Friday, June 30, 2017
When I first imagined who Love would be, his name was Preston Meyers. I was 13, and he was a fictional high school character from Can't Hardly Wait. Smart, but unpopular, but not concerned about being popular, driven, and uber romantic. He'd wear his own breed of style -- a little creative, a little skater, and a little bit preppy, but mostly a lot of "I am who I am, and I'm too smart for society to dictate any part of me". His musical tastes would be all over the board, anywhere from classic rock, to pop, to obscure indie bands that he could introduce me to.
When Love arrived, it was a decade later. My tastes had changed, but, Love showed up similar to my original idea of him. I didn't recognize Love had arrived, though. He asked me out a few times over a period of a few years, each time I blew off his request.
When I finally let Love stay, I wasn't ready for Love at all. I'd fallen apart. Started therapy. Was working on myself and seeing major gains against problems I'd been battling my entire life. I didn't need Love. I had Love. I was Love.
... or so I thought.
Love had asked again. This time I had said, "Sure, meet me at the book store on Thursday." I made very little effort to look how I used to on dates. I didn't try hard to impress Love. I was me and if Love was actually going to be Love, he was going to see the real version of me, and decide if he wanted more.
Love showed up at the book store in a charcoal gray blazer, with a button up shirt and monkey printed skinny tie, faded jeans, and worn out leather shoes. His brown shaggy hair was messy in all the right ways, and although his blue eyes flickered like he had a secret joke, you could tell Love was nervous.
Love cracked all the right jokes and told me just enough personal details to keep me wanting more. Love disappeared behind a book shelf and made a hilarious loud noise that caused everyone in the book store to look in our direction (because Love had pointed out that people treated the book store as a library, and we needed to change that.)
Love was amazing.
"Why hadn't I said yes to a date with Love before?" I asked myself months later as we were telling each other we were in love with the other.
Love left for almost a year for military training and duty. Love and I toiled through the long distance. I flew to see Love, and we held baby alligators, and splashed in the Gulf of Mexico.
Love came home changed. Love was jaded, angry, hurt, suffering. Love wasn't sure he wanted to be Love anymore. Love wasn't sure love existed anymore. The war, the training, the violence had tried to destroy Love as I knew him.
I almost walked away from Love a few months later, but something told me if I stayed it would be worth it. So, I stayed with Love.
Love tried hard to be Love again. Love opened up about the pain that was dragging him down. I learned to find the cracks in Love's new shell, to love the new Love.
I said "I do" to a life with Love on a warm September day.
Love and I flourished together in our new life. Love and I had dance parties in the kitchen, Breaking Bad marathons, future planning sessions filled with wild dreams. Love and I built a home in our dumpy apartment.
Love was there to hold me when I had to call and tell my siblings mom had a brain tumor.
Love made me laugh after my mom told me it was Stage 4. Love helped me pick out a kitten after my dad told me mom was going home to die and wouldn't do anymore treatments. Love was there to help me cry when I couldn't get the tears out because grief hurt too much after her death. Love did the dishes, made the bed, and vacuumed the living room.
Love sat next to me in bed when I couldn't stop shaking from panic attacks. Love willingly left places we'd just arrived at when my anxiety kicked in and I needed to go home. Love stayed despite my never ending grief always being on the table and causing major health problems and problems in our marriage.
Love stayed despite me being the worst person to live with.
THE WORST.
Love wanted to leave, but felt that if he stayed things could get better. I tried so hard, and failed for months and months, and years passed.
Love waited for me to heal. Love stayed.
Love was Love, no matter who he'd been before or how he'd changed. Love arrived and stayed, and I will always be grateful that I said yes to Love.
(Even if Love always takes the toilet paper from the bathroom and doesn't put it back. )
The below video is a live performance of one of my favorite poems in the world. Press play and enjoy, and see what inspired this post.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
We recently took a drive up Provo Canyon since it's not too far from our home. Any chance I have to get a little relief from the summer heat, I'll take it. I love warm weather, but I don't love hot weather. I'd be happy if we didn't get over the 80-85°F in the summer, but, sadly, this is Utah. We live in the 90°F weather for most of the summer.
We took the Vivian Park turnoff, and went up the canyon. I wanted to show my husband where I hung out a lot while in college here. We took the South Fork road, and stopped at Big Springs Park. After we wandered the park for a bit, noticing how lovely it looked to nap in the shade by the river (several people were doing it), we hit up one of the trails behind the park.
It was shaded and everything was so green. The 90°F weather obviously wasn't hitting this part of the mountain. We followed the path a little ways before turning around and going to the park we'd driven past on the way up here.
This park is also lovely and shaded, with several trails behind it. We followed one of them deep into the lush greenery and found several secluded fire pits. We made a mental note to have lots of summer campfires and cookouts in the seclusion of the forest.
If you've never been up here, I highly recommend you wander up. You won't regret it.
Monday, June 26, 2017
It's been really hot here. So hot, in fact, that a wildfire has been raging for almost 10 days near my hometown and has burned over 40,000 acres of beautiful mountain forests. Despite the tragicness of the fire, it's still been beautiful here. I live about 200 miles from my hometown, in northern Utah.
Recently, I wandered over to the local carnival that happens every June, and perused the booths and people watched.
June in Utah is beautiful. The weather heats up, and our blue skies stay sunlit from 5:00 am to a little after 9:00 pm. Despite how hot and dry it gets here, we still get to have fairly decent gardens, as long as we water regularly. It doesn't rain much here, but flowers still seem happy to be here.
The hidden rose garden in my town, that I wrote about here, was looking lovely again when I paid it a visit after the carnival.
I also found myself walking next to a wall of honeysuckle on my way back to my car. I can never resist a photo of a wall of flowers.
Welcome to summer, everyone. This is the season of abundance, warm weather, and lots of fun. I intend to make the most of it.
++ What are your summer plans?
Monday, June 19, 2017
The end of May and early June brought a lot of changes to the garden. Seeds started to sprout, blossoms started to show up, and the freezes of spring passed. This little patio began to heat up, and come alive.
THE GOOD
The onions have started to form their bulbs, and I've even been able to pull a few for green onions. This variety is Stuttgarter Yellow.
The lemon thyme bloomed a huge flush, and I pruned back all the flowers so it wouldn't seed everywhere it can.
The Nelly Moser clematis finished it's May flush of blooms right on schedule, and is now busy making it's puffballs from the flower centers. One of these days, I'll learn how to collect these for seed (I think that's what they are.)
This time of year, is one of my favorites on the patio, not only is everything booming in growth, but the strawberries are ripening regularly! Currently, I've been picking small handfuls almost every day, or at least a few times a week. We've been eating them regularly, and also froze a small ziploc bag full.
Along with the strawberry harvests, we got our first ever successful crop of garden peas! They thrived in the cold we had in May, and set a huge crop of peas before drying out in the 90°F weather.
The lettuce and mesclun patch bolted quickly in the heat, but not before giving us several gallon-sized bags full of greens! We've been eating them with everything, and I have been loving the fresh garden salads all spring long. I'll definitely be planting the greens earlier next year so I can have them longer.
The peppers, and tomatoes have started growing like rapid fire, and are putting on tons of leaves and branches. Also, the tomatoes are setting blossoms and fruit like crazy. There are currently about 20 clusters of blossoms, and 3 clusters of tomatoes between the 4 plants I've got growing. I've also found a few peppers growing in the bunch.
The corn patch is starting to get about a foot tall, and a couple have taken on rapid growth and are double the size of the others.
My German Chamomile has been a beautiful little bloomer all spring, and while I haven't harvested any yet, I've been deadheading it like crazy. The best part is, it smells sweet like apples. I need to learn how to harvest it for tea. If you know, please tell me in the comments!
THE BAD
Despite all of this awesome success, there have been set backs.The roses came in a big flush during the cool of spring, but when the heat shot up to 95°F just one week after our freezes, their blooms stopped coming as quickly. With all that heat, the spider mites flourished, and I had to hard prune my red rose bush by half.
The cucumbers, honey nut squash, mini cantaloupes, and zucchini have all been stunted for some reason. They are taking their own sweet time to send out leaves, or they're dying. I'm not sure what's going on, but I've been racking my brain, and the internet to come up with solutions.
The Blue Lake Pole, Chinese Long, and the Bush beans are all getting murdered by bugs. So far, I've found slugs, aphids, grasshoppers, and cabbage worms trying to eat everything possible in my veggie beds! My beans are definitely trying their best to survive, and I've even planted several sections again just in case they die.
So, everything is looking really good, and struggling at the same time. It's been frustrating battling pests I've never had. I guess if you build a bigger garden, the pests will find you!
++ How's your garden doing right now?
Monday, June 12, 2017
Over Memorial Weekend, I wandered over to my childhood home. It's empty now, and somehow looks smaller and sadder without our things inside. It's waiting to be rented to someone new, who doesn't know the life the place once held -- the joy, the pain, the mundane inbetween.
When I first heard this would happen, I couldn't let go of the home I'd grown up in. It felt like something was dying. My youth, my family, my home, I couldn't explain it. I just couldn't let it all go. Sometimes, as I tried to process the letting go, all I could think about was that everything has changed so much in the past few years.
We had this beautiful large family, that was continuing to grow as marriages, and grandchildren were born. We'd all gather here, and my mom's piano that once sat under those cursive letters on the wall would ring out with either sticky little fingers striking too many keys at once, or my mom's graceful hands playing any melody with ease.
But time has other plans. Moms get stage 4 brain cancer, and die at 58. The future as we knew it disappears. Remarriage and massive family growth happens, and the house suddenly became too small for the life that it now needed to hold.
Wandering through the house now, I can see what I hadn't before. Without our family in there, or the things that made up our lives, it's just a building. It's empty, and didn't feel like home. My basement bedroom looks more creepy than what it used to be - the four walls that I sat inside of while I dreamed up my future.
Everything looked more run down than I ever remembered. In a way, seeing it empty like that was much like viewing a person at their funeral. It isn't the person's body that makes them a person anymore than the house makes the home. What makes a house a home is the life that runs through those walls. Seeing it empty gave me closure.
The yard has been left to grow wild, and my mom's once beautiful flower and food garden is run ragged with weeds, and overgrowth. The small sidewalk that runs down through the yard, is starting to disappear underneath the weeds, the same weeds that are swallowing the playground built for my little brothers when they were born.
This visit taught me something big that i wasn't expecting. Home is not a point on a map, it's so much more than that.
These photos are proof of a life that once existed that has moved on to a new place. So many great memories here that I'll never forget, but time has shown me that home is somewhere new, now.
It's time to let go, and look to the future.
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