A week at home has also translated into "work from home". While the 2 have always been an either / or scenario, now going big and going home are suddenly one and the same.
Like many across the globe, hope you too are planning... how to avoid this virus, stay home, and become more self-sustainable? Far from ready, we're so dependent on such a complex infrastructure beyond our means. We're so specialized and password frenzied at this point - if not overly socialized- when we have time for it. BUT in the big metropolis, you do depend on a lot around you- and we are very used to moving about quite a bit daily from point A to Z on most days- & speaking to a friend of mine I hadn't in months+ ...
"IT"S time to stand still in NYC. Major fucking problem with this picture!!" <<& feel free to quote me on that!
Disregard my French sarcasm, but people don't move here to sit on their bums. 10 years a return, and when everything's just starting to make sense and fall into place?!?
Been working in the backyard noting the insane magnolia whose 2-4 week premature bloom has also turned me upside down. TRYING to keep up with her timeline - if not planting some goodies or " companions" as my friend in Paris called it. BUT suddenly we're all in AS soon AS possible, EMERGENCY MODE.
YET I know a lady whose growing big and at home. She actually lives in my neighbor's yard, but I respect her immensely. She offers shade, but she's also been my mentor and awe-inspiring companion in these dark times. She's pink and mighty- the majestic Magnolia X Soulangeana. Her budding lifespan averages about 2-3 weeks, and she is one of the earliest bloomers to send smoke signals of spring. Known for her delicate disposition and short temperament, as soon as her petals fall, you're serenaded by her triumphant Parisian carpet procession of teardrops before she resurrects with a dark green harvest of leaves. The sight of her fallen petals makes for sore eyes and your heart drops. Snapping photos daily for now, she's a living flipbook and fast forward of how delicate nature is. AND it's complete and utter irony admiring her bloom despite this hovering sense of doom.
Magnolia X Soulangeana - Going BIG & Staying HOME! March 2020
Slightly distracted on my end- but she has been a serious miracle that has given me a sense of hope.
IN FACT, it was so gorgeous out post our LAST big pickup hurrah last week (last!!!) Saturday when the magnolia buds were popping their caps! So with a pair of gloves and 5 contractor bags, the afternoon was spent sweeping up winter's mushiest leaves and left me barely capable of walking the next day. The digging, sweeping, sifting through dirt to make it ready for planting and carrying bags to & fro...felt like an overdue ritual of sorts- but also a severe race to the curfew-ish finish-line. I imagine it being a more elegantly composed performance piece by someone half my age. BUT yet... it was an interesting race to accommodate what seemed like the magnolia's annual quincaneara- while being her convoy and greatest witness.
We've all been caught off guard in this madness- putting an end and halt to so many things. Less moving about and more standing still. Ambitiously scratching our heads given all the uncertainty ahead. Holding our breathes a bit longer than usual too if not feeling a bit suffocated and vaklempt.
Music helps to focus and fill the void and set the mood amidst our quiet reckoning - as we disperse and run for cover. Studying the magnolia- my one fleeting companion- soon to embark on her own journey, and annual deflowering, I can only contribute so much but she's currently a wonder in my world. Watching her day by day seems strange. But ironically a dream I've had for 2 decades about isolating myself and taking a "sabbatical" of sorts- or hitting the road , but now is a definite time where EVERYONE needs and deserves to have a home and STAY THERE. Even if you find yourself making a bulk online order triggered by these quarantine times so as to ensure you have some plants / companions and veggies again soon- and living things to give you hope and motivation.
From hanging up fixtures to include setting up a clothes line, I'm trying to avoid thinking about my dirty laundry and anxiously waiting on the grow bags, soil, earthwarm casings, and a slew of different vegetable & herb seeds and first set of gardening tools to make up for my lack of mobility in this crisis. For someone who maintains a diet of fresh perishables more than dried goods, and whose never quite had a pantry that hoards much of anything in quantity, it is SO WEIRD to engage in the mass hysteria of needing to fill my shelves while emptying those at the store and potentially of others that need it.
Home Depot has always been a destination spot. You know you're better off going there in person given the numerous projects you could get yourself ensnared by, and you kind of HAVE to have a car to lug back pieces of wood, tools, plants, dirt, and everything and anything. So waiting for that Home Depot shipment to reach the house when I could technically bike there in 10 minutes seems just as odd and eery.
For all of us, this is an experiment in adjusting to new requirements and expectations- those we need to recalibrate, and the discovery of finding ways to stay busy and keep our minds occupied before we lose it. Trying to make better use of what time we have now in front of us.
We are ALL shifting gears and slowing our roll- downshifting if not rolling to a halt. And this is no game and does not include any dice. With everyone's daily mission in full question, the NY minute has quickly turned into a country bumpkin blur where time consists exclusively of the next to-do on the pet project list and trying to veer away from the very large crater of a pot hole damper in our journey. Hopefully contemplating survival in all of this- with some additional scoops of dirt juju, individual fertilizer and virus repellent, and enough daily time to imagine our own virtual grow bags- so as to move forward with this. This New Yorker is bringing you virtual wind chimes saying "Ya gotta keep it moving"- if even just in your head.
STARTED GERMINATING Bird & Butterfly Wildflowers on 3/21 & still patiently waiting...
I've always been one for the journey and less focused on the destination knowing we're meant to arrive at multiple places along our trajectories. But this ironic detour is suddenly redefining my sense of home from being my locker and safe harbor where i'd come back to consistently to refresh and recoup, to what is now my haven destination and playground for the foreseeable future. Prior we had to exist on the daily go-go. Realistically speaking, sounds like now we're all limited to somehow making anything and everything happen-especially now- right here at home. Birds shouldn't be in cages looking for breathing room, but so much is currently in question!
Sayonara #E561 - emptied you just in time for NYC's stay home mandate 3/22/2020
The prayer flags are in the mail, have cleaned out my treasure chest ( AND vacated #E561 - my storage unit as of yesterday after 10 years- not the same one for all 10 of those BTW)! AAAAAND it took a lot of courage and whoop-ass, but channeled my NYC sweat equity to make this one happen, before going under and to beat NYC's supposed new curfew (sounds better than a mandate).
With semi-limited tools and resources, we can only just take it one day at a time. Feeling immense pressure here with everything turning topsy turvy. Hanging my hat on that rusty hook-which I hope turns into a fishing line- to get me outta dodge! BUT noting that for now and an undeterminable time, we will all be channeling our inner animalia and best intentions straight from home.
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