Alexandersmap

    Category: Garden and Home

    • The House and the Road

      “My house says to me, “Do not leave me, for here dwells your past.”
      And the road says to me, “Come and follow me, for I am your future.”
      And I say to both my house and the road, “I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things.”
      – Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam

      Lately I’ve been thinking of the house I’ve lived in as an anchor.  An anchor can have both a positive and negative connotation of course, but I thought of it in the positive way.   I’ve been putting a lot of time in at the old anchor lately, quarantined in a pandemic and working from home.  And the completed projects have stacked up into something tangible.  I could almost stay here forever.

      Lately I’ve also been thinking about the road.  Getting out there and seeing the world again, almost like things were normal.  The list of places to go grows quietly urgent, for time is fleeting and the world changes but so do you.  I imagine a scene akin to the running of the bulls in Pamplona as would-be travelers run the streets, hoping they aren’t run over by time as they make up for 2020.

      I look at the trees when I sit in the backyard, thinking they’re beginning to encroach a bit in their search for light.  This won’t do, not if we stay.  Limb up the trees now added to the list.  The list that grows and nags.  It only takes the right ratio of time and money to make a house work out for you.  You either put in more time or more money, but one way or the other the house demands a mix of both from you.

      I scrolled through a list of the most beautiful place to visit in each state that Conde Nast Traveller put out a couple of years ago.  I’ve been to ten of the places listed.  Ten out of fifty.  For all my travel I’ve only been to 33 of 50 states, if you exclude layovers in random airports.  Using the same criteria, my results are much worse on global travel, where I’ve spent meaningful time in only 12 of 195 countries.  The road mocks me even as it calls.

      There is a season for everything, and the last twenty-two years have been the season of parenting and being present as a father, layered with epic travel blessings.  I travel more than many do in their lifetimes, and I’ve managed to do it while being present for my children in their own lives as they’ve grown into adults.  I see the people traveling the world with their children and I’m awed by the life these families are living, but I wanted my own kids to grow up in a neighborhood, playing sports and riding bicycles up and down the street and building lifetime memories.  I suppose I could have added another dozen countries to the list, maybe even 50 more.  But here in this house dwells my past, and it’s not such a bad past at that.

      “Come and follow me, for I am your future”

      And now?  Now I plot and scheme and decide what to prioritize. I have at least 47 reasons to stay in New Hampshire for the foreseeable future as I quietly chip away at the 4000 footers.  There’s a net benefit in hiking in better fitness as well.  Resuming global travel will have to wait a bit longer.  Same with a few of those places I haven’t seen in the United States.  And I don’t mind waiting, for the house is not just the past, but the future as well.  At least for a little while.  It’s good to have a solid anchor at the ready.  Today, Father’s Day in America, I realize I’ve been an anchor myself.  Paid in full through time and effort and love.  With one eye on the house and the other on the road, but always present when it counts.

    • Is It Yourself You Seek?

      It is yourself you seek
      In a long rage,
      Scanning through light and darkness
      Mirrors, the page,

      Where should reflected be
      Those eyes and that thick hair,
      That passionate look, that laughter.
      You should appear

      Within the book, or doubled,
      Freed, in the silvered glass;
      Into all other bodies
      Yourself should pass.

      The glass does not dissolve;
      Like walls the mirrors stand;
      The printed page gives back
      Words by another hand.

      And your infatuate eye
      Meets not itself below;
      Strangers lie in your arms
      As I lie now.
      – Louise Bogan, Man Alone

      I seek myself in early morning quiet, listening for the whisper.
      I seek myself on long walks in rough terrain, one step at a time with an eye on the footing and the other at the way forward.
      I seek myself in the long drives to faraway places, with nothing playing but the soundtrack of the tires on pavement.
      I seek myself in pictures, vainly attempting to capture the light and never quite reaching perfection but smiling at the moment anyway.
      I seek myself in the dusty soil, that traps under fingernails and turns into beauty with water and time we hope we have.
      I seek myself in deep plunges into water, thoughts rising with the bubbles as we break the surface, clearer than before.
      I seek myself in lyrics captured from songs in the air, hearing words for the first time and desperately grabbing at Shazam to find the source before it disappears forever.
      I seek myself in habits made and promises to myself broken, with hopes of trying again tomorrow.
      I seek myself in reaching out in service to others, to rejoice in the moment of connection ever fleeting.
      I seek myself in old battlefields and graveyards and monuments to ghosts who only wish to be remembered once more.
      I seek myself in freshly chopped vegetables, sautéing in snaps and pops that betray my anticipation.
      I seek myself in the words that dance on the page, my own or those of strangers in my arms.
      I seek myself in skimming across water, skipping like a stone on the pull of an oar or the puff of the wind and wanting only to fly a little bit longer.
      Tell me, where do you seek yourself?

    • Return of Wonder

      “Wonder dies and is replaced by boredom, as we develop language and words and concepts. Then hopefully, if we’re lucky, we’ll return to wonder again.” – Anthony de Mello, Awakening

      The hummingbirds work their way across the mounds of honeysuckle in turns. One fills up and flies off and another takes its place. The vine and the birds return year-after-year and each season I marvel at the intimate dance of the honeysuckle and the hummingbird. I’ve learned over many seasons together to sit silently and let the dance happen. I’m rewarded once again in 2020, a year like no other, and nod in gratitude to the dancers.

      I keep returning to Anthony de Mello, and why not? Every visit mines gold, like a hummingbird returning to honeysuckle. This is an especially good year to re-read Awakening, and lately I’m scanning a few pages in between history and philosophy and poetry. There’s so much you miss the first time through with great books, and I’m reading it again with a new sense of wonder. And isn’t that the way with everything worthwhile? The garden is different every time you visit it, and so is the forest, and the ocean, and mountains, and old friends in our lives and surely a spouse. And so are we, if we’ll just sit still long enough to see.

      I’m lucky. I know this. I can sit quietly in the garden and watch hummingbirds. I can walk on a dark street alone at night looking at the stars without concern. Born in a place and time with a skin color that offers me a silent leg up over people who are in every way my peers or a few notches above me. I’m not struggling the way many people struggle, and I’m grateful. But what do you do with the gift? Become bored with it? Jealousy hold it tight, not willing to share it with others? Lecture those who don’t see the wonder?

      I think the first step is to appreciate the beauty in your own life. To truly see it anew. And then share it with the world. Pull wisdom from the ages and embrace it, and shine a light on it for others to see. To be a stabilizing force for those who need a hand, and a teacher for those who need to see the wonder in all of us. I view the merit of another person by the sparkle in their eyes, not by the color of their skin or the position they hold. Help others to see. To find wonder themselves. We all live by concepts we’ve learned along the way. Concepts are funny things. They change when the student is ready and not a moment sooner. Offer a hand to those struggling with the climb, an ear for those who need you to hear and a shoulder for those who are hurting to cry on. Share wonder with the world and dance with those who rise up with you. And keep offering a place on the dance floor for those who aren’t there just yet. They could use some wonder too..

    • Consider The Hummingbird

      “Consider the hummingbird for a long moment…. Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backward. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be… The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature.”

      “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.”

      “No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.” – Brian Doyle, Joyas Voladoras

      I get a bit breathless when I read something as stunning as Joyas Voladoras, and perhaps I share too much of it here.  It’s from a collection of essays by Brian Doyle in One Long River Of Song.  I’ve been saving it until I saw my first hummingbird of the season, figuring it would be a nice way to mark the occasion.  Well, that happened over two days ago, and I’m happy to share the sparkling light of Joyas Voladoras with you now.  Welcome back, hummingbirds, I’m glad to see you return to the garden.

      I play my part in keeping them from retreating to tupor with as many hummingbird-friendly plants and flowers as I can justify cramming into the sunniest corners of my backyard.  And in return they keep me from returning to tupor, if only for this short season.  For that I’m grateful, and I keep finding more excuses to add maybe just one more plant.  The bees return first, followed by the hummingbirds, and soon the butterflies will return too and the garden will be complete.  Or maybe it’s me that will be, or maybe all of us, in this together with our collection of heartbeats thumping to the song of today.

      Reading an essay like Joyas Voladoras swings the spotlight onto my own work, and I recognize that I have a ways to go in the writing.  But the blog serves as my apprenticeship and I keep putting it out there even if it misses the mark or is welcomed with grateful indifference.  I’m silently plotting an escape for my ambitions, one post at a time.  Words and structure of sentences are one thing, but weaving sparkling light and magic into those words is another.  What makes you breathless as a reader?  We all churn inside, don’t we?  How do we share that with the world?  Bird by bird, today and tomorrow too.  There’s enough tupor in the world, we all need a bit more warmth.

    • The State of Things

      “For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.” – Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

      I paid a friend to mow my lawn for ten years. I traveled often and didn’t have the time to keep up with it, so I’d simply throw money at the problem and it would be done. Something happens to your yard when you aren’t out in it doing the work. It pulls back from you, feeling shunned perhaps, or maybe reasserting the wild tendencies that were always there, but corralled in suburbia. Walk in the woods and count the cellar holes and stone fences and you’ll know the truth: The land has a longer memory than our lifetime.

      Over the last few years I’d walk about the yard on some gardening task, looking at the state of things. The lawn was cut well, with fine lines at expert angles, but the lawn itself was in a sorry state. So we’re the beds and walkways. In fact the whole yard was feeling a bit worn down and neglected. Sure, I’d rake or spread mulch or pick up the fallen branches after a storm, but the land was slowly returning to a wild state. I’d spent all my time at home on the garden and potted plants, and was getting the cold shoulder from the rest of the yard. No, this won’t do.

      The first step in repairing a damaged relationship is to put in the time building trust back. So I bought a Honda push mower that forces me to walk every step of the land and with the warmer weather I’m out there walking the property. You notice things when you walk every step of the land, things like the quality of the soil in certain places, and weeds you don’t have a name for, and chipmunk holes, and roots and stumps from experiments gone bad. Each step brought me closer to the truth, and forced me to reconcile my decade of indifference to the land. I’d have to do better.

      Eventually travel will return, and weather windows will make mowing an inconvenience. But other excuses like soccer games and basketball tournaments and dance recitals have given back time I’d used to justify the hired help now that the kids are adults. And I’ve found that I enjoy getting to know the land again. It keeps me honest with myself. It’s a form of penance for a decade of neglect, and I don’t seem to mind at all. There’s work to be completed, seasons to mark, tasks at hand, projects to do. A slow march to the infinite, one step at a time. The land might reject me still, but I’m back on it anyway, trying to keep up with the state of things and learning lessons along the way.

    • The Tickle of a Spider on the Tongue

      This is the absolute truth.  This morning I poured myself a glass of water and started writing a post that will have to wait for another day.  I’d set the kettle and heard it starting to boil as I was writing, so I took my glass that had been sitting there and walked into the kitchen.  As I stood in front of the kitchen sink waiting for the kettle to whistle I took a swig of water and felt a clump of something on my tongue.  I spit out the water onto a plate in the sink and there was a spider, equally stunned by how its day had started.  I laughed (what else can you do?) and carried the plate outside and brushed the spider off into the holly bush.  After taking stock of my tongue, I rinsed out the glass and poured myself another one.  I’m fairly sure that the day can only get better from here, and I’m guessing the spider feels the same.  You never know what the new day will bring you.

      Yesterday I tackled yet another project that’s been nagging at me; a river stone bed that had accumulated years of dirt and bird seed and all manner of tree debris.  I spent several hours pulling out every stone, cleaning out the bed and putting the stone back in (If this seems like the perfect way to spend a Saturday, you must be a gardener too).  It’s a meditative process, and I managed to transform the bed from an eyesore to something beautiful that nobody else will ever notice but me.  And it seems that this river stone bed was the perfect place for giving birth to the next generation of spiders, as I disturbed 4 – 5 spider moms with white egg sacks.  In each case I tried to sweep the spider gently into a dust pan and relocate it to another part of the yard.  That was supposed to be my good spider karma for the weekend, and I felt I’d done my part for humanity’s ongoing tenuous relationship with them.  And then I drank their cousin.

      After this enlightening moment I decided to look into what species of spider I almost consumed.  It was your typical wolf spider, which are hunters who don’t spin webs (I feel I might have noticed a web before drinking the spider).  Living next to the woods you see a lot of spiders.  I don’t believe the other family members are as unconcerned about that as I am.  But then again I’m at a point in my life where I don’t worry about such trivial things as spiders on my tongue.  You’ve got to roll with whatever life throws at you.  I don’t ever expect to experience such an epic moment again, but you never know.  I’ll make a point of checking my glass before drinking next time around.  The entire event reminded me of the fable about a ham and egg breakfast.  Sure, the chicken is involved but the pig is invested.  It seems I was the chicken this morning and the spider the pig.  A near-miss breakfast and a moment to remember.  So how’s your day going?

       

    • A Pair of Opossums Enter the Scene

      I have two neighbors I’ve only seen once, just the other day from an upstairs window overlooking the backyard and the woods beyond. At the edge of the woods there’s a chain link fence that once occasionally held the dog in and now defines the wild from the manicured backyard I wrestle with endlessly. It seems at some point a couple moved into the vacant (of humans anyway) part of my yard that lies beyond the fence. A pair of opossums entered the scene and I can’t stop thinking about the new neighbors.

      I watched them, deep in opossum couple conversation, climb over the old stone wall that marks time in centuries, linger at the gnarled roots of a red maple and slowly make their way into the pile of brush piled just on the other side of the fence. It seems this is the ideal love nest for this pair, and they’re likely doing their business of creating the next generation of opossums as I write. I don’t mind, we can use all the tick and bug eaters we can get around here. I can do without the chipmunks and the groundhog that nibbles on my sweet potato vines and tomatoes, but the opossums are okay in my book. Keep gobbling up those ticks and we’ll be fast friends.

      Funny thing about opossums, the males are called Jacks and the females Jills. Their offspring are called Joeys. They’re nocturnal and generally transient animals, unless they find some cushy love nest anyway. Some people call me Jack, but nobody would call me nocturnal. But we all have our time, and Jack and Jill can have the night. We can say hello during the morning shift change. Hello, Jack! Hello Jack and Jill! And Joey, and Joey, and Joey… but I digress. Opossums have a way of distracting me with their delightfully different vibe.

      Which brings me to the elephant in the room: That silent O in opossum. Who’s idea was it to drop that in there anyway? I complain about learning French, but English is no picnic either. Silent O indeed. It’s my native language and I’m still inclined to start saying “O” when I read the word. Who made these rules anyway? Someone who thought about how delightful it would be to screw with the world for generations. Probably someone named Jack. Or Jill. You know they’re the troublemakers… unlike our friends the opossums.

    • Rotating the Crops

      A necessary condition of early season gardening in the northeast is having the flexibility to move annuals in and out frequently. After a weekend of enthusiastic planting and placing pots of young flowers and over-wintered topicals all about the yard I moved every last one of them into the garage to sleep for the night. I repeat this any time the forecast calls for temperatures that drop to within ten degrees of a killing frost. I’ve learned the hard way that a forecast is only as good as the microclimate your plants are in. Better safe than sorry.

      So after a weekend of major yard work and roughly 40,000 steps inside an acre, Monday was a day working in front of the computer and on the phone. I can’t say my body minded the rest. In fact, moving the plants back into the garage was the most exercise I had all day. I’ll remedy that today with a long walk to earn the planned take-out taco’s on this Cinco de Mayo. The days of moving all day long are gone, but I was reminded of how much I missed them.

      Overnight temperatures were actually pretty mild. I was overly conservative moving the plants. So it goes. I needed the movement more than the annuals did. I’ll move them twice more today, and tomorrow probably, and so on. It’s a small toll for the body, paying immeasurable dividends for the well-being of the mind. I’m back at it for another season, and I quickly forget what there was to complain about.

      Eighteen containers and pots jammed in here, but who’s counting?

    • Recent Purchases I’ve Grown to Love

      I’m doing my best to get rid of things, and for the most part I’m making good progress on this front.  But we all need those essentials to get through the days, and some of it grows quickly to be your favorite stuff.  Anyone who knows me will recognize the tendencies on the following list: work, walk, garden, music and coffee. Shocking? Anyway, here are five things I’ve picked up over the last couple of years that have grown into my favorites:

      1. G-Pack Pro Standing Desk Converter – I’m working from home a lot right now, and candidly I don’t like sitting on my ass all day.  It’s not good for you, and that nags at me the longer I’m parked in front of my desk.  So this winter before any of us thought we’d be social distancing I purchased this sit/stand desk converter.  And I’ve found it to be remarkably easy to use.  I simply press a lever, pull the desk up or push it down and I don’t miss a beat in working for hours on end at my old desk, now new again.  I have a laptop and monitor on one side and a Mac on the other and it just… works. Wish I’d gotten this thing years ago.
      2. AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker – I’ve written about this coffee maker before, and frankly I don’t know what I did without it.  Making an entire pot of coffee is wasteful and prompts me to consume more than I should. The AeroPress makes a great cup of coffee, every time, in close [enough] to the time it takes to make a K-cup. And there’s a ritual associated with it similar to making tea that is quite satisfying.
      3. Sony WH-CH700N Noise Cancelling Headphones – Purchased for flights, but really handy in this social distancing world where there’s a conference call happening in the dining room, a class discussion happening on the porch and me listening to tunes between calls in the office. Comfortable, rich sound and immersive.
      4. DeWit Welldone Serrated Trowel – I spoiled myself with this trowel. Feel the heft of it, the quality: This is a lifetime tool, and it makes the ritual of planting a joyful experience with a tactile assurance that it’s up for the task. Gardening is my escape, and I don’t need the distraction of crappy tools when I’m doing it. This trowel is pure bliss.
      5. Merrell Outmost Vent Hiking Shoes – I purchased these shoes to replace another pair of Merrell’s that walked with me in Portugal, Newfoundland, Arizona and moderate trails in New England. The most recent pair have made the trip around Scotland, from Arthur’s Seat to The Storr and Camusdarach Beach. Yesterday afternoon I took a walk in a nearby town forest With trails and ledge wet and muddy from a day of rain. These Merrill’s did the job offering enough reliable traction and water resistance to allow me to focus on other things, like the silent embrace of hundreds of wet hemlocks reminding me that the world will go on.

    • April Snow

      Normally I’d react differently to snow in April. Normal years I’m thinking about spring and hurrying along in life. But normal seems quaint in 2020. So when I looked out the window in the early light of morning and saw a snow globe I shook my head in mock indifference. Whatever. I slipped on some boots and walked out into the snow fall. There’s magic in early morning snow, whether you welcomed it or not. It’s not like I’m commuting somewhere, or worried about clearing the driveway. My commute was over when I walked downstairs.

      So out in it, I soaked up the silence as the world shrunk to snow-coated trees and grass and soon me too as millions of flakes drifted out of the sky like salt from a shaker and clung to every surface. I inspected the bluebells and daffodils and saw they shrugged indifference to the affront. Let it snow. Indeed. The northern hemisphere has tilted back to the sun and this won’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever; not snow or pandemics or daffodils or us. Take what the day brings you and embrace it. For this too shall pass.