Symmetry

I’m a little more than halfway through Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, and this week I got to a part where the narrator described the month of May 1812 in Yorkshire:

The early part of that May, as we have seen, was fine, the middle was wet; but in the last week, at change of moon, it cleared again. A fresh wind swept off the silver-white, deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them, mass on mass, to the eastern horizon; on whose verge they dwindled, and behind whose rim they disappeared, leaving the vault behind all pure blue space, ready for the reign of the summer sun.

Girl, same. It sounded just like the May we were having.

We endured three solid weeks of rain and clouds in New Jersey. It felt like January all over again. I began using my sunlamp again in the mornings.

But I have to say, my garden loved it.

Another bit of symmetry: This week, 11 years and one month after my third AmeriCorps term ended with me assisting in a community garden build, I supported the construction of community garden beds at my new office. In 2013, I helped with raised beds at a church where the fresh produce went to supplement a food pantry. This year, I raised funds and ordered supplies for the beds, and helped recruit volunteers.

Honestly I am thrilled that I can still write blog posts about Rutgers volunteers and community garden beds. (And putting on pajamas at 5 p.m. after a hard day’s work strikes a familiar chord!)

Since the last day of my final (hitting the lifetime limit!) AmeriCorps term, I have: lived a year and a half working three part-time jobs without health insurance and getting deathly ill; worked as a manager at a vegetarian food co-op and made friends who are still dear to me today; worked a single job in New Brunswick and lived in Highland Park while feeling deep ties to a community; was unemployed for six weeks so I reread Anne Rice vampire novels and wrote furiously; moved to Asbury Park for the most punk rock year of my life to be closer to a coastal job; moved to South Jersey for a faculty job and fell in love and locked down and moved to Philly for a summer and bought a house and got married; reset my brain for two weeks in Taiwan and Japan then ended a 12-year career to start a new chapter that just feels right every day.

Phew! Even though I have left the Extension world professionally, I am so grateful that I tend my gardens at home and match volunteers to wonderful gardens at my new job.

Year Three of our CSA share has been a delicious treat, and it gets us out to the farmer’s market every Saturday.

At home, my garden teaches me more every year. Our backyard clover-lawn now boasts a wild strawberry patch as well. We leave it for the birds:

This spring has warmed my heart with reunions: a Dorothy Day tribute weekend with a friend I hadn’t been in the same room with for more than a decade, and then this past weekend, a Jersey City excursion to be with a friend I hadn’t seen in person since 2016:

I keep in touch and communication with these beloveds, but there’s a magic in being in the same space together. Plus, hugs. Hugs are great.

And I got to check out the Jersey City location of Hidden Grounds, which I’ve wanted to do for a decade!

If not symmetry, we kept with tradition this week when our first wedding anniversary passed. Because we make our home in South Jersey we got water ice to celebrate.

I’m not sure I have symmetry with Anne Rice vampire stories; it’s maybe a dark thread that will run through my life forever. I really like the new Interview show and Season 2 has been entertaining:

One night I took myself to a drive-in dinner and then a double-feature, just to mix things up.