There are two things we can bequeath to our children: one is roots; the other, wings.
One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.
-James Earl Jones
once again, the neighbor children called upon me today to help them rescue the local fauna.
Though the stories all sound slightly different (insert slightly skeptical furrowed brow here), the basic story goes that the nest was found upended underneath a tree, with two other babies already dead. One of the girls said it looked like the mama bird was trying to kill one of these remaining live young, which could have been mama bird trying to *save* the baby by returning it to the nest. The kids apparently tucked these two new hatchlings into a shoe overnight for safekeeping but freaked today when they ran out of bird babysitting ideas. Yanno, like how does one feed something this small with no feathers and no eyes, this thing that cannot even hold its head up on its own. I'd freak too if I was seven years old.
At any rate, we've had some whopper storms - severe storm warnings, tornado warnings, the works - the past few days (followed by killer heat today) and the very nice intake lady at the Humane Society said that they'd been taking in lots of bird babies the past couple of days who had been experiencing the same unfortunate results as did these two wee ones.
Such a funny intangible thing it is, hope.
Most of us carry some of it around in tiny invisible pockets, buttoned securely to our hearts, always right there in case we need to slip it out to touch it caress it remember it reidentify it.
If you grow crops, it is likely that at least some of your pocketed hopes involve that which you have absolutely no power over - wind and weather. Weeks of unending dryness can rattle your hope like a racking cough. Will these dry days ever end? I hope some rain will fall soon. Dark skies come as a sparkling signal of potential goodness.
I find it a difficult task to remain true to my hope. It is much easier to morph into whatever seems most flexible, most content in the now than to check into my little pocket to remember what it is that I truly hope for.
But every time - EVERY time - I neglect my hopes, they find a mysterious way of creeping into my day to day life. In discontented feelings, in frustration, in my aggressiveness and defensiveness. Every time I deny them, my hopes find a way of demanding acknowledgement.
I'm learning not to say 'no, I don't really have hopes'. Because I really do. They're there. They exist.
I have been scanning old family photographs in hopes of one day being able to provide each of my sibs and other interested kin with a photographic collection of the few pictures we have remaining between us.
This photograph makes me grin each and every time I look at it. To the left, my maternal great-grandfather Clyde. To the right, his brother (whose name currently escapes me. But I do have it written down. Somewhere. Really. I do).
I'm fairly sure my great-grandfather was part bulldog. Cute bulldog, of course, but probably growly and drooly and occasionally (!) ill-tempered.
you thought it was a pepper plant, didntcha? DINCHA?!
Well HAH!
Ohhhh... it is, it iiisssss.
But instead of that saliva-sucking heat that jalapenos usually produce, these will produce a lighter back-burner sort of heat, a mild simmering delightful addition to our burrito-ey summer fare.
Because as less than fond as I am of HOT-hotness, I am a sucker for growing a peppers with a clever name.
I do not like gardening with gloves.
With gloves on I can't feel the plants, I can't feel the dirt, I can't sift out the rocks. Gardening gloves make my hands sweaty and they make me feel slightly claustrophobic in that way that tight turtleneck sweaters make me feel like I can't breathe on the rare occasions I wear them.
Unfortunately, I am now bearing the physical results of no-glove heavy duty gardening.
I did learn one important first aid lesson from this experience that might be worth passing along. You can take my word on this, too: Unless you are in the mood for breath-sucking seeing-stars pain (and you might be because I know sometimes I am) -- When you have a largeish wound in an area with lots of nerve endings that is also a difficult area on which to keep a Band-Aid, do not spray it with that new spray-on bandage sealing stuff they sell at Walgreen's.
Hurts.
Like.
A.
Bitch.
While having my morning coffee and cigarette outside on the front step this morning I heard the chuttered squalling and feather ruffling of a baby bird waiting impatiently to be fed.
To my great surprise it was not a tiny sparrow being fed by the sparrow parent, but rather, a -- starling? Hmm, no it doesn't look at all like a starling but I'm honestly not sure just yet what kind of bird the mammoth-looking baby is (in comparison to the wee sparrow). It was a giganto baby, that's what it was. The rare Giganto bird, ahhhhyessss.
They stayed just long enough for me to grab the AA batteries that had been recharging overnight and get the camera set up for a couple of shots.
(If you can I.D. the baby let me know and I'll add it in here.)
Birds will flex adoptive muscles to care for another's young... who knew?!
I accidentally picked a weed yesterday.
Or maybe my mind knows when I myself need a good weeding and it just sends me out to find one outstandingly tall misdirected and unwelcome plant ready for the picking.
When I weed, all else in inconsequential. I couldn't give a flying fig whose car is coming up the street or whose has just left; I don't hear the sirens and ambulances; the highway noise floats far far away. The background chatter volume is reduced by three clicks in my head. My fingers become outrageously sensitive, feeling for the best direction of tug to pull the entire plant, full roots and all, from the earth.
Again, today, both the internal and external weather look to be perfect for a long quiet uprooting time.
It's not like the far western finger of North Carolina is an ugly part of the U.S.: lush green mountains undulating, peaking high and valleying so low so you'd swear you are riding a colorful slow-motion rollercoaster without a lap belt.
The roadsides near Murphy and Andrews give a sweet little extra icing on the cake with batches of these wildflowers. In fact, throughout Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina similar wildflower projects have been successfully established and are refreshing eye candy.
Been on vacation and through a whole batch of the United States in the past 15 days.
We had a wonderful time. Went to the Calliope music festival in South Florida, took an absolute touristy boat ride (Never thought I'd know what Rosie O'D.'s backyard looks like) - tried my first sushi and lobster, swam in the ocean, drove and drove and drove, laughed and talked and wondered and slept and ate and learned about one another and the unfamiliar world around us.
Road trips are good for the soul.
Some days it didn't quite feel worth the effort to her to do much but stare back at the shapeless masses on the other side of the glass.
