Monthly Archives: June 2010

Blogs and Babies

family, home, writing, ,

Before I was married I didn’t keep a journal, at least not after the 5-year diary attempt in adolescence. And newly married, before children, I limited my writing to letters and sermon notes. It was only after having a child or two that I wanted to write at all, and I don’t understand all the reasons for the delay, but I used to think it had something to do with types of mental or creative energy.

I noticed after two or three pregnancies that I had no urge to write while I was pregnant. There are five long blank periods in the recorded history of my thoughts, scrawled in a mishmash of notebooks and stored in a box on a shelf. Much of my journaling over the years was filled with angst over church tensions or worries about whether I was being lazy about finding a “ministry” other than my family. I wrote long lists of what I had accomplished in a typical day followed by the lament, “And it wasn’t enough!”

What was it about carrying a child in my womb that eliminated the need for hashing everything out with pen and ink? Perhaps it wasn’t anything to do with the creative aspect of my participation in a magnificent process of nurturing a new and unique person–though my writing had been potentially creative in helping me to make sense of my world.

I started to write this blog about the similarities with my current life, where I am participating in a months-long creative work–thank God it isn’t nine months–and don’t have the thinking power to devote to any questions other than towel racks and paint colors. It’s only with great faith that I can imagine having anything significant to say ever again.

The idea I started with when I sat down just now doesn’t stand up to more scrutiny. Maybe my intellectual life 30 years down the road is entirely different. In the former time it was in a somewhat dormant stage, really, as I reminded myself in a recent post. The simple reality is that being with child made me happy and content. Maybe it was hormones. In any case, I didn’t need to write.

Now it’s that I can’t think well, that prevents me writing as I’ve become accustomed to. I hope it’s just a matter of distraction and overload, and that I will return to a version of my old self within another month or two. Already I have started sleeping better; it happened when I got the appliances into the kitchen. Family get-togethers and summer vacations will delay putting everything else back in place, but when the day comes that I don’t have to be ready at 8:00 in the morning for invading construction workers, it will be the beginning of my full return.

No, no, I mean the beginning of the next phase of my life. I know I can’t even return to last week, much less last year, intellectually or creatively or any other way. There’s always something new replacing something old, some loss and some gain. Today we moved the old furniture on to the new wood floors, and it all looks pretty, but we have lost some quietness from having (dirty) carpeted stairs.

The disruption has forced me to thin out my belongings, and take stock of how I actually use my kitchen. Having canisters of flour and sugar on the counter doesn’t make sense for someone who rarely bakes anymore. Maybe stress and insomnia and change will blow some cobwebs out of my mind as well, to make room for fresher and clearer thoughts that I can type into blogs on my computer when it is re-installed in the room with the pretty new floor.

Long Doll on the Straw

crafts, dolls, music

 The latest charming doll lady I saw was at an outdoor event where we sat on straw bales and listened to Patrick Ball play his mesmerizing Celtic harp.

On the row of bales right in front of us was this dolly, alongside her Little Girl and the Girl’s mommy and daddy. I couldn’t decide if she was a gypsy or a babushka, but she made me want to sew a doll and dress her in a flowered skirt and a blouse with full sleeves.

Beyond the Girl in the top picture you can barely see the harpist’s face up on the stage. I never got to see Long Doll’s face.

She was wearing a head covering like many other people that evening, because the wind was blowing through very cold! Yes, even in the Merry Month of May.

Once the Girl grabbed her doll and I got a blurry shot of her willowiness. But she was right away tossed aside.

Long Doll seems to have fallen right asleep where she landed.

Wandering into Urban Homesteads

friends, garden, other gardens, , , ,

God willing, today was the last day I will have to live out of my car. The floors took two weeks instead of one. In the meantime I have forgotten how to keep house–having a thick layer of fine wood dust on everything each night has beaten me down–and haven’t learned how to be a gypsy. I’ve been leaving the house at 9:00 and wandering around the county doing little errands or some shopping. I can take all the time I want to try on clothes or look for that special title at the library’s used book store…

But today, Memorial Day, the library was closed, and there was no place to be. My bed, my computer, and some vegetables were what I longed for. I have lost all my sociability and courage and just want to be a housewife hermit for a few months.

But before today’s last straw, some outings I enjoyed were gardening at church, and having a long-overdue chat with my priest; sitting in Starbucks on a day of pouring rain and drinking the largest Café Mocha I’ve ever indulged in; and visits with crafty gardening friends.

K. and S. got more chickens, and a hive of bees! They are growing everything from parsley and onions to raspberries and blueberries. K. has been knitting sweaters and socks. It was lovely to catch up on their homesteading developments.

One night we visited with our longtime friends who I will call Art and Di. Di is one my best-ever book friends; we never have enough time to sit by a fire in winter, or on the patio in summer, to talk about our reading and how it is all connected. She and my husband never tire of sharing music from their old and new favorite musicians.

Art creates beauty, whether it’s in his sketchbook or the garden. Among the santolina, lavender, germander and California poppies he had this yellow-flowered giant I wasn’t familiar with. He said it was sage, and wanting to know just what sort, I went home and researched it online.It didn’t seem to be in the salvia group, so I set several of my botanical sleuths on the chase and found out that it is Jerusalem Sage, not a salvia but Phlomis fruticosa. I also learned that Salvia and Phlomis are both members of the Lamiacea family, also known as the mint family.

In addition to propagating unthirsty plants such as the ones that populate the textured garden in their front yard, he has created a clever drip/wicking irrigation system that gets the needed amount of water right to the roots of his back yard vegetables. In the photos here, if you look closely you can see that the wick goes into a piece of hose carrying the moisture deep to the root zone. The paper bag that normally hides the water pot from the sun has been lifted briefly for me to see it.


Writing about these inspiring gardens and people I love is helping bring my most stressful day and fortnight to a better close than I thought possible when I sat down here an hour ago. Just remembering gardens and books and good friends is soothing and healing.