Rose on the flower clock. The color here is remarkable, like something good enough to eat. There is no rain now expected for 10 days so this gorgeous lush green world we have been experiencing is on the way out.
In spite of a couple of moody days where I didn’t feel all that great, I have enjoyed this time on my own at home with no classes. There has been unavoidable League stuff popping up all week but nothing all that time consuming. And I feel functional again, that is the important thing.
I am finally getting fairly good at not putting pressure on myself. There was a ton of stuff I could have done this week, both things I enjoyed, and things that would have felt great to have done but I had very little ambition.
The drains got cleaned, certain windows washed, little things organized and or put away, but it was all pretty organic. I spent more time than usual at the garden. I installed antivirus protection on my computer. Carlo got played with more than usual and in unexpected ways. I didn’t try to accomplish anything.
Well, I did try to find some marigolds but apparently, they are hugely popular this year and there aren’t even any straggly ones left at the garden center, at the grocery that has quite a few plants out front right now. I waited too late. I did try growing them from seed both in the ground and in seed trays. I guess I will count on all the other ones in the garden already in neighbor plots to attract aphids.
Though, I did notice a ladybug on the Nepeta yesterday and there are lots of bees and worms and bugs doing their thing so hopefully my tomatoes will be okay.
For a few weeks before this last one I was struggling with an unexplained flare up of my skin condition. I have been in touch with my dermatologist and things are much much better now. I thought I was going to need a painful procedure, but she thought I didn’t need it and that is a huge relief.
I hope this is only a response to the warming up of the weather and the stress of the last month. I am grateful it isn’t my heart, but I am concerned that as I get a bit older and the elasticity of my skin diminishes, I could be having to do more to manage it all.
While I was working, I planned for retirement, and I am glad I did getting my yoga teaching gig operational. Now that I have been retired for over five years, I am starting to think about what I want my life to be like when I decide to stop teaching. And when I stop being on nonprofit boards. I am in no hurry, not to worry, but it is something I am thinking through, and this week was helpful with that.
So much depends on my health and cognitive ability. That makes the planning somewhat tentative but still with effort I was able to keep my mood mostly up in spite of the awful news we are bombarded with every day. The cruelty, particularly in the arena of immigration and people with less means is incomprehensible to me.
It is so outside my concept of what it is to be like as a human in this world. But I guess if you give power to a woman who is willing to shoot a less than full grown dog, this is what you get.
On Thursday I went out to hang out with the guys for the first time in a few weeks. Walt is working on a performance piece that has to do with finding blessings in the present moment. The more challenging things are getting out there in the world the more Walt is focusing on his hippy philosophy of Peace, Love and Understanding.
We tease him about it, but he is getting kind of fierce about it as a counter to all the bad news and negativity. Anyway, in the spirit of this we went around the table and shared small daily things we experience in our lives that feel like blessings. Listening was quite touching.
One interesting idea that surfaced when we were sharing these moments, mostly of encounters with the natural world, was this idea that when we do feel blessed there is a sense of timelessness.
I often feel that when I am alone in the garden, potting up seedlings here at home, or when Carlo steps onto my lap. One of the guys just returned from a trip to see the work a nonprofit he advises is doing in Botswana. They are trying to encourage ways in which both the wildlife, and there is lots of it there, and the tribes can co-exist.
It is so good to remember there are complicated but wonderful people everywhere, doing beneficial and skillful things and that each of us in our own way has the capacity if we stop and reflect, to feel blessed, in whatever way that manifests or is revealed to us.
This knowing helps. It just does.
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