Small Stuff

 

So this happened. My tomatoes have a lot of blossoms, but today, for the first time, I saw tomatoes. Tiny ones, but it made me happy to see them. 

Teeny tiny peppers too. 

We got the doors on the bedroom closet, both bedrooms, the bathroom. We have the stuff to hang the pantry door. We worked on the baseboard in the livingroom. 

We read of a situation in the paper yesterday. Tim and I sat pondering it. We know the backstory. I said, "You know, we could fix that." Nothing more. Just that. This morning, he wanted to go over to the courthouse and get his deer hunting license. To my surprise, while he was there, he walked over to the proper office and he did fix that.

I met up with a friend while he was gone. She had a chair to give me, and it will match nicely with the little enamel top kitchen table that belonged to Tim's mother. It is always good to talk with Diane. She is centered and wise, and no matter what is going on in the world around me, I walk away feeling better for having discussed it with her. It is hard for both of us to watch what is happening in the world right now, especially in our own country. A lot of people seem to have given up, seems to me. Throw their hands in the air and say, "What can we do?" or "We're fucked." 

I try to avoid getting sucked down to that point, but sometimes just does all seems too big. Too overwhelming. I need to step back. Diane's a kindred soul, and she's the same. 

We stood in the morning cool talking about that, the fact that we are out in the middle of rural NW Pennsylvania, far removed from a great many of the horrors. 

What do we do? And does it mean anything at all?

And once again, the only conclusion that we can come to is that we do kindness. We pour as much kindness as we can, right where we are. It truly is all we can do. In the end, it might matter to no one, but what it guarantees is that we did not become part of the ugliness, and that has to mean something, doesn't it? 

So...

Today, I put venison in the crock pot with peppers, onions, and mushrooms and allowed it to simmer while we worked. Steak subs sounded good for supper. We stopped on the way home to get buns, and I treated myself to a little pot of very good horseradish. 

We came home, and I toasted the buns for our sandwiches and the horseradish was just the small touch of excellence I needed.