peace – solo piano | reverse threading

it is just a little corner of our yard – about 4′ x 6′ or so off the east side of our deck, tucked next to the fence.

years ago – decades, really – we used it as a tiny vegetable garden. we planted a few tomatoes and other whatnot plants and attempted to have a bit of farm-to-table (so to speak) additions to our kitchen. being a tiny, difficult-to-access place, it was hard to keep up with weeding in that garden and it eventually went by the wayside.

wildflowers seemed like a good idea then – less maintenance – a freeness – a mayhem of a garden. that was lovely until it wasn’t. weeds were prolific and my neighbor’s snow-on-the-mountain was an ever-present menace.

half a dozen years ago or so we decided to build the potting stand with some delicious barnwood and industrial pipe. we added basil, a dwarf indeterminate tomato plant, some lettuce. we had a (yes, singular) salad with our lettuce, loved our tiny tomatoes and were ecstatic with the basil out our back door.

it has morphed – this little garden. and now, through a study of the survival of the fittest, herbs and jalapeños and tomato plants fill the space – this tiny space – wrought-iron-fenced off to really define it – this space that brings me peace.

in the last days we have had some big harvesting extravaganzas. our basil plants – despite an unsure beginning when i thought they might be goners – have responded to the sunshine and the warmth of this particular wisconsin summer.

with new clippers (it’s really the little things!) i clipped off the basil and some parsley as the youtube instructed. rinsed all the leaves in a colander and prepped everything we needed to make two batches of red pesto and a giant batch of green pesto, all of which went into the freezer for the middle of winter when fresh from our garden will taste ever-so-good. we have at least nine meals stored away and that was merely the first harvest.

i simply cannot imagine what it might be like to farm most of what one eats. the sheer joy of tending and growing and harvesting – all lots of work – tedium, really – (for even this little potting corner is time-consuming and i find myself worrying about the health of the plants, our investment in them, their yield) – but yet entirely zen as i lose myself in it.

yesterday i purchased a new cilantro plant – ours bolted along with the dill. so we will give cilantro another round – it is the perfect addition to our sweet-potato-black-bean burritos and stepping out back to snip it off is ridiculously glee-inspiring. (yes, yes…you are right…it doesn’t take much to amuse us.)

early every day i step out the back door asking dogga if he “wants to water the plants with momma”. every day we use this wildly cool watering wand and top off each of the big clay pots or wood planters out there. every day i – once again – think to myself how happy this tiny garden makes me. every day – in these moments – peace descends on me like the soft morning air.

*****

* (sing to the tune of don ho’s “tiny bubbles”: tiny garden/in the yard/makes me happy/is my zen-life-guard)

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the harmonic overtones ring, free in the wind. they are a voice of purity, peaceful in the day and night. they drift into our window and i lay still, quietly listening.

for years as we walked our lakefront, we would stand on the sidewalk at a certain house and listen to the tenor windchimes hanging on one of their trees. the pentatonic scale sang from the backyard all the way to where we were standing, swirling around us. we would just stand there, quietly listening.

we had looked at chimes in garden shops and boutiques, but they were out of reach and we just agreed on “someday”. so we wrote about them – such a thing of beauty and meditation. and one day, guy wrote to us to inquire if we would like to adopt their set of chimes as they moved on to a home where there would be no place for them. and “someday” arrived.

the windchimes hang on a blue spruce in our backyard, back by the birdbath and bird/chippie/squirrel feeder. they are nestled next to the grasses and are stunning against the white fence. because they are not out in wide open space, they don’t ring with every breeze. instead, they seem discerning, choosing only breezes from a certain direction, a certain velocity. sometimes, it is merely a prolonged single note we can hear, floating. other times, when the wind picks up a bit, several notes will ring out, immediately bringing us pause, a moment of peace, a moment to reflect and root and center.

in much the same way that experiencing intentionally-played crystal singing bowls can rejuvenate, the frequencies of these windchimes resonate with the place in my heart that is hungry for sublime sound. translucent pitches that wrap around us – in gratitude, we are quietly listening.

*****

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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