My Desk

My desk my desk my desk

Oh how it plagues my mind

I wish it was a place to write, to think, to create but alas

It is piled high with bills, paid and unpaid and question-marked.

I take a ton of paper

Received daily in the mailbox

And knowing not how to wrangle it

Dispose of it there.

There there there on my desk

My poor creaky IKEA desk

How it sags in its imperfect joints under the weight

Of all that needs doing.

Does it scream and yell and beg for attention like those short people I live with?

No,

It sits quietly

Waiting for me to notice.

It watches how I do the dishes

Sweep sweep sweep the floors

Obsessively pulling shit from cat boxes

Yet ignore its dusty and disheveled surface.

It watches while I do most anything

writing, drawing, designing up a storm

Planning meals and cooking them into black clouds

Staring at anything but the to do lists, the filing and the God knows what is really in those high rising piles.

It marvels at all the ways I use up energy to swirl in a hurricane of activity

And waits…waits….waits...for me

To notice something is stuck

Nothing is actually moving.

That all that flurry of goings on

Is plugged up in the drain hole

Unable to flow out and down and through to where it needs to go

Because the bottom is clogged with the hairy mess on my desk.

Finally finally FINALLY it hits

That the desk can also be-- must be part of the creative tempest

Has to be loved into organized files and concrete action plans

In order for any rainbows to land.

making beds

I have been preparing two beds for planting this week. I made a small one for flowers that is right up against the wall of my studio. It is just a long narrow rectangle of dirt that had accumulated gardening tools and an old hose and a fish tank we didn't have any place for. I kept looking at the spot and thinking it would be nice to have flowers growing there. So yesterday I moved the junk, including some bricks that I had neatly laid last year and started digging. The dirt was dry as sand and uniform in texture and color. I dug down a ways and then started adding amendments. Some food, some worm casings and a whole lot of compost. Then I added water in a slow steady stream to make it hospitable for the seeds. I let it sit for a day and when I went back to it I was pleased to see how good it looked. The dirt was dark and moist and had a lot of varied texture to it. I felt it with my hands and dug in to test how far the moisture went down. I made holes with my fingers and dropped in the beautiful Calendula seeds I had. They have a curled crescent shape and a little stair step down the outside edge that reminds me of ferns and other things prehistoric. I placed a couple in each little hole and then covered them up, putting them to bed, tucking them in just as I would my own children. Then I opened a seed packet of Snapdragons and broadcast those along the back of the bed. I whispered sweetly to them all before spraying them with a fine mist.

Today I took the girls out to the garden to plant vegetables. We lifted the fabric cover off the other bed that I have been working on. The soil was gorgeous. This bed is a raised rectangle that has a lot of intention built into it already. It has been resting for many months after I turned a vigorous cover crop under to compost last spring. I had covered it with Avocado leaves as mulch, and just recently removed them. Underneath was moist fragrant dirt. I dug my hands in and felt satisfaction wriggle through every cell of my body. The scent of earth, rich and moist rose up my nose and said, I am ready! I evened out the slight hills that had formed from wind and small animals over time and I added a little more dirt and compost.

Before digging holes for the seeds, I had the girls sprinkle a little plant food over the surface. We mixed it in and then we used our six hands to smooth out the surface again. It smelled so good and felt so nice that we all fell into a trance and could have probably kept on smoothing all afternoon. Then we had fun poking holes and dropping the seeds in, marveling at their different shapes and the tiny patterns that some of larger ones had. Cilantro seeds, it turns out, look like little beach balls with stripes.

Preparing beds for planting is in some ways more satisfying than planting the seeds. The planning, the working of the soil, and finally smoothing it out is as fun to me as setting up a drawing or thinking about a story. It is setting a stage. And describing it this way makes me picture a body lying down. Mine perhaps. Then working on it. Setting it up for optimal growth and an abundant harvest.

more rats

This summer we had rats in our walls. They are gone but now we have them in the garden. And they've always been in the trees. Rat medicine. It must be good for me. Everything else is running so well. We are all well and happy. The house is full of life and activity. Work is great. The rats must be in line with all of that. Or maybe not. There is a nagging quality to this rat thing. Especially the close encounters. It's one thing to hear them scratching in the walls and quite another to have them jumping out of a bin a few inches from my face. I mean, really? Must I see them that close up to get the benefits of their medicine? It's a big pill to swallow, this rat pill. It's got me feeling as though I am missing something. Some detail is eluding me. Like that I am really bugged about something I am not admitting to. Denying some part that wants to be screamed about. But what? Rat medicine is definitely tricky. It's a dirty little secret hidden away. Maybe its the pile of bills on my desk, or the to do list that is getting a bit unmanageable or the long over due maintenance on the house. But I'm not sure. I think it might be something a bit deeper. A bit more entrenched. I am going to keep investigating this rat medicine stuff and see if I can't discover what it's all about.

Growing Dirt

I thought I could write about composting a few months ago when I started this blog. But then my compost pile got soggy and smelly and I realized I had no idea what the hell I was doing making dirt. I was making a stinking pile of rotten food that would probably kill any plant I put it on.

I started over and even though I was tempted to take a class on composting (go ahead gardeners, laugh), I never did. I figured it out, damn it, and I can now boast that I know how to grow dirt! And it's not that hard. The trick is to follow my intuition (which is getting sharper all the time) and work with good old trial and error. I now have two composting bins working full time that are moist, smell like rich earth and are warm to the touch. I also have piles of leaves and other garden waste that I am accumulating to help make more dirt.

No this is not a HOW TO because composting is sort of like learning to drive. I can't explain it in words. I'd have to show you. One thing I can say is that dirt is built from the top down. Its all about layering and getting the proportions right. And whatever goes on top will find its way down into the dirt. At the bottom, you get some mighty nice black stuff to put in your garden.

Yes I am writing this to toot my own horn because I am so proud of myself for figuring it out, but also to say it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. You definitely have to trust yourself. I think that's the main ingredient after the kitchen scraps and the dry leaves. I also helps to have a lot of garden waste lying around that's already decomposing to throw in.

My compost piles are full of surprises. I love looking in and feeling the temp and the moisture and deciding what it needs. One day I decided the pile was dry and I started watering it. Next thing I knew a rat was flying up and out of the bin like an escapee making a break for it. Yes I was grossed out, but I just decided that bin would be for the rats to enjoy and left it at that. After all, they're just helping my compost along. But I don't think I will be putting the stuff from that bin on my vegetables...

Desert Morning

Roadrunner

Runs across my path

Long tail and legs

He is big

His call is funny sounding

And bubbles up a smile

Smile at the bird

Who tells me I am right

I am at the center

I have arrived

Guns me to run

To get it done

Up comes the wind

Circling my spot

And lifting my clothes

From dry skin

Opening the time

And bleeding love out

Desert sun

Releases a bluer sky

The mountains like paper cutouts

Crisp along the edge

At night the stars

Settle on their shoulders

This open space

That appears to have nothing

That only likes simple shapes

And plants with tiny leaves

Like a vacuum it sucks the words out

Spilling onto page after page

Like a bleached out can in the sand

With a lizard hiding inside

This land is full

of surprising stories

Of disintegration and running fast

Taking the heart up in a snap of heat

Potato Volcano

Last night for dinner I served mashed potatoes. I was in a hurry and didn't make a volcano out of Grace's pile of mash, like I usually do. Oh no, actually I did. I made a hurried version, taking about two seconds to shape it with my fingers and a fork as Dave was carrying it
to the table. But there was no melted butter lava.

She didn't complain but when she saw there were leftovers she asked if she could have a volcano in her lunch the next day. I looked at the potatoes and thought about how well the mash volcano would hold up through its journey to school in Grace's backpack and decided it would be better if I gave them to her in a plastic container and let her make the volcano herself. She was very excited about it and we came up with a solution for the lava: Thinned ketchup. "It will be perfect!" she screeched carrying her plate to the sink. But what to put the volcano on was still an issue to be solved. A plate would need to be washed after lunch and she didn't like that idea. I suggested a square of aluminum foil which she could just fold up and put back in her lunch
bag. She liked it.

So at dinner tonight, I asked her how it went with the volcano at lunch and a cloud passed over her face. "I couldn't do it" she said glumly, slowly reliving the full weight of her lunchtime disappointment. "I started to make it and the teacher came over and told me not to play with my food."

Ah manners. Too bad we don't teach her those at home.

Ruby Red Beauties

My tomatoes are the last man (men) standing in my garden now. They are (I swear) producing the most delicious cherry tomatoes I have ever eaten. There is some kind of magic between the love I give them as I water and pick them and tell them how gorgeous they are (because they are!), and the sweet taste they bestow on my tongue when I pop one in my mouth. What is better than that squirt of pure tomato juice fresh from the vine? I love the way the skin actually holds the faint scent of soil on it which finds its way up my nose as I pass one after the other into my waiting mouth. I just finished a whole bowl. These little ruby beauties have been deeply nourishing me for the last couple of weeks. I always make a meal out of them and say thank you. Sometimes I saute them in a pan with a little garlic and put them on toast. Other times its just slicing them and sprinkling them with olive oil, salt and lots of basil, the other plant that is flourishing still. But this time it was just a bowl of them, straight up, now empty, with only a pile of their curly green little jester hats left at the bottom.