MESSAGE TO LILY

Posted on May 22, 2018 by hafong

How intrusive the world! So many phone calls on things I do not need nor asked for. Those poor Call Center employees. I am not much of a consumer. They will not get much business from me. They do not listen. They keep calling back. I hang up. I am not in a ‘good mood’ or a peaceful frame of mind. My head is in a dither. The conversation within is like a ticker tape going on endlessly.

There’s no stopping it so I just watch it in my mind’s eye. I’m tapping here to slow down the ticking in my head and the fluttering in my heart. It’s working. My mind and hands are engaged in another activity. I’ve done my qigong routine. A batch of yogurt is under the yogurt machine’s hood. I’m finishing the last of the strawberries before they go bad. The bills are paid except for my property tax. I still have till the end of June to deal with it. I’ve gathered my papers to meet with my banker this afternoon. Even retired, there’s stuff to deal with. It’s not a vacation. I’m not in a hammock by the beach. Some days I want to run away from home.

My garden is a bit half assed this year. I’ve started a few bedding plants, enough petunias and snapdragons for my mother’s flower beds. She doesn’t ask for much. In fact she doesn’t ask for anything. But it is nice that I could do this much for her. I hope she will let me plant them for her. Her strength has declined but she is fiercely independent. She is very good at compensating and finding alternative ways of doing everything. My mother is awe-inspiring.

I have seeded one raised bed with lettuce, spinach and kale. They are all rising above the earth. The other 4 beds sit empty, waiting for me to get my shit together. I have cleared and worked the garden area. The strawberries I transplanted last fall have survived. The rhubarb is looking good. The peas and a few beans are planted. I am a bit lost but not idle.

It is late afternoon. I am hot and tired. I have met with my banker. We did some planning. All is well but I have not kept up with records and paperwork. It is not anything new but it is quite distressing to me. There is no point in tackling the problem now, though I did try. It resulted in more hair-on-end kind of frustration. I have to sort it out as I had with the basement, a little at a time.

I am learning a lesson here. No matter how we I try to ignore or hide a problem, whatever it is, it never goes away. It will surface sooner or later. ~~You~~ I will have to face it or maybe trip over it. There’s no where to hide. It demands resolution. I think I’ve finally got the message now. Really I have.

HOW I SPEND MY DAYS

Posted on May 2, 2018 by hafong

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard

I wish I could write such insights as Annie Dillard. But then I’m not a Pulitizer winning authour. She has written many books. I wonder why I haven’t read any of them, especially since so many of them are in the library. I’ve just fixed that, reserving The Writing Life. I thought I should start with just one book. I’m still working on James Mitchener’s The Source. It’s an ambitious read of 1000 pages. I’m only on page 207. I have a ways to go.

How do you spend your days? I’ve wondered what other people do with their time. I’m always busy it seems. I’m a doddler, poking away at life. Maybe if I speed up a little, I wouldn’t feel so busy. But it’s who and how I am. I need that slow pace to digest and process. So I can’t get up in the morning and hop to it. I have to ease my way with a cuppa tea and a few pages of fiction. Then it’s breakfast. If it is Monday, Wednesday,or Friday I’ll be heading out the door to aerobics. Saturday mornings I used to swim. Then somehow I got tired of always heading out of the door and I stopped. But I kept it up most of the winter.

I’m a homebody so I was glad to read that Annie Dillard is a recluse, albeit a gregarious one. I wish I’m like that but alas, I have no gregariousness in me. It should be no surprise that I don’t do a lot of frollicking with my days. I’m a rather quiet, somber person. I live within rather than without. That is, I contemplate alot. I like to read and muse. I wonder about the universe, why people do what they do. I wonder about the speed of the changes we are experiencing. How long life as we know will last? I wonder what gives meaning to the things we do. What does it matter anyways? I could have more time if I could just cut down all this musing.

You see, I am no fun. I do have fun though. I have numerous, maybe too many hobbies. I like to read and write. That gobbles up tons of minutes and hours in a day if I let it. Even painting my little index cards takes up at least half an hour. More if I’m ambitious. I’ve picked up sewing again. I went out and bought a fancy dancy new machine. It’s no small endeavour. It took time to learn all the ins and outs. Then there’s the organizing – fabric, patterns, projects. I’ve taken a fancy to free motion sewing, creating a picture with stitching. I haven’t thought about quilting yet. I have all the notions – collected through the years. At least I don’t have to go out and shop for material. I have a fabric shop right in my own basement.

I’m tapping here in my space. I’ve just turned the oven on for the roast. There’s a lot to do every day. Roasts to put in the oven, bread to make, lunches and dishes to do. The guy does supper and getting groceries. I start my own bedding plants for the garden. Been doing that for years now. Sometimes I enjoy. Sometimes it’s work. Well, isn’t everything? It’s worth it. It’s nourishing my body and soul. Even the cleaning and washing. It’s taking care of this business of living. What meaning or satisfaction would I get not doing any of this? Sure, I complain sometimes and wish that everything was taken care of for me. That sounds like being in a nursing home, doesn’t it?

It’s time to shut up and do something else now. There’s the dog to walk yet.

GLORY DAYS – Day 13 in a year of…

Posted on August 4, 2016 by hafong

Day 13, August 4, 2016 @4:05

These are truly the glory days of August. My garden is flushed with delicious vegetables. Let me not squander the days away with stinking thinking, bad attitude, foul mood or low blood sugar. Afternoons can be treacherous. A cup of tea and a couple of chocolates to make me more agreeable. It does not help that Sheba is dogging in my footsteps wherever I go. Possibly she is also seeking sugar replacement.

Mornings are the best for setting intentions. And so I sat with Melli O’Brien and Tami Simon of Sounds True and learned about total body breathing. It is an episode from the Mindfulness Summit, October 2015. Today I am focused on learning to enjoy the process of sewing a blouse – being patient and deliberate with each step. In the past, I have rushed through to the end product, missing the beginning and the middle – missing the joy, missing a lot.

Now I see it is really not my stinking thinking or low blood sugar. It is really a storm brewing in my head. It has just burst open. I’m tap, tapping to the rhythm of pounding rain on the aluminum roof of the deck. It is very strange and beautiful. The rain came raging out of nowhere. I am very fortunate to have this wonderful space to sit and watch, surrounded by it all.

The rain have passed. I can show you the glory in the garden. Come, let me show you. It is my rainbow after the rain.

Day 6 in a year of…

Posted on July 28, 2016 by hafong

Day 6, July 28, 2016 @3:43.

Summer afternoons are delicious for drinking beer and taking naps. I’ve had my little nap but I better wait till I’ve tapped out some words before I crack a can. Otherwise, I might fall over my keyboard. Asian women cannot hold their liquor. At least not this one. It isn’t fair. So many things in life aren’t. But at least, I’m getting better at doing selfies. Oh, no, not another! You say. Sorry but yes, another. It’s never too much to say, I love you to myself. I’ve waited all these years to start. I’m not stopping now – or ever. I will stop the selfie one day when I really feel love and acceptance residing in my core.

These days of getting up, making up and showing up have given me structure. When I am not feeling my best, I’m looking my best. I take note, sit/stand a little taller. I don’t feel as if I had fallen off a vegetable truck – even if I feel it. When I look in the mirror, I’m surprised and delighted. I can push on to another day in the year of choosing something different.

I’m glad I took up this project. There’s really no right or wrong time to do anything. When an idea captures your imagination, you have to act on it. Otherwise, nothing will happen. Nothing. There is so much dead air in that word. Nothing. Say it again. It has the sound of a heavy metal door closing. Nobody has the key. You are trapped in that nothingness.

That is not where I want to be. I want to move ahead. I’ve crossed off two items on my list today. Working on another and maybe another. I will add to it each day, too. There’s movement. There’s trying and doing. There’s life.

Now I will crack open that beer and grab a plate of snacks. Want to tour my front yard and see what is new? My petunias are still in full bloom. I have planted a honey suckle and clematis by the water tank. I hope they will thrive and grow and climb up its sides to add aesthetics to it. In the raised beds, the hot chilli peppers are numerous, carrots in various stage of growth, green and bulb onions, Romaine lettuce, kale, and cucumber. Not a bad yield at all. How is your garden doing

RAINY MORNING MUSINGS

Posted on May 10, 2016 by hafong

It’s raining – the first of the year. I’m grateful. My garden is grateful – for this drink of life. It is cool – 4 degrees Celsius after last week’s blistering 32. Tomorrow and the next night, the forecast for -1 and -2 respectively. Nothing is predictable anymore. Was anything ever? Have a look at what is happening in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It is like a dream. I am sure it is a nightmare for the residents fleeing their city as the fires rages.

I am philosophical, uncertain but happy and grateful this rainy, cool 10th of May. I took a tour of my garden, securing the covers over the tender young tomatoes I planted 2 days ago. I might have been too optimistic and foolish thinking that the temperature could not possibly dip below 0 anymore. But what the hey? Nothing ventured, nothing gained/learned. I have a good feeling about my green thumb. I feel like a winner at the moment. I’m going with it.

I’ve doubted my feelings and myself for too long. I’m making up by taking taking a giant big step forward. I’m being confident. I’m being happy with myself as I am, no apologies. It feels good. There’s no time for putting myself on the back burner for others. I’m moving closer and closer towards my own mortality every day. If I don’t live for me now, when then?

Life is messy and wonderful. That is what I take away from Anne Lamott. In Bird by Bird she wrote,

“Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived …Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation… Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.”

I am now wondering why I have been so taken with Marie Kondo and her The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I have been a clutter bug all my life. I could learn to be a little neater but more would be trying to get a leopard to rid its spots or a zebra its stripes. What was I thinking? There’s beauty and artistry in our clutter and messes. After all, it is what our lives are made of.

I am tired of holding my breath, suspending my animation. I am letting me out of the bag. So happy to have this rainy interlude to muse much about it all and savour life.

WHY WAIT FOR SPRING

Posted on February 4, 2016 by hafong

It would do me well to heed some of these wise age-old sayings:

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting. ~Dr. Seuss

Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. ~Charles Richards

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think. ~Chinese Proverb

Simply put, why wait for spring. Do it NOW. My now should have been in the fall, after harvesting and putting the garden to sleep. I should have/could have made notes about what worked, what didn’t. But I DIDN’T. I’m relying on my faulty memory now to recall. How did my garden grow? No use crying over spilt milk. Let me move on as best as I. I am going to make my seed list today.

What worked for sure were the potatoes. They were big and plentiful, lasting us into January. The carrots did well, too. We still have quite a few and storing fairly well in a cooler in our insulated garage. They might do better in a cold storage area in the house next year. My tomatoes have always done well. No need to change anything except plant fewer and less dense in the beds. They started out small and far apart. They grew and grew and became an almost Little Shop of Horrors.

The beans and broccoli did astoundingly well. They produced well into the frost season. However the cabbage was not as successful as I had hoped but I will try again. You win some. You lose sum. I’ve never had much luck with peas, getting a few pods at a picking. I might plant more snow peas this year for the pods and leaves – double the return. They’re both easy to stir fry. Snow pea tips are very flavourful and a pricey dish in a restaurant.

What else did well? Let me see now. The kohlrabi, chilli peppers, lettuce, kale, onions, cucumbers, squash…

What didn’t do well? Beets were small. Spinach too small and bolted. Maybe too crowded and needed to be thinned aggressively. Radishes were not as good as the year before. We forgot to harvest frequently. They got old and wooden.

This recalling from memory is labour intensive! I will have to give it a rest and dig out my seed order from last year. It would be best if I can learn from this exercise to keep notes of things as they progress – like a garden journal. You know what they say about a stitch in time. I know how I am – slow to learn. Ah, but I am doing the best I can.

THE CANYON OF MY MIND

Posted on July 8, 2015 by hafong

It’s been such a long while since I’ve flexed these fingers over the keyboard. The movements have become awkward and unfamiliar. It’s like losing touch with one’s close friends. After awhile you find you have nothing to say to each other. You look at each other and wonder how it happened – this strange awkwardness. And so, I am sitting down with my old friend.

Can we get re-acquainted? Can I get the Midas touch and let the letters and words flow from my fingertips again? I hope so. It’s been lonely without words and pictures and stories they tell. There’s no reverberation. I only hear the sound of one hand clapping. It echoes in the canyon of my mind. You can hear a pin drop in its grey emptiness.

I rouse myself from the lassitude that I have fallen in. How I got here, I do not know. But it has lasted long enough. Time to get up, get dress and show up. Time for the words to march across the page to tell the stories. Time to show a little colour and life. There’s a person living on Preston Avenue. See how her vegetables and flowers overflow their beds and pots? See the brilliance of the greens, pinks, blues and purples? Then there is the orange of the lilies, blooming in defiance of the drought. We are having a very dry summer. Forest fires are raging up north and the military have stepped in to help.

The morning is beautiful. The smoke has cleared and the sun is coming through. Won’t you step around to the back and see what I have growing there? There’s peas in the pod, grapes on the vine, the scarlet runners climbing the tower, green tomatoes and little cucumbers. The broccoli is flowering and cabbages forming under cover. The petunias are nodding their approval from above.

Oh, there’s the Bing Cherry bush, too. It’s covered with fruit. Sheba has discovered she likes sleeping outdoors and made her bed beneath it. I wonder what else she has discovered as she sleeps with nature in the night. Maybe if I can quiet my mind and open my heart, they will come to me.

THE WAY OF LIFE

Posted on June 11, 2015 by hafong

Here I am, on a warm dry June afternoon, still mostly wordless in June. It is what it is. It’s the way of life. There is no way or point fighting it. I am sure when they are ready and I have something to say, the words will pour forth. They will trip from the keyboard and march across the page like uniformed soldiers on duty. Till then, I might as well relax into the summer, read, and tend to my garden.

Have you seen how awesome my garden is? I love the dappled light of the morning sun shining through the bamboo for the beans and to climb on. The carrots are trying to poke through between the onions. They are suppose to be perfect companion plants. I love the gravel paths. They also serve as water reservoirs when it rains. I hope there’s space enough for the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and cabbage to spread in the middle bed. I tend to plant things too close, hating to waste space. Right along the fence seems the perfect place for a row of peas. They have something to climb on.

The spinach, lettuce, radish and Italian dandelions found perfect homes beside the rhubarb. And more peas along the other side of the fence.

The raspberries and grape vines are doing great for their second year. There’s clusters of little green grapes already.

The flower are not to be outdone. They are putting on a show of their own.

Words are not necessary today.

A REASON AND A SEASON

Posted on July 19, 2014 by hafong

I love weeding after a good rain. Everything looks so green and luscious. I feel I’m working in the garden of our Lord. The soil is soft. You can easily pull the weeds out. There is so much satisfaction in seeing your work coming into its own. How can I not stand back and admire it all? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, do you? I am not gloating. I am just happy with my work.

To feel the earth beneath your feet, the rich soil between your fingers – is ecstasy. It is what they call grounding, I suppose. To me, it is simple bliss. When we feel it, we should pay attention and celebrate. Who knows when such a moment will come again. The memories can carry us forward when times are not so fortunate. We know that this, too, shall pass.

Let us celebrate our lives with the fruits of our garden and our spirits. Let us drink a toast to our friends, family and neighbours, for their love, friendship and the lessons they give us. There is a reason and a season for everything under heaven.

BREWING, WAGING, EXPLODING

Posted on July 18, 2014 by hafong

I hate to contradict the FlyLady’s motto, “You are not behind”, but I am a day behind in writing my posts. To make up, I’m going to start from where I am.

I did a bit of kicking ass yesterday even though the day was grey. The sky was cloudless, covered by smoke from forest fires up north. The air was filled with its acrid smell. Our world was covered with an eery gloom. It felt just like the moment before the shoe drops.

But Sheba and I braved it in the early morning, walking/jogging down back alleys to the park. We sniffed the grass, smelled the coffee, and admired the many glooming blue delphiniums and pink hollyhocks, towering above back fences. We saw some grape vines trailing along and on top of fences, clusters of little green grapes showing through the leaves. It was a magnificent sight, nature’s colours glowing through the grey. It gave us heart.

So though the day was grey, I saw my inner world filled with the colours of the rainbow – much like the colours of Daphne’s bouquet from her garden. Even Monet could not out do Nature’s artistry.

Its beauty is there for all of us to share and enjoy. It’s not something you can covet, own and hoard in your own private museum like a painting. It’s there for the moment. Then it is gone to be reborn in another time and place.

The skies did not lift. I did some slow weeding and watering of my flower pots. One thing led to another. Somehow I cleaned up some beds and transplanted perennials. I finished reading about Stephanie Plum and Lulu’s adventure in Fearless Fourteen. Did you know that Stephanie had dreams of being Wonder Woman when she was a girl? How awesome!

The first raindrops came at supper time. It pittered pattered on the deck roof. A breeze came up, stirring the purple petunias on the deck railing. It was a pretty sight. Distant thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. It was a dramatic and romantic backdrop to our evening meal.

The heavens gathered more force through the evening and night. The wind grew and the rain poured. Thunder and lightning continued to play and grumble across the sky. Was it God reminding us to mind how we walk on this earth? Was He sending the artilleries because we are such fools and don’t listen well?

He has my attention. Now I know why I was sleepless. I was feeling his tension – his wrath as he brewed over his children. He has exploded, the storm over – still gifting us his tears to wet the dry earth. I feel relief.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

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