From Part 1:
The
Rhythm of Nature
strides
as the turtle
who
wins a race
he
doesn’t know he’s in
Ever
evolving,
neither
static, nor constant
yet slowly progressing
beats
the rhythm of Nature
Even
when we see not
the
burbling beneath the volcano
the
plates shifting into an earthquake
the
atmosphere transforming into a tornado
the
waves building to a tsunami
Even
then, even when we see not the signs,
the
Rhythm of Nature is ever evolving
neither
static, nor constant
yet slowly progressing
I was trained not to stride to the rhythm of nature, but
to the drum of the Energizer Bunny, that mascot toy for the battery that keeps
“going and going and going” and, even after everyone else’s batteries are dead,
is “still going.” My mother is wired
like the Energizer Bunny, and by some genetic quirk, I am not. Vacations were full, as Mom booked each hotel
with a “guaranteed late arrival” and even planned in which rest stops we’d take
for our picnic lunches. Her errands at
home, however, were not planned and seemed to follow a random order, defying
geographic logic, zigzagging out of the way, and then returning to previous
stores that had deals three dollars better than the later stores. Like all of the competitor bunnies in the
Energizer ads, I, her tag-a-long had batteries that died part-way through, but
hers were “still going.” Thinking I
should be wired – or “batteried” -- like her, once I had hit my wall, Mom had
one of two replies: “Quit whining” or “The world doesn’t revolve around
you.”
In time, I gained the endurance to quit whining and
eventually grew into an Energizer Bunny myself.
Early in our marriage, my then husband teased me for my to do lists that
also kept going and going and going. I
had a love-hate relationship with these lists; part of me longed for days with
short lists, but the other part reveled in those days when I crossed out a
multitude of items on a long one.
Click
here for the body of Part 1
The conclusion
of Part 1:
. . . It was
then that I decided to hire myself for the landscaping project to the side of
our house that had been itching at me for four years. Roughly 40 feet long by 14 feet wide, this
plot had previously housed two vegetable gardens and a play sand pit, each
bordered with bricks and stones. But our
kids had grown; the gardens had been left to waste; the bricks and patio stones
were broken, scattered, and buried; what amounted to seven 20 gallon tubs of
stones to be collected that were then also mostly buried; and weeds, many thigh
high, had taken over the entire plot.
Since the
plot is right outside my bedroom window, every morning when I opened the
shades, this disaster welcomed my day, and then it presented itself to me again
in the evening at my favorite outdoor spot, also immediately adjacent to it,
our hammock.
For the
plot’s neglect, I mostly blame the wildfires, of which we had already had three
since 2012 even before the 2020 fires.
While one came as close as three miles, most were further away, but we
live in a valley, where the smoke from all of the neighboring fires comes to
settle itself as an unwelcome guest for weeks of choking, hazardous air. How does one care for vegetable gardens in
the likelihood of such toxic air? To
those who do, bless you. By 2018, after
the third set of fires, I was done. With
some help from my then husband, I began to clear out the plot of weeds, bricks,
and stones and hoped to clear enough to hire a professional landscaper to build
a stone patio, for which I was also saving money.
In the summer
of 2021, I needed peace at my window and on my hammock. And between jobs, I needed that savings for
the landscaping. Why not use the stones
and bricks I was collecting and hire myself?
Now Part
2:
I spent two
years weeding, unearthing stones and bricks, shoveling, weeding and unearthing more
stones, raking, weeding and unearthing yet more stones, then finally placing a single
strip of landscape fabric over about a third of the length of the 40x14 foot
plot. Then I did more weeding,
unearthing stones, raking, and yet more weeding and unearthing stones, then,
finally, laid a second strip of fabric on that first third of the plot. I did the same for the third and final strip
for that first third. A significant
accomplishment. Triumphantly, I returned
some of the stones onto the fabric. Since
I had vowed to use whatever stones I’d collect in whatever way I could, my vision
for the final product was still vague.
I did the
same for the second section, and the following year, completed the third. After two years the seemingly endless task
was completed with a creative design I had not conceived. Thankfully, these years were 2021 and 2022, two
gracious years not covered in smoke.
Still, most of my work was done in the heat of the summer, and the Energizer
Bunny still in me urged me to head out into the heat to finish more
quickly. But my body rebelled. If I worked for more than three hours in a
day, my body refused to budge the next day. That judgmental Bunny in me pointed to the professionals
who do this work for eight hours a day, five days a week. Why, he demanded, was I such a wimp?
Listen to
your body. It speaks for Us. Though my whispers were soft, they overrode
the loud Bunny and reassuringly disputed him and our culture, for whom the
Bunny speaks. Under their guidance, I
worked for about an hour in the morning and another in the evening, five or six
days a week, and my body, in gratitude, quit rebelling.
While
collecting stones, I was reminded of the story of the tortoise and the
hare. The hare, like the Energizer
Bunny, is a rabbit who keeps going and going and going, quickly bouncing in
many directions, often off his path, seeking short-cuts, and through most of
the race, he’s ahead. The turtle moves
by the rhythm of nature, slowly, step by step, in a race he doesn’t know
he’s in. He walks straight, never veers
from his path, and keeps a steady pace.
Many times, my whispers came: Be the turtle. You will finish.
To become the
turtle, I needed a new rhythm. While
collecting stones, I reflected on how much I had been living as a Bunny –
filling up long To Do lists, feeling that I had to cross all the items off, not
answering the phone when a friend showed up on caller ID because I thought I
had too much to do, worrying over how untidy my house was when people were
coming to visit, feeling guilty when I wasn’t volunteering for the kids’ school
or activities, stressed when I did sign up for them, screaming at the repair
guy for being late, and so much more.
And that was only at home.
At my
teaching career, Energizer Bunny was more insistent. Students had constant needs and
administrators asserted never-ending demands, changes, trainings, meetings, and
announcements of new problems we the instructors were all expected to seamlessly
take on without complaint or mistake.
And that was before the pandemic.
Then came
Covid. The expectations didn’t change,
but the work did, and we had to do it at home, use our own technology, have no
on-site support, and face new problems as we stayed at home to save lives. I had my office and my classroom in my
bedroom. The Energizer Bunny in me was
done.
Energizer says
its batteries don’t run out. Its Bunny
“keeps going and going and going,” and even after everyone has stopped dead,
“it’s still going.” I’m no Energizer
Bunny. I might have been trained by my
mom to be one, but I had not inherited her Bunny DNA. My own make-up had never been wired to be the
Bunny. But I had to learn that the hard
way. My batteries stopped dead. I could not keep going any longer.
Be the
turtle. You will finish. While
maintaining their compassion, my whispers were nonetheless firm. But everyone mocks the turtle, I replied. No one lives like the turtle. In real life, the turtle is bullied, scoffed
at, and the butt of everyone else’s jokes.
Maybe in the end, he wins, but he’s not enjoying himself if people are
laughing at him. I felt my whispers’ compassion
and heard their brief reply: He’s counter-cultural.
Yes. The turtle’s journey is counter to all that
I’d been taught, had lived, and to our culture.
Even if his fable is well known, nothing about his lesson fits into our
cultural patterns of life, especially where I was raised in high tech San Jose,
nor even where I now live in a small Pacific Northwestern town. I might have moved away from the Bunny’s
territory, but I could never get away from him. To be the turtle, we have to slow
ourselves into a counter-cultural rhythm.
It is to this rhythm that Nature strides.
I chuckled to
myself that I had tried for years to teach a turtle-like rhythm to my writing
students, even if I hadn’t learned it myself.
Having observed the usual strategy students follow for their persuasive
pieces, to decide on a thesis statement and then begin writing, I advised a
different strategy. “If you decide on
your thesis before doing your research,” I warned, “you’ll find yourself a
stationary bicycle, expending a whole lot of energy, but getting nowhere.” Instead, “Decide on your research question,
research it, and then develop your thesis.
That way, you’ll get on real bicycle that goes places.” And wins the race. My whispers spoke up again, interrupting my thoughts
I was unburying stones.
I realized
that I, too, had spent most of my life on that stationary bicycle. Progress had come. My To Do lists were shorter, but the long
ones I still kept in my head. Every day,
I set myself to accomplish certain goals, leaving little room for spontaneity
or leisure with friends and family. So
much energy I had expended on a stationary bicycle, but not getting very far. Is it necessary to get far? My whispers had once again shown up. I let the stones in my hand drop, took a
breath, and sat against the fence. Maybe
not. What had I been striving for and
why? My whispers were gentle. Be the turtle. Walk in a race you don’t know you’re in and
see where it takes you.
I felt my
inner spirit breathing a new rhythm into me.
My stone garden was the first step: one stone at a time, one step at a
time. Like a turtle, I built my Zen
stone garden. And like the bicycle that
goes somewhere, I built it without a “thesis” at the start. Having vowed to use whatever materials I could
unbury in whatever way I could, I didn’t know what the end product would look
like.
When I
finished, I posted this, with the photos shown here, to my friends on social
media:
One step at a time: weeding, cleaning, shifting, simplifying and zenning to create something new. Two veggie gardens & a sand pit lived on this 40x14 plot years ago. Then came the fires and smoke. One year ago, old, torn tarps, lots of weeds, bricks and stones, many of them buried, lived here instead. This past year, one weed and one stone at a time, and $300 for some bark and a few more bricks, I've zenned my way into new simplicity and beauty. I just finished and hope its completion also zens into simplicity and beauty.
Living according to the rhythm of nature in a world that
runs like the Energizer Bunny is challenging.
To trust in the turtle’s pace calls for perseverance, patience, trust in
the greater forces beyond ourselves, and a willingness to let go, if that’s the
way through. Success is not necessarily
assured. But Nature
does not give up. She continues to stride
to her own rhythm, and if we learn to step into her beat, slowly progressing,
like the turtle in a race he doesn’t know he’s in, we will begin to align with
the deeper part of our own nature, connected to Nature herself. This work is a process, carrying obstacles
and losses, yet increasing peace. But if
we, like Nature, do not give up, we can, one by one, like the turtle, return
the rhythm of Nature to humanity on Earth.
© 2023 by Karina Jacobson. All
rights reserved. Please use only with permission from the author.
Return to the Energizer Bunny, Pt 1
