Jim has been staying in too many hotels lately. This morning before breakfast I was scurrying around getting things organized in the kitchen and he was working on his first coffee and he was seeing the things around him. He said, “You have some nice amenities here.” I wasn’t even sure I knew what that word meant. He started listing things that he saw that maybe a hotel would list as pluses.
One was that he could hear the rain on the house giving us a connection to the outside, the outdoors. I forget most of them maybe because I live with them on such an immediate basis that I take them for granted. His best one was that the fire in the woodstove that he could see through the glass in the door was there for a reason, to warm us up and not just for looks. Nice way of thinking of noticing.
I know we have lots of visitors and they all see different things that may be memorable to them because they are out of their ordinary. Went I am here working around I may have thoughts about paying the bills or how do I beat back the jungle this week, a different view and miss those essentials.
When Edmund and Irene were here from China and who live on the 23rd floor of an apartment building, what do they see? When I have a group of my black friends out from the city what do they see? When I have the Taiwanese family here, what do they see and take with them?
This is good for me to think about as it forces me into the present. It puts me in a better place to view my surroundings. And in this new light I may have things that I notice anew. One that I have been thinking of lately is when I get up at six thirty in the morning and look out the window to the north toward our son’s house his lights are on as he gets ready to go to work. It is a reassuring thing for both of us I hope.
Well, Jim and I are off to walk in the rain here shortly. It is a light rain watering the beet and green onion seeds that My Rebecca and Jim planted yesterday. It is a spring rain. So, as always, looking around loves, Felipe.
Hola Felipe y Jim,
Loved to talk to you two! What a treat!
And it is so touching to see that the cover crop grew… I never planted anything from the seed in my life before the corn field, that’s why it’s touching, I think…!
And Jim is right… I have stayed in quite a few places… friends’s houses, friends of friends’s houses, airbnbs, albergues, hotels -extremely cheap ones and extremely expensive ones-, hostels, monasteries, retreat centers, and then your house, which is a different sort of space… or a combination of all but with something else and unique…
Three things came to my mind while there and after (and still):
1- The most important one has been thinking of all the people you welcomed there… you opened your doors to, the doors of your own house, and so Rebecca…
2- And like Jim, I looked at your humble, tiny (for the American standards, I mean -my apartment is smaller-), handmade, crafty, messy and at the same time tidy house… somehow isolated from other houses (for my standards!), located in an Island that doesn’t even have a bridge to the continent, … and I thought how was it that this house in this place got connected to the world… This is so huge that it is difficult to find the words to express what I mean to say with that… I think it has to be with this thing that what we can live is way bigger than what we can imagine…
3- And finally, my eyes would go over and over again to all those postcards and greeting cards you have holding on the table area… I thought about the people who thought to send a card to you, got it, and wrote it… (maybe because for me, handwriting a card is a big deal…!)
Off to sleep! there is a huge storm outside, the wind seems to be angry tonight!
Continental love to my islander friends,
Cris
Cris ~ what a nice comment! You take such time and care with your writing, it must be those long bus rides on your way to work. Yes, good job on the planting of the cover crop. We broadcast that seed by hand just like they planted grains in the Bible. Same method and there are more efficient methods but I like the feel of it. So that is all dug back into the soil and it represents nutrients that would have washed away with the winter rains. But we captured them in the planting and now it will be available for the new corn plants as it breaks down.
Your comments 1,2 and 3 are all about hospitality and connectivity. We have learned through Camino training how to maximize those. And here I am with the needs of my health situation being supported by all this as a plus. I couldn’t have a more effective support system. It’s a win win. Alperfect, Felipe.x