Archive for June 2020
Unidentified Obfuscation
It starts to get hard when you reach the point of not being able to hear yourself think. The little boy in me who has never grown up occasionally shows up to ask me why I’m so quick to forget about the bliss of being four or five years old and getting lost in some harmless pursuit. The answer is always the same.
It’s not that I’m quick to forget. I’m just slow to remember. Present-day life tends to do that to a person.
An awful lot of years have passed since I sprawled on the floor making truck sounds with my mouth as I rolled Matchbox cars along the borders of our large Persian rug.
The recent stress of the day-job continues unabated amidst a boom of business that started at the same time as the global pandemic and its havoc on world economies. It is proving to be a brain-scrambler of significant magnitude.
Last night the ranch received an impressive sample of the remnants of Tropical Storm Cristobol in the form of wave after wave of soaking rain. I think it might make the landscape pond overflow. [wry smile]
We are hoping that the deluge won’t drown any of the plants in Cyndie’s gardens.
She served up another delicious salad last night with all the greens coming from plants she is growing. This time I remembered to take a picture.
The asparagus isn’t ours. They’re store-bought. I can only hope someday our wisps of skinny stalks will someday reach such mammoth proportions.
Much to our surprise, rainstorms seem to improve our connection for Zoom meetings, and last night I was able to participate in conversations with an international collection of members of my beloved virtual community, Brainstorms. (Ward, it was a treat to see and hear you!). For almost an hour my connection flashed instability only three times, but never once dropped my connection entirely. That was a first.
The normal mode for Zoom gatherings by way of our cell connection out here in the countryside is to freeze up frequently and get dropped/reconnected multiple times until I give up and sign off.
The last time Cyndie was in a Zoom meeting during wild weather, she enjoyed similar success. The signal must like having all those raindrops in the air. Who’d uh guessed?
The little boy in me would have, probably.
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Garden Salad
I didn’t expect it this soon after planting, but over the weekend Cyndie served up the first salad with kale and spinach from her garden. It was fabulous tasting, as well as a wonderful reward to be eating something she has grown right here at home.
Our other weekend meal was a last-minute decision to order take-out from our nearby destination restaurant, Shady Grove. We have not been to a restaurant since the pandemic outbreak and have only had pizza and Chinese takeout up until now. When Cyndie stepped in the door to pick up our haute cuisine food, she found she was the only person wearing a mask.
Hope the patrons weren’t all traveling long distances to congregate in close proximity for a couple of hours of conversation and food. We aren’t aware of any reported cases of COVID-19 in the immediate area and most of the people we have seen are responding with understandable casualness over the risks, but who knows what might arrive undetected with travelers from afar.
Interested in protecting those around us in other parts of our lives, we opt for not sitting inside with the rest of the unfamiliar folks and dine at home for now. Neither of us is very concerned about our risk of getting sick, but we each are very interested in not becoming an unwitting carrier who could spread the illness to her family or my coworkers.
When I was down in the woods on Sunday cutting up the latest of the fallen trees, I had a thought that we should probably be focusing on planting new trees to make up for all the ones we lose. Then I realized that we find uncountable numbers of new trees popping up every spring, to a fault. They show up everywhere, particularly noticeable in places we don’t want them. In our landscaping around the house, underneath preferred mature trees, and too close to buildings.
Nature plants more trees than we ever could. We just need to figure out how to manage them.
While writing about the salad and all the new trees sprouting, I thought it would be perfect to include an image of each. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of either. Instead, you get two recent versions of our sky overhead, one taken by Cyndie and one by me. Guess which one is from me.
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We’ve been blessed with a pretty good balance of rainstorms and warm sunny days. It has made for some pretty good progress in growing salad greens and baby trees.
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Small Projects
The weekend just passed consisted of many small tasks chipped off the ol’ to-do list, primarily addressing the first-impression appearance of the place. After getting the grass mowed and the landscape pond fixed my attention shifted to whatever miscellaneous project caught my eye, particularly if they had been staring me in the face for more than a year.
I finally got up on the roof to address the wind vane that came apart so long ago I’ve forgotten when. I ended up removing the base entirely to see if repairs on the ground are possible. I may, or may not, put it back up someday.
The kids stopped by on Saturday and Julian helped me quickly dispatch a dead pine tree located right in front of the approach to the house garage doors. Yesterday, I pulled out the chainsaw again and removed dead limbs from the next tree over, some version of a flowering decorative. I think that one is a form of lilac, but seems to have climbed to heights that exceed my perceptions of lilac.
While the chainsaw was out, I hoofed my way down to the woods behind the labyrinth to cut up a dead tree that fell across one of our small side trails. At the labyrinth, I removed the stakes that secured the transplanted maple now that it seems to have established itself. There, I discovered the deer have been feasting on the hostas by the peace pole.
I hope they had a very peaceful meal there while the angel’s back was turned.
The driveway got some attention in the form of lime screenings packed into a low dip that was becoming quite a bump in the road. The last time a UPS truck delivered a package, I heard everything bounce in his truck when passing over that spot a little too quickly.
Julian and I started removing anything attached to the side of the house in preparation for a resealing of the logs that will hopefully happen sooner than later. We have enlisted the services of professionals and they have teased us that we are next in line when they finish the current customer.
That’s another one of those weather-dependent projects that end up being hard to plan start and finish dates.
That brings to mind the hay fields. Things are growing so fast right now that our fields look ripe for the mowing. I don’t know what the farmer who is renting our fields this summer is planning, but I hope he is able to get enough dry days in a row to be successful this year.
The only thing I didn’t get to before time ran out last night was in fulfilling Cyndie’s wish to get the hammocks up.
That’s a good task to look forward to for starting my next spurt of knocking off small projects, whenever that moment comes.
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Flowing Again
Problem solved. A full day in operation and the water level is holding. It was indeed the orientation of the waterfall that was contributing to the surprising loss of water every day.
The peaceful meditations of splashing water have returned to grace our idyllic surroundings once again.
Pretty good timing, given the visceral angst boiling over in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in the middle of a global pandemic that had seriously derailed the economy while killing vulnerable people with abandon.
With such a wallop of bad vibes unceasingly resonating far and wide, people understandingly are reacting with a protective perspective of wondering what more awful situation could be around the next corner. If we expect the worst, maybe it won’t hurt so much when it arrives. I remember that mindset from my years of depression.
Thinking like that may come across as protective on the surface, but it doesn’t actually work as well as the alternative. We can hold space for best possibilities.
Neither method can entirely control outcomes, but it is hard to argue that they don’t have some influence. Consider how strongly people feel about the power of prayer.
I no longer brace myself for the next possible calamity to befall us. I have grown more inclined to visualize the best possible outcome humankind can achieve. It is easier for me now that I have narrowed my focus to the power of love. Love is the answer. Love can heal all wounds.
It is time to get love flowing again, equally among all races, all income levels, all orientations.
Let the love flow and splash down over everything and everyone.
Amen.
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Pond Inspection
While much of the country and the world are inspecting police abuses of people in custody, largely against people of color, we took a break from the protests to inspect the lining of our landscape pond. It is ridiculous how many of the battalions of riot police responding to the civil disobedience gatherings in protest of police brutality are responding with brutality. Talking about proving the point.
I’m hoping that Cyndie and I have proved a point that our pond losing water is not a result of a problem with the lining, much to my relief. I did not want to do the work of removing all the rocks and replacing the entire lining.
What I did learn was the exact level where water could flow over the top and out of the pond. Clearly seeing the structure beneath the large rocks decorating the boundaries of the pond helped me to improve the orientation of the waterfall feature. It is possible that the position of the overflowing pail was allowing some water to fall where it might run out, instead of back into the pool.
Some police forces may have a problem changing their heavy-handed tactics to a less brutal response but I have no trouble adjusting our waterfall further inside the edge of the pond.
In a few minutes, I will begin the test. We let the water stand all night to verify the level didn’t change. Today we will watch to see if the level holds when the waterfall is flowing. By the end of the day, we should have an answer.
It will take much longer to find out if the movement to accomplish equal respect for all races by the public servants entrusted to protect and to serve us will achieve its goal.
We’ve entered a moment of heightened inspection and greater recognition. May this time be different –in a good way– than all the times we’ve been here before.
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Birthday Squared
In a classic demonstration of Cyndie’s gift of thinking about others, the planned driveway celebration of her birthday this year was secretly morphed into a surprise celebration of her brother, Steve’s 60th birthday which occurred in April when the family was unable to gather. Cyndie collected thoughts about Steve from all the family and a list was made of the top sixty things we love about the new sexagenarian.
Each thought was numbered and randomly distributed to those present so we could read them aloud to the almost safely distanced tribe.
It was a lovely display of family love on a fabulously lovely June evening that became a birthday squared celebration.
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Her Day
My trusty sidekick for 40-some years of my life is having a birthday today! Send love to Cyndie! She’s a horse-whisperer without a horse.
At least we still have each other.
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Happy Birthday, Cyndie!
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I Hope
Yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me that I don’t have the same skills for conjuring up “hope” out of nowhere like I do for manifesting “love” by way of a basic mental exercise of simply doing so. Could that be a remnant from a life-long propensity for a dysthymic depressiveness?
The violent clashes between protestors and police forces seem to be getting worse around the country, while things have calmed down dramatically in the Twin Cities. Part of me fears the local rabble-rousers will become re-enthused by the expanding uproar and want to get back in the game.
Another part of me fears the possibility all this turmoil will be for naught, like too many times before. In a year or two, or five, a white police officer will kill a person of color and we’ll still be questioning how this could have happened again.
Cyndie is working a different program. Hopefully, she will prove to be more successful than me at mentally growing neural networks of hope by reducing thoughts focused on the angst of violence, looting, and arson and the racist hatred and inflammatory rhetoric fueling it all and replacing them with visions of the world as a place of equal love and acceptance for everyone.
If we can imagine it, we can build it. If we build it, they will come?
Let there be hope.
All you need is hope. Hope is all you need.
We hope you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
With a hope like that, you know you should be glad.
I Hope
Dixie Chicks – Writer(s): Martha Maguire, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Keb’mo’
Sunday morning, I heard the preacher say
Thou shall not kill
I don’t wanna hear nothing else about killing
And that it’s God’s will‘Cause our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They’re gonna be like us
So let’s learn from our history
And do it differentlyI hope, for more love, more joy and laughter
I hope, you’ll have more than you’ll ever need
I hope, you’ll have more happy ever after
I hope, we can live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hopeOh, Rosie, her man he gets too rough
That’s all she can say, he’s a good man
He don’t mean no harm
He was brought up that wayBut our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They’re gonna be like us
It’s okay for us to disagree
We can work it out lovinglyI hope, for more love, more joy and laughter
I hope, you’ll have more than you’ll ever need
I hope, you’ll have more happy ever after
I hope, you can live more fearlessly
And you can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hopeThere must be a way to change what’s going on
No I don’t have all the answersI hope, for more love, more joy and laughter
I hope, you’ll have more than you’ll ever need
I hope, you’ll have more happy ever after
I hope, we can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hopeI hope, I hope, I hope
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Emotions
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in a glimpse
between love and anguish
hot tears
of mixed emotions
witness to it all
lifetimes of repetition
a war to end all wars
which failed to end any
facile progress
careening haphazardly
in multiple wrong directions
following our own tracks
right back to where we started
laughing in the face of terror
refusing to be fooled
when endings start to begin
right in the middle of everything
carefully failing to notice
the veil
behind which
we always hide
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Protest Exhaustion
Night after night, we who aren’t out violating curfew instructions just can’t get ourselves to stop watching the uninterrupted live coverage of what is happening in our communities between people protesting police misconduct and the battalions of police and the national guard who are tasked with enforcing regulations. It’s exhausting.
I think that’s one of the points the protesters would be happy is being made. Imagine how exhausting it is to be “living while black.”
Three nights ago in Minneapolis, the drama on our television screens was hours of media coverage revealing overt vandalism, looting, and arson in the unbelievable complete absence of police action. Two nights ago, the scenario changed dramatically in that the freeways around Minneapolis and St. Paul were closed early and a very heavy police and national guard presence showed up within an hour of the curfew to control outcomes.
There were a lot fewer fires.
Last night, there was hope that a full day of peaceful protest would end quietly, but then a maniac driving a semi barreled toward thousands of people crowded onto the 35W bridge, and chaos ensued.
Even after a full night’s sleep, I still feel exhausted by it all.
When can we get back to just worrying about the contagious virus for which we have no vaccine?
When can we get back to concerns over how the millions of people facing financial calamity resulting from the pandemic will keep from going hungry or losing what little possessions they have?
Which came first, the angst of racial oppression or the angst of the pandemic?
One foot in front of the other. One deep cleansing breath at a time. I think we are going to need to figure out the trick of carrying on with everyday life even while exhausted, because the change we need to happen is going to take more time than just a week of overnight riotous protests.
Afternoon naps make a lot of sense in times like this.
We could also work on the visualization of planting our love to the world like a seed in the ground that we feed and nurture and watch as it sprouts and grows into a towering tree. Make it a time-lapse visual, so we don’t have to wait a hundred years for the love to get to its maximum height.
<yawn> I’m going to do my visualization while lying down. With my eyes closed. For a couple of hours. Couple-eight.
Oh for a full night’s sleep again…
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Relative Something 