Saturday Morning Thoughts

It’s been a fruitful and frustrating week. Fruitful because the early garden is finally out. In fact, this morning the peas, spinach and lettuce are up. But we had a loss in the back yard as well. The mulberry tree had to be trimmed back because of damage from last winter’s ice storm. That meant the branches holding the bird feeders had to go. We’ve moved the feeders, but the birds are still confused. A blue jay was sitting on top of the light by the patio this morning looking around as if to say “what’s going on around here?”

We spent Wednesday in Kansas City painting my mothers living room. It took almost as long to drive up and back as it did to paint and put things back in place. It’s amazing how fast some things can be completed and how refreshed a few hours of accomplishment can make you feel.

In contrast, the slow and frustrating has been occuring in one of our bedrooms, the one with the leak. When Corina, our foreign exchange student from Moldova moved into that room, we told her not to look at the ceiling. She didn’t seem to mind as teenage girls don’t seem to be aware of their surroundings other than the computer, television, music cds and the clothing on their bodies. Unless a cute boy happens to walk by, something that certainly wasn’t going to happen in that bedroom. We did have the roof replaced while she was here so that she didn’t have to worry about getting her feet wet when she jumped out of bed, but the ceiling has been in disrepair far too long.

This week, we started ripping. It’s not the first ceiling we’ve taken out. That’s what you buy into when you purchase any house over a hundred years old. And, the ceiling is not what is discouraging. It is the windows. This bedroom was one that had bird nests in the windows when we bought the house. We replaced any broken glass and put on a perfunctory coat of paint after we ripped off the black wall paper, but the windows are still pretty bad looking and will not stay open unless they are propped up. After days of chipping, trying to pry open the top half of the window and pry out the compartment cover for the weights, sanding and priming, we reached the conclusion this morning that replacement windows might not be a bad idea. The windows are too poor a condition to be restored, primarily because of the years when the bad roof offered no protection.

Sounds like the struggle I’ve been having with my weight. I read recently that the average woman over forty can count on gaining a pound a year. Well, I’m certainly average, but not sure I want to accept the additional weight. I think sometimes, just like the difference a good sound roof can make for an old house, a good sound head can make a difference to the rest of our body.

Spring

The Flint Hills have been burning this week, an ancient rite of spring passage that brings new life to the prairie each year.

No matter how long we live here, I am always surprised and confused when it begins. I smelled smoke when I went out front to retrieve the Sunday paper. It wasn’t until later when I saw the haze surrounding the entire town from our back porch, and remembered the blood red sunset of the night before that I put two and two together.

There is beauty in the burn. The lines of fire can be seen for miles. When I was in college, a friend and I would park on a hill on the west side of Emporia and watch the fires from a distance, a view is now obstructed by a housing development. I remember once we drove out into the hills, over the gravel roads, trying to locate a particular fire. It seems we drove almost fifty miles without success. Darkness and old country roads can alter your perception of distances.

The smoke from the burn can create stinging eyes and breathing problems, but it also delivers some of the most glorious sunsets on the planet, a phenomenon that was noted after the explosion of Krakatoa in 1883. For almost three years after that massive explosion, glorious sunsets were observed in much of the western hemisphere. We’re fortunate to have beautiful sunsets year round in this part of Kansas, but they are really magnificent once the burning starts.

The Prairie Fire Festival will be held this week in Cottonwood Falls. We are going to attend the Blue Grass Gospel concert with some friends on Friday night. I suppose we all celebrate the arrival of spring in some fashion and would like to imagine that the lightning strikes that caused the prairie to burn centuries ago sparked a new creativity in the Indians who once called these plains their home.

Thoughts while paying bills on Saturday morning

I would guess we all dream of greatness when we’re young, but most of us end up the same way: paying bills, licking envelopes and trying to get the remittance from the utility company to fit in the envelope. We’ve accumulated more junk than we know how to deal with, and a few friends along the way. If we’re lucky, we get to spend a few hours in the garden or with a kitty curled up beside us as we read a good book.

We have spent more time mired down by routine than excitement. The happiest moments in our lives have come when and where we least expected it, over dinner with a few good friends, accidentally running into someone we haven't seen in a long time, traveling long distances to spend the dreaded holidays with family, or discovering worship in unexpected places. If we look back, we will note the common thread in the happiest of times is people, not possessions or even achievement.

I love writing and have been writing poetry and making up stories since I was a child. However, as I've gotten older, I've come to realize how easy it would be to let the introspection that comes with writing become all consuming, leaving no room for the relationships that are responsible for the happiest times of my life.

So if very little makes it to this blog, that's ok. Hopefully, I will be laughing with a few friends instead.