My generous cousin sent me a couple of ancestral jigsaw puzzles for my birthday. I love these puzzles for several reasons. This is the fourth I’ve gotten to do: The Market Square. I love the evocation of simpler times, the craft of being cut with an actual jigsaw by an individual, the way they don’t completely lock together like modern puzzles but segments slide apart at the slightest touch. They require a most delicate approach. I love that there’s no picture, just the title, so the image grows from mystery to completion. I love my great grandmother’s handwriting on the lid, and the note that one piece is missing. I love that at nearly 100 years old the pieces remain mostly in great shape.
I love that they’re small enough to do on just part of my desk so I can do a few pieces at a time on a short work break without rearranging my workspace for days at a time. I love the muted colors, the cuts that delineate color blocks adding difficulty, the illusion of bringing order to my mind as I fit the pieces. I love giving myself this little gift a few times a day as a way of surrendering to who I am: imperfect, aspiring, basically a good person despite the habitual afflictive thoughts and emotions that arise continually, despite the practice.
This is the second puzzle I’ve done this season knowing a piece is missing and not knowing which piece. It requires a looser approach and more comfort with uncertainty. It’s a good analogy for my own growth. Something’s missing, I don’t quite know what, I just trust the process and keep putting pieces together to eventually get a pretty complete picture.
I’m grateful today for the kindness of two people in this little community, one who helped soothe my struggling body and one who helped comfort my challenged mind; both provided the spaciousness to let go of a little suffering. May we all do the same for one another.
Little Bambino drinking from the bird bath BLT under construction, with added basilUsingmore gifted basil with leftover squash in a layered pickled salad with garden red onion and Prosecco vinegar Rain-drenched moss glowing underjuniper on evening walk Quick pasta dinner with leftover gnocchi dough and tomatoes leftover from the BLT reduced in sage butter with a dollop of bacon fat This morning’s joy while filling the small-bird feederMidafternoon walk to the sunlit canyon, playing with Hipstamatic appA tote bag full of geraniums broken up and potted to give away at No Kings Day rally on Saturday. I’ll be keeping just one, of course
Today I’m grateful for grassroots resistance, for solidarity and community in opposition to the current regime. I’m grateful for Indivisible, for our local chapter, for our founding mother Ellie, for everyone who helped put on a great event at the best town park in the county; for the volunteers and musicians, and the citizens who spoke, and for the roughly 450 concerned people who showed up in peaceful protest.
I was asked to speak as the co-founder of our Indivisible chapter, and after I was introduced by the Statue of Liberty, I kicked off the program. The video file of my speech, which I promised Gina I would share here, is just too big, so instead I’m posting the audio file, above. It’s just over seven minutes, including a moment of silence to honor with broken hearts the Minnesota public servants whose lives were stolen and shattered last night in an act of domestic terrorism. Apologies for getting Ms Hortman’s name wrong; let us not forget these victims as this fight escalates.
Despite the undercurrent of grief and existential angst that any open-hearted American is suffering these days, we had a wonderful time. Having fun, being joyful, feeling happy, each of these is “a revolutionary act in the face of despair.”
The first hour, people mingled, and visited the flag-making table, the sign-making table, the information tables for various organizations, and the postcard table. I saw a post on Instagram a month ago that tickled my fancy: A woman cutting trash cardboard to postcard size, to send to congressional reps: “Trash for the trash,” she said. So I brought my paper cutter, some pens, and some talking points.
An old friend sat down beside me and I put him to work drawing lines and stamping the blank cards while I kept cutting donated cardboard and roping people in to write to our CO District 3 congressman, Jeff Hurd. He said he wouldn’t vote to cut Medicaid and then he did. He campaigned as a moderate and he’s caved.
Many demurred, saying “I email him every week,” or “I just called him the other day,” or “It won’t make a difference anyway.” Then I dropped the “trash for the trash” line, and their eyes widened, their lips ticked up, and they picked up a pen. Messages ranged from angry to disappointed to almost kind, about the Big Bad Bill threatening Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, and food security, selling off public lands, selling out education, and more; several called out his consistent failure to show up for his constituents in many ways. It did my heart good to see so much engagement. Some people may have never written a postcard or called a representative, but now they feel empowered to do so. I’ll mail them all on Monday.
There were a lot of great signs brought from home and made at the park but from my vantage point I mostly saw great shirts!
It was a big day for me. I haven’t been to a gathering like that in years. I saw a lot of long-ago friends and acquaintances with whom I’d long ago lost touch, and was grateful that I’d only forgotten a couple of their names, both of which came to me before I needed them. A couple of people didn’t recognize me and I happily reminded them; and then there were a few whom I reminded of my name because they looked confused, then they quickly assured me they recognized me. There were many hugs and a couple of kisses and lots of talking in close quarters. If I get sick this week I’ll know why, but it would almost have been worth it.
I think my favorite sign was one Garden Buddy texted me this morning before I left home, just in the nick of time for me to print it. It lay on the postcard table, and one man considered it for a moment, read it aloud, and said, “Well no queens either.” I said gently, wondering how he’d respond, “It means drag queens.” A small slow smile brightened his face and he walked away chuckling.
I spent a lot of time in the garden today, spraying vinegar on the ground to kill grass and weeds popping up through the chips we put down to mitigate grasshoppers; pulling weeds, spraying a neem/soap mix on the cabbages, onions, potatoes, carrots and more to drive grasshoppers away; and burning some scrap wood since it was finally calm enough and damp enough to not pose a wildfire risk. And I also found time to take Husband Camera for a few strolls around the yarden to capture the love between flowers and their pollinators.
The little orchard bee first caught my eye in the top picture, and as she moved down the Gaillardia blossom I saw the spider. But she did not.
I serendipitously caught the moment when the two insects communicated: as though the spider said “I am here” by gently reaching a leg toward the bee’s antenna.
Then the bee courteously said “Pardon me!” and flew back to the top of the flower. And the spider smiled her thanks with her eyes.
I’m grateful for this gorgeous day, for the communication I witnessed among many beings, for communication with several friends, for the health, energy, and stamina to spend the day working and playing in the yarden.
Sometimes a cheese sandwich is just a cheese sandwich.
Even though it’s no more ‘my’ town than this ‘identity’ I refer to as ‘I,’ I think of it as my little town. It’s the closest to me, just a few miles away, and has almost anything anyone could need in a town: a couple of restaurants, a post office, and a general store, among other amenities. And just a few miles beyond, the last gas for 80 miles south.
I needed to vacuum the residue of another pack rat nest out of the air duct system hidden beyond the glove box. I’m grateful I learned how to replace the cabin air filter years ago, so I can change it whenever mice nest in the hollows or in this case a pack rat fills the duct with leaves and twigs. I’d already pulled most of them out by hand, so I drove up to town this morning to use the car wash vacuum, still only a dollar in quarters thirty years on from the first time I used it.
It was a morning filled with brief and cheerful interactions, once I survived the pickup with trailer speeding down the middle of the narrow winding road out of the canyon. Other drivers, and there were a surprising number of them, smiled and waved as we passed each other.
A woman pulled up at the other vacuum right after me, with a Wren-sized longhaired dog between the front seats. I’d left Wren at home because of how she responds to the house vacuum. I was amazed at the calm of this dog as her person reached in with the noisy hose, and after we were both finished I said I was impressed. We chatted a minute with smiles and she said “glad to meet another dog lover!” A man in the wash bay smiled and asked, “Did you git ‘er done?”
At the post office, Patrice was more helpful than she needed to be, and at the general store a nice young lady led me to mouse traps and read the fine print for me on a balsam fir mouse repellent. It only occurred to me as I was driving home that maybe these people were extra nice because I was using a cane. Or maybe it was simply because I was pleasant and smiling at them, too.
View from the post office of the long trek to the general store…
I was especially grateful for the choice I made to walk from the PO to the store —a whopping fifty yards— a distance I have driven for many years simply to minimize steps because walking hurt so much; and it was on the way home. I looked from the PO uphill to the store and thought, hey, I can walk that now! What a simple joy it was to stroll that short distance on smooth pavement, and carry my small purchases back down the hill to the car, on a sunny, mild day in my bustling little town.
…and the view back down the hill to my little blue car.
Two nights ago I played with some more night shots, and this was the best of the new moon with Venus over the trees. Nothing to write home about. But fun to try to capture! I was inspired to try by Robert Hubbell’s daily dose of perspective that morning, of the moon the night before (below): Knowing I could not come remotely close. I am sure grateful for living with dark sky.
Just for fun, since WordPress gives the option when you add a photo, I chose the option to let AI generate an image. I specified “new moon with Venus over tree.” AI at least did not do as well as I did! It’s second attempt with the same instruction was a glorious full moon. Give me iPhone or Hubbell any night.
Sunrise at home, from the rented hospital bed. Grateful.
I am two and a half weeks out of surgery. The new hip is settling in nicely, and I marvel daily at the total and astonishing absence of the arthritis pain that plagued me for so many years. I have been ‘pain-different’ since I left the hospital, with a continually diminishing pain that has been much easier to bear than the chronic, debilitating variety of aches, stabs, and sears I tolerated for so long. Each day there is a little less pain and a little more strength and mobility. I am strictly constrained in the ways that I can move the left leg until a total of six weeks have passed, after which I should be able to move in any way I want. Meanwhile, I take baby steps, first only with a walker, and this week using a cane more and more. Yesterday I walked all the way to the back gate for the first time. It’s a miracle.
Cousin Mel recovered from covid for one day before suffering a rebound, and remained consigned to the outdoors when she felt up to visiting us and helping without outside chores including garden watering and Wren-walking. We were profoundly grateful for the generosity of one friend in offering her empty home where Mel could isolate and recuperate.
Wren loved all the aunties coming and going, and Topaz did not. I’m especially grateful to Pamela, who offered to come stay over the first six nights, and much of the first few days, and with her competence and compassion kept my recovery on track. Other friends came for a few hours at a time to help with all the daily tasks I could not do, and/or brought food to both me and Mel in our separate dwellings, and yet others drove me to surgery and post-op. All day every day, it seemed, as I lay in bed explaining where things were and what needed to be done, gentle women moved through my house taking care of my life. It was exhausting to watch them filling in for me!
For days I was essentially bedridden, getting up only to totter to the toilet and back to bed with the support of a borrowed walker. After a week I was able to totter outside and sit on the patio for a few minutes, in a chair bulked up with a borrowed cushion. Pieces of many others’ homes are in mine now supporting me. Being the recipient of all the assistance, compassion and loving kindness from my local community and others farther afield brought home to me the truth of Interdependence and Interconnection, of “Interbeing” as Thich Nhat Hahn called it. I’ve felt more deeply connected as the receiver, in the center of all this supportive attention, than I am accustomed to feeling as one of many givers to others in need of support. It’s a wonderful perspective to feel such belonging. I could not have done this alone. I am so grateful for community.
Among the first foods delivered for our dining pleasure were the best deviled eggs from Garden Buddy, and borscht from Deb. More delicious, nutritious meals kept on coming for weeks.
During that first week, Mary came a couple of early mornings and prepared delicious oatmeal with yogurt, maple syrup, and fresh nectarine.
It had been hard to reach my feet for awhile, and a broken toenail was catching on the sheets, so she kindly agreed to trim my nails, and then insisted on filing them too. The left leg at this point is still stained with iodine from the surgical scrub, as I was not able to shower for a full week, until after the first post-op appointment.
I’m grateful for the cards and presents friends and family sent, including the especially thoughtful gift of maple cream ordered from my favorite maple supplier.
Recovering seems to take almost all my energy every day. Gratitude takes the rest. It’s late, and ‘the server’ is refusing to upload more photos. It’s the universe telling me it’s time to go to sleep. I am grateful to be standing on my own two feet again — with a lot of help from my friends.
We buried our dear friend this morning, in a hand-dug grave in a beautiful spot on private land. I’m grateful that green burials are legal (if more complicated than they need to be) in our county. I’m grateful (for so many reasons) that dear friends are choosing them. I’m grateful for capable and compassionate friends to carry them out. I’m grateful I could be of service today.
I’m grateful today for all the support from friends and professionals as I had another basal cell carcinoma removed from my face by Mohs surgery. There were neighbors ready and willing to come check on Wren throughout what was a long day that might have been even longer. There was the friend who offered to chauffeur me and invited Wren to come along with us. There were messages of love and well wishes from friends throughout the day. There were people I could share photos of my Bride of Frankenstein forehead with, but I’ll spare the general public that image. There was Dr. Weber and his assistant Molly at Mountain West Dermatology, who do a superb job with this delicate and precise surgery; and there were the office staff who are always cheerful and friendly with a bonus today that many wore Halloween costumes. And there was my best little dog Wren, who was calm while she waited in the car with Auntie Rosie and excited when I reappeared, and who was up for anything including a stroll down Main Street.
I was so grateful today for Rosie’s cheerful, tender care of me and little Wren. After I was released from surgery, she drove us downtown so I could buy lunch. We were diverted off-course from our walk to the bagel place by this gleaming market-deli across the street, The Hog and The Hen, which predictably offered a lot of pork and chicken sandwich varieties, as well as possibly every kind of candy in the US. We ordered and ate outside in the sun. Grand Junction downtown celebrates sculpture in a way I’ve not seen elsewhere. All along Main Street are whimsical, dramatic, poignant, or beautiful sculptures, and the ambience has only improved since the last time I strolled it years ago. This adorable Pigano in front of the market tempted many passersby to plunk its functional keys. I’m grateful that what could have been a distressing day was as companionable, pleasant, easy, and fun as it could have been.
I’m grateful for finding what I needed to spackle the nail holes in the green wall… I got home from the hardware store with spackle and realized I didn’t have a putty knife. I pondered for a short while, confident that I had something somewhere that would work, and thought of my mother’s box of painting supplies upstairs in the craft-storage room. I was so happy to find her old encaustic knife, which I had a vague memory of having seen there.
I’m grateful today to have finally accomplished a project I started dreaming more than a year ago, after getting ‘wall envy’ from seeing the blue wall in my cousins’ house on family zooms. The tired, quiet green I’ve had on my one painted wall for almost twenty years was ready for a change and so was I. I bought the paint last fall but winter came before I could open it, and then one thing after another… Procrastination is one of my growth edges… This week, after some encouragement from a good friend, and feeling no pain in my shoulders for a month, and a narrow window of ideal weather for it, I took the plunge.
The 48-hour forecast was perfect: highs around 80, lows in the high 40s, and clear skies. I could keep doors and windows open all day and close half of them overnight, to keep fresh air flowing in the whole time. First I cleared off (i.e. boxed to tackle later) the stuff on the desk and dresser that stood next to the wall, and pulled the furniture away.
Then I photographed the artwork so I’d know where to put it back later, and left those nails and hooks in place. I pulled the C-hooks and plugged their holes with long brads, hoping that I could roll over them and then pull them out after the paint dried to replace the hooks. (I pulled a few small nails where there were studs and tried to plug those holes with smaller nails but that didn’t work: the roller pulled them out right away.)
I called the hardware store in our little town to ask if they had a mechanical paint shaker. “Yes,” she said, “but we’ve had to draw the line at shaking other people’s paint. If it’s not completely sealed shut it makes an awful mess.”
“I haven’t even opened this!” I exclaimed with hope, “but I certainly understand if you can’t do it.” She was happy to shake my unopened paint can and would not take compensation. I was grateful for her generosity. I remembered to buy a jar of spackle while I was there, and filled in the empty holes in the wall. Then I taped off the perimeter, thermostat, switch, and outlet.
Commitment! No turning back once I’d cut in the blue paint.
It’s been hard to adjust the photos to reflect accurate colors as the light kept shifting throughout the day. This morning I spread out the alleged ‘heavy-duty’ plastic dropcloth I’d purchased at the same time as the paint, brushes, and roller setup. While everything else was better than I could have hoped, the dropcloth was about as heavy-duty as I am! Amazon will hear about this deception. Then I started rolling on the paint.
After four hours dry-time, I repeated the cutting-in and rolled on the second coat. I could not be happier with the result!
I only let it dry a couple of hours after the second coat before pulling the tape and hanging the first two pieces back on the wall before the light faded. Yes, I missed a spot with the spackle, oh well. And as I watched the paint dry, I realized I wanted to swap out a few art pieces, so I pulled my mother’s pastel portrait of her Aunt Gretchen from the shadows where it has lived for years, and returned it to the same place it held even longer ago, when the green wall first replaced the original peach wall from the housebuilding in 1995. I look forward to playing with the rest of the wall art tomorrow!
Somewhere in there, I also accomplished another masterpiece cheese sandwich, with smoked gouda, shredded romaine, and garden tomato.
Though I knew some basics, including taping off edges and spackling, I was so grateful for the tips on rolling and some other aspects in this wonderful book from the Trans Handy Ma’am. I’m delighted to support her work empowering trans people, and making the world of home repairs more friendly and accessible to introverts like me. Her motto is “You’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill!” Thanks, Trans Handy Ma’am, for helping motivate me toward a real sense of accomplishment.
I’m grateful that my scheme for luring the phoebes to nest here again may have worked. They continue to slowly work on construction and I can see the nest rising on the platform. This is the old nest, which I left fully formed in this bowl at the edge of the patio: in the past week they’ve reduced it to a pile of fluff and pilfered some choice bits for the new nest. The rest will go into the compost once she’s sitting on eggs.
It’s not my town, I don’t own it or even live in it, but it’s the closest town to where I live. At one point in history it was a thriving center for people moving from various points east to colonize these river valleys, and has been settled by immigrants since the late 1800s after booting out the native Ute peoples. I’m sad about the brutal history. And, I can’t take responsibility for it; but I can point out that all the white folks who live here now are descended from immigrants from foreign countries, and I hope that they remember that.
Anyhoo… I moved here thirty years ago from my roots in centuries of Irish-English immigrants back east, and I was seeking the leading edge of peace in some ways just as they may have been. The oppressions I fled were different from theirs, indeed of their making, but perhaps my motivation was similar. I wanted space and freedom, and because this is America I was able to find that. To some extent.
It’s taken a decades long practice of meditation and mindfulness to fully realize how completely the true heart of peace comes from within each of us, not from external circumstances. I’m grateful for recognizing and beginning to live in this truth before I give up the ghost one day. And I’m grateful for my little town that provides almost every amenity I need to enjoy my share of inner and outer peace.
First, there’s community. Like me, most of my ‘clan’ live outside of town, but we all live around its nucleus. There are also gas, essential groceries, a bank, post office, coffee shop, and a rotation of various gift and souvenir shops; and then there’s the Hitching Post. This morning, I had some errands to run, including bank, post office, and buying a high quality soil amendment to beef up the remaining unplanted garden beds.
I thought I was going to have to drive twenty miles to one of the ‘big’ towns that make up our triangle of villages, but stopped in at the little farm store that ever since I’ve lived here always seems to have at least one of whatever I need in a pinch. Sure enough, they carry Ocean Forest organic soil amendment. So I loaded up the trunk with that and some steer manure compost, and gratefully drove the four miles home before the afternoon squall rolled in. I look forward to a productive and peaceful day in the garden tomorrow.
