Muddy water morning
June 28, 2015 § Leave a comment
Summer is so much intensity. Heat, people, pouring sunshine, gardens demanding water and weeding, animals thirsty and shade-seeking.
There is great fun in summer – brightness, discovery, and a raucous kind of play, play, play outside! But it also comes with a push that, for some of us, needs to be ducked away from now and again.
Sunday mornings become the place to find cool and quiet.
This one was a slow walk in tall boots, a slight breeze, moss and muddy water at the lake’s edge.
Sometimes you have to look for what you need, to remember your right to it, to find the space and the time somewhere in the week for a place beautiful and damp and cool and still.
Having a jar of coffee in hand doesn’t hurt. A companion happy to splash in the water doesn’t, either.
This Sunday prayer seems to be hanging in the air around me. A Creator’s creation offering what I need: trees bending in the breeze, scattered sun over the water, and the soaking-wet, frolicking gladness of a good dog.
Collections
February 16, 2013 § 3 Comments
Sometimes, and especially in new places, I start keeping a kind of list, a collection in my head, of things that nature impresses upon me. All along the way there are these gifts; do we notice them? When I start collecting I seem to remember to notice, to make it habit, and to receive them with gratitude. Here are a few from the past week:
1. Two coyotes playing in the woods at Occoneechee Mountain. They looked like they were fairly young and were bounding about quite happily, until they saw us – Tass with her ears perked up, and me peering closely, and fighting the urge to go and join in the fun. At night we can hear packs of coyotes howling, howling, long strains breaking into yips, voices joining one after another. I love it, this reminder that I am not alone nor solely among humans, and that the night, when we grow still and quiet, brings forth others who have much to say.
2. A bird’s nest made of horse hair, glittering with beads after a rainy morning. The walk in the woods that day was splendid, damp. There is so much green here, even this time of year, all the mosses and lichens, the trunks of trees. I knelt down in the leaf litter and dug through the layers, through the forest floor to the clay below. I just needed to touch it. The soil here is so unfamiliar; I know it is not as “good” as what we have back in the Midwest, but it fascinates me. I am beginning to love its redness. It belongs here, this way, you know, and it’s important to learn how we might grow things well in this place – respecting what a garden needs while also appreciating what the earth is.
Nearby a tree had fallen, and its base formed a wall of clay soil and various rocks; I dug at it a bit, shaped the clay in my palm, pulled the rocks out and felt them, ran my fingers over the velvety green at the foot of the trunk, and hungered for a book on regional ecology.
3. The moon hanging like a crescent-bowl in the sky on Valentine’s Day. The stars so, so spangly up above the pines. That, my friends, is a love-gift.
4. Yesterday Tass and I went walking a near trail, and we found a spot where we could slide down the muddy banks and climb onto a couple small boulders in the river. I sat there while she waded all around me, and the early afternoon light struck the water upstream of us. Everything was brown and golden; the water is murky green and moves just fast enough to be noticed; the temperature was 60 degrees and the sun warmed my face. I sat there and smiled, for I knew we had found a favorite spot, to be visited again, to watch change over the seasons.
5. And then, today! What happened today nearly outdoes the others – in any case, it was certainly winter flaunting herself (which I always appreciate). We woke up to snow falling – in such delicious wet flakes, big as a quarter, tumbling down slow as you please. I stood on the porch and looked up at the gray-white sky, at all those specks and each one of them different. Later the flakes grew smaller and fell faster, and soon the ground and all the limbs of the trees had a proper white coat over them. When I’d finished helping a friend pull up her floor, I went home and had a cup of tea and let the dim of evening settle in, and then I went walking through the woods. I love the white mysteriousness of snow at day’s end, especially inside a stand of trees. They say this kind of snow hardly ever happens here. I’m inclined to think North Carolina did it for me. Welcome, Northerner.
Why, thank you.
And . . . home, again
February 8, 2013 § 1 Comment
I’ve remained on the quiet side the past couple of months, but guess why? Because changes galore have been happening. I like to take a little while to settle in before I start talking about it.
Remember when I went to North Carolina? Well. I’ve come again, with all my belongings and my dog in tow. We mean to stay.
I’ve faced transitions enough times that I feel something of an old pro at them (I no longer let all the uncertainty and newness pile up until I can do little more than burst into tears, for example). One of the best things about putting yourself into precarious and/or unfamiliar situations is that you learn to adapt, reach out, and trust. You fear risk less, because even while it sometimes makes things quite uncomfortable and even unpleasant, on the other side of risk you might find something wonderful. And you trust that the universe (or, for me, God) will catch you. In this overly-independent society you actually learn to accept help and to cultivate gratitude. People like to help people, did you know that?
I’ve been caught again and I have fallen into what seems to be a very good place. I’m so excited to be working in the farm and gardens at a year-round camp in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Here in Orange County we have many, many small sustainable farms, fantastic food co-ops, winding roads, and horses galore. Two and half hours east, we reach the ocean. Two and half hours west, the mountains. Everyone has been so kind and inviting; southern hospitality is not a myth. Tassie is thrilled to have new friends, and so am I.
We went walking with one of our new friends and her dog the other day, and since I am currently camera-less (two broken ones), here is a first shot of us in North Carolina, courtesy of Leah Maloney:
Pardon the messy hair; some days, like those where the only things on the agenda are a long walk and a lot of reading, it just seems all right to let it stay a bit wild.
So. We are going to become southerners. Hold on tight, y’all. I can’t wait to find the stories that are here.
Breakfast at Home
December 22, 2012 § Leave a comment
The cow is milked. The chickens and ducks and sheep and steers are fed. So is the dog, after she and I romped around in the snow for a bit. She feels better, now that we went to the vet and got the tick diseases diagnosed (sigh) and got her on some antibiotics. There is a time and a place for them, and this is one of them. It’s good to see her old spirit back. And so – happy Saturday!
There is something about a late(ish) breakfast after morning chores. It makes me want to eat healthier, to crave things like, today, kale and eggs and fresh milk (in my coffee). Back in Colorado, when I worked at the horse barn, I would grab a granola bar for my pseudo breakfast at 6:45 a.m. – which didn’t really count, in my mind, as anything more than enough fuel to get me moving for a few hours. I’d go out to the stables to feed and move and turn out horses, and muck stalls, and then around 11:30 or so I’d head back home to my real meal, a substantial and fantastic brunch complete with meat and/or eggs and almost always greens (especially when I was also working at the organic farm several days a week). Yum.
There is surely a mind-body connection here. The physical effort plus the great outdoors seem to send little signals to the brain that we need nourishment! and nourishment that is natural, real, from the earth and its animals as directly as possible! So as much as I love a little pastry or tart as much as the next girl, this isn’t the time for it.
And I think that is part of why I crave this farm-life so much. It builds health up from, out from itself, in so many ways. Done well, it perpetuates health – health for humans, animals, land. And, in my opinion, communities.
I’ve been reading the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes – and, lest you be misled, this is not simply about lucky suburban stay-at-home-moms who are financially comfortable enough to be doing what they do, possibly with a nanny in tow, and possibly eco-friendly in the I-can-afford-it kind of way. (There is nothing quite wrong with that, but it isn’t a reality for most of us, right?) So, if you aren’t in this position, and it seems that you have to go to work, whether you like it or not, this book is probably equally if not more so for you. Hayes explores how the home has functioned past to present, how the choices we make are driven by and/or affect our communities and society as a whole, and how many families are assessing the current trends in career and home life and making deliberate deviations in the pursuit of health and happiness. The book is full of examples, quotes, and real people that make you think, “Huh. I could do this if they could.”
So much of what Hayes says here makes sense to me. It explains why, for so long, I wrinkled my nose at nearly every reasonable career option out there. As I read through the book, so many times I thought (in my melodramatic way) Oh my heart! Yes. This is the life I have wanted. Thank goodness the sustainable/environmental movement came along, where I could find a few more folks with my kinds of ideals, and find jobs therein. That said, as a (still) single girl, it’s challenging to think about how I can focus on home and how I can create homegrown community without a partner in this divine crime, this subversion of commercial, corporate society. But I mean to try.
Here’s an excerpt:
When women and men choose to center their lives on their homes, creating strong family units and living in a way that honors our natural resources and local communities, they are doing more than dismantling the extractive economy and taking power away from the corporate plutocrats. They are laying the foundation to re-democratize our society and heal our planet. They are rebuilding the life-serving economy. (57-58)
Read the book! And eat kale for breakfast, at a table, leisurely, like you deserve it. Your body will thank you.
Big Snow
December 10, 2012 § 2 Comments
So much snow fell yesterday and into today. 15 inches, maybe?
Imagine you are here. You would slide into long johns and boots and mittens and take great strides through the snow with the dog and me.
The snow came nearly up to Tassie’s belly in some places. It covered our boots. It put tall caps on the beehives.
It is the kind of snow that makes you work around it, that makes you clumsy, that makes you pause and look at how the world around has changed. The kind of snow that makes you laugh and even shimmer a little bit yourself.
I think everyone around here is secretly or not-so-secretly thrilled. I swear there is more spring in our steps, more cheer in our voices. Last winter had scarcely a decent snow in this part of the country, and so this one feels like ice cream long waited for. It tastes sweet.
Evergreen
November 30, 2012 § Leave a comment
This is the time when the evergreen takes center stage.
The rest of the year we are giddy about the spring buds opening into flower, the broad and flickering deciduous leaves, the fall colors. But in winter, the pines and firs and spruces get their fair due. While the other trees make striking silhouettes with their naked branches, the evergreens bring color onto our landscape. They make us look at them; we want to look at them. And even better when they catch snow, to sparkle under the light of sun or moon.
Such is our admiration of evergreens in winter that we invite them into our homes, feed them honey and water, bedeck them with ribbons and lights and jewels.
It is so nice to have their thick outline against the white sky, their weighty branches, their plucky needles. They remind us of life when so much else has died, browned, gone to sleep.
Turkey Foot
November 18, 2012 § Leave a comment
We are grateful today.
Today I went to LTD Farm to pick out a Thanksgiving turkey, help (just a little) with the harvesting process, and take it home only a few days before it will be enjoyed by me and my family. I felt meat-rich.
I took the feet home, too, so a certain golden retriever could have an afternoon treat.
She enjoyed it!
We are thankful for the farmers’ hard work, the turkey’s life that in turn sustains ours, and the Giver of good things for what He has designed and made available to us.
Bouts of Rain
November 10, 2012 § 2 Comments
I woke to heavy rain in the middle of the night. Well, early morning, really. The late evening hours had dragged into midnight and when at last I stumbled upstairs I lay in my bed surrounded by all the dark of loneliness. My poor dog, my faithful companion, is getting arthritic in the evenings, so I hadn’t urged her to walk up the stairs. I didn’t want to hear her whimper. It is always odd not having her there, though, the warm body of a creature who cares for me. My gratitude for dogs really cannot be expressed. Dogs love so willingly.
The rain wasn’t falling then, in the minutes of thought on my pillow, imaginings of another life with more people in it, more dogs, perhaps, and a horse or two. Daydreams can be a solace but at the times when they collide with the very reality of reality they can be horrid, a painful contrast, a look at what can’t be compared with what is. We all have these times, don’t we? When what’s good in our lives fades, and can’t be seen in the pressing gray of disappointments, and we are too tired to fight against the way we feel, and part of it is that we want the right to feel this way, after all.
In between sleeping and waking the rain started, pushed by wind, seemingly in fits and starts, heavy and light. The dog whined at the bottom of the stairs, so I went and got her, and felt glad for her. She snuggled up next to me and then, warm in the fleece and down, I wondered if the rabbits were sheltered enough. I dreamed of one of them chewing through his cage and escaping. I woke and thought perhaps they really ought to have more to protect them from the rain, but it was late/early and that rain fell heavy. I thought about it and then the rain subsided a little and feeling like a guilty, lazy person I pulled on muck boots over my pajamas, strapped on a headlamp, and went out into the eery blue. My plucky rabbits stood up on their hind legs to see me, and the two I had worried about were more damp than they should be. I propped wood against and over their cages and gave them little strokes on the forehead. “Poor darlings.” Though it wasn’t that cold. Thank goodness.
Back upstairs. Back to bed. In the slow morning the neighbor dog came over with her joyful wriggle of being. I started a fire. Put on the coffee. Watched the dogs play in their mouthy way. Decided I would write, because that is part of who I am, a part I can have some level of control over, no matter where I live or what I do or how I feel.
So then. So it is. Almost always, when I make the space to write, I can feel my very self start to settle, to orient itself within the tumble of this world. Writing, before it became a discipline, a major, a career move – before all that, writing came from a little girl’s instinct, a sort of unspoken and unidentified sense that this was something I could and must do. Pen in hand, fingertips on a keyboard, images becoming words becoming story – here is one of the ways that I remember who I am. Here is a partial fulfillment of the person a Very Good Creator made me to be. Yet without pressure; pressure gets pushed aside, and perfection is not the point, or the goal, or the reason why. Here I find my old, hopeful self. Reminding me: Do your gift. And keep dreaming. Bring as many dreams into reality as you can.
Dancing dogs
October 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
I know it’s a bit blurry, but I had to post it just for fun.
Kinds of Honey 