The birds after I filled the feeders. I think all of us feel better.

Note to myself, from myself, this morning, when I realize it’s been nearly a month since I posted a blog, and I can’t imagine what to write next.  This is a bit of a problem, because if you have a blog, ideally you should write regularly. Like once a week, in an ideal world? So you can see how my blogging world is not ideal. Plus it is just a few days before Christmas, and it is “the most wonderful time of the year,” they say, but what if I wake up and it isn’t? What if it’s just me and my dirty house and my ordinary brokenness?

Maybe this is what I should say to myself:

If you are feeling sad, my dear, says my wise self to my broken self, I wonder if it is because it is 10:51 am on a grey December morning one week before Christmas and you are still in your pajamas?  Might I gently suggest that it could be a good idea to get up from the computer, where you are desperately trying to write something GOOD? Or is it that you got lost scrolling through social media apps and are saddened by all the posts from “influencers,” people who seem to have it together in a way that you never will. If this is the case, then get up right now. Turn off your phone.  Shut down the computer. Go get dressed. Getting dressed is a fine way to walk back the sadness, even a little. Fresh clothes, fresh mind, right? I just made that up, but it fits. Continue Reading…

This is how I prayed today:

On my knees. In the dirt. Under a blue sky.

It was a warm November day. Too warm. No rain in the forecast. Again. Maybe we will have some closer to Thanksgiving?  There always seems to be rain in the long range forecast, usually about two weeks out. The weather forecasters are tricky like that. Maybe they don’t want Californians to worry too much, to lose hope, to start that slow descent into mass depression that we all suffered a few years back, when we endured year after year of drought.

Today, though?  The sunshine was bright and I enjoyed it in spite of myself.

This was the second year I purchased native California wildflower seeds with birthday money from my sweet in-laws. Last fall, I planted some in our front yard and then scattered the rest in a flower patch that I had just started out back. I confess that I was surprised this last spring when the seeds actually sprouted.  I always hope, you understand, but sometimes I doubt that the tiny seeds will turn into flowers, especially in my yard, where the soil has been neglected and weeds have thrived, where I am more likely to dig into the dirt and find nails and pieces of broken glass than worms.

This last year, though, my seed scattering was a success. I had a small wildflower patch pop up in my front yard, and California poppies and a few lupine in the back. The weeds were still there, but there were flowers, too.

Today, I went outside and scattered seed again: more California poppies, more  lupine, baby blue eyes, globe gilia, California bluebells. I found sticks and pushed them into the earth, marking where the seeds fell. Next spring when green shoots emerge, if they emerge, if there is rain, I will remember that these are wildflowers, not weeds. At least some of them. Odds are good that there will be weeds, too. But after working this soil for a few years now, I think I can tell them apart. Mostly. At least the worst offenders: the ferny burr weeds, the yellow sticker clovers, the foxtail grasses that lodge in my dog’s feet and ears.

But here is the surprise that I want to tell you about. Continue Reading…