Front Yard Flowerbed in February

Normally, the February garden report is filled with words about Winter’s stillness.  From this view, Winter is in full control in this picture — the sky is low and grey, other than the ivy and moss, nothing else seems to be growing.  It looks cold outside. 

But when I scouted up close, there is promise to be seen.

Daffodils!  The tips of the slender stems are just peaking through this mess of a flowerbed.  I am best pleased by this happy development and now I will obsessively check the flowerbed to monitor the progress.

Though its been a mostly mild Winter, I am still excited for the coming Spring.  Monday’s forecast calls for a sunny day with temps above 55 degrees and I hope there will be enough after-school sunlight for me to do some cleaning out of this flowerbed.  That will make space for the other flowers and plants to come and sustain my already busy Spring daydreaming.  This short month is all that stands between me and full-flown Spring madness.  

January Book Report: Emma

In preparation for the February release of a new Emma movie, I got out my copy of the Jane Austen classic this month.  

This book is a delicious treat, as is the case with all things Jane Austen (I’m watching Sanditon on Masterpiece Theater this month and it’s been pleasing).  In Emma, the dialogue is clever and witty.  The characters are an assortment of Austen’s carefully drawn quirky townspeople, at least a few of whom are especially tiresome and somehow still quite charming.  In short, the book is delightful and the story pops right along.  I’ve read Emma so many times that I can anticipate my favorite scenes.  For me, a committed re-reader, this is especially pleasing.

Every re-read finds me aware of something new in the novel.  This time around, it was a reminder about the limited world of educated women in the 1800s.  Emma, who works as a matchmaker for the women around her, resists marriage for most of the novel, preferring to stay home and care for her charming (but hypochondriac) father.  Her resistance to marriage is about her father but it’s also about having the chance to shape her life for herself.

In the end, of course, Emma does choose marriage.  In her case, it’s without giving up her sense of self.  As is the case with all Austen novels, the reader gets her happy ending.  But this is no saccharine event, accompanied as it is by the voice of an all-seeing honest narrator.  Emma was a cozy pleasure in January.  Plus, I’m ready for the movie next month!

Your Weekly Amaryllis - Week 4

Most years, the week four amaryllis report is filled with despair that the bulb may never bloom.  This year, T confessed that she read the instructions on the box and stored the bulb in a cool place in advance of Christmas day.  As I am known for my unwillingness to turn up the furnace, she claims that cool place was underneath the Christmas tree.  One thing is clear, it wasn’t next to the area heater in her Africa-hot home office.  Here at week four, the very start of a flower can be seen.

Tucked in the greenhouse corner, the tall stalk gets plenty of inspiration from the southern sunlight and neighboring plants. In the next few weeks, we’ll see a flower.  That’s happy!

Tiger the Tub Cat

I am not writing of a heretofore unknown Dr. Suess title but rather of my weirdo cat, Tiger.  In his most natural state, Tiger is committed to a life of restful leisure.

I think he’s quite charming in this state because it is me that he loves best.  Together, we share a commitment to soft blankets, naps on the sofa, and vanilla ice cream.  Sometimes, we allow Lucy to join us.

But Tiger has another side and it’s weird: he likes to get in the shower.  Usually, he reserves his shower sojourns for the moment when someone has just completed a shower.  Then, while the bather seeks to extract themselves from the tub, he hops in and licks up the water in the corner near the faucet (this despite the fact that he has his own generous bowl of water refreshed daily). However, the temporary shower plastic to-prevent-further-leaking has cramped his style.  Now he waits on the edge of the shower while I shower, meowing his dissatisfaction with the current inadequate accommodations.

Imagine his response when this entire shower is torn out.  No doubt he’ll file a complaint with the ASPCA.  I am in the process of seeking legal representation.

The Framers Can’t Protect Us from Ourselves

As the farce that is the Republican-controlled Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump unfolds, I find myself turning toward the coming Democratic primary elections as a sort of tonic against the madness that is this trial.  It’s not that I don’t support the impeachment: I emphatically do and could happily add a half dozen more charges to the list.  But I can already see the writing on the wall:  the Republican Senators plan to carry water for their president and this entire process is going to be play acting of the very worst sort.

It’s not that the players lack seriousness.  The Democratic House managers believe the president should convicted and removed.  The Republican Senators are determined to protect their man.  And so we all go through the motions, in the process making a sham of the Constitution.

The resilience of the American experiment is thus being tested.  Watching that process unfold is disturbing and scary.  In his closing remarks on Thursday evening, House impeachment manager Adam Schiff’s emotional conclusion pointed out the fact that the Constitution demands we make decisions between right and wrong.  Then he made the most important point: “The Framers can’t protect us from ourselves.”

It boils down to just that.  We have our republic.  Can we protect and keep it?

Your Weekly Amaryllis - Week Three

This little stem is really getting after the work of blooming into a flower.  Winter sunlight is my ally in this task and it’s been a fairly sunny Winter so far.

By the time a flower appears, February will be underway and I will have started plotting my transition to Spring.  For me, Winter’s chill feels anticipatory: a chance to tuck under a cozy blanket and  daydream about the blooming seasons to come.  The amaryllis is my ally in this expectant season, a reminder of the warmth and light that is steadily making its way forward.

Real Life Texts with T: Water edition

The backstory:  Between the broken dishwasher (the water pump failed) and the kitchen leak from the upstairs shower, water and I have been struggling in 2020.  I came to school today and was here less than an hour when a student reported water leaking in the girls bathroom.  This led to a text exchange with T.

Me:  There is a toilet leaking in the girl’s bathroom.  Pretty much everywhere I go there is a water problem.  WTF?

T:  Water always wins - ask the Grand Canyon.

Truth.

Home Improvement: 2020 Shower edition

The morning after our new dishwasher made its triumphant way into the kitchen, T was taking a shower before work and I was helping myself to an extra cup of coffee when I felt a drip from the kitchen ceiling.  Unexpected water is never good.  A glance overhead confirmed that initial reaction.  There was a leak from the shower overhead.

The upstairs bathroom is directly above the kitchen and I am sorry to report that water in this location isn’t new.  The last time it leaked, in 2010, a whole new bathroom was installed.  

A plumber and tile installer confirm the problem: some loose tiles in the upstairs shower.  They’ve been re-grouted before but that repair is term-limited and it’s likely a new tile job is in our future.  In the meantime, T engineered a temporary hold to prevent continued dripping: a shower curtain against the wall, held in place by some duct tape.

This will get us through the next few weeks and buy some time for big decisions.  It’s not elegant but it will do the trick.  Stay tuned, because 2020 is looking like another year in my home improvement saga.

The Courage to Live in My Own Body

Though I can’t remember a time when I felt as if it was acceptable to like my body, I can remember the moment that I first began to dislike my body.  

I was 9.  

It seems especially fitting that I can’t really remember liking my body.  For a long, long time, that is where things stood: I didn’t like my body, assumed others felt the same, and actively worked to get to a place where my body was worthy of being liked, or at least that is what I told myself.  Honestly, it was just a series of attempts to change my body so that I could hate it less.

But hate it less was the goal; liking my body seemed downright impossible.

I know the origins of the dislike and they are deep-seated.  Of greater importance to me is the way the dislike played out.  For most of my life, I’ve seen everything via an internal lens of weight.  To the outside world I present a picture of confidence and sass.  It is my protective armor; a fake-it-til-you-make-it strategy that helped me to step forward in the world.  At various times, that outside attitude did reflect my internal landscape.  But never for very long.

Internally, the dialogue was often painfully critical.  I avoided mirrors and photos; I assumed that entire categories of clothing were off-limits for me because of my body.  I could (and can!) look at other people and see a whole person whom I value and see as beautiful because they are human and I value them as a person.  But that was rarely the case when I looked at myself.  Then, all I could see was a catalog of disappointments.  

Pregnancy, and healthcare by an amazing midwife, did help me for a while.  I delivered a healthy baby and vowed to make sure I didn’t pass on my body hate to him.  But that was the goal: not to actually like my body but to make sure my son didn’t hate his.

I devoured books about a healthy body image and, for the most part, I think I was a success on the body image front when it comes to my son.  But when it came to me, the dysfunction seemed like it had become a part of my DNA.

A few years ago, when a podiatrist was treating my exercise-induced heel pain, he pointed out the high arches and narrow heels of my feet and asked if it was hard for me to find shoes that fit comfortably.  I replied yes and mentioned my weight and he looked at me and said, “no…..I’m talking about your high arches and narrow heel.”  For the first time in my life, I realized that my feet are just odd, not a function of my weight.  

I was 44.

I know that shaming people about their bodies is wrong and dangerous.  I also know that it happens all the time.  In the last year I have begun to pay attention to women associated with the body positivity movement.  I like and admire them and their work.  I see them as amazing human beings with bodies that fuel their outspoken presence in a world that rarely welcomes women who step outside the limits of constrained social norms for female bodies.  When I feel like I am part of something hopeful for women.  That is a significant transition for me, one that is the outcome of years of hard work to undo the impressions first made on 9 year old me.

It doesn’t always come easy and these days I suspect that it never will.  But honesty demands that we value all of our bodies for what they do for us.  It means giving myself permission to eat alone in public and wear the clothing I like.  To wear a swimsuit.  It means being willing to be in photos and not flinching from them (okay, this remains a challenge). It means making a concerted effort to like my self without apology.   To take up space and feel and believe that I deserve to do so.  

And so I do.

Your Weekly Amaryllis - Week Two

Sitting amongst the plants in a southern facing window has been a good arrangement for the amaryllis, which is coming along nicely.

Some years, it takes more than a few weeks for progress to show itself and I end up fretting abut the plant on a daily basis.  This year’s amaryllis bulb has quite kindly gotten after the job at hand so that my frets are at a minimum.  That’s happy!