growing curious

fourth

Do you remember this photo that I posted in April?  I mentioned that I thought the plant in the center with reddish leaves was a volunteer lettuce or a volunteer chickory.  It was chickory.   When it bolts, it sends out curly things with sweet blue flowers all over that the bees love, love, love.  This is what it looks like now:

And here is another photo:

Life still feels electric and heightened.  I'm not up or manic, though.  In fact, I'm feeling quite a bit of physical pain lately.  Everything feels big -- important but hard.

Tonight we're heading up to my mom's house because she's got a good spot for watching fireworks from all over the area.  I made hummus and raita, picked some snap peas from the garden, gathered some other vegetables, and stocked up on whole wheat pitas.  I don't like fireworks (hello?  PTSD and fireworks don't mix), and I feel cranky and hormonal, but my chores are done, and I'm trying to get mellow so that I will be pleasant to be around this evening.  (Isn't it sad when we have to try to be pleasant?  I even put perfume on this morning before walking in a neighborhood parade because I feared I just stunk wretchedness.)

Here is a picture of our zen berry picker.  She just tunes out the whole world, becomes one with the bees, and sinks into the raspberries.  It's pretty amazing to watch her work.  Sadly, the results are always in her belly -- even when she goes out with a container to pick berries for later. 

  

bursting

I am so tired.  I have so much to say.  I don't want to go to sleep because I want kid-free time to think and figure out how to say what needs to be said.  But I'm toast.

The kid gets taken to lessons, bathed, entertained, fed, and napped.  Together, we entertain others, eat berries, see a movie, eat popcorn, run a couple of errands.

But the vegetable stock is still going on the stove, four days later because I haven't had time to rescue it.  It's probably really bad now.  And the broccoli only made it to the freezer after I admonished D not to harvest unless he could process.  This poor broccoli has been sitting on the counter in water for more than a day, flowering from the stress.

I'm so tired I want to crumble.  I also want to connect with kindred spirits. I'm trying to remember my age, but I feel "on the verge" of something.

wild hare

I went down to the Bay Area this weekend because...

• I grew up down there.  

• My oldest friend was throwing a birthday party for her husband at a dive bar/dry boat dock along the Bay, and it sounded like so much fun.

• I thought I'd like to give my friend's husband a jar of my newest batch of kimchi since it's pretty amazing and full of life energy.

• I needed a few days away from the laundry pile here.

• D and I kept trying to plan a time when we could go down there, but the plans kept turning into a circus when all I really wanted to do was put some old, personal memories to rest and give my dear friend a hug.

So I went down there to crash my friend's party.  I didn't tell her because I didn't want to add any more stress to her weekend.  I booked a hotel near her house for Saturday and decided to wing it the rest of my trip.

Highlights: 

I drove from near Portland to near San Jose in only 11 hours on Friday.

The next morning I walked six and a half miles around the town in which I grew up.  I went to look at the old house.  I mean...  I walked to my childhood house from downtown.  This was really important.  I got to see it all slowly and smell the plants as they began to heat up in the morning sun.  I saw deer, birds, oranges and lemons on trees, plums, Acacia pods all over the ground, Eucalyptus trees more than ten feet around at the base. I saw again the shape of the foothills surrounding the house -- comforting, approachable, but mysterious, too.  I'm sure I'll go back and show E someday, but I was able to say goodbye to that old homestead with some fondness.

It was wonderful to see my old friend P.  She looks great.  She was surprised, and I was nervous for a minute, but -- after all this time -- it always feels very natural to be around her.  She has a nice family and nice friends.

Yesterday morning I had a chance to wander around Berkeley for two or three hours before I headed home.  I hadn't been in Berkeley since the late 80's but went to school there in the early part of that decade.  It was good to sit there across from Kroeber Hall and have a cappuccino.  I wouldn't have ordered that because I don't like to drink those anymore, but it seemed appropriate for the moment.  I went by the four places where I lived.  It all looked pretty much the same after all this time because things don't change that much close to a big campus like that.  Student co-op living spaces always have bikes out front.  Faculty and administration buildings always look tidy and mature.  I recognized several bearded Berkeley street stalwarts on Telegraph and near Euclid Avenue.  (I used to think these people were homeless, but since I recognized them twenty-something years later, and they're still *in place,* I now will assume that I saw them in or near their homes.)

On the way home, the radio empowered me with great bluegrass music and two fantastic public radio programs:  Fragility and the Evolution of Our Humanity on Speaking of Faith and To the Best of Our Knowledge's show on Fairy Tales.  Wow.  I just felt on fire from it all and kept driving and made it home by 9:00 pm.

It was nice to come home.  D and E cleaned up the chaos before I got here.  It was nice to stop going 80-miles an hour.  I spent this morning in my own garden and felt glad for "here" and "there" and "now."  I also have renewed appreciation for how far I've come from "then." 

befuddled

Am I heartbroken or amused?  My 4-year-old is running away for the first time.

She is going to drive the car to pick up daddy.

willamette organics

If you live in central or NW Oregon and need help with your soil, call Jim Toler at Willamette Organics.

Every time we hire them to help us nourish our soil, we benefit.  Money well spent.  Nice folks.

punishment

I am now having "quiet time" in my room because I said the F-word.

Maybe I'll say it more often. :)

also...

I fear that something magnificent or something awful and sad will happen soon.   Life is feeling big and huge again, but I really can't handle another shock or downturn.  I hope for a gentle lift-up. 

In any case, I need to have a clear conversation with my mother-in-law sometime soon so that I can resolve that weirdness.

Happy Solstice.

Goumi berries are low in pectin, btw.

things

This is not one of those 100-things list because there won't be 100 things here.

• I hate the smell of band-aids.  They make me want to faint or vomit.

• Not a week goes by when I don't read something about or by someone I have met or known somehow.  Usually, I have this experience two or three times a week.  Granted, they might not remember me, but I have known some folks.  There was a weird issue of Vanity Fair last year that had pictures in it of a few people with whom I have worked professionally, and the same issue included an article written by someone who came to a few of my parties in NYC.

• I am really angry at my mother-in-law right now and don't feel the composure needed to explain myself or try to break through her hearing/cognitive difficulties to explain myself to her.  This is unlike me.

• I fight paranoia every day.  My parents were spies, and their paranoia became part of the family disease.  I think I do pretty well in fighting it most of the time.  But this isn't something I can get a girl-scout patch for, and it's also weird to include this information in a stray blog post.

• I can't afford to keep my apothecary stocked this year, and I don't care so much.  A year ago, the unstocked herb closet would have made me panic.  So I was wondering to myself, Am I less interested in herbs now?  What's my problem?  I decided I have no problem.  I am busy working with herbs that grow in my backyard, and I'm learning their bountiful strengths.  I'm not making medicine for others right now -- just this family.  (Message to D:  But this doesn't mean I won't order herbs from elsewhere in the future!)

• I often expect to die tomorrow.  Most of the time, I'm not worried about that.  But it makes it hard to make plans, I guess.

• my cousin, who is my age, just became a grandma last week, and they're all happy and thriving.

father's day

This is the first father's day since my father's passing.  I'm feeling many things.

Tonight my mother asked me why my brother and I are so fucked up as to need therapists and medication, and I had to swallow my response three times in order to say something warm and supportive in response.

I was just reading this on Salon:  Feminism Meets Father's Day.  I think it's great.

Clark-Flory references this post by Clio Bluestocking, which is just truer-than-true and so smart:  Daddy Issues.  Read it.

visible growth

Do you remember this picture from February?  This is where I planted our peas.

This is what it looks like now: