Ellen is having a garage sale today. She decided that she could make some money for summer this way and I was glad to have her take some of the things we have around the house.
It's not even noon and she's already sold over $900.
It's humbling to see one's possessions assembled, marked and offered for resale. There is a sense of ending and beginnings in a garage sale like this. The bedspread that I had specially made for Ellen when she was 6 is now going for $5. Nathan's soccer pic that I spent days selecting the frame will go for less than $10. And books -- many books that I've read and now have on tape or on audible are going for pennies on the dollar.
Still, it's a sense of relief to move on past the middle school years into the full throttle of high school and beyond. We are chucking the bicycles to make way for the cars. We're selling the VCR so that the DVD's will have more room. The cassette tapes? Some antique dealer will make a killing.
Life marches on and on and on and we hear the cadence, pick up the drum, march along to the beat.
We have less than three years left to "raise" our kids. The truth is, they are already raised, it's just the feeding and caring for them that we are doing now. The foundations are poured, the paths are forged and we're moving to higher ground.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Gardner's Journal: "rock" music
When you mention the word "garden" most people think of the plants: the flowers, the shrubs, the grasses. Most don't consider the "hardscaping" a part of the garden, but it is an essential part. In fact, it provides the structure and the design of how everything "holds" together...it is a container for what you see.
In essence, planting is only a small part of the garden and the chores of having a garden. It's the fun part and the more "glamorous" part but its not what keeps a garden looking great. The garden has to have good bones and that is hardscaping -- arbors, bridges, gazebos, fences, pathways.
We built a pergola last year and I stained it a musky gray. At first, I was unsure about the color but this year the gray is stunning and restrained against the power of all that yellow that is there. And this year, we added a new feature: a rock speaker.
I know, it sounds really corny. It may well end up in some future garage sale. But for this year, I love it.
In the mornings, I switch the cable station onto what some call "new age" music. After my run, I head to the back yard where the main garden is, and I water, weed, and listen to music.
The speaker is wireless and it creates an ethereal mood. Sometimes, with the morning light and the music, the mood in the pergola is a mystical mix of chords, light and rhythm. It is a beautiful place to think, to ponder, to pray.
In the evenings, we find ourselves drawn again to that space where the long shadows of evening begin to reach their fingers across us. When it's hot, we hook the hose up to the "mist maker" that we've tacked around the upper beams and enjoy a cool mist.
Sometimes, though, I have to turn the station to the "rock" station so I can hear Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, Foreigner and other great classic rock songs of my youth. My kids look at me in disbelief when I hear "Freebird" come on and have to get up and play my air guitar. "This, " I say, "This is WHAT I'm talkin' about!" is what I say when "Stairway to Heaven" comes on.
That's OK. Everyone needs stories about their crazy parents to tell their friends.
In essence, planting is only a small part of the garden and the chores of having a garden. It's the fun part and the more "glamorous" part but its not what keeps a garden looking great. The garden has to have good bones and that is hardscaping -- arbors, bridges, gazebos, fences, pathways.
We built a pergola last year and I stained it a musky gray. At first, I was unsure about the color but this year the gray is stunning and restrained against the power of all that yellow that is there. And this year, we added a new feature: a rock speaker.
I know, it sounds really corny. It may well end up in some future garage sale. But for this year, I love it.
In the mornings, I switch the cable station onto what some call "new age" music. After my run, I head to the back yard where the main garden is, and I water, weed, and listen to music.
The speaker is wireless and it creates an ethereal mood. Sometimes, with the morning light and the music, the mood in the pergola is a mystical mix of chords, light and rhythm. It is a beautiful place to think, to ponder, to pray.
In the evenings, we find ourselves drawn again to that space where the long shadows of evening begin to reach their fingers across us. When it's hot, we hook the hose up to the "mist maker" that we've tacked around the upper beams and enjoy a cool mist.
Sometimes, though, I have to turn the station to the "rock" station so I can hear Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, Foreigner and other great classic rock songs of my youth. My kids look at me in disbelief when I hear "Freebird" come on and have to get up and play my air guitar. "This, " I say, "This is WHAT I'm talkin' about!" is what I say when "Stairway to Heaven" comes on.
That's OK. Everyone needs stories about their crazy parents to tell their friends.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Gardner's Journal: Making Peace with Unfinished
It's driving me crazy. It's just lying there, open, vacant, ready.
I've removed all the weeds that I can see, but millions are still in there just waiting for the right mixture of sun and water. After making my crips outline, I then bury the newly thatched dirt under black coverings, where it will sleep until Fall.
I can see in my mind the garden that will go there. I see the water feature that will grace the wall and I see the gravel and the container plants. This garden will have a mediterranean or old world feel, which will be perfect for the location: South side of a brick home.
But for now, the plans for this garden will lay under wraps, shrouded in darkness, like black tombs awaiting some resurrection.
I find myself thinking, "maybe it wouldn't hurt...just an evergreen, or two.." But I know I am kidding myself. I wouldn't stop at one, just like those potato commericals from years ago.
No, for now I must sit and wait and ponder, drawing out the designs on my pad and retracing them in my head. Gardening isn't for sissies and it sure isn't for impatient sissies. I stand at the corner of the garden, thinking, imagining. Do I strip off the veil, go to work, make this idea of mine alive?
It's tough stuff, this waiting. Like a nothingness that hangs over you, fooling you into thinking that nothing really worth doing is going on. Yet it is in this waiting that all things of value come into being. In the business world, time and patience are virtues, too. Mortages mature, bonds come to be due, loans reach their end. What started out as a small thing become bigger, larger, more full. "In due course.." legal ease reads.
But I won't lie..I don't like this waiting stuff. I'm impatient to see the results of my ideas, my designs. I want to check it off my list, show it off to my friends, say "i'm done" and move on.
But that, there, is the thing. Moving on doesn't mean finished. Moving on means letting time take its course. It's nurturing, healing, wonderful course.
And so I wait, swinging in my swing, impatient to start. What I am coming to understand, waiting is starting.
I've removed all the weeds that I can see, but millions are still in there just waiting for the right mixture of sun and water. After making my crips outline, I then bury the newly thatched dirt under black coverings, where it will sleep until Fall.
I can see in my mind the garden that will go there. I see the water feature that will grace the wall and I see the gravel and the container plants. This garden will have a mediterranean or old world feel, which will be perfect for the location: South side of a brick home.
But for now, the plans for this garden will lay under wraps, shrouded in darkness, like black tombs awaiting some resurrection.
I find myself thinking, "maybe it wouldn't hurt...just an evergreen, or two.." But I know I am kidding myself. I wouldn't stop at one, just like those potato commericals from years ago.
No, for now I must sit and wait and ponder, drawing out the designs on my pad and retracing them in my head. Gardening isn't for sissies and it sure isn't for impatient sissies. I stand at the corner of the garden, thinking, imagining. Do I strip off the veil, go to work, make this idea of mine alive?
It's tough stuff, this waiting. Like a nothingness that hangs over you, fooling you into thinking that nothing really worth doing is going on. Yet it is in this waiting that all things of value come into being. In the business world, time and patience are virtues, too. Mortages mature, bonds come to be due, loans reach their end. What started out as a small thing become bigger, larger, more full. "In due course.." legal ease reads.
But I won't lie..I don't like this waiting stuff. I'm impatient to see the results of my ideas, my designs. I want to check it off my list, show it off to my friends, say "i'm done" and move on.
But that, there, is the thing. Moving on doesn't mean finished. Moving on means letting time take its course. It's nurturing, healing, wonderful course.
And so I wait, swinging in my swing, impatient to start. What I am coming to understand, waiting is starting.
"The bleep" continues
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.- Carl Gustav Jung
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.- Oscar Wilde
We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.- T. S. Eliot
Below is an excerpt found at www.whatthebleep.com of the most meaningful part of the film for me.
Create My Day - (Dr. Joe Dispenza in What the BLEEP Do We Know!?TM)
The most often referenced interview in the film is Dr. Joe Dispenza's comments on creating his day. In response to the numerous requests, the following is the transcript of that part of the interview.
"I wake up in the morning and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down and get to the point of where I'm actually intentionally creating my day. But here's the thing: When I create my day and out of nowhere little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neural net in my brain that I accept that that's possible. (This) gives me the power and the incentive to do it the next day. "So if we're consciously designing our destiny, and if we're consciously from a spiritual standpoint throwing in with the idea that our thoughts can affect our reality or affect our life -- because reality equals life -- then I have this little pact that I have when I create my day. I say, 'I'm taking this time to create my day and I'm infecting the quantum field. Now if (it) is in fact the observer's watching me the whole time that I'm doing this and there is a spiritual aspect to myself, then show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won't expect, so I'm as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it's come from you,' and so I live my life, in a sense, all day long thinking about being a genius or thinking about being the glory and the power of God or thinking about being unconditional love.
"I'll use living as a genius, for example. And as I do that during parts of the day, I'll have thoughts that are so amazing, that cause a chill in my physical body, that have come from nowhere. But then I remember that that thought has an associated energy that's produced an effect in my physical body. Now that's a subjective experience, but the truth is is that I don't think that unless I was creating my day to have unlimited thought, that that thought would come."
(Dr. Joe Dispenza in What the BLEEP Do We Know!?TM)
At this point, I'm still ruminating and thinking on this fabulous film -- I don't really have anything profound to say. I'm thinking so hard it makes my head hurt.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.- Oscar Wilde
We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.- T. S. Eliot
Below is an excerpt found at www.whatthebleep.com of the most meaningful part of the film for me.
Create My Day - (Dr. Joe Dispenza in What the BLEEP Do We Know!?TM)
The most often referenced interview in the film is Dr. Joe Dispenza's comments on creating his day. In response to the numerous requests, the following is the transcript of that part of the interview.
"I wake up in the morning and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down and get to the point of where I'm actually intentionally creating my day. But here's the thing: When I create my day and out of nowhere little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neural net in my brain that I accept that that's possible. (This) gives me the power and the incentive to do it the next day. "So if we're consciously designing our destiny, and if we're consciously from a spiritual standpoint throwing in with the idea that our thoughts can affect our reality or affect our life -- because reality equals life -- then I have this little pact that I have when I create my day. I say, 'I'm taking this time to create my day and I'm infecting the quantum field. Now if (it) is in fact the observer's watching me the whole time that I'm doing this and there is a spiritual aspect to myself, then show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won't expect, so I'm as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it's come from you,' and so I live my life, in a sense, all day long thinking about being a genius or thinking about being the glory and the power of God or thinking about being unconditional love.
"I'll use living as a genius, for example. And as I do that during parts of the day, I'll have thoughts that are so amazing, that cause a chill in my physical body, that have come from nowhere. But then I remember that that thought has an associated energy that's produced an effect in my physical body. Now that's a subjective experience, but the truth is is that I don't think that unless I was creating my day to have unlimited thought, that that thought would come."
(Dr. Joe Dispenza in What the BLEEP Do We Know!?TM)
At this point, I'm still ruminating and thinking on this fabulous film -- I don't really have anything profound to say. I'm thinking so hard it makes my head hurt.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
"What the BLEEP do we know?"
In two different conversations, I've had two different people mention to me what they learned from the film "What the Bleep Do We Know?" (ASIN: B0006UEVQ8 ) . There is so much that I'd like to share about this film, yet I find that I'm still processing it. If you haven't seen it, you must! It's creative, thought-provoking and helpful. I'll post more on it as I think through it.
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