Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I would love...


I would love to be able to tell you that I have neglected posting here because I was busily improving the garden beds on our property.

I'd love even more to say I'd been swamped canning a surplus of tomatoes, or redesigning the blog.

But those are fantasies at best and more plainly put, outright falsehood.

What has kept me away has been a stupid accidental injury, reducing my extremity count to only one fully functional foot with the resulting lack of bipedal ability.

I am currently hobbling, when I am mobile at all, with a set of Trip Sticks crutches.  As I gain confidence mastering the many challenges of our multi-level home, I look wistfully forward to the day I'll be brave enough to take my act out of doors again.

Until that time comes I stare out our windows with glasses off, determined to blur the view of green so I will see it all as green I wanted, green I planned for, purposefully planted, rather than the jungle of weeds intermingled with overgrown desireables.

I am currently working not to fret about ant hills or other insect infestations I can no longer witness firsthand, or the lack of tomatoes on plants I cannot clearly discern from indoors.

What I am working to do is take full advantage of various personal insights revealed during this enforced slowdown.  Some of these insights naturally contain lessons.  Many of them I do not welcome, with bottom lines that are anything but uniformly attractive or affirming.  Such as they are, let it never be said I willingly shirked when there was work to do.

So here I sit, with my Catastrophic Cankle elevated, working.  Working on seeing.  Working on healing.

Healing my ankle, healing my frayed temperament, seeing a kind of health and wholeness that has less and less to do with my original singular focus on being able to get up and walk around under my own steam.

From time to time I am writing more about it all here.  If you are willing, feel free to drop in and visit with a non-gardening version of me.   I won't blame you if you aren't, believe me when I say nobody will be merrier than me when this blog requalifies for Garden status.  But until then, and for as long as it takes, you are most welcome to share some growth of a slightly different sort with me at Austin Agrodolce.

7 comments:

  1. Oh Deb! I'm so sorry your ankle's still messed up. I love the photo at the top of this post: what is it?

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  2. Iris thanks for your concern. My ankle will be an ongoing lesson for weeks yet to come. Maybe I WILL actually become a more patient person over the span of recovery....(don't bet on that).

    The photo is of a prayer chain I bought online a while ago (can't recall from whom exactly and a quick check of the two likeliest suspects didn't turn anything similar up or I'd share the source). I love the contrast between the now rusted bells and the preserved surfaces of the painted metal "flags". I've moved it all around the yard to perk up various drab corners. It is one of my favorite non-plant additions to our outdoor spaces. Thanks for asking!

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  3. Hi TD...Sorry about your fall from the ladder! My goodness, an ankle is a real pain (ahem) when injured and totally taken for granted most of the time until one is out of commission. Still, you know the statistics for household fatalities from ladders, it is staggering. It could have been worse!

    I wish you a swift mend Deb and KEEP WEIGHT OFF IT! You will be back gardening in no time.

    Doctor ESP.

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  4. Doctor ESP: Thanks for the good wishes, and yes, I do realize it could have been much worse and try not to be ungrateful for my fortune in not actually seeming to have broken anything.

    Hopefully I will have both a garden AND a blog audience once I get back to full mobility and find anything to post about! I appreciate your dropping by.

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  5. Oh, I'm so sorry! But if it was going to happen, might as well be now. It's too hot & icky to garden. That's my excuse, anyway! Hope it heals fast. Until then, it's a great time to THINK about the garden.

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  6. Thanks Linda - I agree - the timing could have been worse. And I have hopes to be back out in the thick of things at least in time to get everything ready for cool weather crops again. I may not be having luck with tomatoes (again!) but so far the cooler weather garden gods have taken a better liking to my efforts.... Ankles crossed that story won't change.

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  7. I hope you have a speedy recovery! Hang in there...I'm not getting much done in the yard this summer...and I'm NOT injured!

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About Me

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Rollingwood, Central Texas
Family historian by default. Oldest surviving matriarch on my branch of the Family Tree. Story teller, photo taker, gardener, cook, blabbermouth.