A house with a side yard up about a half block across from the park a few days ago. Side yards are rare in this neighborhood as almost all the housing was built for immigrants coming in from 1850 to 1880. There may have been a house there originally. There are a couple of cottages next door.
I am feeling this huge sense of relief today. We hired an accountant to help us with the nonprofit taxes, and we “met” her today on Zoom and she is super knowledgeable and the taxes are almost done. This whole process both last year and this have been this ongoing struggle where I have felt inadequate in so many ways and it because of that it has brought out this anxious procrastinator in me. A part of me I am not fond of.
So not only have I been anxious about this all because I don’t seem to be able to understand what was done before, which was all done by other people that didn’t know what they were doing but day after day confronted with all this uncertainty and responsibility and… just ugh. But she was like I can do this, I know this stuff, it is huge to finally have the appropriate support.
There are still many many things to do but I can manage them. I am sure this relief will pass and I will be caught up in the next thing but for right this moment I feel grateful to be through the worst of it. Nobody said supporting people supporting Democracy was going to be easy. I did know that.
Now, for the next couple of days I can relax.
Walt has been back from Mexico for a couple of weeks but has skipped Coffeeshop Philosophers for the last few weeks so I haven’t seen him. I have been too wrapped up in all the stuff mentioned above to go to the Dialogue Group. He is performing an abbreviated version of Hamlet tomorrow in person. I won’t be going to that either. I will get through all this and back to that group eventually.
Once again, I am grateful for the yoga and the writing.
Carlo is curled up next to me on the bed on his heating pad under a towel I keep here with his arm and paw wrapped around his eyes adorably asleep.
I started to put my indoor garden together yesterday and will finish the assembly tomorrow and get some seeds going. It is supposed to be sunny and dry tomorrow, and I will see if I can get the bed at the community garden where I can put the surviving sweet pea seedlings prepared. I am going to remove what is left of all the maple and oak leaves I mulched with in the fall and put down a layer of fresh compost.
The dialogue group guys would know about mulching the blueberries. I saw that pine needles are a good medium for them, and it seems like someone I know or in the neighborhood would have some to spare.
My personal tax state refund was more than I expected. I am not sure what was up with that, but I am not complaining. I am thinking about having a massage. Such a splurge for me at this point in my life. The rest of it will go to a new electronic device. The touch screen on the upper part of my iPad is being wonky so maybe a new iPad?
We are all so attached to our electronic devices. Twice after class today talking to my students, they were looking up things…a dime store perfume called “Radio Girl” that someone’s grandmother used to wear and when black cherries ripen. Both of these inquiries were inspired by the short, beautiful poem I chose and read to them. Enjoy.
Black Cherries
BY W. S. MERWIN
Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this
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