Tag Archive | patience

It Will Invariably Change

Feb1

After a foot of snow last weekend, the week has been cold and sunny, keeping the ground snow-covered.

Thursday was a good day to bake. I was out of bread, and the sourdough starter was low and feeble. So I followed dear Amy’s lead and baked these one-hour sourdough discard rolls again.

This time I made half a batch, and tucked a little pepperoni and cheese inside. I’d have put a smear of tomato sauce in, too, except there was a little mold on top so that went to the compost. I’m grateful for the process of composting, so that I feel no waste-guilt when I let food go bad: It all goes back to the garden. Still, I try to not waste food.

I love working with dough. I’ve got so much to learn. I was happy with these rolls but will refine them the next time. The way I filled and folded them, all the goodies ended up in the top half but they’re still pretty good.

I brushed the tops with an egg wash and sprinkled them with marigold salt. I enjoyed a couple warm out of the pan the first day, sliced and toasted one the next day with extra cheese on the bottom half, and the third day toasted and buttered one, served it with sweet onion jam and a fried egg.

Today I made a big batch of turkey tetrazzini with the Thanksgiving turkey that keeps on giving—more cheesy goodness. And spent some time tending the sunroom garden. It was restful self-care. I also attended the Upaya Zen Center teaching on courage and resilience, and listened to Francis Weller on caring for our souls in uncertain times. I’m grateful to have access to these supportive resources.

I’m also grateful to be able to offer resources to support others through the mindfulness course coming up on February 20, the Telesangha I lead weekday mornings, and other avenues. I’m grateful for the multiple mindfulness skills I continue to learn and practice daily which help me cultivate courage and resilience during this dark turning. It will invariably change.

I can hardly wait for the red yarn to arrive so I can join knitters around the world in making Melt the ICE hats. Amy bought the pattern from the Minneapolis yarn shop that created it and has raised nearly half a million dollars to support immigrants.

What is this curious little creature I found in the sunroom today? (The one above I mean, not the one below.) It’s doing whatever it’s doing on the trunk of the bonsai honeysuckle. I’ll just wait and see what happens, knowing it will invariably change.

Patience and Compassion

Jul15
Before sunrise the smoke stayed low and south.

“Indeed, I see heartbreak as the most proportional response to the state of the world – to say I love you is to say my heart breaks for you, and this sentiment resonates within all things, bringing a clarity to both the world before us and the world beyond the veil. Sorrow becomes a way of life, part laughter, part tears, with very little space between. It is a way of conducting oneself in the world, of loving it, of worshipping it.”

Nick Cave, Red Hand Files #331

But by the time I wrestled myself out of bed it had begun to disperse northward.

I’m ever more grateful for connecting with Ted Leach, and for his eminently readable daily blog. Today he shared a link to this essay, You Can’t Love Jesus and Hate Immigrants, which sprung the first tears of the day just after noon.

More tears bubbled up reading a story on Daily Good about a woman rescuing cats from flood debris along the Guadalupe River. I chose to spend some work time reading about humans doing wonderful things, and weeping with awe.

A friend texted midafternoon from northwest across the valley to see if I was ok, because from his perspective it looked like Crawford was enveloped in heavy smoke. I drove up to get the mail to get a wider view myself, just to be sure, and sent him a picture looking north toward his mesa. It’s deceptive when you’re inside the smoke cloud looking out. Perspective is everything.

I harvested the last of the Katarina F1 cabbages when I watered this morning. Looking them up online I see that mine are just about perfect: they’re billed as “impeccably uniform, light green, 4 inch globes on compact plants” that mature in 45 days. I’m grateful I’ll know how to grow them next year, and how to thwart the grasshoppers.

Aside from stepping out a couple times to water plants and shake off demon grasshoppers I spent the day inside, still not getting things done. When I went out in the morning I wore a wet mask, and later in the day the oxygen as well. For lunch I enjoyed a sandwich with the last of the chicken half I didn’t freeze, smoked Gouda, Drunken Woman looseleaf lettuce from the garden, and coleslaw from the first of five perfect little cabbages; while reading Dottie, a novel by 2021 Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Zen wisdom: “When you’re eating, know that you’re eating. When you’re reading, know that you are reading. When you’re eating and reading, know that you are eating and reading.”
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” Lao Tzu

Today’s daily guidance from the Mindful Life Community really spoke to me. This smoke roulette could go on all summer. Keeping patience and compassion alive is essential to a healthy perspective. It’s hard enough living with a biblical insect plague and apocalyptic wildfires. It could be so much worse: I could be an immigrant, or a pregnant teen in Texas, or a trans child almost anywhere in the country. May we all grow in compassion for ourselves, for each other, and for our precious planet.

A red ball sun well before sunset.

Patience

Feb5
I’m grateful that Wren has become so well socialized that she makes friends easily with visitors; I’m grateful she feels safe enough at last to seek and accept affection even from strangers, once she understands that we’re ok.

I’m so grateful for my increasing surrender to patience. I guess I have that lightning strike last summer to thank for it. Internet just hasn’t been the same since then; not that it was great before, but it’s been utterly unreliable for the past six months. Last week I was grateful when Mike came by and spent an hour fixing things in and outside, and I had great speed for a few hours. That afternoon, download speed crashed from 34 to 2.3 megabits/second.

So I was back on the phone, and I didn’t even feel any aggravation at all, that’s how gigantic my patience has become. Allowing things to be as they are. Allowing doesn’t mean you like what’s happening, it means that you understand this is how it is right now, and that frees you to move forward and do what’s within your ability to do about it. I simply committed a few months ago to patiently, cheerfully, relentlessly hounding the company, until they started bumping my calls automatically to Advanced Support.

So Mike came back today, with his calm, even good cheer, and replaced the antenna, and also told me that he’d run into the tower guy in town, who had just replaced something on the tower, and they were both confident the combination would solve things once and for all. Well, fingers crossed, but it seems true. Everyone on that tower on this mesa can thank my squeaky wheel for getting that tower thing replaced! I’m grateful for a great connection so I could watch the tender, challenging, ‘Love on the Spectrum’ tonight while FaceTiming with my Kiki of the Northwest.

Patience is serving me so well these days in so many more ways than simply technical troubleshooting. Life is just so much easier now that I’m so patient. My expectations of myself and others have softened to more reasonable levels, I’m a better listener, I rarely ‘should’ on anyone else and no longer castigate myself for missteps. In the unexpectedly long time the repairs took today, work interrupted, I patiently waited twenty minutes to make my sandwich after spontaneously quick-pickling some red onions, romaine, and red pepper. They were quite tart, so I spread a little apricot jam on one side; I’m grateful I learned the trick of putting sweet jam on a savory sandwich from a couple of restaurants recently. I’m grateful for the locally milled Rouge de Bordeaux flour that gave this week’s bread a rustic color and flavor, and for the friends who delivered it. And grateful, as always, for the simple joy of a cheese sandwich.

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.

Patience

Dec23
The best veggie bacon substitute so far: shiitake mushrooms roasted with olive oil and salt until crisp.

Living off the grid rurally we have some trade offs. We get deer and mountain lions, clean air, wide open spaces, and we can garden naked. But resources than many urban or even town dwellers take for granted can be hard to come by, like emergency care for ourselves or our pets, pizza delivery, and reliable internet.

The tower that provides my internet connection was struck by lightning last summer and hasn’t functioned properly since then. This week it’s deteriorated further. I’m grateful for the skill of patience that’s helped me through a series of support calls as techs unraveled the ‘head-scratching mystery’ as one of them called it. Today I finally learned that the signal is disintegrating and someone needs to climb the tower and permits need to be gotten and no one wants to work on this over Christmas weekend.

I don’t blame them. And I can live with random internet for a few more days, with gratitude for so much about the situation. Some links work sometimes. There’s a roof over my head and ample food, and I get electricity from the sun. Friends are sharing baked treats and love and outside it’s the peaceful quiet of deep winter. We’re not getting bombed, and we have fresh water, and currently there’s a sane, competent president in the White House. I’m in bed with a cute dog, and abundant patience.

Local Businesses

Nov22

I bought this recliner almost five years ago, though it seems much longer, from the furniture store in Delta, Lily and Rose. I’m grateful for this family-owned local business that’s given great service to the region for four generations. It was effortless to call up on Monday and say, “I bought a chair there a few years ago, I can’t remember how many, and it needs some help,” and he said, “Okay, no problem.” He said it might be a couple of weeks but they’d get someone out next time they came this way. Cody the driver called the next day and said they were in the area and would come see what they could do. He and Joey came in courteously masked at my request, and cheerfully gave the chair its suspension back and fixed the footrest so it stays up.

This morning I went out about fifteen minutes early to make sure the car would start, because it’s whined a little before turning over the past couple of times I’ve started it, despite the solar-powered trickle charger I have hooked up to the battery. I wanted to make sure I had time to jump it if it wouldn’t start. It didn’t, so I pulled the Mothership around and hooked up the cables. Nothing. For the next half-hour I left the van running and tried a different set of cables, and still nothing. I called the Service Station where I was expected for my hard-won eleven a.m. appointment that I hated to cancel. First he asked me, “What did you leave on?” I had to laugh. “Nothing!” He asked if the lights worked. Yes they did. He said maybe it was the starter, and assured me he didn’t have another oil-change spot available until mid-December. Okay.

Then I made calls to cancel PT, and visiting my friend, and dropping off something for a neighbor. I tried to start the car again, still nothing. So I wrapped up that operation, then called my local State Farm agent Kevin’s office and was grateful to confirm that I have Roadside Assistance. I asked who to call for a tow and she named some local options. Then I called Ray down at Hotchkiss Automotive to see if he could fit my car in after the holiday, and he said sure, have Phil’s tow it in. Then I called Phil and told him I needed a tow to Ray’s, and I have insurance with Kevin, and he said, “Sure, no problem,” and filled out the paperwork. “I live next door to Kevin, you know,” he said. “Oh, yes, of course!” I said, recalling the neighborhood. “I think I can send someone up there this afternoon,” he said.

Young Trae arrived an hour later. Wren was initially skeptical of him as she is of most men, but as soon as he got on the ground in front of her car she dashed right over to help. And then I bid farewell to my little Honda car for the holiday weekend. What could have been another irritating hassle of a day was instead a seamless flow of cheerful support from local businesses, some of whom I’ve had a relationship with for decades. I’m so grateful for the kindness and dependability of all these people; and, I’ve decided that Patience will be my Wednesday practice going forward.

Patience

Nov15

I’m glad I left in plenty of time to drive to PT this morning. I’m grateful that I’ve been cultivating patience for the past thirty years. And I’m really grateful that with mindfulness practice the past few years I have expanded my understanding of and capacity for patience. Patience is an opportunity to inhabit the present moment.

After several startling surprises this morning, I set out for town with an open heart. At the Smith Fork bridge I encountered a bleating blockade. I drove slowly to meet them, and then put the car in park as they flowed around me. I smiled, breathed, let go of my timeline, and enjoyed the inevitable pause of the sheep drive. I’m glad I learned years ago to just sit back and let go: everyone around here excuses tardiness when they hear the words “cattle drive” or “sheep drive.”

I enjoyed watching the Basque shepherd and his dogs move the sheep out of the way so I could creep along, but honestly would have been fine just waiting for them to pass. As I crept a little too close to the guardrail the car scraped lightly against it, and patience allowed me to shrug it off rather than react with irritation: it was my fault not theirs, and no harm done to the car even if it left a new little scratch on the old crackling paint.

There was another delay in town where the aftermath of a fire still blocked the main intersection with first responders, a fire truck, hoses across the highway, and EMS and sheriff’s vehicles forcing a detour through town, but I couldn’t ascertain what had burned. I’d seen a plume of black smoke an hour earlier from the house and could tell the fire was out before I left.

I made good time through the dobies, enjoying the sere landscape and lovely clouds, and then encountered another opportunity for patience as a coal train blocked the road to Paonia for a few minutes. I smiled, slowed down, and enjoyed the view.

After PT, I dropped by a friend’s but she was napping so I was happy to move toward home. I finally girded my loins to stop in at the Service Station to schedule an oil change, and the dear grumpy owner was just as grumpy as ever, ‘hope you’re not in a hurry, I’m booked for three weeks,’ but patience again came to my rescue. I was totally agreeable, and by the time we finished negotiating, he told me to come at eleven next Wednesday and he’d hold the bay open. I smiled sweetly as I thanked him, and I’d almost swear he smiled back with a hint of mischief. At last, I was on my way back home!

I had to laugh as I rounded the corner just as this pulled out in front of me. There was quickly no turning back, with steep banks on either side and another car behind. I took my foot off the gas, embraced my morning companion Patience, and together we slowly followed the wet paint for a mile until we’d gathered a parade behind us and came to the next intersection, where there was a break in the paint just big enough for each of us to cut through and get ahead of the maintenance ensemble. I laughed all the way home. I’m so grateful that patience has taught me to let go of the ‘my needs first’ attitude I used to have and recognize the importance of everyone else’s needs too.

Stork Bite

Oct17
I’m grateful for all the right tools, for the raised beds, snow on the mountains, and the resilient red salvia that keeps on blooming for any stray hummingbirds or other pollinators in need.

When a friend cut my hair the other week, she noticed a ‘birthmark’ on the back of my neck. I couldn’t believe I could have had a birthmark for 64 years and never known about it, but I asked my primary care provider today when I went in for a Medicare intake that was mistakenly scheduled since I have to wait til I’m 65 for that particular appointment. But it was good to see her, to hear that the weird bump on my finger was a benign cyst that is pressing on the nailbed making it grow crooked, but nothing to worry about; and that the strange red splotches underneath my shorn hair are what’s known as a ‘stork bite.’ This extremely common type of birthmark, found on nearly 30% of newborns, apparently remains in around half those people into adulthood. What a relief! With all the skin cancers I’ve dealt with through the years, I’m grateful to have a simple stork bite.

A stork bite, photo from Bing Images

Stork bite! It’s a hilarious phrase and I can’t stop saying it. I’m glad I had something to laugh about, because when I went to the pharmacy after waiting an hour for a clinic appointment I didn’t really need, they once again said that Medicaid didn’t cover the new Covid vaccine. I got impatient with the tech, because after the same person told me the same thing last week I had called around, including my insurance provider, and been told it was covered; I’d called the store manager and she said there was a mistake and to come get it anytime. Well, I put my foot down this time and made them call the number on my card, but as the situation unfolded I felt like an ass for holding up the line behind me and being cranky to the helpless tech. Turns out it’s true, City Market won’t take Medicaid for the Covid shot; the store manager had double-checked flu shot coverage, not Covid.

As I waited, though, instead of fuming and getting more impatient, I called to mind that it wasn’t their fault, they work hard, I didn’t want to make anyone’s day worse, and I gradually surrendered to ‘this is how it is.’ The tech who had taken the brunt of my bad attitude had left the scene while the pharmacist was on the phone trying patiently to learn how they could give me the shot. When I heard her say, “So we need to get pre-authorization?” I called to her “If I can’t get it today I’ll just go to Safeway.” “Are you sure?” she said. “Yeah.” So she hung up and came over to apologize, and I apologized for getting cranky. But as I drove home I thought about the feelings of the other tech, who had taken a break. I put myself in her shoes: I’d have taken a break from me too. I felt awful for bringing discord into her day just because I was annoyed and inconvenienced.

Maybe she was already having a tough day. Maybe my attitude would make the rest of her shift more difficult, or maybe she’d go home and still feel bad about that interaction. The possible ripples and ramifications of my impatience plagued me, and I could really understand the truth of how we create our own suffering when our actions are out of alignment with our values. I value kindness and patience, and I had not been kind nor patient. Granted, I had not spiraled into a tizzy as I might have a few years ago before mindfulness practice, and I wasn’t stewing at her or the situation all the way home. So I’ve improved myself some. But not as much as I’d like to. Once I got home, I called the pharmacy and offered the tech a heartfelt apology, and she was grateful for it. So was I.

Nesting Phoebes

Jun5

I’m so grateful today for the happily nesting phoebes. She’s been sitting for three days. I haven’t wanted to aim the big camera at her because of its noise, and the phone camera won’t capture her in the shadows under the deck. So I sat outside reading for a few hours today to acclimate them to my presence, and every now and then fired off a few shots with the husband-camera aimed elsewhere, before sneaking a few of her. By the time their chicks hatch in a couple of weeks (or less!) mom and pop won’t even blink at this paparazzo, and the chicks will grow up preening for the lens.

Immersed

Dec18
Red cabbage immersed in brine days ago is fermenting successfully! Sauerkraut is in the fridge now to wait five days for full flavor.

I’m grateful to be immersed in a new puzzle for the holiday week. More to come on this delight.