Rethinking My Pace and Space

I've been trying to pace myself a bit better this summer, dividing large chores into smaller ones and allowing myself to take a few days to do something that I used to push myself to do in one day. The heat is extreme in the late afternoon (the glue in our front door actually melted, and one of the highways buckled), so I've given myself permission to siesta. To swim. To go sit in the massage chairs at the gym. To eat salad and sandwiches instead of cooking, so I don't heat up the kitchen with the oven. I even bought yogurt this week instead of making it as I've done for years, because the idea of warming up the kitchen with the crockpot was off-putting.

As a result, I've given myself more writing time, which has been nice. But my husband and I have also been visiting more with neighbours, just sitting in the shade in the backyard and chatting. It's the first time we've really let ourselves take the time to do that, which is a shame. They're wonderful people, and we've been missing out.

I'm letting this heat-driven attitude spill over into other aspects of my life, too. Maybe things don't need 100% of my effort. Maybe it's okay to drop some activities and put less-important things aside. Maybe it's okay to just sit sometimes. I've come to this realization now and then throughout my life, but this heat is just reinforcing it now. The heat just sucks away all motivation and energy. 

It's also carried over into my stuff. We had to move the furniture to install new windows and doors this week, trying to weather-proof the house a bit better, and right now the rooms are bright and light and empty. And I like it. Maybe we won't move the furniture back in. Maybe the time has come to put it all on the curb and create more room to breathe. Less to clean. Room to stretch. I could see throwing out the couch and sitting on pillows on the floor. Using the coffee table as the dining table and getting rid of the massive square table (the whole family is only here a few times a year anyway -- we could improvise with folding tables for those times). Son #2 is heading to Korea for a year, and Son #1 will be in school downtown starting in the fall. We will have fewer people in the house. We're minus my beloved dog now, too. Maybe it's okay to live in an entirely empty house...

Except for the books, of course. There will always be books. Oh, and yarn and fabric. And, um, the guitar and banjo and bagpipes are non-negotiable. And my recipe boxes (yes, plural). And...

Okay so maybe not entirely empty. But more spacious. More bright. More open to possibility. I could use this heat wave as an opportunity to re-evaluate life more generally and make bigger changes.

A while ago, I wrote a book that talked about taking a closer look at our lived space and pace. Paring down to the essentials. Maybe now is the right time to dig that out and reread it and remember.

A Little Burst of Patriotism

I came across these words on Facebook this morning, and I believe they can apply to Canada as well as the U.S.

"Frederick Douglass spent his life insisting that loving America meant telling the truth about its past. He believed our founding principles were strong enough to withstand honesty. In fact, he believed they demanded it.

"That is real patriotism. Not pretending our country has never failed, nor erasing people from our history. And certainly not threatening exile against those who disagree. Patriotism is loving this country enough to insist it become what it has always promised to be." - Heather Delaney Reese

I came to Canada almost 37 years ago, having married a Canadian. I love my adopted home. It feels optimistic and friendly here, where you can rely on neighbours to dig you out in a snowstorm. The expansive beauty of nature is celebrated. We don't take ourselves or our politicians too seriously. My local members of parliament are accessible. I have the resources and safety nets I need to live my life in relative convenience and security. I fully acknowledge I live a privileged life I haven't earned and don't deserve, and I am still grateful for it.

I know we're not perfect. At times we're misguided or messy. We argue amongst ourselves, and it isn't comfortable to own the darker side of our history. But in general, I think we're trying to look it in the eye and fix what we can. We're grounded on a bedrock of moral principles we're (mostly) trying to safeguard. We believe in compassion and equality, inclusion and kindness. I'm recommitting to those principles myself in my own conduct. It's easy to sail along my own path and forget that not everyone around me has what they need, and I shouldn't be comfortable while they aren't.

To me, patriotism isn't flag-waving or grand-standing. It's not marching bands and military parades. It's picking up litter. Letting my neighbour merge into my lane. Voting. Reaching out to try to make life a little better for those around me.

A Sort of Hilarious Goof -- or -- The Best of Intentions Backfires

On Tuesday, my husband cleaned out the garage, and we put two unwanted doors out on the boulevard to see if anyone else could use them. We had purchased them years ago, but they ended up being the wrong size for what we had in mind, and we haven't found another place for them. We can't fit them in the car to go donate them anywhere, but often when we set items on the curb, people snatch them up, and it feels good knowing they found a new home.

The doors lay on the grass by the curb for two days. It was extremely hot and sunny, but I didn't think anything of it. Forgetting, of course, that the panels are made of glass. Remember as a kid starting fires or burning designs into wood with a magnifying glass? Well, when we finally brought the unclaimed doors back into the garage last night, I realized we had toasted the grass.

Son #3 suggested we repeat the process all over the lawn and turn it into an art installation.

The Story of Ned the Head

When I was 19, I did a summer WLPAN course in Wales (Welsh immersion). It was held in Lampeter at St. David's University, and I was placed in the intermediate group because I'd had a few years of Welsh already. We had students from everywhere, including Japan and New Zealand. Now and then they loaded us on buses and took us on field trips, including Ystrad y Fflur (Strataflorida) to see the grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym and the Eisteddfod in Abergwaun.

One of our trips was to the Dolaucothi Roman gold mine (dating from the late 3rd century, briefly revived in the 1800s, and closed by 1938). I remember there was a large sign in Welsh at the front, and one of the workers seemed skeptical of all these "foreign" kids being able to learn Welsh. I don't know why, but he focused on me (blonde braids, braces, looking terribly American), and he challenged me---in front of the whole group---to read the sign aloud. All eyes were on me. I stuck my chin in the air and confidently read the sign to the best of my ability, and the man backed off, looking a bit humbled. The other students (many of whom were much more fluent than I) gathered and patted me on the shoulders and said I'd done well. But you see, there's a trick to it -- Welsh is a very phonetic language. If you know the sounds the letters make, you can read anything aloud and sound fluent. Meanwhile, I was silently thanking my lucky stars that the man hadn't asked me to actually translate the sign, because I hadn't understood a single word of it!

The tour guide led us through dimly-lit tunnels (I remember one area was called "Fat Man's Misery"). At one point, he told us the story of Ned. My memory may be faulty, because this was forty years ago, but I believe the story went like this: Ned was a miner who broke the cardinal rule of not working in pairs. He sat and ate his lunch one day but somehow his lamp or candle went out. He tried to fumble his way along the passage in the dark and must have fallen down a shaft and thence to the rock crusher, because all they found of him was his boots (the gorier version of the story is that his boots still contained his feet). The ghost of Ned still wanders the mine shafts, looking for his lamp.

Years later, my husband and kids gave me a ceramic head to put in my garden. Of course there was only one name to give a disembodied body part... Ned the Head. He sits on a flower pot set over the electrical outlet for my fountain, to protect it from rain. He needs a coat of paint now, but he reminds me of Wales and my tiny moment of triumph over the grumpy man at the mine.

Lavender Harvest!

Today I started cutting the lavender in the backyard. I have five or six "spots" where lavender has either been panted or has spread itself, and it's a bumper crop this year. I cut it back to the tops of the leaves, to keep it from getting too leggy, when the buds are just opening, and I spread it on cookie sheets all over the dining room table to dry.

Once dry, the flowers are crumbled by hand off the stems and put in mason jars for use in baking or drawer sachets. Did you know that if your lavender sachet has stopped smelling, all you have to do is crush it around a little with your fingers, and the scent will be revived? They can last for years, if kept dry.

I like to add crushed flowers to sugar cookies, a very Victorian kind of flavour, but my husband thinks they taste like soap. That's fine -- all the more for me!

Be sure to leave a lot of the flowers for the bees. I've seen very few bees this year, mostly bumblebees, but hopefully as the lavender blooms, it will attract more to the garden. I planted three whole beds of various flowers, but very little germinated (weird cold spring followed by blistering heat followed by torrential rain followed by cool temps again), and so far all I've gotten is one very tiny pink zinnia. A for effort, little flower.

In the Right Place at the Right Time

Yesterday I got ready for church and had about fifteen minutes before I needed to leave, so I went out and puttered in my garden (yes, in my nice dress). And came inside. And saw the tiny paintbrush I use for assisting with squash pollination. And decided I had just enough time to dash out and pollinate my spaghetti squash. So I slipped on my clogs and went out for just a minute.

And heard the quiet voice of my elderly neighbour calling for help. She didn't sound loud or distressed, but I heard her saying, "Help! I can't get up!" I called over the fence to ask if she was okay, and she called back, "No." I told her to hang on, I was coming.

Ran around the corner to her house (our backyard adjoin) and let myself through her gate, and found her. She'd been sitting on a white plastic chair to do some weeding, and the leg had broken and tipped her into the hedge, and she couldn't get her feet under her to right herself. I got her into a hug and managed to lift her up onto her feet and help her to her back door. She was fine, and I gave her another hug to wish her good morning, chatted about gardening for a moment (her tomatoes are producing already, and mine are just starting to flower), and then ran back home to leave for church. 

Feeling grateful that I followed that urge to go back to the garden, because there's no way I would have heard her from indoors. Grateful she was found right away and not left in the hot sun. Grateful I've been going to the gym and could lift her. Grateful I could be of some small service to someone else.

Hoping the pollination with the paintbrush worked. My spaghetti squash and cucumbers are blooming just fine, but my Delicata squash and zucchini haven't produced a single flower yet.

Update on the Vegetable Garden and My Personal Philosophy Around Gardening

It occurs to me that I usually just blog about the beginning of the gardening season, when I'm planning what to plant, and the end of the season, when I'm bottling tomatoes and drowning in green beans. But there's a very long middle part that deserves some attention too.

I've heard people talk about fertilizing and fussing during the summer, but I tend to take a hands-off simplified approach. If something needs pampering, I don't want it in my garden. If you give your plants treats at the beginning, they're going to keep expecting it, and there's simply no time or room for divas in my yard. They must pull their own weight or perish. I plunk the seedlings in, stab in a tomato cage where they're needed, set up the sprinkler, and wish them all luck. The only special attention anything gets is when the tomatoes and cucumbers start to blossom and I dose them with calcium. If there's a lack of bees, I might hand pollinate things with a tiny paintbrush. Now and then I yank out the worst of the weeds and drop them on the soil to return their nutrients to the earth. And that's it. This year I did add some mulch to several of the beds, to try to retain water, because they're predicting a harsh, hot summer. But so far this year, it's unseasonably cool and rainy and it hasn't been much of an issue.

A vegetable garden can consume all your time if you let it, and weeding is never done. There are strawberries and beans to pick every day all summer, and a glut at harvest time at the end. But I've been consciously trying to set aside time to go on long walks, to swim, to go to the gym, to read and write. To allow myself to slow down and just sit sometimes. The garden, like a pestering puppy, must learn boundaries. It must develop patience and wait its turn. As must we all.