HempSisal of Simmer
Aug. 2nd, 2018 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoHappy Lughnasadh to all! Or happy Lugnuts, as the Sparrowhawk pronounces it for his own amusement. It's also the TENTH anniversary for the Nipper and Redhead, parents of my beloved Raptor. I don't know how time has gone by so fast! (And I forgot to mention the equally precious EIGHTH anniversary of Tron and the Lumberjack last month.) I'm praying for rain and a sweet rain of mercy as the summer turns, in this season of drought and fire. I've started waking up at three in the morning again, which isn't great. All that remains of last night's dreams is the memory of a talking fish, who was giving me a tour of the facility and explaining why it was partially flooded--about up to my knees. The fish was agreeable enough, but kind of uncanny.
I've hit some kind of invisible bump in the road. My nights are tinctured with dread. I'm finding it hard to embark on projects, and harder still to carry them out. This isn't new. It's kind of a recurring theme. Today I couldn't get going on wordage production, so I thought I'd take refuge in a little research. I started looking at some of the books on Rome that my father sent me, toward the end of the time when he was able to pack up and send books. They were so beautiful. I didn't get around to reading them when he was alive. My eyes filled with tears and I couldn't read any more. So much for research, sigh.
Yesterday I didn't get out for a walk, because I had my hair cut, and it takes so long that it messed up my schedule. It's the season of orange barrels, and even my detours have detours now, so it took me too long to get home and I missed Black Lives Matter. However, I did have time to make cookies. The Sparrowhawk was longing for oatmeal raisin. I used the King Arthur Flour Cookbook Essential Crunchy Oatmeal Cookie. Instead of raisins, I put in some trail mix with dried cranberries. They're great--as good as, or better than, the kind you buy in a coffee shop for two bucks each. The recipe made twenty-one cookies, so I created forty dollars worth of elite baked goods from materials at hand.
I succeeded in going out for a walk today. I was walking past an amazing very old silver maple, and noticed a fleeting but familiar scent in the air, and realized that it was the scent of the silver maple tree, though I could never describe what that is exactly. Different kinds of trees have different scents, and old trees smell different from young ones. It's not even a scent, always. It's more of an atmosphere, a breathing, an aura. And different kinds of plants, grasses, flowers, reeds, change the air in different ways. The sight and smell of freely-growing plants is an elixir to me. It's the breath of life, like a vitamin I need to be healthy. The sound of the wind in the branches, bird song, water running, crickets--I need outside. I would find it hard to thrive in an urban setting. I'm so lucky to have this little pocket of woods near my house. Walking isn't as physically demanding as the gym, but it is more necessary to me in other ways.
I've hit some kind of invisible bump in the road. My nights are tinctured with dread. I'm finding it hard to embark on projects, and harder still to carry them out. This isn't new. It's kind of a recurring theme. Today I couldn't get going on wordage production, so I thought I'd take refuge in a little research. I started looking at some of the books on Rome that my father sent me, toward the end of the time when he was able to pack up and send books. They were so beautiful. I didn't get around to reading them when he was alive. My eyes filled with tears and I couldn't read any more. So much for research, sigh.
Yesterday I didn't get out for a walk, because I had my hair cut, and it takes so long that it messed up my schedule. It's the season of orange barrels, and even my detours have detours now, so it took me too long to get home and I missed Black Lives Matter. However, I did have time to make cookies. The Sparrowhawk was longing for oatmeal raisin. I used the King Arthur Flour Cookbook Essential Crunchy Oatmeal Cookie. Instead of raisins, I put in some trail mix with dried cranberries. They're great--as good as, or better than, the kind you buy in a coffee shop for two bucks each. The recipe made twenty-one cookies, so I created forty dollars worth of elite baked goods from materials at hand.
I succeeded in going out for a walk today. I was walking past an amazing very old silver maple, and noticed a fleeting but familiar scent in the air, and realized that it was the scent of the silver maple tree, though I could never describe what that is exactly. Different kinds of trees have different scents, and old trees smell different from young ones. It's not even a scent, always. It's more of an atmosphere, a breathing, an aura. And different kinds of plants, grasses, flowers, reeds, change the air in different ways. The sight and smell of freely-growing plants is an elixir to me. It's the breath of life, like a vitamin I need to be healthy. The sound of the wind in the branches, bird song, water running, crickets--I need outside. I would find it hard to thrive in an urban setting. I'm so lucky to have this little pocket of woods near my house. Walking isn't as physically demanding as the gym, but it is more necessary to me in other ways.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-03 03:10 pm (UTC)