reality for pausing

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

I'd hate to be misleading with something so shitty, so last I had read the BP leak had been stopped for a short while, but that was last week, and probably a dumb news source anyway, so this morning I read on NPR that BP is still attempting to stop the leak and it may not be capped until two relief wells are built, which would be in August. What did I say? Shitty. I don't think there's words for how shitty it is.

Speaking of oil, getting around on bike while Snark's in CO has been just fine and dandy so far. Today's the fifth day, though, so it hasn't been very long trying it. I have run out of some things, but I just stopped on my bike at High Desert on the way home from yoga and picked up some apples, cucumber, olives, so I'm good to go again. I guess the no car experiment will be cheated a little this weekend, however, since E is coming to visit and I think we'll drive to Warren on Saturday where Bisbee's farmers' market is held. But, overall, I think the biking experiment proves to be easier when one lives in a small town that's only a few miles long.

2 comments:

mavina said...: I think it's great that you are able to put all that green up on your blog again. YEAH for Patma!! I just did massive amounts of repotting, and could do much more, but I have to do a little at a time or I will get a back ache, I think. I'm also running out of empty pots, so may have to call Jen or somebody who might have extras.
I agree, we should make some (tie dyed?) shirts that say Gardening is the best!! This coming Saturday is the garden festival in FC and I have been told to be there by several people. Lynx was going, but now she may have to be home to receive a truck load of dirt from Nap. Anyway, gardening is very fun, and that's a good thing...there is a lot of it to do. TOotles, Mm'eMma; June 1, 2010 at 10:40 AM
sassy said...: Hi, dearie! I imagine us marching around with wooden sticks and handmade signs attached, charlie brown style or like christopher robin and his friends might do. We have extra pots! Come to Az and I'l give you some. :-); June 2, 2010 at 2:01 PM

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about this blog

Originally, I created this blog for family and friends to stay updated with our location and happenings while we were traveling the country. But only a few months after I began blogging about our travel adventures we drove into the sweet, slow town of Bisbee and ended up staying. We actually moved five times while living there, thanks to generous neighbors who asked us to long-term housesit in between our rentals. We are on the move once more, and so it seems we are habitually in transition.

Traveling and moving so often stirs up questions for us about what we really need to feel content, comfortable, and energized about life; it emphasizes for us our relationship and attachment to things--ours and other people's things that fill our living spaces; and it encourages me to appreciate the value in staying put, while realizing that frequent physical change underscores the uncertainty and occasions for choice that exist in all moments of life.

MARCH 2011

After a three-month pause for reflection, I'm coming back to this blog with a renewed perspective on what I want to share. I stopped blogging because with so many transitions happening in my life (moving, traveling, moving, and moving again in only a few months)--and, well just ordinary life happening--nothing seemed particularly notable for the sharing. I was feeling tired, overwhelmed, bored, dispassionate, stressed out, worried, weighed down. What did I really have to say? We all feel that way regularly enough, and who needs to hear more?

Pema Chodron touches on this in an article I just recently read in the March 2011 issue of Shambhala Sun: "When we look at the world around us--our immediate world and the bigger world beyond--we see a lot of difficulty and dysfunction. The news we hear is mostly bad news, and that makes us afraid. It can be quite discouraging" (48). Sometimes it takes unthinkable effort to stay encouraged by life when surrounded by so much obvious sadness and negativity--and it's difficult enough to summon the energy to reach beyond the anguish to share the beautiful moments. Maybe we even convince ourselves that the ordinary pleasures of life are insignificant in the face of such suffering. I don't understand the tricks of mind that I play on myself, but I know I repeatedly lose my vision for pausing in everyday reality, for seeing the smallest moments of magic.

Chodron tells us, there is a "basic queasiness that leads us to all kinds of self-destructive and other-destructive habits" and a "whole chain of events that emerges from our fear of uncertainty, of not knowing what in the world is happening or what is going to happen" (49). I feel an urgency to interact with this chain of events; to interfere knowingly--though perhaps innocently; to respond to my abounding fears and uncertainty with intent. I want to return to the primary assumption of this blog--a reality for pausing in: to not overlook or disregard the small points of joy, but to connect them; to appreciate the magic that is present in that which is obscured by routine; to actively express gratitude and to meaningfully alter the "chain of events that emerge" from my thoughts and practices, my surroundings.