Bring on Spring! (March 19, 2010)

Every February I notice with glee that something has arrived, changing everything overnight. Even if the skies are gloomy over gray miles of concrete connecting San Diego, when the freeway flowers bloom overnight, my whole world looks bright. The highlighter-orange flowers pop up from the ice plant bordering the freeways, their blossoms like spiky heads of hair, poking in all directions. There are also yellow ones, fuchsia flowers and this year, even some purple blooms. Our rainy winter is paying dividends.

Some people might find the brightness of these flowers to be too much. Others may prefer exotic flowers that must be carefully tended in a greenhouse. Not me. I love that these bright spots of color thrive with no planned watering. Their brightness is exactly why I dig them so much. They aren’t pale pastels, timid and unobtrusive. NO! They are bold and vibrant, the equivalent of a cheer, when other flowers are whispering.

Even in San Diego where sunshine, not snow, marks our winter, spring makes a grand entrance. I started noticing the freeway flowers about a month ago, but now they are heralding Spring in full force, parading down the freeways’ edges in random bunches. Tomorrow is the first day of spring, according to my calendar, but for several weeks flowers have started to bloom everywhere. Tiny fruits, the size of green peas, have crept out of the branches of our peach tree. Brand-new green leaves dot trees that were bare a few weeks ago. It’s a coordinated explosion of life, and I am thrilled each year when it starts. I wonder if we’ll have a newborn batch of hummingbirds in the nest hidden in our Jasmine vine, as we did last April. Suddenly, everything seems different. Daylight Savings started six nights ago and the days already feel warmer. The growth and warmth and colors all bring such optimism. It’s hard not to feel happy as this season arrives.

Spring? Yes, please!

Football Fever (Jan. 17,2010)

My first mistake was assuming that there wouldn’t be many people there on a Sunday morning. Of course, things are different on a Sunday when there’s a big game. The grocery store was busy. Usually I don’t pay much attention to sports but I do know that the Super Bowl is 3 weeks from now so today’s game was a big one. I started counting Chargers shirts and jerseys in the parking lot. There were dozens. I saw them in the produce department, on check-out clerks and in the snack aisle, where one lady was loading her cart with bags of chips the size of bed pillows, for a super-sized football party, no doubt.

My second mistake was assuming that I could hold and breastfeed my newborn with one hand while pushing the shopping cart with the other. It was do-able for a long time, but the cart finally became heavy and harder to steer in the last two aisles, where I bought 2 gallons of milk and 3 liters of diet soda. No, I told the clerk, I didn’t need help out. Eleven bags of groceries plus the milk, but I’m a first-born, determined to do things myself.

On the drive home a vintage car bounced happily ahead of me, the huge thunderbolt flag above it doing the hula in the breeze. Another car had small flags sticking up from each passenger door. My son’s school allowed the kids to wear Chargers shirts or colors on Friday. Did San Diego have football fever? It felt like it. And it felt contagious. I’ve never been a sports fan but even I felt the excitement building in the city.

I wanted to blog about it, but by the time I got back from a birthday party and onto the computer I’d learned that the Chargers lost today’s game. But I’m writing nonetheless because what although their season is over, something else is still there. When your city is part of the playoffs, maybe it’s not really about the game, the team or the Super Bowl itself. What moved me wasn’t the chance to be swept up in the tidal wave of victory. No, to me the sudden sea f blue shirts represented something much bigger, much more important: a sense of unity. I liked seeing kids, grandmas, bankers and bikers all unified. In a city as big as San Diego people race around, leading their lives, rushing to or from work, living near other people but without interacting. People may not know their neighbors or spend the time to find common ground with those around them. The number of blue shirts was a physical sign that we as people have a lot in common. Sports doesn’t need to be the catalyst for coming together, but if it is, so be it. Whatever inspires us to search for what we have in common with others is valid. Although today’s game ended poorly for San Diego, it heartened me to see people united. Maybe it will inspire us to find other ways to come together with those around us…

New Year's UNresolutions (Dec. 30, 2009)

In general I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions. I feel enough pressure to do and be my best every single day of the year. It’s part of the DNA of being a first-born. We put a lot of demands upon ourselves anyway, so why compound the stress by insisting upon yet another goal, simply because December is waning?

At the same time, of course, I recognize that there is some value in making resolutions. Pinpointing a goal is necessary if you want to achieve it, and verbalizing it often provides the commitment to get the ball rolling (or the bod jogging or whatever you intend to do). The new year gives people (me included) a good beginning point, a fresh start, impetus for something they may have been considering for a while.

So will I or won’t I be part of the tidal wave of resolution-makers as January approaches? I will. But it’s not because I feel obligated. My resolutions are ones I think are worthwhile and important. I’m dusting off two resolutions I’ve made in the past, and the fact that they are reruns illustrates just how hard it is to turn resolutions into lasting habits. My two? I want to have better posture and to floss more.

Both seem manageable. Operative word being “SEEM.” It’s wise to make your resolution something that is likely to be achieved rather than some Herculean feat. But there’s wiggle room within my resolutions, and therein lays the trouble. My resolutions may be hard to keep because unlike quitting smoking, which you either do or don’t do, having better posture or doing more flossing leaves room to ignore it on one day, promising yourself that the next day it will be a priority. My life is tiring, and posture often (literally) falls by the wayside because I am tired and hoisting myself up require energy. Flossing suffers the same fate because while I brush my teeth several times a day, flossing only occurs to me seconds before I collapse into bed at night and am too tired to stand up any longer. (Maybe I could floss laying down!)

So we’ll see. I hope that 2010 will be different. My teeth and skeleton hope this year will be different, too. But if the year is swept away by priorities bigger than posture and plaque, there’s always 2011. And maybe that will be the year I resolve not to make any resolutions at all!

Thanksgiving…Blue Skies and Short Sleeves (Nov. 26, 2009)

It’s Thanksgiving in San Diego again. It’s 75 degrees. Literally. Thanksgiving traditions here? Short sleeves! Maybe a Hawaiian shirt? A little turkey. Isn’t that how it is everywhere?!

Okay, I exaggerate. This week has been unusually warm for us. I really noticed the effect of the heat when I saw blossoms on a plant I’d been watering for months: Black-eyed Susan, pictured above. So vivid against the blue sky. Plants and flowers always remind me of how good life is, how resilient plants are, and how resilient people can be, too.

Resilience helped people live through treacherous boat journey to America before the first Thanksgiving, so it’s fitting that I’m thinking today about the human ability to endure and to keep trying. Today I am thankful for family, friends, health, freedom, laughter. Probably a hundred other things, but these are foremost on my mind. Am I excited about a wonderful meal that many people will contribute to and enjoy? Absolutely. But I’m also glad that we have this day when we pause from the usual busy-ness of our lives and remember how fortunate we are…

Big Announcement

Here it is. Brace yourself: I may not have anything to say. Yes, my lack of announcement IS my announcement. This may be the first time in 30-some-odd years when I have little to say. (Although are you noticing that I'm using quite a few words, for someone who supposedly has nothing to say? You have a point.)

A friend blogs too, and she recently celebrated a year of blogging. The day she realized she'd posted 131 posts in a year is the day I realized I had exactly 0 posts for the month of October! October was incredibly busy for me, but I was still surprised that I hadn't posted anything that month. Eeek! And it's certainly not a competition regarding who can post the biggest number of blogs. I'll leave the contest to other people. I suppose some months I have a lot to say, and other months I do other things. But even now I feel some pressure inside to make this post Exciting!!!!!! (and I'm not sure that exclamation points alone bring about the desired effect) Maybe I blog only when I'm musing about something in particular.

I'll end this post with a link to a really cute video. This video played a lot on a cable channel for little kids and I loved it so much I hunted it down on YouTube. While the video is intended for kids, the message is one for everyone, and the tune is not babyish. The song is called "Duck 4," although on YouTube you need to click on the title "One Egg Different from the Rest." The lead singer (Leon Thomas) is very talented, and his voice reminds me of Michael Jackson's as a teen. (It seems that everyone who has posted a comment about it on YouTube thinks so, too, so I guess I'm not imagining the comparison!) This song ALWAYS boosts my mood when I'm in a funk, and I thought I'd share the remedy...

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=leon+thomas+iii+Duck+4&search_type=&aq=f

This Bird’s on Energizer Batteries…It Keeps Growing and Growing

It’s the Autumnal Equinox again, the first day of Fall. One year ago I went ballistic on the backyard Bird of Paradise, cutting down hundreds of her sturdy green stalks. She received her army-regulation crew-cut, and although one couldn’t call it a pretty look, at least the bird wasn’t taking over our yard anymore. I like anniversaries, and today is the 52-week anniversary of the slaying of the bird, so I decided to check in with the bird once more.

On March 20, 2009, the Spring Equinox, I did a 6-month progress check on the bird. She’d grown 30 inches.

Six months later she is well past the 36” mark, as seen in the photo above. Yardsticks don’t lie!
I wrote about the initial taming of the bird, as well as the 6-month progress report. Both can be found under the March section of this blog. The trimming of this bird’s feathers was an exhausting ordeal that involved many different tools and five hours of work as well as some real satisfaction and a few surprise finds. The piece I wrote about it is good for a laugh.

Most plant growth is so gradual that it’s hard to detect, like hair growth or kids’ height growth. But when you consult a photo from 6 or 12 month back, you see the difference. It's incredible to me that with no encouragement (water) whatsoever, this plant has grown more than 3 feet in a year. Amazing? Scary? Both.

Butterfly-Moon-Flower: A Hippie's Paradise (Sept. 7, 2009, Labor Day)

Seemingly overnight, the monarchs appeared. I saw at least twenty over a three-day period. Vibrant, darting through the garden, joyfully flying free. I wondered if it is Monarch Season. As always, the Internet had answers. From Monarchwatch.org:

“In all the world, no butterflies migrate like the Monarchs of North America. They travel much farther than all other tropical butterflies, up to three thousand miles. They are the only butterflies to make such a long, two way migration every year.

When the late summer and early fall Monarchs emerge from their pupae, or chrysalides…the fat they have stored in the abdomen is a critical element of their survival for the winter. This fat not only fuels their flight of one to three thousand miles, but must last until the next spring when they begin the flight back north. As they migrate southwards, Monarchs stop to nectar, and they actually gain weight during the trip.”

This intrigued me. Butterflies, the most delicate creatures around, have (and need) fat? Who knew?!

A day or two later I noticed that the Yucca trees around town are in bloom. Another piece of magic from Nature. Plants’ nonverbal, synchronized blooming amazes me, in part because humans have the hardest time coordinating schedules even with the aid of the phone, email, Blackberry, Outlook and wall calendar! Like many plants, the Yucca is full of surprises. The plant and the bloom are a bit incongruous—the Beauty and the Beast of the plant world. Its bark is coarse and grayish, its green leaves spiky, and yet it produces a bouquet of soft, luminous white petals.

A few nights ago on Sept. 4, I enjoyed a third surprise gift from Nature: a full Harvest Moon. It glowed amber yellow against a periwinkle sky, a dramatic contrast. Being eternally curious as well as an Internet junkie, I wanted to know more about the Harvest Moon, so I went online to research. It turns out that the Harvest Moon occurs when the moon is full near the time of the Autumn Equinox. The moon looked bigger to me that night, which is because of the seasonal tilt of the earth.

Some people don’t want to know the science behind Nature’s beauty. Maybe that ruins the magic for them, like magazine photos of celebrities without their makeup. Some people just want to enjoy the view, not bother with the “whys.” That’s not me. When I see something that amazes me I always want to know why and how Nature does what she does. But yes, there are times when it’s just nice to enjoy what you see. Monarchs, Yucca blossoms, and a Harvest Moon are little gifts from Nature, and you don’t have to be a Flower Child to see that.