What the World Needs Now…
…Is to Take a Deep Breath
It’s beyond difficult these days, has been for far too many years now, to just not get dragged into the mud, the blood, the tears, and especially, the rage that commands our lives now. I haven’t listened (voluntarily) to the news since November of 2016, but I cannot escape it completely.
And, none of it gives me much hope for a better day ahead.
Too much living in the past, the not very far distant past, as in ‘well, if he/she/they didn’t/did do X, W or Z last month, we wouldn’t be here now’ stuff.
Ain’t hindsight a great equalizer?
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Come with me now. Take a quiet journey to a place that you may or may not ever have been, will ever be, or maybe not even want to be. A journey of pictures that I hope will help you relax your mind, even for just the few minutes it takes to scroll through them. Pictures to quiet the rage, the dark thoughts. Please. Just for these few moments, let the world go elsewhere. Oh, it’ll still be there when you’re done, but can you just close that door, turn off the volume, shut down that window on your phone that’s tuned to CNN/Fox/MSNBC/whatever bearer of bad news of your choosing? Come. Walk with me through gardens, pet a furry critter, eat a fresh tomato, and most importantly, breathe.
Share a sunset. Or, enjoy one all alone. With or without a beverage of your choosing. This one paired well with 1 furry butt, a glass of homemade wine that didn’t suck, and a fresh picked cucumber. Yeah, kinda weird, but it had been yet another miserably hot day, so it kinda worked.
This sunset called for reposado, a type of tequila that will definitely make you appreciate the cloud formations.
The defiant, free range sunflower challenged the sunset sky on this particular evening. I called it a draw.
Every sunset requires first a sunrise. Being a rancher, I usually always see the sunrise, even when it happens around 0445 in July. This one spoke of the fires burning all around the west, giving me pause to reflect on our own experience with the 2003 Cedar fire in San Diego. I was one with the folks going through all the ones this year in spirit as well as sheer terror.
A sprinkle, a bejeweled gate, and a contrail. What else do you see, when you take the time to really just lose yourself in the shot?
The new risen sunshine battles the mist, and slowly prevails.
All that sunshine, rising and setting, is a gateway drug. It leads to things growing and blooming and buzzing. This year we caught a swarm, and welcomed countless native pollinators to the ranch.
Spotted Bee Balm is a weird yet oh so cool plant. To get a picture of the actual flower parts, I had to wait in line for the crowds to disperse to other restaurants in the area.
Coreopsis ‘Route 66’. I love tickseed. I can’t kill it, it blooms forever, the pollinators adore it, and it comes in lots of flower types, color combinations and leaf styles. Something for everyone, and by the way, it grows very well in pots that you forget to water from time to time.
Whoa. Check out the pollen pants on THAT girl! Noshing on a calendula, which free ranges all over my garden, in all sorts of bloom styles and colors of the yellow and orange variety.
I even plant weeds for my pollinators. This is a pink dandelion. Yep, you read that correctly. A weed. I have to keep hubby out of the garden, or he gets all itchy and sweaty, and his eye twitches when he sees these, because I have them in many places.
Nasturtium ‘Orchid Flame’ belongs in a slasher movie, and after the filming is done, in a salad bar.
Western Tiger Swallowtail. They flock here in abundance, especially during the lavender bloom. Oh, they’ll take a marigold in a pinch, but only the desperate ones.
Speaking of marigolds, what kind of gardener are you, you don’t have these easy to grow color pops all over the joint?
I never liked geraniums. I didn’t like the smell, the ugly, day glo colors, the weird leaves. Then, I found out that some geraniums have awesome colors that don’t drive you to drink, some of them smelled like chocolate, and only a few had the weird leaves. THEN I found out I could grow them from both seeds and cuttings. It’s now an addiction.
One thing to help you forget all the stuff going on that works every, single time, is a best pal to hang out with. Paint toenails. Knock back some brews and talk about your favorite basketball player(s). Share some cheesecake from that new place down the road. Talk about your dream supercar that you’re gonna get in 3 colors when you win the lottery. Or, just sit and enjoy the silence of a perfect day on the lake/beach/mountain top/forest/park. Even while doing ranch chores together.
For the record, dogs get the whole bestie thing pretty darn well. Not much drama between them. Something we could all strive for. No expectations, no judging, just friendship.
Diversity is the new buzzword of the moment. It’s okay, I guess, but it’s kinda lost a lot of its meaning anymore, it’s so over and incorrectly and falsely used. Bert the ram, meet Annie and Ruffie the cows. There. Diversity without drama, without loud proclamations, without a lead in or a PR firm. That wasn’t hard now, was it? He doesn’t know he’s a black and white crossbred ram, talking via nose sniffs to black and white purebred cows, and quite frankly, none of them give a damn about that whole appearance thing.
When someone gets all up in your grill, maybe take a moment to consider why. And then let her have the apple you were eating, because there’s more where that one came from.
When you need your alone time or a nap, by golly, take it. Don’t wait for permission (unless you’re an airline pilot crossing the Atlantic or a heart surgeon elbow deep in someone’s rib cage).
Life can be challenging. You can accept that challenge, or move away from it, onto a easier path. Neither makes you anything other than you. Not for anyone else to say anything about. You only need to answer to you.
If you don’t have a sense of humor, for the love of Mike, go search on Amazon. They’ve likely got someone selling it for $49.95 and free shipping. I’d suggest you opt for the non-sarcastic bundle until you’ve got enough experience to move up a notch. Concept and picture by my hubby of 39 years. He knows what does it for me.
Eat the good stuff, and especially eat the good stuff you grow yourself. A good friend on Instagram posted a shot of her sad little tomato plant, the very first she’s ever tried to grow, and the 5 fruits she harvested. The best she’d ever tasted, she learned from her mistakes and has made a pact to do much better next year. We do a lot of all ranch dining here, stuff we grew and harvested and prepared. Not everyone is that lucky, and we know that. We also share a good portion of our harvested vegetables with needy families around the area. I grow ‘em, and the Dawson Road Irregulars deliver them. These are great kids doing great things, and they helped bridge the language gap, as well as worked to find the families who most need the help. If you have some sunshine somewhere, a pot you can put dirt and seed into, you can grow something, especially now with all the mini varieties especially suited for patio/balcony/kitchen window growing.
Make yourself a spot to decompress. A friend living in an apartment in NYC took a closet, cleaned it out, decorated it, and put a lock on the inside, and that’s all he needed to have an escape room as he called it. A little mood lighting, a comfy beanbag (he’s a young whippersnapper, my beanbag days are far, far in the rear view) and a small table for his wine glass, and he was set. It doesn’t have to be nirvana. It just needs to be yours.
The storm always passes. It may not always have a rainbow ending. It might leave you hip deep in mud and water. You might have to spend the day digging your car out of a snowbank. But that storm passed over and died off, and you’re still here. The dark is followed by light. It might seem to be taking forever for that to happen, but it will happen.
At the end of the day, if you’re still on top of the dirt, then it wasn’t the worst day, even if it absolutely felt like it was. You’re battered, almost broken, but you are still on top of the dirt. You will recover from the battering, repair the breakage, and remain on top of the dirt for as long as you have the want. Your story. Your ending. You control the editing, the chapter organization, even spellcheck, although that drunken dwarf really needs AA, if you want my opinion. Oy vey, some of the replacement words he comes up with, you KNOW he’s gotta be drunk.
I hope you enjoyed this break from the world at large, and you’re welcome 😉.
