in limbo
I have been having this strange feeling of being in limbo for the last couple of weeks. As Ann's furniture disappears (sold or given away), and the house is taking on a strange new emptiness, I find myself treading water, emotionally and physically unable to take any sensible action. Isn't that odd? It's as if I cannot do anything until I have a blank slate, or at least a slate that isn't in the midst of undergoing radical changes anymore.
This is not referring only to the concrete changes in the configurations of the furnishings of my house. No, I seem to be frozen in motion in almost every other facet of my life. And that is frustrating to me! It would make sense that I cannot start moving my furniture about and finding new decor for my physical surroundings. That is natural, as Ann is still in the process of moving out. But why have other aspects of my life ground to a halt, as if I'm in a holding pattern?
The parts of the vegetable garden that are succeeding, are succeeding wonderfully. It seems everything is early by weeks this year, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. But I have been disappointed by the peas, as already mentioned, and then corn and beans that have failed to sprout...(old seed? dug up by birds and squirrels?) I put up bird netting to try to keep out the raiders, but even then, a little strawberry ripening in my newly planted patch was stolen! Yes, the one in the photo it is taking me about 15 tries to upload here!
Seems to be a happy season for the farmers in our area. A dairy farmer acquaintance said he has already nearly doubled his average annual hay crop from just the first cut thus far! We seem to be getting almost the perfect balance of warm weather and rain.
I spent a couple of days last week trying to weed, then mulch my vege gardens with hay. It's not nearly done, but I'll get to the rest of it in the next few days.
This morning, coffee mug in hand, I strolled out to check up on the vege-garden goings-on--my routine after yoga and breakfast. As I passed the big old beauty bush, a pair of blackbird parents set up a scolding alarm. That of course, drew my attention to their ugly child in the branches of the shrub. Really! The little one was so very, very ugly, I thought: it's true, only a mother could love it. It looked like it had tufts of fungus sprouting from it's head as it looked at me wildly, wondering if I was the cause of its parents' panic.
"Don't worry," I said to the squawking and crackling parents. "I won't hurt your baby, as damn butt-ugly as he is! Really. Whatever would I want him for!" They didn't believe me at all.
I visited my own son yesterday (a hell of a lot more handsome than the blackbird-baby). With options as limited as they are for warning him of my impending arrival, I was pleased to find him at home. He was very excited about his recent promotion at work so our discussions re the tasks at hand in our preparations for our upcoming trip to Ethiopia were hilariously interrupted by his preoccupation with his new position. Not that he was unaware of his preoccupations and his inability to focus on anything else. His mind kept returning to his new job so frequently that he feared he would not be able to sleep.
As it turned out, he slept the sleep of the dead while I slept very lightly, aware that I must wake up so much earlier than I usually do because my son had to rise early to go to work. I heard someone showering in another apartment in his building. I heard a midnight cat-brawl outside. I heard the robins wake up. But I was very pleased to find my son's vibrations at such a high frequency and enjoyed my visit immensely.
One of my son's neighbours has a very fine vegetable garden in soil piled up right on top of an unused corner of a paved parking lot. I wish I had taken a photograph -- I guess that is on my to-do list the next time I visit! Even my non-gardener son is impressed. He thinks that guy is "cool" and certainly very inventive.
One thing struck me as funny. While he seems to expect that his mom should accept that he is a young man enjoying the dating scene and naturally, a sex life too, my son seems surprised that his mom might want a man in her life and some hot sex too! Oooh, my. That's too much for my son! Cute, eh?
This is not referring only to the concrete changes in the configurations of the furnishings of my house. No, I seem to be frozen in motion in almost every other facet of my life. And that is frustrating to me! It would make sense that I cannot start moving my furniture about and finding new decor for my physical surroundings. That is natural, as Ann is still in the process of moving out. But why have other aspects of my life ground to a halt, as if I'm in a holding pattern?
The parts of the vegetable garden that are succeeding, are succeeding wonderfully. It seems everything is early by weeks this year, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. But I have been disappointed by the peas, as already mentioned, and then corn and beans that have failed to sprout...(old seed? dug up by birds and squirrels?) I put up bird netting to try to keep out the raiders, but even then, a little strawberry ripening in my newly planted patch was stolen! Yes, the one in the photo it is taking me about 15 tries to upload here!
Seems to be a happy season for the farmers in our area. A dairy farmer acquaintance said he has already nearly doubled his average annual hay crop from just the first cut thus far! We seem to be getting almost the perfect balance of warm weather and rain.
I spent a couple of days last week trying to weed, then mulch my vege gardens with hay. It's not nearly done, but I'll get to the rest of it in the next few days.
This morning, coffee mug in hand, I strolled out to check up on the vege-garden goings-on--my routine after yoga and breakfast. As I passed the big old beauty bush, a pair of blackbird parents set up a scolding alarm. That of course, drew my attention to their ugly child in the branches of the shrub. Really! The little one was so very, very ugly, I thought: it's true, only a mother could love it. It looked like it had tufts of fungus sprouting from it's head as it looked at me wildly, wondering if I was the cause of its parents' panic.
"Don't worry," I said to the squawking and crackling parents. "I won't hurt your baby, as damn butt-ugly as he is! Really. Whatever would I want him for!" They didn't believe me at all.
I visited my own son yesterday (a hell of a lot more handsome than the blackbird-baby). With options as limited as they are for warning him of my impending arrival, I was pleased to find him at home. He was very excited about his recent promotion at work so our discussions re the tasks at hand in our preparations for our upcoming trip to Ethiopia were hilariously interrupted by his preoccupation with his new position. Not that he was unaware of his preoccupations and his inability to focus on anything else. His mind kept returning to his new job so frequently that he feared he would not be able to sleep.
As it turned out, he slept the sleep of the dead while I slept very lightly, aware that I must wake up so much earlier than I usually do because my son had to rise early to go to work. I heard someone showering in another apartment in his building. I heard a midnight cat-brawl outside. I heard the robins wake up. But I was very pleased to find my son's vibrations at such a high frequency and enjoyed my visit immensely.
One of my son's neighbours has a very fine vegetable garden in soil piled up right on top of an unused corner of a paved parking lot. I wish I had taken a photograph -- I guess that is on my to-do list the next time I visit! Even my non-gardener son is impressed. He thinks that guy is "cool" and certainly very inventive.
One thing struck me as funny. While he seems to expect that his mom should accept that he is a young man enjoying the dating scene and naturally, a sex life too, my son seems surprised that his mom might want a man in her life and some hot sex too! Oooh, my. That's too much for my son! Cute, eh?
posted by Kati at 1:05 p.m.
2 Comments:
Kati, I don't think that's such a strange thing, especially if you're as connected to your home and surroundings as most gardeners are. It's hard to feel like you can go out and conquer the rest of your world when your physical foundation feels a bit shaky or uncertain.
In a similar vein, when things aren't right in another area of my life, I often find myself immersing myself in detail cleaning--you know, scrubbing the corners of toekicks with a toothbrush and all that. My Mom does the same... we figure that it's our way of saying that even if we have no control over other parts of our lives, at least our home base is organized and controllable.
You might not be able to regain that "in control" feeling until you do have your clean slate... hope it happens soon! Oh, and that IS cute about your son... :)
Thanks for the encouragement, "blackswamp girl". In the meantime...that's the hard part. But, as I've often told myself before, even the meantime doesn't last forever!
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