Everything is Impossible!

I was just thinking about the varied circumstances that have led to me being right here, leading the life that I am leading. Everybody, I am sure has done this, thinking back to a particular event that seems to be a major turning point in one's life. If we had made a different decision at a critical juncture then our lives would have turned out totally different.

There are many small decisions that we make throughout the day that affect our lives, but there seem to be a few pivotal events I can think of which would have led to major changes in my life if I had made a slightly different decision. It is usually only with hindsight that we can spot these pivotal episodes. I am sure that there are many choices that we make throughout the day that have the potential to be one of these nexus points, but because of the choices that we make, we never realize that we have passed one of these probability points. Most choices lead to a continuation of our daily routine, but if we make slightly different decisions then major changes can occur.

I can remember one cold wintery night back in January, 1974 in Decorah, Iowa. I was enjoying a drowsy evening listening to classical music, reading and drinking tea, when there was a sudden knock at the door. I was somewhat irritated at being disturbed and I was loathe to get up and open the door to the frigid cold. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was one of those critical nexus points. If I had decided to ignore the knock, I would have gone on down the life path that I was on at that time, and I would never have realized that I had been brushed by the dark wings of change. However, I got up reluctantly, opened the door...and my life was sucked into a hurricane of change and turmoil which led me down a dark divergent path far from my loved ones and all that I had known before. I stand here where I am today because of that long ago decision.

This is just one fork in my life that I remember, but when I ponder this, I realize that my life was full of such episodes--arguably an infinite number of nexus possibilities. And not just my life, but the lives of those around me, the lives of my parents, the decisions that they made each moment of their lives which led to the present reality...and so on, the decisions of their parents, etc, etc. back to the beginning. When pondering this I realize that the probability of ANY event occurring is infinitesimal. NOTHING is really possible when the infinite probabilities are considered for any one event. And yet, of course, things do happen, improbable as these events are! The arrow does move!

My Little Garden

Well, I finished 95% of my chores--it was just a mite later than my goal. Today was a beautiful day here, and I planted two types of beans, in addition to lettuce, and turnips. I have three small garden plots on the side of my yard; each one is a raised bed in a sort of stair-step arrangement going down the slope. Each plot is about 6 x 12 feet and varies as to the amount of sunlight it gets. Sunlight is a premium in my yard since it is surrounded by Douglas Fir, Western Cedar, Red Alder and Pacific Madrone trees, in addition to a thick understory of Salal and Huckleberry found under the trees. The sun at these latitudes, as I have mentioned before, seems to always be low to the horizon and only in summer does it peek above the trees. I have laid boards down in the plots to demarcate the planting areas and to provide something to walk on so I won't tramp down the soil. One half of one little plot and three quarters of another one is overgrown with mint plants. I haven't the heart to pull it up since I love the smell so much and also love the taste in my tea. There are also volunteer chard and potato plants coming up which takes up another goodly percentage of the plots--not to mention Dandelions
We are at the height of the Spring blooming time, with tulips, rhodendrons and many other flowers and shrubs at their loveliest. The wild Huckleberry is putting out new growth and the tips of the new growth are an unsual orange which is striking against the green foliage. The Salmon Berry bushes are now beginning to set little green berries, but it will be a while before it ripens.

Musings

Beginnings

Until I spoke to you

I could only catch glimpses

Like flashes of light,

Sparkles of what was inside you.

And then

Opening yourself up to me

Giving of yourself

I entered into you

Getting to know all that was you.

It amazes me

All of that

Hidden

Within secret feminine folds

A human life, warm...breathing

Pulsing with life

And love and joy.

****************

ENDINGS

Some endings stand out more than others.
Others are commonplace and fade from memory.
Some are known at the time,
Like the last time I talked to my mother
Or held my red haired love

Other endings come unawares
Sparing us the heartbreak
Of knowing too much.
It is only later that
We realize another
Ending has come and gone.

Like when I saw her stride
Purposely out of the terminal to board
The plane in that little
Iowa town.
Would I have run to her and held her close
One more time if I had known?

Or when I watched you wave goodbye
From the rear window of that departing car
How could I have known it was the last time
And that you were forever lost to me?

And the last time that I carried my daughter,
Or held her little hand as we walked along.
When I let go of her, what would I have done
If I had known...
It was the last time?

Chores, chores, chores--phooey!

I've been trying to do a lot of projects, and to help myself out I have made a detailed list that fills almost an entire page. I have listed the main items below that I want to accomplish by next Tuesday:
A. Set up a new computer and connect it to my home network.
B. Clean out the closet and either throw out any junk or take useful items to Goodwill.
C. Thoroughly clean my bedroom and computer room.
D. Put numerous photos into frames and hang them. This includes some really old copies of photos of my family.
E. Clean out the garage and organize the junk...I mean things of value!
F. Cut pathways through the backyard salal and huckleberry (bushes), rake and clean in general.
G. Cut the brush back on the margins of the clearing in which I live.
H. Take out all the old plants that I saved in the garage over the winter and put on the deck.
I. Plant some azalea and camellia bushes.
J. Pot some new plants into some new containers and window boxes.
K. Take out some rotting landscape timbers around the raised beds and replace with new.
L. Dig up and plant the garden.
M. Mow front and back yards and also the margins along the street; cut back the weeds along the driveway; clean driveway and deck.

Those are the main headings of what I want to do. Totally unrealistic I know, but if I can do all but "D" and "M." I shall be happy. Unfortunately I am working my days off this week, and so will be short of free time to do all this.

Seattle Pike Place Market

I traveled to Seattle yesterday on the bus ($3.00) and returned on the commuter train ($4.00). The trip on the train was new for me and is by far the preferred method. It travels down the Green River Valley through the countryside which is now bright green with new Spring leaves. I haven't been through some of these small towns in many years, and although I had heard of the train, I had never taken it. It was a delightful experience.

While in Seattle I walked down by the waterfront (windy and chilly and looking a bit run-down), and meandered my way through all the construction before climbing the hill to Pike Place mark. As usual the market is a place full of sights, sounds and smells that capture the senses. The tulips are reaching their height and the flower stalls were full of them.
I always like looking at the vegetable stands also. The vegetables and fruits are always carefully arranged so that they create a wonderful assemblage of color and texture. I am also always amazed at their price!

And of course I have to visit the fish stands with their incredible assortment of fish and other types of sea food. Sometimes the fishmongers put on a show by tossing the fish about for the benefit of the tourists, but today they were fairly quiet, not even shouting out their wares. In fact the place was relatively quiet and uncrowded. Relatively I say since it was still quite full of people and noise. It is a great place to browse and see the sights, and then to stop in some small eatery to eat lunch or breakfast. The entire area has been converted into a series of shops, stalls and restaurants of all types and descriptions. I was thinking how nice it would be, if money were no object, to live in a condo overlooking Puget Sound and the ferries, and then to come down to shop in the market and eat in the astounding number of restaurants. Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets? :)

It's a great place to walk also, going up and down the steep streets, wandering from one end of the downtown area to the other. The buses are free in the main city area, and you can get on and off whenever you wish. The driver always announces the last free stop, so you can leave before you have to pay!

It all sounds very wonderful, and it is--IF YOU LIKE DREARY, CHILLY, RAINY WEATHER! And that's the fly in the ointment of living in the Northwest. You can go for weeks without seeing the sun, and when you do it is a weak, watery thing, low on the horizon giving forth slanting rays that always makes me think that it is either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The rain is legendary--not the hard pounding rain that one finds in the rest of the world, but drizzle, ranging from a fine mist to a steady rain that goes on and on and on... August and September are, however, wonderful with perfect warm, sunny weather and chilly nights. I suppose that it is a good thing for the area that it has such lousy weather, otherwise everybody and their dogs would flock here as they have to California. Actually the weather seems to have little impact on the burgeoning population which is rapidly filling the narrow corridor between the mountains and the sea, clear cutting the forests, polluting the water and the air, and in general befouling the pristine eden that once was here. But what else is new, huh?

PROHIBIT TALKING IN CARS IN WASHINGTON STATE

The enlightened state of Washington is about to pass a measure outlawing the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. As a local paper reported, the offense is punishable with a $101 fine, and would be a secondary traffic infraction which means that the driver would have to be pulled over for something else. I think this means that if a policeman observes a person driving down the road with a cell phone up to his ear, the officer would have to desperately look for another more serious infraction to legally pull the miscreant over. Perhaps the laudable officers of Fife, Washington could give the other police officers pointers since they are so skilled at pulling drivers over for trivial violations (See December post: Fife, the City that Sold it's Soul to the Devil).

As this paper says, this ban is long overdue. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that drivers quadruple their chances of being in an accident when they use their cell phones. The surprising thing shown by this study is that this accident rate holds whether the drivers HOLD their phones or use HANDS FREE DEVICES! The legislature decided to only address hand-held phones because police officers wouldn't be able to tell whether or not the person was using a hands-free phone.

I was filled with astonishment as I read this article! SURELY, the officers could be able in some way to detect that drivers were using a hands-free phone. I thought that perhaps they could use binoculars to see if a person's lips were moving IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY PASSENGERS! Then another thought occurred to me.

If the accident rate was the same for people talking on hands-free phones as it was for phones that they had to hold, then what exactly WAS the common factor that could be causing the increase in accidents? It couldn't be the fact that the drivers were only using one hand on the steering wheel while their other hand held the phone since the accident rate was the same for hands-free phones. After a short period of cogitation on this, I realized in a sudden flash of inspiration that it was the ACT OF TALKING! The act of talking was causing a fourfold increase in accidents. This leads me to urge our prescient legislature to extend this ban! PROHIBIT ALL TALKING IN CARS!

It's Raining Pollen!

Yesterday morning when I walked out on the porch, it was so slippery that I thought for a moment that it had frosted during the night. I then realized that there was a film of yellow pollen over the porch and steps which acted as as a fine lubricant. Wiping the railing, I found that my finger tips were covered with the powder-like pollen. I had to hold on the railing as I climbed down the steps for fear of slipping. My car and the windshield were also covered with it. This happens every year. This year it coincided with some warm weather that we had for the past two days. I am almost certain that this pollen is coming from the Douglas Fir trees that surround my house, but I didn't check the male cones. When shaken they produce a great cloud of pollen during this time of year. Luckily, I don't seem to be allergic to pollen from this species.

I am enclosing some more photos. To the left is the fiddle head from my least favorite fern--the Bracken Fern(Pteridium aquilinum) that I have mentioned before. They are coming up everywhere like weeds--which they are! They occur worldwide and is such a pest in Britain that they initiated a program to control their spread. People eat them like asparagus as I said before, but this fern contains carcinogens, and in areas where they are consumed regularly such as Japan, the occurrence of stomach cancer is among the highest in the world.

I also found that the Horsetails (Equisetum) are coming up in my yard. They used to be used as scouring pads because of the large amount of silicon in their cell walls. These are a primitive group of Vascular Plants (containing tubes) that reproduce by spores instead of seeds. The strobilus, shown here, is the spore producing body which in this area comes up before the photosynthetic stems. The photosynthetic vegetative stems can be quite attractive, especially when they catch the light in shaded areas, but they can be a nuisance because of their tendency to spread.

It is also that time of year for my old friend the Dandelion (Taraxcum sp.) to blossom forth in all its glory. I had very few Dandelions until I disturbed my yard a few years ago in order to empty the septic tank. This disturbance in the grassy lawn was all it took for them to take hold with a vengeance. I just gave in and learned to enjoy their beauty before they go to seed and become all raggedy. The Dandelions in the Northwestern U.S. are the most beautiful that I have ever seen. They seem to be larger and deeper yellow than those I have observed elsewhere.
The birds are also singing their little heads off. Like clockwork on April 1 in open areas, I heard the White Crowned Sparrow (Poor little me, deep!). About my house, I hear the species that are most common to the woods and boundary areas. The WinterWren, the Robin, the Varied Thrush along with the Chestnut Backed Chickadee are all singing loudly. The Spotted Towhee is just getting started and will remain the most vocal bird in the area through July. Also, although I have seen the Song Sparrow , it has barely begun vocalizing. Soon it will become, like the Towhee, one of the most heard bird around my house.