consummerism and love

When I was young, I didn't want "things." I was in Poland at an age where things of interest to many girls (if you'll excuse the stereotyping) -- records, clothes, make up -- were not readily available. Too, there were no commercials instructing you to want something. That's not to say we wanted nothing. But say you saw people wearing leather boots (very popular in winter). So you want them. Others want them too. Indeed, every young person wants a pair of leather boots. Okay, but you had to wait for a shipment and then take whatever is available. There was no choice -- that great engine behind consumer spending. Without choice, you take what's there and if there isn't much of anything, then you shift your attentions elsewhere -- to long walks in the park and cafe meetings with girlfriends, during which you talk about what you really want -- in my case, the attention of a boy I loved.

When I moved to the States to finish my studies here, I didn't immediately switch to the world of want. What money I earned from many (many!) part time jobs, I spent on travel back to Europe.

But gradually I discovered stuff. For me, it was kitchen stuff! How I loved the quality of it all! I acquired my first Le Creuset pot when I was still a student (I continue to use that same pot every single week). When I finally acquired an immersion blender (not until I was fifty), I was thrilled!

What I soon discovered though was that there's only so much kitchen stuff I could find in Madison stores. No, we weren't as spartan here as post war Poland, but the choices weren't grand and overwhelming. Too, when I struck out on my own at 52 (kids gone, husband divorced), I had to shut down this inclination to spend money on stuff.

Ed helped. Don't buy new! Fix the old! -- is his motto. I tried not to be tempted.

Until today.

I received a notice in the mail that we are in the week of the grand opening of  the popular retailer, Sur La Table at our local mall. Now, I've been to this store in San Francisco. But having one in Madison -- ohhhh, that's just too tempting.

I had to go.

Right after breakfast...






...and a quick look at the flower fields...






...I set out to grocery shop which "unfortunately" forces me to drive right past Sur La Table.

I spend a blissful half hour there looking at cooking stuff. And like a true addict, I buy one small item (20% off any one purchase this week!), but it hardly matters -- I walk with a cup of cappuccino (freely made for customers on their beautiful espresso machines) and gawk and fondle one plate, another pan, a glass, a utensil -- all to the sound of jazzy music selections and wonderfully friendly staff members -- heaven!

I will make a point of not stopping there on my weekly shopping trips downtown again.


In the afternoon, I am with Snowdrop. She is five months old today!






Such an accomplished girl! In addition to her love of standing, scooting around on her back, bouncing in her Jumparoo, she has discovered, as of today, this:






No more the whole fist in the mouth! In comes the thumb!

Otherwise, she greets me with her usual vocalizations and grins and, too, her serious stroller countenance...






She is in fine spirits -- of course she is! Five months is no small banana!

And I'm in fine spirits as well. My back issues of yesterday aren't gone, but they're greatly diminished. I can play sit and stand with Snowdrop without (much of) a wince!

And here is the truth about babies, children, adults, the world -- if you listen hard to what they want from you, it's always the same: a sympathetic ear and an empathetic smile. A hug seals the deal. Your rewards? This:

pushing the limits

Just two more hostas! Oh, this one is hard to dig out! Mustn't disturb its neighboring coral bells! I got it, I got it! Just one more twist... What's that? Have I twisted my back out of alignment? Damn!

Last spring was the season of back issues. I had fallen hard on an ice rink in January (on a Greek island, of all things) and that was the start of the back muscle spasms that came soon after, when I biked too hard (March), or shoveled too ferociously (April). But, things got better. So much better that I never gave it another thought.

I felt I had overcome!

Yay me!

Stupid me.

In the late morning, I stop by my doc's office (on a whim -- I'm in the neighborhood) and ask for some magic pill that will make me mobile for the rest of the day.
See, I have to babysit my granddaughter and at the present moment, bending down is nearly impossible.
Well now, the best thing for you is rest and warm wet towels on your back...
You don't understand. My granddaughter is too young to put warm wet towels on my back!

In the end, I got my magic pill, just in case I absolutely cannot move. I went on to Snowdrop's home, where I explained to her that she should not be TOO energetic as I am of limited mobility today.

She properly laughed at that!


But let's go back to the beginning of the day -- a warm day, a beautiful day when the remaining peonies finally opened up their globes of loveliness.

And here's another favorite pairing for me -- this duo by the brick path repeats its synchronized show each year and it never fails to enchant me.






Yes, yes, we eat breakfast on the porch.






And I want to give a deep nod of appreciation again to those garden peonies  -- you'll find a sample of each in our breakfast table vase.






And after breakfast -- well, it was the run in with the hostas and the shovel.
Ed!
Coming, gorgeous...

And there was the clinic visit and then -- an afternoon with Snowdrop. But if I had worried and fretted about caring for her with a back that had worked its way into a magnificent spasm, I should have known better. Something magical happens when you focus your attention on the needs of another -- your own issues grow small and puny. She stands...


 



she sits...






she moves this way...


 



and that way...






and before I know it, it's time for our walk around the lake...






and boom! ...the day is gone.


I don't bother with dinner. I go downtown to the quiet, studentless main drag and pick up Chipotle bowls of good fast food and Ed and I enjoy a no muss no fuss dinner while watching the News Hour.

I know from experience that I will either wake up tomorrow and my back will be much better or I'll wake up and it will be much worse. I'm betting on the better! Yes, the better, for sure! Goodnight!

a thousand pounds

With wood chips, shavings and chopped leaves piled high at the end of our driveway, we decide there's enough to spread some around the huge maples toward the front of the farmette.

You'll rarely see a photo of the front -- neither the land nor the house are very attractive at the roadside end and we've done little to fix things there. Oh, I planted a row of strawberry and cream hydrangeas so that it looks like whoever lives here actually cares about color and, too, I did move hostas to the bases of the maples, but it's only a nod toward public appearance. All the flower beds are private -- meaning they fan out from the internal courtyard that you cannot see from the road.

Why this secrecy?

Much of it is circumstantial. The maples provide plenty of shade and a dense root undercover. Not much can grow there. Nor are we ever focused on that part of the yard except when we eat breakfast in the front room during winter  -- it looks out toward the road, but of course, all we see then is snow.

And so it is what it is, an indifferent front yard that is merely a portal to the heart and soul of the farmette. But today that front yard got a decent layer of wood chips around the massive tree trunks. How much? Would you believe one thousand pounds of wood chips? (Just a guess...)

We did this after a breakfast. By now, the mornings have grown warm and inviting and any meal outside is heavenly. And so of course, we eat on the porch. So much do I love eating there that I have to think it must be at least in part the last thread of a memory I have -- of summer meals on my grandma's verandah in the village house in Poland. The verandah wasn't as open as our porch is, but it had windows on two sides and to me, it was as good as eating outdoors.





Funny how memories seek out new places and spaces within us, where they can be tucked and carried into the future...

I want to show you just a few photos of flower groupings. A commenter noted that it's always nice to see the entirety (in addition to, or maybe even instead of the single blooms). I agree, but we are just at the cusp of the blooming season. By July, a palate of colors and blooms becomes a regular Ocean feature. Now, only the occasional flower pops open. Most are still richly green, waiting for their favorite month -- July... -- to display they true color.






 But slowly, ever so slowly, I'm beginning to see these delicate groupings.






Even as single cultivars still grab my attention.






And speaking of things making me (Ed too) gasp -- our strawberries this year are out of control. We'd written them off as too easy a target for our beastly visitors (deer, rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks and of course, the cheepers), but this year there are so many that maybe we can share...






Okay. Afternoon. It is, of course, with Snowdrop. I'll show you just three photos. Maybe they're a bit silly, but they're my favorite from this day: Snowdrop on the kitchen table...






Snowdrop in the stroller, giving you her special stroller face...






And finally, a self-timed photo (does that make it a selfie??) of Snowdrop doing her very favorite thing these days: standing proudly.






Each of us has a talent. Wouldn't it be grand if we could be as proud of it as little Snowdrop is of hers?

Tuesday

We are on a roll of sunshine and gentle summer breezes! And yet, each day is unique. Retirement means that you are the master of each hour. If not too long ago, you found yourself joining the stream of traffic heading downtown at more or less the same hour each day -- going in, then heading home, day in, day out, if not so long ago, your primary focus was on class preparation, along with the usual student meetings, committee assignments and paper shuffling, now nothing is preordained. Each day stands empty until I choose a way to fill it. Even visits with Snowdrop are patterned but flexible. Nothing has to be. (Not at this moment anyway. Things will change somewhat once my daughter returns to classroom teaching.)

That kind of absence of structure makes some people quake. I've heard the note of apprehension: how do you get out of bed every morning, not knowing what's ahead for you?

For me, like for some others, it is the best way to get up every morning!


It's still cool in the early hours, but somehow the air doesn't quite have the chill of the past few mornings and so we happily take our breakfast out to the porch.





I know Snowdrop will be arriving before noon for her Tuesday at the farmhouse and so I am extremely energetic after the meal. There is a lot that I want to accomplish, in part because we gave up on waiting for free loads of wood chips and Ed bought a truckful from the city. Just as he hauled it up our driveway, we got the call that a tree service would like to dump their load for us! We are at the moment, up to our chins in wood chips. (But there is never enough: we can always use more loads.)

And so I plant and I move pitchfork loads of chips onto beds, courtyards, paths.

It is heavy but pleasant work, vastly helped by the scenery. If you love flowers in the way that I do, you'll nod your head in  agreement: looking out at blooming perennials that not so long ago lay dormant soothes the soul and lifts the spirits.






Oreo, after many affectionate pats and sweet words from Ed...






... is again locked behind a gate, as I proceed to work, in the pleasant company of just the hens. (Here's Scotch, coming up the brick path, with the now finished shade garden to the side.)






It is a beautiful set of hours.

And then Snowdrop shows up and the day really is ablaze with color and sound and movement! We spend a lot of time outdoors.








(selfie!)


Yep, a lot of time.







Ed joins us for a while. His voice is something she picks up immediately, even at a distance. At a closer range, they do a lot of mutual staring, each one waiting for the other to issue the first peel of laughter.






There are so many milestones this little one registers almost daily. I suppose today's would include my carrying her around on the hip -- a position that I remember lasting way into toddlerhood...






Later, I get her ready for a long walk in the stroller and again I offer you the Snowdrop pout of contentment as I snap her in...






We walk the rural roads, where traffic is almost nonexistant. Well, of a vehicular kind...






We pass our neighboring truck farmers who are hard at work -- tilling, planting, tilling, tilling...






Snowdrop dozes off, I continue to push the stroller up one hill, down the next.

And after, Snowdrop and I practice lots of sits and stands -- I try to encourage the sitting, but she feels strongly that standing is the better of the two.






As the young parents come to take Snowdrop home, I turn toward making dinner, but then change my mind.
Ed, let's go play tennis.

We motorbike to our favorite courts, set between the tall pines of a county park. It's our first game of the season and we both seem tentative and a tad rusty, but it's a perfect evening for a run around a court, even an old court, cracked and somewhat littered with pine cones.

Is it already the second day of June? How could this month move forward so quickly?

Children's Day

June first at the time of my childhood was Children's Day. With a few exceptions, it appears to be an Eastern European celebration and I wonder why it never caught on elsewhere. It seems a very market capitalism friendly holiday.

I don't remember if gifts were part of the deal when I was small, but I do know I looked forward to the day. In school, we'd be made to feel special and later, when television came into most households in Warsaw, it was talked up significantly: Children's Day! We're celebrating our precious children, the future generation!

So vivid is this memory of an emphasis on the beauty of a child, that rarely does a June first go by without my paying attention to it (even before Snowdrop came into my grandmotherly life).

Let me start, then, with a photo of Snowdrop, who, with her beautiful trust-filled eyes happens to represent for me all the little ones out there right now.






My day actually began quietly, at the farmhouse, just with Ed. With an indoor breakfast (a cool morning!).






On this second in a string of brilliant days, we again work outside. Ed fills the pickup truck with wood chips from the city and he again puts the rooster behind a closed fence (sorry Oreo, but you really are a pest otherwise!) so that I can freely roam the gardens.






And I do a fine manicure of a flower field (the shady one, by the brick path leading to the door)...






...which is an incredibly pleasant task: there is a lot of surveying of progress, mapping out future growth, and perhaps filling in a hole or two. It's not only cosmetic, but it's sensual and fine -- the cherry on top of a grand dessert.

For my perennial photo of the day, though, I'll take you back to the big flower field by the sheep shed path. New iris buds are ready to pop open for us. Without doubt, the visual focus of the yard now is right this spot.






Though the newest bed offers some delightful competition!






In the afternoon, I am in Snowdrop's home. She is all child -- energetic, inquisitive, determined.






The three of us -- mom, Snowdrop, grandma -- do our round-the-lake walk and here, the little girl, as always, appears to melt into her stroller.






I think a lot today about this child, but also about my own children and, too, about being a child. There's reason for it -- June first, yes, sure, that, but also I spend so much time with a child and writing about childhood (in my Great Writing Project), that it all comes to percolate now on this beautiful late spring day.

Strawberry moon tomorrow, but it looks pretty full today. Beautiful day. Happy Children's Day, you kids out there. Your smiles are everything to us older types.

Sunday

If you read yesterday's post, you may as well take that text, click the "opposite" button and you'll have my Sunday before you.

Yes, the weather is the culprit again and yet I cannot just point a finger at the skies. It's like blaming forever a bad social studies teacher in eighth grade for your not knowing about the Gettysburg Address. At some point you understand that ultimately, you're steering your own ship.

It was a bit nippy this morning, but the sky is blue, the sun is radiant and so, of course, we eat breakfast on the porch. In jackets, to be sure, but enjoying every moment of it.





After, I complain loudly and repeatedly how hard it is to do major outdoor work with an eye constantly focused on Oreo. Ed thinks the best solution is to lock the rooster in the fenced enclosure that surrounds the coop. The girls can fly out of it, but he cannot. Off off and away!

It is glorious to work without constantly looking over my shoulder! (The hens are, by contrast, totally delightful!)





And work I did. We both did. Major weeding of the raspberries, spot mowing for me and heavy duty mowing for Ed, and, too, a herculean effort to divide and conquer the hostas that had filled in too abundantly in some of my shady flower fields. This is something that is far easier to do when the plants are small, but I hadn't the time then and so I dig them out in their fully extended form and move some dozen or more to the front, under the maples that shade the house along the southern roadside edge of the farmette.

I'm not going to show you photos of hostas. I like them fine, but hostas are hostas and though ours are impressive in size, I have too many of the common variety and too few of the spectacular ones that come in shades of deep green and even blue (and cost a bundle).

You can admire other flowers instead, including the potted annuals...






And, too, the dainty dianthus that cascades down the rock wall.






Or how about the siberian iris? Delicate and proud.






And now we really are in a peony extravaganza -- one after the next is experiencing her best moment.






Our day is exclusively outdoors and the farmette is the better for it.


In the evening -- well that's predictable and wonderful all at the same time: Snowdrop and her parents are here for dinner.











There isn't a better way to end a day.