I realized I was looking for "one" place to post some crafting updates, and none of the first places that came to mind 'worked' for what I was looking for (Facebook, G+, Twitter...). Then I remembered my BLOG! Perfect!
Just a little crafting update, I've been doing a lot more lately and I've not posted anything up here.
We'll start with Halloween, an 'upcycled' cameo that I found on sale for $2.50 at Michaels...
Cameo before:
Cameo after:
So I will post here until I can find it!
Planted today in the left side beds:
Bed 1 (closest to house): Hardneck Garlic "Music"
Beds 2 & 3: Hardneck Garlic "Belarus"
Bed 4: Softneck Garlic "Red Koch"
All from Green Mountain Garlic.
Interesting messages coming up in my life right now. I'm trying to learn (become?) the lesson of balance. A blog I read said "Balance isn’t steady-state. Balance is constant movement, constant change."; this rings so true to me.
It reminded me of a time when I was very young. I was riding in the back seat of the car, and I had one of those replica toy dashboards, steering wheel and all, set up in front of me (maybe I was imagining it, steering wheel and all; I don't recall). It was an "ah-ha" moment... I was pretending to drive and realized: I always pretend driving is just holding on to the wheel, keeping your hands in one position, but I looked up and there was my Dad, driving... Making thousands of tiny course corrections, constantly shifting slightly left, now right... Driving isn't just holding onto the wheel to go straight, it is a series of millions of micro movements to adjust to the environment around you.
Maintaining balance isn't about being in some smooth flow... It is about adapting, overcoming, passing over bumps with grace. It is the tree that bends in a strong wind. It is the recognition that chaos, too, is a key component of what we call balance. These are all spokes on a continuously turning wheel... I imagine it to be a bit like the log rolling competition in a lumberjack contest. Be flexible. Expect the unexpected.
And, frankly, depressing. They lack the bitterness under the tongue of real life. As a youngster I was consumed by the romance of romance, stories of love and strife, painted with an extravagant wash of drama. In these tales the story was almost always this: the man would first battle his own nature and then, in the end, fight for the woman. A woman, I might mention, that is inevitably a shallow and vapid figure, all-consumed by her unrequited passion.
It starts when The Man enters the picture and steals all of The Woman's meaning and purpose. In the middle, the story revolves around her pining away with longing and suffering, often while he's off gallivanting around with another woman (either in reality or perception). Finally, The (primary) Woman winds up being swept off of her feet by a Grand Gesture, just when she is at the brink of crossing the chasm into bitter spinsterhood (or {gasp!} into the arms of the Wrong Man!).
There is a lot that appeals about the classic romance - the desire to be worthy of being fought for, the primeval need to know that the Male of the species will battle another for your hand, the Grand Romantic Gesture that shows you how meaningful you are (not to mention the excitement and drama of all of this, and the martyrdom of suffering in between!).
And then you look at real life... Love is grand, but my experience of romance has never matched up to this (and, would I *really* want it to?). Romance, in the end, to be sustained, takes work, can become routine, requires compromise, and is rarely so dramatic. Many days of "chop wood, carry water" pass between romantic moments. You find the true, deep abiding love when you find yourself looking up and realizing how fortunate you are to be looking into the eyes of your partner across the table. It is a quiet, subtle thing, this love - but don't mistake it.
Sometimes, though... A Grand Gesture is ok too. ;)
It's early; I am at the kitchen sink awaiting the final chorus of the coffee machine. In the corner of my eye I see what appears to be the tail end of a young black cat walking by against the sliding door of a house with no cats. As I turn to look she slips from view. I follow her onto the back porch (no cat in sight), and find a hummingbird sipping from the fire bush, flower after flower. The bird hums up into the air, inspects me briefly, and flies away.
On the plane, a tall, angular black woman makes her way down the aisle. Her knobbed elbows form a sharp bracket around her body. Two hats are stacked atop her dreadlocked hair, and small thick-framed glasses perch above a small gold nose ring. A loose scarf is wrapped around her shoulders. I imagine her to be a voodoo woman, and myself falling to my knees to beg her to help my father. She arrives at my aisle and asks if the seat next to me is hers ("is that 5A?") of course, it is. She removes the hats and the magic is gone, we are just strangers flying toward our separate futures.
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Dad is sitting up in his chair and out of it. He got a "level 4" dose of morphine this morning for the pain. He looks out the window at the clouds and sees a dragon. I'm not sure whether to be glad or not, when I see it too (I am).
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Up the hall a high sound comes... "Oh, the insane laughter again," Dad says, "at least, I hope it's laughter...". But I've registered the sound; someone is sobbing, their voice carrying a broken heart out to the world in progressively louder and more violent high-pitched sobs. The 8th floor is full of pain, sorrow, and death. Oncology, floor 8.
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"It's amazing how life gets broken down into little pieces sometimes." "How so?" "Oh, you know, here I am in my chair, looking out the window, worried about my back pain and all the little things, things that nobody else gives a damn about."
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My father's bed faces a large window, but the view from the bed is back toward the other parts of the hospital. Looking out you see the center part of the building that has the big "Methodist Hospital" sign. It is the window without a view. Each day we move him to the recliner, where he can look out and see the sky. I worked late tonight, and arrive at the hospital at just before 7. Dad is so tired, his eyes blink closed every few minutes, and I can see that it's been another long, hard day. I ask Han (his wife) if he's done all of his shoulder work, the exercises prescribed by the physical therapist to happen three times a day. "Two times," she says. He has to do one more round, five types of exercises. He does the first three types and rests, drifting out. A few minutes go by and I convince him we must do the hardest ones - a movement where I support his arm and raise it up. This is the most painful, and the more he tries to use his muscles the more it hurts - he is supposed to relax his arm completely. It is a challenge; he always wants to be in control and is terrified we will let his arm drop and cause excruciating pain. This time he is so tired, his arm is heavy but I can still feel his muscles competing to carry the weight. I remind him again to relax: "Move your head from side to side, relax your neck." "Let your shoulders drop." He does a bit.
I see the pain etched on his face, so I try to distract him. "The clouds were amazing today. They were the big puffy rain clouds, you know the kind? The edges were so sharp they looked like they had been drawn up in the sky. It was so beautiful - the tops were lit up from the sun, the bottoms gray and heavy with rain, and in between it was this incredible peach color." My heart breaks as his eyes flutter open and he lifts his head, looking out to try to see them through the window without a view.
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