The Antidote
Sometimes, after walking through panic and stress you have to go with the flow that presents itself. It makes sense to clean the house if the mess of the house is contributing to your mental and physical discomfort, but what if something else calls out? What if there is some other string of thought that your spirit wants to follow, something light and soothing? I say you should always follow it.
After visiting my mom in the hospital Philip and I went out to breakfast together. We decided that we needed to do this and open the store late. We tried the new place in town called Crescent Cafe which opened up in the place where Luigi's daughter used to be. We had omelets with tomatillo sauce on them. Something woke up. A new direction. I have never gotten into tomatilloes but suddenly I realized I needed to grow some and experiment cooking with them. Having something new to explore in the kitchen and in the garden is like throwing shutters open to the sunlight.
Or in my case-the rain. It wasn't raining when I begged Philip to take me to Wilco to buy some more tomatoes, some eggplants, and some tomatilloes. It was cold and bright. But that's what I love about where I live. The constant variation in weather, in the clouds, and in the air. I came home and at first made a half hearted attempt to deal with one of my many piles. But I listened to the quietness around me. Later Max will come home and have needs. Everyone will have needs. But right now, no one needed me. So I went to play in the dirt.
I observed that one of my lettuce leaf basil sprouts had popped up and the potatoes are up and looking robust. While I planted the six eggplants I bought this morning it started to rain. It felt good and clean mixed with the scent of the partially warmed soil. I love rain. I love gardening in the rain.Although, right after I positioned my bamboo trellises for my pole beans the rain started pelting down hard. So I came inside to find my bean seeds. It hailed briefly so I came in here to say that the laundry is as menacing as ever. The dishes still need doing. Since I last wrote, the floors have more toast crumbs and doggy foot prints across them.
As M. Sinclair Stevens wisely pointed out, a huge part of life is the struggle to tame the natural chaos inherent in living. It's a part of the process of living. The dishes will never really be done. The laundry will continue to pile up every single day. Some weeks the chaos may get the better of you and spread into your brain and out of every crevice in your house. But eventually we fight it back into some kind of livable balance.
I will get a little something done today but I'm happy I got outside and planted some vegetables in the rain. Already the trees are sparkling with some sun breaking through the clouds for a few minutes. After I pick Max up from school I will plant some bean seeds. Planting food is the most positive thing I know how to do.
Being laughed at by the Wilco lady for wanting Caspian Pink tomatoes specifically when there are fifty other varieties on their shelves was par for the coarse. She wasn't being unkind. She's going to try to get me some. Caspian Pinks were the very best tomato we grew last year. I'm hooked. Tracking down specific varieties of vegetable starts is about half the fun of growing them myself. It's a small corner of my life that I have control over and I relish it.
I hope some of you out there have also been finding an antidote to the stresses you are living with.
Labels: gardening, good moments, quiet, vegetables