While I’m not exactly Eva Gabor to John’s Eddie Albert, I do kinda hum the theme to Green Acres every once in a while when I engage in a little bit of post-modern introspection in my back yard.
Growing flowers, as far as I’m concerned, was pretty tame. In spite of my brown thumb, I’ve managed to make a success of a bunch of knock out roses. You don’t have to tell me that’s not impressive — I know they grow like weeds. But let me live in the illusion that something magical is happening in the garden.
Because, well, something magical is happening in the garden.
The crepe myrtle where a sweet little statue of Mary sits is all covered in pink buds. It’s so pretty, and it’s going to get fuller by the day. A half barrel sits off the porch, overflowing with wild flowers. They’re mostly white, but today I noticed a beautiful blue one! I don’t even know their names, but they’re lovely to look at — so cheery!
So I sit out here in these summer evenings with my love, enjoying the cool breeze from the impending storms, and let the air tickle the little hairs on my arms, and let the green earthy smell fill my lungs, and let the pretty flowers do what a series of failed blood pressure medicines couldn’t do.
The bubbling from a small fountain is lulling me into a trance right about now and I’m distracted by the amazingly sweet smell of a giant green pepper that I just plucked off the vine.
When the alarm went off on my phone this morning, digital bells obnoxiously loud, my darling husband mumbled the obvious, your alarm is going off.
Unfortunately for him, by the time I turned it off, he was awake enough to be annoyed, so he decided to take advantage of his wakeful state to complain about a clock in the living room. This clock has not worked in 30 years. Until now. Apparently, it has a very loud gong that can be heard in our bedroom. Who knew?
This is funny for two reasons. 1) We have a houseful of clocks, including a Black Forest Cuckoo Clock that is much louder than this one, and 2) not one clock in the house keeps proper time. Not. One.
I’d like to think this is part of some grand scheme to fool Time, but I know better than that.
The truth is that we’ve turned into accidental collectors. We have a marble mantle clock that belonged to John’s grandmother, a Pony Express clock that belonged to his father, the offending brass clock in the living room, a kitschy cuckoo clock and the real deal, and a clock that one of John’s pals made for me, assuming that I collected clocks. Well, I guess I do.
The startling thing about all those clocks is that they don’t keep time. More startling is that I am somehow OK with this. I mean – somewhere down the line you’d think I’d fix them or set them or wind them or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with a clock.
I guess. But really, this apathetic attitude probably comes from a fluid sense of time. Someone recently pointed out that my own sense of time is distorted. Apparently, and I own up to this, when I say “the other day” it could mean last Thursday. Or a Thursday sometime in 2007. Look. The latter is the other day…just another day a long time ago, right?
Perhaps this has something to do with recent events in my life that have me facing mortality (heh, heh, by recent I mean in 2009, when my husband was diagnosed with ALS, or for those of you who prefer recent to mean in the last month – my own troubles with high blood pressure). I don’t think so. Those clocks have been stuck in time for decades.
However, these recent events have had an impact on how I choose to spend my time. And that’s not something a clock can tell. Living in the moment is an art. It takes effort, and commitment. And lots of practice.
You could say that all those clocks in my house are stuck in time – stuck in the past. Or you could say they are a pregnant pause in the present. Waiting and capturing a moment.
Whatever. Maybe they are an indication that the owner has better things to do – perhaps she’s being present to the moments happening around her.
This sense of presence, however, is more than carpe diem. Yes, I want to seize the day – I get that every day is a gift and an opportunity, but there’s more to it than that. It speaks to the choices we make, and the consequences of those choices. I don’t want to be seizing my day in a selfish, hedonistic way that fritters away my life, or worse, ruins my afterlife.
Blessed Pope John Paul II once used a Polish proverb that brought home this point stunningly,
Time flies, eternity waits.
Whoa. I guess eternity is going to be here a lot sooner than I expect. Those clocks I have scattered about are reminding me to be ready now because I won’t know the time.
This week’s challenge asks the photographer to examine the shot before framing it in such a way to drive the viewer’s focus in a certain direction.
I stumbled into the shot by taking a walk through Baltimore on the way to Mass at the Cathedral.
I saw many lovely things along the way, such as this tree, which caught my attention because it was in the midst of so many straight lines, yet it is gnarled and crooked, and apparently thriving in spite of the contrast. It reminded me of the reason for my walk that morning…a straight road before me in spite of my own failings to grow straight.
And yet, I managed to thrive, too, and find a quiet spot to think about these things, and pray.
I never imagined that teasing John about his new gardening hobby could be so sweet and satisfying…as in sweet, tasty fruit.
Prior to this, it was mostly making fun of his FarmVille habit, but these days, I’m shutting up. It turns out I am enjoying working alongside him in the evenings. We don’t do much…a little watering, a little weeding, maybe some pruning. Then we sit down and wait for the lightning bugs to come out.
Mostly, we just enjoy the silence between us. Except for the occasional frog croaking.
Who knew so much could be said with a smile or a look.
The dog peed on John’s watermelon plant this morning.
The conversation that followed in the car on the way to Mass can best be described as hilariously combative. First, he was incensed at the dog. Second, it’s pretty bad form to go to Mass pissed off. About a plant. It was more resignation at the puppy’s antics than real annoyance. Until he decided to get ridiculous about adding a fence to the garden. Then I got annoyed.
Then, he pulled out a nuclear weapon.
The weapon? My friend Margaret Rose Realy.
Really.
Well, actually, her book. Somebody’s been secretly reading A Garden of Visible Prayer and using Margaret’s master gardening experience against me! The nerve!
We need to define the garden, he says. We need essential elements.
Seriously? I just want a nice, quiet, peaceful place.
After recording Catholic Weekend this morning, I joined John on the back porch. That area has turned into quite a retreat for us, and although I complained and moaned about the expense, and especially his design for the structure, I figured it’s his hobby, stay out of it.
Except, there’s no way for me to stay out of it. In fact, I’m always in it, as in, sitting in the cool shade enjoying the breeze and the natural air conditioning when the sprinklers come on and a fine mist refreshes us. Good call, honey. I don’t even mock his little corn rows even though the neighbors tease him plenty, even calling him Farmer John.
Anyway, so we’re sitting outside enjoying some sweet tea and watching the dog chase his tail. I’d been doing some weeding in the roses and he’d been playing around on his iPad when I came up and plopped next to him, complaining that I couldn’t get Immaculate Mary out of my head. He laughed and suggested that maybe I should get Mary out of the weeds…
Poor Mary…I had neglected her, too. These past weeks of travel, planning, and general malaise took a toll on her in the garden, but it also took a different toll on me.
Tending to the weeds is usually an easy project. In the evenings when I sit outside with John, it only takes a few minutes for me to pull some new growth, maybe cut off some deadheads from the rose bushes, and I’m back to my cup of coffee or glass of wine to continue to enjoy our conversation. If…if…I tend to things a little bit every day. If not, things get overgrown easily. If I abandon it altogether, and I’d often done that when the children were little, it would take a backhoe to set things right again. Sometimes so much damage had been done that razing the field and starting over was the best solution.
So I patiently tackled Mary’s little area. And Momma Mary patiently tackled me, pulling some weeds out of my heart and sending me on my way, pointing in her Son’s direction.
There’s still some work to be done. Some of those weeds took root, and the mulch needs a new layer, but things are looking better.
I need to come clean here: this isn’t a new picture. I took it a few years ago while I was waiting in a carpool line and I ran out of things to do. I happened to have my camera with me and I started playing around with motion and got this shot. I’ve always liked it, as far as self-portraits go. And I can be a hipster and say I took a selfie before it became ubiquitous. Ha!
I really like this picture, and I really like the challenge to somehow capture fleeting in a photograph. I love that my eyes are not moving here; they are focused on the moment, but the rest is in motion.
Isn’t that what happens when we get in the zone while we’re doing something we love? When I was a kid, I’d be playing so hard I wouldn’t remember to go in for lunch until my mom called me in, flustered and annoyed by the number of times she had to call for me. Later, playing basketball, I’d find my zone and time would both stand still and somehow zoom to the end of the fourth quarter.
As a young mother, I loved to rock my babies to sleep, and sometimes I’d feel like I was defying the laws of physics — the rocking chair would be moving back and forth, but my eyes would be locked on the face of the precious child in my arms, and time would stand still.
Those moments were fleeting, for sure, but they are also engraved in my mind’s eye…kind of like the picture.
Wow. It’s been quite a while since I update this blog. What’s the point of doing something for pleasure if it becomes a chore — and that’s how I was looking at this little ole site for some time. A chore.
I was feeling pressure (that I created for myself, by the way) to somehow entertain or be clever for an audience. I forgot I was writing for myself because I enjoy it. The task is, of course, to figure out what is making me happy…writing? Not writing? Something else?
When I woke up this morning I took my coffee out on the porch while the dog was out doing whatever it is dogs do in the morning when there’s a big yard full of rabbits, squirrels, and birds to terrorize. There was a terrible rain last night that tore up our freshly laid mulch, and all the work was destroyed. It can be fixed, of course — restored if you will, maybe even better, but in the moment it was disappointing and frustrating to see.
As I was sipping my coffee and sighing over the mess, I caught sight of all the berries turning bright red on the vine. I’m totally aware of how many tweets and facebook statuses have been about the raspberries that are growing so abundantly in my garden, and I am amused by it. This is the same woman who tried to kill an African Violet twenty-eight years ago, and embraced the brown thumb responsible for killing every houseplant I came near since The Great Crispy Violet Episode of 1985.
I guess I was busy keeping little people fed.
Now I’m busy keeping myself fed — with fresh ripe raspberries plucked right off the vine.
Perspective is everything, I suppose. I could focus my camera on the mulch mess or the raspberries. I think I chose wisely.
another cup of coffee 
