Coffee Chat: What I've Come to Know

Hello dears.  Do have a glass of iced tea with me.  I have peach, black pekoe, and that lovely violet colored pea flower tea.  Which would you like?

I've been feeling the itch to get outdoors and putter about with plants and things. The problem being I want to cut right to the fun part (planting and making up pretty pots) but I hadn't done the hard part yet (cleaning pots and sifting soil).  Turns out you can empty a pot, clean it and sift the soil then plant one pot at a time.  It's not a short cut but it does allow you that instant cure to the gardening itch.

I was contemplating my plants on Saturday.  The lilies I worked on last spring are up and doing well.  A big pot of coreopsis is about to burst into bloom.  The dianthus came back after that deep shearing I gave them last year.  They really need to be repotted but for right now I want to enjoy the few blooms I have.  The roses are budding and blooming nicely.  The gardenia has buds. The daylily have put up tall stalks topped with buds.  It's go go go, all the way with the perennials.  

But the herbs are pretty much done.  I lost the lemon thyme (no harm as far as I'm concerned as I never liked it in anything), the chives are scraggly, the oregano down to two stems, the lavender dead.  I'll essentially be starting from scratch with those this year.  I hope to put in plenty of oregano, lots of basil, more chives which I really enjoy going out to snip fresh something like 10 months of the year, sage, and a fresh mint start as mine is just not doing well.  I'm pretty sure what the mint requires is to a bit of fresh replanting.  The others will all have to be bought as plants or seeds to get them going once more.

Gardening dreams abound.   At least this year I can sincerely say I have money for the mulch and plants and seeds I might want to purchase.  Time, energy, a truck... those little old things are in short supply.  But I will have pretty pots of flowers and herbs and hopefully a few tomatoes if I have to putter at it all summer long in order to get it done.  

I went out this morning with Caleb and put my hands down deep into dirt.  I was surprised to find that while the surface felt warm deeper down the soil was still quite cool.  These were pots of dirt, not the ground. I can only imagine that the deeper surface of the ground is still quite cool.   Knowing this takes some of the urgency to plant out of my system.  

The first year we moved here, I must have planted hundreds of flower seed starting in March.  Granny told me in April to just be patient, the earth was still cold.  Oddly enough, Sam was telling me he'd seen little evidence of some of his seed yet, and I told him the same thing Granny told me.  "Just be patient...the earth is still cold."  I understand his eagerness, and her wisdom better now than I might have 25 years ago.

I understand a lot of things now that I didn't 25 years ago.  About myself.  About life.  About children. About marriage.  About nature.  About God.  What a lot of learning there has been over these years!  It astounds me.  And humbles me, too, because if I've learned so much in these 25 years ago, then how much more will I learn in the next 25?  That's not to say that I learned so little the first 39 years of my life. I learned quite a bit then too, but not as much as I've learned these last 25.  

Most interesting to me, is how much more quickly I see the connections between all those years of learning.  Everything is cyclical and seasonal.  Everything.  I might well feel I am living in chaos at times, but in hindsight I can see it was really more orderly than it appeared.  Orderly in the way things unfolded, in the way I learned, and in the way it led to the next thing.  I suppose a storm seems pretty chaotic to the earth when the winds are raging and the rain is pouring, or the flames are blazing, but there is a purpose in them.  Just as there is purpose in that storm of tears or the rage you feel over certain situations.  Something fresh and green comes from them eventually.  New growth. Greater understanding.

I've experienced a bit of a phenomenon in that all of my life, I felt old.  I felt old as a child and old as a teen and older as a 20- and 30- something.  When someone would say, "Oh you're an old soul," I could only nod in agreement.  I felt old from the inside out.  I used to believe that I had a greater wisdom than some.  I never understood those souls who were wont to say, "I don't wanta grow up!"  I felt I was already grown up and had been for years and years. 

But now, in my near mid-60's I feel almost childish at times.  Not in my temperament but in the awareness of all that I have yet to learn.  In the overwhelming sense of awe I experience so often.  And that wisdom I once thought I had?  It's considerably less than I initially thought it, lol.  Isn't that just the way life is?    But the youth I feel is spilling over into my mental/emotional areas.  There are days when regardless of my age, I am certain that I will look in the mirror and see a much younger version of myself.  It's as though as I progress in physical age, I get younger and younger.  

I think perhaps that it's to do with a release of a lot of anxieties and fears and worries I grew up with, as well as the vulnerability one experiences when you fully trust in another person and most especially of the trust I have learned to have in God.  It allowed me to shed that hard crusty soberness that acted as a shield and was protection against the harsher things that hit. 

I've heard two things recently that resonated deeply within me.  One dealt with end of life and one with children.  

The first was from a hospice nurse and she said that quite often at the end of life, a personality is distilled so to speak, true to what that person truly was in life.  And while we might think at times that dementia makes a person act in a way we'd never seen them act, in reality, that person may well be acting out who they truly were, good and bad.  

It also made me think of some of the people I met in the nursing home, who displayed less than likable traits whose family said, "Oh they never acted that way before..." and perhaps they didn't act on those things before but the release of inhibitions as their mental barriers weakened brought them out.  Without the reasonable portion of the mind to monitor and hide those things, they were now exposed.

That made me stop and think of who my father was in his last months.  Respectful, careful not to tear another down, mindful of others.  Not to say he didn't speak a hasty word but the essence of who he was, was on display.  Yes, he was selfish in a mannish sort of way and that's not to slander any man.  Most men of his era were taught to be selfish.  He could be stern.  But I came to see that the rigidity was his attempt to control his anxiety and excess of emotion. 

Granny at the end of her life was more condensed.  Yes, she was confused but that same sweet spirit of hers was stronger than ever and when I left a visit with her, I wasn't saddened.  I simply had been steeped in a greater sense of peace than ever.  

The other thing I heard was that in studying personality, scientists have discovered over 400 distinct personality traits in infants that have nothing to do with DNA, environment, ethnicity.  Nothing.  That child is already a set personality in those 400 areas.  The man giving the lecture went on to say that we need to release the idea that we have the ability to change those traits.  At best, we as parents can be shepherds of our children.  We can only guide them, so they learn how to marshal their instincts and actions.  It seemed to me that shepherding was a wonderful term to use.  

He was trying to make the point that there are things we as parents will think, "Why is my child this way?  What did I do wrong?"  when in fact, we hadn't done anything wrong.  That child was simply acting on that personality trait they'd always had.  

I don't believe we as parents should stop and think "Oh well it's none of it my fault."  Parents can do harm and they can do good in a child's life and it behooves us to do the best we can.  But there is such a thing as grace.  

But really both these speakers' subject matter are mirrors one of the other.  In the beginning, as at the end, we are essentially who we are.  

I don't know about you, but there are things I'm pretty sure I need to keep working to change!  And a few things I need to stop blaming others for...Ow.  

The other night the leader of our small group came out to the house to interview John and I for his master thesis.  He's long since become a friend, too.

This is the man who two years ago invited John to join his small group of creatives and looked askance at me when John said, "Well, Terri is a blogger.  Perhaps you'd like to have her come, too..."   The same man who was floored when I read my piece before them the first evening.  The same man who, as a mentor, suggested I strive harder for the beautiful in the ugly things which sent me into a mini writer's block for a bit and then I managed to untangle myself and write freely once more.  I'm not saying any of this to criticize him or slander him in any manner.  I am sharing this because Thursday night when we sat down to do the interview, he gave me high praises for the pieces of work I've shared with the group over the years.   He brought tears to my eyes.  

I've been so very blessed in my life.  My writing ministry is small.  I realize that. It always has been. But I've been so encouraged by published authors, mentors, professors that by rights I should never have come into contact with at all.  Somehow, God has seen fit to place them in my pathway and there they are cheering me on. I am so grateful for their encouragement, but most of all I'm grateful to you, the reader.  You too encourage me through comments, quick notes to remind me you're praying, tops about how.to solve a problem, etc.  It's you all who make that worthwhile and I so appreciate you.  I just want you to know that.  

I've been thinking of so many things here of late.  That dark spell of grief and pain I went through over the end of last year is lifted, praise God!  I think, as much as other things took me by surprise, I was most shocked by the depth of despair I felt.  Years of being free from depression and then to find myself sunk down in the mire of it once more was bewildering, especially when I considered old wounds healed and those heavy clouds lifted.  I plodded steadily on through those days because of the prayers and encouragement I felt all about me.  No, life isn't how I planned it.  I don't know if it ever will go according to my plan.  But I've found peace and a happiness and satisfaction once more and something that feels like it might well be joy for the first time in a long while.  Pray God, I can carry on in just such a way for a long, long while.

I hear Caleb awake at last.  Let me go open his door and finish up my supper.  Then he and I will go outdoors for a little while.  I'll sit in the shade and admire the blue sky, listen to the birds and point out all the interesting things to him that I want him to come to know and love as I do.  

I'll chat with you again soon!