Longfellow Memory

We had a semblance of continuity in those precious early years:

monthly memory poems, 

verses, and the annual 

 Speech Meet.  

This wee verse entered the scene from a Celestial Seasons tea package (you take what you can get when your education dollars come NOT from the Fed, but from what your bacon-bringing hubby can cobble together each year, once taxes and mismanagement take their toll).

And the following verse sticks in our collective heads, called forth on strange and not-so-strange occasions, and always to my great delight.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

  Life is but an empty dream! 

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

  And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real!  Life is earnest!

  And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

  Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

  Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

  Find us farther than to-day. 

[did not learn next three verses] 

Lives of great men all remind us

  We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

  Footprints on the sands of time;

[we did not learn the verse that belongs

here, either; tea boxes have not much 

room, after all. 

But this is the one I always chime in with,

complete with my penchant for the over-

dramatic:] 

Let us, then, be up and doing,

  With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

  Learn to labor and to wait!

Goodscape

I used "goodscape" in a post tonite. Such a pleasant word and a pleasant thought that one can just decide something is a word and make it so.  The post-comment arose as I pondered a blog's gardening theme, and 'cause I followed D2's nagging exhortation to only think/write/say/stay POSitIve in my remarks, and she is right. Flowers bloom and poetical things emerge if I can just stave off my usual focus on the negative.

It's becoming easier, but you wouldn't know it reading here. The moral inventory aspect of AmZyg's purpose is becoming apparent: my resentment over a twenty year ongoing offense has turned toxic. It crops up, twisting my heart, cutting too close to the bone... & I wonder how anyone can escape the smell of anaerobic waste reeking from the cracks in my composure. I am a walking bad-scape.

So, I avoided Zygoting last week. Avoided my Bible, avoided God & people, and on Sunday, thought up three good excuses to skip out on church & communion after my 3's room fun was over.  Rather than retreat to prayer, I went wandering around blogspot when I got home, posted ill advised comments on blogsOfStrangers.  Zygote is such a simpleton not to post anonymously. Zygote is too lazy to learn the ins & outs of techdom, true, but worse than that, she harbors a madness, a narcissism that believes the laws of the web will be suspended for her alone.  And, while she's too private for Facebook, she was not so humble as to let the big orange button pass her by that day she clicked on

"Start Your Free Blog Here!" 

It was probably that word FREE! that nabbed her, a tractor beam word too powerful for over-budget housewives to resist. [What IS a tractor beam?]

I fancied a blog that would inform my kids, my DH, a blog wanderer or two, & a generation of grandchildren yet unborn: some audience of peccish teen relations in 2030, or 50, or 70, who will want to know who their grandmama/aunt/9th cousin-once-removed was; what generational sins will likely plague them, what blessings and curses may confront their offspring-yet-to-be?  D2 reminded me I could post privately, yet, what lure, what voyeurism, what love of taking risks is it that leads a person to throw their stuff out there hoping it might be seen?  The pure ego of it spawns an imaginary search for a shrink again, my eleventh, or thirteenth. I've lost count.  (Now, wait. If you'll dare to peek beneath those thirteen layers of denial, you'll recall a sinister wish that your Enemy would find these pathetic rantings and decide you are somehow not worth hating... that's like wishing everyone would wake up and suddenly give Hitler the "benefit of the doubt.")

At its best, public blogging forces the heart and mind to meld themselves into something approaching a psychological GoodScape; a horizon line at sunset to look upon, anticipating a new day ahead while simultaneously reflecting on the one about to end. . .


. . . HeaveAsigh. Tonite, I forgot my cares and found myself poking around sites gathered from Friday's HortSymposium. Freeing, blessed, wondrous, beautiful landscaping sites governed by people who live like they were fine pieces of acoustic music. Uncomplicated; honest; hardworking; artful. Once again, the temptation to post on a blogOfStrangers overtook me.  It was bliss, leaving my moral inventory behind and reliving simpler times.

This time I copied it before I left, so I could have it 'for keeps,' the Nursery Blogger's theme, evident:

"My favorite nursery of all time has passed on, as do all good things, including the owner, whose life story and great soul left a permanent wake in our home that has yet to subside.  It was a destination, 30 minutes south in Westminster/Huntington Beach: Heard's Country Gardens, & it lives on in the Salvia that dots my front walkway; in the mounds of Mondo that have endured season after season; in the love I have for the simplicity of dirt--a love cultivated by Mary Lou Heard's singular newsletters which, upon arrival, would bring to a halt whatever we were doing so we could sit & devour every word.  Her heart and her great humor permeated her business, and inspired us to hatch our first landscape plan, & to launch it by composting-in-place:  We drove to nearby Sycamore-lined streets, piled high a load of fallen leaves into the back of our stationwagon, then pulled Old Blue up & onto our dead lawn where the kids unloaded it by the handfull. Over the mound we spread vermipost and grass clippings... & mixed everything with a pitchfork for four or five months. The goodscape remains to this day, ever-blooming in seasonal colory.  

Soon after she died, some nice folk organized a womens' shelter benefit 

around Mary Lou's folksy style, & all her newsletter contacts now further 

one of her worthy charities. 

I miss Heard's."

HEARD'S GARDEN TOUR <3

Only One Fight

It's a record.  The two Polar Opposites, whose wedding anniversaries are noteworthy for either being cancelled by arguments or to some degree marred by them, can report only one sour note brought on by my favorite soapbox issue, public nudity.  Because I have to pay bills and unpack from our wonderful four day getaway, clean up the mess left by three 20-somethings and grocery shop, here's my best pik on the 'fore mentioned issue, just found on D#2's desktop while I was (why were you doing this??) organizing her folders... (i was unloading stuff off of a flashdrive.  Oh yeah.)  P.S... the fight wasn't because we disagreed on the issue of public nudity, just about what to DO about it.  It is ever and always about what to DO about something... God bless my DH. He does what every man who's ever confessed everything has done: puts his head down and goes on with his life.

Me? I write a letter.  This one's from six years ago, & I thot it worth a re-read.

Mr. - - - - - , Principal

Milliken High School

2800 Snowden Ave

Long Beach, CA 90808

November 23, 2004

Dear Mr. - - - - -,

I hope you will receive this letter in the spirit with which it is sent.  I just want to register disappointment at the judgment used in allowing your fall drama presentation, Noises Off,  to feature public undress.

I have long stopped being alarmed at the base elements of our culture.  Ever since I heard some guy on the radio refer to the United States as a Post Christian Culture, my alarm at what I see every day has melted to a sort of sustained grief.  I’ve grown used to looking the other way when Carl’s Junior & Victoria's Secret sell their wares, or when titillating shows like Desperate Housewives and NYPD Blue become award winning hits. [note to blog: we no longer own a TV]

I must object, however, when the values that drive commercial interests in our popular media become the standard adopted by the best of our cultural institutions; and shouldn’t our local schools strive to be that? To be the BEST of what our culture offers, willing to overcome the swill that 'popular' culture swims in?  So, this is the spirit in which I write this letter: kids need the adults in their lives to teach and model the necessary refusal to adopt the base standards they see everyday; to resist mediocrity, compromise and failure; to absorb higher principles -- the ones that even allow those money driven interests to exist in the first place: values of decency, restraint, purity, honesty, discipline.  Consult any primary source document on the founding of our free-enterprise-sustaining nation, and you will see these conservative values embedded within the framework of our founders’ writings and in the fiber of their lives.

So, what is to be gained (bawdy humor and ambitious acting skills aside) by extending to your young high school students the permission to adopt the standards of Madonna and Playtex, MTV and Hanes, when the better part of maturity calls on all of us to forsake their prurient appeals and to resist the normalization of publicly exposed underwear and recreational sex?

I cannot fathom how an institution committed to the welfare of our children and the training of future leaders could have allowed two female students (lead actor and her understudy) to strut and slink about the Milliken High School Auditorium stage in their underwear even for a minute, and certainly not for the majority of the play’s duration…

It saddens me, even sickens me.  And worst of all, one actress attends my church.  How abhorrent to think that her own school would ask her to choose between faculty approval and the better part of judgment.

Sincerely,  


[my utterly disrespected --both then and now-- name]

9/11 in America

What should be an occasion of solemn observance and serious reflection is just another routine Saturday, and it hurts to think about why: while we merry wives of wisdom (cough) are supposed to look to men for leadership, the reality of our pace setting role takes some time to sink in [25 years isn't nearly long enough].  There's a proverb about wise women making wise plans, but overwhelm and under confidence have taken a certain toll.

DH is tending to his usual first Saturday of the month widow ministry.  D#1 tends to her love of theatre and left for her latest stage management gig a few minutes ago. They will attend an Angels game this afternoon, and God willing, think patriotic thoughts as they sing that National Anthem. D#2 sleeps in and will find the Panera danish a bit stale when she finally rouses. OS is likely waking up to smells of bacon in Bishop, compliments of his rather portly [read bacon loving] host whose invitation to a weekend get-away constitutes the second most patriotic observance of us all: inhaling bacon and innertubing down wild rivers only comes in second behind consumption of ball park foods in the annals of All American Culinarity... Lastly, I have an afternoon hair appointment, not because I need a haircut, but because our wedding anniversary's coming up, and that means DH will not wince when he sees my friend Martha's salon bill.  When there's any excuse to $pend, I like to patronize the TheGoodGuys, or, 'Gal' in this case.

As for Patriot Day observances, NPR seems bent over backwards to cater to Muslim sympathies.  Just once I'd like to hear Scott Simon or whutsIzName Seagull mention The Kite Runner, The Stoning of Soraya M. or the women of Ontario, Canada who begged officials to leave off plans to allow Sharia law there because their prized rights as women of the West would evaporate otherwise.  I lament the left leaning people I listen to everyday, yet, I still tune in, amazed at how Christian media falls so short of the NPR/PBS standard.

Why do Christians efforts in news collecting/reporting fail to deliver much excellence??  Maybe the massive monies required to produce fare sufficient to current expectations are all spent overseas on charity and missions. If there's any leftover, it probably goes to people so bent on being Nice T'ians that quality suffers in the interest of not ruffling anyone's feathers.  That's it. Maybe T'ians in media are just too nice.  The folks at my church should go work at the networks. They could whip 'em into shape.

Oh, I dunno...

"Your photo's pretty weird," said DH when I showed him my first few blog posts.  I agreed, but couldn't imagine showing my face given the insecure state wherein I live.  I forgot to mention to him that the missing head shows my hair standing on end and is titled "burn-out personified" or some such caption. On my lap I am holding a lost and found item, Artes Latinae curriculum's answer key, lost for a VERY long time, and finally found after assigning a seat-of-the-pants grade to the wee leetle geeyuls who worked so hard to finish the one year program in two years and then some... they actually remember a few latin phrases ten years later.

So, I worked hard trolling the inner workings of iMac's picture files and iPhoto libraries searching for an improved photo, to no avail.  I do not like my face. Considered posting the shot of my sooty brows and bangs taken by OS moments after the oven blew up in my face.  I could laugh about it then, as now, because I am so used to calamity.  The photo, however, seems lost forever deep within the bowels of Apple's mysterious hierarchy of saved files, preserved moments and fond memories...  I gave up after becoming weary of a message about my hard disk being full.  Our '93 machine is groaning with age, and an entire day is mostly lost.

I think D#2 wants the entire neighborhood to kneel at the cross This Instant! as she belts out hymns and worship tunes with the front door and all the windows wide open.  She's been hard at work in a special-needs classroom this first week of school, at a job she was told she would lose if she dared take that missions trip to Ethiopia in June.  They were bluffing.  So, as she blows off steam, two of the neighborhood rascals (+1 little sparrow girl, B.) have appeared in the front yard, producing [near] thunderous applause.  They burst in seconds later, grabbing OS's four stringed guitar and offering a scratchy rendition of some M&M post-rehab song that D2 knew all the words to and just sang along at the top of her lungs --her usual way.  After explaining how OS's unrepaired guitar resembles our half painted house, I offered to pay them to finish the  job.  They liked that idea, but decided to toilet paper OS's room instead, as he is gone to Bishop for the weekend. It is good to see the ruffians after a long summer of missing each other. These are the fellas who would not come to Bible Club all those years ago -sigh.

Is a day considered well spent when plans to organize 2,000 photos, OR create a garden photo book, OR find 40 year old Joe Cocker lyrics [OHHhh...not Cocker. Cooker!], OR learn the definitions of skiffle and Georgian and neoclassical, OR finally watch Thriller on YouTube, OR discover that Mariah Carey videos are slutty and then decide to play an hour long mix of classic Sesame Street vignettes... suddenly morph into an invitation to Jake and Tyler (+1) to toilet paper our son's room? 

Life in the 'burbs can be quaint, and on the eve of the ninth anniversary of 9/11, we all need a little levity.

Critical Issue: Just Who is My Enemy?

S u p p o s e 
some profound removal of Zygote's notorious psychoses occurred this very minute. How would she better manage daily upsetting challenges vying for her attention this - and every - second, without a million thoughts a day of a nasty church tribe who hate her?

She dreams that the end of her 'issues' would automatically translate into an ordered dream life where the Bible gets amortized into her mindFlesh first thing every morning; the Rosetta Stone Spanish would slip into the schedule in equal proportion to the morning coffee/green tea and the daily kitchen clean-up.  The photos and videos on all family cameras would become shuffled into amazing spreads of digital story-telling, and all without the faintest hint of vainglory or idolatry of family.  The other chores would magically become NoBigDeal while the daily dust and detritus becomes as manageable as workouts at the bathroom sink: butt crunches while toothbrushing, leg lifts while folding towels and torso stretches while the toilet cleaner soaks...

Only the volunteer jobs that are true callings would fill up her calendar,  & her tutor clients would learn and grow with seeming effortlessness.  No letters to the Better Business Bureau always pressing in on the psyche, but always a protest letter fresh off the printer to Planned Parenthood's corporate donors.

The Weed and Feed outside would actually work, organically; & every Permaculture concept firmly wrested OUT of theory and into all areas of outdoor faith and practice....

Lunch with a friend once a week (grocery money always leftover for this), and never a contact who spurns the invitation like that feisty pastor's wife one time. Never have recovered from that...

No evil looks to process; no evil remarks to ignore; no misspoken criticisms to wish away; no grudges ever, especially against oneself; and when funerals roll by, never a regret. Only that quiet confidence that eternity overlaps with this present world in God's perfect time, every time...


Oh. Yes: and never another fall off one's bicycle, slip-off from some slimy Nature Center rock, or over stressed tendons unused to new gardening implements and contortions.  All well, all the time, except for those burdens strictly orchestrated by The Potter, clearly intended for my betterment, not brought on by sheer folly; by a seemingly continual lack of sound judgement.

How perfect life would be.  How sun kissed. How blessed. How not so very far off, on second thought:

I could just "WiLL those thoughts" of resentment to fade away into the amorphous glow of Christ's daily resurrection.

Live the dream: take every thought captive & be your own best self by the power of the Holy Spirit, praying without ceasing--esp. for the ones you call your Enemy.


(While I dream this, I am praising God for the way canker sores break out in my mouth every time I overdose on sugar, when trying to deal with thoughts of people I must have offended grievously, or why else would they behave like my enemy?

Now, THEre's a blessing.  Those canker sores have saved me at least twenty-five pounds of fudge and candy bar weight.  H-OoRa-H.)

4 Weeks & Growing

       "Week 4–5 

Chemicals produced by the embryo stop the woman's menstrual cycle. Neurogenesis is underway, showing brain activity at about the 6th week.^[3] "The heart will begin to beat around the same time. Limb buds appear where the arms and legs will grow later. Organogenesis begins. The head represents about one half of the embryo's axial length, and more than half of the embryo's mass. The brain develops into five areas. Tissue formation occurs that develops into the vertebra and some other bones. The heart starts to beat and blood starts to flow.^[2] "

^{--Wikipedia/Human Embryo}

<sup>From Zygote to Blastocyte to full bore Embryo, I am on a fast train to knowing who I am and why I'm here.  Eight more months of Your creative hand developing all my inward parts, and at this 4 week moment, a spine which is fighting the enemy of our souls to enjoy maximal tissue build up; maximal reinforcement; maximal flexibility; maximal capability to sustain a cross weighed down by a fallen world.  By then, LORD, will you have lasared some light on how one overcomes a lifetime of self criticism & self deprication?  While you extend the formation of my wee, little spine, shoot heavy doses of endorphins into the brain stem while you're at it, please, that the train of all my thoughts would aim always You-ward.


I am praying for something less than conventional when the sun rises eight months hence, on my 50th.  I hope for too much, I fear.  Healing perhaps,  full & complete?  An end to this constant haunting awareness of certain people's bad opinion of me.  An end to the generational curses of my family line: anger, pride, arrogance, laziness, fear, lack of sound judgement.  Julie Slattery said on a recent broadcast that "we're all addicted to pride."  Described it as the one addiction that everyone has in common.  A pan-humanity epidemic curse. It is possible to become truly humble?</sup>

^{- - - - - - - - - -
As inconsistent as it seems, today's gardening activities defy the nature of my present, delicate embryonic frame: I clipped in half 2 grasshoppers with pruning shears and flushed a third down the toilet.  I think I'm some kind of gardening titan when I snag a little enemy bugsoldier with my bare hands and march him off to his doom in my highpressure flush-o-matic. Not the sympathetic,  pro-LIFE sensitivity you'd expect to find in a conservative bohemian such as myself.}

<sup>On my first day of volunteering at the Arboretum last Feb., I nabbed a huge brown grasshoppery fellow while listening to my supervisor's instructions. Force of habit, I guess. I asked her if she had a compost pile nearby where I could dispose of it.  "No, just let it go. We're pretty natural around here; circle of life and all that..." She did not think me a garden titan.  "OK!" I said, but what I was THINKING was "... not in my back yard.  If my yard's to remain pesticide free, some kinda pest control compromise has to happen. And looking at my little crop of purple basil, peppers, tomato, herbs, squash & melon, you'd think I sprayed regularly. Very few signs of bug munching on the foilage.  

(There is this one pest getting ready to pounce, however:</sup> 

[ file:///Users/el/Desktop/monsterNymphs.tomatoplant.jpeg ]

<sup>I spent the better part of my garden day trying to Google-identify these ornery looking pests swarming a tomato stem.  


Somehow (as if I don't know how), while surfing garden sites and the UC Cooperative Extension service,  I became totally engrossed in someone's Africa blog and the next thing I know, it's hours later and I'm sponsoring a Maureen and a David, wide-eyed preschoolers, darling to behold.  I rejoice that I live in paradise and NOT Kenya.  I exult in God's deliverance of team members pursued by angry mobs during 2007 election riots. Oh, dear God. Bless and protect the obedient souls at Transformed International.  AMEN.)</sup>