A Broken Stone

Five years ago I wrote this. Having come across it just a few weeks ago again, it was a beautiful reminder to myself of who we have been and who we are still now. Happy 7th Anniversary, John. I love you.

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary a couple days ago. In the morning, I found a little black bag on the counter with a beautiful necklace inside - a string of grey stone beads. I had spotted it in store a couple months back, and when we returned to the store last weekend I eyed them for quite a while and pointed them out to John. Apparently, as soon as I wandered deeper into the store, he grabbed that string (every set was different) and handed it with his credit card to the cashier, quickly and quietly. She finished wrapping the box and John's mom carried the bag out of the store - a full story prepared in case I asked. I didn't.

Wednesday, I open the box and thrilled, place the string around my neck. Then I notice a broken bead. Neither of us had noticed it before - me, just admiring it at the store; John, hurried in secret. He offered that we could send it back for an exchange (the store is two states away, mind you). I didn't want to part with it, plus... something in me kind of liked the broken stone, maybe. All day I looked at it and pondered it and I found, I did really like the broken part. I liked all of it. The broken stone really is a chipped stone that allows you to see the inside, where the geode sparkles and reveals all sorts of dynamic edges. The more I look at it, I wonder if the designer made it that way on purpose.

It's just one bead, so unique. So stunning. A little broken piece - and if you can accept that it's not perfectly in tune with the others, you'll also realize it's better that way. And you might even like the other beads better for it, because you'll realize there's something even prettier concealed in each of them too... maybe, hopefully.

The beads look like little planets, one has rings - my saturn. They look even more like moons. My perfect ecliptic plane. Circling, centering, reminding me of my own gravity. Allowing me to consider how events are affecting me - how I'm affecting them - allowing me the significance to be at the center of something.

To be a part of the system - we assume machines, cogs, cold rules. But what of a system of stars and stones? Moons. Black holes. I've known a few. A system of fire and dust, light and darkness, hot and very, very cold. A system of expanses and powerful gravity, rules and mystery. Comings and goings. passings in the dark. Illuminations.

I am not the sun. But I hope to be a star. Like that one broken bead, sparkling dynamic stone that it is. And broken pieces aren't for everyone - I'm learning to be okay with that too, with the people who'd rather trade it in for the perfect set of matching polished stones. Learning to understand and accept that some, some have chosen a trade.

John and I, we've always been consumed with the inside - our 'we' is built in brokenness. We believe in the beauty of concealment, and of broken pieces. We believe in stars. Dark skies.

By the time I saw him that evening, sitting on a rooftop with a manhattan and a huge smile, I knew, "The necklace is perfect. I don't want to trade it for anything else."

There's no "Tea" in Bugs

I want to like drinking tea. The kind of tea that doesn’t add to my caffeine count each day. I love earl grey and bold black teas, but those aren’t much of a relief for my body after my three daily espresso. Sleep is also a struggle from years of pregnancy and babies keeping me awake and disturbing my rhythms. Now, a year and a half into covid, work and relationships have a contender for stress. All of this shared, my interest in gardening has led me to trying my hand at my own chamomile and calendula tea. While I waited for the flowers to form, I purchased a good bag of loose leaf tea online - something that shared these two ingredients, good reviews and sounded delicious. It was! Each night for the past few weeks, I make myself a cup. I do this for my babies to train their bodies to fall sleep - create calming rituals. Now I’m trying to do the same for my own. Boil water in kettle. Scoop one tablespoon into tea bag. Pour water. Wait 10 minutes. Sip. A small, manageable ritual. I hope when the bag runs out, I will begin scooping from my own glass jar. I also hope I like how it tastes.

So far I have purchased the seeds, planted and grown the flowers. Today, I harvested my first round of chamomile and calendula flowers to dry. Researching how to dry flowers has told me basic steps:

  • Collect the flowers in the morning, harvesting the flowers when the petals are all open.

  • Lay them flat on paper or mesh to dry - someplace warm, dark, with good airflow.

  • You can also dry them in your oven on extremely low, with the oven door cracked.

  • Do not place them in the sun to dry (it will steal the color and the oils).

Here is what I am not finding a clear answer to though - bugs! I dislike bugs. Most articles say nothing of them. Some articles at least say, “pick off any bugs,” but still there is a disconnect here. Calendula is also regularly praised as a sacrificial flower in the organic vegetable garden. A prize companion plant. What does this mean? It means aphids L- O-V-E them. Many of mine are covered in aphids. Green aphids. What I hope are black aphids. So many aphids.

I have spent the past week trying to decide what to do with these bugs before harvesting and drying my calendula. Strangely, when I went to collect them today, I didn’t spot ANY bugs on my calendula. This could be that the good bugs finally found the party and ate them up like organic gardeners say they will. I’m not sure. But I wasn’t willing to risk it. I took all my calendula and I drowned them in water, rinsed them around, and then spun them in a salad spinner. Then I set them out in single layers in several metal mesh strainers and hung them out on my front porch where it stays shady and warm all day. I’m not sure if that will be better or worse, but I didn’t want to be bringing in countless little bugs and leaving them in my kitchen to crawl off in all directions. I may have lost the oils though in the bath?

I’m considering the oven tonight.. I have a natural gas oven, which apparently the pilot light is enough heat if you just set them in there, in a single row on cookie sheets. I like the romantic idea of leaving them to air dry in my kitchen best… but as I spend much of my life in this space between the romantic ideal and the reality of being a bug-paranoid human, I just might settle for the cookie sheets.

My “how do you dry flowers and herbs” rabbit hole today led me to these good sites, articles and sources:

University of California Master Gardener Program of Sonoma County

Drying Herbs

Building a Habitat Garden: Part II

“Other books I consult over and over are: Deer in My Garden Volume 1 by Carolyn Singer, Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region from the East Bay Municipal Utility District, Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy, and Attracting Butterflies and Hummingbirds to Your Backyard, by Sally Roth.”

 

Part of me reads Deloitte's 2018 Global Human Capital Trends Report and thinks "sounds idealistic" - then I remember that I chose to leave a well paid position with tons of potential for growth for these exact reasons. And I know several others.  I guess that's more than idealism. And today what keeps me in my current role is not a passion for the industry or really that deep of a sense of fulfillment in my craft (both things I thought most important when I started out), but a respect for the leadership of my company and a pride in its honesty and service to clients. 

 

According to Deloitte:

WHAT IS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE?

It is an organization that shoulders its responsibility to be a good citizen (both inside and outside the organization), serving as a role model for its peers and promoting a high degree of collaboration at every level of the organization.

...People today have less trust in their political and social institutions than they have in years; many expect business leaders to fill the gap.

This point was made this year by BlackRock chief executive Laurence Fink. In his annual letter to CEOs, Fink noted that people are increasingly “turning to the private sector and asking that companies respond to broader societal challenges” and demanding that organizations “serve a social purpose.” Fink stated that shareholders, including BlackRock itself, are now evaluating companies based on this standard. A New York Times report suggested that the letter could be a “watershed moment on Wall Street” that raises questions about “the very nature of capitalism.”

Read the full Report here.