Petals float: pink bowl filled with joy

"Every day do something that won't compute....Give your approval to all you cannot understand ....Ask the questions which have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years..... Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts....Practice resurrection."  ~ Wendell Berry (Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front)

Practice resurrection, laugh, be joyful Wendell Berry says. I've been a bit remiss over posting to this blog over the past few months. My excuses are thin, but my heart is full, sad, torn. Over that time, my house came under contract. Which involved sorting/sifting/boxing/giving/selling stuff. More stuff. One person doing all that wears on the bones. And my River died, the first of July. He was my constant star, companion, one-eyed guard dog and best friend. 

Oh, the excuses are thin....but here I am again. The contract fell through last week. River rests out in the front garden where sun and birds keep him company. Sort and sift continues, a little slower this week without a looming deadline of moving out. I read May Sarton, Lisa See books, spend extra time with friends. It's comforting. Life changes, goes on. Practice resurrection.

 

2019 Bring Us Your Best Exhibit

Goddess winged torso with paint brushes and painting

“...Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold.
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise.
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.”

 ~ Alice Walker, excerpt from “Expect Nothing”

Lavender-peach sunsets paint Saluda evenings as trickles of summer folk talk on old-house porches, kids playing, cricket songs floating over the seven hills of town. Creeks sing over smooth rocks, yellow-papery leaves float to earth, time slows like golden honey. 

A ghost of overall-clad old-timer with red cotton bandanna and pocket knife, a sweating-cold green bottle of Coke in hand, sits on Main Street benches outside Thompson’s, wondering where the train whistle blows long and lonesome up the Grade once again. 

On sultry August afternoons, my nose longs to be stuck in a good book...which serves to restore the spirit under ceiling fan breezes. The hard dusty work at boxing and sorting needs a break time, although the deadline of late August disappeared in a POUF! when the house contract suddenly fell through last week. 

Am I upset? No. Could be worse. Life 101, Murphy’s Law always kicks in. 

All I could think was that it’d be OK. I got a lot cleaned up (pat on back), although I was wee bit disappointed not to be picking out a low-mileage used Prius for road trips, renewing passport, or paying for a (hopefully far-away) “pre-need” green burial. Those are things I had lined up to do once the house closed. Such for those best laid plans of mice and men. We know that one, Dear Reader!

Me, I just get back up on the horse—back in the saddle again, relist the house a little longer before winter and I become at odds with one another, figure I have a reprieve for porch swinging, picking garden flowers, and taking a little longer to weed through more stuff, living frugally on surprise, expecting nothing, wishing upon small stars. (Bonnie Bardos, Tryon Daily Bulletin, 8/2019)