rough places return

hard even for me to express today.

i'm uprooted and laying exposed on the ground. not once but twice.

the "keeper" of neal ave has indeed dealt with the downed tree. it's one way. no nuance, no intuition; brute force. some mammoth earthmover who leaves a deep and determined track, has bulldozed the felled trees. nothing tending or caring to be sure. simply in a giant stroke pushed to the side. two trees now, one fully clothed yet and one bare lay parallel to the road. they don't fit easily there; the foot and roots are exposed to all. to deal with them and force them to a new place the avenue itself is again changed. a new widened and hurt place; looks like a combat zone that has nothing to do with openings to the field, only a harsh dealing with obstacles.

my heart is so bulldozed. not only about megan and jeremy although they come today. there is such heartache in our family. fronts known and fronts unknown. young places and aged places.

depths impossible to share.

the smoothed, grassy straight path i wrote of a couple days ago? remember that one? it leads to devestation.

i'm so afraid that i can't help megan. i will see her today.
k

rough places made plain

completely the wrong picture but i'll change it, just as.......
neal changed this morning.

amazing really what a difference a day makes.
my encroaching sadness that the visual peace of neal avenue was more and more elusive, changed over night. the darkness lurks now only on the edges again and deep in the underbrush. a giant mower smoothed the way today. it's soft now, even cushioned by the long cut grass laying on the way. it's cleared only to the fallen tree for now, but i expect that the "keeper" of neal is aware than more attention is needed. he's not especially gentle with the fallen trees; *that* clearing is a little brusk and uncaring, but in the end more order is what i need to feel.
i hadn't realized quite so much that my open space, my verdent shelter, my most familiar of all paths is tended and managed. by an outsider of all things. and an invisible one at that.
the way to the bench is also smoothed and expanded now. next the corn will grow up to envelope the path. for now the vista is gorgeous and open. as a body of water, shimmering, wavy, vast. peopled of course. i often wonder how many corn stalks are there as my network. the new farmer, a renter and not the owner, has gotten greedy with the land i fear. corn is planted this year, as last. pete always rotated. the stalks are closer together than they used to be; can't tell about the rows until the corn is taller and i can walk there. no way through at the "hole in the wall". the planting is colored outside the lines of the field. pete sees the change. even more, the machinery is all mammoth and feels conquering not nurturing fm planting to harvest. nothing in between really either, no neal avenue tending, no visits to look over it.
but, the corn aside, today was a surprise. that is supposed to be MY part, being surprising. how lovely to be on the other end.
i had quit walking on neal ave you know.
was already needing more shade.
k

Waiting is not only acceptable, but pleasurable.

"wild patience" from The Knitting Goddess, Deborah Bergman

Wild patience is a particularly fertile and creative state. It takes a simple or scarce resource, applies it to way too much time to be accounted for rationally, and akes it into a whole lot of something. Wild patience is powerful, once discovered, it can be handily and easily applied to other areas of life.

I call it wild because it is innovative and traditional at the same time. On the one hand, it is entirely impractical, and can even cause hardship or inconvenience on the everyday level. At the same time, it is eminently practical to the long term sustenance of the heart and soul.