A Country State Of Mind

When I was a kid growing up in New York City, all I could think about was how neat it would be to live in the country. I'm not saying that there weren't some definite benefits to living in the Big Apple, far from it. When other kids took school field trips to the dairy, or to watch them make apple cider, I was taking school trips to museums, planetariums, Shakespeare in the Park, The Statue of Liberty and the top of the Empire State Building. Broadway matinees were my reward for making it into the Honors English classes and getting A's. Still .... 

... still, every year I would count the days until summer vacation because that meant I could go and spend a week at my cousins' home out on Long Island. Back then parts of Long Island were still being developed so it was no stretch of the imagination to see a housing development going up within view of a potato or dairy farm. My cousins' Dad loved to garden. In the days when you could carry plants home on a plane from other countries, he would make visits to is family in Italy and come home with cuttings to put in his own garden. There is nothing like the taste of a fresh fig just picked and still warm, or popping a strawberry in your mouth for every one you picked! I got to visit nearby farms where they bought fresh produce and eggs. Every morning I would wake up just as the sun was coming up and sit by the window watching the birds and the animals greet the day. All I could think of was how wonderful it would be to live there forever. Back home all I had was a small yard with a few trees and rose bushes to pretend in. This was the real thing. It spoke to my soul. It wrapped itself around my heart. It felt like home.

Fast forward 30 years or so. The longing never left me even though I had to live where there was work to be had and a living to be made as I raised two beautiful daughters pretty much on my own. Now the nest was empty and my younger sister, who had moved to the country with her family, was enticing me to join her there. What could I do but say yes? Who says dreams don't come true. It's been 28 years and I've never regretted one minute of it.

I truly believe that the desire to live in the country is something we're born with. It's in our blood. It calls to us. Even as a little kid playing in our small city yard, nature called to me. The trees whispered their secrets, the squirrels taught me how to save for a rainy day, and the ants instilled in me the importance of being a team player. The plants taught me how to embrace each season, and the when I touched the ground between the blades of grass, I "felt the heartbeat of God," to borrow a line from the poem "Renascence" by Edna St Vincent Millay. Now I wake to a chorus of birdsong I could not hear in the city above the noise. I experience the seasons up close and personal. I smell the scents of pine trees outside my window, and watch the antics of the baby squirrels each spring as they try to find their footing in the world. I cheer the geese each year as they honk their way across the sky on their way home after spending the winter in warmer climates, and marvel at magnificent sunsets that are hidden behind skyscrapers in the city. This old "child of the 60's rock and roller" even loves country music!

So here is a piece of advice from someone who waited almost 40 years to follow her dream: life is too short to wait that long. Follow your heart. Listen to what calls to you and don't wait to answer. If it's in your heart, then it's where you are meant to be.

And so it is.

Welcome Summer!

It's finally here! After what seemed like an endless winter, both physically and symbolically, summer finally arrived on a warm, soft breeze under sunny skies last Monday, Memorial Day (at least in my neighborhood).  It couldn't have come at a better time and with so much more meaning, especially this year.

It is only natural after a long winter and an iffy spring to get excited about a day that is known as the Official First Day Of Summer. Sometimes the real meaning behind Memorial Day is lost as so many folks look forward to the first cookout of the season and celebrating the outdoors (I know I did as it was my first official day outside since the surgery). This past year, which was especially hard on everyone, gave us even more reason to celebrate. And yet, the real meaning of Memorial Day was even more profound this year as well. 

We celebrate Memorial Day to remember the brave souls who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend and protect our freedoms. The idea of freedom hit me hard this last 18 months. While I am all about freedom in general, I don't think my personal freedom was ever tested as much as it was during this time. Between two surgeries that kept me home bound, and then being encouraged to stay indoors once I had healed because of the pandemic, the idea of real freedom, the ability to walk out the door whenever I wanted and to go wherever I wanted, was front and center in my life. I can tell you for sure that I will never again take for granted the ability to run across the street for milk, or to go to the library, or to church, or even to treat myself to a lunch out. All those months I had to find solace somewhere to keep myself from going completely crazy. So where would this lover of all things Mother Nature find it? You guessed it ... in my tiny garden.

Plants don't moan and groan about personal freedom. They don't decide not to grow because they can't pick up and move to a better location or take themselves out for a stroll. They don't complain about having to depend on someone else to water and feed them, or to prune them, or to control their access to light and warmth. They just are. They do what plants do without complaint or comparing themselves to others. If ever there were perfect examples of living in the present moment, with mindfulness, it would be the plant world. Can you imagine a tree complaining about having to stand in one spot for years on end? Nope. Year after year it just does its thing: bloom, put on a show in autumn, lose all it's leaves, stand bare and cold in the winter, and bloom again in spring. It just is, and it does a magnificent job of it, don't you think?

So if there is any lesson I've learned from these last 18 months, it's not to take any of my freedoms for granted, even the little ones like going to the store for milk, but also to know that it's okay to remember to "just be," to take each moment as it comes and, like the plants and trees, to bloom where we are.

And so it is. 

Learning To Let Go

I have to say that in my entire life I have never seen a month of May as crazy as the one that is slowly coming to an end. In the space of a few short weeks we have experienced every season including snow and a heat wave with ten days of each other! Thankfully, this morning we woke to a cooler, more pleasant May with the birds happily soaring about singing their hearts out. Even they haven't been able to summon up much energy when the daytime temperature soared to 91 degrees during the day.

One of the things that struck me as this crazy weather pattern played out was how all of our attention was on how to combat it and make it adhere to our idea of what the weather should be in the month of May. In other words, we were trying to control it. Imagine that! How arrogant are we humans to sit and complain about the weather as if Mother Nature were doing it simply to watch us get frustrated over not being able to be in complete control. While I didn't see any of my animal neighbors actually enjoying the heat/cold/snow/heatwave, except maybe early in the morning or as the sun went down, what I did see was them adjusting their behavior to deal with the constant changes. In other words, they didn't try to control the weather, they just controlled how they experienced it. 

One of the hardest things for a human being to do is to admit that they do not have complete control over something in their lives. While there is certainly nothing wrong with the idea that if you want something badly enough, you just have to believe in yourself and work hard to make it happen, there comes a point when we have to be big enough to just surrender ... just let go. We cannot control the weather any more than we can control which season comes next, or when the sun will rise or set. If the animals can accept life as it comes and adjust their perception and behavior to accommodate the changes, we humans should be able to do the same. 

Learning when to let go of control allows us to grow and flourish without constraints, going with the flow and adjusting our sails as we go. Just like my noisy blue jay neighbors who work me up this morning with the sound of their calling to each other as they played tag in the cool air, we can learn to soar as well!

And so it is.

Good Morning Starshine

Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.

Hafiz

For the last week or so I have taken to getting up before dawn and watching the sunrise. Before all the noise of the morning traffic begins, I get my cup of coffee, collect my meditation beads, and position myself in front of the big window over my desk. Although the window faces west, I get to see the first hint of the sun as it rises in the east behind me and begins to cast a golden glow on the hills in the distance. Watching the sun slowly move from the tips of the treetops to the rooftops on the street below is breathtaking. Who needs a mantra. This is meditation at its best.

This morning I was up early enough to catch the geese from a nearby farm as they made their daily trek across the sky to the river a few blocks to the south where they hang out most of the day until dusk when they fly back home. As the sun rose higher in the sky the birds, who had been singing the day awake since before dawn, started doing their morning aerobics. A mother crow with three tiny babies were playing tag in the sky as she cawed at them to pay attention and fly right. My squirrel neighbor tentatively crept out of her hole in the neighbor's roof and went hunting for breakfast. Morning doves came to visit across the way looking for seeds from the pine tree overhead, and a female cardinal came to sit in the little tree out front and sing me a "good morning." 

What is it about watching the sunrise and seeing the day come alive that fills us with hope? Do you think that was Mother Nature's intention, to remind us that no matter what is going on in our lives, the sun will come up every morning and a new day will be presented to us all gift wrapped in promise and possibility? I like to think it was. It has certainly had a positive affect on me. Instead of waking up dreading another day of physical therapy and pain, I wake up eager to watch the birth of the day, the awakening of my animal relations, and the beginning of what could be a new and wonderful day of possibilities. I ask you, what better way could you want to wake up?

And so it is.

New And Improved

Yesterday my #1 Grandchild and her sweet hubby (Grandson-in-law but I call him Grandson anyway) came over to help lift my spirits as the weather continues to be cold, rainy, and most un-springlike. They pulled out my tabletop garden and rearranged it so that I have twice the room I had before. Now there is room for the beautiful birdcage she made me for Christmas that twinkles with fairy lights at night, plus the two new plants I got for Mother's Day - a violet and some succulents. You would have thought that it was Christmas morning and I was 5 years old again for how happy I was with the finished product.

Granddaughter #2, sister to #1 Grandchild, gave me this beautiful garden flag which I have hanging on the front of the table to hide the bin underneath that houses my garden tools, pots, and seeds. The entire corner is a little wonderland with space for the herb plants that I will be starting after Memorial Day. Last year's failed  attempts to plant any earlier up north where I live even with grow lights taught me that the old adage of not planting until Memorial Day is there for a reason!

As I sit here in my apartment and continue my healing and rehab from my hip surgery, I am forever humbled and grateful not only for my family who takes such good care of me, but for the joy that Mother Nature's gifts bring me however small. For me there is more beauty in the creamy pink petals of the violet than in a diamond, and more laughter in the antics of the blue jays outside my window playing tag than any movie or TV show. I recently treated myself to a new pair of binoculars and now can take in the view up close and personal. Who needs livestream and surround sound? I've got it all and it doesn't cost me a cent, just the time I spend enjoying it, time well spent for sure. I call it Mother Nature's medicine and it works just fine.

And so it is. 

Taking Another Look At Sustainability

After a year of more stay-at-home time than going out time, here I am again stuck inside while I heal from hip surgery and work on getting my strength and stamina back. I think that it would be easier to handle this time around if I hadn't had to spend so much time last year inside as well. At least I had the summer and fall to get out and do some serious walking before winter set in. Now, with spring teasing me from the other side of the windows, I had to find something that I could do which would take my mind off my enforced house arrest, something I could really get into. So I decided to take another look at the topic of sustainability.

As some of you may know who have been following my blog, I have done some serious downsizing over the last several years. I went from a two-bedroom apartment with screened in porch, to a one-bedroom, and finally to a studio apartment. I have cleaned out closets, donated bags and bags of clothes, kitchen items, and, alas, teddy bears  (I have been a serious collector of teddy bears for over 35 years and once owned over 100 bears). The other day, while scrolling through YouTube for some gardening and tiny house videos - my favorites - I happened upon a 12-part series I had seen several years ago called "The Search For Sustainability," hosted by Nathan Crane. It was a serious look at the subject from every aspect of life, from food and housing, to energy use, to sustainable business models, and even sustainability in education and the arts. I was curious to see how many of their ideas I had actually put into practice after seeing it the first time, and which ones I had slacked off on or had't started at all. 

At first glance I have done pretty well. I have gone to reusable dish clothes and recycled old clothes into cleaning rags that I can wash and reuse. I try to buy less items in plastic containers unless they can be recycled. I do more cooking from scratch and buy only organic, non GMO foods, especially produce. I unplug things I'm not using and buy only energy saving light bulbs and electrical devices. My clothing mantra is: reuse, repair, recycle. I don't use paper plates. I buy cleaning products made from natural ingredients or make my own in spray bottles. After re-watching the series, I found that there was a lot more I could be doing and using this time to up my game was making good use of it.

For example, just because I'm no longer gardening on a large scale and only maintain a small, tabletop garden, is not reason why I still can't have a compost pile. A bucket with a lid kept to the side could collect scraps from cooking, coffee grounds, and the pruning and dead heading from my house plants and potted herbs. I could share it with other folks I know who would have outside gardens and would be glad to have it. There is even a local organization that sponsors a neighborhood compost project for apartment dwellers like me who need a place to deposit their goodies. Another thing I can do is go back and revisit my wardrobe by season and see if I can pare it down even more to just a few basic outfits and inter-changeable items - mix and match options, if you will. Note: having a 14 year old granddaughter who, while she helps me to put the clean laundry away and straighten my closets and drawers will ask me, "seriously, Grandma, are you really going to wear this again" helps me a lot with those decisions. I also ordered a bunch of reusable produce bags so I can rid myself of the plastic ones from the grocery store. Finally, I am using my down time to get more involved in what my community is doing, or not doing, to find more sustainable energy sources and supporting groups that are trying to get permission to put up solar and wind turbine farms. I may be stuck at home, but I can still write a letter, sign a petition, or call my congressman!

I think more and more folks have taken this last year while they've been at home to take a good look at how they spend their time and money and realized that their former lifestyles are just not sustainable in the long run. More and more people are putting in vegetable gardens and experimenting with more plant-based meals, upgrading their homes to be more energy efficient, and looking ahead to a better and healthier way to live. Sometimes it takes forcing us to stand still and focus on what's right in front of us to help us make sensible, sustainable choices for our families and our planet.

As for me, right now I'm about to go through my old yarn bags and see if I can't come up with some projects to reuse all those odd half-skeins to make something useful, like a new front door rug to wipe your feet on, or some cool crocheted purses to give as gifts. After all, this is a no-waste home!

Peace and blessings. 

News From The Neighborhood

Things have been hopping in the neighborhood with the arrival of Spring. Along with the buds and new leaves on the trees, and the daffodils popping up all over the place, my wildlife neighbors have been busy as well. 

Remember the squirrel family that had a nest inside the roof of the upstairs porch across the way? They were dispossessed by a pack of grackles last year but I am happy to report that they have retaken their home and have been super busy cleaning it up and rebuilding the nest for the babies to come (did you know that baby squirrels are called "kittens? How cute it that?"). The other day I witnessed a feat of squirrel engineering mastery as I watched Mrs. Squirrel try to get a Y-shaped piece of tree branch about a foot long into a small, round hole. Talk about patience and focus. When she finally got it in I actually applauded. I have a little stuffed squirrel on my desk and I gave him a high-five for the ingenuity of his species. 

Not to be swept aside, the aforementioned grackles, having been evicted, took up residence downstairs so to speak. In the space between the floor of the upstairs porch and the roof of the downstairs porch is an opening big enough for the grackle family to move in. They, too, have been very busy carrying in nesting materials. The day after the Great Branch Challenge, Mrs. Grackle showed up with the longest piece of what looked like a length of dried corn stalk, measuring at least three feet, that I have ever seen a bird that size carry. Not to be outdone by her upstairs neighbor, Mrs. Grackle proceeded to enter the hole with the end of the material in her beak, and then, as if by magic, I witnessed the length of the stalk being pulled in inch by inch until the entire thing disappeared. One of the things that grackles are known for are their tenacity!

The blue jays have been out joyously playing tag in the Spring sunshine, the robins have been plentiful and in full voice, and a tiny female cardinal has been coming to visit every day outside the window. She sits and stares into the window and chirps away. I'd like to think she's coming to visit me but I'm sure it has more to do with my little stuffed cardinals - friends of my stuffed squirrel - that adorns the windowsill over my desk. Hi, my name is Flower Bear, aka Barb, and I adore tiny stuffed woodland animals.

Spring is here. After a year when we were sure it would never arrive, it has come and brought with it new beginnings and new adventures. Regardless of what else goes on out there in the great big world, Mother Nature always delivers. While our human lives might be undergoing drastic changes, nothing changes in the world of the creatures we share this planet with. They come back, build their nests, and do what they do. When everything else around us seems to be changing at breakneck speed, these are the precious things we can always hold on to and enjoy.

And so it is.