I heard an interview on NPR with an author of a book about being a mother to young kids. Oh, and the mother has a job. And the kids have school and activities and so the mother (sorry dads, it usually is the mother who does this) is getting the kids, their lunches, their instruments, swim suits, school projects etc etc ready every single day at the same time that work demands spill over to her home time and she can't forget about that either. Exhausting stuff, requiring a sharp focus and a steady presence of mind. So what does this mother crave, had she free time? The author says -- not a massage. Not a fancy meal, not any of that. What she most likely craves is time to just sit and stare into space.
I have to say, I agree with that. I'm not (anymore) a working mom with a million tasks to attend to. Nevertheless, sitting still with an uncluttered mind and staring at something before me ranks high among favorites. You could say that all the work of gardening is toward that beautiful goal: to provide a feast for the senses, enjoyed by doing nothing more than letting it all sink in, as I sit and allow myself the pleasure of drifting in spirit from one lovely scene to the next.
This morning offers a fine illustration of this love of just sitting and staring. I am up early. The weather people tell us there will be rain, maybe. And we will continue with the warm spell. High of 78F (25C) -- that's just two degrees shy of a record set more than a 100 years ago on this day! I feed the animals and fill a big bucket with more weeds (they pop up insanely fast!) and by then Ed is up and I look at the sky and yes, a brief but thunderous rain comes down. Thank goodness. We need it! Do I really want breakfast on the porch when there are lingering claps of thunder? I do!
And the rain passes and the sun comes out and I am still on the porch and I just don't want to leave. The smell of wet earth, the gentle sway of the daffodils in the flower beds, the greening of the crab apple along the path to the barn -- it's all beautiful and there is no greater pleasure (is there?) than to just sit quietly and stare. Our porch chairs have a gentle rock to them and occasionally, I'll give myself an ever the slight sway, but mostly I just sit, look, listen. [Ed tells me the noise of construction in the new development still comes through and it is disturbing, but I don't care. It's not constant and I can still hear the birds. Too, it's part of the more distant landscape: somewhere out there men (it's always just men) are working on the new roads and houses, while at the farmette, there is the coo of the doves and the chirp of birds that I can't pretend to identify and that smell of damp earth.]
Heaven.
(from the porch...)
Eventually I do have to let go of the serenity and the peaceful stare. I have my mom's potential transfer to attend to and it's proving to be like the forest out back: finding the trees, or in her case the right place is only 1% of the battle. The rest is proving to be far more difficult than I imagined (isn't that always the case...) and one phone call leads to another and then another and then a half a dozen more. Will it come to pass? Like with the forest of saplings -- all stars will have to align themselves well.
Evening. Doors, windows open, as if it were summer, as if suddenly the
outside was part of our indoors and the scents of cooking mingle with
the scents of that damp earth, compost and new growth, wood chips and
swaying daffodils. Summer weather. April flowers.
