In the cool this morning I went out to trim the manzanita bushes. They’ve grown unmolested for years. They were fine—healthy unremarkable bushes in my front yard.

That wasn’t what I wanted when I planted them. I wanted those throbbing twisted red branches that captured my eyes through my walks in the desert mountains. Could these live in my land?

These bushy little bushes weren’t bringing those desert mountain to me. What is missing? The mystery is under there. Was I brave enough to find them?

I had never taken the trimmers to get the extra foliage out of the way.

Clipping away the little shoots. I began to see the shape of the main branches and grew bolder. I didn’t knowwhat I was doing but the beauty I saw in the tree was my guide on what to cut away.

Then the sun grew hotter and I had to stop for today. The family is going to an art museum.

 The last sands are tumbling through the glass for my daughter’s childhood—she is tracking and crossing off the homework to finish her senior year. The teachers gave her syllabi and rubrics so she knows how to get it right. She has an art class as a treat after her hard work last year.

Careful mama that I am, I hope she has been given the wisdom to go into grownup life. Those instructions that guarantee an A+ are harder to find after graduation.

How will she know what choices to make?

Walking the museum we saw the results of a million choices. Why that stroke? Why that color? The reason and the action synthesize into these results. The cherished objects, highly valued and admired.

Those artists were guided in the same was I had been, cutting to see the beauty of the manzanita.

I don’t know why Van Gogh chose to paint his mother with green skin tones, or what she thought of it. I can’t explain every cut I made on the manzanita.

As my girl steps into the world, without the instructions of a teacher to guide her, I can let her know that beauty can let her know. She is the one who knows what beauty is in the moment. Mistakes will be made. We can both trust that her heart and her life is strong enough to recover as she keeps reaching for the best brightest and most beautiful.

I thought I was done with cancer. I fought it and won. I hope I did

Last weekend I got a new series of tesst for my sweet cat Simon, and he has non-treatable lung cancer.
He is ten years old. We hoped he could live that much more. Now we are on cat hospice.
There are tears and survivors guilt. How is it that I could have recovered and he cannot?
He’s still with us. He is weak but still loves us and can play.
I am thinking of what love means from this small cat.
Pretty much the same thing as love means from anyone.

he’s glad to see me. He wants to be where I am. He gives a chirpy purr meow when I pet him unexpectantly. He has been our kitty for so long, it breaks my heart to think that he won’t be able to greet me this way much longer.

So we watch him, and check in on him often. He needs help to junp down from his usual places.

He doesn’t know that he shouldn’t. But if he does, his breath heaves and his heart races.

So we race to catch him before he jumps, and take him to his next favorite space.
I can remember all the ways that this cat made me feel good. Right now, this means that I race after him to make sure that he feels good.
It’s not about me getting from him.
It’s broken my heart open, and the whole family is cooperating to help him be as comfortable as he can be for however much time he has left.
We are considerate of one another far more than before.
Love is bigger than I can say.
I think I know. And then I realize I do not.

Archeologists found some ancient bones showing that humans have taken care of disables children, feeing and caring for them so that they could grow.
Why?
Love is strong. Love is more than what it gives. If I were strong only for myself, I could get lazy. Good enough is good enough.
But when a little helpless one needs me, I will make the effort. Scientist want to call that an advantage. Maybe it is.
Or maybe the practice of love is higher than human advantage. I don’t know.
I know we are all going to love our Simon cat as long as we can and even after.

The grass is dry and the leaves on the trees are dusty. The morning skies have been silent and too hot. It is the tired end of summer. Things are not growing around here, they are ripening to their end.  Seeds are scattering as the last fading will of the plants that once sprouted and grew green. They are done.

This Wonderblog and the Weeekly wonder was started more than twenty years ago. Could it be dried up? Have I reached the end of the life like those dried green grasses?

Does curiosity and wonder have an end?

Watching this change of season, oppressed by the heat I have stopped hearing the birds. The mornings have been hot and quiet.

Has my questioning and questing spirit gone silent too?

Just now

I heard a little peep.

A chirp

A bird has joined me to greet the morning.  The season has changed and what I missed has returned.

I wonder. Was that first bird was moved by curiousity? Was that how the migration started? That the environment—not too cool, not to hot– it was seeking was on the other side of the valley. What if it was a shift that led to more and more until then life changed for everyone?

I don’t have to stop seeking. I can quest a little longer.

Even the grass that I judged dead is scattering wide a ticket  to new possibilities. Those seeds could scatted ot nothings or they could turn jackpot with a hundredfold more seeds if they hit it just right.

The curiousity, the wonder which leads to the quest will be there. I am not willing to give it up yet.