On Gratitude and Having a Voice Again

This is my 200th post. My very first one was about my thumb…

This is what Al has been up to:

Al has been making salsa all day and will be canning many jars of it. I was walking through the grocery store yesterday as we shopped for the week and chose produce for the canning and I was thinking (you probably think this too)…

-about gratitude.

I saw a very colorful, bountiful, produce section. Sweet potatoes, kale, all kinds of peppers big, small and twisted, colorful, green hot and sweet. Fruits of every color. How lucky we are. And I saw kids following alongside healthy preoccupied 20-something parents carrying their IPhones with the shopping list on it, as Al was. I saw older folks too, with all of us together having SO much to choose from and this is what I tried not to think of:

disappearing bee populations that could end this selection of foodstuffs. I try not to preoccupy my head with thoughts of climate change and faltering farms so instead I wished and wished for a future for the kids I was seeing, a future with just as much bounty and choice because truly the earth has borne a miracle of variety and because I can’t take it for granted.

Gratitude.

So this is what I’ve been up to, or rather what my hornworm has been up to:

Yes, it has transformed. It’s out of the cocoon and that’s pretty miraculous too.I hesitate to write too much about it here, because I’ve got an article coming up in Aspergers Digest in a few months. So I’ll share a before and after of how my worm started and what it became:

 

It’s wings are pretty large when they’re spread out and in fact there is a lot of pinkish-red on the body which you can’t see here.

Autumn is here; but flowers are still blooming here and there. These wild looking tiny daisy-like flowers cropped up at the edge of the driveway and I am thinking I know how! I was planting wildflower seeds in a wheelbarrow garden when a wind came up (a few months ago) and blew seeds right out of my hand. I suspect that when I hosed down the driveway at some point, the seeds lodged here and voila suddenly here they are, an unexpected surprise. Here is something else unexpected, from my backyard:

Look closely. It appears there has been a hanging, this shadow took me by surprise. It looks like a gallows. Actually it’s a tin man made of recycled cans which hangs from a post in the backyard. It’s Halloween month and here in the “Valley” where I live, evil clown sightings and threats appear to have spread here. I guess they started in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t so funny when a little girl I know of was frightened (terrorized) by mask wearing “clowns (jerks) in a car that pulled alongside the bus. A few teen girls were arrested today and charged with some of these threats, which are not funny at all.

So an also not-so-funny thing happened this month. I believe I’ve mentioned that I have selective mutism along with Aspergers and I believe a true measure of my stressometer/coping/toleration level is whether or not I lose my voice in my own home. I enjoy answering Jeopardy in my home (ALOUD) even if I am alone. I even tape the show. Not very competitive, I do enjoy things that are solitary and challenging, like answering Jeopardy trivia. I am glad to say that last night I finally had a mini Jeopardy marathon and watched several DVR’ed episodes in a row. I was skipping them due to lack of ability to use my voice. My voice came back. It wasn’t gone completely, but I don’t even bother to watch the show when I am that crashed. Thankfully, I’m doing better now.

I spoke of gratitude earlier. In a world so shaky, shook up, uncertain, at risk, crazed, and in trouble… I AM full of gratitude. If you have not done so, but I’m sure you do this too, never take freedoms like FULL supermarkets and free will and choices and climate and flowers for granted. I don’t even take my voice for granted.

The miraculous truly is everywhere. Today I found dried seed pods and crushed them, releasing them- the tiny black seeds… so I can, with the right conditions and some luck, have morning glories next year too.There’s a miracle that took place in that Hornworm cocoon, and I’m not sure how it came to be, but if a worm can completely transform like that, isn’t anything at all possible?