Mining the past for understanding…

I have been thinking a lot about my mom recently, and about my time in the ICU nine years ago, when I came so close to dying myself.  That and so many other thoughts about my past have been rattling around in my mind as I try to sort out what all of these memories mean to me.  I feel like I am grappling with memories and emotions, trying to examine my past for clues as to who I am and who I want to be going forward.  I wryly think that I am not too young for a midlife crisis.  My mom died at fifty–so I’m overdue for one!

I feel compelled to write about my life, my mom and our relationship, to dig deep to try to understand myself and to try to craft a cohesive picture of myself for my family when I am gone.  I have always felt a deep need to leave a record of myself and my life, and that need has grown so pressing lately.  I don’t think that it’s any morbid thought or feeling driving this need, but the need is there just the same.  I think part of wanting to understand myself is so that I can show the world who I am; I want to represent myself accurately as I go about my daily life.  Not understanding myself feels deeply lonely, and I want to break down those walls of isolation and tell my story, even if no one else reads it.  I will see more clearly how to live as myself, and that will be enough.

I think I’m going to do a revised version of National Novel Writing Month this year.  I’ll call it National Memoir Writing Month :_).  I don’t know how many words or pages I’ll write.  Maybe I’ll set aside a  time to write every day.  I don’t know where I’ll find the time between home schooling and making Christmas gifts, but I think I’ll find a way.

I just finished reading Stephanie Nielson‘s deeply moving memoir, “Heaven is Here,” which coincided perfectly with my current state of reflection.  One of Stephanie’s many gifts to me was that she inspired me to tell my story, even if I only write it for myself.

 

Love that man…

A few days ago, I watched as my sweetheart played on our deck with our older daughter.  I saw him pick up a piece of chalk.  He bent down and began to write.  As I watched him form the words “I Love,” I felt joyful to think of the sweet message he was writing for our little girl, and thought of how special she would feel when she read it.  To my surprise, when my husband straightened to survey his work, it read “I love Mommy.”  I felt so cherished.

He is always doing sweet things like that to serve me and bless my life.  We joke about the seven-year itch; he keeps teasing me that this is the year I’m going to upgrade to a new model, but the truth is, I would never find anything this good anywhere else.  He lights up my life in so many precious ways.  I am so grateful that I am alive and married to him.  I love you, Sweetheart!

Loving that new dirt smell

I have been itching to write.  I am finally snatching a few moments before sleep to scratch that itch.

I carried food scraps to the compost pile today.  I turned the grass clippings that I spread on the edges of the pile to dry, aerated the center of the pile, and I felt delighted to find dirt, real beautiful dark dirt, forming in the middle of my compost pile.  It is working!

Much has happened since the last post I wrote about starting a compost pile.  One of the few things I have written about here was Mom’s death, but another big event was our move a little over a year ago.  We now own our first house, in a quiet neighborhood, with a fenced backyard and several established trees.  Behind one of these trees, a stout evergreen, we have a secret compost pile tucked away.  It started sort of by accident.  In fact, my sweet husband started it for me without meaning to.  He’s not the biggest fan of compost, and would not have started a compost pile on purpose.  After abandoning my last attempt at a compost pile after only a few weeks, I kept meaning to start a new one.  Every time I threw away food scraps, I felt guilty and sad.  I apologized to the banana peels and onion scraps as I dropped them into the trash, “Soon I’ll start a pile, soon…”  I murmured.  Eventually, I realized that guilt wasn’t moving me toward my goal, so I tried more positive thinking.  Any time I found myself thinking about what a shame it was to toss such lovely organic material, I pictured a thriving compost pile and beautiful rich composted soil, and imagined how delighted I would be with such results.  I did my best to actually feel the joyful emotions my lovely pile would bring, then said a little prayer for help moving toward my dream.

Early in the season, my husband switched from an old mulching mower, which was exacerbating the dead spots in our lawn, to a bagging mower.  We had several bags of grass clippings in our garage while we tried to figure out how to dispose of them–it’s not legal to put them in the trash here.  We couldn’t bring ourselves to pay a compost service to take our clippings and turn them into dirt that we would then have to buy back, so the bags sat in our garage and stunk.  I had no idea decomposing grass could smell so awful.

One day, my husband came in from mowing and informed me that he had finally just dumped the bags behind the tree.  I seized the opportunity!  Before long, I spread out the green grass to dry.  Soon after, I started taking little containers of food scraps out to the pile and carefully stirring them in, remembering that compost should always have a lot of air, and a mixture of “green” and “brown” material to help prevent the proliferation of smelly bacteria.

I keep my food scraps in the fridge until I am ready to take them out, so I don’t have stinky, fly-ridden containers of scraps cluttering my counters.  Every few days, I march out to the pile with shovel in hand to stir in the latest additions.  Though I do sometimes get behind, I have kept at it, just adding and stirring a little at a time.  And I am amazed that my gradual, steady efforts are actually having results!  I am thankful for this proof of the ideas that small and simple things bring about great things, that “slow and steady wins the race”  that continuous small efforts multiply and become something greater.  I have had so little experience with this in my life: steadiness is not my strong suit, and I don’t like to think of all the projects I have abandoned before seeing the fruits of my effort.

I turn over a shovelful of this dark, rich earth and mix in the leaves and grass and food scraps.  I see the slimy place where the pile has gone anaerobic and stir carefully, mixing the good dry grass and the fresh air into the slimy spot, helping it breathe.  I’m like the pile’s diaphragm, I think, drawing in the air to keep it alive.  It’s a quirky thought, and I like the odd shape of it in my mind.  Cicadas sing in the trees above me, the sun plays over the grass, the breeze dances toward me bearing the sweet smell of new dirt.  I think of Mom and smile.  I’m doing this, Mom.  It’s really working!  I pick up my shovel and bucket and head back to the house.