blue, food, badminton

Yesterday, on a walk with k and my mama in the arb in ann arbor, we saw an indigo bunting and my breath was taken by the brilliant blue of this darling bird. It glisten like a sapphire on a thin green reed at the foot of the hemlock edged woods on the cusp of the prairie.

Seeing this small little life of feather and bones and blue was one of the highlights of this long weekend. I also enjoyed spending the day with k and my ma, and talking a lot and eating good food.

And then today k and I worked the earth long and hard. We put in the rest of the vegetables--my colder weather plants/seeds have been in for a couple of weeks (lettuce, beets, turnips, carrots, sweet peas, kale). Today, in went cayenne, anchos, jalapenos, tomatoes, basil, russian tarragon, beans, acorn squash, cucumbers, cilantro, zinnias, lavender, some more bergamot, mint, beetberries, zuchs, more chamomile, cosmos, marigolds. We prepped a bed for some corn and sunflowers and still need to prep another bed for more corn. We mulched and mowed and tidied and weeded and transplanted and worked our asses off.

When we finished after almost 8 hours of outside work, t and r came over and we ate dinner together; a yummy salad of roasted asparagus and carrots and radishes and spinach and arugala from t and r's garden; mini fake sloppy joes, chick pea feta rice salad; cheddar sun ships; yummy cheese (a goat cheddar and a swiss) and strawberries; and ultra delicious brownies.

Then we played badminton at dusk and had fun laughing and trying to see the nearly invisible birdie. K and I got beat by t and r. It was close, but we went down.

So it was a full and lovely weekend of work and people I love. It feels so good and right to have my hands back in the soil and the sun searing my neck and the wind whipping my energy right from under me. Even in the midst of all of the loss of the last couple of months, things are starting to feel a bit more right--a bit more in order and bit more like me and like us. All in all, this me and us is sans kids. Probably, eternally so... we will see. In the meantime, I will stare at the blue stain of the sweet bird who I was blessed to gaze upon this weekend and revel in all that is growing in the earth outside my door and chuckle at the memories of four of us volleying crazily in barely any light on an almost summer night.

fuzzy

Lately, my brain has been a little fuzzy and incapable of writing much.
But, on the daily:
1. lots of riding bicycle
2. lots of working in the garden and yard
3. lots of working at work
4. lots of unknowns at work
5. lots of stress being covered by the numbing effects of a drug i decided to take after much delay and apprehension for anxiety and depression which also zaps me of energy and causes me to become fuzzy and nearly incapable of writing or creating concise and well crafted sentences and or images
6. lots of glory unfolding in the spring all around me
7. lots of unknowns everyday all around forever and always

my exposed ass cheek

A few weeks ago I was having what I thought was a semi normal day and then I came home and sat down on the kitchen chair and felt the cold wooden surface on my raw ass cheek. I realized in that chilly moment that my pants were seriously torn.

I had been to the chiropractor just before coming home from work, and I think that dr. dan may have slammed me a bit too hard and torn my jeans. I think maybe he saw my ass (he is not my normal chiropractor and it was my first time with him and he really tossed me around vigorously). After consulting with my colleague, I was informed that she did not see my ass at work, so hopefully it really only did happen at the chiro and dr.dan was the only one who saw my skin, skin. But whenever it happened, it sure caused me and k to have a good solid laugh. I almost went out into public again to see if any of the people I saw at the brewery told me my pants were torn and my cheek was exposed, but I thought better of it and changed my pants.


and here it is for you all...

more on rivers

I’ve got veins all over me and through me. I see river veins running near to me and their sometimes murky, sometimes glass-like surfaces pierce through my heart like a million sharp stone arrows leaving me breathless, leaving me satisfied with a painful depth of joy that raises tender scar bumps on my skin.

Yesterday, riding fast along the river that I love, the fog of a chilly but warming morning hung in misty ribbons over the trembling water. The birds went about their business building nests and tending to their little ones and beckoning the coming of rain with their varied voices—calling tangy toned notes, shrill and lovely.

I spotted the first orioles I have seen this spring—startled and gladdened by their bright orange under bellies, I stopped to pay closer attention to their proud black heads—slick and serious in the gray morning light.

I pedaled on and watched all the living things moving in some kind of perfect unison around me and wanted just to be there for always and not to emerge up the cemented hill from the river valley through the neighborhood where wealthy people live in too big of houses.

Everyday it is like this. I am tempted by a river to stay low and fast to its banks—to hover lightly on the edges of that in between place. That place where I do not have to think about suffering and violence and the ever-growing emergence of more and more injustice.

On some days, I wish I had become an ornithologist or a botanist or something not so connected to the intricacies of the human ability to think (or not think) and hurt (or not hurt) and love (or not love) or spread meanness (or not spread meanness). I wish for the lazy river to cover me constantly and make it all better. It does—in those hazy morning moments when I am captured in the river valley apart from the mayhem on the hill.