Afternoon Delight

I worked at my keyboard for three straight hours each day of this vacation,  but then I did nothing.By nothing I mean I sat on the deck and read my book called Titan, the new biography of John D. Rockefeller with his long skinny face. (I’m just on page 21 of its 800 pages but it's a start!)I read this for an hour sitting up. Then I turned over onto on my stomach and read some more, now on the fully collapsed lawn chair with the book on the floorboards beneath me. Then I fell asleep for 90 minutes.On waking, I made a tuna sandwich without the bread or mayo which is a little like eating salty sawdust but never mind.  I also made a protein shake using as its base 8 ounces of strong coffee, a cup of ice cubes, a scoop of  chocolate flavored protein and two  and a packets of Truvia, the natural non-caloric non-sugar that would put a smile on the face of dead man.THEN I went back out to my lawn chair on the deck and read  some more  on my Kindle this time, that old sob story of a novel The Prince of Tides by by Pat at Conroy, made into a movie starring Blythe Danner, Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. I have read both this book before, which vacation is for. :-)It's true that since last Sunday I have I logged in about 25 hours of work for the organization that lately claims all my heart and many of my waking hours, but really I mostly just walked a little and looked out at the water.Around noon yesterday, a ruckus broke out on the deck next, like the sound of  a tiny helicopter crashing. I looked down and behold: it was two tiny helicopters crashing:  Two dragonflies, mating.The sight of them brought to mind the e.e. cummings poem I so I loved in high school about what a fine thing it is  when two creatures mate on your premises. These dragonflies whirred and fluttered and remained locked together for four or five minutes before the male flew off, leaving the female still and dazed.I have felt that way too this week: Still and dazed. It’s my one week off in the summer and I’m making the most of it. My man is outside for five of our 16 waking hours every day working,working, working on his ministry of weeding and when he comes inside in the world’s filthiest T-shirts and dirt in his teeth I can see he is one happy man. I’m happy too.  Once in a while I guess we all just need change of pace.And here's e.e. cummings from a different poem, speaking for me again:

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

a sweatshirt, a railing and a wee weeding man bending over his trash can. (I'll take the 800 page book ;-))

Let Go

I guess everyone gets hungry, and squirrels do love a nice fresh pumpkin.We have to just accept it.‘Feed my sheep,’ said Jesus when somebody asked what work they should be about after he was gone.Look after everybody, he meant and maybe by sheep he meant not just the wayward flock of bipeds known as human but all creatures.So there’s a hint about how we should live: mindfully, gratefully.e.e. cummings wrote If swallows tryst in your barn, be glad, nobody ever earns anything , everything little looks big in a mist….  So when raccoons apply those fine little fingers to our trash bags, I guess we should be glad too.My sister Nan  in  Florida feeds her neighboring raccoons whole turkey carcasses which she heaves into her yard forest’s edge and they love her for it.You have to detach from the outcome, the sages all  tell us. Give your gift to the world. Set out those plump orbs of vegetable gold. Then what happens, happens.  Anyway we're all just passing through.