Good gray morning to you, my friends. This August the coast of Northern California, in contrast to the incinerating Eastern and Central regions, has been relatively cool. Our sun will shine today in a couple of hours (and I call it ours because something about California makes us feel that the sunlight is ours alone) but for now it’s a little chilly. Very nice.
Although I have enjoyed these less-committed days, taking August off from blogging, it’s remarkably nice to be back. I hadn’t realized how time to write exactly and only what I’m thinking about, exactly and only in these morning hours, clears my mind. As though I have words in the corner of some mental basement and this blog is my broom. This makes everything sound very dusty but of course that’s not what I mean. Thank you.
How are you? How was your August? How can we be said to “be,” really, when so many people and places around the world suffer? But I know, unless we ourselves are ill or in battle or thrown from our homes, and as long as we take steps every week to make the world better, it’s possible to be OK. That’s the fortune and glory and sorrow of existence. So I hope you are OK.
I’ve been thinking, in this exquisitely small life I lead, in-between gulps of tea and watering the potted fuchsia, that I have learned something in the pandemic. I am by no means a better cook. Actually, by this point I hope my next house doesn’t even have a kitchen. My poor rose bushes and their yellowing leaves testify to my current lazy and semi-despairing gardening habits. I still hang art badly.
But I have gotten better at enjoying tiny changes. The small leaps birds make, from branch to branch. The fruiting of a passiflora vine from week to week. Even the new folds into which a blanket falls across an armchair. Necessity, not enlightenment.
(I’ve also changed up our guest room a bit. Someone can do all Zen all the time but it’s not me. I’ll show you once my new Linoto pillowcases get here. So, maybe 2022;). Oh and I have ordered a pair of sky blue pants. What?)
I still want to go to Prague again. I still want to see Africa. I’d love to take a sailing trip, and remake my old jewelry into a parure. But the long stretches between moments of awe feel fuller.
At least so it happens this morning, which, as I write (thank you blog), is the only thing that matters.
If you are so inclined, tell me, how are you doing? I wish you a wonderful weekend.
40 Responses
Victoire here.
Welcome back, Lisa! As we all sit surrounded by the many horsemen of the Apocalypse – fire, flood, famine, pestilence, war – it’s good to be reminded to take pleasure (or perhaps solace?) in those smaller near-by elements and activities that make up our daily living.
I pull from memory (and probably mangle) two lines from Samuel Johnson’s great poem, “The Vanity of Human Wishes”: from somewhere in the middle, “Peruse the scene with philosophic eye” followed by the poem’s conclusion, “And seek to make the happiness [we] cannot find.”
And as I resentfully clean the corner of our basement most affected by the remains of Hurricane Ida, I do enjoy unearthing long-forgotten treasures from waterlogged boxes and thinking of better days to come…
Hello! So nice to hear from you. It has been the horsemen, hasn’t it. “seek to make the happiness (we) cannot find.” Exactly that. I had been wondering how Princeton fared in the storm. Sorry your basement was soaked, but yes, I love the thought of unearthed treasures and better days to come.
Welcome back, Lisa. It’s so hard to be “okay” when things still seem to be going to the dogs for everyone else. My husband goes away on his fall canoeing trip next week and I have promised myself that I will read only Jane Austen and watch only episodes of Escape to the Country (love that show.) And not watch or listen to a single moment of news. My version of an escape, I guess.
P.S. Glad you’re back on the blogosphere, my friend.
Thank you. I am glad to be back. Maybe I should try some Jane Austen too;). That, and more donations to organizations that can help the hurt.
I want to go to Prague again too! I was last there at barely age 20 when it was still behind the iron curtain. What a trip.
I am doing ok–to answer your question. But I am not doing great. I am increasingly sad about the divisions in our country and what that means for all of us. We are facing so many problems, but, unless we are united in the fight against these problems, we will not get very far.
I am not usually a pessimistic person–so I am fighting that. We are striving to enjoy each day–and we do–but with a sense of foreboding.
Still behind the Iron Curtain, wow! So cool. I was there in the late 90s. It was so beautiful. Striving to enjoy every day, and being fortunate to do so, but the sense of foreboding increases. I do not see a clear way forward, and that’s really hard.
I am glad to see you blogging again. I have not really blogged for many years, although my blog is still out there.
Just a general sort of question. Is anyone responding here, getting involved with refugees from Afghanistan? I am hoping to teach English in a month or two. Then I hope to sort of adopt a family. My town or very small city is welcoming 1000 persons from Afghanistan. I am excited.
That sense of foreboding? It is a type of negative energy and unfortunately it likes to increase and replicate becoming oh so BIG. Go outdoors, find a tree, place both hands upon the tree, visualize this negative energy as sort of a brown energy and run it thru your hands, down into the ground via the tree. Do this until the energy turns white and light. It really works.
I am absolutely going to do this with my big oak tree. Thank you for the idea! And thank you to you and your town for taking in the Afghanis. That’s wonderful.
Welcome back!
My husband and I are spending the weekend in the new-to-us home in the NE Georgia mountains that will be a rental for a couple of years until I retire and then we will spend an unknown part of the year here after. We bought it furnished but still there are surprises of furniture in worse shape than expected. So off to the internet my fingers go. Money streaming. Tired from cleaning. Staring in satisfaction at this pretty home with an amazing mountain view. We will be closer to family, in a cooler climate than our current home in Texas. It all feels very otherworldly. And, as they say around here, blessed.
Thank you! A place in the NE Georgia mountains sounds wonderful. Buying new furniture sounds costly. But tired from cleaning is a good feeling. I’m glad you’ll be closer to family, and yes, cooler.
So good to have you back here again — you know you’ve been missed!
Here, it’s the robins in the birdbath, the hummingbirds insisting it’s their turn. . . trying to hold those, and the apples I’ll pick from the tree tomorrow to make pies for the family, against the sadness that is Haiti right now, and Afghanistan, and the (scruffy) fellow who smiled at me from his sleeping bag (yes, of course I smiled back, but still…) beside the sidewalk as I walked home with my shopping bag full of a recent purchase. Trying to enjoy the simple pleasures that bring well-being without ignoring the hurts the world is inflicting right now. I was going to say “It’s tough,” but I guess it’s a privileged kind of tough. . .
Thank you! That balance of the happy beautiful and the tragedies around us. It is a privileged kind of tough, but I also know you work hard to deserve the ease.
Great to see you back on the blog again! Your days are cooling as ours are warming up and we head into spring. We have had some beautiful days, but I don’t know whether it makes our latest lockdown better or worse. Looks like we’ll be here for a while, but hopefully out by Christmas. Still, we have to be grateful for small things and take life moment by moment. Your blog reminds me to concentrate on the things that provide pleasure. Take care and enjoy the weekend. x
Thank you! I hope you have a beautiful spring, and that lockdown or no you can get outside. And I really hope that by the time Christmas comes you’ll all be able to gather.
Welcome home Lisa! I’m glad to know that you can be in California and be okay.
Yes, I take much pleasure in small bits of life. Filling the animal’s water bowls, feeding a stray cat.
Yet, honestly I would say I am emerging from The Pandemic less optimistic about our capacity to overcome and endure the many crises this nation faces. I will not list them they are familiar to us all. Let us hope for better times.
Luci
I love the image of you putting out water for animals. Lovely. I cannot say I am optimistic, cognitively, in this moment. But my heart and soul retain the capacity to hope.
So glad to read you again. It is all about the moments here. For example, plum cake made out of the blue this evening, a few books passed around to neighbors, a plant to see a small museum which is new to me, my flowering lantana tree that miraculously survived the storm. Life is beautiful despite…
Thank you. Somehow the phrase “plum cake made out of the blue this evening” strikes me as one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.
Nice to see you back. As you state, life is tenuous. We are definitely all very tired of Covid as it hangs over our lives and forces limitations on day to day living. We exist in some sort of limbo and have little choice in the matter. The world stage (Afghanistan) also presents disappointment and hardship for many. Despite it all, we must stay safe and believe better days will come. Hold that thought. Linen bed sheets are pure luxury. Love your latest purchase.
Hold that thought indeed, like a thread to show us out of the maze of this tenuous life. I agree. Linen sheets are real luxury, and IMO, Linoto’s are fabulous. Also a Black-owned business, so goodness abounds.
Good to read your blog again and get a glimpse of Northern California life. Crazy times we are living in and we all must do our best in our little corners of the world. Stay well and safe and keep us posted!
Thank you. And I’m always happy to spotlight Northern California. I was talking to someone on Instagram the other day who said he thought he understood California, although he’d never been here, because wasn’t it just like the rest of the country? It was a political discussion, and it hit me the extend to which “California” has become a code word for our politics. We do have those politics here, but we are so much more. In fact, one could argue that our politics might spring from how beautiful our weather always was, pulling in people from all over the world.
Writing. That’s what I am doing. And looking out of the window, drinking tea or coffee, wondering if the hollyhocks will ever flower, pondering. Sun has come out again. Strange days.
Everything so small and yet so weighty. xoxox
Welcome back! After a hot, sweltering summer we are now enjoying some gorgeous New England-like weather, although I don’t know how long this will last. The news is trying though and bringing us down.
Thank you. And I hope your gorgeous weather lasts a little while and keeps you buoyant.
Missed your posts but glad you had R&R time. When the seems to be on fire (literally and figuratively) I try to concentrate on what I can improve on a micro level…domestically, botanically and socially. Big project this summer is preparing my 89 year old mother (w/ dementia) for assisted living in two weeks. We are both anxious after six years of care giving.but I am grateful we have the resources to take this next step. With the best of intentions and care, we will move forward.
Thank you so much for reading. I will be sending you all the best wishes for your mother’s move. I sense you are doing this with care and aforethought. Hope all goes all well as it can.
The ongoing stress of the pandemic, along with so much else in the news, and some personal stress, has been pretty worn out and angry. My patience for those unvaccinated has waned. Sorry to be a downer, but I’m feel tired of trying to be positive and upbeat all the time. I have learned to be more patient though during these strange times.
I really don’t think it’s possible to be positive in all this, ever, unless we allow ourself our rage and exhaustion and anxiety and despair when needs must.
Welcome back! It was lovely to see you in August, and now it’s lovely to read your words again.
It was so, so, so much fun to see you. xoxox
Completely love the Kit! I want a.full pants review please. I have been tempted now that I own a fabulous Kit turtleneck (again, thank You!). I appreciate your return. My August was back to school, endless insurance battles (that actually did come to some resolution last week) and resume sending. But moments of peace have been part of the month – with butterflies taking up residence in one patch of my garden, tomatoes and sunflowers and the largest bush of basil ever (seriously – it is crazy). And listening to Pema Chodrun help me try to be more on the middle path.
You’re so welcome for the Kit recommendation. I’ll absolutely review the pants when they arrive in a few weeks. I envy you your basil bush. I need to plant more herbs in pots!
I find it hard to focus with everything going on, plus I got my hopes up for major improvement in Covid conditions, only to have them dashed. So I seem to spend a lot of time puttering rather than in real productive activity. Also, I’m with you on the kitchen; I have one only because it came free with the house.
Hahahahahaha! Free with the house!!!! So pleased that you have not lost your sense of humor in any case.
Okay, yes, but only okay. Annoyed with myself for being grumpy. Tired of continuing to deal with Covid when we could have largely vanquished it had people gotten vaccinated and worn masks. Tired of coping with Henri and then Ida (where we escaped damage but others not far from us were devastated). Planning on one last swim before the beach closes for the season and practicing a beautiful but difficult Chopin Nocturne to remind me how fortunate I am.
You are a special human if practicing a difficult Chopin’s Nocturne reminds you of your good fortune. Seems like a spectacular metaphor. We might say that you are “pandemic OK.” So sorry that Ida wreaked such havoc.
So glad to see you back! I was happy to visit with my eldest daughter over the holiday weekend at her home in Capitola. I am still filled with joy, when I get to hug my children, after being alone for the better part of a year on a farm with only Juno the rather ill-trained but sweet doodle dog and her buddy, Otto the cat. I’m clinging to hope, despite all of the war and disaster and hate in the world right now. You’ve gotta start somewhere, inside my own self, and with my own actions seem like the most natural starting place. I’m sliding with ever increasing speed into walnut harvest in a couple of weeks, when I will disappear into my huller plant until November. (November is my favorite month.)
I love this. Walnut harvest seems to take on a deeper meaning here. xoxox
Comments are closed.