I am loving this poem for a variety of reasons, and I hope you do, too.
PATIENCE OF ORDINARY THINGS
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Bluehost, the company that hosts this lovely blog, has backed me out of my new version of WordPress so that I can at least upload pictures.
Much like coronavirus has laid bare all of the ugliness in our healthcare system (among other things), this incident with WordPress has made me see that my site has some serious underlying issues that I need to correct.
Probably not today. But soon.
Anyway. Nothing to see here. Just this view of these trees, taken about a week ago.
Be well. Take care of each other. Wash your hands.
You know what I mean – whenever I update anything, everything that previously worked seamlessly suddenly doesn’t work. This is why yesterday’s post has no picture and why what I am typing right now looks like my old Commodore 64 from middle school.
I am apparently unable to upload a picture to my blog anymore, which is disappointing, at least to me. I get a “The response is not a valid JSON response” message, which seems impossible to fix.
Hey, people who know WordPress. I will pay you eleventy million dollars to help me fix this. I am utterly flummoxed and more than a little hostile about it.
Today Khristian Weeks and I went for a long walk at Lake Roland. Which was great, except it seemed that many other people had the same idea for a long walk before the rain comes tonight.
And then halfway through our walk it struck me that our bodies have become weaponized with this virus. I didn’t really want to be close to people out walking, and any time anyone sneezed it felt dangerous.
Another walker passing by commented that it sure is a shitty time to have allergies. #heard
But then there is the other side of this, the positive things that are beginning to emerge from this ongoing (and much longer than we think, IMVHO) crisis. The U.S. has figured out that yes, we can help everyone, from the poor to the elderly to the uninsured, if we put our mind (and our priorities) to it.
Maybe we are even beginning to appreciate some of the things we have taken for granted. Freedom of movement. Comfort. Toilet paper.
Calm the fuck down on that last one, people. Good lord.
Anyway.
Towards the end of our walk, I spied a little spiky plant next to the path – stinging nettle. Long reviled as an evil weed, this plant is arguably one of the most nutrient-dense plant foods available in the wild. Not only is stinging nettle delicious as food, cooked to remove the sting, but the root extract also helps to relieve allergy symptoms. There is not a ton of research on this, but some studies have been promising. Proceed with caution, as it can also, ironically, cause allergy symptoms.
So this little plant seems to sum up our current global crisis. Yes, there are barbs that must be dealt with, preferably gently and with great care, but in the end there may be innumerable benefits if we can just bring ourselves to look past the prickly outside (and since the virus itself looks spiky, this is also a skillful metaphor. I had the phrase “very skillful metaphor,” but decided it was more obvious than skillful and so eliminated the “very”).
And there we are. Today’s missive, literally from the field.
Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and cough into your elbow. And take an allergy pill before you go for a walk.
How you know it’s serious: boxed wine stores are low at The Wine Source
It’s March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day if you care about that sort of thing. The sun is shining, mostly, and Khristian and I are practicing social distancing from everyone but each other.
I have taken the cat for a walk (which is funny), and we have gone to my house for a re-stock on books and supplies for gluten-free scones. I am about to crack a pineapple cider (Austin Eastciders) and maybe will continue to read aloud from Michael Pollan’s book A Place of My Own, dreaming of a day when Canada opens its borders back to people in the U.S. and we can start building our little shack.
It’s strange times, these, and I have to have some sort of plan for myself to keep anxiety at bay. So far I am not great at doing the right things (e.g., staying off social media and not compulsively checking the news), but I am writing this instead of doing those things. Perhaps I will do this daily, write a dispatch, so to speak, and send it into the void as everyone learns how to work at home and crowds onto the internet like the train platforms they used to stand on for their daily commute. I have a few recipes to work on from recent travels, and those will happen in the next week or so.
How will you spend this time of quietly reflected madness where we try not to peer too deeply into the darkness of what might be?
Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and cough into your elbow.
