I find myself smiling, even laughing out loud, these days at the simplest things; a cardinal singing from the top of a tree – a bright red spot against the brilliant blue sky, or something silly the dog did, even at a dumb comment from a talking head on cable.

It’s called “being in the moment” and for most of my adulthood I’ve dismissed such talk as psychobabble, without having any idea what it meant. Psychobabble or being-in-the-moment. Easy to marginalize what we haven’t taken the time or had the need to understand. I’d cruised through adulthood, skimming over the rough spots – loss of my dad, loss of my mom to 10 years of dementia, marriage ups and downs, teen agers, empty nest, loss of a good friend – until, some five years ago, my cruising resources suddenly dried up.

The domestic disasters were starting to pile up and I couldn’t pretend to feeling “fine.” I wasn’t fine. A divorce in the family, brother falling headlong into dementia just as his mother had done and then dying, grandson with cancer, husband with prostate cancer, loss of another dear friend, and then, the multiple myeloma that in nine months would take Wally.

As for me, I developed weird little infections – iritis  (an eye thing), recurring cold sores, psoriasis, a panic attack mimicking a heart attack, high blood pressure, and most recently, since Wally died, diabetes. Those last two are definitely not little infections. They scream out “pay attention!”

The night of the pseudo heart attack my therapist son said, bluntly, “Ma, have you ever considered counseling?”

A few weeks later a different son, suggesting I was manic, gave me the name of an acupuncturist. I said OK to both, and so every couple of weeks for over a year now I’ve seen first Jo-Ann, then Amy.

Turns out our insurance covers these visits. That insurance isn’t cheap; it took a big chunk out of every single paycheck for sone 30-plus years, and now out of our pension, money we’ve never seen except as figures on a paystub.

For most of our lives, until Wally turned 70 and his medical issues started, we hadn’t needed it much. That big chunk of our paycheck was mostly going to pay other people’s medical issues. Oh, but that’s another discussion, isn’t it? But then we did need it, and boy, were we grateful to have it. Do I need to say that every last one of us should have good health insurance, by which I mean, a deductible that is affordable and benefits that cover every conceivable contingency.

Back to being in the moment.

On a chilly late May morning, the smell of new-mown grass overlaid with a whiff of woodsmoke takes my mind off whatever worry is trying to sneak in. And that’s what I’ve learned from my new-found therapists: don’t wear a path through your brain to disaster. If you constantly, obsessively worry about some awful thing that might happen, you’ll automatically travel that path to the disaster. And it might – probably – never happen. Meanwhile, your body is pumping out adrenaline to fight off the disaster-that’s-only-in-your-mind. And eventually, after say a lifetime of such silly worrying, your body can no longer handle the constant stress, stress over nothing as it might turn out.

It seems we are built to handle a lot of real stress, but there’s a limit. I apparently reached mine some 5 or 6 years ago and never realized it  until the weird stuff started happening to my body. I’m not sure Jo-Ann or Amy would approve of my description of what happens; I may have the biological facts screwed up, but close enough.

Have you noticed how some people seem to have an obsessive need to re-live a loved one’s death? Each detail, so significant in retrospect, that led up to the tragic moment? As if in the retelling we can tamp it down, make it ordinary, take away its power. I’ve certainly been doing it, and if you’ve found yourself in my company for more than a few minutes during these past four months you’ve heard my story of those days. Well, rest easy; I won’t be doing that much anymore. Because living in the moment doesn’t let us trod those old paths; memories of my husband can’t keep leading me to those sad, sad days. Wearing paths to disaster, whether past or future, is unhealthy, I remind myself.

The moment is working pretty well right now.  Moments mean digging endless wheelbarrowfuls of compost, moving dirt from one place to another, keeping track of tools, stretching string for straight rows, twirling the long roots of delicate onion seedlings into the perfect hole drilled into the soft soil.  It’s letting go of impatience, of that sense of having to hurry through one thing to get to another. Now I’m learning to do that first thing well, slowly if need be, then think about the next.

Never have I been so aware of the then and the now. How time ended for him four months ago, but yet I’ve gone on to live every minute of it since: the blizzards, a power outage, the gray days of March and April, the exhilaration of spring. These and all the days to come that he’ll never see. 

Later today our family is gathering to put his ashes in the garden we’ve prepared for him. Friends have dropped off plants suitable for the witchy tangle of herbs I envision, plants that can’t be tamed: yarrow in assorted colors, costmary AKA Bible leaf, a black hollyhock, castor bean seeds (yes, poisonous – maybe I’ll put a skull and crossbones nearby), lovage, sweet cicely, Queen of the Prairie, tansy. If it isn’t raining too hard we’ll take tools and rake him in, his last earthly bits.

During a pause in the gardening frenzy yesterday the five-year-old sat with me to talk about Grandpa’s grave.

“Are you putting a rip there?” he asked.

Rip?

“Do you mean R.I.P., a sign?”

“Not a sign,” he said, and tried to convey the shape he meant.

The LBG has a scholarship fundraiser planned for June 20 at the Whales Tooth Pub. Mark your calendars!

Many of us are affected by MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Associaiton) in one way or another. You may look for organically grown foods in the grocery store, or make it out to the Common Ground Fair every September. If you’re a member you receive their publication every four months, Maine Organic Farmer and Gardener; Lincolnville’s Jean English has been the editor for many years, as well as contributing writing and photography to it.The tabloid size newspaper format includes editorials, news on the organic growing front from the state and around the country, articles about farmers, recipes, how-to-do its, and scientific information and research.

 As I wrote Jean the other day “I just sat down with my breakfast — a salad made with my own lettuce, mustard, scallions, asparagus, and lovage (plus Mr. Hannaford’s red pepper, blue cheese and a bit of ham) and ate it while reading your wonderful article about the Yentes brothers and their farm in Monroe.

 “I’ve never told you how much I appreciate the MOFGA news and the work you’ve done all these years to make it so informative, lively, and important to all of us gardening and farming in Maine. Well, this morning, polishing off both my salad and your article I just had to tell you….

 “Thank you thank you! We have such a rich life here, and you and MOFGA are a big part of it.” If you too feel enriched by MOFGA’s work, tell Jean next time you see her.

“There is a large turtle on the left side of the road – 1/4 mile from Drakes on the Beach Road, heading toward the Beach. Not sure if it plans to cross the road but just be aware if you travel that way.  Thanks … ”

 Aren’t you glad to live in a place that sends out turtle-in-the-road alerts?? And, to play off a comment by Arif, our Curry King, a place that tries to find new homes for orphaned baby squirrels? In fact, a place that has a Curry King. Yes, we have a rich life here, if we take the time to see it.