Day Lily Practice
Although not native, day lillies seem to feel quite at home here. They spread along verges and banks, flowering freely, one a day at a time, in their own time, in among wilder meadow plants, splashing muted orange stars over pathways and fields. They've found a foothold in the foothills.
 |
| And there they were, waiting for this now. These ones from Bulgaria, from what 7,8 years ago, but there when you click Photos on the platform, to see if it can reach into the phone, with its jump lead connected but not switched on, and uncertain it will work, and instead there are the stored ones from other days, the same, but of course not. |
 |
| And then you work through importing and avoiding clouds and you're hoping there's bytes and such things, and then they are there. More in focus not so in flower here, though outside now there are many having their day. In the sun. |
This is a residence, a camp, a practice. It's a break. It's work. It's a handful of humans, some with bonds, others not. It's connective but not community. It's away and maybe becoming a by-way. Days find rhythm in mealtimes, Between, before, beyond open up as possibilities--often only sketches, though there are some that unfurl petals and present. And for the defined daytimes the sun delineates as it scales one range and holds court for all the hours it musters before dropping behind another, it's the fierce heat that burns off and sucks out the chance of a breeze, that conducts the circlings of the dogs, sparrows, humans, donkeys and swallows, steps the pace over rivers this close to their source, walls peaks with beech and sycamore.
Here are some possible practices, or just things that are around:
- Weeding. The first instinct. First thing in the day, after coffee and a smoke. First around those day lillies, freeing them up, maybe, then to clear the bed of herbs and invite kitchen interaction, now along the walls, with thoughts of hydrangea, for sure; roses, in homage to the dinner plate flowerheads red and pink around; perhaps camelia in the shade, given altitude, no?
- Reading. You're reading the book about those humans in space, in orbit, in weightless freefall, their bodies transitioning and transiting, heads full then empty then full of earth of space, in ascent in descent, "imagineering". You like this word, and wonder what it could mean to imagineer the residence.
- Conversations. You know, conversations. They're lessons though, and practice. Or they're just conversations.
- Listening to music, mostly the playlists from the kitchen, sometimes your own, or the album try-out that surges over 7 years in soundwalls that surround or surprise, that console or confront
- Watching birds; the swallows or swifts that swoop and dance, and that roost under rafters all around; the tree sparrow that sees himself as part of the group and pops inside to check the hall for stray croissant crumbs; the raptor doing its daily tour, higher, thermal, as yet unidenified--but you take a break and it's back (and the sparrow friend hops onto the balcony just as you go down to see) and it's a red kite, matching the magazine guide
- Walking, depending on heat levels, knee capacity and other physical limitations
- Playing petanque and making up the rules as you go
- Splashing mountain stream water over the face and arms and feet
- Rummaging among the many outbuildings
- Eating and drinking and smoking. Especially eating and enjoying meals prepared with care and imagination. Imaginvegeneered.
- The normal stuff, the photos and facebook, feeding the green duckling with approximations of how many pigs you have in Gaelic, keeping up with mail and messages and genocide
- Qi Gong, one time, and the routine forms of care, or carelessness, such as they round the hours. The sleeping one, that works as siesta and stumbles by night.
