July 25, 2023, 11:35 a.m.
The plants become themselves
When nothing is steady the plants stay true
Monday Monday
At my house I am surrounded by the plants that came before me and the plants that were already there. Those are two different ways to say - the plants that someone planted or the plants that came with the formation of Earth. I am planting my own seeds too close together and without enough knowing. I pull the weeds as if to say - hello I see you all and I promise I’ll make room for you to appear.
I write today after sleeping seventeen hours. A place of uncertainty but of great rest. The only thing that seems consistent and worth relying on is my dog, even the roses are starting to turn. I am wondering when everything will feel steady again. When anything will feel steady again. Or did it ever?
On Belle Isle there are weeping willow trees along the river and I noticed how the branches that hold the weeping leaves look fresh. They don’t have bark on them like the rest of the tree, hard and sturdy. They have a flexibility and a newness to them that allows for the weeping to happen. For the willow to weep it cannot be fixed or constrained but it must be supple and flowing down.
The first moments of each season surrounding my house are a series of surprises. Every day is a season because everyday until November 9 is the the first day of the first year I have watched the plants become themselves. Pat, who owned the house in the 90’s and early 2000’s, made a beautiful hand drawn map that I inherited when I moved in. The map describes vague areas of where things pop up, but to see them in real time and meet their details is an entirely different mapping, one you have to experience in real time.
What I find to be most spectacular is that each time a new flower comes up I don’t know what color it will be, how many might bloom, if something else will come up next to it. I am still learning that some of my favorite plants are weeds and that weeds arne’t always bad. I don’t know how many years they’ve been returning and coming back as themselves after an annual cold wintery death.
So far my favorite plant has been the rose bush on one end of the clothes line. There are two lines but one fell and I couldn’t figure out how to hang a new one because I couldn’t get through the rose bush to hang it. For now I have accepted that one line is enough for my suit, a towel or two, and a beach blanket.
My little garden is working the best where I got starts from Mo’s garden. Where I planted seeds I don’t think I read the directions right. When to plant them, how far apart, etc. The spring mix is starting to look like salad I would eat but there are also flowers growing out of the bunches and that seems like a sign it’s turning into something else. Being a white settler on stolen land planting seeds in a raised bed, I tend to the sticky parts of how uncomfortable it feels to steward a place that is both mine and not mine, the greediness of putting the seeds close together when it said to spread them out. I see what I inherit through these systems and that my work isn’t just to know and to take action, it is to act differently in relationship to plants and Earth.
There are tomatoes! Three of them! But I keep forgetting to get cages for them and I think they would be happier in the cages. There are peppers! Three as well! They are so little and cute. I don’t know what kind or how big they are supposed to get but I was gone for a few days and when I came back there they were.
The hot pink yarrow in the back corner of the yard is thriving and I’d like to make an essence the way Lauren and Liz and Jade all taught me. You know you can make an essence of anything. So the essence will be of yarrow but it will really be of the magic of finding something you didn’t know would be there, how bright it is, how it spreads, how it speaks.
June always sleeps as long as I do, if anything sometimes I have to wake June up and tell her it’s time to start the day. My understanding is some dogs wake you up to go out or to eat breakfast. For as much as she loves food I am surprised she doesn’t do this, but she too slept seventeen hours next to me all night, worn out from her play group and the grueling natures of the world. We let ourselves die completely to wake up in a state of trusting each step.
I googled to see if sleeping seventeen hours is bad for you. It said if you do it regularly it is of course but I didn’t see something that said - If you’ve been on the brink of freaking out and think that dying to the world to reborn is a good idea - go ahead.
I weed whacked a path to the raspberry bushes and June goes with me each night before sunset to pick them. I put them in my little strainer and she picks them right off the stem and eats them. Brenin finished putting the cream metal roof on the small garden shed that I can’t figure out if it’s a little writing studio or somewhere for someone to sleep.
I have so many big dreams and wish I had more money to make them come true faster. That is my honest truth. For now noticing the plants and greeting them while I write write write feels like the path forward, one I must take alone.
To delight in myself and my little mistakes, may that be the next right thing
I watched NOPE and really liked it
I just signed up for THE PEOPLE’S QUILTING BEE lecture series and couldn’t be more excited about this stunning offering curated by Dr. Sharbreon Plummer and Dr. Jess Bailey. The first lecture is September 6 - join me!
I read Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and helped a lot after thinking about running out of ideas. Taking a break from my podcast between seasons, not promoting a new live class for a moment - all has me thinking about writing writing writing and only writing.
The last episode of Season One of Common Shapes is out now
A beautiful newsletter from about not working
I got the book Not Working about the artist Lee Lozano from The Book Beat (my new favorite bookstore) and it is so strange and good
writing is beautiful on so many levels but this piece looking at a recent trip he took and the 4th of July took me on a journey I was grateful to go down. His writing feels juicy and heartfelt and direct to the point in a way that guides me as a reader to better truth and action.
The Artist Way Book Study carries on! This Sunday we are meeting on zoom Sun July 30 9am PST / 12pm EST to discuss the first six weeks and you are welcome to join us late in the game:) The zoom meet up is run like a 12 step meeting where participants have 2-3 min to share their experience, we’ll do a little bit of writing, and emerge into the second half of the book together. The zoom link will be in this Friday’s pep talk email <3
This song
Sometimes I forget to pull any tarot cards and ask the deck whats up and Substack and amazing book always bring me back to the practice
FLEXIBLE OFFICE : WRITER’S RETREAT (live on zoom)
Next week Mon July 31-Fri Aug 4 I am hosting Flexible Office : Writer’s Retreat each morning from 8am-10am EST live on zoom
This is to WRITE WRITE, WRITE - not to work on admin or other work or tasks. It is to create a container of writing time for five total mornings, sliding scale $33-$105 (suggested price is $88)
Prompts will be given, insights, I will read little quotes each day about writing, THIS IS WRITING CAMP ONLINE AND WE WILL WRITE! WE WILL WRITE! This kind of time and dedication could totally change your writing practice! DIVE IN WITH ME!
