PreDawn:
I can't say that my extended period of resettling myself has provided any great answers in terms of the meaning life or even my role in life. I can say that although I find myself exactly where I was, my perceptions have altered slightly. This may be the most we can hope for, the most that is desired from life. The journey is the same. The trajectory may vary.
I've been happily puttering here and there, engaged in this process of resettlement. I have a pile of family photos piled up on the laundry island, where I play around with arrangements, a part of the process of moving those photos out of the box they have been stored in for the last four years and getting them on the walls, perhaps an essential step to actually claiming this space. A mental mark of acceptance. If the photos are up, I am here.
I've also been organizing the basement storage area, an ongoing project that is not yet finished but which has a profound impact on my sense of well-being. A part of that process has also been organizing the downstairs pantry:
Which includes some summer canning. It has not been. good year for tomatoes, and I frankly have not grown or found tomatoes that are worth the effort of preserving, so it will be a year of store-bought. I am fortunate to be able to do that, this is one of the luxuries of our modern life, that we can find almost anything we need easily, and do not have to put in the work of growing and saving our food. But I wonder sometimes what this has done to our souls.
I have put some things up this year: zucchini relish, pickled fairy-tale eggplant, various soups and other vegetables. There are many things in the freezer as well, pesto, sorrel puree, herb purées. I was thinking about this process just this weekend as I brought in armfuls of Thai basil to be washed, the leaves inspected and plucked from long stems, all to be processed with oil for use in soups and dishes throughout the coming year. It is a very meditative process, and for me a meaningful one. It strikes me sometimes that the modern way is to seek out entertainment to find ways to distract ourselves from monotony and to find meaning, when perhaps in our ease we have actually lost something far more profound. Perhaps part of the meaning in life comes from these activities of caring for ourselves and for others, perhaps even from discomfort, from the necessity of discomfort.
Perhaps I think too much. Well, I have long known this to be true.
Aside from cooking and organizing the basement, I am still cataloging knitting patterns. I have a stash that is too large. I freely admit it. I forgive myself for accumulating it at a time when perhaps buying yarn and fabric and patterns was a way of holding onto dreams during a time of trial and stress. At the same time, perhaps my accumulation of yarn and my tendency to keep a pantry are related urges.
This particular blog post quite possibly makes no sense. There is no specific theme here. There is much to be done and nothing will ever be finished. There are more weeds than I can pick. But sometimes those weeds are beautiful as well and I am inclined to let them be, for a moment at least.
When it all gets to be too much, I will sit in a cozy corner of the deck and watch the birds frolic in my garden. I don't have bird feeders, but the cardinals and robins and doves, a family of quail even among the more anonymous birds, a tufted titmouse hopping on the rail near me as I type these words. We have gotten friendly the birds and I, I sit and weed, or let my mind wander, the birds chirp and hop around me. Sometimes I get too close. This experience, of being in the garden together is worth all the unruliness.
It is the quiet moments, the dove hiding behind the planter, a sudden weedy flower, the unexpected, that are worth more than any goal, any intentional destination.
