Persistence.

Oct 16, ’12 12:08 PM

Not every garden is a fall garden, planted just in time for the cool fronts and rain. Most are spring and summer, needing constant care and attention, just the right cover at the right time. Most of my gardens are over exposed.

This garden got lucky. Right place, right time. I have done almost nothing. It has required so little energy and just look at it.

Today.

 

It is glorious! It is the product of all those years, I guess. All that fretting from the harder seasons when there wasn’t much left to eat.

A sad day in July, 2011.

 

Here’s (some of) what I learn from the garden:

The best work is done passionately and quickly. Grabbing hold of the moments I most want to do the work and making the time, forcing the time wide open so that it happens right there, right in the heat of my desire.

Annuals from the sale table.

 

All the worry, trial and error, and late night reading over the years is cumulative. Every season is better and easier because of the work I put in the season before, or the one before that, or the one before that.
Late Spring, 2011.

There is room for rest.This bed saw nothing but cats and bird seed for a full year while I was busy tending other things. It’s resilience, again, fruit of the labor of seasons past.

August 2011

 

January 2012

 

Most of the work is just observation. Just like children, the cells multiply all on their own, according to their unique design and purpose. A gardener just makes room, minimizes pests, and does her best to enrich and protect the magic. We don’t create, we just make space.

September 2012

 

Today

 

Why my garden makes me want to write:

The only words that ever get written are the ones that have been given space. Plant all the ideas in a wide open bed and something will come up. Something will sprout. Identify the sprouts, figure out what they need, and give it to them as best you can. Most will wither in the sun or be eaten by something in the night, but a few might make it. Mostly the ones you didn’t worry so much about.

You will delight in them because they seem to grow all on their own, almost for your pleasure. They aren’t work, they are well placed accidents. And then you will take a picture and post it on the Internet because you are so proud, and every one will be so impressed with you. On the inside, you will be unsteady and embarrassed, ashamed because you didn’t really do this. You were just a witness. It just grew in the space you made.

 

And then one day you will eat it.
You will cut the stalk and wash off the dirt, toss it into a hot pan with bacon and it will fill your belly.

Comments (0)

Garden gnome.

Oct 9, ’12 4:31 PM

Time flies in the garden. Same girl, different season…

Comments (1)

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Oct 7, ’12 7:30 PM

The weather crashed down on me, the weight of it knocked the wind right from my chest and I spent the rest of the day gasping for breath. My body knows this color, this cold, and it reacts in utter panic.

Ten thousand to-do lists later, and I think I might have a hold of it.

How is it that I always forget 10 comes after 9? Do I really spend January through September of every year pretending this season doesn’t exist? October terrorizes me — the days change shape, time changes, the weather can’t make up it’s mind, and it doesn’t help that death is propped up as decoration everywhere I turn.

I want to sound every alarm and run as fast as I can. But I have learned to hold still, because thirty-two Octobers have come and gone, and not one has destroyed me yet.

Comments (0)

Hugs like it’s her job.

Oct 4, ’12 8:30 PM

Comments (0)

I went for a walk.

Oct 3, ’12 10:31 PM

20121003-223019.jpg

Comments (0)

How to do it anyway.

Oct 2, ’12 2:21 PM

Today I am supposed to write something substantial. That’s what I scribbled in my Filofax, anyway. And by scribble I mean meticulously printed, underlined, and highlighted.

The day started strong, with about a hundred happy little ideas growing in my head. I dressed and fed the girls, chugged a pot of coffee, and cheerfully taxied my crew to school.

I “brain blogged” all the way home and laughed out loud at my deeply funny jokes. I congratulated myself on being such a talented writer. By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was drunk on my own pre-productivity. Impressed by all I’d accomplished in my head, I swaggered into the garden to water and weed. Then I walked the dog, unloaded the dishwasher, made a pot of tea, checked in with all my clients, my traveling husband, the workers gutting the house across the street, and the weather.

I did everything but write.

The tea should’ve been a red flag. When I drink tea I am usually pretending. I have a whole cabinet full, like a trunk of dress up clothes, for when I want to be someone else or put on a show. In real life I drink black coffee. So when I went to put the kettle on, and the novelty of the pyrex tea pot caught my eye enough to make me stop and take pictures of it, I should’ve known I was headed down the wrong path.

 

By the time I sat down with my strange tea and smug grin, all of my bright shining ideas had been replaced by angsty hand-wringing and self-conscious whining.

Hours have passed since the sting of that moment, and I am still pouting. I tried to throw myself into other work, but the heat of embarrassment keeps creeping up my cheeks, distracting me. I feel like I’ve been disciplined publicly, like my hand was slapped away from a plate of cookies at a ladies’ luncheon.

This post is just me eating the cookies anyway.

Comments (2)

Can’t complain.

Oct 1, ’12 2:19 PM

20121001-141840.jpg

Comments (0)

Cezanne’s Seclusion

Sep 30, ’12 4:23 PM

Cezanne’s Seclusion
by Stephen Dobyns

“I have begun to think,” he wrote in a late letter,
“that one cannot help others at all.” This
from a man who once called friendship the highest
virtue. And in another he wrote: “Will I ever
attain the end for which I have striven so long?”
His greatest aspiration was certainty
yet his doubts made him blame himself wrongly,
perceiving each painting a disaster. These swings
between boldness and mistrust, intimacy and isolation
led him to stay at home, keep himself concealed,
becoming a sort of hermit, whose passion for the world
directed every brushstroke, changed each creation
into an expression of tenderness, which he dismissed
writing: “a vague sense of apprehension persists.”

“Cezanne’s Seclusion” by Stephen Dobyns, from Body Traffic.

Comments (0)

Sep 26, ’12 11:27 AM

20120926-112730.jpg

Comments (0)

Interested in DNA mapping? Let me do you a favor…

Sep 19, ’12 5:31 PM

I turned on the radio this morning just in time to hear another breathless report about mapping the human genome. NPR has been running a series that I’ve been listening to with great interest because I think that discoveries like these, along with iPhones/tricorders and 3-D printers/replicators, are this close to creating the Starship Enterprise existence of my husband’s dreams.

Thrilled to have the miracles of science unlocking the deep mysteries of inner space, I pulled out of traffic to fully take in the story. The lead in was thrilling and emotional.

When scientists were looking for the first person to test a new, superfast way of deciphering someone’s entire genetic blueprint, they turned to James Watson – the guy who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA.
“They had to sequence someone, so they got me,” he says.

Aw! Sounds promising, right? Well, turns out they didn’t discover much, just confirmation that Dr. Watson was sensitive to beta blockers. A greater disappointment to me was this brilliant scientist’s decision to use them anyway, just less frequently, instead of finding his body’s preferred method of controlling his blood pressure.

I let that go for a second while we heard from geneticist Michael Snyder, from Stanford’s genetics department. Sequencing his DNA revealed “shocking” and “dramatic” information — he was at risk for type 2 diabetes. While I appreciate that this information may have been a bit alarming to him, as a health coach I’m acutely aware that MOST Americans are at risk for this particular disease. Geneticists are smart people, so I kept listening. I sort of wish I hadn’t, because what this gentleman chose to do next is the “shocking” part. He asked a doctor to monitor his blood sugar levels and then…well…you can read it:

“The person doing the test said, ‘There’s no way you’re at risk for Type 2 diabetes.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t think so, either. But my genome says there’s something interesting about my glucose metabolism, so I think we should do this test,’ ” Snyder said.

So everyone was stunned when his blood sugar started rising — and then kept rising. Within months, it spiked. They had literally watched him become a diabetic in real time.

“So in fact, my genome, then, did predict I was at risk for a disease, which, by following the various markers for that disease, I did discover I did get,” Snyder said.

At risk of sounding kinda snotty, Mr.Snyder, you got the disease because you allowed your blood sugar to be out of control for several months! Like lots of Americans, this gentleman found his blood sugar difficult to control, but in the name of science, he allowed it rise to dangerous levels and eventually “spike”. That doesn’t sound too smart. Thankfully, what he chose to do next does:

Snyder jumped on it. He completely transformed his diet and kicked up his exercise. After about six months, his blood sugar gradually fell back to normal.

“That’s the power of genomics, is to help you catch things as early as possible. So, some people might say that actually, my genome saved my life,” he said.

No, Mr. Snyder, your genome didn’t save your life. Your genome (and your poor judgement) almost killed you. GOOD FOOD AND EXERCISE SAVED YOUR LIFE. By reading your code, you saw that you were prone to type 2 diabetes. You then chose to do nothing but watch the disease progress in your body. It wasn’t until after you were finally diagnosed with the disease that you did anything to treat or prevent it.

Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, let me do you a favor. You are at risk for type 2 diabetes. You should eat well and exercise.

There, I just saved you several thousands of dollars, and possibly your life. You’re welcome.

I didn’t intend for this to be a sales pitch, but if you or someone you love needs help figuring how exactly how to eat well and exercise for a particular genetic situation (otherwise known as your life), I am here to help. Health coaching is a lot like reading DNA — we map your health past, present, and future — but unlike the crazy diabetic geneticists, we take immediate action to treat and prevent disease and disorder in your body. Check out www.springupowell.com to get in touch with me.

Now, back to waiting for the holodeck to load.

Comments (0)