The New Reality

Selfie - hugging a tree in the Sierra Nevadas

I had five targeted doses of radiation over ten days in late June, during which I turned 63. I'm not feeling the latent fatigue they forecast, though I experienced it during treatment. Then I started the medication designed to reduce risk of recurring breast cancer or developing metastatic cancer if I take it five years, called anastrozole. At first I thought I was lucky -- no noticeable side effects in the first couple weeks. Alas, a month in, I'm experiencing what the obliteration of estrogen does to the body. Most prominent is joint pain, sore muscles, and stiffness all over. I feel it especially in my hands and wrists. This brings me back to the misery of my pre-weight loss era; I had so enjoyed pain-free movement the last few years. I experience restless legs while trying to fall asleep, as well as 4 a.m. awakenings. My thoughts are slower -- brain fog. And I feel, on a cellular level, an absence of energetic capacity. The shrunken reserve requires careful choices and an acceptance of the current reality, so I feel some grief too. I have a good life. What's occurring to me is normal. Aging happens, health declines, or is otherwise compromised. I don't love it. Then I look up from writing and glimpse six-point buck wandering through the yard! He lingered long enough to delight me. I hear my child singing upstairs in this rented cabin. No sweeter gift than that.

It's Almost That Time of Year

Photo of the Dove Fire shortly after ignition

"By September the foothills were worn out from the deprivations of the dry season, and everything waited breathlessly for rain. The dusty trails in our canyons were covered with the riverine tracings of whiptail lizards and racer snakes, and although it was still hot, there was a certain aging of the light. The smoke from burning stubble on the rice fields down in the valley backed up against the mountains, and the lowering slant of the sun through it brought a nameless melancholy to the mornings of the well-adjusted, and to the desperate, more desperation. What had you done, now that the year was three quarters gone? What had your life come to? What of the New Year's resolutions you'd made?"

-Jordan Fisher Smith, Nature Noir

Happy Independence Day!

I want to celebrate something today, and this story is definitely at the top of my list. Kelsey Pfendler just rowed all by herself, unassisted, from Monterey to Hawaii, over 2,400 miles! She did it in 43 days, which means she broke the record for speed for all genders (that's 50-55 miles a day!). She turned 32 during the trip. She's the youngest person and first American woman to do this. In the process, she raised money for a nonprofit that provides mental and physical health services to Grand Canyon river guides, The Whale Foundation. Her Facebook videos through her trip are uplifting and educational. I figure this is a reason to celebrate the 4th. 

In her last video on the water, she encouraged people to take the risk and do the big, hard, scary thing standing between them and a dream. I'm reminded that when I was 31 (1994), my big hard scary thing was moving sight unseen over 1,800 miles from Syracuse, NY, to Austin, TX with no job or abode secured. I disposed of many possessions to lighten my load and shipped some boxes to my brother. I paid off my car loan and loaded up my little Blue Belle. Then I drove into a new life. The big hard scary things didn't stop once I arrived. It took several years to gain a sense of stability, belonging, and confidence. The next big hard scary thing I did was quit my job and go to graduate school to become a psychotherapist. That was a project. I graduated in 1999, and received my license in 2003. 

These feats put me on a trajectory toward a life I had scarcely dreamed I could have. We can do hard things!

This quote is what I referred to repeatedly as I prepared to move to Texas. 

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

- William Hutchison Murray,The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Poem to Myself

Poem to Myself

No one knows the gray fox that dreams in me.
No one knows that my heart is a curious puzzle

  I carry through the night toward the horizon.

No one knows the wonder I savor.

But I do. I do.

I will wake today and chase my senses.

I will walk today and notice the details.

I will explore until I catch the Mystery.

Gray fox, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

-Kathryn Harper

Foxy Neighbors

Okay, terrible picture because I was so far away. But this morning around 11 a.m. I look up from my desk and who do I see but one of the kits! I observed her avidly watching the birds on the lawn searching for bugs. (Birds are aware though, not likely in danger.) 

Every single night this week they have rambunctiously chased around the yard. All night. No complaints here, but it is vexing because I can hardly see them!

My neighbor sent this photo from his side of the fence. Adorable. Cuddled for a nap. 

Celebration!

On this, my 63rd birthday, nature's gift to me is the delight of three gray foxes in my back yard. We noticed one fox June 4, and my husband saw two last week. This morning all three were scampering around the yard. They are moving between my neighbor's yard (where I think they have a den) and ours. This photo is not high quality; they move so fast. I think it's a mom and kits. 

As best as I can tell, this is the Townsend's Gray Fox, a subspecies of gray fox that lives in northern California and Oregon. We live close to the foothills of Santa Cruz mountains. The hills a mile away have coyotes, deer, turkeys, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions (rare but there). Mountain lions and coyotes prey on the fox, so it makes sense they are denning farther away. We have rats (that like to eat the fruit from trees), so I don't mind having the foxes around. It has never happened in all the years I've lived in this house, and it feels incredibly precious to witness this. 

This morning I have a doctor appointment, and this afternoon I have a radiation treatment. Welcome to the sixties! (Not really. I've noticed an upward trend in medical visits over the past five years or so.) People ask if I'm doing something special. Nope! I don't need to. As long as it's a good day, with moments of joy and savoring, it's special enough. 

I received two birthday cards (from husband and son) that were perfectly chosen, as well as some gifts. One of the gifts being an array of circle punches ranging in diameter from 3 inches to .3 inch. I look forward to cutting and playing with circles and making collages. I will encircle the world!

The other gift is a new fitness band of a different brand (Garmin), since the Fitbit I was using kept flaking out. And we all know the unmeasured life is not worth living! (Joke!) It's been a useful tool in becoming more healthy and maintaining. Some of us just do better when we keep track of ourselves.

I'm thinking this evening I'll have a backyard fire in the fire pit. I love a good campfire. It's Midsummer! I'm celebrating the light and life.

A Garden Story

I wrote this for a snail mail swap project with a theme of "writing about your garden." The photos were unwieldy for the email, so I've posted the letter here. Please note, if you want to see a bigger photo just click on it in the blog post. Also, I am in garden zone 9b (San Jose), meaning it rarely falls below freezing and provides a long growing season. It falls in the Heat Zones 7 or 8 (about 60 to 120 days of extreme heat per year). Because USDA zones do not account for coastal fog or ocean breezes, the specific UC Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County highly recommend checking the Sunset Climate Zones. San Jose is primarily Zone 14 or 15 (which accounts for the mild Mediterranean climate with marine air).

Dear PK and RR,

I joined this swap after reading the note of encouragement to do so, when it was made clear that having a Better Homes and Gardens quality garden was not required. 

I am, despite many years of aspiration, not a gardener. I'm the daughter of master gardeners who has made many attempts but lack the discipline to persist. At least when it comes to gardening. Below is a recent photo of my backyard. Typically in the summer drought it's brown (we don't water the grass, to conserve), and it grows hugely during rainy season. I mowed it once a few months ago after it was 3 feet tall, and drat, it grew again! A bout of illness prevented me from mowing again. Here is what it looked like until last weekend. We had several volunteer trees that had grown by the orange tree, and weeds taller than my husband on the side yard. (My husband has for years taken care of the front yard in an effort to not be a blight on the neighborhood, but he has no love for gardening either.)

It made a wonderful little meadow for many birds and lizards, but the grass that grows produces seeds with needle-tip points that catch on clothes. Ouch! Our visitors include raccoons, opossums, rats, squirrels, and neighborhood cats. Birds in my yard include Mourning Dove, Western Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, Anna's Hummingbird, American Crow, Northern Mockingbird, Cedar Waxwing, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Bewick's Wren, Dark-eyed Junco, California Towhee, House Sparrow, House Finch, and Brown-headed Cowbird. 

However, on June 4 (my son's high school graduation day), we had an auspicious visitor using our yard as a day spa -- a California gray fox! We live near the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains and wildlife is only about 1 mile away. In all 16 years of living in this house, this is the first time a fox visited. 

He or she lounged in the yard about an hour. I've heard it said the foxes are dog hardware that runs on cat software. I hadn't known until that day that they (gray foxes) can climb trees and fences, as their wrists rotate!

Anyhow, I finally broke down and hired someone to come out and clean up the yard, and I will have him come routinely from now on to mow and blow. Here's what it looks like now and what was dragged to the street. And hope rises eternally in me. I can feel my aspirational gardener thinking, "Now that we've hired someone do maintain it and to help with special projects like mulching, trimming, and managing the sprinkler system, I might tend to it more..."

Even though I'm a crap gardener, I do appreciate flowers. Below are some photos I took of flowers in my parents' garden in past years. They are no longer alive, and I like to think their energy is now flowing into all growing things. 

My parents had many decorative signs in their garden. One was a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson from the poem Hamatreya, "The earth laughs in flowers." The other sign was a stanza from a poem by Dorothy Frances Gurney: 

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.

Wishing you a vibrant Litha and a joyous summer season!

Warmly,

MindfulOne/Kathryn

Encouragement

Encouragement

Let yourself be the earth and the days be weather.

Storms come, but they pass. Do not follow them.

Enjoy the sun. Notice the bees kiss the flowers

while you listen to a crow shout her opinions to the world.

What a gift, to be!!

-Kathryn Harper

Crossroads

Crossroads

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer 

I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar, 

like what I remember of love when I was young -- 

love that was so often foolish in its objectives 

but never in its choices, its intensities.

Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised --

My soul has been so fearful, so violent: 

forgive its brutality.

As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,

not wishing to give offense

but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:

it is not the earth I will miss, 

it is you I will miss.

- Louise Glück

Tulips

Shell pink petals
Sunlight turns the tips creamy
Pollen beckons within cups
Feasts for the bees

Say Good Morning

What do you do 

when you head into the morning 

to pick dandelion leaves for the rabbit, 

and you meet a

pea-sized spot of joy on a plant?

-Kathryn Harper

The Crows Wait Patiently

Two crows on a bare branch,
one grooming the other
as the nigh spring sun sets;
a breeze makes shadows dance

over the empty bowl.

-Kathryn Harper

How God Remembers That Which is Least

This was originally written in January 2016.

Yesterday I walked home from dropping my daughter at school, and I passed by a wounded mourning dove on the sidewalk. It was camouflaged and nearly undetectable. In a matter of seconds my eye saw it, my heart said, Oh! Poor creature, and my legs kept walking. I thought -- actually, I felt a physical pressure in my torso -- the prompt of compassion to move it off the sidewalk, and this was immediately chased away by the thought, Remember, avian flu, don't want to get something like that.

I kept walking, but a debate occurred between my mind and that felt part of me. I hesitate to call it my heart, because it filled my torso. It was an interesting experience, since another part of me was detached enough to witness the event. This is what unfolded:

Feet are walking.

Head: Keep going. It could have disease.

Heart: You can wash your hands as soon as you get home. It's vulnerable. At least move it off the sidewalk.

Head: It's probably going to die.

Feet keep walking.

Heart: Just move it! Even if it dies, let it be somewhere safer.

Head: No, it's silly. It's just a bird. Not a big deal. Besides, I'm several houses past it.

Heart: Go back. Go back, pick it up, and put it under a bush. 

Feet move more slowly.

Head: You're kidding, right? Feet, keep walking. It's no big deal.

Feet continue to move, even more slowly.

Heart: You must go back. Turn around, walk back, and move the bird. It's a living creature.

Feet stop.

Head: Really?

Heart: Really.

My body turned around, my feet walked half a block back to the bird. I leaned down and gently cupped my hands around it. I lifted the bird and saw that it was dead. Its eyes remained open, but there was not even the slightest movement of a feather. I tucked it under a bush. I wasn't thinking. The act itself felt like a prayer. I took out my phone and snapped a picture. It was just a bird, but it had been living and now it wasn't. It seemed right to memorialize it in a photo. Then I stood up and began walking home.

Peace coursed through my body. It was an act of compassion, however small.

Heart: Thank you.

Head: Okay, just be sure to wash your hands really well when you get home.

Today, a scripture from my childhood came to mind, Luke 12:6: "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God."

We are God's eyes. We are called to remember. That is how God moves in the world.

A Glimmer For Today

Hello! I'd like to introduce you to Sydney. They are in the lower left corner of this photo.

Many years ago I was quite phobic about spiders. I'm talking about not being able to sleep if I saw a spider in my bedroom, visceral physical reactions of disgust at seeing one, and intense terror. I loved reading Charlotte's Web and understood intellectually how helpful they were. But this couldn't get past my lizard brain response.

In my 20s I began to work on shifting this. I made myself look at them more closely if I saw them outdoors. I worked on talking myself down to a calmer state. Rather than killing them when I found them at home, I began to rescue and release them. I still had the heebie jeebies with some of the bigger ones. If I found one in the car I'd probably melt down. But for the most part I've gotten over the phobia.

I'm not a passionate or dedicated housekeeper. Dusting feels pointless. The house is neat but a bit cobwebby around the corners. Last September a spider established a small home base on the kitchen sink window. We had a problem with fruit flies in October, and Sydney was quite helpful resolving it. They began to weave a more elaborate home, and I decided as long as it remained confined to the windowsill I would leave it be.

And here we are, six months later. Sydney remains, and the sill is strewn with little carcasses of prior meals. I'm not sure how long spiders live but am impressed how much time has elapsed with Sydney at the sill. I would never have envisioned me allowing this years ago. 

Dance With Me

                     

Dance With Me

There I stood, waiting for the express
While pondering ways to renew
my flagging spirit, which struggled to climb
life's mounting challenges, when I saw you, serene,
your hands moving in the air, a kind of dance --
the glorious joy on your face making you rich.

Gazing around, I noticed the world's colors were rich.
In each person I sensed the soul's desire to express, 
to enter into the dance.
I felt that I could summon the energy to renew
and make myself serene
like an arbor trellis with those roses that climb.

To reach far, to stretch toward goals that require I climb --
this makes life worthwhile, and I feel rich.
In these moments, my heart beats serene.
I vibrate with life and tremble to express,
to evolve, to embrace impermanence and thus renew
life's eternal dance.

So, which steps will we choose to dance?
Will it be the hustle, the two-step, the fandango climb?
Or maybe a slow waltz, to allow our breathing to renew
while rhythmically moving to the beat, slow and rich.
Perhaps we will lean in to share a kiss, to express
what tantalizes us as we attempt to appear serene.

We might do this under the silver light of the moon, serene
in the movement of the dance
and the people watching -- their murmurs will express
how desire steeps, distills, intensifies, like the climb
of mercury trapped in a glass tube, the red rich
as blood, like the lungs give oxygen to renew.

And after we untwine ourselves, we turn within to renew
the relationship with the One who never leaves, the serene
companion who understands money does not make one rich;
nor does having it guarantee an invitation to the dance
and that life is often one painful, slogging climb
to an illusory summit that cannot contain all we express.

Form and emptiness express all that is, a serene

invitation to renew your energy and dance with life.

Free from need to delve or climb, rich beyond measure.

-Kathryn Harper  

Implacably Aloof

"At the start of this quest, I had no way of imagining that long after it was over I would still be struggling to formulate a coherent response to the miseries the canyon inflicted on us, the satisfactions that would later overtake the memories of that misery, or the yearning and splendor that transcended them all. I had no way to fathom the force with which the canyon's austerity, its grandeur, and its radiance -- traits that stand implacably aloof to human hopes and ambitions -- can impart a perspective that will enable you to see yourself as nothing more, and nothing less, than a grain of sand amid the immensity of rock and time and the stars at night."

-Kevin Fedarko, A Walk in the Park: the True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon

A Glimpse of My Youth

 

A Glimpse of My Youth 

Tangles of Virginia creeper drape over
the pool, a shimmering gasoline puddle
of Japanese beetles.

I am sodden in my second skin bathing suit
sprawled on the ground murmuring secrets
to cicadas,

watching my father wash lettuce
from the garden. 

When I Go Into the Woods

  

When I Go Into the Woods

When I go to the woods
I bring no books along
preferring instead to read
the primary sources:

the opinion columns of pines
persuasive essays by incense cedars
an array of novels from oak trees.
Quaking aspens are poetry of light
and movement.

There is philosophy in fallen logs.
I study the hieroglyphs of former
wildfires to glean memories
of the Before time.

Even dead trees have purpose
as nurseries for animals and plants;
the rhymes arising from them
are kissed by the wind,
then float away.

-Kathryn Harper

There’s Always Looking After

There’s Always Looking After

A tree is a guardian angel.

Trees talk to us, they
whisper stories and secrets,
slip us clues to universal mysteries.
Do you see the forest, or the trees?
Sap murmurs up the trunk in spring. Listen.
The apple falls (not far from the tree), its
crisp honey tang for the taking. Notice
how the air changes when you approach
a woods; the fresh, spicy scent of leaves
and needles performing their gift of tonglen.
Handle limbs gently. Despite their
coarseness, trees are benign as babies.

Autumn. My favorite elegy. Red orange yellow
each color a note, a symphony of glorious
death. Gaia’s last hurrah before hibernation.

Glorious death. The nativity of Jesus in
Bethlehem was honored by his parents, wise
shepherds, angels — even animals. But not
one tree except for the remnant serving
as his crib. Look what happened to him.
Whereas Buddha, under a Bodhi tree,
received the gift of enlightenment.

Beware. Trees are destroyers. When touched
by lightning (not an angel), in a rhumba
with the wind, trees release limbs as
geckos lose their tails. They surrender
responsibility, abandon stability,
crush what lies beneath. A shard
of wood thrown by a tornado can kill you.

How many angels are there? They number
more than all the leaves on all the trees
since Big Time began. Earth — head
of a pin on which all trees dance.
Those trees, they krunk in a hot minute.
We just don’t see them. They move so fast.

A baby is born. A sapling takes root.
As roots grow, her neurons multiply.
They amputated the tree in our yard
the other day. Am I going to die now?

A tree is a livin’ thin’, wif it’s own
varmintality, expressed by it’s shape,
texture, locashun, seasonal variashuns,
shade/sun alterashun, th’ emoshuns it
invokes in th’ obsarver, th’ memo’ies
it stimulates in th’ obsarver. A tree
lives as long as a hoomin, o’ longer,
an’ faces th’ elements day-in an’
day-out. To sacrifice a tree is a kind
of euthanasia. A tree thet yo’ plant
today will outlive yo’, an’ affeck other
hoomins in th’ future junerashuns… but
will only be thar IF yo’ an’ yer projuny
own th’ lan’ on which th’ tree thrives.
Own SOME lan’, somewhar, an’ put trees
on it, an’ viset an’ watch them grow.

The ancient forests of knowledge
hidden in dusky, musty library stacks
have become my land. My mind, my tree
of knowledge, thrives. It is all I have.
On this moonless night everything
telescopes, clarifies. Brightness erupts
from inky black. The dark night of the soul
is really a form of enlightenment.

I fall on my knees, praying to No God.
The god of no. I sway in the wind, yearning
to be struck, to plummet, to become the abyss
that annihilates, that looks into me. Oh,
the ecstasy of descent! I cry for it.

Mindful One, she thinks too much. She dwells
inside her head, sips the ink of books too
often. For all her lofty talk about meaning
and nature, she lives indoors, estranged.
Reconciliation is possible. The priest
intones, you are dust and to dust you shall
return. So it shall be. A reunion.

Yes! A gorgeous reunion. A gorgeous death.
It shall be as it is, unless it is as it shall
be. Remember, nascentes morimur. The voice is
relentless, paralyzing. Death, inevitable from
the beginning of my existence. My destiny, our
destiny, is to become nothing.

Not so, whisper the trees. Willow weeps over my
rigid despair. A pine tree caresses my hair.
You do not become nothing. You become everything.

The body becomes a corpse. The corpse rots, feeds
maggots and beetles, enriches the soil. A squirrel
foraging embeds a nut, forgets it. The nut germinates.
A sapling grows, slowly. Outside of time. Watching over.
Witnessing the Mystery. There’s always looking after.

-Kathryn Harper

I wrote this poem 20 years ago, following this exercise from The Practice of Poetry:

This exercise comes from page 119 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell. The goal of the exercise is to write a poem that includes these twenty suggesetions:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia.
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you've never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of "talk" you've actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don't understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: "The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . . ."
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona in the poem do something he/she would not do in "real life."
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a nonhuman object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem. 

A Contemplation

A Contemplation

My body is no longer my own. It contains a
sprout like a fiddlehead fern frond, curled
inward on itself.

Microscopic cells mystically multiply
with fervor, their intention known only
to themselves.

While I breathe, while I sleep, whether
I churn like a river or remain a placid lake,
this body has

Its own mission. Summer is coming.

-Kathryn Harper