There is a cottontail that lives under the spreading Utah juniper tree in my front yard. I use the term front yard loosely. The area surrounding my little adobe house is high desert and unimproved but for a bit of arranging of the rocks and stones that litter the hillside. Also, the rabbit probably lives in a winding warren under the yard, but is only visible coming and going beneath the tree.
I consider this rabbit my pet of the most convenient kind. No muss. No fuss. I simply throw my apple cores out the door and enjoy the furry little rodent scavenger at dawn and dusk. Is there only one? Have you ever heard the cliche, “multiply like rabbits?” Who knows how many? I have seen three at the same time before; two fighting and one watching demurely from the shadows of rabbit brush bush.
Last spring, there were tiny bunnies peeping from rocks and shade along every trail I wandered in a one-mile radius. It was a year when rabbits were plentiful and coyotes few; though I had see a couple canis latrans skirting the property but 12 months previous.
My house sits more than 100 feet back from the road and overlooks an arroyo. In order to get to work, or the grocery, I must descend a winding mile down a road once gravel and known as “Jacob’s Ladder,” but now a paved artery that connects the main city to communities further up the mountain. This fall and winter, the road has been a killing field for rabbits and a buffet for scavengering ravens. Food is not in short supply. I may be the only one who sows apple cores, but horse barns populate the neighborhood. There is hardly a need for cottontail or jackrabbit to stray from home turf. Most of the rabbit roadkill has been near the corrals, where the proverbial grass is greener on both sides of the road. Last week, there was a bunny carcass much closer to home.
“Why do the bunnies cross the road?” I ask again, “When they have everything they need on their own side of the tracks.”
“Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy, than felt herself to be so…(1813, Austen, Pride and Prejudice, chapter 59)”
Life has been pretty good, of late. It is possible to know life is good, but not feel it. Rationally, you tick off the list: food, shelter, provision, job, relationship – you have it all. Life is Good. You must be happy. But where are the feelings? You want to feel it!
When you get to the point where your head knows life is good, but your body and emotions are numb and refuse to feel it; there are five things to do that help transfer successes of the good life to feelings of well being:
Walk or Hike in nature and release some dopamine and endorphins into your system. I suspect exercise of any sort is helpful, so go ahead and enjoy the gym or mall walking; but maximum benefit for me happens when I combine the beauty of nature with exercise.
Hiking makes me FEEL that life is good. A fast walk along a nature trail helps me experience feelings of gratitude. Feelings of gratitude are the foundation of that feeling of well being.
My stars! That is a walk with a view that will lift your spirits! Moon rise from Window Rock, Colorado National Monument 1-15-14 5:18 p.m.
Go to bed earlier. When life is good, it is easy to be in the mode of rise early and stay up late in order to maintain the success. Ben Franklin was right, “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.” Go to bed earlier. Get a refreshing rest. Wisdom feels wonderful.
Eat well. It is almost second nature to skip lunch (or breakfast or dinner) when you are busy. It is a shame to feel badly in the midst of a successful working life. For no other reason than to improve your emotional vision; make healthy food choices. For me this means plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables; a smaller amount of meats, grains and sweets; and, gasp, no caffeine. It also means I need to eat something before I get that starved feeling and blood sugar plummets.
Choose music intentionally By all means, choose music! I cannot imagine life without the comfort of my piano. Make music. Listen to music. Console and exercise your brain by listening to your ipod or playing your heart out on the keyboard or strings. Not a good idea to overload on dirges, blues or torch songs; however.
Choose carefully the companions you spend time with. Better a long walk with a like-minded friend than a politically charged discussion with extended family. For the introvert, solitude is a much more serene friend than TV. A good book, or a reflective conversation with an old friend is better than a noisy bar or a competitive activity you are not good at.
January is half over. Life is good. I want to feel the goodness and savor it.
First Pool, No Thoroughfare Canyon, Colorado National Monument January 13, 2014
So, I sat down at my piano to think the new year through. Soon, I had made 12 major resolutions. I rose, feeling a sense of finalization and breathed, “Amen and amen.” – oops. Here is my Happy New Year wish to my numerous musician friends; May all your two part inventions synchronize. May your motifs be pure. May your pitch be perfect and may you meet your coda so you are not always baroque. Here’s 32 bars raised to your good vivace!
My apologies, I did plagalise this inspiration from some passing notes of a few musicians on social media:) – – HAPPY NEW YEAR
I have always loved the Christmas lights. They lend warmth to a bare, cold room or a tree bereft of leaves, a city gray and stark in the chill of winter. They beckon a traveler toward the warmth of home; provide illumination in the absence of the sun.
When I was a young child, much of our simple seasonal excitement revolved around lights. Returning home in the early darkness, as the car topped the 12th Street hill, my brother and I would look to see if grandma was home. Did the plastic, seven-place, fake candles burn blue in the south-facing window? If the window was dark, no one was home. In those days, everyone knew it was not safe to leave lights plugged in and unattended.
A fall schedule properly checked off, meant that Daddy or Grandpa put up Christmas lights late in fall as part of the waning yard work. Lights remained ready and waiting all through November, but not plugged in until after Thanksgiving. A sigh of completion escaped the ladies the year lights festooned every gable of the old house. It can take several painstaking years to garner enough by prudently adding a string each year. A Christmas Eve drive through expensive neighborhoods where homeowners competed for the annual Christmas decorating prize, was an unbreakable tradition-something you had to do between the oyster soup and unwrapping gifts.
Lights were a part of my childhood Christmases, but they were only a manufactured replica of the beauty that makes Christmas season so magical. A few days ago, I was drawn outside just before bedtime. The full moon cast light across the hills and onto the snow. Sheer planes of icy frost glittered like frozen fireflies. Suddenly, I knew whence came the inspiration for Christmas lights.
Could it be entire generations have traded electric lights, battery operated LED lights for forgotten natural beauty? Musing, I wonder if I have been content all these years splashing in a mud puddle when there was a holiday at the seaside available to me (C.S. Lewis).
But oh, if the imitation of nature yields so much peace and goodwill and joy and memories, how much more the real thing?
I wish you plenty of strolls in the moonlight; plenty of:
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov
“The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave the lustre of midday to objects below.” Clement Clarke Moore, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1823)
Be gentle with yourself; it’s almost Christmas. Be extra gracious to others; we are in the darkest, coldest time of the year.
It is such a comfort to have close family or friends with whom to spend the holidays. Yet,
no matter how hard we try to be realistic; all of us harbor secret hopes and dreams and unmet needs. The most beautiful time of the year can be a time of extreme loneliness – even in a crowd.
Though the snow and dawn and twilight are delightful, the shortened daylight and frosty temperatures leave precious little time for rejuvenating hikes in nature and endorphin raising exercise. The very energy once gained through the ministrations of Mother Nature is now drained and diverted toward crowds of strangers in shopping malls or trying to encourage disgruntled, circadian disrupted, significant others with
seasonal affective disorder.
But, don’t weep, darling. Crying only stuffs up your nose and makes it more difficult to sing. And sing, you must! After all, it is Christmas!
I wish you PEACE, JOY, LOVE – and the fulfillment of HOPE! Because, hope deferred makes the heart sad. Be gentle with yourself. Be gracious to others!
Some things have changed since I was young. When I was young, I didn’t much like soup. I did like my mom’s creamy tomato, but I suspect it was the saltines I liked best. With chicken and noodle, I liked only the broth. The noodles were too smushy and the chicken bits always dark meat. Were there any other kinds of soup? You can hardly count cream of mushroom as soup. It is merely a casserole ingredient.
If it didn’t come in a red and white can, it wasn’t really soup. Other kinds of soup were just leftovers reinvented; turkey bone soup, ham bone soup, – and what’s with buying special stew meat, anyway? Isn’t stew just another reincarnation of left-overs?
Near the close of my second decade of life, I spent nine months in Germany. Here I encountered oxtail soup. My taste buds couldn’t get past its name. However, at the General Walker Hotel in Berchtesgaden, I became a fan of cream soup-du-jour. The correlation to leftovers continued. I noticed each soup-du-jour was a spruced up offering of the vegetable or entree served the evening previous.
In my thirties, business lunch at Furr’s cafeteria was a favorite activity. There I learned to savor cream of broccoli. As one of my colleagues described it, “I thought I had died and gone to heaven.” During the intermittent lean years that followed, I taught myself to make pretty good cream soups from broccoli stems and milk – cartoned, canned or even powdered. These days, I avoid milk.
Enter the Martha Stewart disciples and my daughter-in-law with fresh, savory meatless soup recipes. Welcome the proliferation of alternate “milks” such as soy, almond, coconut and hemp.
This week, I made soup to share from a recipe! A recipe. Not from a can. Not to stretch the budget. Not from leftovers. It was rich, creamy, savory and satisfying. I spent about $10 gathering the special ingredients and a morning pureeing and assembling them. Will I do it again? Doubtful.
But then, again, one thing that hasn’t changed is the need for savory comfort food on frosty winter nights.
I had a difficult time getting to sleep the other night. It was not tossing and turning due to guilt or unfinished business, or even a cup of coffee, that kept me wakeful. It was peace and joy and anticipation.
Like the child who simply cannot fall asleep Christmas Eve for the anticipation of Christmas morning; I lay awake contemplating and luxuriating. It had been a usual and satisfying evening. An hour at the piano, micro-zapped leftovers for dinner, a bit of writing, tying up some cyber loose ends from work.
About the time I settled in, sighed and pulled the covers to my chin, the realization hit me.
The puzzle piece I had been holding so tightly as a precious souvenir of my past; the beautiful priority piece, reminder of who I am and want to be; the piece I feared belonged only in a box long discarded and given away? That piece fits perfectly in the puzzle now in construction on the table of my life.
What a beautiful morning. It was good to wake up with the sun and find I am still alive, for there are things to do, places to go, people to see. At 1:00 a.m. I wondered if I would live to see another day. It is so unusual for me to be any thing but healthy. My first thought was, “How have I compromised my system?” Stress? I did talk to support tech online for 90 minutes during the day and I am taking on more responsibility at work. Food allergy? Mom fed me, as good moms are wont to do. Everything is home-cooked at her house, but sometimes she forgets to tell you she added bullion or MSG laden flavor packets until you are half way through your serving.
Air borne allergies? Hot water heat is the best thing ever for my respiratory health. Now, those afghans, what germs cuddled in them last? Or was it the dryer lint? (in which case, I am allergic to my work clothes). The Cold? Oh, yes, the cold is bitting-and dry. The earache that stabbed me at a few minutes to nine -just before I walked out the door of my parent’s warm house, extended all the way from my right ear down into my throat, making me think of strep throat. Tucked into my car, I raised it a level to pneumonia. “I gotta get home and nip this in the bud, my bronchials have never hurt this bad.”
Fifteen minutes later, cup of herbal tea in hand and hot wrap heating in the microwave, I was still puzzled whence came the pain. No stuffy nose, no congestion, just griping, constricting pain moving into my chest, radiating toward my back. Wait a minute, did I say constricting? 10:00 p.m. and peacefully in my own bed, was I about to get my wish? My S-I-L and I have an agreement: No cancer. Just massive heart attack. Best way to go. Should I get up and open the blinds so anyone coming to check on me when I turn up missing can look through the window instead of knocking incessantly? No. I think I will drift off to sleep instead. One a.m. wide awake with upper chest pain, bargaining, “Yes, God of the Universe, I want to die peacefully with a heart attack, but I wanted to pay off my debts first. I want to have a legacy to leave for my children. And, oh, could it be out on some beautiful beach or hiking trail?”
The pain is now bearable and I am quite functional and calm. And that is why, I think I’ll grab this last opportunity and go for a nice long walk in the sunshine.
This year, while some are making Much Ado – make that a Hamlet of a to do, or not to do – about shopping on Thanksgiving; I continue to make it my aim to stay away from stores after Halloween. There are two reasons for this. Reason number one has nothing to do with the people or the commercialization of Christmas. I abhor the tedious traffic and random road work.
Despite my best intentions; I found myself in big box retail areas the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
As soon as I exited my car, I heard the Salvation Army bell ringer. Ah, the red bucket, now that’s nostalgic. A generous creature of habit, I reached for my coin purse. What did I find there? Two guitar picks and a drum key. I don’t think that is what the charity is looking for. Bingo. No money in the wallet is reason number two for not shopping anytime after Halloween.
Sprouts Farmer’s Market is my new favorite grocery. I stopped there to pick up a few fresh ingredients. Crowds of organically, ecologically inclined customers were bustling about, smiling and swinging along to upbeat pop tunes of the 70s, little sign of shopping for anything beyond the pleasant anticipation of cooking and feasting.
Meanwhile, at Hobby Lobby, long lines formed to pay for mounds of Christmas decorations while other shoppers seemed driven as they searched through glittering aisles of red and green, silver and gold. There was something a bit non sequitur about the funeralish organ rendition piping through the speakers, “And….he walks with me and he talks with me.” By the time I made my way to the cash register, the instruments were crescendoing a gentle reminder, “Climb every mountain, search, high and low, follow every byway, every path you know…”
Here’s hoping you are warmed and fed and feeling peace this holiday season. And may all your incongruities and non sequiturs be not too jarring or jolting.
Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!
