Trust the Building Block Days
Greetings from already summer like Southern California. Today, I dug a patch of my mom's backyard I have been tending since last December. When our family moved in here, the patch was in a dreadfully dried up, neglected condition. For the last 4.5 months, the time that is long enough for a season to come and go, I have invested time in creating a "chaos garden." Planting whatever seeds and seedlings we came across. Our chickens devoured most young spouts, but some plants stuck around to grow taller and stronger. A very fragrant lavender, green onions that are handy for mealtime, parsley with vibrant green leaves, a squash with bright yellow flowers, and more.
A part of my tending routine has been just sitting in front of the garden, observing the smallest details, and finding minuscular changes that happened since the day before.
When we started the process of selling our house in Pasadena, we uprooted our lives without really knowing when, where, and how we would move forward, aside from the idea that we would park ourselves at my parents' place indefinitely until we figure out a plan. In a bit of isolation and a state of temporariness, I have worked my BK hours remotely and spent most of the home time with our girls in the backyard, tending and sitting. In my monotonous routine, I found beauty and admiration in the complex universe of the tiny garden. Changes were even more visible when I gently moved a small portion of my garden soil this morning to place a new squash seedling. So many healthy worms!!!
We are so used to thinking that big shifts come to ourselves and others all the time. Social media certainly highlights the narratives. But what if the change is happening every day, above ground and under the soil armored with patience, resilience, and diligence in doing both inner and outer work? Perhaps big days that happened to be more visible are simply an extension of those building block days, the true force within the change that requires slow, steady, and quiet.
If you are also in such a season, Trina's story about writing and resilience might bring insight to you. She provides a beautiful list of journal prompts towards the end of the story, which can be a useful tool to begin the journey. Eunice is sharing her current analogue system in her story. I love her approach to just let things flow instead of force-fitting a square peg in a round hole. Her video is, as always, calming to spend time with. A.C.'s story about their rebellious Traveler's Notebook brought laughter and tear to my eyes. Laughter because of the way A.C. narrates their experience of having the TN "ran away" from them in Kyoto. Tears because I have mutual feelings about how much our worn-in notebook covers mean to us.
"Trust those building block days." That's my mantra this season.
-wakako
always a work in progress...
Orange County, California // May 4th, 2021
