“Rain, then fog, then partial clearing. The day has dragged its feet through weighty moisture, trying to reclaim a more erect position, worthy of August, to peak in one last celebration of bloom. I’m used to pausing, this time of year, as the heat passes, or doesn’t, and the first traces of autumn begin to creep in. My clock, is a bit off. The huge flowering display I’m used to, is flopping onto walkways, prematurely rotten perhaps, but, none-the-less, agreeable to crossing every line of propriety. This should be a time of over-doing things. We need a month of excess, before things begin to retract. It’s a natural cycle, and gives balance to the many months ahead, where life pulls in, and dumbs down, and heads for the root, and storage, and understatement. Yet I feel, somehow, I’ve missed my fill. I’m wanting, and yearning, and hungry, still, for the relaxation of abundance. I miss my former life. I can’t imagine the profusion of possibility, I once had. I am struggling, to overcome a feeling of loss. The apple trees don’t know anything, from a human angle, but tree-to-tree, there are missing apples, alongside regular yields. Perhaps this job is best left to philosophers-poets. My plantings have not been for naught, & my mighty efforts to reign in have reflected, the wisdom of letting things go wild, at least, for a time. For this is an era, dedicated to the reshaping of the garden. All that we have been given, and accepted rather blithely, as ours to lord over. How stupid, and how sage. That we, blind-folded, should be put in charge of curating anything. Let us curate our own blindnesses, as easily as we trim the branches of an overgrown hydrangea. And rather than clinging to the ideas we have been fed, experience life in it raw form, which is all around us. The tiniest of curations, begin at home. In every interaction, and especially, in our most thoughtless, off-hand gestures. If kindness is not at the root, then the fledgling offspring will die. I feel it now, in the most mundane interactions, and I’m sure you feel it too. Driving into the lumber yard, slowing down to account for new water bars, who could not admit their cruising speed has been altered. None-the-less, I have my measurements on a Post-it note. I’m a lifer, when it comes to needing others. I’ve had no one to buffer me, from the hard facts of what it takes to maintain a rural life. Or if I did, it was short lived. And I took in all I could, while it lasted. We are learners, at our best. We are lucky, to be learners, and not merely hardened, bitter survivors. This incredible encounter with a fellow craftsman, someone focused on his trade, calms my nerves. I’m happy to hand over my design for a wood stove heat shield, that they’ll fabricate, just as I continue to fabricate a better life. Metal workers seem to be in my field of vision, and I’ve been amply rewarded to forge alliances with people who pound steel. I guess if I were to extrapolate on this, I could say that this is part of my tribe. They can’t do anything, without respecting heat, and form. FYI flowers are also melded according to their will to be manifest, without anvil, without hammer. Without anyone, if that’s how it goes.”
