To be your authentic self. I haven't entirely bought into that idea. My experience has been that people who seek authenticity full force, hurt others in the process.
And yet, I've known people who are a mask to the world, to themselves and that, too, is tough to deal with. I'll stay with this for now: no lies, no hurts, but stick with gentle honesty. the kind that doesn't hurt, to the extent that's possible. Sometimes it isn't. But you have to try. That, I feel, should be the goal.
Here's my own story then: Ocean has always leaned toward that goal: honesty, and I do try my damnest to tread carefully. Respectfully. I'm not saying I've succeeded always. Well, with honesty -- yes I think I've done well there. With "respect?" That's always in the eyes of the beholder, isn't it... It's like asking someone "are you a good parent" as opposed to "where your mom and dad good parents." You have to look at it from both sides. (Though to digress -- good parents are probably those who love their kids to pieces and have at least some confidence in their parenting, even if their kids think they stink at it.)
So here's my problem now: I have a set of challenging days. A close friend is not well. Respect calls for quiet on that subject. What do you care, after all, if someone I know is going through challenging times? Many people are facing supremely challenging times. The problem is that the spillover here is tremendous. It has far reaching consequences for me and will continue to do so for a long while. I'd say that since my divorce in 2005, I cant think that anything has shaken me as much as this. And I say this having buried two parents, one of them having had a horrible last year of life, and having had a mega crisis over two rescue dogs this winter, having had to adjust my living arrangements with Ed, incurring costs that I certainly had not expected in my long term planning, having friends with cancer and kids of friends with cancer -- all horrible stuff that I managed to swim through somehow, teetering a little but in the end, escaping without great damage. And now, here I am, trembling, and so I have to signal it here because, dare I say it, otherwise my writing on Ocean would be, well, sorry to revert to that word but... inauthentic. Perhaps not an outright lie, but as close to it as you can get without actually stating an out and out untruth.
I am okay because I have been bred to be okay, and because, as someone in a pickle once said -- what else can you do but cope and be okay? I mean, is there a choice? Also I have Ed, family -- small, but real, and great friends, and of course God or someone equally benevolent invented Zoom so it's not as if you can't have another warm body (or seemingly warm, given the heat of this summer) right in your living room.
And, I remind myself that this too shall pass and besides there's Millie and the roses, both of which were with me for breakfast on what is slated to be one of the last of the very nice summer days.
But here's the thing -- I am spending a lot of time on the computer -- on messaging and Zooming and the like -- so my day may seem rather bland in the retelling, even though I assure you, bland would be the last word I'd use to describe it.
Worry not: tomorrow I am starting grandma camp by going to Chicago to pick up one of the participants. Camp will look slightly different this year -- longer, and with an appearance of some younger ones and disappearance of older ones and truly I am making adjustments as we speak, but camp it will be. (One of my youngest participants will be Millie who is not yet 9 months old. We will see how that goes!) But this I can say for sure -- it will not be a boring week!
In the meantime, I plant my Ruby Spice Summersweet and my Swamp Rose in Millie's yard today, while she assesses the impish possibilities the garden presents. Munching grass or bark are past favorites but she is ready to branch out.
And I check my other roses, admiring the varied blooms, delighting in the new buds forming everywhere.
And no, I haven't forgotten my other flowers, because there are a couple hundred non-rose flowers out there after all...
(the never photographed back corner of the yard)
(for a first year and a very late planting, the sweat pea and clematis are doing quite well, climbing up to the porch)
And I'm thinking -- how trite it is to say it, but it surely is a pretty world out there, what with the flowers and the birds and the fields and forests and your loved ones in it... A very pretty planet indeed. A shame we take it for granted and treat it with such disrespect. But then, our attitude toward the planet is much like me writing a post, or being authentic out there, or anything else for that matter -- sometimes you dont realize you're not at your kindest until you see the damage your carelessness has caused.
A rose bush arrives by Fed Ex. The good rose growers take off all the leaves before shipment. It's healthier for the plant that way. What they don't remove are the thorns of course, and today's rose is abundantly thorny! Big ones, little ones. I got sizable cuts before I even took the rose out of the box. It's the Lark Ascending rose. Lovely peachy pink (it will be someday)! But so thorny.
Evening. I'm binge watching a Danish series (A Nearly Normal Family -- the title tells you a lot, doesn't it?). I'm on episode 5 out of 6. Oh the things a mom will do to protect her kid! Talk about family drama! And horrible boyfriends! This cannot end well for the good people in the story! (Millie chooses to sleep through it all.)
with so much love...
