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balancing and gathering
Apr. 19th, 2011 07:10 pmI was walking balanced on a train rail this morning and thinking about how I can do this so confidently, so easily, because if I fall, it's just four inches to the ground, but if this same rail were over a chasm, I'd never be able to manage it. I'd freeze with terror.
If I could have the same confidence walking over a chasm that I have balancing on the rail--wow, that would be marvelous.
But I do sometimes fall off the rail, so I'd probably fall into the chasm. But, until I did, I'd be as joyous as Philippe Petit.
So then I started thinking about when I'm walking around in my own house, not balancing on anything. What if, unbeknownst to me, really I'm on the thinnest of rails--or even a wire--and at any moment I might fall?
No, better the other way, definitely. Better to be as carefree at great heights as if the ground were only inches away.
.... subject change.
It's the season to gather stinging nettle shoots, and I did, not to make shirts for wild swans (or skinchangers,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
csecooney!), but for soup (soup that I will go make, soon as I post this entry). Two kinds of chickens watched me as I gathered: russety red ones (probably Rhode Island reds), and salt-and-pepper ones (probably Marans).
Back at the house, a squirrel has been gorging itself on willow blossoms all day. Feasting on flowers. What a season!
ETA I stung myself on the stinging nettles, putting them into the pot. Just a little. Just enough to be fun and to make me think, *yes*, these are stinging nettles.
If I could have the same confidence walking over a chasm that I have balancing on the rail--wow, that would be marvelous.
But I do sometimes fall off the rail, so I'd probably fall into the chasm. But, until I did, I'd be as joyous as Philippe Petit.
So then I started thinking about when I'm walking around in my own house, not balancing on anything. What if, unbeknownst to me, really I'm on the thinnest of rails--or even a wire--and at any moment I might fall?
The Curious Case of the Woman Too Terrified to Walk
No, better the other way, definitely. Better to be as carefree at great heights as if the ground were only inches away.
.... subject change.
It's the season to gather stinging nettle shoots, and I did, not to make shirts for wild swans (or skinchangers,
csecooney!), but for soup (soup that I will go make, soon as I post this entry). Two kinds of chickens watched me as I gathered: russety red ones (probably Rhode Island reds), and salt-and-pepper ones (probably Marans).Back at the house, a squirrel has been gorging itself on willow blossoms all day. Feasting on flowers. What a season!
ETA I stung myself on the stinging nettles, putting them into the pot. Just a little. Just enough to be fun and to make me think, *yes*, these are stinging nettles.
