Planting Dream Seeds

The very sweet man who lives in a tent on the edge of our former horse pasture waters my mom’s gardens every morning. I don’t much like to water; I’m glad it’s not part of my “duties” here. But he was out of town for a few days a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t spent much－okay, any－time in the garden here; but I wandered about near my apartment door for a few minutes one evening, and decide it wouldn’t hurt to water the grape tomatoes my mom had planted before I arrived, at my request. The plants were very tall, with a fair number of blossoms, but no tomatoes. Summer comes late in the Pacific Northwest－I’m sure the ones I planted in my North Carolina garden in April are long gone, done in by the relentless heat. It was a simple thing, but it felt good to connect with the earth.

I forget the connection to simplicity. I feel overwhelmed with the enormity of the space ahead of me in the coming months. There are many things I want to do with my Year of Happiness (a book that is next on my list): write, explore my new home, learn, discover an expanding me; along with re-experiencing caregiving and living in relationship with family. But where to start? The caregiving is easy to jump into; it needs to happen everyday regardless of whatever else might be calling to me. And four other people help pull me into relationship. The calling to me part, though, is easily ignored because it is entirely up to me to make it happen; and, it seems to me, requires objectives and goals and a plan for reaching them. Or does it? Perhaps all it really requires is intention and the planting of a few seeds. The garden needn’t be planted all at once.

In my North Carolina garden I planted seeds and seedlings according to the time of year. Some require cold weather sewing and some need warmth. Some are fall bloomers, and some are spring. My Washington garden needs nothing so heroic (and untenable) as single-season planting. To try to accomplish such ridiculousness is a sure-fire way to experience dream-death.

When I arrived here last month, my first task was to build my garden bed. I unpacked boxes, retrieving familiar and beloved items of my living and designed a comfortable place to give birth to my year. Next came self-care: find a yoga class, prepare the soil to make it fertile. On the second try I found a yoga studio that I love. Its upper floor loftiness, dark wood floors, open rafters wrapped with strings of light, and sixteen windows looking into the sky and treetops and through which the afternoon light slants, brings me peace just to be in the space. I am still exploring the right class for me, but I am glad I didn’t give up after two classes in a depressing studio that threatened to sink me when I walked in the door.

I found a place to write my blog, Santa Lucia Coffee Roasters, a charming atmosphere and hangout of others that may someday be familiar faces (and where Alma knew my order when I walked in the door today!). But I want to write more than my blog, and it feels impractical and probably unproductive to go to a coffee shop. I have not been able in the past to write at home. I need a place without distractions; one that says, “When you are here, write.” It comes to me all of a sudden that it is here right under my nose. Or right over my head.

A lot of years ago, in barn-raising fashion, my dad enlisted three generations of his family, along with friends, to build his dream workshop over the carport. He had too few years to enjoy it. Ten years ago, ready to return to her roots, sister Rebecca moved to this home to help my mother and to pursue her own artistic heart. She converted the workshop into a studio to paint old furniture. She cleaned out, I assume, a lot of the workshop detritus, but left a lot: tools large and small; my dad’s collections of wood for projects, screws, and paint－evidence of his organizational skills. His collectibles from life on the farm and a career as a forester still hang on the walls.

Rebecca uses the space rarely, if ever, since she started HUBBUB six years ago. So now it also contains collected unpainted furniture, pieces in abandoned process of being painted, and more paint. Her collectibles and items of inspiration still hang on the walls. All that, along with stuff that has been thrown up there over the years in lieu of discard. (The three American Girl magazines from 1958, 1959, and 1963 are fascinating.)

One afternoon this week I tackle the daunting task of rebirthing the tree- house-like space into a writing studio. I cannot actually throw anything out because it isn’t my stuff. But I am pretty successful at moving things around and out of the middle of the floor in the front space, and make room to move stuff out of the back room. So now it is an organized disaster. And I have enough room for me. And the WiFi works! I get my red leather chair out of my storage unit, and scavenge a couple other things that I could get at to accessorize. I also appropriate some things I find stored in the workshop turned art studio turned writing loft. A motivational notebook from my dad’s employer finds a visible home on a shelf next to one of Rebecca’s painted bowls. Just as Daddy made his dream workshop happen, Rebecca made her dream happen. Now it’s my turn. I planted a seed and that energizes me! I look forward to Smudge joining me in my loft. I think I will get an electric fireplace for winter. Oh yes, it is unheated.

The local community college catalog arrives in the mail this week, and I eagerly turn to the community classes, for which I am eligible for the half price senior discount. Perks. I am disappointed that there are no writing courses offered fall semester. But I sign up for Drawing for People Who Think They Can't Draw.

Last week I explored Mt. Rainier; this week my mom and I take a drive down the road that crosses the valley below the house, just to see exactly where it goes; next week Emma and Wynne and I are camping in Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, where even my mom says we have never been. I set a goal to write something everyday, however small, and accomplish it this week. Seeds beginning to bloom.

I mentioned in a previous blog that there are no birds at my new home on the hill. I miss the birds. Soon after my arrival I put up two feeders, hoping to lure feathered friends. Every few days I check the seeds. Still no diners. Last evening, as my mother and I eat dinner, an evening grosbeak flutters up to the feeder. I hold my breath. It doesn’t stay for dinner, but it is a beginning.

Two quotes resonate this week:

“You aim for what you want and if you don’t get it, you don’t get it, but if you don’t aim, you don’t get anything” (Francine Prose).

“Dreams become reality when we start to treat them as if they are real. When we stop postponing and evading them, and when we can answer, ‘Today, I worked on my dream’ with a grounded specific” (Walking in This World, Julia Cameron).

This week there are tiny green tomatoes on the vines. One step at a time. The tomatoes come after the blossoms. And way before the blossoms are the seeds that are watered and fertilized a bit at a time. I am planting the seeds for my Year of Happiness dreams.

Following Moon Shadows

I miss Cat Stevens. I saw him in concert in college; he and his piano rose up out of the stage. Or was that John Denver? And a guitar? I do remember Robert Louis Stephenson and his Garden of Verses: “I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me. What can be the use of him is more than I can see.” One of the few poems I memorized as a child.

I love shadows. They are temporary art. Found art, Dori would say. You happen upon them, enjoy them, and then they shift, disappear, maybe come back at exactly the same time the next day. Or not, depends on the clouds. The thing about your own shadow is that you can’t hold onto it. You see it; it’s just there, right in front of you. Tantalizing then taunting you. You follow it, chase it, and it stays just ahead of you. You turn and it jumps behind you, and follows you until you turn again.

“Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” (Aesop) 

Dreams are kind of like shadows. You think you see exactly where you are supposed be and you follow what looks like the path--what you thought you saw--but you can't ever quite get to the destination you envisioned. Dreams have a way of being not quite specific, and full of obstacles. My sister has a dream--a calling, she says. It's not coming to pass exactly the way she has been hearing it. Callings are a little shadowy, too--by intention, I think. Perhaps the One Who is More is into shadow games. Having a spot of fun with us. Perhaps She just puts the shadow out there and leaves it to us which way to turn. If we try to take it too literally, to grab the shadow and not let it get away, we lose the part we were meant to hold onto.

Have you ever thought about the fact that shadows are always shades of gray? Their "colors have all run dry." Life is the trip that is in full spectrum Kodachrome, not the shadow. And life pretty much never takes the path we planned, or saw ahead of us. The sun shifts, the big tree gets in the way, a cloud casts a shadow. But if we keep the sun at our back the shadow can be our guide, it can keep us grounded; our feet and the shadow's feet are always together. Even if we turn around, it is behind us, pushing us onward. Or beside us, walking with us; our feet always together. I want to tell my sister to look down another path; don't cling to the one you're on. Let go. God will go with you.

Charly returned to snowy Colorado this week. She has been touring Europe for ten weeks; five weeks with a friend, and five weeks alone. Except she was never alone. She made friends wherever she went. And she kept bumping into the same people in very different places. She met people from other countries; and she met people from Colorado and California, where she grew up. One attended her school's rivalat the same time she was a high school

student! That person, from across the room in a Croatian restaurant, recommended the squid. She stayed in hostels--some decent, many not-so-much. For two nights she stayed in a regular hotel, and met no one. She could hardly bear the loneliness. As I read that blog post, I found myself thinking that is what I would gravitate toward--stay where I will meet no one, and stay away from places where I would have to engage. Yeah, be my shadow instead of my Self. People like Charly will save the world. (I know, you are thinking, "It must be nice..." Let me assure you that Charly has very little money; just different priorities about what is important. Choices we can all make in our own way. This is her way.)

There is a man who keeps coming to the Cafe on Sunday mornings. He has decided that I am a good person to talk at. He is a world famous photographer-- as he likes to tell me at every encounter. He launches into accolades of himself each week and, though he knows I write and I have showed him two of my own photographs that happened to be on my screen when he approached, he never asks about my work. How not to be a Charly. My theory is  he didn’t get affirmation as a child, now he pushes praise for himself on every captive audience. Still trying to convince himself of self-worth. (And here he comes; time out.)

The cold came this weekend--early. And, for now, I expect temporary. While it is raining lovely rain, I get my bathroom cleaned, and that feels kind of good. I am disappointed when the sun comes out in the afternoon. I do go out, though, for a tour of my garden. Daffodils are emerging. And I discover that the Lenten Rose that seemed to be dying has new growth pushing out of the ground at its center. You just never know what will come up when you push aside the old ideas of what "should be." But I want to be inside on this first cold day. I create a Cat Stevens station on Pandora, light candles, have tea with Laura, then wrap in my afghan.

I have had this quote on my page of Things I Save for My Blog since the season-ending episode of Grey's Anatomy last spring: "The worst deception we practice is on ourselves. Which is why sometimes it takes us a while to realize that the truth has been in front of us the whole time." That shadow is right there in front of us. The deception is that it is the truth; but it has no color, it is just a guide--a friend. We are the ones with the movable feet. It goes with us, not us with it. All we have to do is stay in the Light as we explore the twists and turns.