{"id":7903,"date":"2021-07-04T12:27:09","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T17:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=7903"},"modified":"2021-07-04T12:27:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T17:27:09","slug":"a-little-rain-must-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2021\/07\/a-little-rain-must-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Rain Must Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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THE COOL RAINY<\/span><\/strong> weather following the heat wave is a bit jarring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to work at the office for a few hours here and there this week and last has been disorienting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The explosion of traffic on the Island is jaw-dropping and completely unnerving (today, a 5-mile backup on the Edgartown-West Tisbury road).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer work schedule is relentless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel somehow like I am wasting time on all the wrong things. And I\u2019m having trouble getting excited about what I should put my energy towards. I guess I\u2019m just a little out of sorts. Not hugely. Just bitly. Well maybe more than bitly. Moderate-ishly. Certainly in that place where inventing words seems appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With my energy low, I\u2019m happy enough to be inside on this rainy Saturday, curled up in a chair, with my partner reading nearby and Farmer snoring on the couch. Right there is pretty much all I want in this life, and yet somehow I am feeling that little devil on my shoulder, the one who\u2019s sole purpose it is to remind me that I\u2019m not doing something I should be doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know enough to recognize the devil and start working my toolkit to banish him. My first sponsor years ago reminded me to \u201cmove a muscle, change a thought\u201d to get out of a bad headspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Normally I would head straight into the garden, but the weather is not cooperating. That may be half my problem \u2013 I\u2019ve missed my gardening time this week. Or most of it. I\u2019ve still gone out most mornings to snap a photo for Instagram. For me, just the small act of capturing a pretty flower or a baby vegetable in a photo is joyful. I like the cropping and photo correction, too. It\u2019s a mini distraction \u2014 a pleasurable, creative way to start my day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently I decided to revive a little personal\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0challenge I did years ago on the farm. I posted a different vegetable variety for 100 days straight over the summer. The next year I did 100 different things on the farm for 100 days straight. This year I decided to do 100 different flowers and veggies. Even though I\u2019m growing in a far smaller area than the farm, I have managed to cram in quite a large variety of flowers and vegetables. (Follow along\u00a0@sixburnersue<\/a>\u00a0on Instagram if you like.) It\u2019s fun for me to see if I can find a different one blossoming or newly fruiting every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This afternoon, I am going to distract myself by writing down a complete list of what I\u2019m growing in the veg and cut flower garden. That might sound tedious, but for me the mental concentration of organizing, going through my plant tags, looking up names and pictures online, and typing it all out will be productive and distracting \u2013 even if it isn\u2019t the work I really should be doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you have some trick like this to turn your mood around when you need it. If not, think of something you absolutely love and go do it. I find when I\u2019m down, it\u2019s usually because I\u2019m directing my energy towards something I don\u2019t want to do, or I am feeling bad because I\u2019m not doing what I am \u201csupposed\u201d to be doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more I\u2019m inclined to do more of what I love, and less of what I don\u2019t. That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not going to clean the house (which I don\u2019t do enough but when I do, I feel satisfied) or go to the dentist or pay bills or whatever. It just means I\u2019m going to keep seeking out joy, wherever I can find it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019ve been thinking a lot lately about\u00a0Mary Oliver<\/a>\u2019s poem,\u00a0The Summer Day\u00a0<\/em>(attached below). I know many, many of you have read it, and love it, and the last two lines have sadly entered Hallmark territory. But I still treasure them, keeping them nearby and reading them over and over. The ability to live life fully seems more important every day, as it seems I get news of an illness or passing on of someone I know more and more frequently. I don\u2019t like it, and I don\u2019t have any control over it, but I owe it to myself and to them to embrace life, even when it means (metaphorically) sitting in the rain, stepping in the puddles, getting soaked. I think I\u2019ll put on my galoshes and go check on the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Summer Day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Mary Oliver<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who made the world?<\/p>

Who made the swan, and the black bear?<\/p>

Who made the grasshopper?<\/p>

This grasshopper, I mean-<\/p>

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,<\/p>

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,<\/p>

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-<\/p>

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.<\/p>

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.<\/p>

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.<\/p>

I don\u2019t know exactly what a prayer is.<\/p>

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down<\/p>

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,<\/p>

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,<\/p>

which is what I have been doing all day.<\/p>

Tell me, what else should I have done?<\/p>

Doesn\u2019t everything die at last, and too soon?<\/p>

Tell me, what is it you plan to do<\/p>

with your one wild and precious life?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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LOOKING FOR RECIPES?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visit cookthevineyard.com<\/a> and sign up for the free weekly newsletter<\/a>. (Something I do as part of my day job.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you arrived here from the internet and would like to subscribe to the Sixburnersue blog, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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THE COOL RAINY weather following the heat wave is a bit jarring. Returning to work at the office for a few hours here and there this week and last has been disorienting. The explosion of traffic on the Island is jaw-dropping and completely unnerving (today, a 5-mile backup on the Edgartown-West Tisbury road). The summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[168,181,149,163],"tags":[214,215],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7903"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7914,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7903\/revisions\/7914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}