Through Earth's pace

It has been a slow process to adjust back here in Los Angeles. We have an exciting Stationery Store Day weekend coming up on August 1st & 2nd, when we open our shop (for both Saturday and Sunday just for the weekend!!!) to participate in a stamp rally organized by another lovely local stationery store, Shorthand. It will be fun, it will be exciting, and it will be very full (both literally and metaphorically). A few days after the big weekend, I fly out of the canyon (one more time) to continue taking care of some family matters for a short week in Japan. So I am purposely staying VERY close to my desk in the canyon, diligently taking care of BK world, supporting kids, and tending my body to shift through the jet lag.

Kids and Frido are joining me for a part of the time in Japan, and Coco and I are looking forward to spending some time together in Yakushima. As we started making a wish list, which included plenty of beach days, seashell hunting, as well as visiting a local (and much smaller and cuter version of) home improvement store on a remote island, I briefly mentioned that I can’t think of anywhere else in the world that hasn’t changed for the last 40 years other than some spots on the island. After I said that, I corrected myself, saying, “It’s actually changing, but it’s changing at Earth’s pace”. Coco nodded understandingly.

Based on the conversations I had with canyon elders, I found out that some protected parts of the canyon where we live also haven’t changed much for the last few decades because those areas were too steep and rugged to be tamed when the development craze came through the canyon throughout different periods of history, and those areas are now environmentally protected. When I hike through the canyon, I can see the evidence of Earth’s pace. Large river boulders and red sediments, which are known to have traveled all the way from today’s Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah due to the Colorado River’s movement over millennia, are sandwiched on an exposed cliff. Occasionally, we spot seashell fossils along our favorite trails.

When I think of all of this, I imagine it’s completely natural that I don’t feel quite right in my body when I fly back and forth over the Pacific Ocean in less than 12 hours each way. As much as it’s convenient, it’s completely outside of what my body and psyche can cope with. So I am acknowledging the feeling of uprootedness that emerges from flying and passing through so much distance at a pace set by current technology, and I am also making a point to spend time in the garden to reconnect as a ritual of coming home.

The photos are from the corner of our garden around one of the giant sycamore trees. I grow non-native plants in pots with compost and a potting soil mix, and some kinds of volunteer squash plants whose seeds were mixed in the compost started to grow at an astronomical speed in these pots. The vitality of these squashes that bloom every morning is blowing all of our minds. Maybe we will have a lot of squashes to harvest in autumn. That will be special and something to look forward to.

And of course. Mango always reminds me to be true to who we are meant to be and stick with the pace we are designed to move through life.