That Must Be Really Hard

This morning on my way back from Morrison's supermarket ( I'm trying to save money there - if you spend £40 three weeks running you get £10 off your next shop -  all the time I'm wandering along the isles looking in vain for organic stuff I'm wishing I was at Waitrose) I call in at the allotment and cut long arching branches of Buddleia to take to my parents' grave tomorrow. It's the 6th anniversary of my mother's death. My sister is bringing roses from her garden.On Saturday I bought a navy blue Agapanthus at the Sub-Tropical Garden's plant stall to remember my grandfather - her father -  who grew them in his garden in Knysna in South Africa.

Summer comes back this afternoon. While our gardener wedges a ladder in the overgrown border  next to the tall hedge between the houses and starts pruning it back with secateurs ( I won't let him use a hedge strimmer which would be much quicker - too noisy and brutal -  and would wake  my sleeping husband) I tackle the long mallow geranium border, which has finished flowering, with my own secateurs.

My husband doesn't like the small tortoise he made in his ceramics class this afternoon - says it's crap. Says he can't make things like he used to. I used to make suggestions like 

Could you ask for some help with it ? Or What could you do to make it better?

 Now I just say, That must be really hard.

And he says it is.

Then he goes back to bed and I start making supper - put four round beetroots in a pan to boil, slice up three young courgettes, cook them in coconut oil with translucent wafers of elephant garlic, steam green beans and shredded Russian kale, fry a red onion, chop sprigs of marjoram and oregano from the garden, swirl them into a lipped bowl of beaten eggs and make an omelette, finishing it under the grill, the grated Parmesan cheese bubbling and brown on top.

We eat it later, two bright gold corn-on-the-cob on the side, sitting in the garden with the sun reflecting off the white table top and a three quarter moon high in a blue sky - the blue of agapanthus.

The Wild Dance

These sculptures are set amongst the tall trees in the Sub-Tropical 

Gardens at Abbotsbury in Dorset. I'd like to acknowledge the artists but there are no name plaques on them.

In the aviary there -  two Kookaburras having a private natter....their voices are raucous loud...

I know it's me projecting  this on him but their companion looks really sad, despairing....or maybe resigned and wise..... I hate seeing birds in cages....anything alive - constricted in a cage....

this pheasant too....it feels so wrong  - they should be flying free.

A friend sent me this today....ringing bells for me....wondering how to find my own wild dance...

This is the True Ride
by Jennifer Welwood

[Listen to Audio!]

My friends, let’s grow up.
Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here.
Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice.

Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It’s simple — how could we have missed it for so long?

Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,
But please, let’s not be so shocked by them.
Let’s not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.
Impermanence is life’s only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.
To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion exquisitely precise:
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.

This is the true ride — let’s give ourselves to it!
Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage:
There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high.

We are not children anymore.
The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.
Let’s dance the wild dance of no hope!

You Are Safe....

Wonderful variety of Hydrangeas at the Sub-Tropical Gardens at Abbotsbury on the Jurassic coast in Dorset, which we visited on Saturday.

View of the long  peninsular stretch of Chesil Beach from the top of the gardens -  left towards Weymouth.....

and right towards Bridport.

Rain swept in this morning on a cool wind  - breaking my feeling of a lingering, hot, barefoot summer.  This evening I close the window in my study which has been permanently open, and change my flip-flops for socks.

Bad dreams in the night - something about our builder shouting and swearing at me ( he's a lovely mild mannered man who wouldn't do that in real life).....so probably attacking myself somehow...

I find every yoga pose, every twist and balance, really demanding in the class this morning and it's a huge relief to rest in the heap of the child pose at the end. Last week a friend said she felt my energy was thin....maybe that's why I find it hard to keep myself upright at the moment....keep myself going with a shrinking centre.

Tea and talk after the class -  under a wide umbrella in a fabulous, flowering terrace garden  - restores me a little. 

When I arrive home from yoga my husband is asleep, after his walk with a friend this morning. I start making lunch - pile up our plates with a left-over pea and pecan nut rice salad from yesterday's Course in Miracles picnic in a sunny, windy field under a sail awning, next to a yurt.....with a glorious view of Devon-in-summer all around us.

Ingenious log fire - heating rice for picnic lunch...

 and view of East Down from inside the Yurt.

While my husband sleeps on I wash and prepare a kilo of red currants - scooting them off their delicate necklace stems between the tines of a fork.

After lunch, with the rain pelting down, my husband goes back to bed and I lie with him while we listen to a soothing, encouraging CD made for him by our intuitive EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) counsellor.

As it's too wet to do any gardening I spend the afternoon at my desk. My husband wakes at 6pm....plays Solitaire on the computer and goes back to bed while I make a roast veggie sausage supper.

Afterwards, he washes up the dishes and before it get's dark, walks down to the allotment to water the tomatoes in the green house and pick the last few asparagus spears.

Are you alright? I ask him later.

He frowns. I'm tired today but I did take the pill.....and I'm sorry I'm messing up your life...

I tell him he isn't - but he doesn't believe me, and goes down to watch the news on TV.

I want to say to him that you can't mess up someone else's life - you can only mess up your own by constant blame and judgement....instead of whispering to yourself all the loving things you wish someone had said to you when you thought you were messing up yours....It's alright....you are safe and loved.... you didn't do anything wrong....and all is well...

When Enough is Enough

I love this duck resting on the river bank in the botanical gardens in Christchurch  - our last evening in NZ. I want some of her serenity.

  Tonight I've gone beyond my capacity to write anything sensible or coherent.....I didn't stop before my energy ran out. I've been very inspired by what Tara Sophia Mohr wrote in her last post  about when enough is enough..... and as she says it perfectly I'm copying it in full here.....

Take the break before you need it

---

Take the break before you need it Posted: 01 Jul 2014 06:00 AM PDT The other day, my husband and I were out walking with the baby. I had been carrying our little guy in the carrier (one of his favorite places on earth) for quite some time. And we live in a very hilly neighborhood. “Do you need a break? I can take him,” my husband said. I thought about it for a sec. I didn’t need a break. I was doing okay. “No, I’m okay.” I said. So we kept walking. And then, maybe twenty minutes later, suddenly I really, really needed a break. And I was also exhausted and cranky. Now I’m telling you, it has honestly taken me decades to finally have the thought I had next, which was this: “You can take the break before you need it.” You can take the break, replenish, stop whatever you are doing – when you still have fuel in the tank. RADICAL IDEA. A few days later, we were out with the baby again, this time on the train. We were exploring, hanging out, and everyone was having a fine old time. I decided that was so fabulous that instead of getting off at our intended destination a few stops away from our home, we should ride the train out to the end of the line. It was really great for the first 15 minutes or so. And then we all started to get tired, bored, and fussy. It was too much. It’s hard for me to end anything – a work session, a conversation, an outing – while still energized and up for more. It’s hard for me to take a break before a break is non-negotiable. It has something to do with my passion and exuberance for life, yes, and I appreciate that in myself. But it also has something to do with how exhaustion numbs me from the present. If I stop doing whatever while I’m still alert, energized, then, by definition, I continue being alertly-present to my moment-to-moment experience. And sometimes I want to run from that. Last week some friends were visiting us, with their toddler son. The little guy loved to watch our dog eat and would yell “more! more!” when our dog was done with his food. My friend, his wise mama, would explain, “He’s all done. He had enough. It wasenough.” I got to watch his two year old mind contemplate this abstract concept and try to take it in: enough. And I wanted to teach myself, just like that, with a patient, loving, maternal voice, “Tara, that is enough honey. It’s enough.” I think I am still learning what enough is, and that it is. That you can declare yourself having worked hard enough for the day before your brain has slowed to a total halt due to exhaustion. That you can declare it enough hours doing childcare and take a break even while you are still enjoying yourself and have the stamina to do more. That you can declare it enough of a lovely evening with friends before all your energy for conversation expires. That you can quit while well-resourced, still alert, still enjoying, eager for it all to happen again. So I’m going to try this for a while, and I invite you to try it with me: to take the break before you need it. To quit while you are ahead, in a sense. To experience the mysterious side of life I know little about – doing things lightly, in moderation, with buffer. Right now, I have twenty minutes before I have to pack up the computer and head home from this cafe. The old way? Spend the next twenty minutes polishing this post or doing a couple more tasks. After all – I have a teeny bit of stamina left. I can. The new way? Pack up now. Stroll for a bit, and give myself some extra buffer time for getting home before my next appointment. I like it. Do you take the break before you need it? Do you want to? Tell us in the comments. Love, Tara

Jam Volcano

These are three of our enviable strawberry crop in 2009,

 and this year's red currants.

Making jam with them this morning - the strawberries from Waitrose Essential range.

 The recipe says bring it up to a rolling boil that you can't stir down. With jam sugar ( pectin added) you only have to boil it for 10 minutes - but I do keep stirring the frothy volcano to stop it splurging over the sides of the pan. There is nothing worse than burnt jam on your hob.

The end result - I'm not totally happy with it as most of the fruit rose to the top of the jar - but I'm trusting it'll taste like strawberry and redcurrant jam.

When we get home this evening from a long hot trip to the big industrial estate in Exeter, looking for the wheel repair garage ( which we find in the end and find the wonderful man who is going to mend my husband's bent alloy wheel arch, which keeps making the tyre go soft,) I sit on the sofa in our cool sitting room with a cup of tea and deflate. Like my husband's car tyre.

I come to a full stop.....so tired I can't even watch the tennis. So weary of it all.....keeping on keeping on .....being strong on top of feeling weak....as if I've lost something that would keep me upright..... I keep thinking that this kind of tiredness is not about lack of sleep but is coming from something I can't express - am afraid to express -  a sticky volcano that I won't let boil over in case I -  or someone else -  gets burnt, gets hurt. Probably the volcano of my anger.

After a while I get up and start folding the laundry...... and then I take all my wobbly tiredness and tears to my Deeksha Meditation group where I am enfolded in such loving hugs and kindnesses and empathy and offerings of wonderful support..... that I feel I could survive any volcano....knowing I'm not alone.

A thank you rose - to you all - where ever you are.

I Can See The Argument

In the dentist's waiting room - we chat to a neighbour who lives a few doors down the road. At least I do. I introduce my husband to her. We've known them for 11years. She includes him in the conversation. He says things like,

I can see the argument  and that's a classic way forward. But he only follows a very little of what she says.

On the way home, walking on the hot pavement, the sun burning the back of my neck I ask him,

What's it like when someone knows you but you don't recognise them?

Painful, he says.

My brother-in-law comes to take him out for lunch and a walk on Dartmoor. He and my sister have recently returned from a trip to France. He talks about the Moules he ate there, and tries to explain what they are.... and all the other shellfish.....mussels, brown shrimps, oysters, crabs, molluscs. My husband shrugs, says he doesn't have any pictures ......doesn't know any of those words.

Later he comes home all sunburnt and happy - he doesn't remember the name of the place where they walked - Haytor - but says he had a wonderful time.

He sleeps for the next three hours while I lose myself at Wimbledon....I make a pot of strong Earl Grey tea which makes me even more jittery watching Andy Murray losing his quarter final to Gregor Dimitrov.....and Novak Djokovic winning his.

And then when it's over it's too late to make the redcurrant and strawberry jam that I started preparing this morning with the sun beating down on the garden...and I put all the fruit back in the fridge. It'll keep for another day. Whereas Wimbledon only has this moment....

My husband understands this when I tell him I haven't made the jam.

I can see the argument, he says.

Not Blackcurrants and Feeling Squashed

At the allotment on Sunday

They come back every year these globe artichokes - however much we neglect them.

This was our lunch today - the leaves torn off and their tender tips dipped into a dreamy garlicky tahini dressing.

They just keep coming -  these asparagus spears - growing inches in the night - like Topsy.

My husband planted lavender bushes in the corners of the beds when he first made them all those years ago and now they take up half the bed and half the growing space but I love them and wouldn't have it any other way.

New everlasting spinach - the more you pick the more it grows - how magical is that.

I hope this isn't the kind of butterfly that is going to shred all the squash leaves into tatters...like a Cabbage White one....at least not the butterfly but its grubs...

These are the weeds I can never keep on top of.

The strawberry crop( two beds) is so meagre there isn't even enough to make one pot of jam - the plants are too old now...we should have replaced them or used their sucker shoots ....and laid some kind of weed control cover to stop them rotting on the ground which most of them have done....but we didn't.

The blackcurrant bushes are lush and  huge - bursting out of their net cages - but so few berries - so disappointing as they are my absolute favourite berry for jam and ice cream and parfaits.

But far too many of these - red currants - my least favourite berry - too much hassle to prepare jelly  - but good mixed with strawberries ( if we had any) for jam. They do look like the most exquisite jewellery though -  strings of ruby necklaces decorating the bush ....

My husband's favourite posture  - getting down low to pick the red currants - I'm very grateful to him as it's my least favourite job -  especially as I want them to be black currants instead of what they are.

I felt squashed again today - fitting in everything back to back... 

Before breakfast taking photos of my husband's front passenger wheel of his car to send to the nice man at the breakers' yard who is trying to find me a second hand replacement allow wheel.....

Sitting with my husband in the office of our young clinical psychologist - all of us feeling sad and me feeling heavy and hopeless even though I know he's right when he advises loving kindness as the best and only solution ....

Eating a cheese scone, drinking a coffee on a low squashy sofa in a cafe before we take a round trip in the town to see the birds on the estuary - my husband coping well with a fire engine and police cars with sirens and flashing lights whizzing past us....

Cooking beetroot  and globe artichokes and a mound of broad beans for lunch while my husband sleeps....waiting for a call from Devon Carers...

Driving into town for my hour's Apple lesson on my computer - learning about the special effects I could add to my photos....

Dashing back in time  to sit with our lovely computer man and my husband in his office ( which I cleaned this morning before lunch) while he sorts out his blocked emails and low ink printer....

Having  two lovely long catch up phone calls.....

Trying to make supper in the changeover breaks in the exciting /sad tennis match where Rafael Nadal is getting defeated  by a young Australian wild card Nick Gregoris....

Sending/reading emails....

Sitting with my husband when he comes back from his ceramics class, while he eats his supper on a tray....

Writing this blog....and not spending any more time editing it....as my ankles are swelling up and  I want to go to bed early - early of me anyway -  at least before midnight....