on better thinking

it was a long time coming, but recently I finally admitted to myself that I am not very good at thinking alone.

"thinking out loud" with others comes easily to me, though I suspect my friends grow weary of my vague allusions and verbal mulligans as I attempt coherent thought and speech. it must be like watching a toddler as she tries to capture butterflies with a net, or chase chickens into the henhouse. how uncooperative my thoughts can be.

but I digress. such considerations for my listeners notwithstanding, I've straightened out many of my thoughts after trying them on for size out loud with trusted friends.

perhaps I've relied so heavily on vocalizing my thoughts because they won't budge otherwise. when left to my own devices I just can't seem to get things straight. I drown in my own internal thought life. it has been chaotic, thus direly unproductive.

I just get distracted. I begin thinking about something in a reflective way and my mind darts off in another direction, leaving whatever thoughts that were beginning to form in the dust before they can coalesce into anything coherent and recognizable. honestly, it's quite discouraging to be nearly twenty-one years old and feel as though I'm still navigating this world with a primitive, undisciplined mind.

but hallelujah: all of this is changing because I am choosing to respond to the world with an internal voice. it is clear, deliberate and reflexive.

it's simple. I just say the stuff I would say to a friend, but instead I say it inside of my own head.

is that how everyone manages to be a thoughtful and coherent person? if so, I am behind the times. because it feels stilted and unnatural. and I constantly question whether I am truly reflecting the nature of my thoughts, my feelings, or the situation at hand or if in fact I am presenting some version of it to some veiled, hypothetical listener. it begs the question of whether or not we possess a singular, true "voice" or if even in our internal lives we can only manage to access some side of ourselves--some organizing theme.

(more on that last bit another time).

in any case, it's working. for example, it used to be that I struggled with task organization at the farm. all of the elements present in my circumstance would swirl around me without any imposed order. so my mind would be a mix of these pieces--sometimes named, sometimes mere notions such as pictures or scents.

these days, when I can muster the mindfulness to do so, I begin constructing a narrative about my surrounding situation. the mix of initial sensory responses are not disregarded but rather built upon. instead of my mind remaining a mix of images of squash bugs and large pumpkins coupled with the musty scent of tomatoes, the word "overgrown," a recollection of fungal rot followed by a pang of fearful dread, and the memory of rough tomato vine skin against my fingertips as I remove a sucker from the crook of two branches, order emerges:

"there are squash bugs attacking the pumpkin vine so I should remove their eggs and spray the living escaping adults with greenlight pesticide. nearby, the tomato plants are developing more suckers than I've been keeping up with so I should prioritize spending extra time removing those to avoid the clustered branches and leaves that led to fungal problems last summer."

it's a process, retraining one's brain to develop better thinking habits. but it's about time.

on choice words

nestle in
the nearer the dearer, dear
here, a nook in this crook
of my neck's nape.
of my crooked crescent spine.

or there, my cupping clavicle
fortifying collar-bone big timbers
trembles. tremors.
presented to you, prone
prickle-pear, supine.

on scale

my wealthier young friends flood the feed with photos of their travels. india, italy, thailand, and so on.

I remain here, near and dear, brown-skinned growing ever browner.

no encounters with ancient and obscure religion or authentic gelato mark my days. instead, I am enraptured  by my daily trysts under the boughs of pine, oak and redbud trees, where my grimy, dewey neck is lovingly kissed by the wayward breeze.

this is a summer of small things, cupped with both hands against my heart, against my eyes. little things seem much bigger when viewed closely and felt completely. you know, there is so much to be found in moments.

on the anxieties of youth

aging folks dread the signs of time that leave their faces weathered and bodies diminished. but maybe it's worse for the young. those of us in our 20's, our 30's understand ourselves to be very young, or young, or still young.

I know I fear my errant teeth--the dreadful functioning of memory in my jaw which draw my teeth away from where I'd best like for them to sit. likewise, I fear my wisdom teeth which have stopped in uninvited and which require time and money to remove. it doesn't help that they are uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and that--in concert with the aforementioned forces--can wreak havoc upon a smile. my smile, for instance.

such affects are startling. because I am young, you know. this sort of thing should not happen to me. it should take years. surely the fifty year old could handle this better than I can right now, at twenty.

I suppose each of us, regardless of age, is a bit like a population of sand castle builders who scramble in the ebb to build structures sound enough to stand against the flow. good luck, tiny architects, tiny carpenters, roofers, masons.

on-farm progress

I work mondays, wednesdays and fridays, with the occasional saturday thrown in for good measure.

but I was off of work last friday and this monday while out of town, and upon returning on wednesday I discovered that things had carried on without me quite well: the farm was awash with verdant green and everything seemed to put on a few inches--weeds included, of course.

here are the most exciting things:

the strawberries which I'd transplanted and moved to a mound encircling the garden had gobs of green berries growing on each plant. better yet, some of them were a glowing shiny red, ready to be eaten (which they promptly were, by me).

the asparagus had not been picked by the family, so the three 25' long rows had very thick and very tall stalks every few inches. pounds and pounds of tender asparagus. I ate a lot of those, too. I almost prefer them raw.

the spinach which I'd seeded last fall were now going to seed themselves, while those that I planted as seedlings this spring were leafing out beautifully.

the rows of leeks, throughout which I also seeded a few varieties of carrots, were completely overrun with the seeds of the grass I'd painstakingly removed from that area. can anyone tell me what kind of grass this is? all of the photos on NCSU's turf grass website look about the same--this is the sort which has incredibly tough roots which grow along the ground and then root in, forming a dense network of roots and shoots which after just a few weeks establishes itself as an intractable carpet. the only way to remove it thoroughly (for each piece must come out or it will quickly re-establish itself) that I have found so far is to drive a sharp hand spade down and across the soil, breaking some of the roots and making openings in the mat of grass wide enough to allow a hand to grip and tug at the roots. as you can imagine, this takes a very long time and puts a lot of wear and tear on the fingers and wrist. I have cuts from thorns on my fingers which never get a chance to heal due to the grit and rip this process entails--and I can't find my best pair of gloves, which fit closely to the skin and allow one's fingers to function almost as well as they do when bare. oh well.

yesterday I spent a few hours uprooting the newly sprouted grass seeds while trying to avoid the carrot shoots. today I will reseed.

one last bit of nice news, for good measure: the crimson clover I'd seeded last fall in a bed in dire need of  more OM & N, which for most of the winter sat as a fuzzy pale mat, is now tall and bobbing around with deep red fuzzy flowers. I pulled up a few and found the roots sporting a good number of nodules. beautiful. I love it when things work out--and I can't wait to crimp those suckers and retire their bodies to the soil.

on communion

sanity has to be provided for

says the serenity cool grass grants,
says the interlock of arms with the horse's head
and says the big ache of beauty.

the conscious self must be curated

that it may dip into the waters below
that it may draw along side its subterranean counterpart
that it may drink deeply.

on wishful thinking

swirls around me that slight fear that my desire for land (property, acreage, to build on and grow in to) may be the one I have to lay aside to follow some other lead. sacrifice, et al.

for now I hope that the potency of my interest--that deep stirring--will mean it must be realized, and will guarantee efficacy later on in life.