Category Archives: Home and Hearth

Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Metaphor, Uncategorized

Why did the rabbit cross the road?

January 22, 2014 Cherry

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.”

Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Holidays and Traditions, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being

Seasons of Lights

December 27, 2013 Cherry 1 Comment

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)

Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Uncategorized

Wherein I contemplate a cozy bowl of soup

December 22, 2013 Cherry Leave a comment

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.

Emotional Health, Home and Hearth, Metaphor, Uncategorized

The laughter of Autumn

September 16, 2013 Cherry Leave a comment

I love the fall. Autumn is my favorite season. Besides the break from summer heat; perhaps because of the break from summer heat, it is my most creative time of year. In the fall, I begin to laugh again. In the last 48 hours, two huge guffaws have escaped me.

Listening to Colorado Public Radio while the female announcer was setting up a Bach Brandenburg Concerto. She mentioned the recent news that Voyager II is confirmed as having flown to infinity and beyond. You may be too young to know it, but Voyager II carries artifacts from our culture, expressing who we are as humans to unknown recipients of other stars and planets. Bach’s music is on that space ship. She then commented, “I wonder if the recording was vinyl or 8-track?”
This morning as I carried out a quick perusal of Facebook, I came upon this little piece of wit:

Addiction, Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Religion, Spiritual Well Being, The Rules, Uncategorized

The case of the tragic M&Ms

September 11, 2013 Cherry Leave a comment

A handful of M&Ms sat side by side in a cut glass bowl. They are tempting, and offered to me repeatedly – even urged on me. I decline. But, everybody loves chocolate, you will say. And you are right. Even I love chocolate, but I am allergic. Ah, you murmur, “that is tragic.” Not so. A simple, specific food allergy is something you can remedy immediately. A tragedy leaves you helpless, wounded, hopeless.

The M&Ms treasured in my antique heirloom bowl stand for misunderstanding and misinformation; miscommunication and misguided. I once knew an older woman who would attempt to mend broken relationships with the platitude, “It doesn’t matter. That was just a misunderstanding.” To which I say, “It does matter!” It was far more than misunderstanding. No amount of re-phrasing will clear up misguided misinformation!”

A few weeks ago, Novel Matters linked up a video presentation on cultural misunderstandings of poverty vs middle class vs affluence. You might think of it as the tragic case of M&Ms and Money. It was hugely informative to understanding the differences in background we bring to relationships. Listening to Dr Ruby Payne speak cast an illuminating spotlight back over the decades of my upbringing and subsequent relationships. I found myself thinking, “if I had only known.”

Money, as researchers have told us over and over, is one of the major conflict triggers in relationships. We could probably recite the list together: Money, Children, In-laws, Sex, Expectations, Religion…. For this post the other one that makes the list of tragic M&Ms is Marital intimacy.

Rarely do I agree 100% with a speaker, book or movie. I wonder how many relationships could be salvaged, healed or immunized if the video that follows went viral? True to the 2,000 year legacy of the name, Mars Hill, the video that follows clears up misinformed, misguided, misunderstood, miscommunicated belief.

If you are a woman who has been shamed for desire, suffered the contempt of those who were misinformed, or deprived by pornography; let the healing begin.

Let Him Kiss Me

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being, Uncategorized

Why hermits should sing

July 29, 2013 Cherry 2 Comments

Singing is aerobic. Aerobic activity releases endorphins which promote a feeling of well-being. A feeling of well-being brings happiness. Yes, singing requires an intake of oxygen which is invigorating. A couple of years back, when I was singing with the quartet, I had to remember to finish practicing well before 8:00 o’clock in the evening if I wished to get to sleep on time. You may have experienced the same cause and effect if you play a wind instrument.

Talking is a somewhat aerobic activity. They say friendship talking releases endorphins. Perhaps that is because we feel connected, or maybe because of the intake of added oxygen. I was reminded of this Thursday night on the way back from an outdoor concert. My cousin and I rode in the back seat to chat while her husband drove and a friend rode in the passenger seat. The stars were brilliant and we reminisced about a similar night sky when she was seven and I six years old. The olde tyme simplicity of conversation left me feeling great. A delightful evening well spent. Singing or talking can become downright intoxicating.

Frankly, since I live single, I don’t get a frequent chance to talk just for the sake of getting historic. No problem. Walking or hiking is also an aerobic activity. Walking in the great outdoors, getting a bit of exercise out in nature is another essential for that feeling of well-being.

So, here’s what I am thinking: Unless hermits hike about their caves all day long, they need to be about the business of singing. Obviously, they don’t have cousin Coni to talk with.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being, Uncategorized

Gratitude brings happiness

May 24, 2013 Cherry 1 Comment

Some months ago, while car shopping, I posted on Facebook “ Red with a spoiler,…but will it make me happy?” And my 24- year-old daughter responded, “Yes, yes it will.” If you know my daughter and me, this exchange seems ludicrous, almost batty. We both know that things don’t make you happy, that money doesn’t buy happiness. We are accustomed to live frugally.

I know some things that do bring happiness: a heart full of gratitude, time spent with those I love, the sweet feeling of success large or small.

Within a week of purchasing the vehicle, I was able to travel to Ft. Collins and visit my two younger children. I had been desperate to see them for several months. I can take the car to work or into less accessible areas. When I return from a long hike and see my own *Red Pearl in the distance, it is like coming home. My heart is filled with gratitude.

When I began car shopping, I knew just what I wanted; a dependable, fuel conscious Subaru Outback, preferably red, within the scope of my savings account. The spoiler was unexpected lagniappe. So is the upgraded stereo system – literal music to my ears.

It is impossible to ever enjoy a feeling of success without having set goals – large or small. Reflection on goals met or sweet success brings contentment and confidence. The confidence comes from being able to say, “I did what I said I was going to do.”

Andrea commences the rest of her life May 2012

I got my children through school. I finished my degree. After much research, saving and shopping; I got the car I wanted. But these successes share some things in common. They all cost money, time, focus.

Money may not buy happiness, but it does augment the time I spend with those I love, the sweet feeling of success; and hey, money right when it is needed causes overwhelming gratitude.

This year, I’m going to do what I said I was going to do. I’m going to write a book. I’m going to live as though I have been given only 365 days to live. That is going to take time and focus. Oh, and undoubtedly some money.

* Red Pearl – sorta like the Black Pearl, and captained by a woman. The dealer certificate lists the color as regatta red pearl.

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being, Uncategorized

Wherein I contemplate finances as a part of whole health

February 3, 2013 Cherry 4 Comments

Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual – all parts of the whole of good health, of well-being. What do you think? Is financial health so important as to be considered a part of the whole? I have often been accused of thinking too much, becoming too analytical as I ruminate on relationships. Today, I am thinking about my relationship with money.

Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual – four parts of personal health. Positive Psychology Daily News refers to these four as energies. Other psychologists have included a Social category to arrive at five dimensions. Some cite seven components: Emotional, Environmental, Spiritual, Physical, Social, Occupational, Intellectual.

However you slice the pie, I believe it is not wise to try, nor is it possible to sever one from the other. I agree with Paul’s first century letter to a Corinthian team, “Now the body is not made up of one part but of many…If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it (verse 14a and 26, I Corinthians 12).

Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Financial – Rather than stick with my usual four, I propose five parts of whole health and well-being.

Over the years, I have enjoyed exceptional physical health; better than average mental and spiritual stability and variable but manageable emotional health. Recently, I hit my stride physically via outdoor walks and hikes and careful attention to eating and sleeping habits. Optimum physical health has the happy effect of reawakening the mental, spiritual and emotional aspects. But, what about the financial?

I have noticed that money makes me happy and lack thereof makes me anxious and sad. Destitution wreaks havoc with my mental and emotional state as I strain my brain with the challenge of how to fix it. As long as I maintain regular walks, my physical state is the least affected. Eventually, financial stress may take its toll on the physical.

Are finances an energy? Is money one of the dimensions of my personality? Must wealth be one of the legs on which whole health stands?

How about you? Does your overall health and sense of well being hinge on financial health?

Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Metaphor, Uncategorized

The bunny at my house lives free and uncaged

January 11, 2013 Cherry 2 Comments

Cottontail on Monument Trail, September 2012

The bunny at my house lives free and uncaged, hippity hopping at will over an acre or more of desert terrain. He is a common cottontail – born in the wild in one of the warrens underneath the juniper cedars in my front yard. I see him every morning in the half-light before dawn and every evening at dusk as he scavenges in the flat sandy areas of my small adobe house front, or sniffing his way around the carried stones of the meditation maze in back. He nibbles with delight at the occasional tossed apple core, yet never turns up his nose at the winter starved rabbit brush, scanty saltbrush, or shadscale.

Today, in the fresh scouring of snow, he ventured completely up on the flagstone porch, whiffling in the cold powder. What did he find there? Some unknown nutrient blown in with the snow?

Some evenings, the bunny arrives while I am playing the piano and he pauses, twitches his ears and looks straight at me through the window glass. I fancy he likes the vibrations stroking his ears. Frequently, the rabbit is a complete distraction to students sitting at my dining room table for tutoring. While a rabbit might lend to research and discussion of mammals, rodents, or the differences between cottontails and jackrabbits; one rabbit does not facilitate a math lesson for nine-year-olds.

There are actually three that I know of. Occasionally, I see two of them sparring over food or territory in the small clearing. One time a third, and smaller, bunny huddled demurely in a clump of ricegrass, intently observing the contenders.

As dusk fell last week, a nine-year-old piano student looked up sharply from the keyboard, “There’s a rabbit!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, that’s my bunny.”

“Can you hold him and pet him?”

“No but I see him every morning and night and sometimes he stops to listen to me play the piano.”

“Can you put him in a cage and bring him inside?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To keep him warm. It is cold out there.”

“He has a fur coat and long underground tunnels were he keeps warm. He wants to be out right now.”

When I ponder the bunny in my front yard, some questions cross my mind:

Why would I want to take natural responsibility from the rabbit and smother it with artificial care and provision?

Why do I feel like something or someone belongs to me only if I can control them?

When I cannot control significant people, why do I feel they are no longer mine?

Why is it we want to catch and tame?

Can we not all live free and independent?

In truth, I see this bunny more often than I ever saw bunnies kept in a hutch. This bunny chooses to hop into my field of vision, forage on my doorstep. Bunnies in a cage are often forgotten but for chore time.

Cherry Odelberg