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Waffles & Roses

March 18, 2024 //
2

I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about the weekend that has only just ended. The sunrise is just getting started, and I see it beyond the city skyline, as a pale peach glow that reaches a deep orange as it nears the distant horizon, only visible reflected back in building windows. The crows are taking flight, and I see and hear them as they pass by the big window behind my monitor. It’s a Monday.

…Funny, I remember Mondays being quite different than this, not so long ago…

…Years, actually, it’s been years since Mondays were reliably unpleasant for me…

I’m feeling contented and merry, well-loved, appreciated, and cared-for. The weekend was rich with self-care and the charming companionship of my Traveling Partner, whose sometimes wildly inappropriate often subtle sense-of-humor reliably amuses me. (Fuck, I love that guy!) We go together like waffles and maple syrup on lazy Sunday. 😀

…I actually did make waffles this weekend. They were… of varying quality. At least one of them was almost the best waffle I’ve ever made… my waffles are pretty hit-or-miss, honestly. There’s a subtlety to really great waffles. I have a fantastic recipe, but I have a cheap-ass very average quality electric waffle iron that is pretty fiddly and imprecise for both temperature and timing (and also hard to clean). Makes it rather more difficult to get a great result than necessary for something as simple as waffles. This particular batch of waffles resulted in a decent breakfast together, but ended with both of us finding reasons that the results were less than satisfying. “Not done enough”, “over-done”, “not quite enough batter” – all the basic ways a waffle can fail, I got that outcome. LOL I make a batch small enough for two people, so the end result was that we each got 1 adequately-edible-but-not-perfect waffle, in spite of a great recipe. Well, shit. Before I even finished my waffle, my Traveling Partner had shopped around for a better waffle iron, and we’ll have it before the next weekend. 😀 Sometimes self-care is about careful consideration of the outcome we get, what we’d like for ourselves instead, and taking actual steps to make that happen… even when we’re just talking about waffles! I’m excited about the new waffle iron, and I’m eager to make waffles again, instead of facing the idea with some resistance certain that the results will be… unpredictable.

The weekend was pleasant, with mild spring weather, and I spent time in the garden planting pea seedlings and salad greens; the young plants give me a head start and give the recently planted seeds some time to get going. They also seem to discourage El Gato from using my veggie bed as a litterbox, which is a bonus. It felt good to have my hands in the soil. I went around to each of the roses and did a little more pruning, cutting back any dead canes, and pruning off canes that were tending to grow in a crowded fashion, or obstructing a walkway – pruning for aesthetics, mostly, and just enjoying the sunshine. It’s a garden. There’s always more to do, and I finally had the weather for it.

Getting the garden started; it’s Spring!

The sky is now a lovely baby blue, with a hint of bold yellow along the horizon, and streaked with bright pink “chem trails” and whisps of clouds. Looks like another pleasant Spring day, and I’m so happy to see it! I sip my coffee and think my thoughts, preparing for the day, and watching the sun rise. I enjoy seeing the sun rise.

I think I recall that the rain will return this week, and through next weekend… that won’t stop me from making waffles, or taking care of myself and my Traveling Partner, but it will probably keep me out of the garden, mostly. I’m glad I got so much done this past weekend! My mind wanders to more/other things I’d like to do, or plan to do, or expect to have to do… I keep a list, so as not to lose track of the important details. My results still vary, but it’s been a long time since I learned to stop beating myself up over the very human limitations in energy and time that can limit what I get done in a day. It doesn’t help to treat myself like shit over running out of energy, or forgetting something I had sworn I’d make time for. It’s far more productive (and kinder to myself) to take note, acknowledge how very human I am, and just move the fuck on to the next opportunity. I try my damnedest not to be one of the people standing in line to grief me over something stupid. lol There are plenty of other people willing to fill that role, any time.

I smile to myself, feeling pretty contented and merry, and very much “recharged” after a great weekend. It’s a good start to a new week, and now it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets

Thoughts, Dreams, & Plans

March 5, 2024 //
2

I’m sipping my coffee and watching the dawn become a new day. No colorful sunrise this morning, the sky is a rather bland mostly featureless gray of clouds that seem not to have made up their mind whether to be threatening and stormy or just… gray. It isn’t raining. It isn’t cold. It’s also not exactly dry, nor is it at all warm. A Spring sort of morning, betwixt things. “Nothing to see here”, and my mind moves along, exploring scattered thoughts that lack cohesiveness or theme.

I got into the garden yesterday, after work, feeling extra motivated after seeing video of deer eating my damned roses (again, as usual – I guess they’re tasty). I pulled some weeds, and added a generous layer of compost to the vegetable bed. I planted early stuff: peas, carrots, radishes. I’d have done a bit more of that, but I was exhausted before my list was. lol The rest of the evening was spent fighting my sore feet and aching back, but feeling contented and joyful that I’d at least gotten things started in the garden for the year. This morning, my legs ache, but only a little bit, and it’s the healthy feeling of working hard and gaining strength. I can’t really fuss about that, it’s part of the process of improving my fitness, generally. lol My aching muscles bring my thoughts back to the garden every time I notice them. 😀

I took time to really look over the garden yesterday evening, with an eye for where a couple new roses could go, and maybe a little bench. I’m stymied by the lush green of the lawn my Traveling Partner put in last year; it’s so beautiful it’s quite difficult to imagine removing even a scrap of it, although a quiet corner with another flower bed and a bench would reduce the amount of lawn requiring care. I turn the idea over and over in my head, and look over pictures of the yard and garden, from a variety of angles. No doubt I’ll end up asking my Traveling Partner for his suggestions and thoughts, and he’ll likely tell me he doesn’t care about that and that it’s my garden… but it does matter, and this is his home, too… I sip my coffee, smiling, and thinking about how much love is like… dark matter? Filling all the space in my relationship with my partner that isn’t filled with something else. lol (And this is the kind of dumb shit non-physicists say using the language of physics because it sounds pretty or profound or somehow meaningful, but probably isn’t any of those things due to limited actual understanding of the underlying concepts. lol I just mean to say I love that human so tremendously it seems to require cosmic concepts to convey it.)

…A bench, some roses, some flowers… maybe a small fig tree… could I make all that fit somewhere…? I’d sure like to. I see a wee quiet spot with a bench shaded by a fig tree, a small figure of Guan Yin seated on a lotus tucked among trailing roses and fragrant herbs and flowers, scents of Spring filling the air, and small birds perched here and there… There’s a corner of the lawn, toward the front, that seems… too “square”, and I wonder if perhaps a curved or triangular bed might soften the edge, and also provide a place for a bench, with a view of the rest of the garden, and the house so welcoming just beyond… For now, there’s no clear plan, just a lot of day dreams and imaginings, and memories of a friend. That’s okay, every journey happens in steps. 🙂

[…I miss you, dear friend, that’s certainly true, but when I am thinking about the garden, or working the soil with my hands, pruning roses, planting, lost in my own thoughts, you seem to be there with me, and I guess that’ll have to be enough.]

Tears well up ever so briefly. It’s not really a morning for sorrows, and there is work to be done in the here-and-now. I stretch and sip my coffee – it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, weight loss secrets, winter, women

Still and (approximately) Always

August 9, 2023 //
0

Still and always practicing. Sometimes I get it “right”. Sometimes I fail myself (or someone else). Sometimes I am proud of the woman I am right now. Sometimes I fall short of being the woman I most want to be. I need more practice. 🙂

I’m sipping a delicious hot coffee, a freebie from the local chain vendor of caffeinated beverages (one of many that accumulated over the past not-quite-a-year of weekly commutes to the city). Handy. Yes, I saved them up over time without using them, figuring there might be some time when it would be nice to enjoy one, but perhaps excessively costly, for… reasons. Here I am, with reasons. LOL It’s a pleasant quiet morning. The slow dawn revealed a cloudy start to the day. The day started easily, and I had slept well through the night, waking feeling quite rested. My Traveling Partner pinged me a kiss emoji over SMS on my way to the solitude of a morning walk, and some time in the co-work space handling job search tasks. A good beginning to a new day, indeed. 😀

A different day, a different beginning; it’s not really about the cup of coffee, how it’s made, or where it came from – it’s about the moment.

My Traveling Partner and I had a moment of conflict “recently” (I have the sense that it was this week, but… I honestly don’t recall when, at this point, and it entirely blew over, and was, it seemed, more a byproduct of stress over lingering sleep challenges than anything else), and in the midst of taking turns saying things to each other that were needlessly unkind, he mocked the very thing(s) that I rely on to persist in putting one foot in front of the other day-after-day and which I use to heal ancient pain, and grow as a person, and yeah, also even use to treat him well, and with kindness and compassion. Ouch. My feelings were incredibly hurt. I was astonished and appalled. I was… enraged. I was saddened. (I mean, for real though? Damn, dude. Way to be hurtful.)

Here’s the thing, though… On reflection, I am sensitive to the idea – the very true truth – that “hurt people hurt people”. I know this first hand, from within the context of my own experience. Meaning to say that people who have been emotionally wounded over time do lash out, and they do inflict new/further damage on people around them, often those they love, and that damage is often targeted, using uniquely personal information that has the greatest potential to inflict pain, taken from the most intimate shared moments. Messy and unpleasant. Also… not actually “personal”. It just feels that way. It is an expression of the pain of the person delivering the injury, more than anything explicitly to do with the person they are lashing out at in that moment. Hurt and anger are strange like that. It feels personal to the recipient, mostly because as creatures we’re prone to taking shit personally, not so much because it really is.

…I get it, though… I work through a lot of my personal bullshit and baggage right here. Out in the open. Honest and real and raw and… also aspirational. I seek to do better. I don’t always hit the mark. I set goals for myself. I don’t always achieve them. I acknowledge where I’ve failed or fallen short. I pick myself up and walk on. I am practicing. Day after day, I show up, and I practice the practices that I hope will, over time, result in my becoming the woman (the person) I most want to be. I’m not there yet. I’ll point out two things that seem obvious to me, but maybe aren’t so obvious… 1. I practice because I’m human, and I’m “not there yet”; I need the practice! 2. “The woman I most want to be”… may not be the woman anyone else wants to see me become. With just those two things in mind, there’s more than enough within these blog posts to fill any argument with insults and barbed remarks to fuel any heated moment. Taking them personally would only set me up for disappointment, a feeling of chronic inadequacy, a sense of utter failure, and a quick slide into despair… defeating the point of being here, now, in the first place. “Don’t drink the poison.“

Instead of attacking him for attacking me over such personal things, or for seeking to undermine my progress (it’s highly unlikely he was looking at his words through that lens at all), I let those words simply land in the space between us unaddressed beyond the basic point that he was feeling hurt, mistreated, and provoked, and was frustrated by his lack of sleep. I did my best to focus on the need actually being expressed, and not so much on the shitty way he was expressing it in the moment. He’s very human. I “filed it away” for later reflection, and here I find myself, reflecting. It’s a nice morning for it. I’m in a good place. We’re in a good place with each other. I know I need more practice. That’s not new information. What’s useful to reflect on is where we are with each other, and how I can make use of what I’ve heard my partner say to me to become a better partner, and friend, myself.

Any misstep can become a beautiful gesture of love, if we’re willing to be vulnerable about our failures.

I think about the lawn my Traveling Partner recently put in. It’s gorgeous. In the process of preparing the ground for the new sod, my partner inadvertently damaged one of the roses. He didn’t hide that, or ignore it, or try to excuse the error, or blame someone/something else; he simply pointed it out, with some regret. He also took that moment to transform the mistake into something beautiful; he carefully cut the roses and put the blossoms in a wee vase on the table where I would see them. So cute. The little vase of flowers meant so much more to me than the unplanned cutting of a stray cane or two on a rose that is already pretty well-established. Just saying; we’re human. We make mistakes. We fuck shit up. It’s how we handle that and the outcome, and how we support and seek to heal each other as human beings that matters most. 🙂

I sip my coffee. It’s a good morning.

So… yeah. I’m a work in progress for sure. lol The journey is the destination. I am my own cartographer, and this trip has no map. I do my best, and I can fearlessly state that my results vary, and sometimes my best definitely does not feel “good enough”. It’s necessary to begin again. Often. All of that is more than “okay” – it’s the nature of the experience. Growth and incremental change over time are not instant. There are verbs involved.

I breathe. Exhale. Relax. It’s a beautiful morning to practice practices, and to put in the effort to become the woman I most want to be. With that in mind, it’s time to begin again. 😀

When it feels like it’s all stairs, it’s nice to have someone sharing the journey.
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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, turning 60

What’s In a Name?

September 18, 2022 //
0

Note: I’ve referenced a bunch of roses by name in this one, without adding pictures (in most cases) – it may be interesting to open a second tab and google them to see what they look like or to read more about them. 🙂 If you put the word “rose” in front of their names, you should get images that are the correct rose without a lot of b.s. (I didn’t feel right linking to point of sale pages on all these, as it might have given the appearance of an endorsement.) Ready?

In my garden, the roses (and some flowers) are selected with great care to fit a theme. The theme? Love. Passion. Romance. A story of lovers over time. So, a rose named “The Alchymist” (a Kordes cross of R. eglanteria and a climber named Golden Glow from 1956) lives in the garden representing my Traveling Partner (it makes sense if you know him). “Baby Love”, (Scrivens, 1992?) was a gift from my Traveling Partner when we moved in together and he started a wee garden for me out on our balcony – “baby love” is also one of his pet names for me. So sweet. 😀 This year, close to “The Alchymist”, I’ll be adding “Baltimore Belle” (Feast, 1843), a nod to my home state of Maryland and recollections of many happy visits to “Charm City” in younger years.

Over the years, roses have come and gone. My first roses were “inherited” when my then-spouse and I bought a little house in Texas. Later, my first “proper” rose garden started with a Jackson & Perkins collection, before I had discovered the robust lasting beauty of roses on their own roots.

As gardens came and went with various moves, only those roses that could survive well in containers stayed “in my garden” as it moved from place to place, but I knew what I wanted, and the vision lingered. I want a garden that wraps me in love. 🙂 So, the roses are selected with great care, right down to the names. “The Alchymist” and “Baby Love” are currently joined by “Nozomi” (“Pink Pearl”, Onodera, 1968 – the rose that has been with me longest), and “Easy on the Eyes” (Carruth, 2017 – my “youngest” rose), and “Sweet Chariot” (Moore, 1984 – one of the first miniatures I ever purchased). I had a few others suited to my theme at my last address, but they weren’t doing well, and I decided not to haul their fungi, pests, or health issues to the new address. Starting fresh seemed the wiser choice. Some I’ll for sure replace (I miss the lovely “X-rated”, “Irresistible” and “Ebb Tide”) others maybe not (many of which I suspect just weren’t a good choice for container life…). We’ll see.

Soon three new roses will arrive: “Baltimore Belle”, along with “Golden Opportunity” (Carruth, 2012?), and “All My Loving” (Fryer, 2011). Roses have more than beautiful forms and captivating scents – they have provenance, history, and stories to tell. Some of my fondest favorites achieved their place in my heart because of the stories they have to tell. R. gallica, for example? It’s the oldest known rose, ever, anywhere. Wow, right? What must this rose have seen of human kind and histories gardens? I often consider planting her, just because… “history“.

I have a two long-time favorites I may never plant into this garden. They’re huge. Truly grand in size, and both are very thorny, too. I don’t have the space without a lot of strict pruning two or three times a year. lol One is R. eglanteria. One of my fondest favorites (also called “sweet briar” rose) she smells of green apple, and has so many adorable “wild rose” type flowers in a cute pink color. I often think that the Sleeping Beauty’s thorn-bushes were likely a mix of wild blackberries and R. eglanteria. 🙂 It’s a whimsical notion that delights me. The other? “Sombreuil” (unknown breeder, 1880, and previously sold as “Colonial White” in the US) – a massive and impressive climbing rose with enormous saucer-sized white blooms that are exquisitely fragrant and temptingly numerous – she guards them fiercely with her plentiful nasty thorns. Every year that I owned her, my arms told that the tale of keeping her pruned back. lol Worth it, though, and I daydream of adding her to my garden for that heavenly tea rose scent. She really doesn’t “fit the theme”, though… but oh I do miss her so!

…I could add either or both, but I can’t do so without acknowledging the challenge involved in keeping them to a manageable size in this climate; I’ve experienced that first hand. They were genuinely too big for container gardening, and I knew that back in 1998, when I moved them from Fresno, California, to Portland, Oregon. Back then, I had a community garden plot in the big community garden on the campus of Reed College. So… I planted them in my community garden plot. Why not? Well, I’ll tell you why not – about 7 years later, the college decided to reclaim the space the garden occupied to build new dorms. Those two roses, by that time, were so insanely large I could not move them at all! The college “kept them”, and indeed they are growing in the locations they had been planted (at least that was the case last I saw). My R. eglanteria was easily half the width of my plot (about 5′ wide) and twice that high. “Sombreuil” was similarly wide, on the other side of the plot, and far taller, with long sweeping canes curving downward gently, extending her visual width, each cane weighed down heavily with those big blooms. I only have one “sensible” location for either (or both) of them here, and that would be just on the other side of the retaining wall, instead of those invasive non-native blackberries (although that would be replacing a non-native with non-natives…so…). Then I could just let them do their thing over the years, taking space and being lovely. Getting them planted there, though, would require many days of intense labor clearing out those fucking blackberries by hand. Worth it? Maybe not…?

Where was I going with this? Love. Gardening. Roses. There are definitely roses I’d like to add, but limited space and a thematic commitment shorten the list quite a bit. 😀 What do I have in mind, as of this one moment on this particular summer day?

Love at First Sight – I mean, yeah, our “origin story” has a real hint of that “love at first sight” kind of experience.

Ebb Tide – the tides come and go. Emotions, too. That, and my Traveling Partner is a Navy veteran – there aren’t many roses with nautically relevant names. lol

Bliss – because love can be so much bliss, for real. 😀

You’re the One – well, yeah, that’s how it has played out for both of us. This unexpected lasting commitment and affection for each other has been significant.

Crazy Love – also, yeah, we both bring the fucking crazy to this rollercoaster. LOL

Orange Honey – okay, so, not “on theme” but another rose that was one of my earliest choices for my first rose garden. I fell in love with the trailing habit, the sweet fragrance, and enjoyed my friendship with the breeder Ralph Moore. It’s just a rose worth having. 🙂

Cutie Pie – my partner is my best friend, my “prince charming”, and for sure a “cutie pie”, so this one makes sense to me. 😀

Realistically, I have doubts that I could fit another 10 roses to my wee garden, after the 5 I’ve already got, and the three that are on their way right now. LOL I could probably do 10-12 (total), though, without looking like a mad woman… So, as with so many things in life, it’s about selection. Choices made with care. It’s about sufficiency. “Enough”. It’s about overcoming a very human inclination to acquire and to accumulate. Greed is not a character trait I want to develop (quite the contrary, I practice sufficiency).

How best to narrow down my list of 10 to 3-4? Well, one way I do that kind of thing is to let circumstances call some of the shots; I go to the website that I’m shopping from, and narrow things down (see list above) based on what fits my theme and appeals to me… then, that is likely further limited by what is still in stock. LOL This is how I selected the three that are headed my way now! If I look at the website this morning at my wishlist of 10 roses above, just two of them are actually available. This is sometimes frustrating, but it also prevents my garden from being too structured by introducing a certain not-quite-randomness. It also slows me down quite a lot. I’ll just add the three I’ve ordered for the 2023 garden – next year I’ll be looking over the options available then.

In the meantime, I entertain myself thinking about gardening and roses and searching for just the right rose to add here or there… and wait for new roses to arrive to be planted. Each one is a new beginning all its own. 🙂 Roses and gardens make beautiful metaphors. 😀

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Summer, The Art of Being

Pop Quiz

May 24, 2019 //
0

I sat, relaxed and contented, contemplating the quiet evening of solitude ahead. “I’ll probably spend some time out in the garden.” I said, smiling. I looked at my hands. “My nails are too long. I should cut them back, first…”

“Wear gloves. It’ll keep your hands clean and minimize the risk of leptospirosis…” my partner suggested. Seeing my frown, he added “I’m just looking out for you.” I smiled back and agreed his idea is a good one, wondering briefly if perhaps he disapproves of the way I encourage the chipmunks and squirrels. I let that foolishness go, as soon as the thought forms.

One rose among many and a lovely afternoon.

Some time later, enjoying the evening alone, I went out into the garden for awhile. I pulled some weeds. Smelled newly opened roses. Gazed into the trees, and enjoyed the glow of late afternoon sunshine on a warm spring day. It was lovely. I returned to the cooler comfort of the indoors, and washed my hands. I enjoyed a certain merriment; no broken nails. Nice.

What is enough?

Sitting quietly on my meditation cushion, I enjoyed the breeze filling the living room. When it began to cool down, as the sun sank low in the sky, and the living room was suffused with a sort of peach-colored glow, I got up to close the patio door… and broke a nail right to the quick, as I pulled the door closed. Fuck.

Perfect is a fiction.

…And I giggled. Then I laughed. I laughed for awhile. It felt good to laugh so… thoroughly. So much mirth over a broken nail. Cheap thrills, right? lol I sat down, still smiling, and cut my nails. At least they’re more or less even, and in proportion to each other. Short nails; fast typing. 🙂 Nothing really changes here. Short nails. Long nails. It’s the sort of irrelevant detail it’s so easy to get wound up over. Not last night. Not today. I woke still smiling.

Somehow I suspect there’s a lesson here, somewhere beyond the laughter, no doubt buried in a moment of reflection at higher altitude. Some metaphor? For now, the laughter is enough. 🙂

 

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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