A Moveable Garden

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

• Weather

The first part of the week was colder than the second, with a high of 18°F and a low of -.8°F on Monday, and by the end of the week a high of almost 40°F and a low of 32.3°F on Sunday. Correspondingly, we had 2 inches of snow on Tuesday and 1/2 inch of rain between Saturday and Sunday. Overall, the average high was 31.2°F; the average low was 15°F, with the negative low on Monday and three other lows in the single digits.

• Beginnings/Firsts

The start of my new spin around the sun! And the start of the 12 Days of Christmas (to Epiphany, 6 January).

• Wild Things in addition to others elsewhere in this post

• Wandering 

Seasonal busyness and weather continued to reduce our walks this week. We managed a walk around town on Tuesday and a longer walk around the lake on Thursday. Lake pics:

• Curiosity & Discoveries

A yuletide wonderment: The Harry & David’s gift I ordered at the last minute for a friend (LD) after my first order, from another vendor, was never shipped … arrived safely on Christmas Eve!

• Creating

Wrapped my husband’s few gifts on Monday night. Also costumed these digital paper dolls (Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar)! Are they not … interesting??

• Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: Only two walks outside this week. I also treadmilled on two evenings, totalling 3.6 miles over 50 minutes. I worked out three times (3 hours) this week. My step count was over 9,000 on five days, over 10,000 on three days, and over 14,000 on one day (Friday). I had two low-step-count days, Christmas and Sunday, when all I wanted to do (after meditation) was lay on the sofa.

As just mentioned, I participated in the 2-hour Dharma Sunday via Zoom with Lama Liz Monson (of Natural Dharma Fellowship), with a half-hour meditation and then a teaching (and discussion) on “wandering into the center of a circle of wonder,” something the Zen master Hongzhi Zhengjui (1091-1157, China) spoke about. Lama Liz emphasised the idea of practicing letting go of the energy of the mediating mental bubble, our thoughts about our experience, letting it dissolve over and over again, entering into the much vaster circle of wonder, an experience of our life without a conceptual overlay, beyond labelling (I just told the cat that what he was watching was a goldfinch as I was typing this) and our well-worn narratives, a fresh unfiltered experience of presence.

Cat: The cat received some soft treats and this lovely space-themed soft cone for Christmas, which he might need after his dental surgery in early January. He seems a bit shook.

• Nesting 

Christmas is a nesting extravaganza, really.

Cleaning/Maintenance: I did clothes laundry on Monday and Sunday. We put away Christmas gifts and debris on Thursday (very early for us!) and further cleaned and tidied before friends visited on Friday and Saturday. I organised the wrapping containers a bit. On Tuesday, my husband replaced the bolt holding the clip that activates the woodstove’s catalytic converter.

He made the dump trip on Saturday. He replaced batteries in one of the game cameras on Thursday and installed LED strip lights (a Christmas gift for me) around the window by the cat’s condo; the lights are programmable using an app!

Food: Leftover minestrone soup and bread on Monday. On Christmas Eve my husband finished the rest of the Reuben sandwich he’d ordered for lunch when we went out earlier, along with some fries, and I have no idea what I had. On Christmas morning, my husband made crêpes Suzette for me. On Saturday, I made Maryland crabcakes and an arugula-fennel salad with lemon vinaigrette for lunch with a college friend. From Wednesday on, dinner was pretty much all takeout Indian food, my traditional birthday dinner — we had vegetable appetizers and aloo paratha bread, and I ordered dalmakhani and shrimp biryani while my husband enjoyed the lamb saagwala — though on Saturday, while I still had much more Indian food to eat, my husband’s was finished so he had a crabcake and salad left over from lunch, plus leftover fries from Tuesday’s lunch; and on Sunday he made an arugula salad topped with lemon-olive Spanish white anchovies (Patagonia brand). I still have more Indian left!

Supplies: I ordered 4 pairs of underwear (new, with tags) from two separate eBay vendors this week; and an Amazon order of three boxes of Taylor of Harrogate’s Spiced Christmas tea bags plus a box of ibuprofen were delivered on Sunday.

Garden/Yard: My husband cleared the snow off the driveway on Tuesday.

• Sleeping & Dreaming

So-so nighttimes, with sleep times ranging from 5-1/2 hours to 8 hours, averaging slightly over 7 hours per night this week. My FitBit sleep score was 83.7 (range from 78 to 87). I’ve been mostly falling asleep immediately, waking up about a half-hour later, then lying awake for one or two hours before falling sleep again. I had 14 hours 12 mins REM sleep this week (including one night just shy of 3 hours) and 7 hours 45 mins of deep sleep.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

Reading

BOOKS: This week I finished Death at the Sign of the Rook (2024) by Kate Atkinson, 6th in the Jackson Brodie crime fiction series. It took me three weeks to read it because I never really got engaged by the characters or plot(s), not helped by the entrance two-thirds of the way through the book of a whole new set of characters, actors and a theatre company that have their own issues, arriving to present the Murder Mystery evening at Burton Makepeace Estate. I liked the setting and Atkinson’s witty and wry humour but overall felt the plots were unnecessarily disjointed and involved largely unsympathetic or incompletely realised characters.

OTHER: Two essays that particularly struck me this week.

That Sense of Impending Doom: Could Anything Shock The World? Dread feels better than indifference by Jessica Wildfire at The Sentinel Intelligence, from which

“Psychologists have used this paradox [the region-beta paradox, which she defines] several times to explain why individuals tolerate bad situations. If something gets worse slowly, then there’s no bottom to how bad things can get while still feeling tolerable. … As you and I already know, the worst threats we’re facing aren’t fast. They’re slow. They don’t look or feel that intense. By the time they do, it’s too late to do anything about them. The public reacts with strong emotions to record hurricanes and heat waves, but then they don’t do anything. Maybe that’s why so many people also react to vague inclinations of impending doom while doing nothing about the threats right in front of them. It feels good to indulge our fear response without having to deal with all the baggage of responding to a tangible crisis. … I don’t think anything could shock the world at this point. Sure, maybe for a couple of weeks, and then the apathy will kick in.”

Ed Yong On Community (at The Ed’s Up), including

“We are drowning in systems that strip the intentionality away from our social lives, and that offers us the illusion of community in place of the reality of it. Effort is what strengthens the synapses of our social networks.”

A couple of other things —

And some handy tips!

Listening

Just a fragment of this week’s listening …

Watching

A big week for watching! We finished a DVR’d Miss Marple, “The Secret of Chimneys” (Julia McKenzie was Marple; we prefer Joan Hickson), on Monday; watched both “White Christmas” (on VHS) and most of “It’s a Wonderful Life” (on TV) on Tuesday evening; and watched “Christmas in Connecticut” (the original, 1945) on Christmas night. Also some football and one or two house hunters’ TV shows.

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: Bought our Christmas takeout meal from a localish Indian place on Monday. Ate lunch at local restaurant on Tuesday. Bought some food items at local farmstand on Tuesday before they closed for more than two weeks.

Relationships: Went to friend’s house (ED) on Monday for a little birthday celebration tea for me. A friend (MS) delivered some scrumptous food goodies on Monday, too. My sister’s best friend (STM) sent us flowers on Monday. Neighbours (SS&BT) dropped off some homemade bread on Tuesday. Nine of us (plus dog and cat) in my family Zoomed together on Christmas day for an hour or so. I also Zoomed with my sister for a half-hour on Thursday morning and talked with her by phone on Friday after her medical appointment. A friend (RL) came over here for a couple of hours on Friday for snacks and to exchange Christmas gifts, and a college friend (RLJ) living an hour or so away came over for lunch on Saturday. Several friends and family sent birthday and Christmas greetings, texts, and e-cards. Another pretty social week for me.

• Endings 

I’ve completed another spin around the sun!

• All This Useless Beauty

sunlight on snow

the colours and textures

these gorgeous and delicious cerignola olives