my Friday man

Griffin! Every Friday for lunch (accompanied by his dad, Brock) I'm completely charmed by this new little guy in my life.

(Ohhh, I think I'm in trouble.)

Cleaning Thyme

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the bunches of organic fresh herbs I’d recently bought were beginning to darken in the refrigerator. So I thought I’d try to dry them and see if they could still be used instead of tossing them out, since they weren't too far gone yet. I tied the little stems with kitchen string and hung them on push pins I’d stabbed into my old wooden kitchen cart and waited expectantly for the first couple of hours and then completely forgot about them.

This, it turns out, was a good thing. Usually my impatience tends to cause me to ruin things. Name a thing. My impulsive rush to see how it all turns out has spoiled the endings of perfectly wonderful books, meals, house plants (over-watered), ceramic projects pulled out of the kiln too soon, photographs—hell, even relationships have crashed due to my insistence on knowing what’s coming.

So for some reason, this morning I noticed the little bundles hanging from the cart’s wooden handle and thought, “aha!!” And found a dry spot on the counter and began to roll the bundles between my hands, as the perfectly dried little leaves dropped into a scattered nest of fine twigs and tiny bits. It took quite awhile to sort out the leaves from the twigs and stems, but when I was finished, I’d filled a few little bottles I’d been saving for years—who knows why—with lovely dried herbs to crush into my eggs or marinara sauces. The only thing that could be better would be having grown them myself—which is not really possible since my little balcony gets no direct sunlight.

Anyway, it’s a ridiculously small accomplishment, I’ll admit. Almost embarrassing, really, to write a whole blog post about it. But the pleasure I experienced as I sorted the leaves from the chaff, doing something so peacefully productive and calming was a revelation. So little of my time lately has been spent this way. And that’s what this post is about. I need more peacefully productive and calming activity in my life.

For a long time this blog has been kind of a metaphor for my life, and my infrequent posts reveal just how little interest I have in maintenance anymore. It’s become one more thing that signifies a personal disappointment to me. The truth is, I’m completely uninterested in taking this blog further.

As well, for the past several years I’ve gradually sunk into depressions and a pervasive sense of futility that has crippled me physically and creatively. The diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis has been pretty devastating to me and requires expensive medications with fairly significant side effects that have also led to my increasing isolation and sense of loss. I’m just not the woman I was a few years ago, and I’m not exactly adjusting. A friend once remarked of a mutual acquaintance that she was not “aging well,” and now I’m finding my own circumstances and appearance make that observation particularly piquant.

Okay. It’s true that I’m not aging well. Standing in my kitchen with the morning light streaming in, occupied with a small, homely task came as a powerful reminder that this is what life is made of: small moments of insignificant pleasure taken where we can find them. And when we are lucky enough or determined enough to pursue those moments with clear intention, the reward over time is a fulfilling life.

So I'm ready to pursue fulfillment with clarity and intention, and I don’t know what’s coming, but I'm loving this growing sense of purpose. And it's funny: for once, I’m not hurrying to see how it ends.

What springs eternal?

Well, my attempt to write a poem a day crashed and burned leaving no survivors two days into the project. What is it that makes me such an optimist, time after time, as I try and try again? It must be innate, because the sustained failure to achieve so many earnestly-begun creative projects has surely been the most (embarrassing) consistent and predictable outcome over the long course of my life! Yet somehow I don't much care. Like Scarlet, I start again and again, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow's another day. Tra-laa! Besides, the sun is out and the day is warm enough to not need a jacket for the first time since October.

Here are a couple of Easter morning photos, snapped on my way home from Starbucks.

spring on a dry day~surprise!

Returned Netflix DVDs at the Post Office in NW Portland on my break this morning and brought my camera with me since the sun was out and colorful things are beginning to bloom. 

A Poem a Day, a Photo a Day

For NaPoWriMo, I'm posting my daily poem into the dedicated page listed on the right. But my daily photos will be posted here on my main page. 30 days, 30 poems, 30 photos. It's a test!

Today I actually got two shots that I don't hate.

I was a good day to be inside.

birthday boy

St. Patrick's Day marked Griffin's (grandson #3) first birthday:

He wasn't exactly enthused by the prospect of special food to celebrate.

So his big brother, Grayson, offered an assist.

And chocolate with sprinkles turns out to not be so bad after all.