July 13.19

Two dazzling things happened yesterday, dear reader!

As you know (or not), I’ve been in the throes of downsizing. I moved into this smaller house about a year and a half ago, and that makes this my second gardening season here. If you are a gardener, you know that you have to earn ownership of a garden; it doesn’t just happen. Nor does it “just happen” that a house becomes home. For me, it’s all a work in progress: this isn’t home yet either inside or out.

However, there were these two heart-stoppers yesterday:

I caught a glimpse of new color deep in a tomato plant. I was down on the ground as fast as my creaking knees would allow and, yes, there it was: the first red tomato! MY tomato! If you have read my blog in the past, you know that until recently my main claim to gardening fame was in consistent tomato-killing. I grew them in memory of my Grandpa Mauck but without much hope of eating actual tomatoes.

(Last year was The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, if you recall. The tomatoes had their revenge.)

And tuxedos in the dill! In my last house I had a magnificent dill patch and these very formal, elegant caterpillars feasted royally thereon. Swallowtails bobbed their thanks over what was left. This year the blasted rabbits ate to the ground every single dill plant I tried to grow, so I planted dill in a pot on the deck. Now come the beautiful caterpillars. Can swallowtails be far behind?

I dance a rheumatic jig and think that maybe home will happen.

February 8.19

Yesterday, dear reader, came the fifth sunless day of rain in five days. Also came the haulers in a pickup truck pulling an open wooden cart. They hauled stuff from my garage and then we drove to my storage unit and they hauled stuff from there.

And the rain poured down.

I followed them out of the storage place, and there was no way not to see the detritus of my life, soaked and wilted, riding in front of me. The big cardboard box with the old Christmas tree figured prominently in the heap. Some of the stiff old branches had fallen out and, formed yet in their bent upward curve, lay there appearing to wave goodbye to me. It was the forlornest vignette to be imagined.

That tree belonged to my parents and had seen many, many Christmases. Yes, I still have the top. Yes, it was time to let it go.

But did it have to wave at me?

And the rain poured down.

I came home and attacked the garage, sweeping and shoving and piling. The temperature was 59 and it was suddenly April. We haven’t seen the sun all week, but there was warmth! The daylilies were sprouting!

This morning the temperature is 18, windchill 0. A winter wind rattles the house and my head. Poor daylilies. Poor old frozen Christmas tree.

Mourning is a process not meant to be cured or stopped or unfelt. Grief will be, just as the winter rains will be. I loathe Pollyanna-isms, but there are those sprouting daylilies.

 

Disconnections: December 25.18

 

Do you remember, dear reader, two Christmases ago when my big beautiful tree fell flat on its face, ornaments and all? And we (my son) had to wrestle it across the room and tie it to the bannister with twine to keep it upright? Here it is again. More or less. Well, definitely less. This is the top part.

As you know, this has been the year of The Downsize. The tree is a little shorter, and so am I. We hold a million memories anyway.

Our tinsel might be tarnished,

our limbs a bit askew

but we wish a merry Christmas

and peaceful heart to you!

 

Maureen

 

 

Connections: March 19.18

MY (VERY) TRIED AND TRUE FRIEND KIMBALL

Yesterday I said goodbye

in private chilly wake

empty chairs attending

my lonely little ache.

For over fifty years

in rages and in joys

my ten, its eighty-eight

conspired to make noise.

Responsive, empathetic

not like other things

it lifted up my spirit

and gave my fingers wings.

You cannot understand

unless you’ve parted too

with a beautiful piano

that grew old along with you.

 

Connections

Connections: November 10.17

In a stupor, I am here, dear reader. Having spent the last three weeks with my wonderful son and daughter-in-law, two grandkids, two dogs, and two cats, I have arrived in my new house. I have lived here for four whole days.

Aside from a mattress on the floor, a desk, and some miscellaneous chairs, my furniture at the moment is boxes, not a one of which is shin-friendly.

I’m downsizing, which is another way of saying I’m exploring the depths of wishy-washy. My decision-making is not crisp. Maybe there are just too many decisions. I contemplate something and what it will look like in some landfill years hence and still I can’t quite make up my mind about it.

Nonetheless, the pile of flattened boxes grows and gives me hope.

The feels-like temp this morning is 19. My winter clothes are in storage, keeping some boxes toasty warm. They are probably close to the box with my pots and pans, which got buried in the middle instead of the front of the storage unit. Golly gee, I have to get carry-out.

I was mercilessly berated by my family on the matter of my eight-year-old computer. So I got a new one. My poor addled brain is therefore trying to deal with the physical chaos of my surroundings and the virtual chaos of a new computer. Touch-screen? Wireless? All new, all befuddling, all out to get me. I have no idea yet how to manage photos.

Please bear with me. I am on a perilously steep learning curve, and don’t dare look down.

 

Connections: October 13.17

Economy of words

is not my strongest suit

I’m Irish, blather-minded,

an English major to boot.

But occasionally I’ll do it

say it all in just one word

here’s syllable to prove it

in a box of the absurd.

Packing up my years

forces me to see

in wording and in living

downsizing is the key.

 

 

Connections

 

 

Connections: June 11.17

At the corner of Useless and Broken

near the Unresolved/Hopeful junction

a city of storage arises

awaiting its Extreme Unction.

Fragments and miscellany

tethering us to — what? —

the past? a loss? a wish?

a monument to glut?

Irony in cubes:

crowded emptiness

in corrugated sepulchre

I own my need for less.

 

 

 

Connections