I Could Be A Window

Open me and you'll find a bag always packed.

I found these woodland pinedrops on my hike this morning.

Notes are scattered around the house on ripped grid paper to make sure all of the gear is in the right place at the right time. I draw checkboxes on them, but no one fills out the checks. Sometimes I strike through what we have. Late summer in our Idaho means a few last outdoor adventures. One overnight camp for hunting and fishing with stops at the cabin. Hiking, mountain biking, and fishing trips. Soccer bags for practices. Ensuring we have everything ready and in one spot. Some bags are perpetually packed. We are ready to go.

I have some notes, too, about things I wanted to write, but I forgot to write everything down on a scrap of a note. Now, I can’t remember. I was watering the garden, and an idea came to me like a moment of clarity that tied many thoughts together. An epiphany, perhaps. Was it about the importance of staying still? Of not traveling? Was it about mental space? The space I need to think, plan, and execute? Was it about how when you create space - and block out time where you’re not doing anything - that the right things come to you? I think so. I think that was it.

Good ideas come when you are not rushing around. I was watering the chocolate mint and the yarrow. Some plants are dying. Some are not. I’m trying to keep them all alive. Sometimes I accidentally kill them by trying to keep them alive, when doing nothing would have been better. See also, my lawn. See also the aloe plant that just disintegrated inside my house. The other plant inside is thriving with neglect.

There is a strawberry plant that is putting out tendrils everywhere I clear space for it. I rip out the culinary sage to make more space. I tear out the encroaching spearmint. Each space I create, a tendril appears and goes into it. I want a garden where I support what grows there, so long as enough flowers are there to support the bees.

There are so many bees in my garden. Small, solitary native bees. Large native bumblebees with every stripe combination you can imagine. Honey bees. I watch them, careful not to spray them when I water the lavender, which hosts about 20 bees each time I am out there.

What was I thinking about? I need to water these plants deeply. What else? Something.

Thich Naht Hahn says to do one thing. Just wash the dishes. Was that it? Was I trying to remember to only water the plants and think of nothing else?

Was it about writing? Rick Rubin writes:

“When we reach an impasse at any point in the creative process, it can be helpful to step away from the project to create space and allow a solution to appear. We might hold a problem to be solved lightly in the back of our consciousness instead of the front of our mind. This way, we can remain present with it over time while engaging in a simple, unrelated task such as driving, walking, swimming, showering, washing dishes, dancing. These distractions keep one part of the mind busy while freeing the rest to remain open to whatever comes in. This process of nonthinking allows us to access a different part of our brain. One that can see more angles than the direct path. Distraction is not procrastination. Distraction is a strategy in service of the work.”

In the book The Creative Act he says, “the work reveals itself as you go.” Was I needing to schedule time to write?

We rush around our house in Boise to pack things so we can go have space where we don’t have to do anything but activities and thinking. We stand around a lake or stream fly fishing for 8 hours straight. We rush around to make sure we can lay around on the beach in quiet.

I had a weekend of unscheduled time and was able to each thing as it occured to me to do it. Home is an unending list of to do items. Water the raspberries. Kill all of the paper wasps and the nest that they are building on the house so the kids don’t get stung. Mow the lawn. Do something about the grass you accidentally killed. Pull the sod up from the tree so it doesn’t choke out the roots. Walk the dog. Do I need to seal the grout in the bathroom? What about greasing the moving parts on the garage door?

I planted spicy peppers this year and they are growing very well. They are not spicy, though. They taste like green peppers, but look like cayennes. A friend of mine a few weeks ago told me that you need to be angry when you plant your peppers or they won’t be spicy. I wasn’t angry. I am glad we can normalize having all kinds of feelings but still go things anyway. It’s ok to be angry when you’re planting things. I love imagining every gardener being angry when they plant their peppers.

A while back, a long time ago, I planted some asparagus roots in hopes that I would get some asparagus. They never produced. So I wonder about them. Where are they? Will they one day produce, or have they decomposed into the earth? Should I dig that spot up and check? But yet, I do not dig up the earth. I water what grows there.

Every mistake we make provides fertile grounds for new beginnings. That is what I used to think. I could see it so vividly. As I learned and grew, all of my experiences helped me see more clearly what tasks and things needed to be done.

Now, however, I’m more interested in the let-go. Those things don’t need to be done. There are no mistakes. We can’t reach perfection. Everything must just be as it is, perfect as it is. There is no failure. There are no mistakes.

I water what grows there.

There’s a poem I love. I want to create an image of it to have as a tattoo across my entire body.

How To Live by Todd Dillard
Depravity begins with thinking of love
as a radical act. I quit loving
with difficulty. I love
easy now. Two parakeets on my shoulders.
They’ll fly away if I move. So I move,
I love flight. I love cages
left wide open. I am not a window.
I could be a window. Open me,
you’ll find a dense wood,
children wandering inside it.
Not lost children. They know the way.
They live the way horses run.
If they each had a bird in hand
they would open their hands.

This image was created with AI, but nothing else on this page was.

I went walking in the woods today. I was listening to music when something spoke to me and said that I should take out the airpods. I immediately ran into someone who knew me. I was in a music video she made maybe 15 or more years ago. It was for the song Magic Magic by Nick Delffs. She runs this group now, the Big Gals Backpacking group in Boise - oddly a group I had been wanting to join for a while now.

My brief lesson perhaps is this: listen. Take out the airpods and listen. Your people will be there for you when you remove the distractions.

Leave a note if something important came to you while reading this.