I Believe in The Way Things Work

Everyone has their lessons in life--the ones they seem to have to learn over and over again. Goodness, there is patience somewhere in the Universe. Huge stores of it that guardian angels have to go take hits of on a regular basis. I am sure of it. I had to learn one of my lessons again this past weekend.

Here's what happened: John and I got all busy. And when we get busy, sometimes we bite off more than we could possibly chew in a hundred years, much less a weekend. Around here, there is so much possibility, so many things to fix up, so much that we want to do. And John and I are doers. That's how we got here. We don't usually sit around talking about what we want to do and then just go have a cup of coffee and a smoke...

And like everything in the world, that quality, that thing, has a light side and a dark side, or good and bad if you like. The light side is, you know, we get things done. The dark side of it is more complicated of course, and harder to put my finger on exactly. It has to do with worrying about the end product all of the time instead of enjoying the process, or realizing that the process is all there is. Because end products are all ephemeral anyway, even if some take more time to disappear than others.

We started to stake out the location of the horse barn on Sunday. The speculative nature of the task brought back a rush of feelings similar to what I felt all last year as we navigated the building of the house. "I don't know," was my response to everything. Should we put it here, or would it be better there? Should we put the hay storage here, or here? Is eight feet wide enough for a grooming aisle or not? At one point, I threw up my hands and cried, "Oh my god, let's forget this!" As much as I want horses back in my life, I felt so overwhelmed by yet another project where I'm asked to envision three-dimensional space, which I suck at. Real bad. (And then the rototiller kept stalling while we tried to till up the garden, and then I mis-measured a curtain for the bathroom and had to tear the stitching out--two times. Process? I got your process right here!)

This might not sound like a big deal. But it's my lesson and the tide was gathering, dragging all sorts of notions that I have about myself to the shore with it. Notion one: I am not actually capable of anything outside of normal, safe, suburban life. Notion two: I need to make this place perfect so that everyone will like coming here. Notion three: I'm too old to be doing all this. Who do I think I am anyway? And a few more variations on those themes.

After some gin and popcorn, we settled down. That night, I had this dream: I was fixing a large, unwieldy display of some kind. It was like a holiday display at a department store or something--I couldn't see the whole thing. I was applying a wet, sticky cement-like spackling to it, trying to seal it up, make it tight. It wasn't working too well and I realized that I had to get help. I ended up talking on the phone to an old gradeschool acquaintance who owned the Oscar Meyer company. He remembered me right away and as I talked to him, the spackling started to work.

So...I'll leave you to analyze that as you may : ), but I will say that it made me feel good, upon awakening, that I apparently have psychic access to an astute businessman who remembers who I am and can make the spackling work.

Breathing deeply the next day, I called the county extension office to ask if an agent could come out to advise us on the location of the barn. He's coming April 23. And then, the most beautiful, wonderful, blessed thing of all occurred. I received an email from my Aunt Lainey in Texas. She wanted to know, did I want two horses instead of one, and would I perhaps like for Uncle Jack to come up and help build the barn?

Wait a minute. Are you kidding me?! (you gotta know that Uncle Jack is really, really good at building barns, houses, you name it. And you might as well know that we wanted a horse for John, too, and that horses need company anyway.) Um, yeah. Yes. Two horses and Uncle Jack, we'll take it.

So, I got to learn my lesson and eat it too? I'm not sure why or how things work out the way they do around me. All I know is that I am grateful. I've learned my lesson again. For now. Even though the end product is coming into clearer focus, I'm not worried about it anymore. This is just a place to live. These are just things to do. I'm just living a regular old messy life and taking my lessons in the form that they come in around here.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Botanical Wonders

Did you know that Oaxaca is a hotbed of biodiversity? I can't remember the numbers or percentages exactly, but it is always in the top five spots on the globe for the number of species of this plant or that animal. Someone gave me a copy of Oliver Sacks' Oaxaca Journal before our trip. It is an account of his participation in a botanical expedition to Oaxaca in 2001 with members of the American Fern Society. Because, of course, the region has the largest number of fern species in the world. Go figure, right? Ferns? In hot, dry Mexico?

The biodiversity is there in part because of the varied terrain throughout the state--an arid central valley to cloud forests at the top of the mountains and several different zones in-between. There are two seasons: rainy and dry. We were there at the end of the dry season, so it felt very desert-like to me, and yet there were tropical plants everywhere. In the dry season, the tropical plants drop their leaves and put their energy instead into flowers. Those are pollinated, then the rains begin and leaves and seed production get underway. It is astounding (to me) to see how well adapted the moisture loving tropicals are to the dry season. They hunker down like the cacti and wait.

One of the treats afforded to me by my old job at the Conservatory is the ability to appreciate the sight of plants very foreign to Ohio in their native habitats. The horticulture staff does an amazing job of growing all different kinds of plants in the greenhouses, but they can only do so much in terms of height and width and bloom with the paltry light conditions in Ohio for sixth months out of the year. Also, plants with the ability to hunker down grow very slowly. So, numbers count. The more Century Plants you have in one place, the more likely you are to see them in bloom.

I'm pretty sure that what the Mexicans call "Maguey" is the same species that we call the "Century Plant"--Agave americana. I thought I saw different bloom stalks on plants that others called Maguey. Either way, you can make mescal and tequila from both. It has plenty of other uses, too--fibers to make rope, shoes, floor mats, thatch for roofs, etc., etc. You can even use the plants as a fence line as they did here in the Sierra Norte.

John and I took a guided tour of the Ethnobotanical Garden housed on the grounds of the old Santo Domingo Convent. We saw all those wonderful food crops that came from Mesoamerica--beans, corn, squash, tomatoes, chilies, amaranth, and more. They did not have a cacao tree growing there, though! And surely that is one of the finest gifts to mankind from this area of the world. But, we saw plenty of other things to make up for it...

My first Kapok tree with actual seed pods (where the soft kapok fibers come from). The Mexicans call it a Pochote tree. There was one growing in the middle of the restuarant we ate at almost every day. Those are not seed pods, but a more impressive photo of the thorns that grow on the trunk.

Plumeria, or Frangipani in full-on bloom (made me feel like I was in Hawaii!)

Stupendous cactus plants.

Along the streets and in the parks and on the mountians we found dozens of other wonders.

The Guaje trees, which Oaxaca is named after supposedly, have pretty hibiscus-like blooms.

Here they are growing on the hillside of the Cerro Fortin where we hiked.

Bromeliads on the trees in the Sierra Norte. They don't have roots in the soil. They perch on trees and gather nutrients from the moisture in the air.

Lupines on the same road.

And a Jade Vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) in bloom in the courtyard of a cafe!

The famous tree at Tule--a member of the cypress family. It is thousands of years old and it is huge (this picture isn't even half of the tree). There are hundreds of birds living in it, like some avian version of ancient cliff dwellers with apartments high and low.

I saw a whole lot of topiary there, too. All of it ficus.

A bird peeking out of a nest--or, I thought, cuckoo clock.

I could go on, but it is time to quit as anyone who has posted pictures on blogspot knows (oy, the scrolling!). I leave you with a shot of Sarah gazing from a perch in the Santo Domingo convent onto the botanical splendor of her current home.

Where To Begin?

Wow. I don't know where to start on the Mexico trip. There is too much to put into one post so you'll have to bear with me as I try to organize it into something that I can understand over the next week. Overall, it was fantastic. I am in awe of my beautiful, intelligent, and intrepid step-daughter. I truly don't understand how she musters the energy to face completely new cultures over and over again and stick with it until she becomes as close to a local as an outsider can be. Because it does take energy to make your way through a foreign place and people--no matter how beautiful, compelling, friendly, etc. We visited Sarah when she lived in Aix en Provence for a year and it was also a foreign place, but the culture was, on a scale, much more similar to my own than was Mexico. I am of European descent after all. The faces looked like mine in France.

Mexico was so different and I don't know enough about it to tell you why exactly. I was humbled and amazed. Humbled by the fact that these people are our neighbors and I hadn't ever met them before, and amazed at the richness of their history and how that history has trickled down to the present in certain behaviors and in architecture and cuisine, etc. It was also just plain fun to experience so many new things, and I am sure that the level of fun was in direct proportion to the fact that we had a wonderful set of guides in Sarah and Jorge.

Okay, so. I'll begin with some pictures of walking through the streets. We did this everyday. Similar to European cities, you walk everywhere in Oaxaca. That right there is different enough from the US, no? A portrayal of our walks would not be complete without a strong mention of The Stella--our tireless walking companion. (And for that matter, the graffiti.)

We leave Sarah's apartment and descend into the city...

We went to a gigantic market in Tlacolula on our first day. There is my hair sticking out like a sore thumb. I'm quite positive that the Mexicans, if not ready for my hair, are used to the look that was surely on my face--eyes agog and mouth slightly open.

On our first day, I was also stunned by what sounded like a gunshot close by. Sarah and Jorge stood, unfazed, as I clutched at my heart. "Oh," they laughed, "those are fireworks. Someone is always setting them off." Indeed. They often alerted people to the presence of parades or protest or pride marches that you might stumble across anywhere.

And everywhere, I mean everywhere, a church. Those Spaniards weren't taking any chances, I guess.

Stella was always an object of attention. Here on the Zocolo, or main square, a boy keeps asking, "Does she bite?" And despite Sarah's repeated assurances that she didn't, he could not bring himself to touch her.

We had some fun with the street paintings, or at least John did : )

And oh, the colors! Holy God Almighty, the colors!

On two occasions, we walked the Cerro Fortin, Sarah's running route. It is straight up, oh I don't know, five hundred or more steps. Besides the exercise (which we really didn't need at that point) there was an almost 360 degree view of the valley and that was worth it.

And there you have the merest taste of the streets of Oaxaca. At the end of the day, we slogged back up the hill to Sarah's house, tired to our bones, and ready for some cold beers and warm sopes.

Next up: a botanical extravaganza! All you biophiles get ready.

"One More Lap Around"

If you live in Ohio, I don't have to tell you how beautiful it has been these past few days. This morning was no exception, though it was a little cooler--and more seasonable to be honest. Before we leave tomorrow on our trip, I took one more walk around the loop: through the orchard to the back pasture and up through the woods trail that spills you back out at the cabin.

The ground was spongy soft with moss that is thriving on the dew and warming temperatures. The understory of the woods sparkled with the leftovers of an early morning rain shower. The sun was noticeably warm on my backside. LeRoy ran ahead of me through the grass and leaves, scampering around like the puppy he is apparently channeling.

"Just one more lap around!" That was what I used to say to my dad when I was about seven years old on one of our family vacations at Lake Dunmore in Vermont. Dad would let me steer the little outboard motor on our rented rowboat around and around the inlet in front of our cabin. Thanks for that, Dad.

I could take "one more lap around" my loop a million times and never tire of it.

Lilac in bud, check.

Naturalized daffs coming up, check.

Misty, lacy, dew-dropped woods, check.

Fairy orbs in place, double check.

And look at this fabulous nest from last year. Heather of the Hills, if you're reading, do you know what made it?

And what does it use to glue it over the suspending branch like this? Amazing!

Well--there you go, until March 31 or so. Have a GREAT spring equinox tomorrow everyone! It's here!

Morning Unfolds

The moon has been glorious this past cycle. It is starting to wane now (which will make sleeping a more reasonable expectation) and it hangs around in the morning sky:

The mists hung in the pastures this morning in a more warmer-weather manner:

Until the sun came over the hill and burned them up:

Still looking pretty brown, though. So...we turn to the orchid for inspiration:

Or, we visit Sarah's blog for some south of the border color infusion. This is worth a look/read, oh ye northern people deprived of the full spectrum of UV light for the past six months.

And yes, John and I are going there (Mexico) this Saturday for a week-long visit! Can't wait. I'll take lots of colorful pictures and bring them to you via this blog--promise.

Birthday Month Musings

As I state in my profile, I am in the “second half” of my life now. I put it in there because it is an important part of the story. Obviously it describes many of the outer circumstances of my life—John is close to retiring, our youngest kid is in college, we’ve got two grandchildren, etc. But what I intend by calling out the fact is to be conscious of the spiritual, or psychological shift that “second half of life” implies. For me, that shift has been huge. And, of course, it is still going on, still unfolding.

During my thirties, I recoiled when my decade was referred to as “middle-aged.” Even now, I think of people in their thirties as simply adults, not middle-aged adults. In my forties, however, I’ll admit it. I am middle-aged. I’ll say it out loud to anyone, although it took me until forty-five to do so. I felt great when I hit forty—like it really was “the new thirty.” But, as I turned forty one, then two, then three, it dawned on me that time was moving in only one direction. Forty was not the new anything. It was forty, and then comes fifty, and so on.

This realization caused me some anxiety for a few years. Part of it was vanity. I caught sight of myself in the mirror in certain harsh lighting and would gasp, Oh my god! What the hell?! Even now, I give myself “facelifts” by pulling everything back with my hands. I turn to John and ask, “There, doesn’t that look better?” He rolls his eyes and says no, it looks freakish and that he’ll divorce me if I ever do anything like that. I won’t do anything like that and not just because I don’t have the money. But given our culture, it takes a certain vigilance to keep sane about the physical signs of aging, especially—do I even have to say it?—for women.

The other part of middle age that was causing me some anxiety, though was harder to define. It was a restless feeling. Sometimes it was despair and often it was frustration. Over what, I couldn’t say exactly. One day, while getting a book from the library for a project at work, I saw another book—the one I was really meant to get—on a nearby shelf. (This is my secret method for finding a book that I need to read. I will wander the library and browse along the shelves until I find it, Bingo!) The title was Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up, by James Hollis. Now, get this: I still wasn’t sure that I should be reading a book with that title. I mean, second half of life? Am I there yet? Ha ha.

Indeed, I was there already, and the book changed my life, or the second half of it, as it were. Hollis is a post-Jungian, depth psychologist. I've heard him speak and he is one of those people who speak like they write with clear, flowing, packed prose. He offers a lot to think about. I won't try to summarize the book. It has been a while since I've read it. One of the main ideas though is that the second half of life is an opportunity, one that you're lucky to have, to contemplate and more fully embody the meaning of your life. It is a chance to become more spiritual and less material in the sense that once free of the need to establish material security, you become freer to inquire inward. All of that is relative of course, but in general, I think, true.

After reading the Hollis book and delving into my own life more deeply I have become increasingly more comfortable with aging. I'm very happy to be almost 47. (Like somebody said, "Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.") Knowing a little more about the task of the second half of life makes me excited for the journey. I get to keep practicing!

Moving out here was an outward shift that mirrored the inner one. Or, maybe it was a catalyst to the inner changes. Yes, moving was the gesture. The experience is the catalyst for the life I now create.

What Prodigious Mowing (of the real, not metaphorical kind)

It is 67 degrees out today (that's sixty-seven). The sun is shining too, even though it looked dicey early this morning. The breeze is blowing like a spring breeze--gusty and moist--and I am just so happy. I try to maintain optimism throughout winter and I think I do pretty well. But I will not lie: My soul comes alive again as winter ends. I wake up, like the hibernating animals, and shake off the long-seeming dream of the past months.

I mowed some of the pastures this morning with the old, blue Massey-Ferguson tractor.

John got me set up with all the weird controls. It is a little hard to drive--I have to stand up to get the clutch and the brake all the way down. (Do you like that tin-foil around the gears?)

But it's cool. It is fun to sit up so high and cut such a wide swath while the breeze tosses your hair. And it does my little Aries heart good to see all the progress!

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but I mowed all that!

Here's where I started--it is the future site of the horse barn:

We try to maintain the meadows for wildlife, which means that the best time to mow is early spring, before the birds and insects and animals start building nests and having babies. Sometimes we mow in the fall, but leaving the dead vegetation up all winter offers cover and food (all those seedheads) to lots of living things. Mowing is one of those chores that you have to jump on when the time is right. You might have one good weekend in the spring to get it done, before everything turns into a soggy, tractor-sticking mess. It is great to be living here this year--our first spring!--and be able to take advantage of the weather.


My imagination works steadily most of the time, but while mowing today I could've sworn that the dead grasses and stickers and weeds were grabbing at my legs with their bony hands screaming, "Noooo!" as I cut a path through their skeletal kingdom. I didn't have any mercy for them, though. "Get thee to the Underworld! It's time for new growth!"