It Ain't Capistrano, but It's Ours

Yesterday the fish came back. Well, not like the swallows to Capistrano, or salmon swimming upstream , but they had been missing since last fall, and we are thrilled to have them "home". We cleaned the pond.

Altho the pond is two seasons old, we did not clean it last year - big mistake. Well, at least a medium-sized mistake. By fall the water was so dirty that the pump filter was having a difficult time keeping it clean, but no fall house cleaning for ponds. Like bears, our scaly friends slow way down in the winter and sleep a lot in the bottom, but unlike our furry friends they still need to eat now and then. And without the pump, they have to get their food and oxygen out of the muck on the bottom. Don't ask me to explain the science, but all the books agree - don't clean the pond in the fall! Since I am not much of a cleaner anyway, I had no difficulty following that rule.

So, siphons, pumps, brushes and the hose in hand, we attacked the pond yesterday. After terrifying the fish by draining half their water and forcing them into the bottom, we scooped them all out into big plastic tubs and started in on the muck. There is the same kind of satisfaction in cleaning the pond that one find in mowing the grass - you know it won't last long, but it looks so good when you finish. Even standing bare footed and ankle deep in cold - I do mean cold - water, it felt good to do.

But the wonders we discovered: three, count them, three frogs! We had seen one a few times, but perhaps it's a family - two large and one small. Now we think we have identified the "black fish" that we saw feeding last fall - big tadpoles! And did you realize that frogs stay under water for long periods of time - like hours - and really do use the "frog kick" to get around. I'm a city girl - that was news to me.

Wonder #2: the waters lilies live! Both have sprouted new growth and one is so much larger I had to repot it. I alrelady knew that the iris had thrived, but they live at the surface and I could see weeks ago that they had new growth. Even tho the water lilies were billed as "hardy", I fully expected to be buying new ones in May.

Wonder #3: the baby fish made it, too. In the fall we counted 8 - 11 babies of various sizes. Now we know that three were tadpoles, so the count was really 5 - 8 babies and we ended up with all eight. With the five big fish, we had more than our tiny pond can sustain, but the pond store recycles fish, so we took most of the the little ones back.

This morning the five "old fish" [Big Red, Goldie, Oreo, Spot, and Whitie] are now circling the pond with three youngsters - as yet unnamed, but clearly the children of Spot or Whitie, which will make naming them more difficult. They are eating and seem none the less perky for wear and tear and the excitment of spending the day in a plastic tub. Perhaps they even appreciate the clean water and gurgling pump - I sure do!

A New Start

Why is writing so difficult? For months I have wanted to do this and now that I have actually jumped into the water - and enjoyed it - I cannot seem to find time and all the wonderful ideas I had have circled the drain and disappeared. I find myself thinking, "I should write" and then doing something else, while trying to pull five words together into a reasonable sentence in my head. Failing that, I never get started. This morning is a good example.

It's too cold yet to walk, so I sat down ... and read someone else's blog. I think hers is so comfortable, that I am intimidated by it. I am also lulled by the finished product. What flows on the page is surely not the actual words that flowed from her brain thru her fingers to the keyboard. She thought, she edited, she re-wrote and now I am looking at the finished product.

So, I think I need to decide what it is that I want to do - write the great American novel? write soaring essays about memorable things? frame a memoir? perhaps all of those someday, but for now I think I really just want to practice the skills I used to have but which are sleeping from lack of use. I need to go back to the beginning and look at the meaning of "blog".

Encarta Dictionary (North American version): English - "Blog". Same as "weblog". a frequently updated personal journal chronicling links at a Web site, intended for public viewing.

I need to look at that chronical-thing. While I have been looking for the big idea, the "writing assignment", I have lost track of the chronical aspect. It's been at least 40 years - ok 50 - since I kept a diary, but that's more the idea for now.

New goal: write something daily about what happened in my life - or on TV - or an interesting event or website. Just write.

Aggie

If we're very lucky, each of us has an Aggie - that special someone who is always there for us. My Aggie was a "wise woman" - one whose advice I always treasured and whose love was unconditional and unending.

She taught me to love gardening and to know my garden as the place where I can think and contemplate and solve the problems of the world - well, my little piece of it anyway. Actually she also taught me that solving the big world's problems is a cooperative effort. If we each take care of our own and contribute a little something to the bigger whole, it will all work out.

Many was the time that I found her on hands and knees pulling the weeds that grew in the sandy soil around her roses, or clearing a little spot to add some small plant she had gathered from the side of a path. Many was the afternoon that we sat together and talked about the future - mostly mine - and how I would grow to be a woman myself. I never aspired to wise in those days - only to make it thru the next crisis. She helped me pull the weeds from my life to see my way more clearly and and dig holes for the small young plants in my character that would grow to healthy perennials of my adulthood. It was from her path that I plucked so many of those little plants to put into my life.

She also taught me that weeds have a place in the garden - and in our lives, too. Even weeds produce flowers and someday you may find they are among your favorites.

Aggie followed me from heart throb to heart break for years and then helped me be sure that I had really found "the one" and celebrated that love with me. She was there when I hit my teenage rebellion against my mother - late in my 20's - and helped me resolve it. She was always the voice of reason for me, and I still find her voice in my garden when I need to hear it the most.

Altho she has long been gone to "that big garden in the sky" she is as alive to me today as ever. Did I mention that she used to stand in the yard with one hand on her hip surveying the world, often peeking from under some ridiculous sun hat or another? Take a look at the photo on the left and you may see her - as I do daily in my garden now.

So, what can I take away. How about: be there for other young women to listen to their problems while they figure out the answers, cherish their dreams as they live them, and maybe one day turn into a wise woman myself.

Sheros and Wise Women

Shero - A woman who, in the face of danger or adversity or from a position of weakness, displays courage and the will for self sacrifice for some greater good - originally martial courage, but later including moral courage.

Dennis Denenburg has created a curriculum about heros for elementary and middle school classrooms. He wants to replace Spiderman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with flesh and blood people from American history as heros for our children. [www.heros4us.com] His list of 50 American Heros Every Child Should Know includes the following sheros. Give yourself two points for each of the following you know:

Jane Addams
Susan B. Anthony
Clara Barton
Mary McLeod Bethune
Elizabeth Blackwell
Rachel Carson
Mary Cassatt
Dolores Huerta
Martha Graham
Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Sacajawea
Sandra Day O'Connor
Rosa Parks
Dale Evans
Eleanor Roosevelt
Harriet Tubman
Ida B. Wells

A perfect score is 36 - I only got 32 so I have some studying to do.

Wise Woman - originally a white witch, one who practices folk magic for benevolent purposes or a folk healer. To me, a Wise Woman [WW] is that woman who gives us counsel, who can help us clarify what's in our hearts and take the next step forward. She heals the spirit, instead of the body.

March is Women's History Month. My commitment is to learn about the two sheros that I did not know from Dennis's list and to learn more about one of them who is a bare acquaintance. And, to write about the Wise Women in my life.