Running

I have been running. I never had the patience for it before. But right now there is something so satisfying about working my way up through longer and longer runs, listening to the steady rhythm of sneakers hitting concrete, learning to endure a little bit of pain and discomfort. I am learning that in life sometimes you have to just sit with your pain too. There is no way around it. It doesn't just disappear. You can't pretend it away as soon as it surfaces.  So it is good to learn to endure.


Some days are warmer, and some are still biting cold. February likes to surprise you. Yesterday I went running outside and it was warm enough that after about half a mile I had to scrunch up my sleeves. Not an hour later I walked to campus in a blustering sleet storm. I had no hat or hood with me so I had to tie my scarf around my head or else I was afraid that my ears would freeze and fall off.

I still have heavy boots but they are getting lighter. I like the new Decemberists album. I've had June Hymn on repeat the last couple of days. It makes me long for springtime. There is something so lovely and constant and comforting about the seasons--about flower bulbs leaping to life and shooting through the ground after a long and frozen sleep. Flower bulbs really know something about endurance.

Snow Picnic

What's Spinning

Thank you Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova

and Sarah Jaffe

Heavy boots.

The Christmas Story

This is, quite possibly, the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Merry Christmas everyone!

A Motion Picture

Tonight, I walked outside and the sky was the deepest most unfathomable shade of purple. A deep hazy purple with small pinpoints of starlight peeking through. and on my way home there was a cat lurking around beneath the benches and a family of deer lurking around in the foliage and sprinklers wildly spraying places that never needed to be watered. And the temperature was perfect, and I was in one of those moods where I felt positively compelled to press my hand against the bark of every tree I passed.

Another thing: as much as I love still photographs there is just something about a moving image. Something about shifting light and shadow and color and eyes blinking--a certain glancingness that can be captured in no other way. I can look at old photographs and the humans there feel flat and dead and distant somehow. But I look at even the earliest films--you know the 20 or 30 or 50 seconds of people walking out of factories or strolling through the town square--and I am suddenly caught up! These are people, real people. Where are they going? Who and what do they love? I can almost feel them breathing.

We watched this film today and I found it beautiful and astounding.
You should watch it.
We care too much these days about propulsive plotlines, conflict, drama and adventure. Sometimes a simple moving image, or just a series of them thoughtfully and interestingly juxtaposed is more than enough.  

Watch here or just follow the link:

Grow

Do you know that I have had garden nightmares?
I dreamed that the green beans sprouted up in the cracks in the sidewalk instead of in the garden, and that I needed to transplant them into more fertile soil but I couldn't find a way to pluck them up and keep their root systems intact. And if I couldn't keep their roots systems intact then that meant there would be NO green beans. And I really really was looking forward to those green beans.

The gentlest of nightmares--true, but I still woke up feeling a little anxious.

This garden business is hard and I fear I have not been the best at attending to it. Because, try as I might, the squash bugs are still invading and the onions need top dressing or they'll never get any bigger and the waterline needs fixing and the tomatoes need some serious pruning or else they are going to take over the world and the green beans need trellises and the melons are dying and being invaded by weeds and.... it always always seems that the garden is on the verge of some small disaster.
The truth is, I am not the best gardener. And I am certainly not the best garden manager. I am not detail-oriented enough for such a large operation and, honestly, I know nothing about those plants. After all, this is only my second year trying to grow them. We are just starting to get acquainted.

But I am learning so much. And I am trying to let the anxiety go--to breathe, to relax. This garden is huge. There are so many people pitching in this year, and so many parts that need to come together in order for it to run smoothly. Managing it could be a full time job and I am terribly inexperienced and ill-equipped to tackle that job. Not to mention, there is never enough time.

But I am not intending for this post to be all self-deprecation and whining. That is not the point.
The point is that even though it sometimes feels like everything is chaotic and I am doing everything wrong and the entire garden will be unavoidably ruined-- I am frequently and lovingly reminded that the earth is forgiving. and it is abundant. and even a little effort goes a long way.

I came home from the garden tonight with more food than I know what to do with. Let me show you all of it (pardon the poor quality of the photograph--my cell phone is the only thing I have to take pictures with right now):

Here you see: A beautiful variety of purple string beans (they grew!), carrots, onions, apricots, 2 types of cucumbers, green peppers, broccoli, 4 types of squash and the first glorious blush of tomatoes.

Tonight, I am happy.

"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare"