Poetry on Thursday

Oh, my friends, it has been a week. Full of lies, omissions, emotions, and deceit. All of this affected my choice of a poem for today. I'm still not certain that this one speaks precisely to what I've been feeling, but Mary Oliver has never, ever led me astray. 

I Worried
Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it, and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang. 

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Oliver, Mary. "I Worried." Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, Beacon Press, 2010
You can read more about Mary Oliver here. 

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I wish you mindfulness, peace, presence, the laying aside of your worries (if even for a few moments), and some poetry as this week winds down.

Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday. There was some real unraveling, but hopefully, that is all behind me. 

I fixed my issues with the baby blanket. I had to rip all the way back to the beginning border stitches but now I check after row 3 (the k2tog, yo row) to make sure I haven't forgotten a yarn over. That extra stitch matters in the pattern and while I can sometimes drop down and fix errors in my knitting, I couldn't figure out a way to do that to add a yarn over. It's still too hot to knit much on a baby blanket but I might try working on it during the drive back to NJ. Two hours in an air-conditioned truck is too much good knitting time to waste.

Also, my fabric arrived, and I love it. 

The contrast of the sweet flowers and the words makes me laugh and made me want to get start sewing on masks. I've washed and ironed the fabric, and today is for pinning the pattern and cutting out as many mask pieces as I can get. My sewing machine is in NJ, but I think I'll be able to sew several masks this weekend. I can hardly wait to wear one!

I finished Here in the Real World and even though it's a middle-grade book, I found it delightful. Not too sappy or preachy, just a celebration of introverts, art, and hopefulness. Now I'm struggling to read The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue. It's not the book; it's me. The subject is the 1918 flu pandemic and it's set in a maternity ward in Dublin. I thought I wanted to read it when I requested a pre-publication copy from Overdrive, but now I'm not so sure. Each day I read only a few news stories from NPR and The Atlantic and then stop, so I don't know if I want to be focusing my reading on a pandemic story, especially one with expectant mothers. I'll see ...

What are you making and reading this week?

One Little Word in July

I was trying to think of what photo I could use to go along with this post about Focus, and I decided that these things I grabbed from my bedside table might work. Here's what I've been focusing on in July:

• Reading - poetry and that wonderful Hal Borland book, Twelve Moons of the Year. This is a book that Vera recommended and I'm so glad she did. It's a collection of Borland's nature editorials from the NYT, one for every day of the year. I've been reading one each day, and just that simple act focuses and grounds me. I've also got two great books on my Kindle, The Pull of the Stars and Here in the Real World that I'm finding real pleasure and focus in reading.

• My Health - I've had some issues but have also been focused on doing what I can to improve them. I used to think that pill containers were only for "old people" but call me old because my pill minder and alarms on my phone are keeping me on track. 

• My Switch Lite - I have to include that because it's so easy (and fun) to focus on Animal Crossing. It gives me a way to connect with Ryan as we can visit each other's islands, fish together, and be happy for each other when we catch coelacanths and mahi-mahi. 

• I don't have a good way to include meditation in the photo, but that is really what has been keeping me focused throughout this month. A friend gave me the Ten Percent Happier app as a birthday gift, and it has been one of the best gifts I've received. I have meditated every day, and it's beginning to have some positive effects on my life, with increased focus, more patience, better sleep, and fewer morbid thoughts and days when I just don't care. They are currently running a Summer Sanity Challenge and you can try the app for free if you are interested. We each have to find what works best for us, but this is working for me and I intend to keep focusing my energies on meditation (and in turn, meditation is helping my focus)!

Please visit Honoré to read what she and others have shared about their words.

Sometimes Monday ...

... is a day for hanging out. (Also lots of laundry, making zucchini bread, knitting, writing letters, prepping more masks for sewing, paying property taxes, and applying for a mail-in ballot for November, but I don't have appropriate photos for those activities.)

Make it a good week!

Poetry on Thursday

Maggie Smith (the poet, not the Dame) is coming out with a new book in October, entitled Keep Moving. I loved Good Bones and am eagerly anticipating this new one. I have my fingers crossed that I might win a copy in a Goodreads giveaway, but in the meantime here is a poem from Maggie Smith. 

How Dark the Beginning

Maggie Smith

All we ever talk of is light—

let there be light, there was light then,

good light—but what I consider

dawn is darker than all that.

So many hours between the day

receding and what we recognize

as morning, the sun cresting

like a wave that won’t break

over us—as if  light were protective,

as if  no hearts were flayed,

no bodies broken on a day

like today. In any film,

the sunrise tells us everything

will be all right. Danger wouldn’t

dare show up now, dragging

its shadow across the screen.

We talk so much of  light, please

let me speak on behalf

of  the good dark. Let us

talk more of how dark

the beginning of a day is.

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Poetry magazine, February 2020

Read more about Maggie Smith here. 

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I wish you mindfulness, presence, calm, and some poetry as this week winds down. 

Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday, and because I can't bear to show you another picture of the Hitchhiker that still needs a few more teeth, I'm showing you possibilities instead.

I'm going to cast on soon for fingerless gloves for Justin and Ryan. I haven't bought yarn during the pandemic, but one day I was in a mood and thought I would buy a skein that was perfect for each of them and knit something for Christmas. They have sIze 13 and 14 feet respectively and are both hard on their socks, so fingerless gloves it will be. Given the current coronavirus numbers, I had some slightly morbid thoughts when I purchased the yarn, but I think when I finally catch up with all the zucchini and cucumbers in the garden, I'll be happy to be knitting on projects for my kids.

I finished The Night Watchman late last night, but haven't written a review yet. It was a four-star read for me at least, and my favorite of the Louise Erdrich books that I've read. 

“When he needed to calm his mind, he opened a book. Any book. He had never failed to feel refreshed, even if the book was no good.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

I couldn't sleep, so looking to calm my mind, I started another book, The Prettiest Star. It's a heart-breaking story set in 1986 about a young man with AIDS who returns home to his family to die. It was probably not the best book to read when I couldn't sleep, but it is good (even if I know how it's going to end).

What are you making and reading this week?

Zukes, Cukes, and Beans

It's mid-July and the garden is producing a bumper crop of zucchini, cucumbers, and string beans.

My problem is what to do with it all. Here's what we've eaten (and are still eating) during the last week. (The kitchen in MD is very dark and the only decent light is from from the hood over the stovetop where I took these slightly odd photos.

A meta-cucumber combination of cucumber spears dipped in tzatziki sauce. We also had tzatziki on zucchini fritters but we gobbled those up before I took any photos.

The classic cucumbers in sour cream. There was always a bowl of this salad in my grandmother's refrigerator during the summer.

Sweet and dill refrigerator pickles. My house will probably smell of pickles for days and my hands are stained with turmeric.

John threw some string beans in a half-full container of old dill pickles, and now we have pickled beans.

And we've eaten plenty of plain old steamed string beans.

But wait ... there's more! Zucchini marinara and zucchini bread (one loaf pictured, five more in the freezer). Chocolate zucchini cake is the next zucchini recipe I'm going to try — soon. 

I hope I still have zucchini on the vine when the corn is ready to pick soon so I can make this, this, or some mashup of both recipes. 

I hope you're enjoying summer vegetables, whether they're from your own garden, a CSA, a farm stand, or the grocery store. I think I could be a vegetarian during July and August!