I’ve been grateful this week for lots of rain to nourish the earth, replenish the aquifer, water the garden. And I’ve been grateful for plenty of sunshine and busy pollinators stocking up before they slow down, perish, or leave for winter.
I’m grateful for some time with my husband camera over the past weekend, and for the flowers blooming in the yarden. Not so many nor so profusely as in past years, but still plenty for the birds and bees that are here. It is alarming that I haven’t seen several species of native bees that were common a couple of years ago. But I’m grateful for the few bumblebees and honeybees I see, and for the sunflower bees. And for this red-bellied wasp. Too tired tonight to look her up, and can’t remember if I know her name. We all know how that is.
I’m grateful the scarlet runner bean vine is finally taking off. Hammered hard by deer outside the fence, they struggled to gain many blooms. Once the wild sunflowers grew up they provided a barrier to the voracious does, and the vine was able to blossom. I planted eight seeds: only one of them sprouted. Look at her now!
I planted it for the hummingbirds, and finally was in the right place at the right time today to catch a few enjoying the nectar. The first one checked me out before feeding on the flowers. Thereafter they ignored me. I am grateful for intrepid little hummingbirds.
I’m grateful for scarlet runner beans, and grateful I had some time today to sit with and appreciate them in their flourishing glory. I’m grateful for the gentleness of this day just passed, mild ambient temperature, flowers all around, abundant harvest of tomatoes and tomatillos, joyful energy expended in the kitchen canning and cleaning. I’m grateful for finding support this evening in being with the excruciating awareness of life’s vivid, finite beauty.
I’m grateful for this smart, beautiful, sociable (some might call them noisy) Corvid. At least one pair nested in the yarden this year, using an old magpie nest in the juniper just north of the house. They stayed pretty far from the patio while the phoebes were nesting, but now that that family is gone, the jays are getting bolder. I welcome them drinking at the bee bowl, and enjoy watching and listening to them eat the acorns in the Gambel Oak, and flit around the patio pots in hopes of scavenging something, perhaps a few stray dog kibbles, or a treat from the compost bucket. I’m grateful for Western Scrub Jays, whatever variety it is that lives here.
I’m also grateful, as always, for hummingbirds, a dozen or so still zipping around all hours of the day among feeders and flowers; mostly juveniles and females, though I saw but couldn’t capture an adult male broadtail.
I’m alive! I’m so grateful to be on the other side of the colonoscopy. I had intended to turn over a new leaf and eat really well as I restart my digestive system. My kind companions allowed me a stop at the grocery store and I suddenly craved the comfort food of my youth, frosted flakes. I don’t think Tony the Tiger always wore glasses, did he? Is that just to make him still relatable to us baby boomers?
“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.” ~ 14th Dalai Lama
Yesterday and today I really came to terms with this guidance. I’m grateful for the mindfulness practice that has given me more control over my unruly, anxious mind. The procedure went really well this morning. I spent the past two days telling myself that it might just be a wonderful experience, the previous few weeks cultivating a neutral, fearless attitude toward it, and the last three months intermittently dreading it, while largely remembering that I am capable and resilient enough to handle whatever the outcome of this test would be. I went from viewing it as unpleasant, to neutral, to pleasant. His Holiness is right, it feels better to be optimistic.
It was a wonderful experience. I was bathed in loving kindness from the minute my friends picked me up. The hospital staff was so kind, from the intake lady to the anesthetist to the surgeon, with all the nurses in between who were friendly, cheerful, efficient, downright doting. Nurses are a breed apart: they may be the most compassionate subset of humans that exist. The last thing I remember as I lay on my left side slowly losing awareness is the pressure of a compassionate hand on my arm, another on my back. I slept deeply and dreamed. In no time, I opened my eyes, for a second disoriented but feeling thoroughly comfortable and safe.
After the selflessness, generosity, and kindness I experienced today, I’ve come to the humbling realization that my interest in others is sincere; yet my interest in my own safety continues to supersede all other interests, despite all the wisdom, compassion and insight I’ve gained through mindfulness practice. This tenacious drive for personal safety is a result of being ACOA, I suspect. My highest priority is feeling safe. The safeness I need to feel can only come from within a complete surrender to Impermanence: I can’t even say to Uncertainty. It has to be Impermanence, because that is the single Certainty of our existence. Today, grounded in mindfulness, awash in TLC, I was able to embrace a daunting emotional challenge with optimism and gratitude. I’m grateful for tender loving care from a multitude today, and celebrating a new lease on life.
There was just enough time before pickup this morning to play a few minutes with the new camera. I am grateful for the feathered gems.
Deer, or someone, have eaten most of the Indian paintbrush along the trail to the canyon. I’m grateful that there are still a few little spots of color. I keep thinking, this is why we need to feed hummingbirds. In a balanced ecosystem, the deer would leave enough paintbrush for all the hummingbirds. But we live in a world out of balance. I believe it really does help, and it’s worth it to us, to supplement the diets of wild birds: we’ve taken over so much of their habitat, it’s the least we can do.
Deer have been starving for the past year, maybe longer. Between drought, and monocultures, they’re now eating yarden plants here that they haven’t bothered for 25 years: the little naturalizing tulips, even the grape hyacinths, in the garden, and paintbrush out in the woods. Neighbors have noticed more of this as well. Stressed wildlife can aggravate humans in their habitat and along the fringes (the ecotones) between urban and ex-urban in this way, eating things they normally wouldn’t need to in order to get the nutrition they require. Ecosystem health revolves around diversity: when they only have hay and alfalfa for much of the year, they weaken. Maybe now they’re figuring out how to diversify and prosper.
That’s been my motto since before I moved here: Diversify and prosper. Seems even more fitting now.
I’m grateful also today for yet another fine female physical care provider, the eye doctor in Hotchkiss, Diane. Her gentle staff of women and her gentle chairside manner made me very comfortable as I embarked upon my fourth healthcare catchup since getting fully vaccinated a month ago. Their Covid precautions are exemplary, and I felt so confident of them that I’d even feel comfortable working there, not just spending way more than my fair share of time as a patient. I’m grateful for their patience with me. I’m grateful I’ve had a whole year to really observe the quality of my vision, and discern exactly what spectacle traits will maximize visual acuity going forward, for the time being; grateful for an eye doctor who was willing to really hear me. I can’t wait to get the new glasses I’ve ordered! Ah, vision. I’m so grateful for vision.
Thankful for the physical well-being and energy I’ve had this summer that has enabled me to keep up with the garden (though not with sharing its joy online!). Above, a selection of late-summer delights, starting with a plumtini, just a martini shaken with a very ripe plum, yum!
Thankful for half a dozen perfect strawberries gleaned from as many plants. Maybe next summer they’ll do better, but each fruit was certainly a burst of flavor as bright as its color.
The past months have been a whirlwind of harvesting, pickling, canning, freezing, cutting back, drying, fermenting and other fun fall festivities. I’ve been spinning through each day drenched in gratitude, swimming in astonishing colors, savoring and storing for winter the flavors of summer.
It’s almost impossible to believe I am the same person as that awkward little girl in the DC suburbs who spent every free minute curled up in an armchair reading books. How did I come to be here? Living close to the land in this fertile valley for almost half my life now has allowed me to approach some understanding of my true nature, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.