standing in the outbuilding on the farm, we both felt a little bit gleeful. the sweet peppers in front of us were so, well, freaking happy. their glossy lime green, tangerine orange and lipstick red funky shapes just about did us in.
and that wasn’t the whole of it. there were mini white cucumbers and multicolored corking jalapeños, gorgeous tomatoes and giant squash, the freshest parsley and every kind of onion. it was just too much. we were ecstatic.
between the lettuce-elimination campaign and all the food recalls – in a country that seemingly doesn’t want us to actually eat – we have found a new way that isn’t new at all: the farmstands.**
in less than two weeks we have been to farmstands four times. we have loaded up with eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes from a tiny stand out a-ways and we already have a list to go back. we are just weary of the worry about produce coming in to grocery stores from places where some process or another has caused alarm about its food safety.
and we have a new source for lettuce too, so take that! you lettuce-spoilers. our town has a hydroponic grower who offers various lettuces (their butter lettuce is divinely fresh!) and microgreens we are anxious to try.
we spent labor day weekend food-prepping: quinoa tabouli, homemade tomato sauce, basil cubes (from the basil in our garden). we made spaghetii squash for the sauce, had eggplant and zucchini on last week’s menu, fabulously fresh tomato and cucumber sandwiches for lunch. it’s time to push back and eating from as much local as we can get is how we can do it.
they recognized us when we came back the second and third times and they suggested we consider a community supported agriculture food share (CSA) for next year. we’ll see. it’s a possibility and they could clearly see that in our exuberance – as we continue to ride gleefully on our farmstand wave of happy.
though i recognize how very impactful graffiti may be, i am not necessarily a blanket-fan of graffiti on public property.
these words, however, caught my attention: “be happy”“be kind”
such a simplicity – the imperative of life – in two short sentences.
someone – or someones – thought it important enough to place these thoughts in blue spraypaint onto the lake’s shoreline rocks. they didn’t sign their name or names, but i can understand that…that would be risky. nevertheless, they felt the risk of defacing the boulders was worth it – especially in light of the message they were leaving for others to see.
in these recent days, we lost an icon in the music world. dolly parton lived the imperative of art and of tenacity and of life and demonstrated a generosity that leaves a legacy stamped all over the world, forever. her example is profound. happy and kind were her companions.
completely the opposite is the deplorable example of the leader of this country. his feverish need for his name to be everywhere is distorted, narcissistically outsized. his pugnacious and gluttonous attitude prevailing over utterly everything he does, it is difficult to even utter his name without shuddering. this is not something we want graffiti-ed all over our precious country. enough already.
there is a tiny card that sits in my studio. it reads: “if you asked me what i came into this world to do, i will tell you: i came to live out loud.”
to live out loud – happy and kind.
seems pretty simple.
and it is easy to discern the difference – between those who live happy, who live kind and those who do not.
why would we elevate, entrust, enable, elect or endure anyone who does not?
there is not a walk we take this summer in our hood – down around the marina and the harbor and the channel – when we are not filled up with beautiful flowers. everywhere we look – along the pathways that intersect by our lake – there are giant standing planters, hanging baskets or gardens brimming over with meticulously-tended blooms and greenery.
the other night we walked slowly past the really big containers along the road that flanks the saturday farmers’ market. every one of the vessels was different – each had a different grouping of flowers and vines – brilliant contrasts of texture and vibrant colors – we did not miss the obvious thought that went into these big concrete urns. it would be easy to produce a gorgeous coffee table photo book of these textures and colors just from these giant planters alone. and in the middle of winter – on one of those cold, grey, sunless days – this book would be an explosion of pantone color charts.
i would be remiss to not offer gratitude to the hard working park staff who carefully plan, plant and care for these stunning displays. we are fortunate to be reminded on every walk that such beauty exists – not only naturally in meadows and forests – but also with a great deal of tending by real people taking exquisite care of flowers growing in our town. a community becomes what people put into it. and though the textures and issues of our community go beyond the flowers, i am grateful for the acknowledgement that this beauty counts.
now – in too-easy juxtaposition – i could easily launch into a tirade about the utter level of ugly – and of unhappiness – that is permeating this country. the cruelty and – truly – twisted torturous devices – both emotional and physical – that are being subscribed to in an effort to make this country what it is not – homogenous.
each and every day i am shocked to my core – nauseated – to see the newest iteration of unlawful ruling or order or statement, the lies, the misinformation, the hideous display of conscience-less immorality, the destruction of national parks and of beautiful resources that make this country unique. every day i cannot believe the depths to which this nation is sinking. every day i am floored by a legislative branch doing nothing to stop this horrific madness. it is utterly devastating – this reprehensible movement. a country becomes what people put into it. and i am left wondering what exactly is being acknowledged as the things that count here.
what is happening all feels catastrophic to me. i know that we cannot do nothing – we cannot hide our heads in the sand while this hideousness just takes over a nation filled with possibility offered by its diverse textures and colors.
we are so much more than the ugly we are witnessing, so much more than the ugly that is in charge, so much more than the ugly that is permeating our every day – in every mind-boggling, on-all-fronts way they can find.
it is up to all of us to put a stop to all this.
every single attempt at beauty counts. every single attempt to stop ugly counts.
“if you remain generous, time will come good; and you will find your feet again on fresh pastures of promise, where the air will be kind and blushed with beginning.” (john o’donohue – to bless the space between us)
the licorice plant, in a pot on top of the little chest on the deck, was clearly stressed. actually, beyond stressed. something had invaded it; webs were forming inbetween its branches and most of the leaves were turning yellow.
after having no luck combating this invader and worrying that whatever it was would spread to the herbs and vegetables we had planted right nearby, we made the decision to empty the pot and put the licorice plant into the sort-of compost pile next to the garage. we felt bad but thought it was best for the rest – eliminate that which is harmful, minimize the potential of further harm. we decided to go back to milaegers at some point and purchase another licorice plant. we just love the muted, soft shade of green of this plant with its somewhat wild, trailing branches.
when we brought home the new licorice plant, we ended up bringing it inside – placing it on an old stool in front of the living room window, enjoying it inside this time. in its place on top of the chest outside is now a new mint plant, which seems to love the spot in the limelight.
the other day, d was bringing a handful of weeds over to the “compost pile” and spotted our licorice plant. there it was, glory restored, its branches clear of webs, all silvery green leafing, its root ball firm and seemingly undamaged. without a word, he replanted it into a bigger pot and placed it on our babycat chair next to the driveway. the next time we went out to go for a walk, he drew it to my attention.
i was shocked to see this stunning licorice plant – revitalized. it seemed perfect in our now-outdoor wicker, next to the old fence that sports a beautiful green vine wall every summer. a new beginning for this plant – nourished, i guess, by the tumble of compost, the rain and fresh air, the shedding of a pot that might have been too small for its roots.
to say we are thrilled at the rejuvenation of our licorice is an understatement. every single time we are out back or we pass by it is a reminder of the chance of a second chance.
and in these times – so fraught – when we get lost: in the travails of discord in daily life and relationships, in the failure of making headway in our work, in any ability to let go of wounds – when we wonder if we dare hope for a new start – when we fight to give voice: to move from stagnation or a past that needs air, that needs releasing – when we recognize and eliminate that which harms us – when we work to actually create that new start – in these times, we need that reminder.
time will come goodand you will find your feet again…where the air will be kind and blushed with beginning.
in a non-rigorous scientific-community-questioned experiment back around 2000, a japanese researcher exposed water molecules to positive and negative input – commentary, music, sounds that are easily sorted into validating or dissing, softer reassurances or harsh aggression. the water molecules that had been privy to positivity turned into beautiful ice crystals while the water molecules that had been subjected to negativity froze into ugly shapes. the theory was that vibrational input – all the energy input – played a part in the effect on water, and the experiment posited a direct connect to how vibrational energy affects us as people.
whether or not this experiment had all the controls and data and science it purported doesn’t really matter to me. what matters is that this makes sense.
being kind, generous, positive, encouraging to someone, stroking someone with words of goodness is entirely the opposite of berating someone, demeaning them, being hostile toward them. clearly.
when you walk into the trader joe’s grocery store nearest us, the first thing you see – on your right – are bins of flowers. it is a wall of color, of beauty. we slowly browse through them all – so many are different than what your would find at a typical florist, these are intriguing and, obviously, very popular – as there are shoppers with armloads of these bouquets.
we haven’t bought flowers often there, though i have stopped and admired them each time we have entered the store. flowers weren’t in the budget so i enjoyed them at the store and thought about one day starting a new tradition of having fresh flowers around us, any time of year. my sweet poppo would buy my momma grocery store flowers for the little table in the foyer of their house and she loved that tradition, the ritual of changing the flowers, of having beauty right by the front door.
the last two times we went – which isn’t too often because it’s about 40 minutes away – we picked up a bundle of flowers. last time we picked up red hypericum, this time purple eryngium. each time we brought home a little posey of something uniquely different to us, something just simply so pretty we couldn’t pass it by. despite other shoppers leaving with multiple bundles, we have been quite pleased with ourselves, carrying out of the store a sweet bouquet of infamous tj flowers.
at home – in a ball jar on the bistro table by the windows in the sunroom – we enjoy our flowers every single day, for this is the place we sit most often. and every single day that we have enjoyed these flowers – this $4.99 investment in ourselves – we have felt the positive self-message that we are worthy of them.
it doesn’t take much. tiny affirmations. words of support, assurance, validation, self-belief. little gestures. big empowering. everything in between.
if i had to guess, i would think that having trader joe’s flowers around might be a catalyst – one among many others – for becoming beautiful crystals. that – even more than the 60% of our bodies that are water – our body is 100% beautiful. and in the overwhelming presence of that kind of beauty, we are most alive.
“we begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.” (anne lamott)
sweet potato black bean chili was on the menu, so we went to the hanging basket in the stairwell to get a couple sweet potatoes.
lo and behold, one of our sweet potatoes had sweet pink tendrils growing, growing. we giggled as we recalled last year’s pink-tendril-adorned sweet potatoes and how we planted them in big planters and they took over the world.
because the world could use a good takeover, we decided to plant our little catalyst and watch goodness grow and spread and blanket every single everything.
it didn’t take but a few short days and, already, this sweet sweet has leaves.
i have to say – it gives me hope.
nature – despite all the contrarians out there who don’t care about it – will prevail. and deep down – underneath all the evil intent and the scripted corruption and the yuck that is distressing those of us with moral centers – there will be goodness.
the sweet potato will vine. the tomatoes will ripen. the trees will turn in autumn. the hummingbirds will migrate. stars will explode with light and galaxy dust will scatter. there will be symphonies of sound in the woods and by the shore. love and compassion, empathy and altruism will roll in on the tide.
and the icefall went on and on, a looming presence as far as the eye could see, the night inky, the serac-umbrellas like mushroom caps over smooth slopes in shades of white and grey, the spectrum peeking out with the changing light. snow had fallen, stacking up in dune-piles created, urged by the wind, not yet sharpened by the coldest of temperatures. the telephoto lens captured it up close, though we were far away, many, many steps from the dangers of traversing the icefall, its chasms and crevasses.
the peony giggled, thinking it had fooled me for a moment, delighted with its fictitious story, its little tale of shape-shifting. knowing that it was just joshing me – steady in the real and good impact it has in this world – its merriment was because it was solidly based in its goodness. it had nothing to prove, no reason to make us believe it was goodness, because it just was.
and so it could play with us a bit, help us visualize, let us fly over the arctic or the himalayas in our minds. it could encourage imagination and fantasy. there was no fear of losing its way – for it would still fulfill its peony life, its peony self-actualization.
things that are good – that do no harm – do not concern themselves with convincing others that they are good. they just are. there is no reason to pretend to be something else, to permanently twist reality, to alter that which is truth.
the soft petals of the peony layered over each other, gorgeous bits of the bloom, exquisite.
we are fortunate to see such goodness, to witness it, to breathe it, to hold it.
i could get lost in just gazing at this spot where greens converge. i find myself breathing deeply, taking it in, appreciating how utterly extraordinary the nuance, how textural, how life-affirming.
it has been a week. with multi-layered challenges, personal and nationwide.
in the middle of the week, neck spasms – which i had in february for the first time in my life – and which sent me to the emergency room – returned with a vengeance. to say that i was laying awake all night, fearful of the way these manifested in my shoulders, my jaw, my chest, my neck, would be an understatement. it was downright scary. and so painful – even for someone with a relatively high pain threshold.
when it finally slightly eased up for a bit in the morning – after a long, sleepless night – i was exhausted and overcome with how it must be for people who are in chronic pain. the chronic pain of disease, of life-altering treatment plans, of hunger and thirst and of not-enough, of homelessness, of psychological and emotional scars, of addiction, of deep, all-consuming worry. thinking of others always puts one’s own pain in perspective.
for a bit of time – the bit when the spasms did not refer to all these other parts of my upper body – i could breathe more deeply. and so i went outside to our deck and little potting stand – to look at new growth, to soak in the colors green.
in wednesday’s news there was much headlining about a quiet interview that the speaker of the house had on a tiny radio station in his home state. and, in that interview, he revealed the intention of this administration – to fix (read: gut) medicaid, medicare and social security in an effort to free up money so that this government might be able to make a dent in the country’s trillions of dollars of debt which is – clearly – attributed to mountains of tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
so. their goal? take away from the most vulnerable and the eldest in order to further bankroll the gluttony.
it is hard to wrap your head around this kind of whoring of humanity. the word “disgusted” barely touches it.
again, i say, there is no reverence. they have reverence for nothing.
i wonder what our communities, our states, our nation, our world will look like once they have eliminated all that is good, all that is natural, all that is lawful, all that is compassionate, all that is life-giving or life-affirming. what will be left after the land and the natural resources and the regular folk and the goodness are decimated?
as i stood and looked at our tiny vegetable and herb garden, i was filled by the beauty, wrapped in the essence of green, and a sense of balance was restored in me.
though the spasms started up again, this is not about my neck spasms. when they re-started, i felt slightly more equipped to deal with them, carrying into the pain the knowledge that they would – in time – ease up.
but for some, there is no easing up. there is only long-term pain, without ceasing.
there are people intentionally hunted down for their ethnicity, people intentionally taken off rolls for food assistance, medical assistance, housing assistance. people removed from jobs of science and education and journalism so that the country ceases progressive forward-movement and so that the only narrative going forth is vile, self-serving propaganda. there are people targeted by the brandishing of bigotry. there are people whose chronic pain – no matter what it is – no matter the umbrella under which it falls – seem a nuisance to this administration, an administration without a heart or a conscience or any sense of reverence for anything other than self and money and retribution.
were i to be given a choice – live acknowledging simplicities – like the nuance of green OR live inside the insanity of always-wanting-needing-hoarding of moremoremore – i would go with cherishing the tomato plants and herbs and lavender and licorice plant every time.
i would go with the convergence of green, the convergence of goodness, the convergence of growth, the nuance of breath, the affirmation of life, living and reverence for it all.
if you purport to be a weed – and only a weed – growing helter-skelter- invading lawns and gardens everywhere – then it is likely that people will see you – perceive you – as a weed.
if, instead, you believe you are vital early-spring nourishment for pollinators, recognized as a nutrient-dense food source, then it is likely that people will see you – perceive you – as beneficial.
it is all in what you believe about yourself and – here’s the tricky part – what you actually do about what you say you believe.
and why is that tricky? you ask.
i’m pretty sure you have stumbled across the vast hypocrisy – out there – that rears its ugly head from grandiose and magnanimous mission statements of organizations and institutions – even the current government (you don’t say!). these places that purport to be about, say, one thing or another – to stand for something.
i’m pretty sure you have been gut-punched – at some time – by the sheer hypocrisy that you have seen – that exists when push actually comes to shove – when the rubber actually meets the road – when the chips are down – at the moment of truth – that stubbornly squelches any culpability for what-they-say-they-believe – that atones in words but not in deeds. ohmygoodness, it is too prevalent to count, to even begin to depict.
human rights, the lgbtq community, racial divisions, birthplace bigotry, gender discrimination in the workplace, sexual abuse survivorship, places that foster accountability – the list of possibilities goes on and on. and yes, the hypocrisy goes on and on.
it all begs the question – what do you really believe?
and isn’t that just incredibly sad?
because how hard would it be to state what you believe in and then be what you believe in so that the statement “we are what we believe” would be a truth, a consistency in your business/organization/institution, something positive, life-affirming?
i guess the fact of the matter – in the end – is that just because you say you are what you believe doesn’t make you what you believe.
you have to live what you say you believe in order to be what you say you believe.
for reasons we will not elaborate on, we are writing these blogs ahead. and, in true fashion of the times we are living in, there are zillions of things that have happened or are happening between now – as i write this – and now – as you read this. in the chaos in which we now exist, it is impossible to stay afloat of all of it…
because we care about the littlest creatures around us, we have several surfaces we line with birdseed, in addition to our birdfeeder. barney, the upright piano in our backyard, is one of them. another is our potting stand, these pieces of barnwood that stretch beyond our deck, sitting on metal piping, waiting for planting season when it will sport our basil and jalapeño, dill and chives, rosemary and cherry tomatoes.
our birdies love dining on these flat surfaces and gather together on the piano or the stand or off to the side, waiting their turn. the squirrels are zealous about these flat surfaces, as the birdfeeder gives them a tiny run for their money, a small challenge that is, however, most definitely not insurmountable. either way, they fill up to run off and provide food to the others.
we try to keep these surfaces with food, replenishing them to help these little creatures, particularly through the winter. we want them to feel abundance, not lack.
because helping others – people or creatures – to feel abundance seems like goodness, kindness, the right thing. and, in a world where we all unintentionally do things that are right and things that are wrong, it is a good thing to intentionally do some right things.
last week the administration of this country declared in unconscionable screeds that he was going to obliterate an entire civilization. that he was going to make them live in hell. there were moments – after that particular weekend of his screed – that i could not breathe.
in a really stunning opening to his show the night that the administration decided on a two week reprieve before reconsidering his big obliteration, lawrence o’donnell called it what it really was – an obliteration of OUR nation – THIS place – every ideal for which we have EVER stood. i could not agree more.
we sometimes intentionally do things that are wrong – start an argument, go over the speed limit, fail to put recycling in the correct bin. we sometimes unintentionally do things that are wrong – step on someone’s foot, push the grocery cart into the back of someone’s ankle, cuss in the wrong situation, cough suddenly without covering our mouth. most of these things are presumably forgivable, solved by apologies or decisions not to do it again. sometimes there are wrongs that are bigger, that require grace, true humility, olive leaf amends.
we sometimes intentionally do things that are right – give a bigger tip than recommended, donate money or food or other staples to a person, an organization, a pantry, help our neighbors, friends, family without being asked, pick up trash on the trail, listen when someone needs a listener. sometimes there are rights that are bigger, that are stunningly altruistic, that set examples.
we wish those around us to feel that we are generous in those things – the right things – that we hold abundant love and care for those around us.
we watched the rescued hearts film. it is an incredibly moving piece about the heart that horses hold in space with humans. with abundant love, these big, beautiful creatures reach across any boundary of language to extend love – in heart-opening abundance. these horses are catalysts for healing. it is not a film about control – it is a film about connection. it is a film about transformation. it is a film about sheer potentiality of what we – with all of nature – can provide each other.
this film is the antithesis of the threat of obliteration. it is not about lack. it is the epitome of abundance.
the rescued hearts film and this squirrel on our potting stand also make me catch my breath. because goodness is all around us.
and how anyone could not choose goodness over the worst cruelty is beyond me.
reverse threading 