Tag Archives: what can we do

Whining and Sighing

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Photo by Puwadon Sang-ngern on Pexels.com

An already hot morning at 10:30 on this day 23 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am on the brink of giving in to the everythings of this world. I haven’t quite fallen in. The sun is unbearably hot with less ozone protection. Researching, I find that Canada’s and the northern regionss ozone have thinned by an average of about 7% since the 1980s. Supposedly the ozone layer is healing. Truth or fake news? Our planet seemed to be heating up every year.

I’ve discovered that cucumber male flowers can become sterile due to heat. My plants in the greenhouse are full of male flowers, more than the female ones. I have pollinated the girls and yet besides the one cucmber we already ate, none came to fruit. So I’m guessing that the males must be shooting blanks. They can recover with cooler weather. If heat can do this to cucumbers, what does it do to us and all living things? Is this not a signal for us to change how we are conducting business on this earth? We can’t eat the greenbacks. Why don’t use them resuscitate this one earth we have?

I probably should stop reading the news. It makes me more melancholic than my natural melancholic self. There’s no fun or use in it. It’s not something I want to bring to the keyboard. I have to pull myself up by the bootstrap, snap out of my old mold, crack the whip and do whatever I have to do. I have to admit that I am a little buried under a little pile of mental overwhelm. Life seems to have no rest stops when you have a 95 year old father. Not complaining. It is what it is. It is not at all the physical thing. He is very low maintenance. It’s the emotional and psychological components that weighs on me.

Enough whining and sighing. Time to get on with the rest of the day. Not sure if my father is being discharged from the hospital today or tomorrow. Will find out soon enough. My brother is there now and he will let me know. Good to have younger siblings. They have more energy and reserve.

THIEVES AND NASTINESS

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It’s Thursday. I’m a day late coming to my space. I felt so terribly busy and disorganized yesterday. It was better to be flexible and silent rather than stressing myself more by trying to do everything. So here I am this morning. Not exactly fresh but willing to have a conversation. Where shall I began?

I’m on top of the necessary things like paying the bills, etc. I will not have to worry about my utilities being cut off. The property tax is taken care of. I’m sure there will be more bills and they will keep coming. It’s a good thing actually. They are signs of life and activity. The greenhouse is doing really well. The snow peas are loving it in there. I’m harvesting some pods every morning. Our community garden and city allotment are and planted. I was a little angry yesterday to find that someone had stolen one of the 2 squashes I planted Friday. It is a community garden but not everyone is community minded. There are thieves among us.

I am not quite as naive now. It’s taken me a long time to learn that not all gardeners are nice people. And not all dog owners love dogs. They might love their dogs but not yours. Some scary guy at the dog park threatened to kill Sheba one time. He was tossing sticks to his dog and Sheba got it first. I reported him but I was wary of people after that. What was I thinking, eh? that certain people are saints. We are all capable of nastiness and thievery.

Talking more about nasty, I have not been lucky with neighbours. I seemed to be surrounded by strange and some outright nasty people. Some clearly have mental health problems. The one good neighbour has just moved because he could not handle his nasty landlady. I miss having a neighbour I can just greet and have a friendly chat. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently so. Then there’s the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard brand of nastiness and the shootings in Texas and Buffalo. Our planet is none too healthy physically or spiritually. I wonder what we can do.

At present I’m going through the drudgeries. There will be no brilliant ideas or inspirations from me. Life consists of a lot of hard work, much of it boring but necessary. Sometimes I want to take a nap through these periods. I think that is why I have so many piles awaiting for my attention. But I have done the lunch dishes and cleaned the fridge. The fridge was psychologically hard but I’ve conquered that voice in my head, a small battle won.

There you have it – my Thursday mumblings. I will finish my cuppa and tackle the mess in the front yard. It is no longer morning as you’ve might have gathered by now.

ACTIVE HOPE

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So here I am, in my new/old .com space. I have more space but what do I have to say? The sky is overcast. The air smell of smoke. We are burning up on our West Coast while they are drowning in Texas. Then there’s the monsoon in India, killing over 1,000 people. But we don’t get much coverage of that. It’s still on the other side of the world. Texas isn’t within our vision range either but it’s in our livingroom every evening. So many terrible things are in our livingroom these evenings. If we don’t watch the news, does not knowing/seeing change anything?

The winds are blowing, bringing more smoke from the forest fires. Our planet and we are between a rock and hard place, I would say. What can we do? What can I do besides hope? Hope is an inert noun. We can hope, want and yearn all we want, but without action it is nothing. It’s just like the song says:

Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’
Plannin’ and dreamin’ each night of his charms
That won’t get you into his arms
So if you’re lookin’ to find love you can share
All you gotta do is hold him and kiss him and love him
And show him that you care

 

So then, how do we show that we care about this world of ours? Where can we start? Try reading Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnson. I have the book. Now I need to READ it. Really I do. The need comes up more frequently now. Reminding me to read, to do. At least I recognize it. I see the picture. I see the need. I’m talking about it. And we are bringing some hope for a greener life in the rainwater we catch for the garden, in the growing of our vegetables in the summer and in the solar power we’re catching with the panels. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things. But it is a start. Where are you at? How are you coping?