm, whole and happy for me means working around these personal truths. But sometimes the outside world’s demands don’t line up with my needs just perfectly. I find myself thinking, “If I can only make it to Tuesday…” Just wishing my life away. I have passed entire years like that—not a healthy life plan.
But really, if I can just make it to Tuesday….Tuesday I will mail the grant and be able to tackle the funding issue. I am already more relaxed than a few days ago. With days left and only budgets to finish, the grant will get done. It is on the downhill side, and as long as I carefully dedicate a few morning (productive!) hours, the work product will be adequate to suit even my harshest critic, myself.
I can handle a week like this now and then, but I resent facing time and space constraints. Acceptance trumps that resentment. There is never enough time.
Meanwhile, my garden has been tilled, and if my rows don’t get built and seeds don’t get in the ground on this traditional planting weekend, well, maybe later. Or maybe some of them not at all. I am lucky that my survival does not depend on my backyard crop. The new herb garden is laid out, and I have seeds to scratch in. In between trying to make those financial projections balance, I intend to go hunting for a few plants that make me happy: scented geraniums, perhaps, or creeping thyme. The gardens are supposed to be restorative for me, not one more set of “oughtas.”
Why have I allowed a work project (or two) to take over my mind and spirit this week? Why would I ever do that? Well, because this one project is really important. I have come to accept that I cannot do everything, but when I see something I believe in, once in a very long while…maybe once or twice a year…I can give up even my own peace of mind in pursuit of that ideal….but only once or twice a year, and only for a week. To tackle more would be an arrogant overestimate of my strength, as I have learned the hard way. It is a slippery slope, the thin end of the wedge that separates us from health, wholeness, love and goodness.
Feeling calm, whole and happy for me means working around these personal truths. But sometimes the outside world’s demands don’t line up with my needs just perfectly. I find myself thinking, “If I can only make it to Tuesday…” Just wishing my life away. I have passed entire years like that—not a healthy life plan.
But really, if I can just make it to Tuesday….Tuesday I will mail the grant and be able to tackle the funding issue. I am already more relaxed than a few days ago. With days left and only budgets to finish, the grant will get done. It is on the downhill side, and as long as I carefully dedicate a few morning (productive!) hours, the work product will be adequate to suit even my harshest critic, myself.
I can handle a week like this now and then, but I resent facing time and space constraints. Acceptance trumps that resentment. There is never enough time.
Meanwhile, my garden has been tilled, and if my rows don’t get built and seeds don’t get in the ground on this traditional planting weekend, well, maybe later. Or maybe some of them not at all. I am lucky that my survival does not depend on my backyard crop. The new herb garden is laid out, and I have seeds to scratch in. In between trying to make those financial projections balance, I intend to go hunting for a few plants that make me happy: scented geraniums, perhaps, or creeping thyme. The gardens are supposed to be restorative for me, not one more set of “oughtas.”
Why have I allowed a work project (or two) to take over my mind and spirit this week? Why would I ever do that? Well, because this one project is really important. I have come to accept that I cannot do everything, but when I see something I believe in, once in a very long while…maybe once or twice a year…I can give up even my own peace of mind in pursuit of that ideal….but only once or twice a year, and only for a week. To tackle more would be an arrogant overestimate of my strength, as I have learned the hard way. It is a slippery slope, the thin end of the wedge that separates us from health, wholeness, love and goodness.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Breathe in breathe out
Vermont is not supposed to allow for weeks as stressful as this one. On the other hand, this is what my life in New York was like all the time, all the time. So can I take it a couple of weeks a year? Don’t ask.
We won’t catalog all the stressors, not the failing but beloved dog, not the identity theft experience, not the wild swings in expectations of my major funding agency. There are more, but really, I don’t want to catalog them. Stressed. Overstressed. Stressed in the extreme. How did I ever tolerate this level of total system toxicity?
Yesterday I spent the day at a major business networking event. With piles of work in my office, I had a hard time justifying it, and I did opt out of breakfast in the interest of a little strategic organization of one of my major projects. I felt much relieved for those few minutes in the office, and new assistant kept things moving while I headed for the big city of Burlington.
Checked in with board members who were having their first exposure to Expo, and networked, networked, networked. It’s funny to look back two years, when I was just getting ready to interview for this job that I now love; I went to Expo to scope out who all these people were and whether I could work with them. Oh yes.
Went to lunch and was lucky in my choice of seat with good company on either side and some of my favorite people at the table. Excellent speaker. The kind of presentation in which you say, “Yes! That’s what I have been trying to say. That’s what I mean. How did you know?”
Came home refreshed, reinvigorated and happy all over again.
We won’t catalog all the stressors, not the failing but beloved dog, not the identity theft experience, not the wild swings in expectations of my major funding agency. There are more, but really, I don’t want to catalog them. Stressed. Overstressed. Stressed in the extreme. How did I ever tolerate this level of total system toxicity?
Yesterday I spent the day at a major business networking event. With piles of work in my office, I had a hard time justifying it, and I did opt out of breakfast in the interest of a little strategic organization of one of my major projects. I felt much relieved for those few minutes in the office, and new assistant kept things moving while I headed for the big city of Burlington.
Checked in with board members who were having their first exposure to Expo, and networked, networked, networked. It’s funny to look back two years, when I was just getting ready to interview for this job that I now love; I went to Expo to scope out who all these people were and whether I could work with them. Oh yes.
Went to lunch and was lucky in my choice of seat with good company on either side and some of my favorite people at the table. Excellent speaker. The kind of presentation in which you say, “Yes! That’s what I have been trying to say. That’s what I mean. How did you know?”
Came home refreshed, reinvigorated and happy all over again.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Loving old dogs
Thanks for all your kind thoughts about my dog. Max is elderly and not eating well. He is down to 78 pounds from 93, but this is easier on his joints. He seems to have fleas and a bit of mange, which are creating hot spots. In the last year he has developed a heart murmur. But a little care and attention over the weekend seemd to help a lot. Both Max and Toby hate baths, but cold water on those itchy spots seemed like a fair trade for the horror of wet feet.
I have switched vets, or maybe just added one, but I am happier with the care Max is getting. The other one does a lot of large animals in their practice, and I felt they were not really paying attention but maybe that is a function of this busy spring season. The new one put Max back on antibiotics and explained that the murmur is likely to lead eventually to congestive heart failure and that it is not treatable with medication. It is the kind of thing that requires surgery, but they don't do that, nor do they really recommend it for older dogs. Nor would I consider it. Heart surgery for an 11-year-old dog is not the same decision as hip surgery for a bouncing 5-year-old.
Max is an old dog, but I could have him with me for some time yet. I haven't asked for a prediction of how long, and I don't really want to know if an end point is near. I just want to feed him cookies and scratch his chest and take him for walks. I want to listen to him lecture me about how there are never enough cookies for such a good dog. I want to sleep with him in the room as long as possible so that I can hear snuffly German Shepherd breathing. These days, my best measures of how he is doing are his general mood and whether he can make it upstairs at night. More and more often, he prefers to sleep next to the stove in the living room on the bed I made for him as joints got creaky and old bones needed cushioning from hard floors. And one day, I want to come downstairs to find that he has gone to sleep there for the last time. I want Max to have a good life, but I want him to have a good and peaceful death, too.
I love my dogs. There is a special joy in living with and loving old dogs. I have a friend who adopted one of the puppies we fostered over Christmas. A couple of times a week she has new stories of the horrors that Sweet Pea has wrought in her house: peacock feathers, yarn, candles, all lost! No item is safe now that Sweet Pea can reach the tops of the counters. But every story of treasures lost is overbalanced by the puppy's charm, the sheer life that she has brought into the household. Even their old dog steps a little more smartly in the company of this bright young thing.
Old dogs, when we pay attention, still have that same sprightly appeal in layers deepened over our years with them. Max is still drawn to men, he still can lift them off the ground if I don't pay attention, and he still lectures me in that deep baritone. What a talky dog! There is a depth, a richness, a pentimento of the puppies we once knew still there, but old dogs don't yank us around on walks, they don't destroy household items, and they can generally tolerate more schedule unpredictability. But this time of their lives--and ours--when the occasional bathroom incident occurs, we can just look at each other and shrug.
When the puppies were with us over Christmas, it was notable that they never overshadowed the big dogs. The puppies were fun, but they had small personalities and no depth of character. The big dogs oversaw the whole distressing array gravely, and they let me know that I was testing the limits of their patience, but that they would tolerate it, for me. Sometime in the next few months I may be ready for a puppy, but not yet. This is not the time for tiny, new, rambunctious personalities. This is a time for being with Max and Toby. This is a time for caring for and appreciating especially Max, who has good days and bad days. It is a different stage of life, and once we are more accustomed to it--all of us--then we will be able to welcome a puppy with open hearts. Breathe in now, so that we can breathe out. Thanks for listening.
I have switched vets, or maybe just added one, but I am happier with the care Max is getting. The other one does a lot of large animals in their practice, and I felt they were not really paying attention but maybe that is a function of this busy spring season. The new one put Max back on antibiotics and explained that the murmur is likely to lead eventually to congestive heart failure and that it is not treatable with medication. It is the kind of thing that requires surgery, but they don't do that, nor do they really recommend it for older dogs. Nor would I consider it. Heart surgery for an 11-year-old dog is not the same decision as hip surgery for a bouncing 5-year-old.
Max is an old dog, but I could have him with me for some time yet. I haven't asked for a prediction of how long, and I don't really want to know if an end point is near. I just want to feed him cookies and scratch his chest and take him for walks. I want to listen to him lecture me about how there are never enough cookies for such a good dog. I want to sleep with him in the room as long as possible so that I can hear snuffly German Shepherd breathing. These days, my best measures of how he is doing are his general mood and whether he can make it upstairs at night. More and more often, he prefers to sleep next to the stove in the living room on the bed I made for him as joints got creaky and old bones needed cushioning from hard floors. And one day, I want to come downstairs to find that he has gone to sleep there for the last time. I want Max to have a good life, but I want him to have a good and peaceful death, too.
I love my dogs. There is a special joy in living with and loving old dogs. I have a friend who adopted one of the puppies we fostered over Christmas. A couple of times a week she has new stories of the horrors that Sweet Pea has wrought in her house: peacock feathers, yarn, candles, all lost! No item is safe now that Sweet Pea can reach the tops of the counters. But every story of treasures lost is overbalanced by the puppy's charm, the sheer life that she has brought into the household. Even their old dog steps a little more smartly in the company of this bright young thing.
Old dogs, when we pay attention, still have that same sprightly appeal in layers deepened over our years with them. Max is still drawn to men, he still can lift them off the ground if I don't pay attention, and he still lectures me in that deep baritone. What a talky dog! There is a depth, a richness, a pentimento of the puppies we once knew still there, but old dogs don't yank us around on walks, they don't destroy household items, and they can generally tolerate more schedule unpredictability. But this time of their lives--and ours--when the occasional bathroom incident occurs, we can just look at each other and shrug.
When the puppies were with us over Christmas, it was notable that they never overshadowed the big dogs. The puppies were fun, but they had small personalities and no depth of character. The big dogs oversaw the whole distressing array gravely, and they let me know that I was testing the limits of their patience, but that they would tolerate it, for me. Sometime in the next few months I may be ready for a puppy, but not yet. This is not the time for tiny, new, rambunctious personalities. This is a time for being with Max and Toby. This is a time for caring for and appreciating especially Max, who has good days and bad days. It is a different stage of life, and once we are more accustomed to it--all of us--then we will be able to welcome a puppy with open hearts. Breathe in now, so that we can breathe out. Thanks for listening.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
New paths
On Friday I woke to doggy health problems. My well loved 11-year-old German Shepherd had a hot spot. Small things like this are big for Max, who has a replacement hip. Having come to me as a foundling, it was always a pretty sure thing that he would have the hip problems that are so common to the breed, and when he was five--far to young for me to accept the loss of this wonderful dog--his painful hips led me to get him a major operation, a hip transplant. The whole question of how one comes to the decision to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a hip transplant for a companion animal leads to some interesting discussions, but that's not today's topic.
For Max, post operation, any open wound requires him to go on antibiotics. An open wound puts him at risk of infection, which could rapidly go into the implant area. We are all obsessed with healthcare issues in Vermont these days, and as this well loved companion ages, I watch him tenderly. Whatever time he has left, I want it to be peaceful and happy and without pain. Some days I am overcome with my fear of losing him, although I know it is a day that must come. Some days, I just wail, please not quite yet. So I made an appointment with the vet, and by the end of the call, I was in tears.
My reason for moving to Vermont and the lesson I have continued to learn since moving here is that when emotion overwhelms me, it is time for some self care. The only thing on my calendar for the day was a dentist appointment, so I made a quick trip to the office and put up a sign: "Closed today due to medical emergencies." Many medical emergencies. My assistant's baby daughter in the hospital. A family member facing long term critical health issues. A dog in need of antibiotics. But mostly an emergency need to take a little care of myself lest I bite the next person who walked into the office.
I spent most of yesterday and today on the garden, laying out paths. The herb garden is new this year, and I am trying out paths of chamomile which grows wild here. I lay out my paths with string, then I turn the soil in the beds. As I go, I take the baby chamomile weeds from the plots and transplant them as much desired chamomile turf in the paths. The exercise of creating a path by cutting away the undesirable thatch of weeds between the paths is a meditation in itself.
The vegetable garden is in its second year. Last year I hired the plowing done, then laid out my paths with string, then dug a few inches down in the paths and put the soil on the beds to raise them up. Then I put down a layer of something covered by a layer of straw, and I had beautiful paths. The preferred underlayer was old dogfood bags, saved just for this purpose on long remembered advice from one of my gardening uncles. They turned out to be way slippery, and I didn't have nearly enough, so I tried black plastic on another row and then newspaper on another. Lack of planning turned experiment, and through the season, I found little difference in function on the paths.
The careful reader will note that this process is exactly the opposite of what I am doing in the herb garden. Vegetable garden--dig the path, herb garden, dig the bed. Throughout last year's growing season I nourished the hope that I would not have to rebuild the paths again, thinking of what it would take to pull out the remains of the dogfood bags and the black plastic, not to mention all my hard labor to move all that dirt. My favorite Vermont tractor guy showed up on Friday, he opined that he thought he could preserve the paths, and no, he wasn't worried about stuff in the garden. After the first pass, he stopped and used a knife to cut out of his plow blades the remains of dogfood bags, black plastic, and even a little pea netting unwittingly left.
Here's a lesson! Don't worry about the stuff under the ground. Just plow through it, then cut away the excess. Here's another. There is no way to preserve those paths. I have laid them out again, and I suspect that I will be a little less vigorous about moving dirt this year, maybe shoveling just enough to suggest terraces on the gentle slope. And I will use all newspaper. Five paths, five bales of straw, and it will be good to go again. It is hard to have to rebuild paths, but it is easier the second time.
In spiritual practice, too, it is building the path the first time that is the hardest work. We keep relearning the same old stuff, or at least sometimes it seems so. But it is easier each time we tackle an old battle. And sometimes we learn a new technique, like digging the beds instead of the paths. I have been reading a wonderful little book called Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Each right-hand page has a short thought which floats in visual space; each left-hand page is blank.
Here's one: Recognize and embrace your anger when it manifests itself. Care for it with tenderness rather than suppressing it.
Here's another: Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the energy of hate, of anger, of fear. We forget that in us there are other kinds of energy that can manifest also. If we know how to practice, we can bring back the energy of insight, of love, and of hope in order to embrace the energy of fear, of despair, and of anger.
And one more: Faith is the outcome of your life. As faith continues to grow, you continue to get the energy, because faith is also an energy like love. If we look deeply into the nature of our love, we will also see our faith. When we have faith in us, we are no longer afraid of anything.
Thich Nhat Hanh also wrote another wonderful book that Robert of Beginner's Mind gave me when I, a Christian, asked him in all sincerity about what attracted him to Buddhism. When he first gave it to me, I got bogged down in the introduction, but the book itself, Living Buddha, Living Christ is a rich treasure I have just begun to tap.
I have missed writing. It is one of my daily practices (the other is walking), and this blog community offers me real connections. I've had a crazy winter, and I'm feeling a little overstimulated, a little bruised. Time to build some new paths.
For Max, post operation, any open wound requires him to go on antibiotics. An open wound puts him at risk of infection, which could rapidly go into the implant area. We are all obsessed with healthcare issues in Vermont these days, and as this well loved companion ages, I watch him tenderly. Whatever time he has left, I want it to be peaceful and happy and without pain. Some days I am overcome with my fear of losing him, although I know it is a day that must come. Some days, I just wail, please not quite yet. So I made an appointment with the vet, and by the end of the call, I was in tears.
My reason for moving to Vermont and the lesson I have continued to learn since moving here is that when emotion overwhelms me, it is time for some self care. The only thing on my calendar for the day was a dentist appointment, so I made a quick trip to the office and put up a sign: "Closed today due to medical emergencies." Many medical emergencies. My assistant's baby daughter in the hospital. A family member facing long term critical health issues. A dog in need of antibiotics. But mostly an emergency need to take a little care of myself lest I bite the next person who walked into the office.
I spent most of yesterday and today on the garden, laying out paths. The herb garden is new this year, and I am trying out paths of chamomile which grows wild here. I lay out my paths with string, then I turn the soil in the beds. As I go, I take the baby chamomile weeds from the plots and transplant them as much desired chamomile turf in the paths. The exercise of creating a path by cutting away the undesirable thatch of weeds between the paths is a meditation in itself.
The vegetable garden is in its second year. Last year I hired the plowing done, then laid out my paths with string, then dug a few inches down in the paths and put the soil on the beds to raise them up. Then I put down a layer of something covered by a layer of straw, and I had beautiful paths. The preferred underlayer was old dogfood bags, saved just for this purpose on long remembered advice from one of my gardening uncles. They turned out to be way slippery, and I didn't have nearly enough, so I tried black plastic on another row and then newspaper on another. Lack of planning turned experiment, and through the season, I found little difference in function on the paths.
The careful reader will note that this process is exactly the opposite of what I am doing in the herb garden. Vegetable garden--dig the path, herb garden, dig the bed. Throughout last year's growing season I nourished the hope that I would not have to rebuild the paths again, thinking of what it would take to pull out the remains of the dogfood bags and the black plastic, not to mention all my hard labor to move all that dirt. My favorite Vermont tractor guy showed up on Friday, he opined that he thought he could preserve the paths, and no, he wasn't worried about stuff in the garden. After the first pass, he stopped and used a knife to cut out of his plow blades the remains of dogfood bags, black plastic, and even a little pea netting unwittingly left.
Here's a lesson! Don't worry about the stuff under the ground. Just plow through it, then cut away the excess. Here's another. There is no way to preserve those paths. I have laid them out again, and I suspect that I will be a little less vigorous about moving dirt this year, maybe shoveling just enough to suggest terraces on the gentle slope. And I will use all newspaper. Five paths, five bales of straw, and it will be good to go again. It is hard to have to rebuild paths, but it is easier the second time.
In spiritual practice, too, it is building the path the first time that is the hardest work. We keep relearning the same old stuff, or at least sometimes it seems so. But it is easier each time we tackle an old battle. And sometimes we learn a new technique, like digging the beds instead of the paths. I have been reading a wonderful little book called Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Each right-hand page has a short thought which floats in visual space; each left-hand page is blank.
Here's one: Recognize and embrace your anger when it manifests itself. Care for it with tenderness rather than suppressing it.
Here's another: Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the energy of hate, of anger, of fear. We forget that in us there are other kinds of energy that can manifest also. If we know how to practice, we can bring back the energy of insight, of love, and of hope in order to embrace the energy of fear, of despair, and of anger.
And one more: Faith is the outcome of your life. As faith continues to grow, you continue to get the energy, because faith is also an energy like love. If we look deeply into the nature of our love, we will also see our faith. When we have faith in us, we are no longer afraid of anything.
Thich Nhat Hanh also wrote another wonderful book that Robert of Beginner's Mind gave me when I, a Christian, asked him in all sincerity about what attracted him to Buddhism. When he first gave it to me, I got bogged down in the introduction, but the book itself, Living Buddha, Living Christ is a rich treasure I have just begun to tap.
I have missed writing. It is one of my daily practices (the other is walking), and this blog community offers me real connections. I've had a crazy winter, and I'm feeling a little overstimulated, a little bruised. Time to build some new paths.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Thanks for noticing
The brass ring that represents the end of my technical worries seems just beyond my fingertips. One more (please, just this one more?) connection problem with new laptop and home network, and I believe that I will be back operating on all fronts.
I have really missed blogging. I have missed writing. But spring has come to Vermont whether I document its coming or not, and its unexpected glory has swept me away all over again.
Thanks to everyone who noticed my absence. Back soon, I trust. Meanwhile, here's another good horoscope for anyone, any day.
Something seems to be holding you back. Something seems to be preventing you from reaching your full potential. Whatever it is, you must get over it quickly because very soon the kind of opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime will be heading your way. Let go of your fears. Anything is possible if you want it enough.
I have really missed blogging. I have missed writing. But spring has come to Vermont whether I document its coming or not, and its unexpected glory has swept me away all over again.
Thanks to everyone who noticed my absence. Back soon, I trust. Meanwhile, here's another good horoscope for anyone, any day.
Something seems to be holding you back. Something seems to be preventing you from reaching your full potential. Whatever it is, you must get over it quickly because very soon the kind of opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime will be heading your way. Let go of your fears. Anything is possible if you want it enough.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Blogless
Is it something about the time of year? Are we all outrageously busy making the mental/physical/psychological shift of season? Where have all the bloggers gone? Maybe it is just the unrepresentative, unscientifically sampled group of blogs that I read, but we all seem to have fallen off the blog-wagon. I include myself.
In my case, it is partly the disruption of changing seasons, but mostly ongoing computer issues. I continue to be optimistic that I am near the end of my techno-trials, but who knows? I am renowned for unrealistic optimism, which I consciously choose in contrast to blind cynicism, hurtful not only to originator but to surrounding, innocent parties.
I wrote several blogs in my head yesterday. One on the joy of (almost) completing the bathroom wallpaper, along with memories of wallpaper projects and holiday projects of the past. When you are a single person who enjoys home improvement, the large blocks of time tend to be holidays, so when asked what you did for Easter, you are likely to respond “Wallpapered the bathroom! It is awesome!” Long Thanksgiving weekends will likely bring an outing to friends for dinner but may also include several hours taping diagonal squares on the kitchen floor for an experiment in special effects with wood stain. It turned out beautifully, thank you, but I failed to cover it with a good finish coat to protect it, enamored with shellac as I was in those days. But we live and learn, and we entertain ourselves making ourselves at home.
Another blog only in my brain was about the hike the boys and I took up Smugglers’ Notch. We drove as far as possible on the Smuggs side to where the road is closed, then hiked up the road to the notch. Not a tough climb by any means, the walk was made easier by being on highway most of the way. We met one woman and her two-year-old Golden Retriever as we were going up and they were coming down; we met a lone photographer as we descended. Otherwise, it was a glorious but solitary outing.
Max and Toby were in heaven with so much room to gallop and romp, and I loved the crisp air, the sunshine, the trickle of melting snow, the views—my heavens! the views!—everything except the slidy parts. The last third of the trip was on snowpack, still over two feet thick in some sections, and while my knees and my untutored Southern lack of balance on snow and ice can tolerate going uphill, the downhill return was something else altogether. I looked for crunchy spots, zigzagged back and forth avoiding melty areas and even water flowing across blacktop where black ice can lie hidden. Tiny, tiny steps. All the while thinking about whether it really was very smart to go hiking only with two elderly dogs. If I took a header off the side of the mountain, Toby would never leave me, but would Max know to go looking for help? Would anyone understand his doggy variant of “Timmy’s in the well?” But the slippy, fearful episode lasted only a few minutes out of what was otherwise a glorious morning, and we made it home safely. We would go again of course, but I might be more careful about climbing ice unaccompanied. It looks so different coming back down!
So it was back to the bathroom wallpaper and the realization that one is almost as much at risk on a ladder at home in the bathroom--particularly slipping around on wallpaper paste--as slipping around on ice. At least outdoors on a sunny Sunday morning, there is the possibility that other people will happen by, a possibility that is considerably smaller in my bathroom.
The world is a scary place if we allow it to be. It is also a glorious place to explore. Again, if we allow it to be.
In my case, it is partly the disruption of changing seasons, but mostly ongoing computer issues. I continue to be optimistic that I am near the end of my techno-trials, but who knows? I am renowned for unrealistic optimism, which I consciously choose in contrast to blind cynicism, hurtful not only to originator but to surrounding, innocent parties.
I wrote several blogs in my head yesterday. One on the joy of (almost) completing the bathroom wallpaper, along with memories of wallpaper projects and holiday projects of the past. When you are a single person who enjoys home improvement, the large blocks of time tend to be holidays, so when asked what you did for Easter, you are likely to respond “Wallpapered the bathroom! It is awesome!” Long Thanksgiving weekends will likely bring an outing to friends for dinner but may also include several hours taping diagonal squares on the kitchen floor for an experiment in special effects with wood stain. It turned out beautifully, thank you, but I failed to cover it with a good finish coat to protect it, enamored with shellac as I was in those days. But we live and learn, and we entertain ourselves making ourselves at home.
Another blog only in my brain was about the hike the boys and I took up Smugglers’ Notch. We drove as far as possible on the Smuggs side to where the road is closed, then hiked up the road to the notch. Not a tough climb by any means, the walk was made easier by being on highway most of the way. We met one woman and her two-year-old Golden Retriever as we were going up and they were coming down; we met a lone photographer as we descended. Otherwise, it was a glorious but solitary outing.
Max and Toby were in heaven with so much room to gallop and romp, and I loved the crisp air, the sunshine, the trickle of melting snow, the views—my heavens! the views!—everything except the slidy parts. The last third of the trip was on snowpack, still over two feet thick in some sections, and while my knees and my untutored Southern lack of balance on snow and ice can tolerate going uphill, the downhill return was something else altogether. I looked for crunchy spots, zigzagged back and forth avoiding melty areas and even water flowing across blacktop where black ice can lie hidden. Tiny, tiny steps. All the while thinking about whether it really was very smart to go hiking only with two elderly dogs. If I took a header off the side of the mountain, Toby would never leave me, but would Max know to go looking for help? Would anyone understand his doggy variant of “Timmy’s in the well?” But the slippy, fearful episode lasted only a few minutes out of what was otherwise a glorious morning, and we made it home safely. We would go again of course, but I might be more careful about climbing ice unaccompanied. It looks so different coming back down!
So it was back to the bathroom wallpaper and the realization that one is almost as much at risk on a ladder at home in the bathroom--particularly slipping around on wallpaper paste--as slipping around on ice. At least outdoors on a sunny Sunday morning, there is the possibility that other people will happen by, a possibility that is considerably smaller in my bathroom.
The world is a scary place if we allow it to be. It is also a glorious place to explore. Again, if we allow it to be.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Adventure
Another horoscope for any day and for anyone:
You cannot be too adventurous today. Do things you would not normally do and be open to people you would not usually think of conversing with. Most of all, keep away from boring people and boring places. You have lived too long in the comfort zone - now it is time to stretch yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. This is also a great time to travel.
You cannot be too adventurous today. Do things you would not normally do and be open to people you would not usually think of conversing with. Most of all, keep away from boring people and boring places. You have lived too long in the comfort zone - now it is time to stretch yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. This is also a great time to travel.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Signs of spring
Snow’s almost gone. Daffodils pushing through the soil.
Lots of new rocks in the house—Toby is so glad to see them that he can’t be parted from his favorites. Moles or voles plowing the field, fun for dogs to chase, what would they do if they caught one?
Masters golf tournament in the news, which means down South there’s strong sunshine and flowers, neither for us quite yet. Peepers are heard in southern New Hampshire, surely any day for us.
Parsnips ready for the digging, maybe even a forgotten onion or two. Startling green chives! Catnip and evening primrose already coming in strong. Time to lay out the new herb garden.
Spent the morning taking off nasty old black plastic shutters, all except the upstairs sets, for which I will need help. I was afraid the house would look too bland without them, but I quite like its plain Greek Revival lines.
Spent the afternoon working on wallpapering the bathroom. Another nasty, tiny-flowered, shiny vinyl replaced with a gorgeous leafy lattice pattern, courtesy of e-Bay. Inch by inch, this house will be mine.
Lots of new rocks in the house—Toby is so glad to see them that he can’t be parted from his favorites. Moles or voles plowing the field, fun for dogs to chase, what would they do if they caught one?
Masters golf tournament in the news, which means down South there’s strong sunshine and flowers, neither for us quite yet. Peepers are heard in southern New Hampshire, surely any day for us.
Parsnips ready for the digging, maybe even a forgotten onion or two. Startling green chives! Catnip and evening primrose already coming in strong. Time to lay out the new herb garden.
Spent the morning taking off nasty old black plastic shutters, all except the upstairs sets, for which I will need help. I was afraid the house would look too bland without them, but I quite like its plain Greek Revival lines.
Spent the afternoon working on wallpapering the bathroom. Another nasty, tiny-flowered, shiny vinyl replaced with a gorgeous leafy lattice pattern, courtesy of e-Bay. Inch by inch, this house will be mine.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Fundamental matters
From yesterday’s New York Times op-ed piece commemorating Albert Einstein’s miraculous 1905: “Quantum mechanics does not merely challenge the previous laws of physics. Quantum mechanics challenges this centuries-old framework of physics itself. According to quantum mechanics, physics cannot make definite predictions. Instead, even if you give me the most precise description possible of how things are now, we learn from quantum mechanics that the most physics can do is predict the probability that things will turn out one way, or another, or another way still.”
I believe there is a physics of human behavior as well. Whenever we think we know what makes someone tick, we are bound to be mistaken.
Think of conflict between people. If you and I disagree on some matter, it would be nice if we could simply agree that we each have our own view of the situation and move on. The more emotionally charged the matter, however, the less likely we will be able to do that, as least not without a lot of practice in analyzing the matter and resolving to separate our purposeful actions from our emotions.
If I cannot make that separation, then I will start to blame you for disagreeing with me. I may get very angry with you that you dare to have a contrary opinion. Soon I will decide that it is all your fault. And you may be doing nothing more than holding steadfast to your right to be yourself and to see the world in your own way. If I listen to your words and your tone and I observe your actions, then I may have a better chance of predicting your reactions, which may be driven by some past interchange.
I am not suggesting that we enter into psychoanalyzing each other, which I view as just another manipulative technique, but certainly it is more pleasant to deal with people who have better developed social and emotional skills. I’m thinking of a particular group in which I participate that operates for all the world like a dysfunctional family. Sometimes it seems that the mildest question or contrary opinion sets off incoherent, babbling, spitting rage. The effort of dealing with long past, unresolved conflicts—which had nothing to do with me—may soon cause me to opt out of that particular organization.
All the hidden vectors on human behavior make people unpredictable, but what quantum physics tells us is that the idea of predictability is illusion. It’s as if two pool balls collide in the middle of the table and rise straight up into the air. Traditional physics says this cannot happen. Quantum physics says it doesn’t happen often.
It is still worth studying traditional physics, and it is worth working hard to try to understand our friends, our colleagues, our lovers and our families. Every observation is grist to that mill. I spent decades unable to feel or display anger at even the most intrusive behavior, then more years—some would say—being angry at everything. Now I am learning to avert other people’s anger without responding in kind. I am learning to say, “I understand that you are unhappy with me, but your anger will not make me behave in any way I do not choose for myself.” It is behavior worth practicing.
It is also worth remembering that the world and its inhabitants are inherently unpredictable. That observation strips away our false sense of safety, but it gives us the possibility of blinding joy.
I believe there is a physics of human behavior as well. Whenever we think we know what makes someone tick, we are bound to be mistaken.
Think of conflict between people. If you and I disagree on some matter, it would be nice if we could simply agree that we each have our own view of the situation and move on. The more emotionally charged the matter, however, the less likely we will be able to do that, as least not without a lot of practice in analyzing the matter and resolving to separate our purposeful actions from our emotions.
If I cannot make that separation, then I will start to blame you for disagreeing with me. I may get very angry with you that you dare to have a contrary opinion. Soon I will decide that it is all your fault. And you may be doing nothing more than holding steadfast to your right to be yourself and to see the world in your own way. If I listen to your words and your tone and I observe your actions, then I may have a better chance of predicting your reactions, which may be driven by some past interchange.
I am not suggesting that we enter into psychoanalyzing each other, which I view as just another manipulative technique, but certainly it is more pleasant to deal with people who have better developed social and emotional skills. I’m thinking of a particular group in which I participate that operates for all the world like a dysfunctional family. Sometimes it seems that the mildest question or contrary opinion sets off incoherent, babbling, spitting rage. The effort of dealing with long past, unresolved conflicts—which had nothing to do with me—may soon cause me to opt out of that particular organization.
All the hidden vectors on human behavior make people unpredictable, but what quantum physics tells us is that the idea of predictability is illusion. It’s as if two pool balls collide in the middle of the table and rise straight up into the air. Traditional physics says this cannot happen. Quantum physics says it doesn’t happen often.
It is still worth studying traditional physics, and it is worth working hard to try to understand our friends, our colleagues, our lovers and our families. Every observation is grist to that mill. I spent decades unable to feel or display anger at even the most intrusive behavior, then more years—some would say—being angry at everything. Now I am learning to avert other people’s anger without responding in kind. I am learning to say, “I understand that you are unhappy with me, but your anger will not make me behave in any way I do not choose for myself.” It is behavior worth practicing.
It is also worth remembering that the world and its inhabitants are inherently unpredictable. That observation strips away our false sense of safety, but it gives us the possibility of blinding joy.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Redux
I had the same conversation twice today. Speaking with two different friends, I heard the same lament. One planning to become a therapist, one who would rather die than encounter a therapist, they both are warm, wonderful, emotionally alive women, if somewhat conflicted. These women have known sorrow, both of them, in kind and depth that no caring human would wish on another.
One, let’s call her A, or Anne, lost a child in a particularly heartbreaking way—suicide, or was it accidental suffocation? One hardly knows which interpretation would be more difficult for a mother to accept. And brutal, unseeing life lurches on.
The other, let’s call her B, or Bella, grew up with a schizophrenic sibling who took all her parents’ attention, threatened her with repetitive bodily harm, and executed his cruel intent. Is it because she is finally secure in the love of her husband that she is now reliving those bad old days? I think maybe so.
Two amazing women. And each of them said to me today, “You know, I don’t really want to explore it all. The pain was real, but it is in my past. Most of all I want to move on. Aren’t there some techniques in the toolbox I can have? Why must I wallow in past sorrows? Honestly, I have done that to death and beyond. When can I see some relief? Some hope?”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the mental health field offered such support?
It does. I know it does, because I have thrice walked through my own private demons in the company of some caring professional. At last I have learned to respect and protect my own history. It is not for public consumption, nor is there any longer any cathartic release to be had. It is private. It is sad. So now, I tell what I want and I withhold what I want, and that is how it is.
The therapeutic process has many benefits, but my friends are right: it is tools we need, not catharsis. I still struggle to identify manipulation before it hurts me, and I know I am making progress because now the manipulators succeed less than half the time. It is still tough, but I am learning. More tools, we want more tools.
One, let’s call her A, or Anne, lost a child in a particularly heartbreaking way—suicide, or was it accidental suffocation? One hardly knows which interpretation would be more difficult for a mother to accept. And brutal, unseeing life lurches on.
The other, let’s call her B, or Bella, grew up with a schizophrenic sibling who took all her parents’ attention, threatened her with repetitive bodily harm, and executed his cruel intent. Is it because she is finally secure in the love of her husband that she is now reliving those bad old days? I think maybe so.
Two amazing women. And each of them said to me today, “You know, I don’t really want to explore it all. The pain was real, but it is in my past. Most of all I want to move on. Aren’t there some techniques in the toolbox I can have? Why must I wallow in past sorrows? Honestly, I have done that to death and beyond. When can I see some relief? Some hope?”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the mental health field offered such support?
It does. I know it does, because I have thrice walked through my own private demons in the company of some caring professional. At last I have learned to respect and protect my own history. It is not for public consumption, nor is there any longer any cathartic release to be had. It is private. It is sad. So now, I tell what I want and I withhold what I want, and that is how it is.
The therapeutic process has many benefits, but my friends are right: it is tools we need, not catharsis. I still struggle to identify manipulation before it hurts me, and I know I am making progress because now the manipulators succeed less than half the time. It is still tough, but I am learning. More tools, we want more tools.
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