Keeping it fresh

Driving home from San Francisco yesterday, I realized something that made me sad, something I hope to change.  

Because I travel so frequently to San Francisco,  I often want to get there quickly.  Air travel is not an option because I need my car once there.  I've started taking highway 5 for it's speed and efficiency.  It has little to offer in the way of beauty - therefore, no distractions, no compulsion to stop.  All you really want to do on highway 5 is put the pedal to the metal - especially when you get to Coalinga.

Anyway, this last trip back home was fast - real fast.  That's when it hit me.  I'm taking for granted time spent on travel, ignoring the time in my desire to be home home - yesterday.  

Lately, I've even started traveling at night so that I wouldn't see the markers, the signs and posts that make you say to yourself 'god, I'm only here?'  

Highway 5 is not the easiest ride.  It can be depressing.  It can be dangerous.  It can be boring - ugly even.  It can definitely be stinky.  But it can also be a time for reflection or learning.  It can be anything I want it to be - and yet, all I've done so far is lament those hours traveling, wishing each mile that I were anywhere else but on highway 5.  

That attitude must change.  Nothing can be so ugly that I will myself to block out chunks of time that I will not get back - because I don't want to 'see the markers?'  what's so wrong with being reminded of where I am in my journey.  

I started writing because I want to remember.  I've started defeating myself with this attitude; all my journeys should be observed and experienced - even the stinky ones.  I have to remember that next time I'm on the road - I haven't so much as paid attention to details like I used to, details that help me work out lines in my head, rhythms, patterns.  Now, I just drive. Fast.  

I'm going to be on that road anyway - why not make something of the time.  

That was a paradigm shift for me.   Begin with the end in mind - the wonderful things that wait for me, just outside my windows - north and south - and enjoy the time in the middle.  

I'll be on the road again next Wednesday - this time I'll pay close attention to how I'm spending my Wednesday on highway 5 - if I look, I'm sure I'll find a thing of beauty, or at least, of interest.    

Happy National Apricot Day!

Lately, serendipity is rampant in my life.  Like last night when I learned that January 9th is National Apricot Day.  

That I should find this out this week, last night January 8th - is priceless.  It's as if a little tug moved me to pick up my copy of Practically Useless Information, Food & Drink, by Norman Kolpas.  A book I hadn't picked up in maybe two, maybe three years.  A book that was still under other books, unshelved, since my move. 

Talk about serendipity.  Not only is the apricot probably my most favorite fruit, earlier this week, and completely unaware of the significance of January 9th, I pulled out a poem, an ode if you will, I'd written to this delicious little cultivar about two years ago.  

I'd been thinking about apricots lately.  I think it has something to do with the fact that it's been so cold in my house, and apricots represent everything summer is for me, summer's short lived gift - warm, sweet juicy little sun sponges. If summer had a mascot, it would be the apricot.  

I knew I had this poem somewhere in my files, so I pulled it out as my submission for my poetry workshop this weekend.  Who knew?   

For me, the apricot is a world unto itself.  It's a sensual fruit, a fun, smack dab in the middle of summer fruit - a fruit small and sweet and to the point.  A fruit that ages well.  It's a holder of Mediterranean mystery and sensuality.  But apricots are also poetic, known by more evocative names like Gluthearly, Goldcot, Goldrich, Goldstrike, Haroblush, Harogem, Rival, Velvaglo, Vivagold - names that roll off the tongue like like it's juices.  

Wow.  Congress, or the bloody president, actually went took the time and effort to declare this little compact warrior of a fruit worthy of it own national day of recognition.  

Well, here, here!   

So, in honor of this day, I'm sharing this poem - my homage to apricots.  

Stone Fruit

Ephemeral seasons, 

transient beauty;

You leave me wanting more.  

Oh, early bloomer! 

Your fruit survives early frosts

only to be dried.   

Parched and wrinkled, 

you are sweeter now than in youth.

All this serendipity only adds to the allure of the apricot for me - I think me and apricots are pretty connected.  I only wish I had learned about this on a Wednesday. 

 © Stone Fruit 2006 - all rights reserved  

Did someone hit the Spring button by mistake?

So this is what it feels like to be writing my very first entry of the first full week of the new year.   

It doesn't bode well that I forgot yesterday was Wednesday.  After all, Wednesday was supposed to be my motivation.   I have to admit that I haven't been very good at managing my days lately.  Actually, I've been forgetting my days.  Must be a dilemma faced by people who work from home, people without children to keep them on some sort of school schedule, holidays, pediatric appointments and such.  I actually forgot it was New Years Eve last week - and was trying to conduct business, wondering why I was batting zero, when I realized that no one was answering phones because, for crying out loud, no one was really working.

Except Moi - by reason of insanity.    

I used to joke with my 'mommy' friends, that my only dilemma each morning was whether to add cinnamon to my coffee, or to not add cinnamon to my coffee.  Cinnamon, no cinnamon.  It was simple.  Oh, what a difference a few years make.  Ask them now, and I'm sure they can tell you what day of the week it is.  Me, I'm stand there in my kitchen, wondering is it Sunday and "should I put coffee in my cinnamon?"

I'm sure it's nothing more than not having children to keep me honest with a schedule. That's it. I'll pay more attention to the rhythm of the neighborhood - other people's children.  And I'll add cinnamon every morning to my coffee - make it easy on myself.

I'll just need to be sure I remember Thursday and Friday - street sweeping. (no free lancer big bucks to cover the parking tickets.)    

So, last week was freezing.  I was sitting at my computer, freezing (remember no free lancer big bucks) trying to stay focused on the task at hand - work.  Now, yesterday and today, it's as if the big guy upstairs missed the snooze button and hit the Early Spring button instead!  Thank you Jee-zuz!

The birds were outside my kitchen and bedroom window, like little feathered sirens, willing me out of bed with their sweet spring songs.  Actually, they just wanted me for the seeds I put out each morning.  They won. So I did.  I climbed out of bed (I now climb out of bed).  

And I'm so glad I did because it is beautiful outside.  I'm sitting here, at my computer fully caffeinated, entirely content because I can move freely - not having to wear four shirts, a sweater and a shawl and hand warmers and old lady socks over my long trouser socks.  I'm in a sweater.  A single light spring sweater.

And I'm loving it.  

But it made me remember my old apartment, where the heat of the units below mine wafted up into my unit, and ne'er a heater I needed.  I remembered my writing space - and I miss it.  

As far as I'm concerned, the big guy upstairs can miss his snooze button any day - I wish he would.