When We Take a Moment to Pause

I slowly sank into a deep and delicious nap on my side of the recliner couch yesterday after we got home from a nearly nonstop market day (well, when I say “after”, that means after we unloaded the truck, put the remaining inventory away, cleaned the kitchen, had lunch and hung laundry). I can’t recall the last time I gave in to such indulgent midday surrender, heeding my body’s insistence on resting. I must have needed it because I didn’t dream or hear Patrick fire up the sickle bar trimmer and take down the stand of last year’s pampas grass stalks, all tan and tawny, or notice that Xena claimed her spot at my feet, curled into a perfect circle of fur. Two hours later, I woke up as slowly as I’d drifted off, stretched and wandered into the kitchen to make dinner—cumin noodles with ground turkey, one of Patrick’s favorites.

So far in my time on the planet, I’ve noticed that life seems to be mostly about motion and contrast. Other elements flow from these, of course, but there’s a significant measure of either or both in pretty much everything I set my hands to in a given day. The past several weeks have been a relentlessly paced double-header of accomplishment and too much on our plates, taking it in turns and leaving us feeling a bit conflicted about whether we’re making any progress on our to-do lists. Then for no reason, in a pause during dinner (once again from my perch on the couch), my eyes land on the whirring blur of a hummingbird’s wings at the feeder before he darts off toward a nest I’ll probably never see, one that took hours to build and is, fingers crossed, cozily housing his offspring that will grow too fast and fly thousands of miles from here just before the leaves turn. This morning, there’s a bee on the inside of the screen, meticulously walking the tiny squares of mesh in an apian Etch-a-Sketch pattern, hoping to find his way to the other side where there’s more green space and clover. Here I sit in between granola batches and these paragraphs, watching…and learning.

On my morning walks, when I get to the section of woods where I step into this entirely different world altogether—one rich with color and mystery and perfect acoustics for the birds who have so much to say—I ache to sit on one of the massive fallen black walnut trunks and just be absorbed into it all, not go to work, not go back to the house to make breakfast. Just be there. But I don’t and I regret it. Every time. I make up for it a little by working my way through the fields and into the smaller woods north of the meadow where I’ve placed a curb-gleaned antique wicker love seat beneath an apple tree. The curved back pushes up against a thicket of mutliflora rose and blackberry vines, trimmed just enough to not get tangled up in my hair. Five or so feet away, the creek curves along a steep bank and when I’m still and there’s a break in the bird overture above my head, I can hear it tumble and splash over the rocks and exposed tree roots. I pause here a bit longer, head bowed in a sweet mix of wonder and gratitude. I’m still not exactly sure what I did to be gifted with all this. And then I remember that’s now how It All Works. Luck and a few good choices.

On the days when I wonder about my place in the big picture of things, I’ll remember the bee on the screen, the nap that pulled me into its warm embrace and hummingbird babes, hidden from view. All in motion, all in contrast against a backdrop of life going on.

Advice From a Humble Gardener

The trick to hand-weeding a fifteen-foot stretch of overgrowth between the raised beds of your garden is to keep your head down and deal just with what’s in front of you. The catmint, quack grass, edible and plentiful plantain and purslane will all bend to your will if you don’t cast your eyes down the long expanse of All That Is Still Left To Pull. Once that happens, the siren call of a cool kitchen and iced tea is stronger that the weeds’ roots themselves. Ye be warned, my friends.

It also helps not to face the sun or expect the cats to offer any assistance. They’ll pounce and gambol about, chasing the seeded end of that clump of tenacious annual bluegrass that missed the garden cart when you tossed it over your shoulder, but not even try to put it in a tidy pile with all the other near misses when they’re done playing with it. They’re cute and absolutely the opposite of useful to your gardening ambitions (enjoy them anyway).

I remember a summer when my dear friend Rhonda came to visit. I was sick and she offered to hand-weed the old potato patch to help me keep up on my list of outdoor chores. Patrick was well away at Sundance and not expected home for about two weeks. Rhonda confessed to thoroughly enjoying pulling weeds and I stayed out of her way. She did a marvelous job and then moved onto cleaning the chicken coop while I napped. I remember the joy on her face and have carried that image into each gardening project ever since. She’s welcome here anytime.

There was another summer when my niece Rebecca took on the entire 20 x 40’ rectangular tangle of weediness on her hands and knees, looking for the onions and chard patiently hiding beneath a shaggy carpet of nutsedge, bindweed and Canada thistle that you just don’t want to approach with your bare hands. Her sunblock must have given out about an hour into the endeavor; she’s fair-skinned and a trooper but looked like a blond-headed strawberry by lunchtime. I gave her the afternoon off and a full day’s pay while the burdock kept reaching for the sky. That’s what burdock does.

By now, some of you may be wondering if we know what a weed whip is or how to use one. The answer is “yes” to both, but they’re finicky gas-powered things and not as reliable as my own two hands. Plus, you can’t hear the mockingbirds’ encouragement from the shagbark hickories on the ridge to the west of the garden’s edge with all that whirring and buzzing going on just inches from your bare ankles. Most years, we don’t let things get so out of control as to need such equipment to tame the garden wilderness. On those occasions, Patrick will yank the pull-start cord for all it’s worth, felling nettles and pokeweed like a logger. I follow him around with a rake and a grateful smile, a firm resolve to do better in future.

But no matter how you slice them, weeds will return, laughing and pointing at our folly with their ever-uncurling fingers, giving us constant employment as gardeners and path-tenders well past the season’s harvest. I show up each week like a devout church-goer, on my knees, head bowed to purpose and inching my way toward tomato salvation.

Can I get an “Amen”, people?

Enough.

When will we grow tired of burying our children?

Filling the bullet holes in their skin with wax, tinted to match their tender coloring (almost, but not quite the same…not ever the same) before calling hours begin?

When will we no longer need to hold their sobbing parents whose knees give way beneath shock’s weight?

I will not elect cowards who care more deeply about power and position than a child’s future, a parent’s sleep not interrupted by the nightmare of grief.

I will not vote for those who shrink from their moral duty, whose hands are forever stained with the blood of small futures that will never get to be big.

Our hearts are emptied of all their tears, eye sockets dry, blinking without relief.

Throats hoarse once again with the cry
”Enough!” “Enough…”

Enough…

When?

Today. Now.

ENOUGH.

Betting Against the Sky

The shifting orange and red mass on my phone’s weather app crawled menacingly closer to the pulsing blue dot that marked our place on the map of those areas doomed by the approaching band of storms. The description was grim: 60mph wind gusts, quarter-sized hail, power outages and downed tree limbs, take shelter immediately.

I headed outside to hang a load of laundry.

We had decided to come straight home after the market instead of meandering around the city, warm containers of phad Thai carryout in hand, having our usual post-market date. The weather guessers kept changing their predictions throughout the morning, pushing the expected storms from early evening back to late morning, then to maybe mid-afternoon. What did they care? They wouldn’t have to wrestle a 10’ canopy into a soggy ripstop nylon carrying case and heft folding tables into the back of a pick-up truck between showers. Patrick made fun and casual conversation with our customers, offering odds on when the day’s fortunes would shift from dry to wet. While several insisted the storms would arrive at three p.m., he held fast to the hour of five o’clock, dismissing the little cloud-with-rain icon next to 11 a.m. time slot on the app’s hourly tracking display. We packed up at noon under hazy skies, dug a bag of vanilla chai granola from one of the totes for a last-minute customer and pointed the truck toward home. Fifteen miles out, Patrick announced he was going to cut the grass.

I hope it’s not arrogant of us to test the grand and natural scheme of things with our piddly little household and land chores. We have no misconceptions about Who is in charge of such things and arrange our work accordingly. With our heads bowed, we try to think of it as planning ahead while living a bit close to the edge, where sensible meets reckless. We can hang laundry inside, thanks to a retractable clothesline installed in the upstairs guestroom, but the hot sun and increasingly strong winds almost begged to help dry and iron the clothes we would wear to work in the week ahead. I couldn’t resist as I kept one eye on the kitchen clock and the other on the skies. Storms have skirted around us before; anything was possible. In the distance, I heard the mower slicing an even three inches off the walking paths and open field east of the ridge. Patrick was having a ball.

Laundry hung and blowing parallel to the ground, I took a seat in one of our green reproduction vintage metal lawn chairs on the front porch just under the overhang to watch the unfolding show. Thick, dark gray clouds from the southwest were swallowing the blue skies in great gulps and I could see the silver backs of every leaf on the cottonwoods that stood in their creek bank sentry positions. Just a few hours ago we were on a patch of hot asphalt, handing out samples and wiping our brows between sales (in one exciting moment, a gust of wind slid our canopy, sand weights and all, a good six inches across the parking lot and nearly into the neighboring artisan cheese vendor’s stand; Patrick grabbed the canopy’s metal framing overhead as two market patrons passing by ran to steady the metal poles. See? People are still good and want to help). Unmoving and peaceful now in my perch on the deck, I closed my eyes as a sister wind mussied my hair, thunder rolling and rumbling in the distance. The droning of the mower’s motor was fading as Patrick cut deeper into the meadow and toward the fields near the woods.

When I moved from my chair to the deck’s wooden steps so I could put my bare feet on the freshly cut grass, I felt the tiniest of raindrops land on my arms. An hour had passed since I hung the laundry; might be wise to check it, but no rush. Warm spring days are meant to be savored. I strolled leisurely past the flowerbed in front of the living room windows on my way to the clothesline behind the house, noticing that the bleeding hearts were finishing up their sweet pink and white blooms for the year and the bloodroots beneath the maple had no intention of going anywhere soon. More drops of rain. I took my time plucking the damp clothes from the line, balanced the wicker basket on my hip and headed upstairs in complete disobedience to the “touch nothing twice” rule of work efficiency. Most of the clothes were in dry and foldable condition (thank you, Wind and Sun).

I found my place back in that metal chair on the front deck as flashes of lightning lit up an ever-darkening sky. The sound of the mower grew slightly but not reassuringly closer as the rain increased, filling in the dry patches on the wooden planks. Patrick cuts the grass will full ear protection over ear buds that deliver one of his favorite podcasts or playlists. I’m sure he could feel the rain on his bare forearms but wasn’t confident that he heard the thunder or noticed the lightning. One large BOOM! later, and the sound of the mower grew louder as Patrick came quickly into view from around the back of the house, racing (responsibly) toward the open door of the barn. He made it to the shelter of the deck just as the skies opened up, drenching the grass clippings and launching the cats from their hidden positions in the weeds beneath the bird feeders. Before we could comment, three cracks of lightning punched the sky with simultaneous cannon shots of thunder. If the windows had shattered, we wouldn’t have been surprised.

The hands of the kitchen wall clock sat comfortably at 4:45pm.

Well played, Patrick. Well played.