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Resilience

Jan25

It was time for a puzzle. Time to listen to dharma talks, wise and compassionate podcasts, and good music, and spend a few hours a day immersed in a Liberty puzzle. Liberty… Let that word sink in. It’s been a hell of a week in US government, and there are plenty of intelligent analysts writing about it, so I won’t dwell on the politics of the trumpscape: though I am reminded of my grueling nightmare after his first inauguration and my sense now is that we’re not even halfway through the violence of that dream. My conclusion remains the same: You might steal my nights, you bastard, but I won’t let you have my days.

So I recommit my days to teaching and learning mindful skills to alleviate suffering where I can and to strengthen my own courage and resilience. I spend some time each day nourishing myself with soul food which sometimes looks like a wooden jigsaw puzzle. This week’s puzzle feels especially appropriate in this mind-bending time-warp we find ourselves, with everyone except straight white males in America now targeted for oppression and worse by a politics of cruelty. It’s a painting from 1936 by Archibald John Motley, Jr., known for his joyous depictions of the early 20th century ‘Jazz Age’ and identified with the Harlem Renaissance which celebrated African American culture across the arts.

Some of my companions during this puzzle this week have been Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison and Sensei Chodo Robert Campbell of the New York Zen Center, Robert Hubbell of Today’s Edition on Substack, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., Roshi Joan Halifax of the Upaya Zen Center, and father of western mindfulness Jon Kabat-Zinn. Earlier this evening I listened with dismay to Dr. Jeremy Faust and Dr. Atul Gawande in this 24-minute conversation about the unfathomable approach of the new regime to federal public health initiatives, including halting PEPFAR, the US program that has saved more than 21 million lives by providing HIV medications. The fallout from ending this program alone will kill many people in this country and around the world, never mind the death toll from stopping other global health initiatives with widespread benefits. Is that their goal?

Among the many delightful whimsy pieces this close-dancing pair fit beautifully into the image. Do you see them, below?
There are a fair number of delightful bugs in this puzzle, including this… beetle? fly?

I spent some quality time in the kitchen this week also, including making a retro-casserole called Mamaw’s chicken and rice. It couldn’t have been easier, and I wanted something simple and a lot so I could take most of it to an ailing neighbor. I used organic chicken but everything else was standard cuisine, including instant rice and three cans of Campbell’s cream of soups. So simple, pretty darn good. And I felt good about making and sharing it. More and more as these years grind forward we’ll be needing to take good care of one another in every way we can.

And my final culinary endeavor to wrap up a thoughtful Saturday is a lemon chess pie. I’m still not happy with the laminated pie crust I’ve been practicing with, and think next pie I’ll revert to my regular old short crust pastry. But the lemon custard inside? So simple, sooooo delicious!

Milestones

Nov13
My mother Ali, second from left, and her mother, with her sister’s daughter on the right and me on the left. We two were bridesmaids at the wedding of our other girl cousin. The remaining six of us nine cousins were boys, two of whom have now also died. This is by far not my favorite picture of my mother, but it was recently shared with me and she is laughing, as she is in two of my three favorite photos of her.

Today marks twenty years since my mother died, by courageously stopping eating and drinking after years of decline from PSP. That’s one milestone. I’m grateful for a lot of milestones today. I still miss my mother. I can’t imagine how furious she’d be about this election outcome. She’d be apoplectic! (one of her favorite words)

Not a milestone, just another loaf of perfect bread and some triple cream Brie. Simple pleasures…

This morning I clipped my own toenails! It had become increasingly painful and difficult to reach my left foot before the new hip, and I’ve just now got enough mobility to reach my feet again. Without pain! That’s another milestone. I read recently that the ability to tend one’s own toenails is an indicator of health and longevity in seniors.

I drove twenty miles beyond my own driveway for the first time since before surgery, another milestone, to drop my car off at the salvage yard. Not to be junked, though it is rapidly becoming what some might call a heap, but to have its fender repaired. Deb picked up me and Wren and with her little dog we went to the Paonia River Park, a project of the Western Slope Conservation Center, to walk the trail. Another milestone! I didn’t make it very far, but I did get as far as the citizen science station to take a photograph of the river. There’s a post with a bracket where you place your phone, snap a shot of the river, and upload it to chronolog, “a platform that allows organizations and individuals to create and explore time lapse photos of natural environments.” Check out the River Park’s time lapse at the link.

Another light snow overnight settled like fairy dust on everything.
I roasted an organic chicken last week and got four meals out of one quarter of it, including a couple of delicious sandwiches.

Finishing three Liberty puzzles before the Season officially starts might count as a milestone. Ocean Life is a treasure of gorgeous sea creatures. It provided melancholy solace through this discouraging last week as the Great Unraveling accelerates. Another milestone is the resolve I feel to not let this development destroy my equilibrium. I feel brittle and fragile, but also confidently aware of a deep resilience that is new in me, a direct result of mindfulness practice.

Standing Together

Nov6

Yesterday was a rough day. It was the third anniversary of the death of the Best Boy Ever, my precious Stellar Stardog. Oh, and also, America somehow elected a lying, traitorous, convicted felon as its next president. So things will get a lot harder next year for a lot of Americans, for people all over the planet, for all beings on Earth, and for the planet itself.

And for the oceans, too, of course. I started ‘Ocean Life’ the other day.

I was staggered to learn that 33% of eligible voters didn’t vote in this crucial election. And a third voted for the Loser, and a third voted for the woman of color. As Robert Hubbell succinctly clarifies, this was quite simply because of “racism, misogyny, and white nationalism… it’s not more complicated than that.” In a livestream this evening, he made the compassionate point that millions are unable to vote for many reasons including various iterations of simply struggling to survive. And the comforting point that many more people actually support the Democratic vision of America than the angry, divisive paradigm now rising to power. If you do not subscribe to his newsletter I cannot recommend it highly enough, especially as we step courageously into the brave new world, arms linked, standing together. He’s not quitting, and neither should we.

One delightful surprise that came my way last weekend was this epiphytic bromeliad, arriving unexpectedly from Florida. “It should enjoy life in a well lit window with occasional misting,” my friend wrote. “It comes to you from the Hurricane Helene debris in my yard, having previously lived in the large live oak hanging over the house. It is doubtless misshapen from its time in the plastic bag, but it should recover its proper shape anon. When I saw it lying in the yard, I immediately saw your name on it.” No gift could have meant more to me. The green epiphyte clings staunchly to a fragment of mossy live oak twig. I gave it a good rinse and wrapped it with a string of peppers and beads, then hung it in the west window.

Today, I’ve felt courageous and resilient. I’m not quitting either. After I led a somewhat somber, somewhat relaxing, somewhat supportive meditation in telesangha this morning, I opened a message from a friend with this quote from Rebecca Solnit:

“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who’s upset and check your equipment for going onward. A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones. People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it’s sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.” Rebecca Solnit

Notice the cute seahorse whimsy piece on the left edge, making part of the seahorse image? This is about where I got to by Monday night, when I stopped puzzling to savor the sunset and then eat a decent meal.
Tuesday morning, to keep calm and grounded, I took the advice of Bill McKibben, and spent time outside savoring Nature, loving life and wild things, while I still can.

Then I puzzled some more and listened to a dharma talk, keeping calm, and after lunch I spent time in the garden, where the little blueberry bush surprised me with its beautiful red foliage. I hope it grew good strong roots this summer, and will grow big and strong next year.

As I added to this section, I realized I’d had it sideways. As so often happens, fresh perspective allowed me to build more effectively.

One of the nicer surprises to wake up to this morning was a six-inch snowfall, bringing much-needed moisture to the dry ground. A local covid case led the Bibliofillies to hold our monthly meeting via zoom this afternoon, and we were all grateful, I think, to not drive out in the snow. I was certainly grateful for this somewhat grieving, somewhat cheery gathering of fellow fillies, first to confirm our solidarity and intentions going forward, and second to engage in joyfully civil discourse between two equal factions with diametrically opposing opinions of the book, The Bear. This link to an overview on the National Endowment for the Arts website reminds me that if Project 2025 gets its way, we’ll have no more government support for any kind of arts. Oh well. It’s what America thinks it wants. Or more likely, most of those people who voted for the Biggest Loser really had no idea what he really intends to do.

We’ll know more later. Meanwhile, I’m going to continue to celebrate the arts in all the ways I love doing, and to savor, celebrate, and honor Nature; to practice right livelihood by teaching and facilitating meditation and mindfulness; and to stand together with people of compassion, kindness, integrity, and wisdom, come what may.

The Last Week

Oct30
I’m grateful that in the last week I’ve been able to walk out into the woods with the animals, to savor the beauty of this rapidly passing autumn.

The mushroom puzzle continued apace over the last week, providing an intricate challenge. Each puzzle reveals its unique strategy as it develops, and tactics shift as fewer pieces remain to be placed. This is what makes Liberty puzzles so much fun, and so good for your brain, too!

I’ve made a point to step outside multiple times each day and walk at least down to the pond, if not up the driveway or east toward the canyon a little way. In addition to PT exercises and normal activities around the house, these short walks are beneficial for my new hip and also for my spirit, nourishing heart and mind. I’m still using the cane, limping a little, experiencing various aches and pains, and all of it is fine.

In this last week before the election, many people are stressed and anxious; I’m optimistic but no one can be certain. I’m protecting my spirit by radically limiting exposure to headlines from the failed major news outlets, who have insisted on covering this landmark election as though it were any other horse race, and not a choice between preserving the democratic republic we’ve lived with for 250 years or allowing a fascist dictator to move into the People’s House. So turning to nature often during the day, pausing to breathe, meditate, attend to the beauty of our precious earth, and practice gratitude for all that is good in each day keeps me grounded in what truly matters in this short life.

I’m grateful that I finally found my transitions glasses! In the early days of my recovery while I was still on painkillers, I wore them out one day, and put them somewhere ‘temporary’ when I came inside; somewhere I made a mental note to remember because it wasn’t their usual location. And then I forgot. I looked for them for weeks, Pamela and Kathy looked for them, over the course of the next month we looked everywhere. Last week I looked at the walker and thought, ‘I’m gonna have to give this back soon, I’d better just check that pouch to make sure I haven’t left anything in it.’ It’s not as though I hadn’t looked there for my glasses before, several times; but this time, I dug deep into the pouch, reaching beyond the fold where it hangs over a crossbar. And as my fingers touched them, I laughed. It’s amazing they didn’t smash or crack under all the other things I’d put in that pouch over the weeks.

Closing in on the puzzle, refining tactics once again…
Peace in the morning
In addition to the diabolically creative cut patterns, the beauty of the artwork delights as each cluster of mushrooms comes together, showing the substrate and the life stages of each organism.
The week goes on: mild temperatures give way to stiff winds and increasingly colder nights…
The last piece of the puzzle finds its way in…
I’ve left the puzzle up for a couple of days to savor the feeling of satisfaction in the accomplishment, to pore over the beauty, and to enjoy some time with the key identifying these jewels. What a marvelous world we live in.

This morning, our first snow on the ground at this elevation, just a dusting, after a good soaking rain yesterday. Dawn drove me to my six-week post-op appointment, where I got a gold star and got cleared to bend low enough to start a fire in the woodstove. And just in the nick of time! It was 27℉ last night, and forecast to drop to almost 20 tonight.

Wren is asking where her customary rug is? So I put down a small one that I can’t trip over just after taking this picture. We are grateful to all be tucked in for the night, grateful for our cozy home, grateful for access to wonderful healthcare from kind and competent practitioners, grateful for the adventures, the learning, the love, and the beauty we’ve experienced over the last week.

Mushrooms

Oct28

That last eye-candy puzzle was child’s play compared to the one I’m working on now. Last season Philip wanted to get the hardest puzzle Liberty offered, and I think he succeeded. I finally pulled it off the shelf just over a week ago, and it’s been challenging me ever since. This gorgeous image was done by Adolphe Millot, a 19th Century entomologist and painter who was the senior illustrator at the French National Museum of Natural History.

Each of the 141 mushrooms is numbered and there’s a key on the Liberty website. I sorted the 743 pieces into mushrooms, other whimsies, numbers, and everything else, before starting to find order within the chaos. It got easier once I looked at the boxtop closely enough to see that there are actually two pages of mushrooms joined in the middle, with numbers 1-69 on the left page, and numbers going from right to left on each page but not exactly in order.

Oh wait, those aren’t in the puzzle, they’re in the kitchen!

I was heartened this morning as I puzzled away to listen to an hour-long discussion between Robert Hubbell and Jay Kuo about the illusion of polls, major media’s integrity failure, billionaire manipulation of misinformation, the fundamental goodness of the American people, and other rational election analysis. If you’re worried about a possible fascist victory, and/or violence around the election, I recommend listening to this conversation for a healthy and reassuring perspective.

But then I was shaken to my core when I dared to venture a question at Cousins’ Zoom this afternoon. “I know we don’t discuss politics, but I’m curious if the Hitler comments have changed anyone’s opinion about Trump,” I said politely. One cousin pounced and vehemently proclaimed that he now supports Trump even more because those were despicable lies. Another said mildly, “Yeah, let’s don’t talk politics,” and I immediately tried to shut that can of worms or Pandora’s box or whatever I had opened, but it was too late, almost everyone had to throw in their two cents. One cousin said, “Three hundred and thirty million Americans, and we have to choose between these two clowns?”

I thought, If I can’t even talk about this with family, how did I ever think I could talk with strangers? So I pushed out of my comfort zone awhile later and called another one of the cousins, curious about her comment on the zoom. We had a civilized and affectionate conversation, in which she framed the choice as “the lesser of two evils,” asked me if I’m sure Kamala isn’t a Communist, and acknowledged that she hasn’t been paying attention. I reminded her about January 6 and the facts revealed during the subsequent Congressional hearings, the implications of the Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling, and spoke about the dire collapse of women’s healthcare. What if her granddaughter gets pregnant from rape, or needs a medical abortion as a couple of my young friends have when their embryos were catastrophically malformed? Women are dying every day because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Maybe I gave her enough information to persuade her to vote for Kamala, the only candidate defending basic rights for all Americans, and the only candidate who isn’t a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, and adjudicated a sexual predator. I’m committed to doing at least one thing every day to contribute to saving the American democracy that five generations of my ancestors have fought to preserve.

Where’s Wren?

Voting

Oct27

As I continue to recover well from surgery, gaining mobility and strength daily (with occasional half-steps backward) I’ve relied on Liberty puzzles for several hours a day to keep my spirits up. My new puzzle for the season is “Summer Swans,” a platter of vibrant eye candy whose whimsy soothed my soul for a few days when I could do little else. While I’m puzzling, I listen to dharma talks like the marvelous selection from Upaya Zen Center, and various other sources including Tricycle and Lion’s Roar. Thus exercising my brain with the puzzle and my practice as I listen, and getting up frequently to exercise my new hip. Many of the Upaya talks revolve around engaging with the world to improve conditions for all beings; starting, of course, with bringing the best of ourselves into each day through practicing things like generosity, ethics, patience, wisdom, compassion, and kindness.

Spending hours each day in contemplation and practice of these many facets of living mindfully, I can forget for minutes at a time that there are people in this country who see the world through completely different lenses. The three poisons of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion are surging through the veins and arteries of the American people these days like never before, under the insidious influence of a madman. What has happened to the Republican Party of my parents, my grandparents, Abraham Lincoln, hell even Ronald Reagan? What has happened to the ideal of “Duty, Honor, Country” that motivated my father and great-grandfather as graduates of West Point and career Army officers?

An old friend asked me tonight how she could talk compassionately with her sister about voting. Like an unfathomable number of women, the sister plans to vote how her husband tells her to, which in this case is most definitely not in her own interest as a woman, nor in the interest of her daughter of reproductive age. It was good timing to make me to share a couple of links that another friend sent the other day, after telling me of her stealth sticky-note plan for her road trip this weekend. She’ll be sticking post-its on women’s restroom mirrors and stall doors all the way from northern Virginia to southern Tennessee, on which she wrote short messages like, “We didn’t get the right to vote, we fought for it. Fight now!” and “Your vote is secret – he’ll never know – vote for your rights!” and simply, “Vote for your daughters – vote for Harris/Walz.”

One could add to those notes, “Vote for Nature – vote Democrat down the ballot!”

I hadn’t heard of this grassroots effort that some woman, somewhere, started a couple of months ago and many other women quickly got on board. My friend sent an article in Ms. Magazine and another on NBC describing this women-to-women movement that reminds women they can vote “freely and privately regardless of the political beliefs of their spouse or partner.” In addition to restrooms, women are putting the notes discretely on shelf items like tampon boxes. An 81-year-old woman interviewed said she is posting them everywhere “to atone for the fact that I voted for Trump in 2016.” This is just one of many grassroots people-to-people efforts that give me hope that our democracy will not fall to the fascist regime promised by the violent insurrectionist former president, and outlined in Project 2025. Read more about this proposed decimation of our rights here.

I need to confess a personal failure. I was inspired by our local Indivisible chapter zoom to take a one-hour phone bank training to get out the vote for the Democrats. I was impressed with the training, and girded my loins to do the 15-minute call session included in it. But I have been unable to rise to the moment and connect into the Anytime call center again. Each day I intend to buck up and do it, and each day comes to an end without my having done it. In a past life I sold underwriting for public radio, a cause I still deeply believe in, and if I got one harsh no, I drove home and curled up in bed for the rest of the day. I’m afraid I’m constitutionally unfit to make cold calls to engage reluctant or even hostile people in conversation even about the urgency of keeping a dangerous criminal out of the White House, despite some remarkable inspiration to do so.

But I am able to have mindful conversations with friends about ways to keep calm, stay strong, get engaged, participate in being good stewards of this fragile spinning globe we get to live on for a short time; I’m able to offer guidance to those who ask even as I continually learn how to navigate this increasingly challenging world we are passing through. There’s not much we can control. But we can control where we place our attention, how we bring our values into our thoughts, speech, and actions, and how clearly we are willing to see reality. And we can choose to practice gratitude, meet suffering with compassion wherever we encounter it, and engage in life with an open heart. Even when it’s hard, even when we can do nothing else. And we can vote for people who truly reflect the universal spiritual values taught by Jesus, Buddha, and many others; not for people who twist and distort for personal power.

I’m grateful that women and their supporters fought for the right to vote and won it barely a hundred years ago; and grateful that I got to vote this week in support of basic human rights for all Americans. I hope that you also will vote for the decent candidate for President, Kamala Harris, and not for the candidate who is the first president in US history to refuse the peaceful transfer of power, who is a convicted felon and sexual predator, and the only presidential candidate ever to openly admire Hitler. Remember, your vote is confidential and anonymous.

Tea Towels

Jan31

As part of the decontamination project, I got the opportunity to wash all my clean tea towels and dish cloths. Wren helped me hang them out on the marvelous Breezecatcher line back by the compost. Tea towel culture is a relatively new thing for me, but I’m grateful that I finally get it.

The first tea towel I remember being given was this linen Y2K tea towel, and I thought of it more as a joke than anything else. But look, it’s 24 years old and as sturdy and useful as it ever was. The next time someone gave me a tea towel, I was disappointed: I had expected something more special, more personal, perhaps even more expensive. I was insufficiently grateful for both those tea towels, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t really know how to incorporate tea towels into my daily kitchen routine. Only after I saw a stack of tea towels on Amy’s kitchen counter, and watched her reach for one to clean up a spill on the floor, another to dry a pan, another for something else, all in one evening, and then throw them in the wash that same night, did I begin to see the value in having a lot of tea towels.

Long before that, I had bought a set of embroidered days-of-the-week towels at a local antique shop. They were cute and inexpensive, but I was afraid to use them hard because — because I don’t know, I still didn’t get it: use them for everything, wash them, use them again and again until they graduate to being rags, and the more you use tea towels the more tea towels will come to you. Or something. Saturday and Tuesday are the last of these towels remaining in the kitchen, and Tuesday is so tattered it’s about to graduate.

Another towel that’s just beginning to fray is this gift embroidered by a friend no longer living. It will be hard to relegate, I mean graduate, this one to the rag bin. It gets light use these days, in baking rotation, covering bread or rolls as they rise.

This is the latest tea towel to join my collection, one of three tea towel gifts I received this holiday season. Where once I may have looked askance at a tea towel, I now appreciate the thoughtfulness and fun in these gifts from friends. They show that these friends know what I like, what’s meaningful to me; they remind me that I am seen and known. And I’ve learned to give a nice tea towel, too, from time to time.

There’s no need or time to share photos of all the tea towels in my kitchen, but here are a few more of my favorites. I’m grateful for tea towels, for their utility and their beauty, for the connections and memories they represent, and for the sense of belonging in a culture of wise women who love being in their kitchens, cooking and caring.

And in the kitchen last night, among the clutter of the half-cleaned, I made farfalle Alfredo, having no fettuccine but instead this wonderful pasta from Italy. I used mushrooms instead of chicken, and ate two-thirds of it last night because I couldn’t stop. So simple, so delicious!

Meanwhile, the Alluring Fox puzzle continued to delight, and offered up a final sweet surprise as I placed the last piece. As Liberty has an eagle mascot, the Unidragon emblem is a curled baby dragon that I saved til the end, and found that not only did it fit right in the center, the heart of the puzzle; it also completed a perfect miniature of the fox design. Noticing gave me a little jolt of joy. I’m grateful for other people’s clever creativity.

Mindfulness Skills

Jan28
I’m grateful for waking up again this morning. You never know…

When I first started this blog in 2013, it felt inconceivable that I would ever post every day. I’d been inspired by a friend who committed to posting daily in 2012, but inspired only to start a blog, not to post daily. In order to free myself to even do it, I told myself that I’d pay no attention to comments, not read them and not interact with them. And that was my approach for many years. I was writing and posting only for myself, to loosen my creativity and express my thoughts. I didn’t care who, if anyone, read it. But at some point I began to read comments, and later to respond with a simple thank you. They were all nice, for so long. And then even later, as a few more people commented, I began to engage more, even making friends with one or two heretofore strangers.

I was reminded yesterday of why I set up the ‘ignore comments’ rule. I’ve been processing an old friend’s comment for too long already, but haven’t yet worked out all the ways it and our subsequent exchange distressed me. I’m pulling out all my mindfulness skills from the toolbox, including allowing, and letting go, and compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, equanimity, and trying out each one on the mixed feelings this situation brought up in me.

I’m tempted to stop posting for awhile, or stop reading or maybe allowing comments. This is my safe space, and I want it to be a safe space for readers, also. But I don’t want to censor my thoughts or creativity, or other people’s whom I find meaningful enough to share, based on reader responses. And I don’t want to censor reader responses, either. So I’m in a bit of a pickle. I feel icky about what he wrote, icky about my responses, and icky about doubting the value of Morning Rounds. But I’m grateful that I also got some unsolicited enthusiastic positive feedback about the same post.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a lot else to be grateful for. I’m grateful for the people in my life who make me feel less alone. I’m grateful for the thoughtful friend who gave me this beautiful puzzle, and for having time today to begin piecing it together, as I listened to numerous webinars (most of them reminding me, among other things, that I can’t change the world but I can change myself, and thereby influence the world on a more positive trajectory).

I’m grateful for help from kind people, including Good Tim who brought the week’s firewood down to the house, and then knocked down and collected almost all the wasp nests from the eaves. I’d been meaning to do it, but he spotted a wasp flying into the front porch light fixture while he was stacking wood, and he had the time, strength, and balance to take care of it. I’ve given the wasps every possible chance all these years, but last summer they snapped my endurance. So into the compost go the nests and all the wasp eggs before they start hatching.

Topaz checks out the mug drawer before I can get it emptied, while the flatware drawer is outside awaiting disinfection.

I’m grateful for my neighbor who kindly agreed to run a couple of drawers full of flatware and mugs through her dishwasher, on the antibacterial setting. It’s been many years since this house has had a mouse problem, but I noticed a couple of mouse turds in various places in the kitchen over the past few days, and was keeping an eye on Topaz and Wren, hoping one or the other would catch it. Worthless animals! But I’m grateful that Wren last night finally located the mouse: She sat in the pantry staring at the cookbook shelf, and when I listened I could hear little rustlings behind the books. Knowing where to place the trap, I set it and went up to bed. Before I reached the top step I heard it snap. I felt bad about killing her, but I’ve got even less tolerance for mice in the house than for wasps outside. And there’s a long story of patience practice behind this intense aversion, but that’s for another time.

Letting Go

Jan8
A wall hanging in the massage room at Wellspring.

I’m grateful for equanimity, letting go, going with the flow, and a pleasant surprise today. I’ve been hampered with a minor back injury for the past week, and tried to reach a handful of bodyworkers seeking some relief. Over the weekend I recalled one in Hotchkiss that I’ve never been to, and called there this morning. It was my lucky day: she had a cancellation and got me in this afternoon. I was expecting a regular massage. Instead I received a Core Alignment Therapy session first, and then a massage. The combination was more than I expected, a pleasant surprise. There was certainly some letting go to be done, both physically and mentally, as I surrendered to a new and different experience. At times it felt I was in the caring arms of an octopus, as though Liz had more hands than most people. The pain was diminished considerably. Wellspring Vitality offers several hands-on therapies as well as numerous other healing and fitness options.

I was grateful to feel so relaxed when I got home safely. As I turned onto the highway in town I heard a loud clunk, but ignored it, thinking snow, ice, gravel… Only when I turned off the engine in my driveway did I realize what had actually happened. I don’t drive often and always park in the same spot, so I hadn’t noticed a few little oil spots where I park until the other day. I made a mental note to call the shop that changed the oil last month, but only a mental note… and I dashed out today focused on clearing the snow off and getting to the massage, so I forgot all about the oil drips. When I got out of the car at home the air reeked of burning oil so I popped the hood. I could hear and see the last of the engine oil streaming onto the gravel. The loose oil plug had fallen out in town and I’d spilled oil all the way home. Phil’s Towing came again and loaded up the little Honda, and took her back to town. A little more mindfulness on my part would have been helpful in precluding this situation, but equanimity came to the rescue. Also, letting go.

I’m grateful for the little bit of snow we got yesterday, and for living inside the kaleidoscope, and for a new spectacular puzzle in the club collection. More on that next time. I’m grateful the unexpected therapy today allowed me to enjoy puzzling again.

The Milkmaid

Jan7

The second ancestral puzzle was The Milkmaid, with about 250 pieces, and again no image to guide assembly, just intuition. The most obvious pieces to assemble among the three other main colors were this portion of a cow, and then some smaller cows in a field.

There were three main colors: grey-tan, greens, and reds, plus the milkmaid’s face. Her red skirts were the next easiest, while the faded tones of the sky and field were more challenging.

As I got further along in the puzzle, I could not find the milkmaid’s bodice, and I began to feel confused about how the large cow would fit into the perspective that was emerging. As with the previous Pastime puzzle, the cuts around figures and shapes, like the cows, the wooden buckets, clothing, and the rooster, made fitting the background pieces … puzzling. Especially since the thin film of color on a number of pieces was chipping away even as I gently handled them.

There was a quietly mesmerizing quality to this puzzle. These old wooden pieces have been softened with age and use and have an almost velvety texture. I’ve optimized the images to make the colors a little brighter, just for ease and interest of viewing.

Only once I got the shed put together (and there was no hint until it was together that it would be a shed) did I realize there was no way what I had thought was a cow was a cow… and suddenly realized it was the missing bodice of the milkmaid. It was a great example of how a preconceived notion can determine one’s reality: I simply could not see that it was the shoulder of the milkmaid once I had decided it was the back end of a cow. (But if it was, where was the tail? I didn’t let that detail deter me.)

Once that epiphany hit, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized it sooner. It was almost exactly the same shoulder and bodice that was hanging on the blue wall in my mother’s portrait of Aunt Gretchen, from a photograph of her made in the same era as the puzzle. Assembling a puzzle with no image affords a series of one delightful surprise after another. I’m grateful for The Milkmaid.