best laid plans

What is it about calendars and daytimers that leads us to believe that we can plan everything? Weekdays are for working and weekends for everything else, right?

I'd had in mind to do some planting this past weekend, but nothing in my planning anticipated rain -- and lots of it. A friend in the northwest has slickers, boots, rubber gloves and who-knows-what-else to enable her to slog through mud and more in her pursuit of her hobby, but not I. Nonetheless, I managed to sneak in a few chores between showers.

Friday I took myself to a nearby nursery where I became lost in the sounds, scents and textures of the early growing season. I had a color scheme in mind when I arrived -- even had a list so I'd remember, but once confronted with a rainbow assortment of pansies... Three color combos later, I'd decided on warm colors to stand out and hold their own in the brightest summer sun and against a red brick wall. And I couldn't leave without tomato plants: Early Girl and Sweet 100. Add those to a yellow pear tomato that a friend gave me last week, and I'll be enjoying home-grown in just a couple of months.

Plans aside, the afternoon was pure heaven and just what I needed. Saturday, not so much.

The first of two rainy days, it was a dance between cloudy skies and unexpected soakings. During one of those drier intervals I managed to clean and rearrange the balcony in anticipation of the really dirty work out there. And finally when the sun broke through late on Sunday, I was able to get some pansies into two hanging pots. More to do, but that will have to wait. I expected to continue next weekend, but forecast teasers hint at more unsettled weather. Memo to self: check out rain gear for everyday walking and unsheltered gardening.

One benefit of rainy days is the excuse to catch up on movies and books. Cleaning never even makes the list. I finally had the chance to see "The Gleaners and I." I've mentioned this documentary before. Agnes Varda filmed pickers and gleaners throughout France. From all walks of life, their reasons ranged from economic necessity and homelessness to an eye for beauty, worth and meaning in stuff that others have tossed or left behind. Still others combined their frugality with strong opinions about needless waste. What they all saw was potential.

Having a plan certainly played a role in the lives of the gleaners that I saw in Varda's film. There was a street-wise and seasonal savvy that informed their routes and timing. Perhaps a sense of what they needed also influenced what they found as they scanned the pickings, but more at play was a kind of opportunism. Plan too closely and we could miss opportunities that present themselves ... even come up empty-handed and disappointed.

Planning and potential. Focused and open. I guess my weekend wasn't so bad even if it didn't go according to plan. I gleaned the best from what came my way and will have the chance to do the same in just a few days. More important perhaps is the potential for practicing this philosophy each and every day.


Check out "Gleaners" at http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com.

inanimate objects

Crossing the street this morning, I whipped back and picked up a small green plastic dinosaur before the light changed. Not the smartest thing to do with right-on-red and other hazards of being a pedestrian on Massachusetts streets, but something made me do it. The school crossing guard (and likely every driver at the intersection) probably thought I was crazy. I placed the toy on the base of the pole which has the button for regulating the lights for crossing and said to her, "Some little kid might just be devastated that he (that's what came to mind) lost this." She said nothing and, for a change, no drivers had honked at having to wait.

I pictured the tiny dino's owner coming back from school along a familiar route, finding it intact (not squashed by cars) and putting it back in his pocket where it belonged. Together again.

Yesterday I met Beth Rotondo at a public reading from her new book, "Threads of Hope, An Offering for Those Who Grieve." It's a small volume, perfectly sized for someone to keep nearby during times of loss. Beth is a bereavement counselor and created "Threads" around questions that she's heard during twenty-five years of listening to people who are searching and living through their grief. The brief readings are her sensitive meditations and responses to those questions.

Beth invited her audience to discuss how we learn about death, mourning and life afterward. She said that our earliest experiences with death and loss inform how we cope with both throughout our lives, often unconsciously. What were you told when you were a child? Occasionally she punctuated her comments with excerpts that reinforced and comforted -- affirmed people's experiences.

So when I rescued the dinosaur today, was I responding to some message learned early on? It was a baby doll that "died" when I was about six years old. Did that part of me want to make things right for another child? Life doesn't always provide those opportunities. Pondering this as I walked along, I eventually arrived back at the crosswalk and, hitting the button to change the light again, I noticed that the dinosaur was gone.


Note: E-mail Beth (bethrotondo@verizon.net) to learn more or to order "Threads of Hope". It would make a wonderful gift for those times when you don't have the words.

artifacts

Today was trash day in the neighborhood and I realized that I will soon come to know people I might never meet by what they toss.

Gardeners are recyclers. I came back with two suitably-sized pots and a tray for seedlings. But oh, the agony. On a corner was a wooden planter among bags of sodden leaves. I could think of three uses and homes for the whiskey barrel, but had to walk away. First choice would have been on my balcony, but that would soon have crashed to the ground -- seven floors below!

There was a documentary a few years ago about people who have turned scavenging into an art in France. It is not viewed with skepticism or distaste there. Those who ply this urban recycling are called scavengers, but in the countryside they're called gleaners or pickers. Words have that power: to reframe and transform. I like that. It's all in your perception. In Wellesley, MA and other New England towns, the town dumps have taken on the tone of boutiques, town meeting, coffee klatch and more. I like the idea of being a gleaner: "to gather, to pick bit by bit."

But I digress. Anyway late this afternoon I found a surprise package in my mail box. A gardening friend who lives three time zones away had sent me a juicy little book ("Container Gardening" by Stephanie Donaldson). I stripped the book bag off and started to toss that when a line in the accompanying note stopped me. The bag was over thirty years old. Unable to resist, I peeled back her mailing label and found that it was postmarked August 12, 1971, and it was addressed to her dad.

I love those times when the most innocuous things provide glimpses into people's lives. In this case I learned that her father was into ham radios. He'd received a book on the subject and, get this, the packaging bore only 14 cents postage!! It had cost his daughter $3.95 to send my book. Amazing.

S's dad was a quiet, meticulous man with seemingly limitless patience and attention to detail. He'd spend hours on a riding mower -- or small tractor -- carefully grooming the sloping yard around their Connecticut home. His wife was the gardener. I'd known that he fixed clocks, but now I'd discovered another of his pastimes. It might have even been a passion.

My gardening buddy from the northwest had carefully saved that envelope for nearly thirty-five years. It was an artifact. Whatever her reason for letting it go -- recycling it -- at long last, I was as pleased to see it as the gift inside. It made a sort of personalized gift wrap, which also brought back fond memories of a gentle man, a real gentleman and an avid hobbyist.

Artifacts and clues to hidden lives. Or put another way, one person's trash is another person's artifact.

training wheels

Remember Calvin and Hobbes? They were favorites of mine before the comic strip ended a few years ago. One had Calvin sitting on a swing -- just sitting there frame after frame. In the final block he's bellowing, "Somebody give me a push!"

The other day I spotted a dad walking with his young son, who probably wasn't even two years old. The toddler was in a stroller that had him in a hot wheels-style car seat, little legs pumping furiously on the pedals while his father held the handle in the rear. When Dad let go the entire operation halted and I watched him lean over to encourage his pint-size Mario Andretti to keep pedaling. He didn't, of course, and nothing moved. So it remained up to Dad to keep pushing, supplying the pedal-power that drove his little boy's legs like tiny pistons, and they cruised away together.

It made me think of how we all start out: needing someone when we're small to teach us how to navigate the world. If they do a good job, we are eventually able to do it -- making our way under our own steam. Like Calvin, some days we want someone to give us boost, but as he also learned, most days it's up to us. That's life.

On those days, however, when I'm pedaling as fast as I can and seem to be getting nowhere, I could envy that little guy who can still count on his back-up to keep him going. On the other hand, perhaps I simply need to remember that sometimes it's okay -- even wise -- to coast.

I'm just sayin'...

It made all the difference. I made my way into the surrounding neighborhood this morning and within minutes had left the traffic and my "not a morning person" sluggishness behind. There were cardinals instant messaging each other and a mockingbird doing his thing from a chimney top. Crocuses had opened, daffodil trumpets were unfurling, and tulip foliage reached toward the light. I immediately fell into rhythm.

An open journal and hot tea waited for me to return thirty minutes later and I can truly say that this new start to my days seems to be working. It took repeating that "just do it" mantra to get me going, but it was worth it, so I hope to do this as many mornings as my schedule allows. The good news is that, when it doesn't, these increasingly long days invite late-day walks and the journal is always ready to catch up. These options lessen my self-imposed pressure to get it right every time.

Hope that you're enjoying the freshness of each new day, too.

learning all over again

I began to walk again today. Let me re-phrase that: I’ve started to walk for pleasure and exercise again. And I’ve recommitted to journaling as part of that morning practice. Exercise and writing are wonderful counterpoints.

I’ve whined, complained and made excuses for my lack of exercise since I moved into my new place over a year ago. My morning schedule and routine both changed. I live in a high-rise now and somehow that excused my getting out the door for fresh air and a brisk walk. (The closest I get to a workout is walking up seven flights after collecting the mail.) The bordering streets are filled with cars and trucks whizzing by like Hot Wheels at top speed – not exactly conducive to the meditative-style walk that I prefer.

So I latched onto any possible excuse -- fabricating and prevaricating. Finally, however, my frustration had grown in proportion to my ever-expanding waistline, and on Saturday I made the commitment to begin again today. I was equally committed to sleeping late on Sunday as the clocks robbed us of an hour, but today would be back to normal.

As promised, this morning I began again and had to share half of my route with smelly, noisy autos. But, hey, they held commuters captive to their schedules and I am relatively free to time my walk to suit myself. I’m still not entirely familiar with this neighborhood so I’ll make a point of strolling through and checking out the surrounding area for quiet streets. I like hearing wind rustling through leaves and pine trees, peeking into yards and catching glimpses of birds at feeders, checking out homeowners’ plantings, watching the sky change -- generally letting my mind and senses wander. I bet that I’ll find what I need within a few blocks.

As I reluctantly tied up my shoes this gray early morn, I realized that I need to adopt a “just do it” attitude each day and once out the door, it will be a non-issue as I head off to explore my new surroundings. I also thought of my mother who, in her eighties, is committed to walking daily. She has good and bad days and still makes herself do it to maintain her mobility and other health benefits. What can I say? She puts me to shame.

I risk something by airing this commitment publicly, but am also comfortable with the fact that I don’t have to report in here either. What would make me happy is to re-integrate something I’ve enjoyed and benefited from in the past. I just feel better when I walk, meditate and write. I feel more grounded, centered and focused, and enter and move through my days with greater ease no matter what comes my way. Conclusions: my (re)inaugural walk energized me; sipping tea and journaling afterward in the quiet was comfortingly familiar and welcome; and tomorrow is another day.

Note: Weeks have passed and it's worth noting that my friend's father died. She and I did go to the Flower Show together -- couldn't have been in better company.