restingmotion

The Last Big Thing

I took the picture below about 5PM yesterday.  The preparatory work for today's concrete pour was winding down, and I was entranced by the warmth of the late afternoon light across the front yard and the driveway.  Workers were beginning to drift away, although a couple would be here for another hour, hopefully (at least in my mind) not the same ones who had been here before 8 in the morning, but I know that is just wishful thinking. I've worked with some of these people for a year, they feel like friends.

The pour itself started at 5 AM this morning, and they tell me that it will wind up, that they will be washing and cutting, sometime after 10PM tonight.  if the weather holds and they are able to finish the pour today.

As they have been cleaning up, framing the driveway for the pour, and generally getting everything together and in place, the yard has been becoming just that, a yard, a place to live rather than a construction site.  It is still a little of both but it is beginning to look like the place I imagined.  Better in fact.  And that is a testament both to my dreams and ideas but even more so to the fabulous people who have been helping me realize them.  You can't really see the future driveway in the picture above, just a bit of crushed stone on the right side, where it will meet the pavers, but it is there.  The area of dirt in the back will be grass, even though I think our obsession with grass and lawns is environmentally ill-advised, and it might well evolve into something else over time.  The areas covered with black landscape fabric will eventually be planted, but they may also just exist as swaths of mulch for a while, as I figure out what I want to do and buy plants.  It is too hot to plant now, too late in the season to order plants if I intend to be particular, and I do, so this will be a garden that evolves.  But evolving gardens is something I can do on my own.

Here are more pictures from yesterday afternoon.  At one point there were several large mechanical creatures crawling around my driveway:  loading, unloading, thumping, packing-down.  The house shook. Tikka retreated back under the bed.

But I can really imagine it now, imagine how it will look, someday in my dreams, when I've figured out plants and all that.  Which may never happen.  I am not interested in a landscape, in hiring someone to toss in a bunch of plants so it looks manicured and neat.  I am interested in a garden.  Of course there will be the public face, and the more private inner circle.....I don't quite know how that will evolve yet.

But it will. In the photo above I am looking west, into my neighbor's backyard -- the private space.  And I want my own space to be just as nice, not in the same way, but in my own way.  A part of me doubts I can pull it off, not because I am not capable, but because I always have more plans than patience, and I tend to start and never finish.  Or maybe I am gaining confidence in my own dreams, and my ability let them fly, as long as I don't let those dreams run away with my common sense.  Piles of dirt can become gardens with time and vision and work.  I wonder if it is foolish to think about 20-year gardens when I am 61. But why not?  The worse thing that can happen is it can become just another overgrown hunk of yard, but it will be my overgrown hunk of yard.  Or I can decide I am no longer interested in DIY gardening and capitulate to the landscapers.  At the moment I think having something to work toward, even at my own pokey pace, is a joy. This hunk of dirt isn't just a hunk of dirt.  It is life.  It is potential. It is its own field of dreams.

During a final walk-through yesterday evening, we paused and looked in toward the patio.  That patio, its placement and charm, is one of the things that attracted me to the house.  Silly I know, to be drawn to plants (most of which are now gone) and ephemeral stuff.  But I have maintained the feel of the space, and the intimacy of that small space is still there, but better.  One plant I love may or may not survive the work, but others are thriving and a few things I disliked are gone. The colors of the bluestone make me smile and echo the colors of earth and sky and plants all around.  In fact the whole back yard is evolving from a space that was just an afterthought, a place I would rather not think about into a space I love. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it doesn't quite look the way I imagined it, it is better.  What I really wanted was a feeling, a space that felt a certain way.  And I think we are on our way, this back garden and I.

In fact the thing that has really amazed me is that it is turning out so incredibly nicely. Deep in my heart, throughout this whole process, I have feared this would prove to be a mistake -- a folly on a grand scale.  It happens a lot.  But fear is not necessarily a bad thing.  I think it drives us to push ourselves, and even everything had not turned out as well as it appears to be so far, despite upsets and changes, I think I would be glad to have done all this.  Perhaps fear is even a good thing.  If I am afraid of doing something perhaps it is exactly what I need to do, to push myself, and the fear itself can also be a system of checks, a driving force toward compromise and a brake on arrogance.  Of course the fear can also easily get out of control so who knows.  This is all just posturing after the worst of it is over.

 

Of course I still have to see the actual driveway.  But whatever happens it has been an adventure.

Tikka remains unconvinced

"Mommy, I gotta go....  Why can't we go out the front door?"

 

"They are sealing the stone.  We can go out front again in a day or two. The job is almost done.  It will get better"

 

"You keep saying that but I don't see it.  I have to walk to the back of the house, and go down a bunch of stairs to get...where?  There is just this funny plasticy-feeling landscape fabric that I don't like.  And the ground is uneven under it. I can't see the dips and then I fall on my face.  Once I cross the void of blackness I still have to walk cross more pavement and jump over funny white plastic tubes... all for what?  No grass.  Not even dirt.  Just rocks and gray dusty stuff.  This is what you call an improvement?.  We got to go out the front door yesterday -- at least it was a shorter, easier walk to the gray dust. When a girl's gotta pee a girl's gotta pee.  This is ridiculous..."

 

"Good girl!  Want a Treat?"  

 

"Oh yes mommy!  I love treats.  And I've earned them after all that.  But now I need to go back under the bed."

 

 

Recovering from what I didn't know

This post is about a path, my own path, and a question.  The path was set by dreams and questions of the things I want to do in this latter part (third? is that too much of a wish?) of my life.  The question also. 

 

At the beginning of the year, in my first post of 2019 in fact, I wrote that I was returning to the gym and walking on the treadmill, focusing on health not fitness.  I did write about walking slowly, deliberately, about focusing on proper breathing, and proper hip motion. I wrote about some of the background, about why I now needed to focus on these things, the natural breathing and moving that most of us take for granted, and which somehow I had lost.  Not lost motion.  Nor lost breathing.  I managed both of those, but did I manage them well or had I somehow lost something that should come naturally?

 

In January I managed to avoid admitting was how difficult this was, and what a tenuous, perhaps even questionable process I was undertaking.  I avoided mentioning that I fretted about whether I was pursing a pipe-dream, fretted about risks (mostly in my head) and whether the gains would be worth it (they may well be).  The goal was to walk slowly, breathing solely through my mouth (hence no talking), to walk slowly enough that my pulse stayed only in the aerobic zone, and did not cross the anaerobic threshold, even for a moment.  The goal was to learn how to breathe again. The goal was to build basic aerobic capacity, which will lead to stamina, not necessarily for fitness, at least not in the short term.  At this slower aerobic pace, breathing through my nose should help strengthen lung perfusion and build capacity, at least as much as can be done given my structural fault-lines. 

 

What I didn't say was how slowly I had to walk, and how difficult that was, not so much physically, although it took concentration, but emotionally and psychologically.   I was a person who put in my 10,000 steps every day.  Who lifted things and walked and who considered myself basically healthy if not fit.  I knew I had a long way to go, that I had become soft and sluggish, and I did not like my sluggish self.  But I was not prepared.  I was not prepared for how little I could do, for how long it would take to improve, and for the way the process would trigger my inner demon, the inner voice telling myself that I can never be enough.

 

When I started in December I was walking so slowly that the act of walking itself had to practically become a meditative action.  I had to hold on to the treadmill firmly with both hands, I had to take agonizingly slow, long deliberate steps, purposefully rolling through my stride. Eventually I worked up to a speed of 0.8 miles-per-hour, which although still horribly slow, would allow me to read on an iPad.  I worked through all my back issues of the New Yorker.  I walked for 1 hour, eventually working up to 2 hours, less than 2 miles, deliberately choosing times that the gym was fairly empty because I was embarrassed.  But I couldn't increase the speed.  Even at this pace my pulse stayed just below the aerobic/anerobic threshold.  I knew it had to get better.  I doubted it would ever get better.  I would leave the gym and walk across the parking lot in the cold air, walk up the stairs to my apartment, and my pulse would rush across that line, and I would fret.  MY team -- doctor/trainer -- told me that I was supposed to avoid high pulses, although they also told me that this would just slow the process and I would get there.  I remembered back, when we found out I had a hole in my heart, in my late 30s, when just getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom put my pulse somewhere in the 80% of max range and my doctors muttered about how I did any of the things I did.  I remember that I survived and I recovered.  I could survive this too.

 

But for months nothing happened.  I stayed mired there.  I eventually got my speed up to 1.2 mph.  But I couldn't go any faster.  If speed was worth, I was worthless.  I knew this wasn't true, but my inner demon continued to chip away.   I needed an incredibly long, slower, almost stretching walk to move from a junctional rhythm into a normal rhythm, but even that was nothing new.  I had always needed that, and it wasn't until I was older that I learned it wasn't "normal".  But what is normal anyway.  And does one have to be normal to be healthy? Chalk it up my scoliosis, to that previous atrial septal defect and repair; I will never be normal.

 

In my previous life, when I was fit, I would warm up on a stationary bike, which always seemed to stabilize me and allow me to push harder than anything else.  But I couldn't pedal a bike, even at no resistance, without my pulse racing. I missed the ignorance of those days, the way I took for granted that I could do anything I wanted to do.  I wanted some of that blissful assurance back.

 

And then there were the setbacks.  I had a couple of colds.  I discovered I am allergic to cats, and forced confinement in an apartment with a cat meant I couldn't breathe.  I got a sinus infection.  I got the flu.  In May I stopped trying altogether. I was packing and preparing to move.

 

After  I moved I decided to start again.  I found a gym buddy.  I went to the gym 6 days a week, occasionally 5.  I still do.  Immediately I learned I could walk at 1.6 mph.  Such a simple thing but I was euphoric.  Breathing through my nose is easier.  I do it most of the time now, and can tell I take deeper, longer breaths.  I was able to use a recumbent bicycle, granted only at level one, but that in and of itself was a huge motivation.  I can actually get better.  I am actually getting better.  

 

I can now ride the bike at level two occasionally, I can increase my speed or resistance for short bursts before my pulse rises too high.  I can walk at about 2 to 2.2 mph holding on, but only 1.8 if I allow my arms to swing freely.  In fact I really can't do that last thing yet, walk on a treadmill with my arms at my side.  What happens is that the pace is too slow and I want to walk faster, as soon as I walk faster I stop rolling my hips and my gait becomes more marionette-like. As I speed up and my gate changes my pulse changes as well.  I don't feel bad, if anything, psychologically, I want to push harder.  But the goal is not pushing harder, not yet.  I know pushing harder will actually push me back, and I will have to slow down.  

 

Now that I am finally progressing I can see that there are benefits and I want to be the best, healthiest me I can be.  I know that although I have trained myself, without even really meaning to do so, into believing that doing more faster is the way things are supposed to be, this is a myth.  It is one of the myths of the culture I live in, like the myth of fitness.  Fitness is good, but it is not health.  I want both, or as close to both as I can achieve, but of the two health is more important, and it is a somewhat fluid state.  I need to start with health.

 

Does this seem like a project? a long term-goal? I suppose it is.  But it is not.  Sometimes it feels more like an anti-project.  Don't push, keep those goals flexible and even wishy-washy, accept that some days will be slow and others surprisingly fast.  I still have to work on keeping myself from pushing.  But the effort is paying off -- in my breathing, in my stamina and long term energy, which still has a way to go but which is increasing, and even in an increasing sense of calmness and a willingness to just sit back.  Sometimes we think we are moving forward when are really digging a hole.  Sometimes just moving is enough.

Abandon all hope....

Of coherent thought at least, of being able to string together sentences, or even more so, whole paragraphs.....

 

I am still in nesting mode I suppose, and scattered.  There are days when I have plans and ideas and those plans are constantly interrupted by other necessities.  Then, when all is quiet I pick up the pieces and try to finish the myriad half-done projects.  It is minor.  It is a privilege actually, but that does not mean there are not days when I do not wonder if I will ever be able to think again, much less write.  At least I am able to connect my computer to the internet, and the solution was all my doing.  After a couple of phone calls, I realized that all Apple support was doing was trying to follow a chart, a rote if-this, then-that routine that was skirting around my issues and never getting to the heart of it.  Sounds like a metaphor for my life at the moment.  In which case there is hope after all.

 

This past weekend was the first weekend in which there were no workmen here.  You might think I would have gotten a lot done and I would argue that this was not the case, that I spent a lot of time just reveling in the silence, and that would be true.  It was also a working weekend for me, as the first weekend of the month is my altar guild weekend, and I had a funeral on Saturday and then church services on Sunday.  I don't really like Saturday funerals because they interfere with my Saturday Farmer's Market habit, but in the end, doing what you want to do is not where meaning comes from in life.  Meaning comes from helping others.  And need rarely cooperates with want; helping someone when you are least inclined to do it because you are tired, or frustrated, or had been planning to do something else taps into the essence of our humanity.  When we interrupt our own ego-driven pursuits and help others we open ourselves up to joy.  

 

Besides, altar guild suits me.  I like the idea of making sure that things work, that everything is pretty, and that what you need is there and ready, and not having to be the public face of anything.

I finished organizing the kitchen, putting away the last few things that were stacked up, waiting to find a home.  Oh there are a few glitches here and there, a couple of extra shelves have been ordered, and space is different from my previous kitchens so the organization needs a bit of fine-tuning.  But basically it is done, and just in time as well.  The painters came in and finished up today, installing the hardware for the windows and the screens, my wonderful side-opening screens, there when I need them and out of  sight when I don't.

 

I spent the biggest part of the weekend organizing books.  I'm still only about half done, but it is of course getting easier simply because the pile of unsorted books grows smaller and smaller so finding things is faster.  I actually have far more bookshelf space than I need, which seems like a minor miracle, and I may have to space the books out more on the shelves.  For a few moments I thought of all the books I gave away and donated before moving to Tennessee 7 years ago, but no, there are actually very few books that have been replaced, and a library needs room to grow....

And finally I spent time knitting and reading Ninth Street Women, which I adore.  These women amaze me and I love the way the author interweaves the story with themes from their lives and their art, not necessarily always chronologically but in a way that makes sense  in the flow of the art and the relationships, which, to mind at least, is how our experience of life tends to evolve, chronological yes, because we can't avoid time, but also simultaneously separate from that chronology, because what matters to us, and what shapes us, has its own way of interfering with timelines.  The knitting is going slowly simply because I knit with linen more slowly than I can knit with wool, but I now see enough color that I eagerly look forward to the next change.  My knitting is much like the book in a way then, worth any added effort in the revelation of what appears next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-Week Miscellany

Frustrations abound.  I have lost this post twice.  I've been on the phone with Apple.  Each iteration turns out to be an entirely different post depending on the vagaries of my state of mind.  Generally that (my state of mind) has been good overall, contented in the course of the big picture, but with hiccups.  

 

Let's see if I can distract myself from the minor frustrations: what is good?

 

Espresso:

I have finally reach a point where I am consistently pulling very good espresso from my fancy new machine, or at least it usually tastes good.  Admittedly the first shot of the morning tends to be my weakest pull, too much heart, not quite enough body or crema, but then I improve.  Perhaps I am just over eager, or my muscle memory needs a moment to recalibrate.  I don't know.  Like everything, I am sure I will improve with practice.

 Ninth Street Women

I picked up Mary Gabriel's Ninth Street Women from the library yesterday.  It is hefty and at first gave me pause, even though I knew it was a big book before I put in my request.  As I walked out of the library, my heart leapt -- 920 pages, roughly 50 pages a day if I want some wiggle room, but then I realized (and remembered) that there are 200 pages of notes.  I fell in love with the book from the first page, it is calling my name and I will finish.  I have to thank's Mater's instagram feed for the inspiration.

 

DIY

I made deodorant again, but I've also upped my game a bit, or at least so I hope.  My old deodorant was wonderfully effective, but it tended to separate if it got too warm, and was therefore a pain to travel with.  I wanted something in a stick-like form, so I started with this recipe.   Like my old recipe, it includes coconut oil, baking powder, cornstarch and essential oils.  Arrowroot was listed as an alternate thickener, and since I always have arrowroot in the house, and never use cornstarch, except for deodorant-making, I decided to give it a try.  In cooking the two thickeners act a bit differently and yield different results, but in a deodorant the difference may be negligible.  We will see.  

I made this batch using cocoa butter rather than shea butter for no real reason except that I think I will use it more often.  Besides, how can I complain about the aroma of melting cocoa butter wafting through the kitchen.   Despite the very subtle aroma added by my essential oils, the cocoa butter aroma is present when deodorant stick hits warm skin, but I my chocolate-loving soul does not see that as a negative either.  The cocoa aroma fades after 15 to 20 minutes anyway and does not return during the course of the day.  In terms of other modifications, I opted not to use probiotics simply because I don't see the point in a topical treatment, and I did not add Vitamin E oil because it usually gives me a rash. I added tea tree oil.

 

The deodorant is wildly effective, even in hot, humid, and sweaty conditions.  I don't yet know how it travels, and there were a few glitches in my technique, but already I will strike this up to a win.  

 

And now, I am on the sixth iteration of this post (three more crashes since I started above) and I am calling it quits before my equanimity is lost.  I shall take a deep breath and read for a while before dealing with Apple once again.  I am surrounded by the sounds of digging and moving earth, but I am safely ensconced in my library-tower.  Generally speaking, life is good.  Glitches are just that -- glitches.  Nonetheless I wish you all a glitch-free day.

Progress and Interruptions

I am struggling with internet connectivity today and keep losing words.    I will be back, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.

 

In the meantime here are two photos:

Last week:

 

This week:

 

Puttering in the kitchen

I was tired this past weekend, and I gave myself permission to be tired.  I am not certain that this was so much a physical tiredness, as it was a physical manifestation of a basic introverted sort of emotional and psychological tiredness.  I needed to be quiet, to be still.  I needed the house to be quiet and be still as well.

 

The stonemasons were here early Saturday morning laying bluestone on the back patio and walk in preparation for the rain that was supposed to come on Monday.  The rain did indeed come and the masons returned yesterday, but that is another story, for another day.  While they were working on the back patio, I trekked downtown to the Market Square Farmer's Market.  I came home with this haul:

I returned home just as the masons were leaving, for which I was grateful.  I needed to work in the studio, hard pressed against a deadline, and did not look forward to traipsing back and forth across their workspace.   But before I could get to work I needed, at a minimum, to unpack.  I was too tired for my normal wash and prep work, tired enough to worry that I would make my deadline, even without the added kitchen work.

 

I did however, also need to eat. In my bag were some chanterelles and some lobster mushrooms (upper right corner, on the paper bag).  I saw the lobster mushrooms first, and initially turned down the chanterelles because I had already purchased the lobster mushrooms.  But I went back, my mind filled with dreams of a late breakfast of eggs and chanterelles.  Initially I planned an omelet,  but by the time I sautéed the chanterelles I was so needy for sustenance, that I just turned down the heat to its lowest setting, and scrambled the eggs slowly in the butter and mushroom juices.  No regrets, just deliciousness.

 

I didn't even fret about not doing my usual round of food prep and cook-up.  I accepted that I was tired, that my schedule was actually pretty open, and I could allow myself to do as much or as little as I wished.  I gave myself permission to putter....

And somehow instead of cooking I felt like organizing cookbooks.  Slowly:  about 16 linear feet of shelf space over three days.  As I sorted, I would pick up a book and glance through its pages, perusing volumes that have become like old friends, and when I was tired I would walk away to return later.  No added pressure to do anything.  In many ways it was like an extended visit with old friends; with  a few new acquaintances thrown in as well. I still have my first cookbook.  I still cook form it, although only occasionally now.  But my collection isn't exactly about recipes, although that is part of the story.  I have books that I love for what I have learned from them, how they have changed my attitude and understanding about food and cooking, and my skills, whether or not I follow the author's recipes or not.  And of course there are new books in there as well, new friendships to be formed perhaps, although I realize that some of the new cookbooks will not mesh, and will be replaced.

 

I also spent part of the weekend rereading Lidia Bastianich's first cookbook, La Cucina di Lidia which was written before her PBS show, before she became a celebrity chef. It remains one of my favorite books.  The food is simple and true to its nature and source,  It is filled with memories for me, but also with inspirations and things I still want to cook.  It is delicious to read.  I spent a lovely afternoon knitting and reading, also remembering, but not in a clinging nostalgia-ridden way.  I remembered going to the Italian Market in Poughkeepsie, the one that would have baskets of fresh snails and I remember buying them and cleaning and cooking them, I remember learning to cook tripe.   Well, I had always loved the flavor tripe gave to a broth -- my parents made a good tripe soup -- but until this book I had disliked the tripe itself (I studiously tried to pick the tripe out of the soup).  Lidia taught me how to cook tripe in a way that enhanced the flavor and texture. I grew up eating tripe because my parents would buy a side of beef, or did they buy a whole cow, before it was trendy, but because it was an economical way to feed a family.  I don't remember eating heart, which I now like, although I do remember struggling with the liver.   But the book is not only about snails and tripe, although Lidia Bastianich's cooking in this book leans toward the Istria cooking of her childhood. It is about an approach to food that  embodies simplicity in terms of integrity toward the materials, to the act of cooking, and feeding others as an act of love and sustenance, in all the many forms sustenance can take, but not necessarily simplicity in terms of ease of use.  But we confuse ease and simple sometimes.  This book stays in my library because it is a part of my own evolving understanding of the world and life and my own place in this world.  This book stays in my library because it makes me want to walk into the kitchen, even when I am tired.

And yes.  I did get back into the kitchen, even that same day, although most of the prep-work was put off until Sunday and Monday.  As I had shopped I had imagined one of the lobster mushrooms, sautéed until just soft, with a little caramelization along the edges, with warm spices, served over a bed of little gem lettuces.  I ended up adding merguez as well. Lobster mushrooms look large and sturdy, and one would think they would keep, but they do not.   It was the perfect, simple dinner for a lazy day.  Sunday morning the last lobster mushroom was turned into a hash with shallots and sweet potatoes.  

 

The books have all been put away and I am now slowly organizing the kitchen, again only in fits and starts, while also cooking my way through my haul.  There is no expectation here, no pressure to finish by a certain time.  The outside of the house is madhouse of work, but inside there is just time and peace.  When I am hungry I can just open the refrigerator door and allow inspiration to light the way.   Need satisfied with a bit of play. 

Settling In to Small Things

It is raining, albeit lightly, and that does not mean that the trades are not scattered across the place -- working on the landscaping, hanging gutters, moving things out of the garage so it can be finished.  Goodness knows what else.  It also means I have towels by each door, towels for muddy shoes and to wipe muddy footprints, not that there have been clean feet around here for some time.  When it wasn't raining, the air, and every surface, was covered with stone dust.  You could not walk outside without tracking it in, could not open a door without trails of dust rushing to colonize new space. I have accommodated myself to the idea of dust, of footprints on the floor, both mine and the beasts'.  Towels only go so far, and cats are not known for their patience with foot wiping.

The stone masons have laid out most of the back patio and walkway.  This photo is from earlier in the week, incomplete, but the work has since been covered with tarps to protect it from boots and rain.  Grouting will take place later in the week, weather permitting, although the masons worked through the rain last week, laying and cutting stone under tents.  Despite the noise and the dust however, my house is an oasis of peace, if not order. 

Everything was moved into the studio on Friday  and I posted the photo above on Instagram that morning, happy to see how nicely my rug and the loom looked in the space, in a brief moment of peace before all the boxes appeared.  While men moved heavy things, I unpacked fabric and started placing it on the shelves. 

But this is not what the studio actually looks like.  Below is a more accurate representation.  There are a few things I need to do sooner as opposed to later, but I am not forcing myself into timelines and deadlines.  I can do whatever I chose, whenever I chose to do it.  

That idea, of accepting slowness, of patience, is easier stated than lived however, much as I have long paid lip service to the idea.  I realize now that I was only flirting with patience, that I put too much stock in the doing and not enough in the being.  Perhaps this is a lifelong journey, one with which we all struggle.  After years of stating that it was the little things that actually matter, I realize that I always merely flirted with that belief -- I always had a big project in the background, providing a comforting anchor.  And now there is none -- no project, just life.  Or perhaps "just life" is actually the main project and the others have all been distractions.  I don't know.  I still tend to think a good day is a day I do a lot of things, but what if a good day is just a day I don't worry about what I have done?

I am sure that point will take a while to embed itself into my conscience, and by the time it is firmly established, I may not even remember that it was once a struggle.  In the meantime, this morning I poured a perfect espresso, although it is technically somewhere between an espresso and a luongo, but it is my "perfect" and that is all that matters.  I think I will putter about in the kitchen, figuring out some of the what and where that still plagues the space, at least until I am tired.  I play bridge this afternoon.  Perhaps I will run errands.  Perhaps I will take a nap, or read, or knit, or all of the above.

Ups and Downs...

I wish I could tell you that I was doing fun and exciting things.

 

I wish I had erudite and fascinating thoughts to share.

 

But neither one is the case.  I am here.  I am in, and happy to be in my home, but it has been a rocky week, at least as far as my general state of mind is concerned. This move has been harder than I anticipated, harder than any prior move that I can recall.  And I can't explain it.

Sunday was one of my best days in a long time.  I awoke with a glad leap, and felt fully myself and full of energy for the first time since I moved back home.  I watched tennis, finished the grocery shopping, had a great workout, spent an hour or so doing kitchen prep work: washing vegetables (yes even triple-washed organic baby spinach), steam-sautéeing cabbage, roasting spaghetti squash, browning ground meat, roasting some chicken thighs -- prepping food so that it is easy to make dinner (or lunch) on those days when I need to eat, need to prepare a meal, but have neither the time nor the emotional reserves to actually cook.   Long ago, when I was in my 20's, I learned the value of some advance prep work and the way a little time spent on shopping day could help with getting dinner on the table in 15 to 30 minutes or so on those days when energy or inspiration prove elusive.  I still think cooking is fun, but sometimes I just need something delicious to eat without much fuss. I used to think prep work was a tedious pain, but I've learned to make a game of it and the payoff is definitely worthwhile. Without a mountain of prep, pulling together a simple meal can be quickly satisfying.

 

The prep work came in handy on Monday. Monday was a different story. Monday morning I found myself fighting back a growing quaver in my voice as I discussed frustration over things not yet done in the studio, minor things to be sure, minor delays about which I had felt a trifle annoyed but not necessarily emotional on Sunday.  I struggled not to burst into tears.  I found myself hiding in the bedroom or the library, feeling teary and fragile, emotionally far more overwrought than the situation warranted.  I don't think it was just the delays in getting into the studio that set me off -- probably an impossible to discern jumble of things, a bit of a struggle in the gym one day, even if followed by a really good workout another, the constant presence of noise and workers and interruptions, the sense that I can never quite finish anything, never quite be alone, a conversation with friends where I perhaps allowed myself to be a little more emotionally vulnerable than is my wont -- that alone could kick me on the path to self recriminations -- but it also seems evident that a supportive response to that vulnerability also caught me by surprise.  I am far more prepared for rejection than I apparently am for tenderness and the surprise of it has left me feeling even more vulnerable, a touch more exposed, although I suspect that ultimately it is in a good way.

 

I simply don't know where I am.  I am not referring to physical location here, that is evident, but my emotional landscape still feels a bit jagged and uneven. I am confident in my intelligence, in the many things I can do well, and yet there is a vulnerability, perhaps partly in simply exposing a dream, and the realization that I have stumbled on yet more walls that need to come crashing down and more teary track's through the wreckage.

I am surrounded by energy and excitement. Bluestone arrived Monday afternoon. I was thrilled to see it, thrilled to watch it be unloaded, excited by all progress.  At the same time I am also exhausted by the very same hubbub, by the sense of being constantly exposed. By the time every one goes home I am too tired to pull myself together, and I feel as if all my nerves have been stretched thin.

 

And yet.....

I started unpacking fabric yesterday even though there is still no furniture.  Workers are uncovering the windows today.  I went out and bought a crochet hook.  I can knit tonight.

Part of the back yard is starting to take shape.  The stonemasons are here today, placing that bluestone on this patio.    As I sit here typing, three men are 15 feet away, finally finishing up the guest bathroom.... 

 

Perhaps even here, in my heart and head, as I sit and type, I am creating a new emotional path.  Will there be more tears?  Probably.  But how could there be joys in a world without tears?  Perhaps that is all it is, profound happiness, sometimes requiring its toll in profound sadness.  I would want to say it isn't so, but I would never give up the happiness, even if it meant fewer moments of tears. Somehow, someday, this particular vista will all fall in place.  And then the heart will find new paths to explore, new fields of flowers and new rocky shores..

 

 

 

 

 

Slow Fruits

In many ways this has been a week in which pent-up frustrations (previously hidden, at least to myself) become increasingly manifest.  And yet it was also a week of steady progress, of good times, and continued new beginnings.    Like a puff of smoke, those frustrations were freed, apparently only beholden to my own unwillingness to let them go.  For that I can thank the power of the spoken word, of naming problems rather shoving them back into the hidden drawers of my psyche, where they had no choice but to fester.

And yet I must also thank the power of handwork, even slow and at times tedious handwork that was not always meditative.  I wound skeins of yarn into balls.  I did it manually, by draping the yarn around the chair pictured and cannot pretend that I was always happy with the slow process of winding five skeins, five skeins each containing 580 yards of lace-weight linen.  I should have done it weeks ago -- I could have been knitting, but my darker frustrations were too busy nibbling away at my energy.  Of course, now that the yarn has been wound, it is possible that I may move into the studio next week, and that ball winder may be unpacked.  It is only a month after move-in, after all.  But promises have been made before, and the ability to knit, to knit something I am actually eager to wear, is both a gift and a therapeutic balm.

 

The yarn is Prism's Euroflaxx Laceweight Linen Layers and it will be used to make Laura Bryant's boxy linen tee from the summer Vogue Knitting magazine, pretty much exactly in the color as shown.  I don't subscribe to Vogue Knitting anymore, after being a devoted subscriber since they began publishing again in the 1980s.  I have enough knitting patterns, and it is rare that enough appeals to me to keep the magazine.  Summer sweaters are difficult given that I live in a place that is both hot and humid in the summer and I prefer neither.   But I can wear most "summer" sweaters in the winter here, and perhaps this one even in the warmer transitional months of early summer and fall.  Perhaps this is all just an indulgence in wishful thinking.  Perhaps I need to travel someplace cold and drafty for the winters so I can wrap myself in wool.

 

The winding itself was slow.  I admit to being spoiled.  I miss my yarn winder, and in the missing began to fret about all the unpacked things that I miss, almost all of them are tools for handcraft.  The missing fed the sense of tedium and frustration, reminding me of the fragility of our perception of the world, that the difference between tedium and mediation is purely state of mind. Once I was willing to let go of my own perceptions of the self-importance of my time, it became evident that this yarn was probably best being hand-wound. The linen tends to grab onto itself; I myself tend to push myself, and inner demon crying  "harder" and "faster" -- the combination could have quickly spiraled into a massive tangle.  The quickest skein took me a little over an hour, the slowest, most grabby and somewhat tangled skein, took two.  

 

And so it seems that despite my initial petulance, the bitter muttering and grumbling, by the end, the act of winding itself had become something that offered time for quiet and reflection.   For all that I say, and do believe, that it is the slow work of our hands, of sustenance and existence, of slow moments with friends that bring meaning, I am also a product of my time.  I want instant gratification, easy access, more and more and more.  Time and again I have to slow myself and give in to the process itself.  Time and again, I must relinquish and be relinquished from the bonds of rushing.

 

Is in this, the process of living, of doing, of making,  that peace is found, in our connection with this place that is actually home, this earth.  Perhaps we have fallen too much under the spell of "life is brutish and short" mentality about labor, about the slow physical acts of feeding and clothing ourselves.   Joy is in those moments with friends, in the actual labor of our hands, in the making, both of things and connections, not in the consuming.  And yes, in this world, consuming isn't just about things, but also about busyness and experiences, about being more and more and more, when what our souls really want is less and even less.

Every day I drive under this crape myrtle, into the construction site that is my backyard.  The construction site is filled with busyness, and often ugliness, but also promise.  The crape myrtle simply hangs there, and is.