Sunday Mornings

This autumn I’ve grown to love my Sunday mornings with my sister. At first it was to pick apples at Boffins Garden. Now it’s a ritual that we both enjoy. My sister would bring coffee and scones and I, my fruit picker. The apples are over now. We had our last picking a week ago. My sister makes pies with hers. I juice mine. Yesterday we met a couple of fellow pickers. Their apples were big and so beautiful. They picked 36 pounds last week and their other family members had 18 pounds. We vow we would start picking earlier next year.

What a treasure Boffins is. It is just a short drive straight down my street. It and its fruit are free and open to the public. It’s like having my own fruit orchard. Our Sundays mornings have been mostly sunny so far. Even in rain, the garden is a beautiful and restful place. There’s the gazebo overlooking the pond where we can sit out of the weather. It’s peaceful to sit and sip our coffee, reminisce about our mother and our childhoods. We talk about our father’s quirky personality. We decided that it is not possible to understand it and best to leave it alone.

There’s much more beyond the garden. There’s the University of Saskatchewan Agriculturual Greenhouses nearby. We wandered onto the Meewasin Valley Tail next to the South Saskatchewan river bank. What magnificent views! Next week I want to climb the stairs to the railway bridge.

Excited Again

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October 2 and the second day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am surprised to find that I am excited again about writing and living. It’s been a difficult 2 years of living in the dark. Now the darkness has lifted. Someone turned on the light. Was it Him? Or was it Wayne Dyer, alias Lao-tzu? Regardless of who is responsible I am grateful and surprised by joy.

These days are golden and wondrous. Once again I am curious and eager. There’s still so much to discover and learn. I am happy to leave sadness and hopelessness behind. The world is still full of goodness though I am aware of its sickness. It’s the ying and yang of everything. You can’t have one without the other. It’s like the piano keys and the lyrics of Paul McCartney’s Ebony and Ivory.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don’t we?

We all know that people are the same whereever you go
There is good and bad in ev’ryone
We learn to live, when we learn to give
Each other what we need to survive, together alive

It’s good to feel alive and excited again. It’s good to feel the sun on my face on my morning walks. Now there’s the crunch of leaves underfoot. I love hearing the ring of my laugh in the air. I don’t even mind the sound of traffic rushing by. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and another day of writing and discovery.

September Days

A rainy Monday morning. It’s as if the universe is weeping for the passing of sunny summer days. It was only yesterday morning that my sister and I were basking in the sunshine at Boffins Garden. I am feeling mellow with the rain, a tad melancholic, mourning for days/years lost.

It is Monday morning. As you can see, I was dumbstruck and lost for words again. I laid sleepless last night, unable to turn off thoughts in my head. These nights are recurring more than I like. I try to look on the positive side of them. They are teaching me to still myself and let the thoughts come as they may. It was hard to resist my usual habit of trying to understand and fix it. For some things, there are no fixes. And so I laid as still as I could and let the thoughts be.

I’m none the worse for wear. I might not be the sharpest tack in the box today but I think I can still have a good day. This is called making the best of things. I used to be an all or nothing girl. It’s taken me a long time to get here, to not throwing in the towel. I’ve had/am having a stretch of difficult September days. All of life feels difficult. I’m trying to adjust and change my view/attitude towards the word ‘difficult’. The big question is how am I going to do it.

What came immediately to mind was Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life. Like so many books I have, I haven’t read it. It’s a good place to start. I could make it my 100dayproject. Besides reading it, I could do a little art along with it. Sounds like a plan for the last 14 days of September.

Dumbstruck

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I fell off my writing wagon – again. It happens. It’s not a bad thing. I ran out of words. I ran out of energy. Now I am dumbstruck. It wouldn’t hurt to be silent for awhile. I tend to talk ta little too much. It’s how I work out problems. That’s why I have this writing space. It’s to talk my fool head off without causing harm. All the thoughts, feelings swirling round and round inside can drive me mad. I rather not be mad or angry.

The world feels alot mad nowadays. Maybe it is just me. Whatever it is, I would like a little more normalcy and sanity. Is that too much to ask? What is normalcy anyways? There doesn’t seem to be much stability in this new world I find myself in. It has been raining all day with no sign of stopping. More is in the forecast for tomorrow. It is drought or flood. There’s not much I can do about the weather. There’s not much I can do about anything outside of myself. I might as well stop wasting my energy thinking about all that. I need it all to fix my immediate and personal world.

I hate to admit it, but I am still drowning in paper clutter. They still sit on my dining room table and in boxes here and there. I still have all the bags and bags of my mother’s clothes I’ve been meaning to sort and donate. I have so many meanings to but I haven’t moved on them. Some things are hard to sort and clear. They are cemented to me. Rainy days are not good days to work on these. But I have defrosted and cleaned one freezer. It was hard but it’s one battle I won.

It is not easy writing again. Something snapped in me and I broke. Sometimes it is ok to be broken and let the pieces stay where they are for awhile. They need the rest and will come together again when they are ready.

About To Do Lists

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A hot July Saturday, the 11th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m feeling lethargic, in the slow after dinner slump. The dishes are not yet done, sitting in the sink. I feel least like writing but here I am, tapping away. A few days ago, I started a to do list with just 4 items. One of the 4 is write a post for UBC. Another one is going for a walk. The list works for me, getting me unstuck. I get at least 4 things needing/wanting doing done.

I’ve already gone for my walk this morning. Before that, while it was still relatively cool, I boiled the bamboo leaves for 20 minutes to sanitize them for making sticky rice. I’m waiting for the leaves and water to cool before wiping them down. This method is very labour intensive. I’m breaking it down in daily steps so I can succeed. I love the aroma of the bamboo leaves. I smell it and think sticky rice. I think the process of making the sticky rice will be a good exercise for my brain. I will talk about the next steps tomorrow.

I can feel the heat coming through the sunroom windows even though the blinds are drawn. The house is at 25℃ with the central fan running. I am comfortable though feeling sleepy. Outside it is 29℃ with a 31℃ promised. No thunderstorms in the forecast and none materialized last night. I do not like hot summer days. They drain my energy and mood. They still remind me of childhood days in our small town. Everyone is on holiday and gone out of town. Everyone except the Chinese people with the cafes. It makes me feel as if I have no life.

Funny how feelings and impressions are hard to dispel even if they are erroneous. This time around, having a to do list grounds me. I’m anchored, feet to the ground, a sense of purpose, a sense of direction, a starting point, followed by….and so on and so forth.

May Day and Hope

April is gone. Today is May 3. I meant to show up 2 days ago but I never made it. Some days are easier than others. Today is not one of those. The sky is cloudy. I’m heavy with it. I’m saggy and draggy but I’ve started the day. I still start it reading the two Heathers. I’m also reading Nobody’s Girl now that I got it from the library. It’s no wonder that I’m weighed down.

I wish that I’m not so serious minded. I wish that I am more light hearted. But that is not who I am. Whether it is because of genetics or how life shaped me, it’s hard to know. It is probably both. It is not easy being an immigrant child of immigrant parents. Being the oldest is not a cake walk either. I bear/feel the brunt of the responsibility for helping them navigate in an English speaking country. Life was and has been a serious affair. There was/are good times and laughter but not the uproarious kind. Our lives always seemed to me to be smaller than others.

That’s my feelings growing up. You don’t shed those feelings of inadequacy easily. I haven’t. They’re still there somewhere just underneath my skin. Not that I feel like a failure. I know I have done very well. I am a well informed and educated person. I am financially independent. I am retired with many interestests. I am never bored. I am occasionally melancholy. Who isn’t, especially in these times?

And so I come to this space to tap out my melancholy, my angst and sometimes my joys and excitement. I do get those happy exuberant feelings once in awhile, too. It must have been what I felt yesterday. They carried me through a whole day of gardening. I repotted seedlings, cleaned out 3 raised beds in the back yard. I planted 3 cucumbers in the greenhouse and 7 celery in the raised bed. Hope I wasn’t over eager and too early. Hope is a good antidote for melancholy.

Sunshine and Stirrings

It’s a sunshine and lollypops kind of a morning. I feel faint stirrings of wanting to clean the yard of last year’s old growth and debris. I thought better of it. There’s snow on the ground. It’s early and a bit cool for that kind of undertaking. But faint stirring are good. It means I’m still alive and feeling. I saw that my snowdrops are up. They’re a little crushed by the snow but still beautiful to see.

I put in a bit of time in the greenhouse yesterday. I weeded and propped up the snow peas with bamboo sticks. They’re getting gangly and sprawly. It’s not my favourite thing to do. To be honest, I can’t really say I love gardening. It is hard and dirty work. I guess I do get some satisfaction at the end of the chore/season. It is nice to see a neat weed-free bed of greens. In a few weeks, I hope to harvest some lettuce and spinach for a salad or two.

It’s April 28th. Just a couple more days of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. At this moment, I can’t say that I really love writing either. But it is satisfying to see the letters and words march across the screen, forming a sentence and a post. That is the thing, isn’t it? Getting a little satisfaction is worth a little effort.

Wonder

I think it is silly of me to insist that I feel better when I don’t. It is pretty hard to ignore the crazy stuff that is happening – the Epstein Files, the rants from President of the United States, and the wars he has caused.These are serious times and I feel seriously affected. I am not respectful of myself if I don’t allow myself to respond to these events with whatever feelings that come up. Similarly, losing my mother is a serious loss no matter how old she was. It is natural that I am sad. I know life goes on. I am happy she is not suffering any more but I can still mourn the loss. It is ok that I still feel sad now and again.

There’s no need for me to apologize for being human. There’s no need to fix anything.There’s no need to pull myself up by the bootstraps. Things, along with feelings, somehow evolve on their own. There are things that we do not have control over. Just when I am feeling the lowest, I noticed that my peppers are starting to germinate. I’ve been starting seeds for many years now. I am still surprised when I see a speck of green poking through the soil. I worry every year that they won’t. It is such a wonder to see every spring when they do.

Though life may look bleak and the world seem to be on the brink of disaster, I can still feel moments of wonder. I feel ok and normal with all my feelings. There is still tomorrow and I still have words.

Heart Month

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February is heart month. I am letting that guide me through my days. Though Iife feels bland and senseless to me in these moments, I need not announce it or rain on someone else’s parade. This is the space to unload and work through those dark and messy things. What are feelings anyways? Are they real? What if I don’t have those feelings? How will I be? These are the questions that pop up from remembering The Work of Byron Katie.

I can be good at setting goals and intentions but not so great at carrying them out. It’s like people making New Year’s resolutions and dropping them by February. It’s difficult to follow through, day after day. It’s easy to lose heart. It is easy to fall into “I don’t care.” It is easy to throw up my hands and give up. I’ve done that numerous times. I’ve gotten back on track again many times. The thing I don’t do is make progress. I don’t pick up where I had left off. I always go back and start again at the beginning. It’s easier doing something you’ve done before.

How am I going to get out of that rut? How do I walk a different path so that I don’t fall back into the same hole? I’ve writtin many times about the same problem. I am writing about it again. How can I sing another song? I have the rest of February to wrestle with it. I am going to follow through.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE CHAPTERS
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
Portia Nelson

No Other way

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It’s another cool and grey morning with the sun trying its hardness to shine through. At least there is no smoke in the air. I still find no reason to smile and feel peppy. I’m having another cup of tea. Maybe I’ll get out of my pjs. Just because the world and life is not as I desire, it’s no reason to mope either. I can try a little, do a little and live a little, bit by bit.

So I’ve gotten out of my pjs into something summery. I’ve been living in sweat pants and t-shirts. They were easy and comfortable. Being a cool spring/summer they were the ticket. I wore them everywhere – to the gym, out for lunch, to the mall, to the garden. Being a sad sack, I didn’t care. I wasn’t fussy about my appearance. But I still shower, brush my teeth and comb my hair once in a while.

June was intended to work on my habits, improving on them and reporting here regularly. It didn’t happened quite often enough. I hit a slump. The weather was bad. There was/is wildfire smoke. And a million other excuses. Now I’m trying to reboot and restart. Not easy. Not feeling like or up to it. Nevertheless, I will just do it. There’s no other way. I will have to stop being a cry baby.