A Better Job

 Now

That

All your worry

Has proved such an

Unlucrative

Business,

Why Not Find a better

Job

-       Hafiz, Find a Better Job

This is the best Spring I’ve experienced in years. The Kid is home from the war, bearing invisible scars but smiling again. The back yard projects have been completed and now, when I go outside to play, I putter around, deadheading, repotting, rearranging instead of fretting over all the work still to be done.

The old waterfall at the top right of the above picture was long neglected and overgrown. Because of it's hight above the rest of the yard, it was visible from everywhere in the backyard – a silent reproach to my unfinished business. Because the large rock was cracked and difficult to seal, repairing the original waterfall’s path from the top beneath the large black wind chime and resealing the crack down to the pond would have involved more of an investment than we were willing to make.

Instead, the amazing pond guy made a smaller and more efficient waterfall that returns from the cleaned out and re-plumbed filter back behind the large rock on the left. The new setup is easier to maintain, less likely to leak, and makes just as lovely as sound. The gently splashing water reminds me how much I’ve missed it. It is almost as magical as the sound of my kitty with her head on my shoulder purring into my good ear. 

I have planted a rock garden where the old falls were, anchored by the large rock moved (from the lower center of above picture, next to Simone, the large rubber lizard) by the pond guy who I bribed with a pot of the overgrown green goddess calla lily that had taken over the entire shallow end of the pond.

Later, I persuaded the yard guys to move the big turtle from elsewhere in the backyard to the top of the big rock. I later wrangled the turtle into place next to the large rock. Together, the turtle, and the big rock to his right offer not only a sitting place from which to garden and view the pond, they anchor the other rocks and dirt for the succulents to root. 

It took the birds about a week to rediscover the fresh pond. The more modest waterfall seems to satisfy the mourning doves and other birds that like to splash around running water.

My new job isn’t any more lucrative than the old one of worrying. The newly rehabbed pond and waterfall however are much more enjoyable than the nasty the old mess of the pond and overgrown waterfall. The wildlife repopulating the yard seem to concur. My new job of simply spending time reading in the shade and listening to the waterfall is much more lucrative to my wellbeing. 

Hard Times

 "It's certain that fine women eat  

A crazy salad with their meat."   

Yeats, A Prayer for my Daughter

In an effort to shake off the lethargy caused by unseasonable heat exacerbating the mild depression resulting from my inability to procure the prescription meds in Tecate, Mexico that my doctor declines to renew on the flimsy pretext that they can cause undesirable interactions with other medications, I have decided to confront my sense of entitlement as a metaphorical slap to the side of my head and to remind myself that I actually have life pretty good. Let's see how that works out. 

But first, a brief catalog of my trials and tribulations. A while back, the icemaker on my refrigerator underwent a long and painful death. For almost two weeks - while I was grieving for this loss - I had to go without ice in my martinis. Although I survived this hardship, it was not without cost to my fragile psyche and my mental health.

Last week, another kitchen appliance tragedy befell me. My 25 year old Barista espresso machine passed away after, literally, giving its last gasp to make a lovely steamed latte for me and the kid. The next morning, no heating element, ergo, no latte.  Now, you might think that because there is a Starbucks within several blocks in several directions, I could take this in stride. 

But since the ice maker tragedy, I have grown older, and weaker, and less able to weather the culinary storms that interfere with my routine. And plus, it seems that morning coffee is more vital to my overall wellbeing than evening martinis. I mean one can always have bourbon at room temperature, can’t one?

As I sit here drinking my tepid green tea, I try to remind myself of recent discussions I’ve had with a cultural anthropologist recently returned from studying a primitive stone age culture and still suffering the shock of finding Starbucks in every third block and a Wal*Mart in every mall.  I try to imagine living in a crude stone hut with a dirt floor and no running water, not to mention no icemaker or espresso machine. Predictably, I fail.

Perhaps, when my new expresso machine arrives, and the weather cools down enough to permit me to spend more time in the recently renovated backyard, my attitude will improve. Meanwhile, I think I’ve taken a big step to recognize that I have the strength of character, and the survival skills to muddle through these difficult latte-less times. We’ll work on that sense of entitlement later.

Take Heart

"Why are the woods so alluring? A forest appears

to a young girl one morning as she combs

the dreams out of   her hair. The trees rustle

and whisper, shimmer and hiss. The forest

opens and closes, a door loose on its hinges,

banging in a strong wind. Everything in the dim

kitchen: the basin, the jug, the skillet, the churn,

snickers scornfully. In this way a maiden

is driven toward the dangers of a forest,

but the forest is our subject, not this young girl.

"She’s glad to lie down with trees towering all around.

A certain euphoria sets in. She feels molecular,

bedeviled, senses someone gently pulling her hair,

tingles with kisses she won’t receive for years.

Three felled trees, a sort of chorus, narrate

her thoughts, or rather channel theirs through her,

or rather subject her to their peculiar verbal

restlessness ...    our deepening need for non-being intones

the largest and most decayed tree, mid-sentence.

I’m not one of you squeaks the shattered sapling,

"blackened by lightning. Their words become metallic

spangles shivering the air. Will I forget the way home?

the third blurts. Why do I feel like I’m hiding in a giant’s nostril?

the oldest prone pine wants to know. Are we being   freed

from matter? the sapling asks. Insects are well-intentioned,

offers the third tree, by way of consolation. Will it grow

impossible to think a thought through to its end? gasps the sapling,

adding in a panicky voice, I’m becoming spongy! The girl

feels her hands attach to some distant body. She rises

to leave, relieved these trees are not talking about her."

 - Amy Gerstler, Bon Courage

At left, partly obscured by a corner, is the old dark brown metal back door leading from the backyard to our master bedroom. 

Pictured below that - to  match the orchids in the top picture now blooming outside the door -  is the entrance to the master bedroom that I’ve finally finished repainting.

Now all that’s left is the pond with a final leak to mend before we can resume the filtering and endure the algae cycle as it becomes balanced; and the rock garden ready to be planted with the new stuff now waiting impatiently in pots; and the raised beds waiting for their new borders to be made out of repurposed wood from the old trellis; and the sprinkler system to be mended so the thyme that is currently paused by drought can resume its creeping, and the low-voltage lighting to be replaced and tuned up.

Way back in my back yard, behind an old shed and a big rock and beneath a looming California pepper tree, are the remnants of a crude a woodpile. Years ago, the large pine tree in the center of my yard lost the top 1/3 of it’s crown to drought pests and pine tip moths. The 20” diameter trunk toppled over smashing flower pots and sprawling across the pond and vegetable garden. The tree crew chopped the trunk into slices about 20” tall and tossed them loosely on the spot where they have remained pretty much undisturbed.

Some of the smaller branches made it from the woodpile to the fireplace, back in the day when we still had fires. Over the years I’ve used a dozen or so of the larger slices to edge new planting beds. The rest of the pieces gradually settled themselves down as pepper tree leaves slowly sifted a blanket down on them, smoothing out their individual shapes. Termites from the canyon behind the fence drift up on the breezes from season to season, helping entropy return the wood to what has become a rounded mound of wood mulch and leaf dust.

While I often think of my plants as living entities that I can chat with, it has never occurred to me to attempt communication with my dissolving woodpile. I certainly never considered that the woodpile could have a deepening need for non-being, although it’s clearly headed in that direction. I wonder if the spongy blocks of wood talk about me.