Sitting in My Corn Field
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Used to be if I had a serious
deadline, I would work all day, work all night, work until the project was
finished, ready to deliver.
Ah, well, that was then. “Used to be”
is like paint; it covers a multitude of sins.
Nowadays, in what the “boys” here call
“my wonderful retired life”, and it is, mostly, I parse out my day in bits and
pieces. Perhaps like today, hang laundry, rest, generally with a book in hand, make
the bed, rest, sweep floor, rest, work on project, rest. You get the idea.
Presently, my favorite mid-morning
rest stop is my corn field. Lest you get the wrong idea, I don’t have a “real”
corn field. When Jim from Missouri was here in the spring, he gave me a packet
of seed. Not a serious packet such as a
serious gardener would buy, but a small budget packet with a few seeds. “Take a
chance,” he said.
Since corn is a major crop in
Jalisco, I said, “Not so much to chance.” Where field corn grows year round,
sweet corn ought to flourish. I planted it just before the rainy season began.
Which season seems to be over and gone a month and more too early. Grumble.
My field is a converted patch of
flower bed, about 2’ X 10’. I have a stand of twelve, each stand with two or
three stalks, each stalk with burgeoning ears. I go out every morning to see if
there are the dread corn worms. So far, so good.
Actually, I don’t sit in the corn field. Mid-morning the west
side of my casita is shaded. I have two rocking chairs, one for company,
sitting on the back patio, surrounded by plants in pots. The corn is in the
sun. Sun drenched corn on the stalk is a thing of beauty.
Since this time of year I have no
company, my mid-morn break is a perfect time for reflection, meditation if you
will, contemplation or just plain day-dreaming.
Meditation, or what I call
meditation, doesn’t look like much. Just me, rocking or sitting, looking like
normal No candles or bells or incense. No cushions. I can no longer sit
cross-legged, Buddha-style. When I get down on the ground, I’m a sight to
behold getting myself upright.
I do not enter a state of bliss
though at one time in my life, I thought that the goal; that if I were really
good, I would be able to live in a state of bliss. Life didn’t work that way
for me. When moments, hints, of bliss come, I treasure them, knowing they help
balance the moments of anguish.
No, bliss is never my aim. I give
attention to the things around me, flowers, weeds, partridge doves, which
really know how to play, the hummingbirds harvesting sweet from my patch of
geraniums. From there, it is fairly easy to empty my mind of worry, stress or
fears for the future.
So I sit. Sometimes for just a few
moments, sometimes a half hour or longer. This brief respite from daily cares
is important to me. When I don’t give time to myself, I suffer, perhaps in
little unnoticeable ways. But those little ways chip away at my well-being.
So I sit. I gift myself with doing
nothing. My favorite spot shifts with weather, time of day, placement of sun in
the sky, mood or inclination. Some days you will find me, generally in a
rocking chair, on my front patio. Or at the far corner of my back yard under
the jacaranda tree.
So I sit. Today I sit beside my corn
field. Temperature is mid-seventies. Air, softly moving, brushes tree leaves to
a flutter. A Black Swallowtail moves from hibiscus to geranium to that long-stalked
purple flower. I smell beans simmering in the kitchen. Some days beans and
homemade tortillas make the perfect meal.
My hip hurts. The lime tree has
curly leaf. A young iguana (youngsters are green, adults are gray) traverses
the top of the far brick wall, on the way to an appealing yellow hibiscus
flower. My class reunion met without me. Life is far from perfect.
But maybe this is bliss.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
September 5,
2019
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