Gloveless

Gloveless

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It’s ironic that after months of wearing gloves for grocery shopping, a doctor’s visit and most any other time I’ve ventured into a public space, I wasn’t wearing them when I needed them most — in my own kitchen.

Last night’s dinner was a Thai shrimp dish I’d never made but which sounded good when I found it online. It called for a jalapeno pepper, two of them, in fact, with or without seeds. I settled on one and one-half without seeds. That was about right, flavor-wise. Blended with the coconut milk, fish sauce and Thai curry paste, they provided just enough kick.

But my hands told another story. Hours after I’d rinsed, de-seeded and diced the peppers my fingers and palms felt like they were on fire. A couple of hours of keeping them wrapped in a cool wet washcloth or on top of a bag of chipped ice left them little better than before.

When I finally googled the symptom, I learned that I should have been slathering my hands with milk or yogurt instead of cold water — and, most of all, I should have been wearing gloves. Now you tell me!

(Entries from a salsa competition last year at work.) 

Precious Moments

Precious Moments

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It’s easy to feel a failure at meditation, although I believe failure is a concept frowned upon in meditative circles. But despite the wandering mind I must constantly try to rein in during my brief sessions on Headspace, I stepped outside today to pick up the newspaper and felt a thrill just to be alive.

The sun was shining, I could walk barefoot to the street — the moment was perfect for celebrating the importance of all moments.

And as if to underline this view, as I write this post the hummingbird, elusive this year, seems finally to have decided our nectar is worth sipping. Already I’ve seen her make several passes at the feeder, dipping as well into the New Guinea impatiens, her needle-like bill stabbing the flowers with surgical precision.

A summer moment. A precious moment. Precious as all moments are.

Anniversary of a Classic

Anniversary of a Classic

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Catching up on email, I learned from the Writer’s Almanac that To Kill a Mockingbird was published 60 years ago yesterday — and that it was not an easy book to write (if any book is). 

Apparently, Harper Lee was so frustrated by her work-in-progress that in 1957 she threw the manuscript out the window. Luckily, she retrieved it and went on to finish the book, which has sold 30 million copies, been translated into 40 languages and won the Pulitzer Prize.


Lee admitted that she didn’t know what to expect when the book was published, and hoped that if it was panned, it would be a “quick and merciful death” at the hands of the critics. She later admitted that she found the success almost as frightening as the “quick and merciful death” would have been.  And in fact, Lee never wrote the next book.

If communication is the point, how our work is perceived by others, then perhaps Lee said everything she needed to say in that classic and her silence was justified. But if the point of writing is the doing of it … then Lee was robbed.

Change of Scene

Change of Scene

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For months we have been mostly at home, not leaving at all except for groceries in March and April, tip-toeing out a bit more in May and June, and now, in July, a couple of full-blown trips are in the offing. The first of these is today. I take Celia to the airport in a few minutes.

It seems strange after a period of home-based quiet to suddenly be encountering the world again. The world has shrunk in these months. It’s now a creaky rocking chair in the kitchen, a yoga mat in the basement and my office chair pulled out onto the deck, looking incongruous there but oh so much more comfortable than the wrought iron patio furniture with the old blue cushion.

You’d think that after such enforced seclusion one might have startling insights. Maybe those are yet to come. My trip is next week, so … I’ll be waiting.

The Weeds

The Weeds

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Since I work outside most days now I’m constantly reminded that there will always be work to do for those who lift up their heads and look around. I say this because of the weeds, which will always be with us. 

Whereas I used to walk around the office, make my way to the kitchen and brew a cup of tea, now I walk down the deck stairs into the backyard and pull a bunch of stilt grass … or crab grass … or dandelions.

Weed eradication is strangely satisfying. It’s a way to improve the yard that takes no imagination or forethought. The material is always at hand, and there are infinite possibilities. It’s also not unlike editing. Instead of removing the errant dash or comma, I pull up the wild strawberry. 
It’s all in a day’s work. And like all sweet toil, there is never an end to it, only a pause. 
Ready for Rest?

Ready for Rest?

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Within this morning’s walk, rushing to work in a work-out before the heat begins to build, there was a sudden awareness of pause amidst the hurry. The feeling you get at the top of roller coaster, infinite and infinitesimal at the same time.

It was the feeling of summer at its peak, full of birdsong and cicada crescendo. Of crows, discussing the world and its problems as they often do, hopping along the gravel berm with their wise eyes and sleek black coats.

And for some reason this summer, what has become a signature sound, the felling of trees, the grinding up of deadwood. Are lawn services offering specials or something? Or are the trees, like so many of us, ready for a rest?

What Remains

What Remains

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Since mid-June I’ve been in fighting mode.  The day lilies were budding and the deer were biting — and I was determined to win the battle this time. Armed with both liquid and granular deer repellent, I spent time each evening treating the flowers, dousing them with so much foul-smelling stuff that I dared any young buck to come near them.

But the young bucks did — and the young does, too. Apparently they were hungrier or more numerous than usual, because, despite all my efforts, the deer have decimated my day lily crop. The brilliant yellow and orange accents to the pink coneflowers … are not there. It’s a sparser and more monochromatic garden than I had anticipated this spring.

It’s easy for me to be discouraged by such matters, as seemingly trivial as they are. But I realized yesterday that I was looking at it all wrong. I was gazing at the garden and seeing what was not there rather than what is.

So I shifted focus. I skimmed over the stripped stalks, the nubs left by the marauding hordes. Instead, I appreciated the coneflowers, the pink ones and the white ones. I spotted the black-eyed Susans that are just beginning to pop. I took a couple of deep breaths and almost — almost — saw the beauty … in what remains.

(The garden a few years ago, when the day lilies still had a fighting chance.) 

Out of State

Out of State

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Over the weekend, I took a brief trip to the state of Maryland. It was only a quick visit, I was home in less than five hours. Yet so homebound have I become that it felt like I was taking off for a cross-country expedition.

While the go-go-ness of my life up till March has meant no time to process the people and places I was visiting, recent stay-at-home mandates haven’t given me much time to digest things, either. Because there’s never a shortage of work and chores, and low-level anxiety has a way of gumming up the gray matter.

Still, even a short sojourn helped. There was a new path, familiar beneath the feet — but it had been more than a year since I strolled it. There was fresh air from the river and bay, and, most of all, there were the dear faces of people I love but hadn’t seen since wintertime. 
It was a short trip but a good trip, proof that even a little break makes a difference. On the way home I sang in the car.  
A Day’s Work

A Day’s Work

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Today I’ve spent roughly five hours (and counting) on a call with Apple Support. I have installed and uninstalled, saved and unsaved. I’ve held my phone up to the screen of my computer at the same time that I typed on that computer’s keyboard. 

To do this has required multiple plugs and passwords, a backup disc, three computers and a technician who is as calm as she is smart. “Patience is my middle name,” she said during our third (fourth?) hour together. I’ve gotten so used to her voice in my ear that I’m wondering if I can write a blog post without her. 
This is by no means finished. I imagine we will go on long past 5 p.m. But at the end of this I hope to be able to use my new work computer — and, given how long I’ve spent holding my smart phone up to my computer, be sporting a newly toned set of biceps. 
It’s all in a day’s work for this most un-tech-savvy of writers …
(Using a calm picture to soothe frayed nerves …)
The Fifth of July

The Fifth of July

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It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t see a live fireworks display. But because I didn’t — or for a thousand other reasons, some of them valid — last night’s show was especially touching to me.

Maybe it was because of the anger in the air, justified to some extent but frightening, too, because it seems to be blinding us to all that is good about our country. Or maybe it was because I always appreciate a fine soundtrack, and televised viewing allows for that. (What could be better than fireworks plus “Stars and Stripes Forever”?)

Mostly I think it was because there is still so much good in our country, and we are having such a tough time of it, are hurting in so many ways. I worry that we have lost sight of what makes us great, of “e pluribus unum.” But last night, sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn in my arms (dinner!) I found cause for optimism. I hope it lasts.