This post’s title might have been Small Mercies. The hawk in this picture flew away apparently uninjured. But the story is amazing. It happened over at the Bad Dog Ranch a couple of days ago. As told to me by the Head Bitch, who provided photos: There was that loud sickening THUNK that signifies a bird has crashed into a window, and it was a REALLY big thunk. She hurried outside to investigate and found this sharp-shinned hawk spread on the patio, alive, and a collared dove, dead, in the gravel. Because she knows what to do in a situation like this, she left the scene to give the hawk a chance to recover. After awhile it picked itself up and flew away, without its prey. Had it not, she would have gathered it gently into a box and delivered it to the closest raptor rescue or veterinarian qualified for raptor repair.
The most amazing part of the story is that the hawk left a perfect imprint on the window where it crashed. (That’s one benefit to a dusty window; another is that fewer birds tend to crash into it.) You can see the faint line of the leading edges of its spread wings to either side of the center splash, which probably represents the dove’s impact. Zoomed in a little, you can even see the outline of the hawk’s face. Look closely and you can discern its beak and even one of its eyes.
Just below the beak, there seems to be the impression of a talon, which supports my theory of what happened. The hawk’s attack feet would have been stretched out almost directly in front of its face as it caught its prey. I believe the hawk caught the dove as they smashed into the window simultaneously, the soft dove body cushioning the impact on the hawk thereby saving its life.
The last leaf has dropped from the apricot tree. I practice inner peace. It’s a choice, and it’s within reach. A hawk preying on a dove follows natural law. A rogue regime murdering civilians of other countries and preying on its own citizens is unnatural and illegal. Even as the mad dictator darkens his threats against democracy with even more reckless unconstitutional overreach, and escalates his assault on free speech with calls to muzzle media critics and execute elected representatives, it is possible to practice equanimity and compassion in one’s personal life.
Our neighbor who died recently loved to serve chocolate chip+M&M cookies, I was told, so I volunteered to bake some for her celebration of life tomorrow. There were a lot of recipe options but I chose this one from I Heart Naptime – which I also do.
Recipe for Inner Peace: Slow down. Do something kind for someone else. Allocate your attention budget wisely. Take time to nurture your heart and soul. Know what’s happening in the world but don’t drown in speculation. Choose your news sources carefully and limit daily consumption. Take action to alleviate anxiety, and remember that you don’t have to do it all, just do your small part to support the resistance. Savor joy and awe in the many ways they offer themselves. Find gratefulness in the details, and in the simple gift of waking up alive every day. Show appreciation to others every chance you get. Get enough sleep. Make time to meditate.
A tiny delight, the shadow of the little dingo’s head on the page. I balanced my time well today, among work, housework, good works, and some escapist reading, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Another tiny delight, the little bowl Amy made for me some years ago, left on the desk yesterday after a dark chocolate M&M snack, just a tiny bowlful, and today shimmering in the morning sun, catching my eye while I worked.
And yet one more tiny delight, the grapefruit tree started from seed from fruit Kathleen sent last winter. It grew too big for the grow light stand so I ordered special citrus soil which arrived today to pot it up. Now it lives in the sunroom. Someday, grapefruits!
I split some kindling and chose delight rather than frustration in the challenge of knots, which pinned the splits together several times. No need to force them apart, they’ll kindle just as well pinned.
For lunch, I roasted golden potatoes and spooned some onto the last of the Brie which melted deliciously, and topped with leftover bacon.
I could really see this afternoon how my inner state affects my outer state. It’s a foundation of mindfulness, this awareness that in any moment there are many factors that can determine our outlook and behavior, from physical, emotional and mental comfort or discomfort, to cultural norms or biases, to genetics and family of origin characteristics, to the weather. I received an email that made me very uncomfortable, and I struggled with how or whether to respond.
Would I have felt so irritated if I hadn’t earlier listened to this important conversation between two respected legal experts on the ramifications of the regime’s nearly 100 murders on the high seas over the past 61 days? Why is 61 days important? Why is this unconstitutional behavior by the White House not getting more attention? Because the people being murdered are “not American” or “not like me”? Because they are allegedly running drugs? There’s no evidence for that, just the Commander-in-Thief’s proclamation. This is yet another test: if Americans do nothing, they’ll take it as permission to fire upon any boat, eventually, anywhere. Joyce Vance and Steve Vladek unravel the complexities and urgency of the situation in a fascinating discussion.
I took the little pets for a walk and savored the lovely warm afternoon, the beauty in the woods, I cussed at a patch of small dead Russian thistle that escaped my notice and now has gone to seed, walked some more, and came in to chair an Indivisible zoom meeting. While the walk had somewhat restored my equanimity, the weed patch threw it off again, and I was still ruminating about the email when I sat down to lead the meeting.
I felt cranky, but turned my attention to gratitude to open the meeting, thereby managing to quickly switch gears and celebrate the achievements of my colleagues, who rallied in a matter of days to deliver more than $600 worth of groceries and other staples to one of the local food pantries over the weekend: Because of the starvation policy that the Lie-a-Tollah is holding over Americans to coerce surrender on the government shutdown, while he and his billionaire toadies (no offense to toads) feast ironically.
After the meeting, I continued putting up the potato harvest, roasting some for dinner, some to freeze for quick hash browns in some uncertain future. The potatoes I thought were red are indeed purple! And tasty.
While I would very much like to throw a tantrum sometimes, and cuss out people I know or more commonly those in the current regime, (or to use a more vulgar nickname for he who shall not be named), I’m an adult. I try to live according to virtuous values, and acting like a spoiled brat or a mean girl is not an option. This article in the Atlantic, “A Confederacy of Toddlers,” reminds all of us that the only way to beat this regime is to remain the adults in the room, and we each have to do that one at a time in our personal lives. We need to manage our emotions and befriend (or at least tend) our inner demons so that we don’t set them loose on everyone else. But it’s ok to have a sense of humor.
At the end of the day, which is where I am now and grateful to have made it here, especially knowing that so many people did not, and knowing one person who almost didn’t, all the personal irritations fall away, all the global uncontrollables fall away into the vast emptiness of nondual unconditioned reality… Or they at least get absorbed by watching the joyous extravaganza of the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race España, which is ultimately the same thing.
Related to gratitude and grief, joy is an essential quality to cultivate for mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Big joy had come for a friend who dropped by the other day, and I shared her excitement experiencing empathetic joy, a felt sense of happiness in her joy. I made sure to notice how my joy for her great happiness felt in my body, and savor the tingles and my big smile, and her big smile: Savoring a good feeling for twenty seconds cultivates neural pathways and stimulates beneficial neurochemicals. That empathetic joy came on top of my pure joy at her surprise visit. We walked to the canyon, which gave Wren joy, and took a dose of forest medicine hugging an ancient juniper.
The view from the tree hug
The next day several more joyful surprises came my way. I dedicated myself to fully experiencing them all, opening my heart and my mind. The first was three volunteers who came from North Fork Senior Connections to help with yarden work for an hour, and we got so much done. All were seniors themselves, and from the larger neighborhood surrounding our small town. The program sent a dozen volunteers out into the community to lend hands to five seniors who had requested assistance. I had actually asked for help more than a year ago when I could barely move, but this was the first time they called and though I’m pretty capable by now, I can still use an extra hand with some chores. I baked a big batch of molasses ginger cookies to thank them.
While they did some of the more physical projects, I bent over and pulled a frost-killed sweet potato vine out of the patio planter and dropped my jaw when two fat little sweet potatoes came out with it. After sharing that surprise with Garden Buddy, who had persuaded me to try rooting and growing one two summers ago just for the beauty of the vine, I dug gently into the planter and discovered a handful more small tubers. Not a huge crop, but enough for a few meals, and a strong motivation to try a whole bed of them next year. Amazingly, the grasshoppers didn’t fancy the leaves.
After the helpers went merrily on up the road to another yard, I dug the last potatoes, the red potatoes I had protected under straw mulch until I could set up to save them in sand. The quantity and size of these tubers was another joyful surprise. The grasshoppers had hammered the foliage to the point that the plants never bloomed, and I was not expecting much when I dug my hands down into the cold dirt. I savored that activity so much I can still feel the cold in my finger bones and the rough dry soil in my cracked fingertips.
I love these wire baskets I bought online which no longer appear to be available. The garden hose made quick work of washing all the tubers outside, in the basket, and then they air dried before I brought them in the house.
While I waited for the potatoes to dry, I cut back the dead dahlias and salvias that had filled some of the garden pots, and was met with this delightful surprise of small orange flowers. The plant had died back in summer heat but emerged again a month ago, and was secretly blooming beneath the big red salvia. A honeybee was sipping from it but fled to a snapdragon when I pulled out my camera.
While the potatoes continued to dry outside I washed myself off and dressed to go to a patio party down the road. A friend invited me as her plus one and came to pick me up. It was at the home of a newish neighbor whom I’d been meaning to take a plate of cookies to for a couple of years but… being a reclusive hermit, I hadn’t gotten to yet. I had saved enough cookies to bring him some, and found I was warmly welcomed. Another gathering of neighbors I mostly didn’t know! I listened, and laughed, shared a few baking tips, and met another knitter. I was grateful the party was outside, the weather was beautiful, and the company easy and engaging. The host had asked that guests bring something for his compost pile, which struck me as both creative and courageous. I took a bucket full of the dead annuals I had trimmed in the morning, so that even if something sprouts from my offering it will be a lovely flower and not a weed.
Once home, I packed the red potatoes in play sand in a cardboard box. I still have two bags of the gold potatoes in the fridge I need to cook and eat or freeze in the next couple of weeks. They are more delicate, and probably wouldn’t keep well, but I’m optimistic about these hardy red potatoes. I spread a layer of sand, covered it with potatoes, poured in another layer of sand… and made a three layer sand and potato lasagna, which I then closed and tucked under a chair in the mudroom where it will stay cold but not freezing (I hope) so I can eat homegrown potatoes through the winter. Maybe when it gets real cold I’ll have to bring the box with whatever’s left into the pantry. We’ll know more later. One potato at a time.
And the last joyful surprise is the fragrant orchid that hadn’t bloomed for a couple of years, for so long I had forgotten it’s fragrant. It’s been in this hanger near my desk for more than a week, I’ve walked past it dozens of times a day, when suddenly one midday an exquisite perfume stopped me mid stride. I inhaled deeply, exhaled completely, and breathed deep again. I savored this intoxicating scent for more than twenty seconds, until my scent buds acclimated and could hold no more. It continues to release its sweet aroma a for an hour or two in the middle of the day, and then goes quiet. Each time I pass during one of those fleeting floral exhalations is another joyful surprise that captivates me for several lingering breaths.
Working on perfecting the blueberry cinnamon roll. A batch last week from a new recipe didn’t satisfy me though the people I shared it with weren’t so particular. The dough was a little tough and there wasn’t enough filling. The batch I made yesterday had too much filling, but I’m closing in on perfection.
A new tiny friend made a surprise visit Saturday and was entranced with Biko, the first turtle she’s ever met in her whole life. When she was ready, she touched him ever so gently on the top of his shell. Then we took her to the pond, where she spotted her first ever frog. There is still at least one tadpole swimming around, and a few growing juveniles out even after a freeze the night before, and one brand new fingertip froglet on land. I sent them home with the last two rolls of Batch Number One.
I delivered a couple of rolls from Batch Number Two to the Honey Badger at the top of the driveway last night, so we could enjoy one with coffee this morning separately in our own homes together on Zoom. I was planning to deliver most of the rest to a few more neighbors today, but they disappeared before I could do that.
I’m a night owl and don’t see too many sunrises, so I was grateful for the extra motivation to rise in time to catch the morning clouds with the sun just behind Mendicant Ridge. I wish I could want to get out of bed while it’s still dark.
Yarden Helper came unexpectedly with a load of firewood, so I gave him three rolls to take home for his family, knowing that would brighten their day. Remembering the unattributable quote, “Be kind. Everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden,” or another version, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
He was heading next to Garden Buddy’s so I gave him two for them, and suddenly, without ever having to leave the driveway, I was down to just enough to sustain me until I muster the motivation to tackle Batch Number Three. I’m grateful for the practice of generosity, a natural accompaniment to the gratitude and grief slow dancing inside me.
I can’t share the recipe for the rolls because I used three of them plus a couple of innovations. But most of the recipes I checked involved brushing the rolled dough with softened butter.
I wasn’t happy with the one cup of whole blueberries in Batch One, so I made a quick jam with two cups, but cooked it down too much, so threw in another handful of blueberries. It might have been ok if I’d only used half of it, or if I hadn’t put lemon zest in it as well as lemon juice.
The brown sugar – cinnamon mix was adequate, but I’ve been including some cardamom and the next batch will have only cinnamon.
Clearly it was too much filling!
And I’ll need to practice my glazing technique before I enter any contests, but at least it’s tasty. And I’m grateful I was still around for sunset.
I started the week with a fresh loaf of sourdough, which I hadn’t made in awhile since I was obsessed with tomato sandwiches on the complicated mock wonder bread. It’s a relief to return to the simplicity of sourdough. Tuesday evening in grief, I ate a simple deconstructed cheese sandwich with the first two slices: mayo and havarti on one, butter and rosehip-crabapple jelly on the other. Yeah, the jelly is a little overcooked as I’d feared, a bit thicker than I’d like, and a little sticky to spread, but it tastes great. I had to try it before I send off the jars to the lottery winners. In case, you know, it was a total fail and I had to eat it all myself with a spoon.
With local tragedies and national catastrophes, it’s a good time to remind myself that most people are good and kind and there’s a lot of great news that just doesn’t make headlines while the bad news come so fast and furious. I don’t remember how Daily Good found its way into my inbox, but I’m grateful there’s a group of volunteers curating good news stories around the world (also, it seems that AI is working for good in this instance); 625 stories so far this month, which I trust is a drop in the bucket, simply knowing how many good, sweet connections were made just in my neighborhood this week.
Wednesday’s sandwich was a simple cheddar, havarti, lettuce and tomato, but I wanted extra crunch so I quick pickled some tiny red onions from the final harvest. Mayo and Penzeys sandwich sprinkle completed the project.
One of those good things came in a voicemail yesterday from an unknown number. Last year when I struggled so before hip surgery, I had registered to get assistance from North Fork Senior Connections, and also offered to volunteer for them in some capacity after recovering from surgery. I hadn’t done either yet, and sort of forgot about it. But there’s a new crew closer to home now, and the coordinator wanted to know if I could use help with anything next weekend on their Service Saturday. As it happens, I could! I was so grateful to be asked, and when I called back I also gratefully volunteered to bake and do other light services as needed. I’m looking forward to participating in this community building network created “to support aging with dignity, choice, and companionship.”
In more good news, I started the Bibliofillies pick for November this week, The Book of Hope, Jane Goodall’s conversations with Douglas Abrams. Abrams brought us The Book of Joy a few years ago, chronicling the beautiful friendship of H.H. The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It’s perfect timing for me, and maybe for you, too. I’ll take inspiration anywhere I can get it.
Jane has been much on my mind since her death October first. I’d admired her for years before I was fortunate to meet her. I worked at Busch Gardens in Tampa, as a conservation educator in the zoo division of the amusement park. Busch housed a chimpanzee colony, and Jane had just emerged from Gombe after understanding that she needed to speak to the world about the plight of wild chimps, and the urgency of saving the species and their forest habitat. The zoo was aflutter that she was coming to Busch to speak, and would also, incidentally, be evaluating our chimp facilities. She was gracious and kind as she greeted a lucky few of us junior staff. She was not impressed with the zoo’s chimp habitat, however, which prompted a total, costly revamp which ultimately, years later, earned her approval.
She campaigned tirelessly to protect our precious world, and though her hope faltered occasionally, she never lost it, confident for four reasons: “the amazing human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of youth, and the indomitable human spirit.”
Thursday was cool and grey with glorious rain off and on all day, and snow in the mountains. It was crisp but cold outside Friday so the sandwich had to be grilled: Brie, pickled onion, mayo, and calamondin jam.
Jane told Abrams, “Hope leads to future success in a way that wishful thinking does not. While both involve thinking about the future with rich imagery, only hope sparks us to take action directed toward the hoped-for goal.” It occurs to me: Wishing is to Hope as Empathy is to Compassion: Hope and Compassion spark action. Robert Hubbell’s weekly dose of perspective Saturday touched on this same idea. He covers the White House horrors every day, yet he remains an inspired, hopeful, and inspiring activist, lifting us up daily with his newsletters and a weekly livestream pep talk.
“Hope and optimism are not the same thing,” Jane says. (Boy do I know that from the inside! As I read this I think, Hope is wishing plus Action; Optimism is wishing plus Belief. I’m grateful to be reading a book that’s making me think.) Abrams says, “Archbishop Tutu once told me that optimism can quickly turn to pessimism when the circumstances change. Hope is a much deeper source of strength, practically unshakable.”
Saturday’s sandwich was not grilled, but otherwise essentially the same: Brie, pickled onion, mayo, with the new red jelly and lettuce. And Jane, for company, in the sunroom.
Hope, Jane says, “does not deny the evil but is a response to it.” And later offers this pressing insight, “If we live in a society with a reasonable standard of living and some degree of social justice, the generous and peaceful aspects of our nature are likely to prevail, while in a society of racial discrimination and economic injustice, violence will thrive.”
Today’s cheese sandwich: mayo, havarti, pickled onion, lettuce, bacon, and apricot jam. It was a beautiful, mild day here, on this precious planet, and I savored lunch outside, with a different read, keenly aware of everything, absolutely everything.
“Facing our grief is essential to combatting and overcoming our despair and powerlessness,” she says, and adds, “Every day we make some impact on the planet. And the cumulative effect of millions of small ethical actions will truly make a difference. That’s the message I take around the world.”
I was online leading a meeting this evening so I missed the sunset, except for the layered cloud colors I could see through the kitchen window beyond my computer, and the alpenglow, which I could see behind me through the east window, reflected back to me in my square on the zoom screen. There was a pang of longing to be out in it. So I was thrilled to get a text an hour later of this gorgeous sunset over downtown Hotchkiss from my friend Mary Hockenberry who caught it on her evening walk.
Our world lost a little light this week. Wren’s little buddy up the road was run over and killed. He had just celebrated his two years old birthday. It was instantaneous. He chased a car out the driveway into the county road and a tanker truck took him out, probably without even knowing it. His person had chased after him and found him. Barely a minute had elapsed. As she stood in shock, a cowboy stopped to offer help. She called a couple of friends, one of whom notified me; the other, whose car he had chased, returned with a third friend and began to dig a grave.
At our first meeting
We met him shortly after he came to live on the mesa, when he was not quite three months old (see Puppies). Most of my pictures of him then, and later whenever he came to visit, are blurry because he was always in motion when I saw him. He loved to run, to hunt, to chase, and in true terrier fashion once he set his mind on something he did not willingly stop.
Last month in his courtyard
I’ve loved dogs who have died in far worse ways, long slow agonizing deaths, from stomach cancer, or drinking anti-freeze, or even being struck by a truck and lingering long enough for their people to watch them suffer, unable to help. Oso’s untimely death, like any death that touches us personally, that wracks our own little world, is a poignant reminder that anything can happen at any time, that we’re given this one precious day as a gift each time we wake up alive. We don’t know if we will even have tomorrow, or if life will be the same for us tomorrow as it was today.
I had been making chicken broth when I got the text “Our sweet Oso is in doggie heaven…” I was ladling the broth into pint jars, and knew in my bones the right next thing to do was to drive up with a jar of nourishing broth, knowing she wouldn’t have had anything to drink or eat and may not remember to do either for hours. When I arrived they were putting the last rocks over the small grave under a juniper in the center of the driveway circle. After subdued and tender greetings, I handed off the broth and helped gather tools. Another friend arrived as I was leaving. Altogether five women showed up for our friend in her literal hour of grief.
Last winter playing with Wren
In the slow, mile drive home I felt the weight of the change in her world, the brutal empathy of knowing how I would feel going to bed suddenly bereft of Wren, waking the next morning without her. As I rounded the last corner it hit me how truly terrible I would feel if it had been Oso’s person instead, or any of us five friends who came to offer comfort: It could have been any one of us, on foot, or bike, or in our little metal bucket on wheels, getting smashed by an industrial truck. Or a train. And from there it was a small step to recall the suffering and grief that rocks millions of lives daily when a beloved dies, a pet, a child, a spouse, a parent, a friend, from illness or in unexpected ways, in wars, in famines, in all the ways. A sudden ache for everyone I love, a pre-grief, blossomed in my breast.
At almost one years old
We each respond to grief in our own unique way. I know more than one grown man who has sobbed at the loss of a dog and never shed a tear for a person’s death. I tend to get very quiet for a long time; some might call it shutting down. Oso’s person has been grieving with courage, grace and equanimity, holding the horror of what happened, the self-wounding if only‘s, the surrender of inevitable acceptance. She is grateful that it was mercifully instantaneous; he never saw it coming. She was helpless to stop it. And the cowboy was a gift from god there in her moment of need. It was a horrible accident, the kind of thing that just happens (all the time), nobody’s fault but simply a result of conditions beyond anyone’s control: cause and effect. Even in her grief she is able to express gratefulness for the mutual love in their short companionship together.
Just a week ago
A pine siskin snacks on sunflower seeds in the autumn garden yesterday.
Monday evening a junco smacked into the living room window and broke its neck. Grief took center stage early this week, in the smallest of deaths. And then there was Oso. And just this afternoon, after this blog was largely written, I learned of the sudden, surprising death of a pillar of the community. I barely knew her, but another dear friend was shocked to find her dead on the floor of her garage after she failed to show up at an event. She was a mother, a grandmother, a vibrant healthy elder, and now just like that she is not. Her family, her friends, rocked and grieving. It happens every day somewhere, 150,000 times: a person dies.
I’m reminded to hold my puppy extra close, and my people too.
A shattering twinge of knowing my own death takes my breath away sometimes. This is why we can’t remember it constantly. It’s just too shocking to contemplate our own death, or the fundamental truth that everyone we love will eventually be lost to us. And yet we must, at some point, consider it deeply. Any hospice worker will tell you that many people are filled with regret when they come to the end of their life without having done so. When we think about death (our own and others’) ahead of time we grow in wisdom and compassion. Awareness is a breath away. Death is certain, time of death uncertain. One thing we can know is that life will change after the death of a beloved, but we can’t know in what way: what further sorrows or antidotal joys will arise moment to moment. To live fully is to be present with whatever is, in each moment. Like gratitude, grief changes everything, for awhile.
I’m grateful every day I make it to the end alive, I really am.
Fresh yellow ribbon down the middle of the road, glowing October cottonwood leaves flicker in a breeze. They’re the same color: the ribbon not yellow exactly though we call it yellow, but the color of cottonwood leaves when they’ve passed their brilliant sunshine stage and a few days before they brown and fall to the ground. That stripe, those leaves, in perfect harmony; the roadside curve signs glinting the same color pointing the way to town.
A female northern harrier flapping and coasting over the arroyo. Guo Gu says “It’s all good,” and explains that even in the midst of great suffering, we can still choose to do the right next thing, whatever that is.
It’s an utter and complete surrender to how things are in this moment, right here: not anywhere else, not another time, not another moment, this one. May I never know the suffering of eight billion others, but only know and never forget, they suffer.
A golden eagle surveys the rolling sage flats from a power line T towering over the dobies. I’m driving to town for the second No Kings rally and protest. I’m grateful for this glorious morning alive.
The speakers were inspiring, the signs were creative, a couple of Portland chicken riders showed up and a big bad wolf. As she passed us the woman I was standing with said, “That’s ICE!” It certainly crossed my mind, it was jarring to see someone completely masked, but my more generous interpretation was it was someone bashful. Nothing bad happened.
There were young people and just a few children, and like last time, most of the protestors in Paonia had grey hair. Some hobbled on walking sticks and some rolled in chairs. I once again saw many old friends and acquaintances I hadn’t seen for years, and was grateful I could recognize and remember more of their names.
There were signs loving America, loving the planet, loving each other, and my own sign Grow Love. I was grateful I had all the right ingredients to throw it together this morning after thinking about it all day yesterday. I had one old piece of foam core board, remembered a stash of handmade paper, and finally found the Mod-Podge I knew I’d had in a box of magazine pictures for collage under the desk for years, but tidied away this summer somewhere obscure.
The inspiration was a distillation of Martin Luther King, Jr’s quote “Hate canÂnot driÂve out hate; only love can do that,” plus the idea that we reap what we sow. Not to mention the nearly two dozen geraniums I ended up with to give away, and Garden Buddy’s basket of sunflower seeds in support of Ukraine. I was grateful to come home with only two geraniums and one of those is spoken for.
After the speakers the crowd I estimated conservatively at more than 400 streamed out of the park and marched through the neighborhood beneath autumn trees down to Grand Avenue. I packed up my stuff with a little help from GB and Son, and headed home. But I saw that instead of dispersing as they had done last time, the crowd was gathered at the south end of town, so I made a couple turns to get there. A cop directing traffic at the Second Street intersection let me turn to park so I could join in. They were singing “We Shall Overcome” in front of the High Country News building and I shot some video as they started walking. But I interrupted myself to get a still when I saw the macaw who was enthusiastically voicing his support for democracy.
The rally was joyful and uplifting, as were the more than 2500 rallies around the country and in some foreign cities. Early reports say that nearly seven million people turned out in the largest single-day demonstration against a sitting president. Friends sent photos from Gainesville and Tallahassee, FL, and these from Lexington, KY.
Cousin Mel knew I’d especially appreciate this Drag Race reference.
Driving home my heart and thoughts again returned to the glory of the undersung cottonwoods, and I stopped on the road down into the Smith Fork Canyon to capture the colors, from the earliest turning in the foreground just beyond the power line to some of those road line golds by the river. I’m grateful for connection today, for the felt sense of interbeing with community and with friends far and wide. We will overcome some day. We’re in this together!
Anticipating several cold, rainy days last week I started a new puzzle that Amy’s mom had sent me. Amy and Judy visited me at Auntie’s way back in 2013, another world ago, and we all did our first Liberty puzzle together. I’m grateful that Judy continues to enjoy Liberty puzzles, and that she did not especially like this one so she passed it along.
Because we actually got only a few hours of cold, rainy weather, the puzzle took me awhile to complete, and I finished it yesterday just in time for Zoom Cooking with Amy. I wasn’t crazy about the color scheme of this puzzle, and people are not my favorite whimsy pieces, but it was new and free, and there was a lovely symmetry to doing a train puzzle from Judy, since our first Liberty was a different train puzzle. And the puzzle itself overcame my initial judgments because it was delightful, fun, and every bit of it filled with story. So many stories, all over the puzzle! And all the little stories fitting together, piece by piece and then segment by segment. The engineer in the window with the bandits shooting outside, the guy falling out of the boxcar, the passengers being herded out, and the little band of people in the distance – are those the bandit hunters? And the whimsies: the little banker running for his life, the bandits, the horses, the maidens in distress…
It looked like it would be pretty easy, and I assembled the title at the top and the subtitle at the bottom, and then it got more complicated. Especially when the side edges came together quickly and I had to slide all the pieces out of the way and gently pull the top down to connect the sides. After that the real puzzling began.
Five days later the puzzle was done, and it was time for Butter Week. There was another lovely symmetry in finishing the puzzle late afternoon that Amy’s mom had sent, and then zoom cooking with Amy half an hour later. I am so grateful for my oldest friend and her mother!
I wanted to make butter candles from a recipe I spotted on instagram; Amy wanted to make butternut squash gnocchi. We supported each other’s choices. For the candles, which we didn’t make but I still might, we melted two sticks of butter and simmered with fresh sage, garlic cloves, half a pear, peppercorns, coriander seeds, and a pinch of salt. I was grateful to have fresh sage from my herb pots, garlic from the garden, and pears from the Bad Dogs’ tree. I ate most of the other half but mashed a little bit to throw into a wine cooler.
We had pre-cooked the squash on Friday. Amy cut hers into cubes and roasted it, while I chose to roast mine whole. I am averse to cutting up hard winter squash because it’s hard, and even though I’m skillful with a kitchen knife I always get the willies when my knife is met with serious resistance. Hers didn’t take long to roast in pieces but lost a lot of moisture, making her dough very firm; I didn’t even ask how long it took to cut it all up. Mine took almost two hours to roast whole, but was a breeze to scoop out and mash the next day. My squash had so much moisture that I had to keep adding flour as I kneaded the dough and finally called it quits with a very soft dough that was still a little sticky to roll and cut.
Both of our dinner bowls were delicious. We dressed the gnocchi so simply, with some sage butter and grated parmesan. Another successful zoom cooking! After dinner I admired the puzzle some more, and took a few detail shots for fun.
I had started another one-day mock wonder bread loaf yesterday also, and had to burn a fire in the woodstove to get a spot warm enough for it to bulk rise. By the time we finished dinner it was ready to roll up and plunk into the pan, and supposedly needed only 3-5 hours to rise before baking. But it was too late for that, so I left it in the mudroom overnight, and it rose beautifully over the next twelve hours. This morning I put it in the oven and then dressed a couple of leftover waffles with blueberries, Greek yogurt and organic maple syrup to enjoy while it baked.
After breakfast, and brushing the bread with butter, I disassembled the puzzle. As I carefully separated the pieces I once again appreciated the artistry, even as I listened to Pema Chodron respond to people’s questions about “How to Confront Fear.” How did the pioneers confront their fear of railroad bandits, and all the other fears that came with the choices they made? How do we deal with the perfectly natural fears of death, of degenerative disease, of living in these troubled times? How do we confront our fears about the current bandits in this rogue administration who are stealing our rights, our livelihoods, our money, our social safety nets, our very democracy? The answers always come down to seeing reality clearly, responding with wisdom and compassion, and taking action where you can.
Coming together in community, knowing we’re not alone, and taking action together are all antidotes to anxiety: Join a No Kings Day protest near you this Saturday, October 18!
After a morning that felt like a full day, it was lunchtime, and I sliced into the wonderful bread and made a BLT. So simple, so delicious! Though cool, it was gorgeous outside and I sat on the patio in the warm sun, reading Bill Bryson’s “In a Sun-burned Country,” laughing out loud at his travels through Australia.
Later I heard about the overseas travels of one cousin who’d been to Germany and two who’d been to Portugal. A third cousin reported her safe return from a week in NYC. I am grateful that all my travels today were vicarious.
Even later an unpromised gift came to me in a surprise visit by new friends who brought a bagful of geraniums and joined Wren and me for a walk to the canyon in the late day light. They felt the magic, and marveled at the ancient junipers, and nourished my heart. More gratitude today than grief, as my understanding continues to grow. Tomorrow could be different; tomorrow is not guaranteed.
“The ability to wake up to another new day — one with which we will surely need to wrestle and reckon, but one that will also teach and transform us … this is the unpromised gift for which to be grateful.”
We use this graphic in the Mindfulness Foundations Course to illustrate how we tend to get complacent about the things we think we care about. I used ‘the necklace’ as an example for a few courses, but after today, I’ll use losing Biko as an example. Unless I get complacent about having found him again, and forget all about how it felt for a night and a morning to think he might be gone. Which was awful. A friend just this morning was talking about the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation, wherein we become acclimated to a new condition, a change in fortune, and over time our wellbeing goes back to its general resting state. It’s like when we forget to appreciate the non-toothache, and only notice that we were relatively painfree for awhile once we suddenly have pain again.
While we looked for him last night, and again for hours this morning, I did manage to appreciate the blooming maxis near the front gate. I looked behind them four or five times, since there’s a little divot in the ground where he’s hidden before, but nope, he was not there any time I looked. I was pretty sure that he was in the yard. It got dark last night, and I didn’t worry because I knew there were no holes in the fence, and sometimes he’s hard to find at dusk. Wren is so easily distracted these days by the sparrows in the rosebush, and now the finches at the feeder.
I poked around with my walking pole in the thick grass under the apricot tree. With all the fallen leaves his camouflage shell might not show up. I even lengthened the pole so I could poke to the bottom of the pond a few places where I couldn’t see beneath the plants and algae, just in case. We looked for about half an hour last night, forty-five minutes before work this morning, and another hour before lunch while the sun hinted through cloud cover. We looked absolutely everywhere, and even walked the perimeter outside the fence. I knew there was a slim chance someone might have come in the gate and left it open while I was out half the day yesterday: even just long enough to walk down to the door, knock, and wait a couple minutes, if it was sunny and he was active and near the gate, he could have walked right out with no one the wiser. But it was a slim chance, and I didn’t panic. I wouldn’t have worried at all in summer, confident that when the sun came out he’d emerge from hiding to bask, and I’d catch him running around later in the day. But the forecast for the next few days was not conducive to his coming out: possible heavy rain through the weekend, and on Sunday an overnight low that could spell the end of him. So we had to find him, and I didn’t want to be out looking in a downpour later.
It would take a gap this size beneath the fence for him to escape, and there just isn’t one along the perimeter. This gap is between the garden and the yarden, and those are his footprints: he uses it regularly to come and go from the area where his dogloo provides frequent overnight shelter. It’s where Wren found him on Wednesday night, but not last night. I triple checked. I checked both corners in the shoddy shed where he’s sometimes tucked in, and lifted the cardboard box he used before it collapsed, but he wasn’t under it.
However, after looking literally everywhere else in the yard, and triple checking the dog pen and garden, I went back to the broken cardboard box and lifted it all the way up, not just the front end–and there he was! Oh the wave of gratitude I felt in that moment! It washed away all my pending grief at possibly losing him.
To be clear, Wren did not find him. I found him, she was nowhere near, off chasing sparrows. But I put the box back over him and called her, and then she found him. To her mind, she had succeeded after our long and arduous hunt, and it was important to her to feel that she’d found him at last. We were both delighted and grateful, and moved Biko, some dried rushes, and the box all to the round pen to recreate his cozy bed, so he could tuck in for the rest of the season and I’d always know where to find him when it’s time to bring him inside. For the moment, his value is as high as it’s ever been.
I’m thinking there may be a lot of people who don’t realize how much they value Democracy just now, and what an ugly surprise it will be for them if it comes to pass that they wake up one day and we no longer have one. It’s certainly the direction this regime is trending, and the source of pervasive grief for many, but it’s not yet a done deal. If we act together, each of us doing our little things every day, but all of us coming together over and over in grassroots groups and other communities, resisting as a population instead of lone individuals, then we can still stem the creeping red tide. This short interview with Rebecca Solnit inspires the hope that remains for all of us if we come together in determined resistance.
An Irish farmer I follow on Instagram highlighted this trick to refresh rusted garden shears, and I’ve used this jar of vinegar to soak three pruners, about twelve hours each. The vinegar bubbles and the rust just falls off! Then you scrub them clean of vinegar and they’re ready to sharpen and good as new. It’s time to soak the Supreme Court and Congress in vinegar. Here’s a list of links I shared with North Fork Indivisible this morning. I hope some of them inspire or at least interest you.
I mentioned the sweater awhile ago, how I bought the pattern somewhere between fifteen and twenty years ago but could never muster the motivation to find the perfect yarn, or tackle the complicated pattern; and how I finally did both this summer. I started knitting sometime in June.
By mid-September I had knitted the back, front panels, and sleeves. I had to rip out many inches of the second sleeve after I suspected I’d gone off the pattern by one stitch. I thought, “How can it possibly matter if I purl two – knit one instead of knit one – purl two” but it turns out it gave the sleeve a distinctly different look. But it was worth doing right, so I patiently ripped out six inches back to the cuff and did it right. I learned so much about knitting as I picked up dropped stitches, corrected mistakes, figured out how to tie a secure vanishing knot to connect skeins, weave in loose ends, and unknit complicated stitches when I realized I’d missed one. I learned a new and more refined way to cast on, and several ways to bind off. I took my time assembling the panels and sleeves, and learned different ways to sew knitted pieces together depending if they were vertical to vertical, or vertical to horizontal, or on increasing or decreasing edges. It was really fun! I was grateful for my new skill of patience.
I learned to knit buttonholes when I knitted the two front bands, but here the directions failed me. There was no explanation of why the front bands were shorter than the front panels, so I knitted them long enough to experiment with when I got them sewn on. I had blocked the front bands with special pins and special blocking foam, but they felt very loose when I attached them. I sewed those two seams just as I’d sewn all the others, and the long bands fit the front panels perfectly. Something was wrong.
I went ahead and knitted the neck band anyway, and the whole sweater just felt floppy. I spent one whole day undoing a week’s work, but hey, I had patience! And it was worth doing it right. I ripped out the neck band, unsewed the front bands and shortened them, learning how to sew a short band to a longer panel and make it come out even, and then reknitted the neck band but made it a size smaller. Finally finished! I was sure I had six silver buttons of the correct size in my button jar or button box, but I did not. The best I could come up with were these brown leather-covered buttons, and I kind of like the contrast. One day one of them will fall off, and then I’ll go buy some silver buttons.
I stumbled into accidental cocktails this evening when I delivered a yard sign to dear friends, and since I was wearing the sweater I asked my captive audience which included three crafty women, how can I make these bands less wobbly? They all shrugged. None of them knit. But the retired park superintendent spoke up softly suggesting I block the sweater. I giggle just to think of it. His mom used to knit, and he dug into some memory strands and recalled she laid it out on the kitchen table, put a towel under and a towel over, but he wasn’t quite sure what she did after that. It was all I needed. The vast resource of YouTube knitting tutorials taught me from there. Tomorrow I’ll steam block the sweater and we’ll see what happens.
On the way to accidental cocktails…
The retired park superintendent mentioned a new group that he’d joined, and when I looked it up I realized that I also can join it! It felt great to sign up to join them, and to set up an automatic monthly donation. Only three dollars a month, but if every former seasonal employee like me, or everyone who ever volunteered at a national park, or worked there for a career did that, what a resource we’d be together.
As I was leaving accidental cocktails I savored the view of my friends’ garden with the tentative storm beyond. A small flock of sandhill cranes had just flown overhead seeking their evening roost. I felt their ancient voices keenly.
Arriving home again shortly before sunset.
Looking west from the top of the driveway, a sundog; a few minutes later, looking east, a fraction of a rainbow.
Grief is an acknowledgement of loss, an emotional state in which we exist between what we once understood or knew to be true, and an uncertain future where someone or something we cared about no longer exists with us. For me, acknowledging grief and allowing myself to dwell in this open space, this bardo, is a relief, and a step up from the paralysis of Despair. So I’ve spent a joyful day connecting with people as I ran errands and received assistance at a couple of healthcare appointments, relishing the feelings of simultaneous grief and gratitude, instead of bouncing between the opposites of gratitude and despair.
We walked to the west fence after sunset to see what the clouds would do. But the lone horse in the neighbor’s pasture to the south looked longingly at us. The rescue horses to the west had all gone in, and this sweet mare’s interest in us was compelling, so we strolled the fenceline down to greet her. Turns out, she wasn’t the least bit interested in me: she was fascinated by Wren. The two grazed together placidly for awhile as I watched clouds. But after awhile she snuffled my hand and let me caress her velvet nose, and we communed in silence til the color left the clouds.
