Monthly Archives: March 2010

More rain!

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Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency.

We are as ready as we can be — with everything up on blocks or in solid plastic bins, and with K’s newly, elegantly engineered more powerful sump pump.  Still, we have a little seepage already in the old part and how can I not worry?!

Update, 4:20 p.m.

It’s not good.  The sump pump is keeping up, but the water is now flowing from upper/old part of the basement to lower/new (studio) part of the basement, and is not headed toward the sump well.  I’ve already dumped the shop vac about six times and soaked every beach towel we own, to try and prevent the water from traveling under the newly (brand-newly) assembled IKEA dressers (which are up on 2×4 blocks, but still… )

Almost every river in Eastern Mass., I’ve heard, is at or near flood stage.

Sorry to lose a bright light in Elsbeth Thompson

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resilience:  1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

I am thinking about resilience this afternoon, having just learned that the talented writer, gardener, and blogger, Elsbeth Thompson, committed suicide last week.  She wrote books, columns, and a blog about gardening, and seemed to have a particular knack for turning wastelands into lush gardens.  Her blog chronicled the restoration of two railroad cars on the coast of Sussex, and to this reader, seemed an adventure in vision and optimism.  Though I am a mere fan of her blog, I am sorry for her surviving husband and daughter.

The news brings up questions:  What makes a person resilient?  Why are we more resilient at some times, and less at others?  How do we inculcate resilience in others, particularly our children?  Can we?

Her death also raises the issue of inscrutability.  Even people we think we know well can be shouldering enormous unseen burdens.  What looks, from the outside, like an ideal life, can be anything but.  Reading about her efforts, I often found myself jealous of her resources, as well as of her sure hand in making spaces intimate and lovely.

I don’t hunt for events like this to provide perspective, but this sad news certainly makes a flooded basement seem incredibly minor in the scheme of things.

Although my response seems overblown (even to me) based on a mere reading of a blog, I nevertheless am sending love to England, especially to her young daughter.

aftermath

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Back to IKEA for more storage units. Decided to go with dressers for under work table (cheaper, more drawer space), instead of kitchen cabinets. Cannot wait. Getting rid of bins and creating floor space are my missions. Also, I’m getting rid of the ironing board. Instead, will outfit a movable, rectangular kitchen island. Oh, so many improvements!

Discovered the last (I hope) of the soggy things… sat up in bed last night and realized I hadn’t checked the bottom shelf of a metal cabinet that houses frames, mat board and pictures. Fortunately, none of the personal photos were ruined (frames were). More crap for the curb.

By the time the floor is clear and schedule C finished, I think I will be up for sainthood.

How does your garden grow?

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How lovely to fight solar glare at drop-off today!  It’s a real circus, drop-off is.  Students coming and going, lugging backpacks, strutting their uggs (girls), nearly losing their pants (boys), drivers pausing, then not pausing, inserting themselves, waiting, then not waiting, the U driveway, the crosswalks, the parking lots, left and right — it’s a big ole mess, and not the least bit so because many behind the wheel are brand new drivers (and teenagers, to boot).  So, when you add blinding sun, it is always a cause for caution and concern.

But, today I said, “Yippee”, because who can’t use a little sun at this point?!

Raking recently, I made an interesting find.  Not a soccer ball or hockey puck — though I find plenty of those.  In fact, I have long maintained that the thing I grow best are balls (GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER).  I refer, here, not to my male progeny, or my own lizard brain’s tendency toward aggression, but to the propensity for all manner of recreational balls to land in my perennial beds.  Baseballs and whiffle balls from my baseball-crazy neighbor, soccer balls from my boys and two kitty-corner neighbors, kick balls that crossed two fences from the schoolyard behind us, tennis balls from god-knows-where, and lacrosse balls, which can be blue, yellow, or white.


And, as trees have ‘drip zones’, I have long been aware that D.’s second-story window has a ‘launch zone’, in which I am STILL uncovering various objects like Playmobil pirates, Legos, and things so wrapped in duct tape I have no idea what they are.


But, imagine my surprise when I unearthed C.’s missing RETAINER in the beds by the driveway!!!  It has since been replaced (at a cost I won’t reveal because I don’t want to lose my breakfast), but nevertheless, it truly felt like the boys’-toy-garden-turned-treasure-trove and surely will go down in family lore, along with the story of K.’s father going through reams of garbage to find HIS lost retainer some 40 years ago.

edges

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In spite of earlier declarations, I spent some time machine-stitching the Script Quilt today.  Went gingerly, so as not to break any more needles.  The gessoed section was bowing.  I wanted it more flush with edges, even if raised, due to variety of layers.  The edges are begging for attention.  The edges are where we come undone.  The edges are where we meet the world.  I am tired today.  Very very tired.  Feels like a soul-tired, not a body-tired.