08/19/2021
August 19, 2021
The overwhelmingly stressful and crazy-making realities surrounding us notwithstanding, here in my little corner of paradise all around me is sweet, gentle and flourishing: roses a riot of color and scent, all my greens (red kale, bok choi, rainbow Swiss chard, beet greens, arugula), cherry tomatoes and succulents spilling over their pots. This year, though I’ve allowed the squirrels and raccoons to decimate my gazillion pluots, I did grab a small few, also some apricots, one plum and several blueberries, mulberries and Pakistani mulberries along with plenty of tangerines (they don't seem to be attracted to the citrus!). I love cutting greens for my brunch salad and greens for steaming for my dinner: I couldn't have fresher, almost alive food!
I have to refill 11 to 13 (or more) of my 13, 32-ounce hummingbird feeders everyday: this is the time of year when the joyful and voracious hordes descend, keeping me busy morning and evening and entertaining my housebound senior (14 this past May) kitties with “Cat TV” at every window in the house. Droves of Goldfinch are eating pounds and pounds of Nyjer seed every week...clinging, a dozen or more at a time, on the four seed-filled socks that are just outside the window where I stand at my computer and watch them. And, as always, a full complement of seed-feeders (house finch, juncos, titmice, several kinds of sparrow, mourning dove, nuthatch and occasional grosbeak) come by every day.
Despite being surrounded by all this vibrant and erupting joy-filled life, I remain still quite deeply immersed in my doing-nothing-but-tending-the-temple, fallow time...pretty much how I've been since my October 2018 book reading/signing – so, almost 3 years! Some days I do wonder if I'll ever again be swept up into something new but, for the most part, nothing "moves the needle." And, I'm not at all sure I really would feel like being caught up in a whirlwind again. Still no way to know if this is a "between time" or simply the way my life is to be from this point on. Either way seems to feel okay with me, I'm just curious to see which it is.
I try to titrate what news-of-our-world I let in: it's all sooo crazy-making, through-the-looking-glass disturbing, calamitous and devastatingly sad. Yet, I seem to be oddly at peace with my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness about anything beyond the perimeter of my cottage and garden. The coming plight of the Afghans, especially their women, though, horrifies me!
My body let me know, unequivocally, that the vaccines were not okay for me. I listened (when I don't, I inevitably pay quite a price). So, to protect my self and others, I'm very careful of where I put my self, more and more so since the rise of the Delta scourge, sigh! I wear NK95 masks everywhere inside or outside. Working alternate Sundays and Tuesdays with about a half dozen regular clients (and occasional ad-libs) either in my garden (socially-distanced) or, as always with geographically-distant clients, on the phone (still no skype/zoom/face time for me!). I walk once a week with one of my daughters-of-the heart and once a month with my closest old friend from Santa Barbara. Otherwise, I wander alone – mostly at night. I hibernate, slug-like, puttering and reading and napping thro Ojai's extravagantly hot summer days. Too unmotivated to get in my car and drive (as I did in other years) down to the beaches. In the cool of the late night-early morning, I float and nap in my hot tub for an hour or two before moving on to my tent bed.
I do Reiki and some Pilates stretches every morning; some yoga, restorative exercise and free weights three evenings most weeks and walk a couple of miles or more most days. I nap most afternoons between 3 and 5 o’clock for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and then my daytime fatigue evaporates and I putter and tend-the-temple listening often to books on CD usually till 2 or 3 AM. I love it when the rest of the close-by world has gone to sleep and the energy around me is quite still.
I’m soooo grateful for my simple, slow-lane life. I'm endlessly astonished by my close friends' "normal" full lives – and cannot image ever being able again to live in the middle of sooo much complexity/energy/family. Sooo grateful the Grandmothers have helped me, over the years, to curate just the sort of simple life I need for me!
So, there it is: nothing exciting to report.
