“Sell your Cleverness and buy Bewilderment.”--Rumi

Greetings Dear ones!

Well, we have reached that time of year when I go on a colored egg hunt every day. No, not just because it’s Eastertide… because my heritage-breed chickens (who lay pink, blue, green, and brown eggs) are now free to roam the countryside. As soon as the snow melts and the dog starts bringing in the first ticks of the season, I set the ladies free on parasite patrol. They take their mission so seriously, they don’t take time to return to the coop to lay their eggs. Instead, I need to hunt the mangers, the hay mow, empty tubs, and even once an abandoned sweatshirt for their oval treasures. As I try to discover each day’s new hiding place, I am reminded of that (terrible) joke that having senility is so much fun because you can hide your own Easter eggs. In my case, its vitamin supplements. I sent away for some that insist they reduce menopausal brain fog. The first months’ amount was clearly not effective enough for me to remember I had bought a three-month supply so I finished the first bottle and ordered more. Now I have a five month supply. I can’t help thinking I am the stuff of an online marketer’s dreams. If I continue on like this, I’ll be eighty with a warehouse full of pellets I keep forgetting to eat. (If only I had done this with toilet paper before Covid hit…) To be honest, I’m not sure menopause is to blame. If so, I may have been in menopause since the fifth grade.

I’m not the only one going mad. The weather has been nutty. We had three days of dustbowl Summer, complete with sunburns, and then a big cold rain turned the grass St. Patrick’s Day green, except where the cows have licked it down to the mud. I planted peas and spinach and told them “Good Luck! Go for it! I have no idea what gear the sky will be in by the time you pop your heads up to look around.” The weather is like a teenager learning to drive a manual transmission vehicle for the first time.

There is also a mad robin on the windowsill doing battle with his own reflection. The poor fellow keeps flying into himself in a fury. Occasionally he takes a long, stunned rest (and a watery crap) on the windowsill before resuming the attack. Three of the windows are streaked with shit and fury. Apparently, North American Robins are very territorial and deeply resent the presence of other males, including shadowy reflections of themselves. Like high school seniors, years of evolutions and societal influences have shaped this guy to pit himself against his peers. He’s not satisfied with the new-age notion that we are all winners. He took one look at himself and didn’t like what he saw. Not one tiny bit. (Who doesn’t have a day like that, sometimes?) In the dressing room at my little shop, the prom girls are doing the same thing. Luckily, none of them have crapped on my mirror. (YET)

Instead of turning in a new direction where he can truly Soar--make a good living at a shitty job (literally, the compost/manure pile behind him is crammed with worms), troll everything from timber to Tinder to find a tolerant mate, save for a down payment on a nest, home-school a couple of offspring, do his best to teach them right from wrong and how to avoid the plagues of feather mites and social media…instead, the little robin keeps wearing himself out by fighting his own shadow. The poor chap is exhausted from imaginary drama. Life won’t progress for him until he stops focusing all his attention on himself.

I can relate!

Not everything goes as Planned in Springtime. Poor Blossom, the moorit ewe, died last week, taking a belly full of twins with her to the vast hole in the earth that our Beloved Hermit of Hermit Hollow dug with his backhoe. Toxemia took her life but what precipitated the decline which resulted in toxemia, we do not know. The rest of the flock (who eats the same food and drinks the same water) looks robustly healthy. The vet did his best but her demise seemed a foregone conclusion. (Wait, are not all deaths? Including our own?)

We laid her to rest, deep and snug in Mother Earth, below the reach of digging paws and munching jaws, and smoothed the blanket of dirt above, caressing it to the edges with our metal rakes. Then we scattered grass seed and a layer of old hay mixed with sheep turds. It seems up-side-down to think that grass will grow and frolic over lambs, instead of the other way around. But life is a Wheel-of-Fortune circle and you never know exactly which side will be pointing up as it rolls around a season or a farm. Inside the sorrow is deep satisfaction, merely to be a part of it all.

In other news, this blog turns five this week. I’m trying to think of a way to celebrate but I feel like that runner who staggers across the finish line with brown dribbles running down his legs. We’re proud of him and wish him well but somehow intuit that he’s not quite ready for his complimentary medal and free banana. Neither am I. It’s has been hard going and I definitely should have trained more before I started.

These have been five pretty grueling years, on so many levels. I’ve moved twice, bought a farm, started my own business, survived depression, menopause and a global pandemic, just to name a few things... I can’t begin to count the number of trousers I have hemmed or the numbers of times I have heard bridesmaids tell me “Oh? I need my shoes? Can I just stand on tiptoes while you mark the hem?”

Writing is my form of cherishing everything from the mundane to the absurd. There is an undeniable amount of naiveté and narcissism embedded in the premise that anyone would want to crawl inside my heart and peer at these scribbles on the walls. Why not just keep the cell locked and confine myself in private journals, as I did for thirty years before starting this blog? In anxious moments, I fear I have the endless self-involvement of a mad Robin glaring at himself in the window. It’s easy to feel furious and on the brink of defeat. As an artist, the worst, most troublesome thing I do (and I still do it!) is seek to value myself by looking to others for assurance. Some people make glib remarks when I meet them in public—throw-away seeds I take home and sprout and nourish into monsters that devour my resolve. The worst is when no one says anything at all. When I get very depressed and think I will never be “good enough,” I think about a conversation with a fiddler I adore:

I asked if he could give me “One quick trick” that would instantly totally improve the sound of my playing. He laughed delightedly and said “Yep! Totally.”

“What is it?” I wanted to know, feeling excited about a fast-track to excellence.

“PLAY.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I slumped. “I already DO that and it sounds terrible! Why would I practice sounding terrible? How do I make it sound better?”

He said, “I’m serious. Play. Just play. Don’t practice anything. Play because you love to play. Play for hours every day. If you just played every day you’d sound better. You have an amazing ear but your music is all in your head, not your fingertips. DO it. Stop thinking. If you really want to improve your sound, play SLOW. Nothing over 70 beats per minute for months and months. Listen for the Quality and go for more of that. Figure out what kind of bow hand pressure results in “pretty.” Repeat. Listen to yourself. Pay attention. What’s beautiful? What’s excruciating? Optimistic curiosity will get you far when you are trying to embody (bring into your body) a skill. Don’t do it to be “better”; do it so that you can have more Fun. It’s so much fun to know a lot of tunes and play them well. Just Play.”

This seems like the best advice ever for anyone trying to play an instrument or Write, or Mend, or Create on any level. Connect to joy. Keep going. Stay curious. PLAY.

I’ll keep playing at writing because on another level, I believe that Life (and Love) is, at its essence, a sacred transaction. Witnessing it is an act of dignity, courage, hilarity, and Gratitude. Writing is my prayer. It’s good for my soul. I share these stories because I love them. I love this life. I love YOU, dear reader. I will keep writing these love letters because I want us all to have more Love in (and for) this world and definitely MORE fun!

Madly, with all my heart,

Yours aye,

Nancy