Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

recent posts

  • Just don’t wanna

    Lately I haven’t wanted to go to dance class. It’s weird. For the last five years, I’ve had this great love affair with Nia, a fusion of dance, martial arts and healing arts. I’ve written it about many times. I believe there is even some bragging in my posts about always wanting to go.

    The last few weeks, not so much. I don’t know why this is. Googling the phrase “mental inertia” conjures up dozens of articles about people who want to make changes in their lives but seem stuck and not able to make them. I found nothing about suddenly not wanting to do a thing I have ample proof that I love doing.

    Maybe it’s a bit like long-term love affairs. In the beginning it is so fine to be in love, to do things for and with the beloved, who seems perfect in every way. But in committed love relationships, there comes a moment where the loving feeling ebbs. What then? I have learned to evaluate it this way: Sometimes love lifts me up and sometimes I have to expend some mental/emotional energy to sustain love. I have found that effort to be worth making. For me, feelings are like weather. Love always comes back around to buoy me up.

    Despite the inner, I-don’t-wanna, I’ve gone to dance anyway, and it’s helped me evaluate my dance practice from a different perspective. I haven’t yet regretted going. I’ve always been glad to be there. That’s a through-line I’m grateful for.

  • The grape harvest

    The people who owned our house before us planted more than 30 feet of grape vines, several varieties, all seedless. It reminds me of the saying that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. These grapes probably were planted at least that far back. This year, we harvested almost 90 pounds. Mostly we make raisins with them (the ones we don’t gorge on while picking). But this year, I bought a steam juicer and we also made juice for the first time. It was easy and delicious. We water-bath canned it for safety. And we store the raisins in the freezer for the same reason.

    It is tedious work that takes several days and it is happening all over the world, the harvesting and processing of grapes. I remember years ago driving along the Rhone River in France, maybe near Beaucaire. The slopes west of the river rose away from us, with old old vines, their scions fat and gnarled. It was early September and a harvest was under way. People doing the harvesting, not machines.

    I have the satisfaction of our own harvest on our little plot of land in the southern end of the Willamette Valley. Another vine, unseen, connects me across the continents of this blue-green planet to all the others plucking plump fruit as Earth tilts and summer shifts to fall.

  • The swirl

    Losing a loved one opens up space and closes space too. For me there has been a lot of tidying. A drawer here, a closet there. And shoved into the back of a drawer, I came across a folded paper. No surprise there.

    It was a sweet gift from past me to future me, a poem, a Rumi poem. And I’m glad it came to me now.