Knuckling Down and the Circumstances
of my Life, Leaving Walnuts on the Tray
Sometimes
you will be trying to do one thing and your mind will detach itself from the
given task to begin running merrily down another path entirely. It is Saturday
afternoon and after some time spent in the kitchen making and processing pear
sauce, I am at last sitting down with my cup of green tea reading my latest
selection, a mystery while Chuck Mangione’s “Children of Sanchez” plays in the
background. The mystery is one that I
have been trying to finish reading for the past month. I find that I will have to renew it yet again
from the library (guess what, third time is not a charm according to the
library, two strikes of renewal is all you get). It is a good read, Christopher
Fowler’s The Water Room and I was
refusing to give it up until I discovered that I could not renew it. I was working hard on reading it while my dear
husband worked in the kitchen cooking my dinner. Chicken Enchiladas is on the menu for those
who wish to have their mouths watering regarding my meal.
Knuckling
down. What an odd set of words to haunt
my head. For a bit, I had to return to
reading in order to allow the filters to strip out of the way, causing the
meaning of the two words to reveal a plan, to lend a drift of coherency to my
voice so that the
stitching of letters together might give meaning.
It is at
times like this when you are able to reach into the sky and can hold a star in
your hand. There is a completeness, a wholeness of being. I like it. This feeling of being part of everything. I
am not sure what it has to do with writing but I end up on a different level
somehow when I doing the writing. It seems as if everything is possible.
Well, here
it is December 29, 2016, I started this particular blog in summer, in August
when the full harvest that comes of the hard work of the farmers in their
fields and orchards starts to fill my kitchen with fruits, vegetables and a mad
desire to start canning this and that. But now, I am working hard on knuckling
down as a friend requested a blog to end the year. My question is what sorts of expectations and
hopes are coming from such a request?
What will pile into my mind and onto the keyboard? We shall see.
I took a
couple of hours off from work this morning to put a soup together in the
crock pot so it will hopefully be ready for our lunch. The goodness of the broth from turkey with a
large assortment of vegetables and some of the turkey meat chopped up for good
measure. It seems to be the one thing that is going my way.
For today
has been a day of misadventures that often follows the rush to get ready for
work. The man, my husband, managed to
sleep in, and somehow when he does we seem to run out of time getting organized
with all of the ordinary chores that we feel necessary to make it out the door.
I had had an
idea for such a day entitled, “The Circumstances of my Life”. It seems relevant to today. No great disasters but a few small things
that happened or didn’t happened. As
most of you know I am living with a gap in my smile due to a broken tooth this
summer and the surgery that occurred for a dental implant. But let me get on with the circumstances of
my life.
It started
with breakfast when I was cracking eggs for scrambling. I had cracked two eggs, opened them into the
mixing bowl then I proceed on the third egg, cracking it quickly and very
coolly broken it into the compost. When I told my husband, he wisely did not
laugh but reminded me that it was a good thing that we had lots of eggs. The
scrambled egg sandwiches were good and I was very thankful for the abundance of
wholesome eggs in the house. This was item one.
Ah, the
circumstances of my life continued after we headed out the door for work. We made it two blocks before we circled back
to check to make sure that the garage door was down for the two great minds in
the white Toyota were not sure. Score
one for us. Door was down. Item two.
We continue down the block to the light. “My tooth,” I cried, “I forgot my
tooth.” My husband gave me a look
wondering if he was going to have to circle the wagons again. I told him that I would take a break at work and
come home to get it, for also, I was planning on coming home to get the soup going. Item three.
But as we crossed Highway 101 and headed down the street to work. I said, “I forgot my tea.” This has become
known as item four.
This all
reminds me of other days, with the tooth forgotten or the day when I wore two
different black shoes to work and no one noticed not even me until I was
stretching in the break room and happened to look at my shoes quite
carefully. Hmm, good job of dressing
this morning. Another day of my little
clothing challenges was while we were on vacation in Ashland for the
Shakespeare Festival, I was wearing a short dress with a sweater and finally
that night while disrobing that evening I realized that it had been inside out
all day, on parade throughout the town, in and out of various restaurants. I was past embarrassment as the deed was
done, the day was done and I was heading to bed.
This all
brings me to believe that you sometimes cannot control the circumstances of
your life but you need to keep knuckling down and always be willing to laugh
somehow, somewhere in your day.
I seem to be
able to control the walnuts that I have patiently waiting on a cookie sheet for
me to pick through in order to put them in baggies for the refrigerator. But I got the walnuts in November and here I
am still working on them. The good news
is that my son got his walnuts and hazelnuts in November two weeks after I
picked them up.
The walnuts
have a migration route. They are
constantly moved from the dining room table where they sit among the clutter of
unread books, Christmas cards, a jigsaw puzzle, one emery board, one fleeced
purple and pink jacket, two knitted hats and my husband’s laptop, (you get the
idea of the treasures hiding on the table) at any rate, they are placed there
when I am working on them, then they are put on the washing machine in the
laundry room where it is nice and cold to wait for the next chance for me to
attend to them.
I find that
I have too many things that I want to get done and somehow the circumstances of
my life get in the way. I am fortunate,
I realize that each and every day. It
really is the small things that occur each moment to moment that makes the
difference. Which is why I enjoy working
with the walnuts, it is a meditative time for me. I can believe that I am knuckling down to a
given task and given enough time this too will be done, completed in some
satisfactory way. So I don’t worry about
much else. The given circumstances of my
life can not intrude for this time I am spending at the table. The only thing that I really need to do with
the walnuts is practice my mantra, “Shells, shells, shells.” This seems to help me put the shells in one
bowl without the walnut meat going into the bowl as well. For whenever I want to put the walnut meat in
its bowl, I change my mantra to “Walnuts, walnuts, walnuts.“ It is good to have plan, a routine to keep
myself on track.
If I was to
put down ideas, goals for the coming year, I can only think of one or two. To be kind to myself and to my other self,
the remarkable man who shares the world with me.
The circumstances of my life come and go, the walnuts will soon be done,
and as for knuckling down, well, that will depend on whatever presents itself
to me. Here is to a new year of changes,
hope and forgiveness.
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