Saturday, May 14, 2011

Salvage/Salvation/Salve

Today we dug a hole
and filled it back in.
Quick, that.
Acceptance.

Then I wrestled with bindweed and Himalayan blackberries, buttercups and lemon balm -- all clearly in control of the landscape. It's no longer a garden, but I'm wielding my machete and I intend to show it just who's in charge.

It used to be a lovely hidden garden. One year I inventoried the different types of flowers in bloom at one time and the count was in the 80's. That was a former life. A last-century life. Not one of us still inhabits it.

Today.

More culling in the kitchen, more combining of oils and vinegars, of unsweetened cocoa and unbleached flour, of rice both white and brown. Every project I undertake is woven into several other tasks simultaneously. So this afternoon it was drawer/closet/cupboard/another-cupboard/more-drawers: emptied, scrubbed, arranged & rearranged.

So often we are past the pull-date, every one of us.

Let's all recycle, now, every last cell in our sack of skin.

6 comments:

  1. you know, there is something very calm and compelling in the steady work of this, the recollection of what was, the accommodation to what is, the decisions about what can be. More than that, patient action, forward motion, one thing, then the next, then the next.

    I'm here with you. Just wanted you to know.

    Hugs.

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  2. I'm glad we've found each other, actually.

    This is stunning: "Let's all recycle, now, every last cell in our sack of skin."

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  3. Just keep moving forward making what is out of what was. You'll get there.

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  4. yes, T., this sorting is good, necessary. and you are doing some really terrific, unpredictable writing. it's not always "pretty"--but it's immediate and strong.

    thanks.

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  5. More than 80 types of flowers in a last-century life. Yesterday, because of mortality as a surrounding theme, I thought of shelf-life, the "use-by" date. Then today I thought of our splendid, word-driven and art-speckled souls and the lives and bodies, the vehicles, which we are, at times, asked to shoehorn them into. Sifting through stuff, to purge or order or just look, is very grounding to me. And a machete lets us add fierce to our resume. xo

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