Tag: growing

Humanity

sugar (love it too much, so much.)

Lovelovemotherexpletive

it was just valentine’s day and this single woman is here to make you a love list.

  1. i’m working with kids again and the swell of love that i feel when i see these kids is just incredible. An actual swell of love. Saying good morning to them and legitimately wanting to know how they are and how the time has passed since we last spoke? JOY BUBBLES. this is what is behind teachers and why they will die for your kids, and why they have not demanded the 100K they deserve for doing those things. An ACTUAL SWELL OF LOVE. (go find that, by the way, if you don’t know what I am talking about, make it your mission.)
  2. growing things are happening, even without the presence of a good deep quiet snow. I’ve missed winter, and I know that is a little unpopular, but i think it is a necessary break in the year, and I wonder what will happen without it. AND things are growing, I am trying eucalyptus seeds this year, and the curiousity and possibility is just a thrill to my system. They are percolating in the next room as I speak. Anyone want some for your shower?
  3. Seeds, Learning, all the metaphors. I’m taking a course in seed production, which means my farmer is loaning me some land and I can try out a particular herb or flower and then harvest the seeds. which i may be able to then sell. “MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?” (The Secret Garden. as it turns out, might be my metaphor.) I am wildly excited, and entirely unsure when I am going to see my kids this summer. I look around frequently to see if anyone can solve this for me. So far, no.
  4. I learned my belief of the afterlife from C.S. Lewis and his The Last Battle, and I’m sticking to it. If you believe in something good, that is what you get. If you believe the afterlife is full of tall trees made of marshmallows? You get it. And so, I’m here to tell you this glorious fact. My life looks like the afterlife already. (minus the money, minus the money, and the tiredness, and the no best sexy friend momoa.) HOW FUCKING AMAZING.

I love you guys. Go search for more things to add to your love list. Its the only thing that matters, that love list. Really.

pink petaled flowers close up photography
Photo by Juan Sauras on Pexels.com
Humanity

what is wrapping you up?

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i’m a big fan of fall and winter, and even cold, wet spring. big. big fan.

and i am pretty certain it has to do with snuggling up. what makes me cozy in those times is absolutely everything. children, blankets, food… you name it, it works.

and when it is summer, and the heat the heat and the no air conditioning? and now, the working outside, and the frequent greenhouse experience which makes it seven thousand degrees? i have a much harder time finding comfort. Even the single, crisp sheet at night? Its not the same as flannel guys, it is not.

And so I have this early morning time. And in June, it can exist that the dew on the grass is cold, the walk to the garden feels fresh, and the leaking hose on my toes feels ice cold. The sun on the green in the morning is the definition of refresh.

I started writing here today thinking about the things we wrap around ourselves. For me, its my humor, my joy, and my self-protection. Two of the three are just fine. The third is hard won and I can’t seem to let it go just yet. I don’t want to find myself nearing annihilation in a relationship, ever, right. That self-effacement from the other day? Yeah. Roots are somewhat compromised there.

If you keep erasing yourself, you end up gone.

So, feeling safe is no joke, and being visible and solid are necessary, and I’m constantly re-wrapping myself. There is much in life that happens anyhow, disregarding my wrappings. I am no fool. I know life… and its cycles…is the powerhouse in all of the stories, but while I can be, I am quite well-wrapped and I’m not quite ready for the heat and the re-assessment that it causes.

While I love the cold for its ability to provide space, and nurture and thought and slow action and fireplaces full of intentions, the summer pushes me right out of my wrappings and out into the light. I hate it. I love it. (mostly I love it when its over, and I look back on what i have survived.) I’m the worm on pavement after a rainy day. Will she find her way home? Will she be devoured?

Dude. The rainy day is coming, drought or no. And I am sweating it.

or is it all just a hot flash?

Sigh. God bless you for reading. Seriously. I should pay your therapy bills.

–lovelove,

me.

Humanity

In other news. . .

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Its hard to be a hermit in the spring. It really is. And I’m torn, because I want to close the doors and shut off the news and still believe in my own recycling and composting as enough to hold off the tides. My little beach shack is getting battered by reality and i’m not digging it. so i have shut off the news in many ways.

Its a twist, right? I don’t want to be ignorant of what is going on – but my heart and mind are blown away, and it becomes hard to function in the ways I need to function. So it is off. And i’m going head down into my seedlings, into the dirt, into the hope and meaning of the seeds. I’m going to send my love into the ground and hope it makes its way all over the globe. earth to earth.

Its the spring, things and thinks burst out from seemingly nothing. All this time, they’ve just been waiting. It can be its own overwhelm, but I am hungry for it. And overwhelmed by it. the irony, the ache. the swell, the burst. all of it.

i had a writing workshop last night with a friend. As it was, i think we spent equal time drooling over the sag paneer and chana masala as we did writing, but i don’t care. I wrote. Just for me, and i had a few lines of ecstasy. (non-snortable)

(If anyone would like to partake, please let me know. we’re planning a saturday in may, kitchen table workshop baby. write and share at your pleasure. It is so good to have company, i tell you. so good. its a natural antidote to the news, and the hermitry.)

*Okay, i’m off to check on my baby plants, and then i’m going to wash eggs for most of the day. The joy of the variety in front of me is strong with me. And yes, I think I’ve left the honeymoon phase, and its just the work, and I’m good with that. Work is good, grounding. While I can pine, and miss the expansiveness of time and space and how my brain works there, this is the new normal for me, for a while. And i’m okay. We will see where it goes, and how my ether responds to structure.

Today I have hope for it.

Love you, in tiredness and hope,

Me.

shallow focus of sprout
Photo by Gelgas Airlangga on Pexels.com

Humanity

Houseplants

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I wonder pretty often about this place I live in. How I can improve it, how I can honor it, imbue it with my spirit while I’m sharing space temporarily. . .

I’ve got a lot of houseplants, dude. Each time a mood strikes me, I find myself holding a potted plant. There is a lot of greenery here, almost all centered around the kitchen, so I can remember to water what needs watering. Out of sight out of mind is real with me.

So here we are. In the season of plastic on all the windows, the plants must be moved, the tables turned, the plants which have summer homes returned to the nook off the kitchen. Things get crowded. I forget who needs less light and who is downright scared of direct light.

Houseplants. Out of place, like an animal raised in captivity, not knowing its roots, not unhappy maybe, but definitely not in its natural environment.

Sometimes I feel like that. Like I belong somewhere else, a rebel in a commune, wearing a bra while everyone else bakes cookies naked. (i would never wear a bra if i didn’t have to, ever.)

Like I belong hanging from a tree in some rain forest, living happily on air.

Its not all the time, this feeling, but it creeps around often enough that I can give it a friendly squeeze.

Is this what will happen to me when the last of the kids is gone? Will I be wearing caftans and cooking curries and being Mrs. Roper?

(bonus points if you understand that reference.)

I’m curious about it, really, because of that creep familiarity. I love LOVE that I still am wondering what I will be when I grow up, at 47.

I wonder if I am the only one.

See you soon, wonderkinds. This was day 10.