Working in the garden today. The leeks are overrun with weeds and the cucumbers need help finding the trellis. Some small green tomatoes have appeared and the zucchini blossoms are beautiful. The bean blossoms are tiny and white and also beautiful, although outshone by the neighboring zucchini. This is the “I hope I hope I hope” time of gardening, the time when things are growing and you watch and hope for signs that things are growing well.
Sometimes it is hard to put in the work today when the effects are in the future. At least with a garden you only have to wait a few weeks or months. For other things it takes years, or a lifetime, or the results occur so far from us that we never know. Yet, we try. And we try to enjoy today, despite our habits of worrying about the future.
And now a few thoughts on things that I have read, heard, and seen:
Recently read: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I read Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day in 2012 and it has stayed with me. I suspect that Never Let Me Go will join it and accompany me forward. I’m not going to say anything about the plot or the characters lest I spoil it for someone. But I will say that it left me feeling sad and thoughtful in a similar way to Remains. To paraphrase Gurdjieff, if you don’t realize that you are in prison then no escape is possible.