Reflections

 

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Reflections.

I'm not even sure I like that title. But I have been kicking it around in my head (and on the coffee table in the downstairs study) long enough that I will go with it while I write.

In one of those perfect synchronous moments, a letter from my friend Tani (who I have known for almost 4 decades now), Disability Pride Month (July), and my own internal struggles all hit on July 1. My feeling had been simmering for a few weeks, but the sweet combination of Tani's words and the editorial comment on the the Poem-A-Day for July 1, "A Sick-Room Idyll" by Williams Gay, tipped me from simmer to bubbling. 

The editorial comment on the poem was that it offered "a rare glimpse into disability space." Tani matched it as she hashed through her thoughts on the possibility of being "chronically severely disabled." Those thoughts wove deftly into my own reflections (that word again!) on what I coming to see as my "new" limitations. 

In late June, while posting a garden update, I wrote about my capacity, which is an ever-changing measure. When I was writing it, I was thinking about a mid-month trip to Pittsburgh that had rattled my conviction that I was just a "little tired." Shortly after that post, Warren and I had a long conversation about a long-planned vacation east and agreed to cancel it. There was a little bit of sadness in that decision, but also some relief. (And to be fair, the concern about my physical limitations was only one of four factors that caused us to pull the plug.) 

Tani wrote about her mental and physical bandwidth being impacted by her situation. I like that term: bandwidth. I replied with a thumbnail synopsis of where I am at: energy levels, decent. But endurance levels? Nope. I can go and do, but then I am done. A vacation with a lot of driving and sightseeing? Ha! The adrenaline would carry me along for a bit, but then I would collapse—exhausted, unwell, and totally drained, with a bandwidth of zero. And based on what I have been experiencing, the recovery time would be extensive. I doubt my body can take it. 

Yeah.

So, like Tani, my thoughts dwell increasingly on being "chronically disabled" and what that means. (Come on, aren't two progressive incurable blood cancers enough?) Going back to the poem with its "rare glimpse into disability space," I increasingly think about what that may mean for me. (Not to mention my friend, Tani, who is still working with doctors and physical therapists to see whether she can make progress in her situation.) What is my disability space? What does it look like? Feel like? How will it impact me as I continue to live my life the way I want and hope to? 

Synonyms for "reflection" include "contemplation," "meditation," "rumination," and "musing." So if you see me and I seem distant, don't take it personally. I am merely ruminating and musing.

And, of course, reflecting. 

At the Half: 2023 Grocery Purchases

We just finished the month of June, end of the Second Quarter of 2023 and the halfway point through the year. I spent some time with a calculator and the file in which I keep notes on our grocery expenditures, and I am ready to report the results.

Second Quarter highlighted a trend I had not really paid attention to before. We had a month of stocking up (April), then a lean month (May), then another stocking up month (June). The results are so dramatically different that after totaling up our June expenses, I wrote this note on my findings:

(Interesting that I posed it as a question instead of a statement.) And yes, July can and will be lean because that was the point of the stocking-up grocery trip in June.

Second quarter numbers: $716.39 total, of which $28.65 was spent on non-food items such as bleach or toilet paper. That averages out to $238.80 a month, up quite a bit from the First Quarter average of $177.35. Year to date: $1248.96, or an average of $208.16 a month. My goal when I noted the First Quarter expenditures was to come in at an average of $200.00/month, and I still think that figure is attainable. 

I made some further observations beyond the pattern of a heavy month followed by a lean month. There were some freebies in the Second Quarter, typically because of store perks or rewards. (On that note, ALL of the laundry detergent we have (several bottles at present) are either free or almost free (less than a dollar) because I get "Bonus Bucks" from CVS, where I fill prescriptions.) And there are a couple of indulgences (mild by many standards): we bought large packs of chicken thighs rather than drumsticks, at a cost of 20¢ more a pound, because we prefer thighs over drumsticks. And there is a pasta that Aldi carries, its Priano label, that we buy for linguine rather than the cheaper Reggano label, because we like the Priano better. (We use Reggano when buying penne pasta, finding it just as good and cheaper than we can find at Kroger, unless there is a sale going on.) I can live with those "splurges."

We try to be frugal with our expenditures for lots of reasons, starting with the reality that neither of us are shoppers just for the sake of shopping. (That is especially true of me; I have never enjoyed shopping, be it for clothing, food, or what have you. I love books, my one shopping weakness in decades past, but even that itch has died down to embers.) So it it is pretty easy for us when we do enter a grocery store to stick to the list. Some ask me whether we feel our limited food purchases makes it boring to eat or hard to come up with meals. I do 99.999% of the cooking, so I will answer that succinctly: No. I enjoy coming up with tasty concoctions made from what we have on hand, and if I can have leftovers for the next day, then bonus points for me! We always have staples, and that too makes planning and cooking easier. And to paraphrase Hope Ware of Under the Median, recipes are a suggestion list, not a mandatory you-must-do-exactly-this-for-this-dish mandate, so that makes cooking easier, less stressful, and far less taxing. 

2023 is halfway done! On to Third Quarter! 

This Year's Gardens: Part 4

 

Blossoms on the Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Beans 

Sometimes, a picture does say a thousand words. 

This Year's Gardens: Part 3

My last garden update was about four weeks ago. My, how the time flies. And yes, there is activity in the gardens!

I am starting to see the first tomatoes. The peppers are thriving; so are the red cabbages. (As well as the broccoli and cauliflower.) The zucchini are starting to spread their leaves.

The first sowing of basil was pretty much a disaster, as in "nothing happened." I wasn't even sure I wanted to try it again. But I did: I resowed the bed, announcing to Warren that if this didn't work, I would just buy basil at the Farmers Market to make pesto this year. (Well, that and the two basil plants I bought as a pitiful backup.) 

It worked, apparently. It seems I will have a basil crop after all! 

The basil is coming up!

The all-star in the vegetable gardens this year is the Trail of Tears pole beans. They are already reaching new heights and tomorrow I will be crafting more routes for them to spread up and over.

The pole beans reaching for the sky

My biggest surprise? Last year, I sprouted and planted four small patches of globe thistle from seeds I had harvested the previous fall from a healthy patch just down the street. I got nothing; the starts all withered away. So imagine my surprise a few weeks ago when I was doing some light weeding in one of the front beds and came across something that looked kinda sorta familiar. It was one of the patches of globe thistle, making an appearance this year!

Globe thistle! 

I am having some serious conversations (with myself, with Warren, with a few others) about how much capacity I have in terms of time and energy, both physical and mental. My capacity impacts what I do, have to do, want to do, am willing to do. Yes, all IS stable in Cancerland, but I have no illusions about how far out I am on the survival spectrum (way out there) and how much my body has endured over the last 19 years. So seeing this plant, which I had given up for lost, come up unexpectedly, gave me a little boost. I still have a lot of thinking to do and I may be writing about some of that in the weeks to come, but for now I am looking forward to seeing the globe thistle bloom. 

Early June Update

When I posted a garden update in late May, I mentioned the outside stresses on our schedules here. A lot has happened since that May 24th post. 

The Symphony office DID get moved; the very last items left on May 31. There was a great team of volunteers, with Warren spearheading and planning the whole event. Warren, Office Assistant Sharon, and Music Librarian Laura are still settling into the new space (Warren's comment when he came home yesterday: "I just needed a binder clip to hold some papers together. Couldn't find one anywhere.") but with 4th of July up next (a free outdoor concert that some 7000 folks attend), we are all relieved to have the move done. 

On the heels of the move, we headed off to Mayo. It is about 660 miles from door to door, and this was another rocket trip, leaving Monday and arriving back home at 1:05 a.m. Thursday. This is likely our very last rocket trip; I will time the next appointment to be later in the afternoon, spend the night in Rochester, and then drive back during the day. All is well on the cancer front: the myeloma is stable (still!) and the secondary cancer (from earlier treatments) seems to be just sitting there (which is what we want). 

But our travels are not yet over, not by a long shot. This Wednesday, we head to Pittsburgh for the national conference of the League of American Orchestras. Pittsburgh is only four hours away, not 11 or 12, so I am not dreading the driving. There is more travel in July, but I will save that for later. 

I will update the garden in a separate post. The early summer continues to be very, very dry, causing some issues with some of the plantings. 

The physical toll of traveling aside, June has been good. A former colleague from Juvenile Court stopped by on a midafternoon break yesterday and we caught up. (Dana was out walking and called me out of the blue to drop by. It was great.) He is about to retire, and he said quality of life was one of the big factors in his decision. I understood immediately—like me, Dana has enjoyed his job at Juvenile Court immensely, but there are other things he and his wife want to do and he is just looking for the time and peace of mind in which to do them. Some of those things are travel, but some of them are as simple as sitting out on their patio and enjoying a glass of wine. Yep, yep, yep.

And as we sort our way through the weeks and obligations right now, I am reminded daily (heck, sometimes hourly!) of how grateful I am that I am sharing this journey with Warren. Not just the love and the support and the encouragement (and I could go on), but also this perfect response that rolled out of his mouth as we were getting ready to head to Mayo. I needed to make a very quick run to the grocery for something for the trip, and I asked him if we needed anything else. Warren was working in his shop, and after putting down the tool he was using, he looked at me and said, "No. And if it turned out we did, I'm sure we could figure something out with what we have here."

It doesn't get better than that. 

This Year's Gardens: Episode 2

 Just 11 days ago,  I posted that I was way behind on this year's gardens.

Not anymore.

Despite all the hurdles, including the weather, and despite the major stresses on available tine in this house (moving a Symphony office is not for the fainthearted), Warren got both gardens tilled and I got them planted.

The kitchen garden, on the backside of our house and right off the patio, got planted first. 

The kitchen garden

You may note that in addition to the tomatoes cages, other plants are also caged. That is because the Bunny Brigade already moved through and chewed down the cauliflower I had put in. (Note: when I watered this morning, I saw that the cauliflower was rebounding.) 

The bare dirt has been sowed with basil and lettuce (and flowers in the back, which is the far right of this photo). 

I also put cages, not for protection but for climbing, around the Trail of Tears pole beans, heritage seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. They are almost ready to start climbing up.

Seed Savers Exchange is located in Decorah, Iowa, a mere 90 miles south of Rochester. It is a non-profit dedicated to saving and making available heritage seeds. I will be back at the Emerald City in June for a very short visit; we have one day free and we are talking about taking an excursion just to see the farm and the center.

Warren tilled the Hej garden Monday evening.  Before he started, we talked about what I intended to plant: much less than last year. So why not till a smaller garden this year? What a great idea! He started tilling before I came on out and that gave me the perspective (physical and emotional) to point out where it looked best to stop the garden: several feet shorter than in years past. Warren fenced it in and I started planting. Zucchini, some cabbages, the remaining broccoli. I may (may) plant some Trail of Tears beans back there, but I am not sure yet. As you can tell, there is plenty of room even with the shorter dimensions.

The Hej garden, complete with anti-rabbit fencing

I went out this morning to water both gardens, and was thrilled to note that the fencing on the Hej garden has kept the Bunny Brigade away. Nothing was chewed down to the ground. Dare I get my hopes up? 

I have spiderwort planted in the front bed and a bed along the rear of the house. A native species, spiderwort is a rapacious and aggressive colonizer. I have not thinned it out (and may not until the fall); I love the color it brings. Not to mention the bees, who are already working away. There is nothing like walking by the spiderwort bed and hearing it hum.

One of the hummers

That alone tells me it is going to be a good summer. 

This Year's Gardens: Part 1

It is mid-May and I am just now starting the 2023 gardens. Why so late? Oh, the list goes on forever.

We had a late, cold spring, for starters. There were some days of high temperatures here and there, including in February, but there was also frost later into the spring. Not to mention snow. Yes, snow. So weather played a big role.

The schedule overload in this house, especially on the Symphony front, has been intense and immense for weeks. Although I am not Symphony staff, I am married to the Symphony. We had one guest artist staying with us for the season-ending concert, so there were some preparations there on the home front. And in addition to being the Executive Director and the orchestra's timpanist, Warren also was a guest artist this concert, so there was a lot going on. A. Lot. And that doesn't count the incredible Link Up concert for 4th graders this week (three days after the aforementioned season finale) or the other major Symphony matters that have occupied this household for the last many weeks.  

 And while I kept thinking of gardening, my energy levels were depleted and I. Just. Could. Not. Do. It. 

Several weekends ago, I did a very rough weeding of the kitchen garden. It was full of purple dead nettle and hairy bittercress, and I weeded it by hand, in two two-hour blocks of time. A few weekends ago, I did a very, very rough weeding of the Hej garden, removing the dandelions, thistles, and other large strays that I could see. (The Hej garden has been covered in a deep layer of leaves all winter. I am not sure what is lurking underneath.)

This Tuesday, I finally got to a local (the very best local, in my opinion) garden center where I always buy my starter plants. Before going, I looked in my gardening notebook to see what I had written last season about my purchases and their successes. The one thing that popped up repeatedly was "too many tomatoes." I reined myself in greatly on the tomato front. That took tremendous willpower, but I managed. I also gave a few of my plants (one pepper and two tomatoes) to my dad, who smiled and said that he thought he "might" be able to manage those. (Dad will turn 90 this August and he is slowing down.)

My purchases from Miller's Country Gardens, waiting patiently to be planted.  

In previous years,  I have started some seeds inside, usually by late April. As noted above, it is mid-May. Guess what I spent an hour doing this morning?

Zucchini, mostly

Although the weather has been cool, I am not sure we have enough cool days left to plant lettuce and see any results before it gets too hot. I may seed some of the intended lettuce bed and then hold the rest of the seed for late summer. 

It rained steadily for several hours this morning and it is too wet to head into the gardens today. I want to till the kitchen garden and get the basil sowed soon. We need to buy more fencing for the Hej garden before I plant it so we do not have a repeat of last year's Bunny Buffet back there. There is still a lot (A. Lot.) on the Symphony front through July 4, but I think (or else am wildly blind to my own limitations), I can do most of what I want and need to do without relying on Warren. 

The 2023 gardens are off and running! (Or, more realistically, walking at a slow pace, but hoping to pick up speed as time goes on.)