Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Life as Metaphor

This morning I was washing some strawberries in my hands, at the kitchen sink. They were the dark red that signifies optimal sweetness and impending mold if not eaten soon, so I had a huge, barely contained double-fist-full. As I was quickly moving my hands around under the stream, anxious to get them washed and eaten, I saw one of the topmost strawberries tilt and start to fall. It was particularly ripe looking. With a quiet, "noooooo..." I watched it fall, and as I awkwardly tried to move my ungainly handful of berries to cover the garbage disposal drain, it bounced tock-a-donk-dunk into the drain. I looked down with sadness and regret.

You could make of that many different metaphors and lessons. The two that struck me immediately were: one, this is what happens when we try to grasp too much. Even if it's a good thing, if we try to hold onto too much, we end up losing some of what we have. Two, if we try to hurry through life to get to the good bits, we end up destroying some of those good bits we're trying to get to.


In other news, I went for a walk today at my parent's house. I so much prefer my parent's house for environment over New York City. So so much. But New York has the people and events that I need, for my growth and sustenance.  New York's got the people, the forest and garden have the place.

When I got back from the walk, I stopped by the garden, which had a bed of invincible kale that had overwintered and was putting out new leaves. I snacked on a few and was amazed to discover the sweetest, tenderest kale I'd ever eaten. If cold doesn't kill a plant, it makes it sweeter; apparently the plant starts manufacturing more sugars, because sugar water freezes at lower temperatures. That way the water in the plant can stay liquid, even below thirty-two fahrenheit. And new spring growth is almost always the tenderest and least bitter.

Anyways, suddenly I was back with mother earth, resting against her heart, held and loved, and all was right with the world. I crouched around the lawn, eating fresh new dandelion leaves, and a few little white flowers from the mustard family, piquant and lively, dusting the grass like yesterday's snow.

This all just reminded me, viscerally, of how I want to live. This is the kind of thing I want to do at home. All the time. I'm not sure how to have both this and what the city offers. But hopefully I'll find a way.


I have another story from last week. Unwritten until now because of time constraints. Even now, I start to worry I'm spending too much time writing a blog post and need to get back to the more pressing deadlines in my life. Preparing classes and presentations and taxes and all the necessary minutiae of all the administrative and self-educative demands of life.

Anyhoo, here it is:
Last week, at my parents house, while I was alone there, taking out the compost, a bird got into the garage. When I came back, it was banging itself against the garage door windows, thought the opposite garage door was open. I thought maybe I was scaring it, so I moved over to the other side of the garage. That way if it wanted to get away from me, it would have to fly towards the open door. But it just kept banging itself against the windows. So, with my best impersonation of Dr. Doolittle, I said, "The way out is over there." And pointed to the open garage door. Instantly the bird changed its behavior, started moving towards the open door, and flew out. That made my day. More of that in my life please.

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