The Garden as Solace

It's been over a year since I visited this blog/journal.  Little prince is nearly 18 months old and we have two new souls to love.   So many years ago my last child was born..  nearly 24 years ago.  She was sweet and quiet.  She seemed fragile after my robust, noisy and demanding first child.  This sweet child has grown into a more restless soul, but at 23 but she remains fragile.  Now stricken with a disease of the brain, she faces an internal struggle every single day.  It seems a lifetime away since she broke the news. I sat with her in the emergency room, praying for her life.  I cannot adequately describe what it is like for a parent..  the slow death of the daughter you knew and the sentence of death for the woman she has become unless she fights with all her might.  It's almost more than one can bare.  Every day is a prayer for a reprieve. Her life depends on her strength of spirit.  

I had my CT scan this week... stable.   I am relieved - looks like no surgery this year.

There is so much good in my world, that I should spend so many sentences on the worst parts seems wrong somehow.  The garden is awakening slowly.  It's been a cool spring, but the crocuses are peeping out of my bulb lasagna, and the tulip leaves are pushing upward.  The fish have surfaced, and while skimming the pond today I startled a frog who shot out of the leafy silt into the deep water.  I saw a plush and healthy red fox last night, and my child saw one from our porch last week.  The world is renewing.  Spring is the hope after a long, long cold winter. 

A little mouse in the garden

It's been so long since I've written.. since the wedding. And now we have a wonderful baby prince in the family - 6 weeks old and on the edge of a smile! It all comes rushing back - the sleepless nights, the endless diapers, the relief at every little sign of growth.  A baby comes into the world with so much effort, demanding the world and devouring all leisure moments, yet softens all of life's sharp edges. Words can't express the complexity of this.. 8 pounds of mystery unfolding while everyone waits on the edge of their seats for a little smile, bursting with laughter at the slightest cheerful look in their direction.

This morning when I awakened the temperature was in the 20s.  Normally I try to shut down the pond on Thanksgiving Day, but this year Thanksgiving is late.  I made my coffee, fed the birds, and then decided to go out and shut down the drip pump.  This pump forces water through layers of shale to the side of the falls, then out over the surface so that it looks like a spring seeping and dripping over the rocks.   I lifted the large planter that I invert over the electric box to hide it, and pulled the plug on the little pump.  As I do so, I notice that on top of the electric box is a little pile of shredded leaves and fluff like milkweed seeds and dryer lint, all mixed together into a mess.  I realize that it's a nest.. and just as this realization hits my brain, movement draws my eye toward the pond net where a white footed mouse with large eyes is frantically clinging about halfway up the net.  Poor thing.

Now what.   It's too cold to get rid of the nest, but soon I will need to turn off the pump and get the deicer and aerater going.  I guess I'll wait until the the temperatures rise a little to do all of that and maybe he'll find his way back after the work is done.  It's a really smart spot for a nest..  warm from the electric, covered by the planter, and much better than inside our ski bags and boots like last year.  

Turn Around and You're Two...

My little one is thirty-one.  She tells me she is no longer Princess, but has promoted herself to Goddess.  We gathered together on Saturday to celebrate the union of the Goddess to her Prince Charming.  They make a handsome couple, and they will have a son in less than six months time.  Our first grandchild.. 

The hummingbirds have returned.  The males arrived in late April and the females arrived last week.  Now there are fierce, whirring helicopters swirling around the feeders as they establish territories and hopefully build nests of cobwebs and moss.  There are three kinds of woodpeckers nesting somewhere in the area, and the wrens won out on the nest box this spring.  There were three bats in the bat house last I looked, the mason bees have adopted the bee house again, and the toads who took over the pond a month ago have finally left, allowing us a full nights sleep.   I notice that the lotus flower and the lilies are pushing up leaves, and the water iris is about to bloom.  All this means that spring is well underway, even though it's still pretty chilly.  I hear warmer weather is on the way.

Sage advice

Fresh is nicer than rubbed, and if protected in the winter it will come back each year.

I was riding up a chair lift this morning with a ski instructor and we were chatting about the group of skiers I was traveling with and how much more experienced they are than I.  They say, "Come ski with me" but when I do, they are always waiting for me and giving me on the spot ski lessons. Most of this advice, something like 80%, is bad advice.  Ski instructors tell me over, and over, and over again that I have excellent form, initiate turns smoothly, and really only need to learn to pole plant on the steeps.  "Don't worry about where your arms are, they are relaxed and perfectly fine.  Don't bother planting on easy blues or greens. Just have fun turning down them however you feel like turning."  But the best advice of all was this.  Never accept an invitation to ski with someone whose skiing is not your style or ambition.  Tell them "I would love for you to ski with me, but I don't want to ski with you." 

It has been a good week here at Snowmass, and will hopefully be a great week in Utah.  Perhaps I will find someone to ski with me!

Going.. going.. going.. GONE!

Today is the last day of my career as historian and archivist, work I have done for the last 33 years.   My career has largely been a solitary existence, working in windowless rooms somewhere in the lowest floors of a building.  While there were periods of time when I truly loved what I was doing, there have also been long stints when my heart just wasn’t in it.   It isn’t boredom or dissatisfaction with the work that I’m experiencing.  The work has been interesting and satisfying in hourly and sometimes even monthly stretches.  It’s more similar to the exasperation and sadness I felt as a child, sent to bed while my parents and older siblings talked and laughed and lived out the extra hours without me.  I would strain my ears to hear what they were saying, creeping silently to the top of the stairs to be near them, but not among them.  For that short time between the dinner table and sleep, I was not a full member of the family.  

As an adult, my daily rituals for many years were designed to navigate around college courses, school busses, scout meetings, church, and work.  They have become meaningless since the children have grown, largely designed around doctor appointments and train schedules.  For some lucky people work is fulfilling, colleagues are also friends, and there is laughter and camaraderie during the day.  There is no laughter during the day for me.  In fact, there is no conversation.  For the last two years I have been an employee with staff but no colleagues.  On work days I drink two cups of coffee in the morning morning while deleting spam emails and perusing the web. I eat a bowl of oats 10 minutes before I must leave to catch my train.  I work for 8 hours, waiting impatiently for the moment I can leave the office, then hurry to make my train.  Coming and going, commuting with masses of people each day helps me understand that I am part of the daily hum of life.  But when I can chat with strangers in the grocery line, when I can have long discussions with friends and family, when I am awake and present long enough to take walks holding my husband’s hand, or just soak in the tub with a book, this is when I have felt that I was truly among the living.  

Now, in the middle of all this transition to retired life a funny thing is happening.  People are reaching out to me and asking me to join them in book clubs, garden talks, bird walks, trips, sails, paddles down little creeks, weekday skis, weekend visits to the mountains or the shore.  We visit Hubby’s mum each summer, and when I asked him about plane reservations he said, “Let’s drive..  we can take the scenic route down the Blue Ridge Parkway.”  But here is the most wonderful event of all:  I am to become a grandmother!  How lucky I am to suddenly have the time to enjoy this new soul!  The only offer that I will not consider, at least for now, is the offer to teach history at a local college.  If this silly heart of mine will allow, I’m guessing I have 30 or 40 more years in this body.  Plenty of time to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

The Bathroom Wars

My beautiful marble bathroom  (BMB) is finished.  It's the hall bath, larger than our master, with marble walls, marble floors, huge walk-in marble shower, marble vanity top... and I can see the pond and the fish swimming here and there while I brush my teeth.  Best of all, it's mine.  Totally, completely mine.  No man shall lift the seat in MY bathroom!  

 

While the hall bath project was in full swing, Hubby decided -- in his infinite wisdom -- to tear out the master vanity, install it in one of his rental apartments, and order a new one.  The master shower worked fine, but there was no where to brush teeth etc. and only one bulb hanging in the middle of the room. Hubby was relegated to the guest room in the back while I used the powder room downstairs for teeth brushing and other necessities. Last week we put the granite top into the master bath, and I started moving in the stuff I had moved out for the construction; the extra hair dye (yeah..  it's true, I do and have since I was 30), the nail polish and emery boards, the extra contacts, the cosmetics I don't use any more, and whatever else doesn't fit in my new hall bath.  Hubby puffed up his chest and said in a booming voice..  "No, this is my bathroom..  yours is down the hall."  Holding a box of my stuff, I put my head down and plowed past him.  "Like hell", this is the workhorse and remains ours.  Outta my way."  Seriously..  men.  You have to wonder.

I am learning about orchids.  My youngest gave me a beautiful peppermint striped orchid which, you may remember, was decimated by the tree surgeons last summer. It had torn leaves and the blooming stem broke off at the base.  I brought it in, cleaned it up, and babied it along all fall.  When the BMB was finished, I stuck it in the window overlooking the pond.  It gets the western sun, but it's dappled from the trees.  Its leaves are bathed daily in shower steam, and it gets cooed at every morning. I also bought it a companion for the windowsill, another tall moth orchid with waxy salmon colored blooms and bright orange centers. A few weeks ago I noticed a new flower stem on the peppermint orchid, pushing its way upward, and now there are tight bud bumps beginning to form along its 6 inch stem.  

My knees are healed.  I skied two plus days in New Hampshire this week with absolutely no problems.  It's a wonderful thing!   My legs felt tired, my quads were only a little sore, but a soak in the hot tub and a good nights sleep left my legs, from hip to toe, ready for another day of turns. 

Somehow, despite the abuse we put it through, nature survives and heals. When we discover that we've damage it, we need pick it up, protect it, and leave it alone for a while.  Don't immediately bring in alien things to try to "fix it", or built contraptions to mitigate the damage, or decide there's no hope and throw it out. Identify the problem, stop the injury before there's no turning back, leave it alone for a while and let it heal.

I Spy Something Red

I stand corrected!  To my great surprise, a motion sensitive, night vision IP camera was waiting for me on Christmas morning!  YAY!  It took a few days, and a call to customer service, to get it up and running.  The first night it took a picture of my bathroom window.  Unfortunately it doesn't work very well behind glass.  The second night I moved it out back to the pond area.  The next morning this was sent to my phone: 

Heheheheh...  foxie fox.

This morning I received a notice from the HR department that I qualified for retirement.  It's about time..  I told them in June that I was retiring in February.  

The aorta thing..  the old blood pressure is up again, despite doubling the meds in November and more exercise.  I like being in control of my health.  I have been careful about it all of my life, and it's really difficult being ineffective.  Seems like one thing after another.  I wonder where I would be if I didn't know what was going on inside of me.  I can't feel it or see it, and it never effected the way I lived my life or the things I wanted to do.  It seems very sudden, but it's really not that sudden if you know what's happening.  Takes years to get here.   The knees are ready for skis.  They don't like dancing though.  New Years Day found me taking nsaids and icing, but here a day later I am pain free again. 

Meanwhile, I am watching the snow reports.  Skiing is like flying in your dreams, with only slightly less effort.  Actually, depending on your mindset, it's the same effort.  Sometimes I have to really get a running start and flap my arms really hard to get just a few feet into the air.  Sometimes I just raise my hands to the heavens and I'm soaring into the treetops.  Mostly I need a little effort for a pretty good flight.   Once I've expended all the energy on clomping over to the lift, maneuvering onto the seat without dropping my poles or gouging someone's eye out, successfully scootching my way off of the lift chair, and slipping down to the flat landing spot without a boarder falling in front of me, the rest is easy.  Stand at the top, exhale, and slide.  I hear myself breathing and I hum a waltz in time..  past the beautiful pines, a range of mountains ahead, and below me is peaceful white all around.