It’s been hard to keep up with our events lately as we’ve been busy busy busy like waking Spring bees – wake up little bees, the southfacing daffodils are ready for you! Our sleepy north hill still has a blanket of snow by the compost and the blackberries. Just a few crocus and daffodils are springing up (some under the apple trees like good companions, some in the ring of bulbs that our previous long-term owner gal Lillian planted) but the yard itself is greening up. The forsythia are budding (though in town they are bursting already!), and bunches of green daylily shoots are popping up. The energy from the ground up is ready for newness, freshness, and a little optimism.
Which is so needed right now, these last couple of years have been hard for many folks. Some need to be heard and seen. Felt and cared for or acknowledged. It’s been a hard day already – there’s a human with a very loud orange car who cruises the corner of our store (all the time now, many times a day) who obviously needs to be see and heard, I was yelled at today by a person just stopping by my store who did not like the books or art we carry and called me many names and told people on the street how terrible I was – something is missing in his life, and now my people have been stuck in traffic delivering bread for hours now because of a horrible ‘incident’ involving more guns on the highway – the result of a lack of care. And it’s hard to even talk about what is going on outside of my tiny world right now; the energy hovering right above the springing earth is heavy with thick clouds.
It’s hard to keep up with the weight of it, sometimes it is hard to get out from under it. The effort it takes to generate the kind of generosity and care the world needs right now can be exhausting with little time to recharge but we keep trying. It’s all we can do – keep trying. At least try. It is the least we can do, and sometimes the most.
So, there’s bread and flowers, children and poetry, deep breaths and friendly faces. Maple Syrup and pussy willows, eastern phoebe and mullein. There’s Rob Brezsny and Maria Popova, The Greenhorns and Emergence. There’s the lovely purple-haired NJ sprite who comes in to cheer me up on my lonely store Tuesdays, Summer teen-turning birthday camping plans (and my birthday later this week with a musical date in Portland to see Chris Thile), fun bookstore events lined up for months, and my tiny seedlings of eggplants, peppers, flowers, and herbs.
May you grow gracious and strong.
Rock Bottom Homestead 