I got caught by the procrastination bug. I am now just sitting down to my keyboard. It was easier to delay than fight my lassitude. Now time is running out. It is a must or bust. Can I write something out of nothing? Things seem to work better mornings. I work better mornings. My head is better, free of the day’s debris. Why is it that I don’t do my writing in the morning?
Though I can face a blank index card, draw and paint a picture, it’s harder with works and a blank screen. So I dilly dally, fooling, telling myself I will get to it after this and that. By the time when I’m finally here, the ideas and thoughts I had are gone. I am left scratching my head, moaning ‘why didn’t I do this sooner.’ It is worth remembering that old wise saying ‘No use crying over spilt milk.’
I am not crying but feeling rather ‘unfriendly’ and ‘unpleasant’. It is apt that I’m sitting here sipping bitter melon tea. It is pleasant and cool out here on the deck and still fairly light at 9:30 in evening. I shall sit here with the evening and listen to the Saturday night traffic for awhile. Though it is frustrating, I do love the struggle of writing. What a miracle it is to have words to spill onto the page/screen. They can paint pictures and feelings. They can tell stories. Where would we be without them?
It pays to come to the keyboard daily. I took a day off yesterday and delayed today. Here I am finally with not a word or idea. But it will work out somehow because I can’t publish or share a blank post. My excuse was I was tired and a little off yesterday and still so today. It was easy to give in and lose myself in a John Grisham novel, Gray Mountain. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was an easy to read and hard to put down. I am quite surprised to find so many negative reviews on Goodreads.
I’m not sure taking a day off from my routine was a good idea. I felt more ‘off’ having done so. Routines are so grounding. I’m working to find my way back to them. When I’m feeling lost, I can always find myself in the garden. So that’s where I spent most of today. I have alot of garden. It took most of the morning just watering the tomatoes and squash, filling the 3 raised garden beds in the backyard and 3 in the front. I spent the afternoon watering and weeding the flower beds. Then there’s the greenhouse and the main garden. There’s no lack of work. I enjoy it all once I get started. There is satisfaction seeing the results and a guarantee of a good night’s sleep from the physical labour.
Besides this writing challenge, I’m halfway through the Daisy Yellow Index Card a Day Challenge. I’ve been doing that for a few years with very smooth sailing this year. Words conjure up pictures and pictures evoke words. It creates a very happy creative space for me. I’m working a day ahead with the word prompt ‘imaginary‘. The picture that popped up in my head was a pink elephant. We all know that the only pink elephants that exist are in our imagination/hallucination. We can’t really see it but we surely feels the weight of it. Yet most of us do not speak of it.
I’m a bit of an exception, being contrary and all that. My experiences of pointing out the pink elephant in the room have been all negative. It did not help one tiny bit but caused friction and rift in my relationships. My advice is to just paint them. Do not address them verbally. Just know that all the parties are aware of that pink elephant in the room. Being wiser now, if I see a pink elephant I would walk out and go into a different room.
I think I was premature in saying that I’m doing well inspite of the weather. I should be careful in speaking too soon. Shortly after that, things happened. Our Wifi and landline went kaputs. Also our TV since it’s on Wifi. But we had our cellphones and that’s how we could call our provider for help. It wasn’t all that easy to connect with them. When we did, we learned that they couldn’t come till Friday, which was 4 days away. I didn’t know how addicted I was to be connected 24/7. I didn’t know I could get so distressed. Life hadn’t changed except that I couldn’t get Internet and watch TV. I still have a phone. But I felt like I was in a vacuum, closed in and jittery.
I must say that our provider has some very kind and able workers. They gave us extra data on our phone so that we could use the Hotspot to access the Internet and how to use it. They moved our appointment up a day. I think she heard me say that I could go crazy by Friday. The best news was they phoned back to say they had a cancellation and someone came today. Everything was fixed in a very short time. The technician gave me some helpful technical pointers. So Yay! I felt so much better that the TV was on for background noise. I felt part of the world again.
This experience made me realize how vulnerable and dependent we are on technology. What if the whole system crashed and everyone was out of service. I can’t imagine a multitude of people like me going bonkers and twitching at the same time. I think I will try to schedule regular technology-free days to calm myself and disengage from this rat race. I feel very much like a kid who has to push every button he sees. What did we do before when there was no cellphones, Wifi, computers and Internet?
Oh, yes, I still blame the weather. Today is cloudy and even cooler than yesteray. I am wearing fleece. At least I haven’t turn on the furnace. It is July, isn’t it?
Just like that, overnight, the blistering heat of 30℃ dropped. It’s a cool cloudy windy 18℃ at 10:30 in the morning. There’s smoke in the air. These are not inviting conditions for me to wander out for my walk in the garden. I’m not overly keen on weeding either. However, I have made a short trek to the greenhouse to see if there are cucumber and bittermelon blossoms to pollinate. I’ve found and pollinate one of each.
This is what our summer is like this year, constant change. It’s the 3rd of July but it feels like fall today. A few days ago it was hot, hot with thunderstorms and thankfully rain. So despite this weird extreme pattern, the garden is doing well. Surprisingly, weather sensitive me, is too. After half a life time of complaining about the weather, I realized that it doesn’t help one little bit. I can’t change the weather, but I can learn to change how it affects me.
So today is not a great day for me to be outdoors. But I can finally open the blinds in the sunroom. They’ve been closed 24/7 because of the sun and heat. It’s a relief to have natural light and to be able to look out the windows. I’m not weeding in the garden but at last I’m ‘weeding’ a wee bit inside, doing some necessary dusting and picking up a few scattered odds and ends. It’s not as much fun but if I do it often enough, it will become a habit. The results – a clean, neat house where most things can be found can lead to a new found joy.
Now that I have delt with the why of this challenge, I like to talk about how I’m going to succeed. For that to happen I need to put in the time and effort. In other words, I have to work. It wouldn’t hurt to be more thoughtful about goals and planning. Besides the love of words and writing, what do I hope to gain from this exercise? Having a daily practice gives me structure. It channels my energy into something useful and sometimes beautiful. My daily morning weeding has resulted in such. I hope my daily July writing will do the same.
This year I have been gardening since March. I started off first with starting seeds for the greenhouse. I had no written plans. They were all in my head based on the previous year’s experience. Perhaps if I had kept a written garden journal, I would have much more success. I did make a start, jotting down what seeds, dates of seeding and germination. But as the season got busier, it all got left by the wayside. The thing is, I started. I have some written records. I have not failed. I can pick it up again now that I’m writing about it. I can make notes of what is doing well and what is not. I can make notes of where the sweet spots are for certain veggies. The celery certainly are doing well in the raised beds. I’m having my first real success with the cabbages and broccoli by having them planted early, early in the spring.
It takes time to see the fruits of your labour. Having a vision of my goal gives me directions of where to go and how to get there. Patience is a great teacher. My garden and yard is a wonderful laboratory to experiment, learn and work in. There are no mistakes. Some things work better than others. It is always evolving like our lives. The page can be another growing space. Words and sentences are my garden tools here. But I have to put in the time and effort. I have to show up daily.
Another new month, another new day, another new beginning. It’s July, Canada Day and the first day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’ve been participating in this challenge for quite a few years now. I enjoy challenges, words, pictures and writing. I love the nuance of words, how they roll around my tongue or beneath my fingertips as I tap, tap on the keyboard. I love daily practices because they give me a springboard to start the day. For the month of July, I will try to show up every day with a post to share on the UBC Facebook page. I do not think I will participate in the daily thread. Showing up with a post every day is enough of a challenge. However, I will read others’ posts if life permits.
That is the why of doing the challenge. As to the what, it is to be discovered daily when I sit down with my keyboard. I have no business to promote but I do have a lot of interests and hobbies. One of which is gardening. I have many growing spaces – a small passive solar greenhouse, 6 raised beds, a conventional garden and a community garden plot. They’re all tended by me this summer. I’m still learning so much about everything in life through my gardening efforts. My efforts and results have brought me so much joy. It’s such a delight to do my morning walk through these spaces. So be prepared to hear a bunch of garden talks.
My main goal is to show up each day with my best effort. I will aim for quality and not word count. Some days my post may be just a picture. I hear that a single picture can be worth a thousand words.
I’m having one of those sleepy days. It’s torture just getting the lunch dishes done. I’m glad that since retirement, I’ve morphed from a night owl into a lark. I’m up early, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I like to get stuff done and out of the way. That way, if I crash later, like today, the whole day is not wasted. So, this morning I’ve washed and frozen the picked haskaps and strawberries. I’ve also filled the 3 raised garden beds in the front yard with water from our rain catchment. While they were getting filled, I delt with some of those aggressive creeping blue bells. The end of them is within sight. It might take another year or 2 to rid half the front yard of them. I’m learning a different kind of patience.
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It’s taking me a long time to come back to finish this post I started on the 17th. Now June is almost over. July and the Ultimate Blog Challenge is only 3 sleeps away. My metamorphosis has been hindered and halted by procrastination. Finding time and energy for thoughts and words is not easy during gardening season. When thoughts, words and such are tough, I head out to weed, water and plant. There’s an endless supply of weeds. I never run out. Weeding is in a way, mindless though my mind is always full of thoughts. Though I have had a few illuminating thoughts while weeding, they’ve never turn into words and sentences. Perhaps I should jot them down as they hit me.
I’m not disappointed in June nor myself though. I’ve hit some peaks as well as some valleys. My garden spaces all have done well. The greenhouse had slowed but now it is soaring again. I have a few cucumbers and bittermelons fruiting. They and the Sweet One Million Tomato are supporting and holding each other up. It would be nice if we human beings could do the same. Seeing how productive this symbiotic relationship is, I try a littel harder to be supportive rather than contrary.
Though the weather has been erratic and unsettling, the yard and garden spaces have never looked so beautiful. I am proud of my efforts and hard work.
I’m almost out of words and thoughts. Though I’ve only shown up for these almost a handful of times, June has been a successful month of metamorphosis. I have somehow changed a little for the better. And I am still evolving. More to come in July.
My finest hours are the early first ones in the morning. After I have my morning tea, I like to wander out into the yard, stretch my mind and body. I can call it my working garden meditation. This morning I wanted to check our haskaps. Sometimes the birds find their way in under the netting. So far they haven’t gotten tangled in it but I could hear them flapping, trying to get out. No birds this morning. I got a 1 gram honey container full of purple fruit. I have another container full from the other day. I shall clean and freeze them till I figure out what to do with them. Sometimes I wait too long to do things and they end up spoiling and wasted. So learning to move along timely is part of my June metamorphosis journey.
Harvesting, cleaning and storing our produce are important. Equally important is using them. I’ve been harvesting our rhubarb, washing, chopping and freezing them in their prime. I’ve done so in the past, but they sat in the freezer and ended up in the compost after a couple of years. This winter, someone will be making rhubarb wine. I might have to nag a little. I’m waiting till I get enough strawberries from our patch to make a rhubarb strawberry cobbler. I’m learning to plan a little instead of always flying by the seat of my pants.
I’m enjoying my second cup of tea. I hope I don’t fall back into my old habits of too much again. Me thinks I worry too much sometimes. It’s good to let go, pamper and treat oneself once in awhile. The other evening, I took the birthday boy out for supper. It is not an easy thing for me to celebrate anything or go to an unaccustomed restaurant. I sucked it up bit back my uncomfortable feelings and proceeded full speed ahead. It’s a curious thing but I used to get intimidated by hairdressers and waiters/waitresses in fancy places. They seemed sophisticated and me so country bumpkinish. But I decided I had enough of that and let it all go. Afterall I’ve been breathing and walking this earth a few years now. I’m feeling pretty sophisticated myself. I let go and had a blast. Even though it was not my birthday, I celebrated it as my own birth out of the cocoon.
You just know that it’s going to be a high priced ticket when a hostess escorts you to a table, followed by a waitress, each with a long welcoming speeches. I understood the game. It was quite enjoyable even before we had any wine. We had 4 free tasters so that we could choose the one we love. Somehow instead of having just a glass each, I got talked into ordering a bottle. I was gamed. I think that was already on my mind as we first stepped into the restaurant. You know when there are so many layers of servers, a big tip is expected. It reminded me of the how many people does it take to turn on the light bulb joke. The waitress took our orders but she did not bring the tasters nor the food. She bought the bottle of wine and dessert and a different person bought the tasters and food. It was all very good fun. We wined and dined. I broke out of my serious mold, if only for one evening. I figured if we’re incapable of driving home, we could rent a room upstairs. It was in a hotel. But we were good to go. Needless to say, I gave a good tip.
June has been hot with thunderstorms. My metamorphosis has been a very slow process. Rather turning into a beautiful butterfly, I feel more like a slug or snail. Neither one is very attractive but they are appealing to me today. I like their speed. Maybe their lack of is a better term. I prefer the snail because it can crawl into its shell to get away from it all. That’s what I like to and shall do today – crawl into my shell to get a good rest.
I’ve developed some skill now through my sitting meditations with Mark Williams to close my eyes and let the outer world and all the sights and sounds all away. I can let my thoughts and emotions dissolve into nothingness. I’ve only discovered this ability yesterday, sitting in the quiet late evening heat. The A/C is turned off. The windows are wide opened with a bit of breeze drifting in. The sweat is still seeping into my eyes. I sit and breathe, in and out. I feel my heartbeat slowing down, thoughts and feelings leaving and my body relaxing. I understood at that moment what is meant by a no mind, no body.
June has been hotter and harder than I had anticipated. I can’t remember how long ago I had written the above. Now, almost in the middle of June, I’ve come back to finish what I had started. I hope I can finish. Finishing anything is the hardest task for me. I feel much like a bear at the moment – slow and sluggish. I would rather hibernate through the summer and emerge in the fall. I wonder if there’s a cool log nearby that I can crawl into. There goes my dream of turning into a beautiful butterfly. I should not give up hope yet. Summer is long and a silken cocoon sounds like a cool soft bed to loll, dream and spin magic in.
One thing that has been easy and fun in June is the DYICAD – Daisy Yellow Index Card a Day Challenge. It’s making tiny art on an index card daily. I have chosen the word prompt route and using pen and watercolour as my medium. It continues till July 31st. I will have 61 cards of art at the end. It does spark creativity besides fun. It’s good for my brain and heart. Here is a sampling of my favourites this year so far.
onethousandandtwo 