We're entering into a salad mix gap for a week or so. It's just something that tends to happen mid-summer, since lettuce is a cool season crop and we're trying to grow it in the full heat of summer. We do our best to make it think it's still the cool season with misters and weekly plantings, but sometimes it just seems to realize that it's hot and quits growing. Luckily though, we're back in the tomato world and peppers are ripening in earnest to keep us distracted from the lack of salad for a week:) The greenhouse is filling up with fall crops and I am still catching on to the idea that it's nearly August. Yikes! How does this happen every single year?
Here's this week's blog:
Many moons ago, when I was in college, my friend Kevin and I decided to go to the County Fair. We ate junk food, rode rides, played some carnival games, and laughed a lot. Turns out, for reasons I cannot recall, Kevin had a gift certificate (??) for a free palm reading with a psychic who had a booth at the fair. He didn’t want to use it, but I wanted to continue the fun and so I went in to see her. She set the mood with her beads and crystals and deep smokey voice. She asked me if I had any burning questions. My reply was meant to catch her off guard, which, as you might have predicted, is difficult to do to a psychic, and was evidenced by her smooth reply, “you just need balance in your life.”
“But-“I protested, still wanting to throw her off her performance
“-Balance.” She cut me off (She was good!)
Well, as generic predictions and advice tend to do, this has become a theme in my life and a reason I even remember this non-event meant just for fun so long ago. You see, it wasn’t until several years later, after Jason and I had wandered into each other’s lives and seemed to have stuck, that I learned that Jason’s Appalachian Trail name is (did you guess it?): Balance. (insert audible “aaawww” here)
But that was not to be the end of this generic prediction, oh no! This comes around in varying frequencies. In middle age, the balance challenge has been between living for today since no one is guaranteed tomorrow, and planning for tomorrow in case you get to have one. In a physical labor career, I don’t think I can work until I’m 85, so I had better make at lease some allocation for tomorrow just in case I get there. I don’t have it perfected, by any means, but this has been the balance occupation of the last several years.
Then, enter election cycle as they are wont to do. And so, for the rest of the year, I must struggle to obtain the balance between sanity (no news is good news!), and staying engaged enough to make informed decisions in a few months. This balance challenge is a doozy! It feels a bit like walking a tight rope over the precipice of doom and I wobble a lot. Hopefully, my harnesses of joy and human connection can keep me from falling into that deep dark pit of despair, but I had better reinforce them when I can in case I lose my balance I’ve been seeking since I walked out of that carnival tent all those years ago.
