Bok

Last night the chicken called me a dog.

It has been my observation that birds in general, smart ones I mean, all use pretty much the same word to mean "furry thing that eats our babies, and maybe even us". And this word is always a variation of bok, or bak. It is a staccato sound, a short, simple snap, usually repeated. Years of gardening have taught me this. It's not any stranger than knowing cats call birds a soft and strained "myakak". Which means, "If you'd only hold your feathered and amusing body still, I could taste you until you died."

Mocking birds are the masters sending up the alarm. But being quite possibly smarter than chickens, they do not call me a bok, or more correctly for mocking birds, bak.

When our littlest, Durga, was still in arms, she couldn't have been more than four or five months old, she was just barely beginning to talk. We would spend time in the yard, reveling in the post-summer weather, the season of the dragonflies here in southwest Florida. And I talked to her constantly, as I did with my others at the same age, about the world around them. We watched the birds, and knew that cats and dogs the same were "bak" to birds.

We jokingly call our big boy cat a kitty cow, and so she had picked up on "cow" as the name for cat. (We have since sorted out the feline/bovine distinction.) At the time he was not allowed out of the house.

She and I were walking in the garden, and she observed the mocking birds saying "bak", all disturbed and getting ready to dive-bomb the offensive creature. I thought they were just being rude about us. And that was when she said, "cow". I, being rather slow post-pregnancy, corrected her and said they were birds. She was patient with me and repeated, "cow", still looking at the birds.

I stepped back towards the door and then saw him, his furry fatness creeping away through the yard. We caught him escaping, and it was all thanks to paranoid mocking birds and a clever infant. And it was "bak!" that gave him away.

I see her beak, but where are her eyes?When we got Gertrude, our silkie bantam, she taught us that chickens say "bok", rather than common "bak". They, like mocking birds and grackles, are loath to distinguish between cats and dogs. I'm guessing racoons and other unmentionable furries also fall into the same category. Or I'm just a crude interpreter, missing the subtleties. Gertrude is a gentle soul though, and can't see very well for her moptop. And she would never call a person a bok.

Guenevere, our araucauna, or Easter egger as her eggs are blue green, is a little more street. Don't get me wrong, she's gorgeous, but if Gertrude is a flouncy lady of King Louie's court, Guenevere is a little more like Glee's Santana, hot, talented, and a little rough around the edges. She's the one who eats lizards, smashes in next to Gertrude in the same nesting box, and jumps onto my desk. She's more curious, more saucy. She also is a little more free with her language.

At night chickens are really pretty helpless. They zonk out, waking at every sound, not terribly able to do anything about their fears and suspicions but warn the others. Roosters at night make a cooing sound that is lovely and soothing, the equivalent of a manly hug that says everything is alright, there is no boogie man and if there is, I'll take care of it. But we don't keep roosters. Sometimes we make the sound, the way Gertrude has taught us, and the girls settle right down in their lair in the extra bathroom. We move softly and slowly and put them at ease.

Last night I came back after reading Huck Finn to Baird, all drawly, Kali said, the way I get when I've talked to someone from the south. I was in a hurry to get to bed, reviewing my list for the next day, and dove quickly for a pit stop en route. And that's when Guenevere told me what she thought of the intrusion.

Bok.

Roots

My cousin, mother, grandmother, uncle

Two family deaths changed the way I viewed the holidays this year. And got me thinking about what is solid in this temporal and unpredictable world.

They were not immediate family, in fact both were grand aunts. First, on my birthday no less, I heard of the death of Zena, my (postmodern) grand aunt by my maternal uncle's ex-marriage. 

It's been years since I've seen her. My single mother had moved us to NYC, and Zena's intense floor-barre ballet was very grounding for me. The discipline has deeply informed so much of my life.

But over the years the family changed and moved, expanding and contracting as families do over decades. Though I have seen my uncle and cousins, Zena was only, sadly, a fond memory, a checkpoint. Divorce is funny like that, making ex-relatives of people who for a child are de facto family.

And then she died. I said my goodbyes at home, thanked God for her influence, saved the obit for the family file.

Things settled down, we had a lovely thanksgiving. December rolled around, requisite viruses and allergies hit. Santa was behind. And I got the next call. My maternal grandmother's sisters had been in a car accident. So far they were okay, sort of.

Gerry had picked up Wanda from the airport and was dropping her off at home. They got to the driveway and Wanda was trying to get her bag out of the trunk. Gerry thought she was done and began to back up, bumping Wanda, making her fall in the drive. Wanda shouted and managed to get herself back up. Gerry had opened her door and unbuckled, fearing for her sister.

And then the smallest biggest thing happened.

Gerry slammed her foot down to stop the car, but hit the accelerator instead of the brake. The car flew into the yard, and Gerry was thrown across the street, under a tree.

Wanda thought she was gone. She ran over and Gerry was out cold. Wanda kept telling her she was okay, that she hadn't run her over, terrified that Gerry would die thinking she'd killed her little sister. When the ambulance left, my 80 year old aunt who had been bumped by a car and fallen in the drive, got into her car and drove to the hospital.

When she got there Gerry was blinking and talking. Maybe Gerry heard her and knew Wanda was okay. Things degenerated over the course of the following week. Family arrived from near and far. She was taken off of her respirator, put in hospice across the hall, and finally, after three days, died.

She and Wandy and my grandmother were like triplets of love. The violence and her relative youth made her loss all the more shocking. She was 82, but she had been a P.E. teacher, and longevity on that side is expected. Their mother got her license renewed at 92!

Wanda's Pecan PieMy cousin arranged for us to go, battling holiday flight madness. She and I are close like the sisters are. We packed in a daze, texting each other. We realized we had to go for longer than we thought in order to walk our grandmother and Wanda through a few days following the funeral. We hugged our husbands and children, and flew together to Houston, then to Lubbock and drove finally to Plainview, TX.

Plainview is a funny place to have family. Our great grandmother arrived from Alabama as a child in a covered wagon after the Civil War. It's all cotton and cattle. Very small. I never expected to be back so soon after last summer's reunion. 

A discipline. A reunion. A funeral.

What does it mean to be rooted? What does it look like for you to be truly rooted in something? What is your deep inner strength, something from which you draw? All of the family stories I grew up with are a rooting thing for me. Not religion per se, for me at least, but certainly faith is another. Nation and history are a most obvious ways to describe roots. The discipline of floor-barre, or any practice.

I used to envy people for whom one rooting thing was simple and obvious, giving them purchase against life's more slippery parts. Now I think I was missing a vital part of the picture. Though sometimes people seem to miss the flubs in their personal story, and can even seem to be flying flags on castles made of sand, I suspect most of us do have more of a "warts and all" understanding of our own narratives. 

Listening to the family stories, good and bad, I find I heard more with the vulnerability that loss creates in all of us. Perhaps more was said. Perhaps I saw a more even picture of each of the people with whom I share so much history.

My mother, cousin and I conspired to go to the cemetery to photograph the older graves. It was cold, having snowed a little. There was the scent of cattle manure on the wind, so many geese overhead. And there was a sense of irony. Three Yankees, New Yorkers, traipsing through the cemetery, each with all the names of our history burned in our minds, stories floating around as cousins, aunts and uncles were found.

We got my mother's mother's parents. And then we got her parents, from the covered wagon. And it was almost electrical, because it was pure chance, perhaps. I had asked for them to help us find them, quite fervently. We made one last pass through the older area. The light was fading, and we were leaving the next day.

And then there they were.

The two hardest ones with the least information. And we got to stand there in some awe. You could have knocked me over with a feather. We got dates, and the cemetery had their birthplaces in their online database when I got home. 

What I found in the face of all of this tragedy, history, quiet time appreciating "visiting" with the 80 year old set, bonding with my cousin, my mother, and our broader family in this loss, walking the cemetary and finding the gravestones of the legends of our family stories, was really just more life. Richer, more layered, fraught, joyful. Life.

I came back so grateful for having all of these remarkable people influencing me, whether by story or experience, as standards or warnings. The depth of the experience has made me very interested in further exploring the hushed parts of my maternal family history. Plantations and slavers, Choctaws, pioneers, drinkers, preachers. I found that no one was completely saint or sinner, to put it in Plainview-style terms, but there are always shades of grey, historical context, true evil and real heroics. I learned that seeing people's gifts and strengths and carrying them with me is very, very powerful. I learned that sometimes there are sad skeletons that are best acknowledged with compassion and breathed away, denying denial, if you will.

How is your personal story, your narrative, informing your life? What things make you stronger, and what parts might it be time to acknowledge and let go, not denying, but allowing to die for you so they no longer have power over you, and are not unwittingly passed on. What pieces might become part of your personal mission statement? What might you explore in terms of discipline, history, spiritual practice or even nation that might act as resources for you? What do you find roots you?

Moving the Bees

Our bees were like six degrees of separation. Me→Beth→Tim→Brian→Nick→Nick's friend→Bees in lawnmower.

So the guys went to get the bees and put them in our hive, leave the hive there for the bees to get used to their new digs, then they went back to pick them up and bring them home a few days later. It was a raging success!

Here's a vid of the transfer of the beasties into the hive. I'm amazed at the rows within the mower.

The lawnmower was not an ideal location for them, with not much room for honey and people wanting to get rid of the old mower. Winters here are mild, but winter nonetheless, and not enough honey to make it through. They'll be happy at our house. We have lots of flowers, a water source, and we'll throw a super on top as soon as they settle down. The super is where they make all their extra honey. That will give us a spring harvest of a little bit of the most local honey ever. Next year there will be more.

Honey Bees

Wednesday, our dwarf Rex and professional composter. Photo courtesy Lisa McDonnell.We're so excited about this new bee venture we can hardly stand it!

We're getting ready to plant our annuals garden, which we do every fall in southwest Florida. The odd seasons take some getting used to. It might even be stranger than one's first year someplace like Argentina, which is going into spring and summer now. We have to keep reminding ourselves it's the subtropics, with very Caribbean seasons.

For us autumn means dragonflies come by the thousands in successive waves of color and eat every mosquito in a mad dash to reproduce before they die. It's a beautiful dance. Autumn means the sea breezes pick up, and waft the now pleasant warmth through the house. The rains let up, though this year has been wet. And the frangiapanis bloom, smelling of candy and sweet coconut. And it means we're buying squashes and apples while planning what would be spring crops up north and eating local mangoes. Dizzying.

This year we'll be planting many more flowers for our new arrivals.

We used to live in Hell's Kitchen in NYC and the community garden there had bees. I think that's where we caught the bug, so to speak. Their honey was so good, tasting of the apple tree, the alliums with their garlicky bite, and all the super sweet lilies from the surrounding flower shops. So many layers of flavor, a great analog to the city. I actually really like honey with a little onion spark in it! 

Our garden is in a wild state, with the beds needing much love. I got one cleared of weeds, so I'll begin giving it some bunny manure, organic composted mulch, and castings from my wonderful African nightcrawler worm bin.

I'll give it a practically homeopathic dilution of sea water for the amazing trace minerals and enzyme explosion it allows the plants to contain. We'll let all that cook for a bit and then put in baby plants purchased from John at Garden At Eden. All organically grown. Lots of dark green leafies, summer squashes and love! Yum!

Expect more reports on the bees. Their house should arrive any day, and then we're going to rescue a wild hive from a fix'n'flip property a friend is turning.

Nurture, Children & Work

With the start of the school year, and the busy time of autumn upon us, it seems like a good idea to visit the notion of nurture. 

We nurture so little of our lives. We allow interruptions and urgencies to drive our days. And if we have children, we make the mistake of looking upon them as interruptions or urgencies, asserting control where we feel we have it, instead of the harder job of taking control where it's really needed.

My practice these days is simple. I am trying to observe my feelings and actions more, so I may put actions in front of feelings, where they belong.

If I am interrupted from work it's frustrating, no doubt. But if the interruption is by a person, there is a communication issue, nothing more. It is my responsibility to communicate ahead of time that I will be working. This is great for anyone with the maturity to deal with such boundaries, and it looks good all typed up here in this post, doesn't it? Very definitive. In practice it's full of loopholes.

When dealing with my husband, with whom I share our office, it's really that easy. When dealing with calls, chats and emails, it's even easier with time-boxing or batching. This means I check all incoming messages at certain times and address them, then leave it alone until the next batching window.

With children it's trickier. I find working from home, though full of perks like bare feet, pets, real meals and kisses, means I actually have to stop and take care of others regularly throughout the day. This is turning out to be a blessing I might have missed if I got mad every time it happened. I need the break anyway, it's usually high time. My focus, while perhaps admirable, is not always conducive to the general health and wellbeing of myself or my family! 

The truth is I can go for six hours without emerging from my work cave, fueled only by plain green tea and passion. This is no doubt a strength of mine, but not one to use daily! Daily there has to be a rhythm. A waxing and waning of focus balanced with activity and availability. 

Scheduling has helped everyone in the house make the adjustment to Mommy working. Quick meal plans have helped. And communication along with lots of available projects for kids has also helped. But the thing that has helped the most, the grand secret to it all, has been appreciation. Appreciation is the truest and best form of nurture on the planet. 

So I consciously appreciate my husband throughout the day. Things he does, and just him, for who he is. I do the same with each of the children separately, making sure everyone gets touched, hugged, fed, kissed and aimed at something productive. I even do it with the pets, stopping for a fur or feather fix now and then. I smile. I breathe deeply. I remember love. Not because that's what comes naturally to me when I'm interrupted. Far from it, I'm afraid. But because they're worth it. And so am I.

How can you find more room for appreciation in your days?