BRUGMANSIA

We are enjoying the most wonderful weather -- sunny, dry, warmish, coolish at night. The brugmansia are giving forth their final blossoms of the season. They are breath takingly astounding in their size and abundance. And their fragrance is unbelievable. If I could bottle this delicate trace of gingery, rose I would wear it exclusively.

These flowers are all pot grown this year. Soon I will be taking cuttings to root for next year's crop. I still have the "mother" plant that I brought from my sister's as a cutting several years ago. There have been many generations since then. And she now has a new brugmansia in a pinkish color, a cutting of which I hope to bring back with me this trip out at the end of October.

The brugmansia pots were part of what I have named Pakki Island. For some unknown reason an area in the center of the back yard is an island of pachysandra. A couple of years ago I stuck in a couple of hosta transplants at the back edge. Then last year I planted one of my royal hostas in the center of the island. This year, hoping to draw some humming birds, I started experimenting with some perennials and two buckets of impatiens AND my brugmansia pots. I added a bird bath which the robins have enjoyed. And hummer feeders. But, alas, no hummers. I am ever hopeful.

It is time now to bring in the hummingbird feeders and scrub them up for next season. Come mid April or the beginning of May I will hand them out with newed hope. Barbara Crafton finally realised her dream of hummers last season after a few hopeful years, so there is precedent for hope.

EXERCISE? -- NOT!

Almost two weeks since I have been on the treadmill. Weights are gathering dust. And me? I am as happy as a moth in wool. I have given myself permission to relax into each day as it unfolds before me. Attempts at the morning crossword; morning pages which have segwayed into mostly autobiographical snippets, decluttering, some picture taking in the garden, perusing my favorite blogs -- and some new found ones too, discovering "being" and not doing.

I am approaching the end of my seventieth year. Exercise is good. I'll pick it up again next week. A healthy food regimen is good too and I seem to have found that in the Sanoma Diet. SOoo, I've got the "body" part together.

As to the mind, I have always been curious about a variety of things. I so deplored the disappearance of the library card catologue system because in looking for a something, I frequently stumbled over something else. I have followed so many branching topics and developed interest in a lot of strange things. Goats, for instance. I remember reading up on the raising of goats, milking, breeding, cheese making -- it went on and on. Never really wanted to DO it, but throughly enjoyed the knowledge of the doing. The Internet has taken the place of my card catalogue perusing. If it exists, its on the Internet in one form or anther and so aside from books I shall always have challenges for my mind.

So, I have pretty much established a body program that I can live with for the next seventy years, and the mind is always working on something. I am never at a loss for an Internet search or figuring out how to build a something from unlikely materials -- styrafoam bookshelves was my latest inspiration. Always something challenging.

That leaves the continuing quest to further develop and nurture the spirit.

CREATING SPACES

Sorting and tossing is creating space, make that prural -- spaces. I am even thinking of them as "sacred' spaces. So sacred that I am filling them in with empty boxes so that another in this household doesn't try to fill them up with his stuff.

The buh-byes are not many. I came upon a box filled with shells, beautiful collected stones, smooth and artistically mishapen pieces of driftwood and, wonder of wonders, ingredients for potting up indoor plants. Now, why in box? How can I appreciate these lovely things in a box hidden on a shelf in the cellar? SO, out they come. The shells and stones are dispatched to corners in the gardens; the driftwood I will use on the dining room table to enhance flower arrangements, The miscellaneous ingredients for potting are beiing gathered from the seven corners of the homestead into one giant Zip-Loc. Ah, space.

And the empty space can now be filled with an empty box and I can move on to the next box, then the next, and then the next. Is the goal here to have shevles full of empty boxes? No, the goal is to be rid of unused, unneeded "stuff." The goal is to organize into like boxes the stuff that needs to be kept -- and I am thinking that there is less and less of that.

A box of yarn, not used for twenty years. My color preferences have drastically changed in that time period. I am now into softer colors, no browns or yellow ochre, no bright reds. Buh-bye. A two foot stack of Cloth Doll magazines. I am never going to make all those dolls -- buh-bye. More space. I am loving this. I am freeing myself from unwanted ties to the past. In fact meaningless ties that have been hanging around. For why? Those rocks and shells were collected over many, many years from a variety of shores. I cannot put a name to any of the shores or even remember the time of wandering and collecting. Let it go. Move on. Go forward unencumbered. Life is good.

GOD DOESN'T CREATE JUNK

This is the message from today's sermon. "God doesn't create junk." I am not junk. Straight Barbara is not junk. My son Jeffri is not junk. Gay Jeffri is not junk. My straight son, Scott, is not junk. My deceased gay husband was not junk. God doesn't do junk.


Taking this to the next level I must accept that ++Peter Akinola of Nigeria who detests and defiles gays, is not junk either. This man, this Anglican Primate, this Christian leader who wants nothing to do with any gay or lesbian person, who would have them disappear; this man is also not junk.


As a Christian, I have a hard time with this. To accept that such a person is created by God in God's own likeness as am I, is almost unacceptable. But accept it I must. BUT I do not have to like him. I do not have to like him and all those that stand with him. And I don't. I don't like any of them. They are an abomination to me. If this is one of my sins, then so be it.

HOB -- HOUSE OF BISHOPS

This afternoon I have read way too much about what is and what is NOT being said during the meeting of the House Of Bishops. For any of you who are interested, Jeffri has a variety of sites referenced so that you can maybe get the gist of what is going on.

Or maybe not. It is such a convoluted, confusing thing. What the bishops say that they are about may be in part what they are about. But are they publicly acknowledging the main issue? I don't feel that they are. The issue is basically will our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered brothers and sisters be equally and unequivocally accepted as full members of The Episcopal Church (TEC). That's it. Is our brother our brother? Is our sister our sister? We drink from the same cup but we are denied the same rights. We are baptized into the community of Christ but denied full and equal membership. We are baptized into the community of Christ but are denied the equal rights and benefits of that baptism.

I remember the first time I had to explain to my children that life was not fair. That was a very hurtful thing for me to tell them and for them to hear. That some people would judge without thought or reason. That some people would act without thought or reason. My children are grown now and it still is not fair. And that this can happen in the Episcopal Church that I so love is hurtful, painful, agonizing.

Last week Jeffri offered prayers for our bishops. I pray for the church.

BLOGOSPHERE

I was over reading MadPriest this morning, as I do every week or so, and decided that I would count the number of blogs that he has listed as his "Heroes of the Blogosphere." Two hundred six. Yes, I counted them. Some of them are familiar, although very few compared to 2006. When does he have time to check this stuff out? I feel like I am pushing it to follow the ones that I do.

Of course, I took the time to count the heroes, didn't I? Still in all, I feel that I'm pushing it to read the blogs that I do follow regularly plus peruse a couple of new ones now and then and keep up my own blog meanderings. Plus continue the declutter project, plus the other daily stuff and a part time job. Maybe I just don't organize my time very well.

Maybe I just enjoy what I enjoy and take the time to do it and fit all the other stuff in around it.

DECLUTTERING ANGST

This process of decluttering is a continuing struggle with who I am and what I was. True that who I was has a cumulative effect on who I am. But is it necessary to keep all these remembrances of what was? Like college year books. I have four of my husband's and three of my own. I hated college, hated being away from my family, hated being in the college situation, hated dating, hated having roommates. Hated the whole thing. So why keep these remembrances. Is anyone else going to care? NOoooo.

But the angst of actually letting them go is troubling me. It isn't as though it is like throwing away a part of myself. The only part of me that is in there is a class picture. I was not a "belonging" type of person -- no sports teams, no hobby groups, no intellectual organizations. Maybe it is the what might have been that bothers me? Don't see how that could be. I don't do groups very well. In any group situation I feel like an outsider, always on the fringe, not important, not necessary. How this came to be, I don't know. I have felt this way since our move to Chicago in 1949. Never fit in anyplace after that.

SO away with the year books.

DIFFERENCES

As I struggle with my clutter, Bill seems to be struggling with his own issues. I see things differently than he sees them. I see CLUTTER, he sees unfinished chores that need doing. The thing is, my younger son and his family are coming for Thanksgiving. They have not been "home" since Bill and I have been living together, and have not been "home" since we renovated the house.

I am seeing my clutter as a negative reflection of my personal comptence . I finally realize that Bill is seeing certain aspects of the house/home as a reflection upon his capabilities as my partner and soul mate. I want the clutter of my studio area organized, he wants grass growing and the driveway sealed; I want the cellar dejunked and straight and ready for workshop projects, he wants the shingles/shakes cleaned and stained.

It has been really hard for me to understand these differences. My inability to see them has resulted in many an argument. BUT, I'm learning.

DECLUTTERING BEGINS

Some progress was made today. I cleared off the table. Doesn't sound like much, but any is some. The mental preparedness is probably the first big hurdle. Deciding that it has to be done is tough. I have lived in this house for going on forty-five years. I came here as a child of twenty-six with two young boys, Jeffri was four, Scott one.


When we did the renovation is 2001 there was quite a bit of sorting but mostly schlepping. I am a saver. My dad was a saver. His mother was a saver. I have some stuff that HE saved. And this is the sentimental stuff that tears at the heart to discard. Somethings just belong. Do they get passed down forever? No! Eventually it will mean nothing and get tossed. Better I make some decisions now so that the boys don't have to make hard decisions later and struggle with guilt. I can do the guilt now.

CLUTTER

This is clutter. A lot of clutter. MY clutter. I spend a lot of time in this corner of clutter and it is cluttering my brain and hindering my creativity. I really believe that if there was some order here in this corner, I would be more productive, more creative, and maybe even less tense. This is getting me down. It is making me crazy. I have become a motiveless, goaless, slovenly individual.

Am I a little down on myself right now? You bet. Am I frantic in my clutter? You bet. Am I doing anything about it? Nope.

This is more clutter. My clutter. This is my corner of the "studio" so no one is responsible for this mess but me. I am setting it out here for publication in the hopes that I will be motivated to DO something about it. Shame myself, so to speak.

There are a few problems here. One, I am a saver. Two, I like to work on more than one thing at a time. Three, I never seem to put anything way. Four, there isn't an "away" place for all of the "things." Five, I would rather play that work. Six, I have tons of of UNfinished creations. And that's another thing -- I LOVE to start things. I have an inspiration and be gung ho that creation for a while only to lose interest and then the chaos of it is left behind.

This is my mess; the other half of the "studio" is filled with Bill's mess whch is in probably a worse state of cluttered chaos than mine. Between the two of us...... well, there it is. Double clutter, double chaos, double frustration.

PULLING WEEDS

Summer may have ended, the heat has not. I do not turn on the AC because it does cool off at night. But the heat of the day is pretty yuk. This morning as I finished my thirty minutes on the treadmill, the sweat was dripping off my chin and running into my ears. Heat and humidity. And the percent of rain expected today -- 30%. Not going to happen.

Being overcast, and being damp, and maybe the ground has been misted, I think I will run up to church and pull some more green growth out of the curbing of the driveway. Really! We need for the church to look like we care for it. I mean really care for it. Care enough to toil, to sweat some more. I want to get this stuff pulled up so that I can repaint the yellow stripe along the curbing. Won't that be nice. A crisp yellow line that says we care here. We want you to see that we put our time and effort into preparing for your presence here. Come!

MOURNING SUMMER'S END

School has resumed. Bill is back on the school bus driving schedule. That means I am back on the schedule too. Summer is really over. I don't know whether I am mourning it as much as I am resenting it being over. I feel as though I am missing something. Something important and I don't know what it is or where to even look for it.

The only get away time we took was the four days in the Berkshires. Perhaps I am regretting that we did not take more time to just be away from the responsibilities of the house. The thing is -- I love being home. I love this house. I love the yard. I love the feeling of being able to be whatever I want to be and do whatever I want to do -- or not.

Ah, maybe that's it. I didn't DO. Didn't write. Didn't do color pencils. Didn't work on my icons. Didn't knit. Didn't practice anything at all whatsoever. Maybe I am feeling the guilt of time gone by without accomplishment -- something to show for the time. Perhaps, though, this is my own way of renewal. No pressures, no time constraints, no meetings, no obligations. Just allowing time to flow around me and through me and slow me down enough to let me be me.

CRISIS CLEANING

Crisis cleaning is really not a good thing. For one, it reminds me that the crisis should not have happened in the first place. Two, I am frantic and probably not very sane during the cleaning process. Bugs. Little tiny black wheat bugs. In my upstairs bathroom. Hmmmm, no wheat here. Everything comes out of the bathroom cupboard, scooped haphazardly and quickly onto the floor. And left behind? Yuk, tiny, little, black wheat bugs. EWWWWW.

I don't know if they are really called wheat bugs. I just know that they turn up in wheaty things that have been around too long -- pasta, cereal, 'wheaty' stuff. In this case, dog biscuits. I have run up against these things downstairs in the kitchen cupboards when they have caused crisis cleaning there. I have learned to keep track now. Perhaps I should augment some of the sorting and tossing that is going on over at Jeffri's. My sister routinely goes through every drawer and cupboard in her house so she doesn't ever do the crisis cleaning of my ilk.


Sometimes I think my life needs some crisis cleaning. I let things go. They pile up. I get crazy. And then the crisis energy starts. Meeting deadlines, downloading and filing a kazillion digital photos, organizing my desktop -- again, making phone calls, returning e-mails, and on and on and on. Maybe if I were more methodical in my housekeeping and in my life activities, there would be no crises. But then, would I be me?