Waking up in New York

This morning, just before I woke, I was in New York, on the street I grew up. The rest of the day carried a somewhat nostalgic feel, as yesterday's snows melted away in today's warmth. That used to happen, except in the opposite way, a random day of warmth amidst a winter long of cold, dark, and snow. We had one glorious day of beautiful white fluff, and a wet warmth today that made me smell and see visions from my youth when I wasn't paying close attention to the distinguishing things that surround me. Cracking the car windows, I drove down the streets and highways, with just tolerably cool gusty air bustling through the spaces to blow in my face and on my arms.




Snow coverted Rosemary and Eucalyptus




From my kitchen window


As my mind sat in the low wakefulness between alarms, my brain tried to grasp at the fleeting threads of a dream not quite pleasant but never the less on my childhood street, so as I often do, I visited what I remember instead in clarity that only comes when I'm in the hypnotic state between wakeful consciousness and dreaming. I tried to reason through the rest of the dream, to follow it through. I remember riding a rusted bike with a thin frame and tires, wobbling along down our street. I passed our neighbor in nostalgic anticipation since I hadn't been out and down the street in so long. Much had changed, and yet some things were familiar. I remember as I left the dream being pulled backward away from it, seeing the houses in a distance, and thinking it wouldn't be right to build another house in the big open field where the pear trees grew across the street---realizing I would never be there, there in the place of my youth as it was, time forever passing, never turning back. Being able to look back on our lives is probably one of the greatest gifts, and yet our greatest crux.





I am growing some seeds, recycling plastic egg cartons. I started four tomato plants, four pumpkin plants, and four pepper plants.

The tomatoes and pumpkins are already bursting from their fibrous cocoon, but the pepper seeds may have been too old. I also planted twelve shasta daisies, but they too have not sprouted into this world yet.



Reaching for the sun



They sit on the chair I've had since it was in my bedroom at my desk in Mount View, right next to the window and my suffering thyme plant. 

 



Winter thyme

My rosemary and eucalyptus already begged to be put outside to die (you can see them in the first picture above covered in snow), they were just dying slowly inside, but the thyme is hanging in there...as long as this human remembers she needs to be watered before her leaves are crispy critters.  





Three in a row



The fibrous cocoon



The pumpkin seeds I held onto from my harvest pumpkins I bought this year, and these may not make it to fruition, since they don't like transplantation a whole lot, but at least I know these seeds are fertile and will take to the ground quickly. I just need to determine a good place to plant them. They have a will to take over, so it needs to be somewhere I would want that to happen, and where they would be happy.





I guess since I started these seedlings in such small containers, they may outgrow them rather quickly, and may need another home before going outside. I hadn't thought of that when I chose to use the clear plastic egg cartons, only that they would act as a good greenhouse, which they have.

I've written this whole long blog and not mentioned Valentine's Day, but its not significant. It reminds me of all the things I used to get on Valentine's Day from boyfriends long past, and all the things I got them. I remember decorating shoe boxes with Rachael, and getting long stem roses delivered. I wouldn't have thought in my young mind then, that I would settle for anything less. Well, I have, and I'm happy with it. Not to say I wouldn't be happy if it were different, but life is a game of give and take, and I can't think of anything I would sacrifice for it to be different.

We will have a special dinner at home tonight, and go running together. We may not have the stuffed pork chops I had planned until tomorrow though...we had a heavy southern style lunch today. I was able to meet up with Zach and some of his friends from work for lunch at a buffeteria iconic to this area. Maybe just that spinach and fruit salad I was planning!

Ah, St. Valentine....how your day has changed.