sleepless

I gave up on sleep tonight. It's not like I've had an uninterrupted night of sleep for years now. But I don't often have this much difficulty sleeping. I go through the usual culprits: caffeine, hot flashes, nagging worries. I return to the nagging worries.

Why is it that sometimes it's easy to set the nagging worries aside and get on with whatever needs to be done? Other times it seems it's impossible to turn off the mind's fretting! It's not as if I'm very good at facing my imagined worst case scenarios, and yet some days I get so obsessed by those very worries that I become enmeshed in the tangles created my own mental demons!

I hardly think I'm unique, that my worries are darker than those of anyone else! But sometimes I think the wounded parts of ourselves are the parts we notice the most. I am reminded of a dog I had who nervously licked and bit at an itch on the right side of her rump so much that she developed a persistent fungal infection that made her itch even more!

Sometimes I think I'm just as funny as my dog! I get many opportunities in my paying job to observe the many ways people face difficult situations in their lives and you'd think I would have learned a thing or two after all these years!

And it was at work today that I think my obsessive thought-cycle was triggered. I read this quote, you see.

"Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in
the state of being alive....If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even
where confidence is wounded and trust impaired."

Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994)

Of course, I find myself paying the most attention to my wounds and fears! How difficult it is to lighten up, to let go, so the hope can arise. "Hope floats". Isn't that the title of a movie? Hah. The movie of my life...and away I go, drawn into the drama I create out of my life, making up a story, many stories, many possible endings...and fears and worries! I create a to-do list. I fret about things I didn't do, things I didn't make time to do.

Oops. I can't let go. I'm drowning! I forgot that I know how to float. Below my ego's obsessions, I am a peaceful part of an ocean of being.

more borrowed gardens

Hellebores

heucheras

more heucheras

columbines

and more columbines

hostas in the background with Tradescantia in the foreground

more hostas

and more hostas

bugle weed in the foreground with hostas

ginkgo biloba

Japanese maple

mugo pine

Horse Chestnut

The Funky Nests Challenge!

Enter the Funky Nests Challenge!

You find them in hanging flower baskets…an old boot…a garage shelf…or under a bridge…birds build nests in the strangest places! That’s the theme for the newest environmental challenge from our Celebrate Urban Birds project: Funky Nests in Funky Places! As you may know, Celebrate Urban Birds is a free, year-round citizen-science project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, focused on birds in neighborhood settings.

For the Funky Nests in Funky Places challenge, we want you to take photos, do a painting, write a story, or shoot a video showing a bird’s nest built in some out-of-the-way or out-of-this-world place.When observing nests please be sure to avoid touching them or disturbing the birds.

This one’s going to be fun, I think. We usually receive hundreds of entries for each of our challenges, and I can’t wait to see what your sent us this time and where birds have chosen to build their funky nests! I'm also attaching a PDF flier about the challenge you can print for yourself or pass along to others who might want to participate.

We have some great prizes, includig a Leica C-LUX 3 compact camera, bird feeders, shrubs for planting, and more. The first 50 entrants will receive a copy of the "Doves and Pigeons" poster by Julie Zickefoose and we'll post selected images and videos on the Celebrate Urban Birds website.

Here's how to enter:

1. Email your entry to urbanbirds@cornell.edu. Links are acceptable for videos.

2. Write “Funky Nests” in the subject line.

3. Include your name and mailing address.

4. Explain why you submitted your entry--what's the story behind it?

5. One entry per person, please.

Deadline for entries is July 31, 2009

Visit the Celebrate Urban Birds website for more information and to read the terms of agreement regarding all entries.

Thanks for taking the challenge!

Karen Purcell, Project Leader

(607) 254-2455

urbanbirds@cornell.edu

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a membership institution dedicated to interpreting and conserving the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Visit the Lab’s web site at www.birds.cornell.edu.

borrowed

The other day I wandered on over to the gardens at Parkwood Estate to borrow the garden for a while. Except for the fact that I couldn't get in there and get my hands dirty, I was able to wallow in the many shades of green, big and small, play my naming game and enjoy the colours there now, as well as the anticipation of other glories to come as the season progresses.

the white garden

alliums

irises

irises and daylilies

Oriental poppies

is it catching?

I often wander into the gardens of Parkwood Estate so that I may borrow for a while a green space, wonderful trees and some flowers. And in my own obsessive way, I name the plants I see and wonder about the plants I don't know by name. It's an odd game: name, name, name, maybe, I wonder, name, name, name. Ah! Name! ... name. Very, very satisfying.

Having lunch with my Oldest and Other Favorite Daughter the other day, listening to her tell about the changes she has made in her garden recently, I realized that gardeners are an odd bunch. Of course, WE don't think we are strange at all. But I've had to face facts! Most people are probably -- and incomprehensibly in my mind -- only interested in having things look relatively neat, attractive and maybe even a bit colourful in the garden. O & OFD said that is the case for her. In her busy life, she only has room for pots of flowers and herbs near her kitchen door. She doesn't have time for the stuff gardeners willingly spend hours doing.

She thought it was hilarious that I understood exactly what Kim meant by the lovely horizontal branching habit of a double-file viburnum! (non-gardeners are rolling their eyes here if they have managed to read this far!!)

But, non-gardeners beware. It is contagious. As I am taking over the lawn in front of my apartment building bit by bit, other tenants are getting more and more interested. Other tenants have expanded upon the beds and more colourful bits of this and that are going in. I suspect even as the squirrels wreak mayhem and murder upon our tender plants, hopefully and bravely, we guerilla-gardeners are occupying more space. Tomatoes, herbs, roses, hostas and marigolds have snuck in somehow!

Even across the street, a large concrete bowl has appeared by the front step and it is filled with bright red geraniums. A rustic wooden bench has been placed out front and on it are a couple of clay pots filled with I'm not sure what, but it is GREEN! A building down the road has daylilies and hostas now in the shade under the maples and a colourful array of perennials in the narrow space at the edge of the parking lot behind the building!

Even what I presume are non-gardeners are paying attention to what is going on in the neighborhood. Other tenants in the building and passersby have given me compliments. Oh, and of course, there have been expressions of alarm as well. "The beds are too big." "The flowers will attract vandals." "The pots will be smashed or stolen."

The only alarm that I pay any attention to is over the squirrels. They are my personal fly in the ointment and I fear I'll soon be in danger of going over the edge with regard to their mindless depredations! (hysterical laughter!)

A taxi driver suggested the other day that I get a dog.

"But what about the digging and damage a dog might do?" I asked.

"I gave you a solution to your first problem!"

Queen Elizabeth Park

On my last trip to Vancouver, mid-May, I visited Queen Elizabeth Park and the Bloedel Conservatory. Here are some highlights:

ferns looking like strange creatures of the deeps

rhodos

This colour combination caught my eye...

Hellebores

Handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata.

the last two photos are not from the Park, but from the neighborhood where my parents live:

mountains

In Kelowna, BC, this week, I am visiting my Other Favorite Daughter Who Lives Too Far Away. One of her roommates took us up to Knox Mountain, where I had the opportunity to get my first real good look of the Okanagan Valley.





This immediately caught my eye, as aromatic plants have always fascinated me. It must be in the wormwood family. It seems to grow to quite some size especially along the lower reaches of the mountain.

From the plane as we came in to Kelowna's airport, I saw masses and masses of these bright yellow daisy-like flowers on the mountain sides. The lady beside me laughed and laughed when I commented on them, wondering what they were. We were touching down and the lawns around the airport were full of dandelions in full bloom, you see. She thought I was marveling at mundane dandelions, which of course, we also have in the GTA in abundance! However, I had a lingering thought that what I had spotted from the plane was different....
Near my daugthter's home in Kelowna is a small wetlands area, where wildlife is attracted by the water. On sunny days, my daughter is horrified to find that she is like her mother, amused and delighted to observe turtles competing with each other for a spot on this log on which they gather to absorb the sun's warmth. Today, it was cold, overcast, and there was a bitterly cold wind.
Gardens in some parts of town, particularly the historic Abbott St., along the lake, are lush and interesting.

things seen

Recent adventures along a river that meanders through the centre of my city brought opportunities to look.

Look at that logjam!

Look at the fungi. The subtle repetition of pattern, texture and colour pleases me.

Look at the pretty dogtooth violets, aka trout lilies (Erythronium americanum).

Look at the burned grass...oooh! What's that??

Look at all the dead snails! How curious!

Then earlier, at Easter, I visited my friend M., and she has this pretty cat whom I know you'll all enjoy meeting.

more listening

Yene Konjo - Aster Aweke

listening

Sew Hulu Be-Hageru - Aster Aweke

food

Food. What a word! Layers and layers of meaning and memory wrap themselves up in that simple four-letter word.

Something prompted me to start making a big pot of lentil stew this afternoon. I started very simply, throwing a couple cupfuls of dry lentils into some water in a large pot, and setting the pot on the stovetop to simmer gently. After a while, other chores distracted me and I forgot about the lentils until a wonderful warm aroma reminded me.

The aroma reminded me of many things. Coming in from a long bicycle ride, hands stiff with cold, the kitchen steamy and smelling of lovely, nourishing things cooking. The quick flip of the edge of a large, flat, grassy woven basket held in graceful brown hands sending curling waves of grain into the sunshine, a breath of dust and chaff falling away from the crest of the wave of grain as it settles down again, swirling, back onto the basket. The background chatter of women's voices, women who are my life, whom I love, my mother, my aunts, talking and laughing, as they slap dough down, then the quick thud thud thud of their rolling pins shaping the dough into the little round skins of karjalan piirakka. The hot yeasty smell of freshly baked bread as it comes out of the oven.

And I thought, I will add some carrots, celery, bay leaf, and onions to my lentils, then I will see if I have the "fixins" to make bread.

Ah! Fresh, home-baked bread. That is an experience I haven't treated myself to for far too long.

Why? Why am I too busy to slow down and do this simple, nourishing thing for myself?

I've used the excuse that I'm too busy. I've used the excuse that I would then just over-indulge and over-eat what I've made. I've used the excuse that there is no one with whom to share what I've cooked. I've used the excuse that there isn't room in the tiny freezer compartment of my apartment-sized fridge to hold the excess.

However, when I smelled my lentil stew cooking on the stove, I realized that I should have given myself this gift long ago. I deserve, no I need and have longed for the hands-on, sensual experience of slow food, the multi-sensory meditation of making a simple meal for myself, with my own hands, using basic ingredients.

I am busy. As well as working full-time at my paying job, I try to fit in a yoga practice and all the miles of running required in my training for my first upcoming full marathon race. I try to have a balanced social life as well, to stay connected to my family and friends. Over the last few weeks I felt like I was spinning my wheels faster and faster, becoming more and more disconnected even as I struggled to stay grounded.

I pass by our little garden in front of my building, chafing at the lack of time to tidy up the squirrel-tossed plants, to water, to mulch the dry soil there.

I'm sure you have felt that way too. Suddenly the bottom seems to fall out and you find yourself looking at yourself in the mirror and crying for no reason. Nothing seems solid. Your family and friends are there, but you are incapable of feeling their care and presence. I suddenly realized I was starving.

I woke up from a dream this morning of a small garden in the sunshine, filled with the smell of sunshine on springtime lawns waking up, of crocus, early irises, daffodils and jonquils. I could smell the earth. I could smell the softness of springtime air. And in my dream, I felt in my body the satisfaction of seeing the green things coming up and of having worked in the garden as I entered the kitchen of a small house I once lived in, and again another familiar smell, the smell of sun-heated dust motes dancing in front of a window.

I've been starving for the sensory hands-on experiences of gardens and food. In my mind, they are entwined inseparably. Small cuttings sit in a jar atop my fridge, after all, hopeful twigs that in my mind are a large winged burning bush (Euonymus alata), a pyramidal English oak (Quercus robur), and purple-leaved smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria).

I added some heat to my stew with a generous spoonful of berbere and tomato paste. It is going to be soooo tasty and warming. All I lack is some injera. However, I don't have any tef on hand, nor do I actually know how to make injera, so instead, I'm going to leave you now to bake myself a loaf of multigrain bread.

You must envy me. I'll soon be enjoying a slice of fresh bread with butter with a large bowl of hot and spicy lentil stew sprinkled with some chopped fresh cilantro.