it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

For unknown reasons my body awoke at 10 after 6, and I have to confess that I was really excited by the prospect of sitting on my side porch, newly cleaned and organized, while sipping my coffee in the quiet of a Sunday not yet writhing. The big, debuting sunrise had passed and given way to wild tangerine rivers of stringy clouds that burned off quickly as the sun took its position in the daytime sky, but really, I'm so estranged to such a thing that I'll take the leftovers and be happy with them.

Somewhere far enough off that I had to focus my ears and wait for a second listen, a rooster crowing set my heart to longing. My chicken dreams have been put on hold for stronger desires to travel, and waiting to see what Uncle Sam has up his sleeve for the end of the year. There are reasons aplenty to explain why now just isn't time for chickens, yet that rooster crowing from who-knows-where thumps at the bruise. Everything works out and my life right now needs to maintain freedom - to bend, to move, to be my part of the Army plan.

Traveling is currently more critical anyway. As I contemplated the ramifications of literally pulling out my hair and those of quitting grad school, I also grabbed frantically at anything that would make my academic life worth living. Last semester me and my big dreams had proposed a month long road trip paired with an independent study in travel writing, which sounded great but ran into some logistical issues that made it less appealing in the end. I had dropped the idea and had conceded to the normal class schedule and my first free summer in quite a while. That was before the academic crisis occurred, which ultimately brought me back to it for modification. Dad and I have been planning a smaller scale road trip to Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC, and so the familiar thought halted me one day like a child suddenly consoled for no reason. He and I will be back before June starts up, leaving the rest of summer wide open. I stopped by my non-fiction professor's office to get the angst off my chest and to ask her about the independent study again, under different circumstances. Talking to her was helpful and she agreed to throw together this elixir of a summer course. I'm still mostly at the drawing board weighing possibilities but a drive up coastal California, from Los Angeles to the Sonoma Valley is in the lead. And not to be outdone, Mom suggested a short cruise to Mexico just yesterday. It won't be like a summer backpacking Europe or India or Vietnam or Africa (all dreams), but it will be a wealth of opportunity and a reason to write, as well as a reason not to lose my hair at the hands of stress and frustration.

The container garden takes up the same cause as the chickens would - abandonment - although I'm pretty sure there is an easy solution, some kind of garden variety life support that I just haven't yet found. I've looked at a number of "irrigation systems" and yesterday I found some Plant Nanny's at a local shop downtown. The only problem there is the requirement of wine bottles. I have eleven large pots and each of the Nanny's terra-cotta stakes requires a wine bottle filled with water. Between now and mid-May I would be hard pressed or consistently annihilated to come up with eleven empty bottles.

Save the absence-induced possibility of sun scorch, the garden still aims for success. Now that it is written pests will probably descend upon my tender sprouts like plagues of locusts. But until then, they are growing in leaps and bounds, and while I feel like The Ignorant Gardener, last night talking to Dad about my thriving promises of fruit, he commended the knowledge I have somehow found room for and managed to cram into my already over-taxed headspace. I, however, will likely continue to describe my forays into veggie cultivation as "gardening by the seat of my pants," at least until next year when I hope to be the reigning queen of tomatoes, squash and peppers.

With that and the sun securely positioned, I need to go heat up my coffee and do something relating to school today. As much as I keep hoping it will, that final paper is not going to write itself.

happy earth day!

I kind of always thought of the "Green" movement as hype, until it showed itself as Addiction and swept over me. Things I've either consciously or sub-consciously changed for the better since January (in no specific order or rank):

• purchased a reel push lawnmower against everyone's advice, which really only made me want it more. Even Baby Girl gets her eco-mow on:

• started walking to classes that don't cause me to walk home in the dark. My neighborhood is...pseudo-sketchy.
• recycling
• organic container gardening
• baking instead of buying: bread products, crackers, protein bars
• not running the heat (unless it's so cold inside my house that I cannot feel my feet)
• organic skin products (make-up, lotion, homemade toner)
• and just now as I brewed my first cup of coffee in a long time, I thought to myself, "I can do this another way..."

the span of my happiness...

...is from my kitchen to just beyond its back door, and then all the way to the other side of the earth where a soldier keeps my heart safe with his.

working toward the upgrade, a few bedrooms and some acreage. We all have dreams that breach the hold of Ben and Jerry's and Rachel's Yogurt, though they are few. Roll call: (from left to right) sweetie tomato, sweet pepper, straight 8 cucumber, beefsteak tomato

Wild irises, the complementary Nature Feature. And all along, I swore they would be tulips (evidence of my not-so-green thumb).

The teens: patio tomato and his entourage of marigolds, lavender, echinacea, chamomile, marigolds pulling security, the zucchini squash - we'll name him Flash, lazy sweet onions, a few more marigolds, and my little runt of a summer squash. [it's really obvious that this has become too much a part of my life, right?]

English muffins - Maiden Voyage. Rating: 6 out of 10. Better luck next time. Less wheat flour, more of something that will keep them airy.

I'm seeing how long I can go without buying wheat/bread products. It's all a part of the same itch needing to be scratched. On Sunday morning my mom called at 9:30am, asking about the "little homestead." While she mocks because she thinks it's cute, I am realizing that in all of my other lives, I never would have been gardening at 9:30am on a weekend or any other day for that matter, nor would I have been contemplating the right recipe for English muffins because I refuse to buy them. (well, I take that back, there was that one time.)

I'm turning into her. It's really quite frightening.

On the agenda for sometime this or next week: another attempt at a sandwich loaf, tortillas, and wheat thin crackers. And this weekend, the seedlings spread their wings and test out the real world that lies on the other side of window sills.

i saw a modest dream, the kind that can't speak up

There is a story to tell, though it hasn't found its way through me yet. It hasn't formed the words clearly enough. They are still unfolding and forming into cohesive groups as I type. I work in phases like my father - life becoming a series of desperate love affairs quickly burning down the wicks that bore them until there is no more fuel. Maybe that's all this is too, a thing to keep me warm at night, an exciting idea whose end is deliciously unknown. Or worse perhaps, this is my True North.

I am a product of a swarm of things, but as my dad reminded me the other day, "I guess you can't take the country out of the girl." Part of me cringes and withdraws from those words, the part that still lusts after a tiny, 1000 flight walk-up in Manhattan, the bustle, the peace-like-waves of hurried traffic, the need for human life tucked closely around me. And yet time and time again, no matter what my heart is most currently fixed on, I arrive at the question: Why are my loves and inclinations unprofitable desires? Ah, the prompt.

[and as I proof what's written so far, I can see a difference in my headspace, that I like very much]

Let me tell you about the limbs that grew before me. My mother. One of my earliest memories is picking peaches with her before I tortured the tree with my need to climb it, and it died and rotted. Making cobbler in the kitchen with brown perpendicular linoleum rectangles and her hair, curly. She would spend what seemed like days in her gardens, always in that lavender terry-cloth get-up, shorts and tube top connected, slender work gloves and sun visor. In those memories her hair is also curly. Her bounty would be bright roses and okra, bell peppers, tomatoes, summer squash. Cooking the harvest promoted such blissful Southern staples as fried green tomatoes and fried squash, and fried okra for that matter. And when it wasn't gardening season I would still watch her move in the kitchen. No matter how many hours in the week she worked, dinner was always relatively homemade. As I got older she developed an affinity for figs, and soon we had numerous fruit bearing trees growing along the chimney side of the house. She made preserves, although I can't recall this being an intensive process, so there may not have been bundles of them. Nevertheless, this was very normal in my existence, not critical or praised like faith from the stem or from the hands, but performed like rituals with great reverence and joy.

My late great aunt, Mom's side. Influenced by The Depression, she developed a need to horde, cultivate and feed. Another dated memory is being put in a highchair hooked to a diner table in her self-named restaurant. She manned the register and the kitchen simultaneously, along with several acres of row gardens heavy with everything: grapevines, cherry trees, vegetable plants, nuts, fruits, leafy greens, etc., etc. And canning was an event, a near daily event. I still have jars in my pantry waiting for the right rainy day to make peach pie with her filling, and green beans that rival anything store bought. She did it all even until the end. After a partially paralyzing stroke the walker accompanied her garden work, and the kitchen was never empty of something earthy and quaint in its conception, but radiantly and perfectly full of Home. She served humanity from the ground and from humble hands.

These are the only ones that I know or have known. I hear that my mom's mom was quite thrifty as well, and my dad's mom had the chickens that I want now. Maybe he's right. Maybe some things are so vital to a person's make up that they can't be denied. This somehow seems to edge up awfully close to a vast pondering of the meaning of life. My "mother in law" asked if I expected the economy to get bad enough to warrant all of this simplifying, which caused to me to look at my motives. The economy was never behind it. I answered that part quickly and with ease. That explanation is a part of the story that hasn't quite formulated. There is something crucial feeling in watching a seed grow or kneading dough that will become the foundation of sandwiches, and in knowing that if all the world fell down around us, I would, in some small capacity, be able. And besides, it's in my blood. This, whatever it is becoming, feels like faith and purpose, like joy.

a place for everything::everything in its place

I can't believe it's already Friday. Another week down is a good thing both in deployment terms and in grad school terms. This semester has been far less magical than last and less inspiring and less motivating. I've dragged through it because I had to, much like the days that he has been gone. The day he left I lived through the coming months in big bites, overwhelming concepts that drew my stomach up into my throat and left an empty chasm where it belonged. I felt like crawling out my skin in the most desperate and panicked way. Looking back, that seems so long ago, but then again, we're already on the other side of all my enormous measurements - seasons, semesters, length of daylight. And for most of the time that I've powered recklessly through British Romance poetry and fallen asleep without his arms around me, I've been surprisingly okay.

I have found little things to occupy my mind and stories that I've gathered to color all the hours. Though one of my biggest fears was learning to live on my own, misery-free, I've come to love most of it. There are times, like yesterday when I really do wish that he was here, but not in the cry-myself-to-sleep way, more in the he-knows-how-to-shoot-big-guns way. Not that I don't...

(me topping the badass scales - Winter '07)

...but he's better.

I pulled out of my driveway en route to the post office and to the vet. I backed out, righted my direction only to see three police cars pulled haphazardly onto the curb of my street, three doors down. Lights were flashing, a few cops were coming around the corner, an obvious exit from the premise, and a stand up gentleman stood cuffed behind the trunk of the closest vehicle. This falls into the "ignorance is bliss" section of life. I felt much more settled not knowing that a criminal lived on my block. I'm making double sure that the doors are locked and that every outdoor sound is over-analzyed and that I sleep with one eye open.

In other news, the garden project continues to prosper. The back-up patio tomato (the one not grown from seeds) and the homegrown zucchini squash, along with my window box of sprouting spinach and romaine lettuce all found homes outside yesterday. They're growing up so fast! My herbs are nestled in a sunny corner of my porch and the poppies continue to explode into thread-thin stems with miniature leaves. Inside my summer squash and sweetie tomato have just this morning shown through the soil, and I'm still giving the sweet pepper and straight eight cucumber a chance to do the same.

It's safe to say that this endeavor has become far more involved than I ever expected. I awoke in the night to a mild thunderstorm and thought briefly of running out in the rain to bring their pots inside. I kept seeing visions of disrupted root systems and disturbed onion seeds, over-watered failure, etc. Luckily, for the sake of preserving some dignity, I stayed curled up in bed and let Mother Nature induct them into Her realm without me. Using a calming mantra I talked myself down from pathetic actions - they are Hers, not mine.

greetings from a dreary Monday

There isn't much to tell and maybe I'm also extending my break from blogging because I can. But again, not much to tell. With things spicing up in the world and a completely screwed up switchboard system, my levels of anxiety are on a steady climb. I've gotten a series of about five calls in close to two weeks that have amounted to a lot of brief words before an automated operator hangs up prematurely. In under 10 minutes, with warnings that your talking time is quickly expiring, there isn't much that you can feasibly say, except to make sure you squeeze in an untimely "I love you," because that's what matters most. Even though we have spoken, we haven't really gotten to talk, no e-mails either. The sparse communication is just now starting to wear on me, and the shift from sunny 70 degree days to sleet and rain and resurfacing Winter coats, and my stuffy nose and general feelings of gross. But before Winter stopped in for one last hoorah, everything was pretty swell.

The weather has been beautiful. I spent a good part of this last weekend with the doors open, completely relaxed, tending new sprouts and day dreaming long evenings that will be spent on the porch with my soldier, sipping wine for me, beer for him. Though those days are still a long way from right now, it's pleasant to think of them, to be able to think of them as that much closer.

I almost went through the transplanting process while the sun was out and the days were ripe for potting plants, but this Blackberry Winter was looming on the horizon so I waited for possibilities of frost to subside before chancing my seedlings' exposure to the elements. Just when I had given up on my tomatoes, a tiny sprig of green showed itself, and I awoke this morning to find that my zucchini was busy pushing up through soil all night long. This from-seed business doesn't sit well with my total lack of patience; however, if all goes well, I'll be a veritable produce stand by June or July. I'm still mulling over chickens, although I picked the breed and have glanced over coop designs. I keep coming back to the anchor they would be. Who the hell am I going to hire on to tend chickens if I travel? Am I really ready to be that tied to home? Questions that still need to be reasoned with before I seal the deal.

31 of 31: Another night of poetry

Restless

In my kitchen window
threads of green unfurl,
pushing up from loose soil.

They will be ripe when
the fruits are red, glowing
hot from the sun, and salty-scented.

I have read, that in certain places
buoyant pearls rise in flooding rain,
teeth from the deepest fields.

Then—I don’t know what happens--
The earth must dry around them,

crack open, tell about their bodies.

Intuition must be a part of it.

When it’s time, I am assured,
my tomatoes (and the bones)
will be started and finished.

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30 of 31: back home

My alarm, or rather my army wife friend's alarm spun up a Keith Urban CD at 5am. I woke up somewhat rested, which only furthers my belief that my mattress is dunzo, took a shower, got dressed, packed almost everything (except the black wedges I left behind) and headed for the airport. By 9:45am I was back in my driveway, ready to watch Baby Girl before class.

New Orleans was a great little get away. Friday night I was welcomed with an invitation to her sister's house for a crawfish boil. Very interesting, very tasty, very local. Saturday we got coffee and bagels, pedicures, did a little shopping, lunched in the French Quarter at Pat O'Brien's, went for a walk by Lake Pontchartrain, had dinner at Jacque-Imo's and passed out in her living room while talking. Sunday was a little less busy. We got coffee again and went walking in a park near Tulane, hung out at Borders for a while, killed ourselves with a cardio kickboxing dvd, lounged at a neighborhood bar on the patio with sunshine and strawberry Abita beers, ate leftovers, read a bit, stopped by TCBY and watched Twilight at her sister's house. The movie was terrible, but the weekend was quite relaxing.

When I walked in my house, it had assumed the temperature of the flighty Spring weather, a delicious 34 degrees. I quickly turned up the heat and checked on my seeds. Many are still little containers of dirt, but my spinach is sprouting into delicate green tendrils. It was an incredibly exciting discovery, which says a lot about my increasing level of dullness. I can't wait for The Staff Sergeant to come home. I'm probably not actually super interesting, but he makes me feel so much more substantial. At any rate, I've got spinach in the works. I'm still holding out hope for the other veggies and herbs.

I also took a walk today, found a recipe for a homemade facial toner, picked up organic potting soil from a small local hardware store and went by the grocery for a few things I needed to complete my dinner attempt at Dahl with brown rice. I still need to get some poetry homework finished before spending tomorrow with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and I have my fingers crossed that I'll get a call from a certain soldier before the day is done. Right now I'm going to finish my wine and chocolate covered soy nuts before mixing up my rosemary and apple cider vinegar toner. Hopefully today's high spirits and productivity are telling for the pace of the week.

26 of 31: getting away

I continue to be amazed at how quickly the numbers are climbing as I sit down to title my daily post. I'm also a little surprised that I've been able to stick with this post-a-day business without missing one or two, and a part of me will be glad when it's on a feel-like-it basis again. Until then, I'll press on.

I'm sitting on my little side porch, sipping on a glass of sauvignon blanc, paying bills, and trying to get Beth to move from a very awkwardly rigid position - oh, there she goes. Relaxed on her haunches looks less terrified. She and I just planted another egg carton's worth of herbs. I found the ones that Lowes didn't have in their organic repertoire while I was in Nashville today: lavender, poppy, echinacea, dill, chamomile, sweet pepper, zucchini squash, and sweet onion. As you can see, I'm a complete idealist in everything that I do. Try a couple of seeds? No, no, no, Molly Gardner here fears nothing. Start small? Small-shmall. By next week, the first batch should be showing some activity. Again, that's only if I haven't over-watered, planted too deep, planted too shallow, not watered enough, or uttered the wrong prayers of cultivation to Mother Earth.

I also stopped by Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for the grocery items that we here in Army-ville are not sophisticated enough to keep stocked. [Hello, Kroger, you're Greek yogurt has been bare-shelved for almost a week!] I scored a gorgeous-delicious pair of stuffed Salmon filets and four cups of Fage, for when Kroger tries to punish me in forms of yogurt deprivation again next week. It would have been a better trip if my purpose for going wasn't follow-up-doctors-visit related. It was an easy appointment and fine, a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of thing. Back in six months and maybe a second biopsy. Gah. Unfavorable cells don't really fit into my schedule. Hopefully they're already aware.

And lastly, I escape again tomorrow! I'm headed to New Orleans to spend a weekend eating the best food on earth and relaxing with an army wife friend of mine. One thing I love about this lifestyle is how quickly you can breach the boundaries of acquaintance and adopted family. It will be undoubtedly wonderful.

25 of 31: a breath of fresh air

Now that Spring seems to be less hesitant in its arrival, I am full-swing into Spring Cleaning! I'm also a whore for Amazon, and books in general, really. These are the latest purchases. I'm all about detoxing the house and my body and my lifestyle. I tend to be fickle in things like this so I just hope that it sticks this time. There was once upon a time that I wanted a little coop with chickens in my backyard and fresh eggs mere steps from my kitchen door, a big veggie garden, self-sustainability, and that was a little bit before it was cool. I had the garden and the bounty and the drive until about mid-July, when I decided that I liked air conditioning more than home-grown tomatoes. That was a classic example of running out of steam. I threw up my hands and let the sun scorch the rows of cucumbers and squash and eggplant and peppers. It was a beautiful patch. I was 20.

So I'm biting off something a bit less ambitious with what I hope will be an equally beautiful container garden. The chem-free stuff just seems to follow suit with taking better care of myself, and eventually The Staff Sergeant, too. I'm also developing a slightly obsessive addiction to the idea of urban homesteading, a more ambitious version of the aforementioned goals that does include my lost-dream-chickens. It probably won't be in this house, but if the vision holds, maybe at the next one.

Full of non-toxic cleaning recipes and tips on how to be more eco-friendly with the less replaceable cleaners

Notes on food, home cleaners, personal care recipes

Hailed as the best of the best in vegetable container gardening. I'll let you know how it turns out, that is unless my seeds rot in their little starter homes and never sprout...

23 of 31: a brief mid-Monday ramble

I got to talk to The Staff Sergeant last night for an hour an a half - yes, you read it correctly. It had been four days with no word, which is unusual, and unusually difficult given the weighty questions I had been over-analyzing since then. This is one of the downfalls I'm finding to living solo - too much time with oneself. I, for one, can't stand to be with only me for large quantities of time. Digression occurs, festering occurs, worst-case-scenarios devour reason and logic and benefits of doubt. I'm still trying to figure out what will happen in the next year as our lives seem to be teaming with possibilities that do not always feel mutually inclusive [to me]. He settled my mind a little, but as I continue to learn the fickle nature of the Army, I'll believe it all when I see it.

I told him about my "gardening" endeavors and he immediately drew a line from my actions to Michelle's. And I have to say, I don't mind being compared to the First Lady one bit. I love her more and more, from military family support to organic gardening, she pretty much rocks.

And on that note, I'll have to tie things up. This was totally an act of procrastination. I have a proposal due in about an hour and I actually have to take something to class!

22 of 31: phase 1

It's actually kind of rare for me to follow through on plans, immediately at least, but I did get up, spend 20 minutes with Rodney Yee doing morning yoga, make a class-A Sunday morning breakfast of whole wheat waffles, Trader Joe's cherries and chocolate chips (360 cals). I took a shower, put on lazy Sunday sweats and headed for...Lowes. That's the low point of the story. The local co-op was closed, as was the nursery on the way to Lowes, so it won out. I got my mom on the phone so she could talk me through all of the logistics of this great plan I concocted. Right now I'm just trying to get something to sprout. Everything after that will be a day at a time too. I'm a notorious killer of plants. While I'm not shy about my domestic goddessness, I am no gardener. My mom failed to share those genes, but she advised and suggested and I left with $18 worth of organic seeds and soil. Soon I hope to share photos of tiny green whispers of growth.

We'll call this "phase 1" of yet another attempt to tap into my inner green thumb

The good stuff

And we wait ("sweetie" tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, summer squash, sweet basil and cilantro)

My crop of spinach