The mothers in my neighborhood are singing arias with elaborate trills. They are resting in the early gray dawn of a rainy day shaking the drops of water from their feathers and getting ready for the marathon harvesting of insects to feed their young.
I am hoping that you are having a loving and lovely Mother's Day. When this day arrives I tend to feel "less than". While my mother was not an abusive person, except when she got mad and did not talk to us for days, she was overwhelmed with five children, and as I became an adult and mother on my own, I realized why we did not have that close relationship pictured on cards and in movies. Her days were long and hard and we never could afford a babysitter. She was not close to any of the other mothers that we knew and that must have made it harder facing challenges on her on. She was pathological about having a clean house, even locking us outside for the day while she cleaned. She made it clear that she thought I was too full of myself, and perhaps I was. But perhaps I just needed someone to stand up for me as the eldest and go-to babysitter, and that was me.
I also feel dismayed on these days knowing there are people (my husband) who were very close to their mothers and miss that love and attention every single day. They are sad knowing they will never see their mother again. Some others have lost their mother tragically early as a former colleague of mine to ugly cancer.
I also feel dismayed on these days for those mothers that have lost a child and will not get that phone call or Mother's Day card on this day. This day is a sad reminder for them.
So, please enjoy your day, but also remember for many this is a day to just get through, and if you know someone getting through this day, give them a call and talk about your friendship and how much they mean to you.
"Its such as you learn my mind! You appear to grasp so much about this, such as you wrote the e-book in it or something. I believe that you just can do with some p.c. to force the message home a bit, however other than that, that is great blog. A fantastic read. I will definitely be back."
I usually delete the dozen or so comments like the one above. They always come from "Anonymous" who reads my blog pretty often and is full of praise in broken English. Anonymous does not have an interesting blog of their own, though. They usually link to some odd ad for products I do not need or links to some place in India for soldiers on R&R. But I do have to admit they are faithful commenters.
I have not been blogging because I have been busy with the annual plant sale which is our biggest fundraiser each year. While it only lasts half a day there is almost a full week of prep. We sell our plants at really low prices, and we make around 5K. My Solomon's Seal went pretty fast as did my Hellebores and my toad lilies. Next year I will dig up the spreading turtle head (Chelone glabra) and my obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) which is in the mint family and spreads - vociferously-mine are the traditional white blossoms.
This year the exhaustion of three days of prep and plant moving and the half day on my feet talking to strangers plant lovers truly exhausted me. In my early 70's now, I do begin to feel the wear and tear on both body and mind as the day wears on. We are all old-timers and I could see the younger of us with her recent knee replacement hobbling about, and the slightly older gal who had back surgery last month keeping her posture straight, and the older of us who has arthritis in her back finding places to sit every once in a while.
I also went on an all-day meadow exploration trip just a few days before (which I may write about). This is a planned and planted meadow funded through a consortium, which is the new push to re-create more natural habitats on fallow farmlands for animals and insects and natural plants. I was with a group of naturalists and master gardeners. We talked the hour and a half ride to the meadow and the hour and a half ride back home. As an introvert, this was like running a marathon for me! I enjoyed the whole thing immensely, but my brain and body completely shut down when I get home and I could not even find the energy to talk to my husband!
With all this activity I have been sleeping a little better, but it is more intense with lots of confusing dreams. Last night I was in France buying tickets to a play and later returned to enter the play only to find I was exactly one minute late and the door shut in my face. I was very angry and saying some nasty things about the French which embarrassed my husband and then I got on a train waiting for him to catch up only to find I was on the wrong train heading to far north France and not just the other side of the city to our hotel! I was more exhausted and angry in the dream than frightened.
I do not think it is fair that my dreams are just as exhausting as my days. Here is hoping your spring is now like the gentle blossoms that nod in the cool breezes...not a marathon!
I spent a small fortune to have a dozen video (VHS) tapes converted digitally for preservation this past month. (HA! Like converting them to X's and O's makes them safe from destruction!) I had not looked at these tapes for years even though we have saved an old TV that has a VHS player built in. I still have more than a dozen more, but need to save up money to have them converted in the fall.
They packed the tapes very well upon return and then inside a tiny gray envelope taped to the inside top of the box I got this below! The black item above is the normal "thumb drive" that you can get at the drug store or office supply store which I placed next to the actual memory device I got.
That little tiny silver item is the "pinky" drive they sent me with about a dozen 10-minute movies on it. I am wondering if I need to paint it red to keep from losing it! I did not know they made memory sticks this tiny. It seems like a rather jarring representation of your life (in movies) of Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas mornings and vacation trips. This is what we have been shrunk to. Talk about feeling like insignificant stardust!
I also heard my "leadership" voice-over as I got people organized or explained what was being recorded authoritatively. I am sad to say that I was (probably still am) a bit annoying with my desire to capture it all. Maybe you can remember hearing your recorded voice for the first time and wondering why you sounded so different. Well, this was even more "enlightening." I felt like apologizing to everyone in the movie. Oh well. If we saw ourselves as we really are, we would be much more perfect.
Now I have to find some movie software to work on these files and give them some headings and historical context (if I can stand listening to my voice). I used to work with something years ago, but remember I hated working with movies...maybe there is something cheap and quick out there.
Over 30 years ago, and I have written about this before, I used to send out research articles to agriculture scientists on "greenhouse gases" and "greenhouse warming." At that time, many of the articles said we had about 15-20 years to turn this situation around. We were creating a warming of the planet by releasing fossil fuels that had been captured for millions of years. That was back in 1989 and people who were busy with their lives ignored it. It was before the Internet became so easily available, mostly government and universities were beginning to get access to databases...not the common man. Therefore, most people did not read these articles, besides they were boring.
Yesterday I was watching Fareed Zakaria's television show which appears twice on Sundays on CNN. (Avoiding the drumbeat of this divisive administration that CNN loves to pound.) He manages to capture hugely important issues and condense them to five-minute reports, for those of us who missed the issue. He has a truly global perspective which our tribal views may miss.
Yesterday Zakaria interviewed an author about a book written 30 years ago on climate change. "The End of Nature," considered by some to be the first book on climate change. This author now has a new book out titled "Falter."
Today is Earth Day...please honor it in some way that is environmental.
Awfully busy but also spending time with my camera outdoors instead of blogging or reading your blogs. I will be back sooner rather than later. (Note the plants I am putting in pots for the Plant Sale.)
