Ceramic Birdhouse

While i was at the hospice thrift store, i found a ceramic birdhouse. I bought it for $3. It's cute with painted flowers and butterflies. But ceramic?

For now, it's decorating my solarium. In the spring, i'll take it out to the front step with the flowerpots. I do wonder how it will look hanging from a tree.

The ceramic birdhouse has two drainage holes in the bottom. That's good. But how am i going to clean it out next fall?

The entrance hole is big, so maybe a mid-sized bird will make a home in it. Little birds would be at the mercy of big bird (or squirrel) intruders.

Some things look good, look beautiful, but turn out to be useless.

A lot of the things we decorate our lives with turn out to be clutter.

Maybe the ceramic birdhouse will turn out to be clutter too, and i'll clean it up and give it back to the hospice thrift store so they can sell it to someone else.

Perfect

I'm in Portland, Oregon, visiting friends. Every morning, Mary Beth walks her dogs in her neighborhood. One home has a perfect front lawn with flowerbeds of orange marigolds and red begonias and accents of blue lobelia and blue salvia. Spectacular!

My friend says the flowerbeds have the same design every year. It obviously works.

Some people strive for perfect flower beds or perfect bodies or perfect clothes. "Perfect" comes and goes, just like everything else in this material world.

What if everything is perfect--just as it is? Tangled, cluttered, weedy. (I'm thinking of my vegetable garden, which is "weedy" with volunteer flowers.) This beautiful life we are living is just-so.

Perfect.

"House" Plants Living Outside the House

We are in Puerto Rico for a yoga retreat. Walking into town for breakfast, we passed by this collection of "house"plants--all living outdoors, suspended on a tree.

The Buddha suggests that meditators seclude themselves in an empty hut or at the base of tree. These potted plants are secluded from the heat of the sun by the shade of this big tree in someone's front yard.

I am renting an Airbnb condo, which is not exactly a secluded hut, but at 7:00 in the morning, i Skype with a meditation friend, and we sit together in cyberspace for an hour--secluded from all the possibilities that life has to offer.

In this way, we clear away the clutter of life to make time for what really matters.

Flower Quilt

I bought a quilt wall hanging at a church Christmas bazaar. It's colorful and flowery. It's beautiful. I love it. Now what am i going to do with it?

For the moment, it's my winter flower garden in the living room. But i so-o-o don't need any more stuff. This is the stress of desire.

I saw the little quilt. Pleasant. I bought it. Pleasant. And now what? (Unpleasant.) Not knowing is stressful. Not wanting clutter is stressful. Wanting and not wanting. (Stressful.)

Maybe i'll go to the living room and smile when i look at it.

18-Year-Old Geraniums

My neighbor had the same geraniums on her window sill, in the same pots, for 18 years! She did this by giving her geranium plants a haircut every fall, cutting them all the way down to ground level.

Geraniums are prone to get leggy and woody. Cutting them back, way back, keeps fresh green growth coming.

We can clutter our lives up with too much stuff. Sometimes, it's good to have a thorough house-cleaning.

Clean out a drawer today. Or one shelf. Don't wait to find the perfect person to give it to. Send it along to your favorite thrift store. (Mine is the hospice shop.) Someone you don't even know will love your treasure.

Freshen up your life with the random act of kindness of giving your stuff away.Your geraniums love it, and you will too.

It Takes a Village to...

Frost tonight, so i'm finally bringing in the flowerpots from the front step. Hefting the heavy ones is a chore that requires ingenuity. I need to use a dolly.

I was thinking about buying a dolly, but then i sent an email to my 10 neighbors and Voila! Several dollies already live in my neighborhood. Rather than clutter up my garage with one more piece of seldom-used equipment, i can borrow a dolly for half an hour. I won't need it again until next May.

I value Voluntary Simplicity--keeping life simple and uncluttered. But my self-reliant do-it-yourself-er is often at odds with my own values of community. In this case, i tell myself, "It takes a village to ... move my flowerpots."

Photo from scrapmetalforum.com

Pruning Stuff

Those sneaky forsythias entice us with the first-of-the-season early yellow bloom, then they meld into the background greenery for 7 months where they branch out and root, unnoticed. A single bush becomes an ever-widening mound. Today is a good day to prune that forsythia. Actually, i'm going to rip one out entirely.


I don't really expect to win. This is just the first round in decreasing the reach of a single multiplex of forsythia.

Possessions sneak into our house in the guise of loveliness. Soon we're drowning in stuff that we don't know where to put. That's when lovely becomes clutter.

Too much forsythia and too much stuff. One day, it's time to wade in and prune.

Today, i'm passing my grandmother's crocheted afghans along to my nieces. I'm keeping 2 and giving 4 away. Then one drawer will have space.

Ahhh. Beautiful space. Now i can breathe.