Yesterday in church, the priest asked us to do a mental exercise: list what is most important to us. Mike and my love for him were the only things that came to mind. Then the priest asked if Heaven came to mind. He said if not, we should revise our list.
When I got home, I spent a lot of time on my sad hibiscus shrubs. Two of the three have bad blister mite infestations. I clipped them back the other day. I put off treating them with the Sulfur Dust as I put off everything; I'm afraid I'll do something wrong. I finally did it today. Of course, there were mishaps. Maybe I killed my plants. We'll see.
When I examined the Sulfur Dust container, I found a small hole in the cap attached to a jar tube. It almost looked like the dust was already in liquid form. I squeezed the container, and dust came shooting out into my nose. Let's hope it's deadly only for mites.
I took off the cap and poured the dust into a tablespoon measure. I added water to three tablespoons and mixed until it was the consistency of mustard, as the Farm and Garden clerk told me to. I scooped the mixture into the gallon pump spray bottle. I discovered that there was still some vinegar in the container from when I used it to weed the garden. How would vinegar affect the sulfur dust? I emptied the pump spray bottle into the toilet, rinsed it out, and started again.
I had a good quantity of the mixture left in the bowl. I made more of the mixture, filled the spray pump container up with water, and headed out to do the deed.
I wound up doing some more clipping on the plants because I found more infected leaves. I sprayed and sprayed, and noticed that it was getting stinking hot out. The instructions said not to apply the spray if the temperature was over 850. I ran in to check the local temperature. The Internet said it was 830. Phew!
Then I got to work cutting up the branches I had cut off the shrub to fit them into the two industrial black garbage Yvette gave me. He said the heat in the bags would kill the mites, and then I could feel comfortable adding the branches to the city green waste without worrying that I am contaminating someone else's hibiscus plants. I finally went in, showered, and worked on the blog because the sun was too intense. Kathrin prepared some delicious lunch. She could be a professional cook; she thinks to combine foods and season foods wonderfully with a great presentation.
In the evening, I did some more work on the papers on Mike's desk. I found documents from 2014 that are meaningless now. I think I'm close to finishing the pruning of the library. Next comes finding books and sending them out.
I stopped off at the post office to drop off packages. Two were books, and I thought to ask the clerk about the book shipping policy. She said to make sure not to use liquor boxes. They won't ship them if they believe there is liquor in the boxes instead of books; the price difference is substantial. I spoke to Scott later in the day. He has a source of boxes for me. He also said liquor boxes could be turned inside out: cut at the seam, invert and tape the seam back together. Besides being cheap and half the price, liquor boxes have the advantage of being smaller, which means I can carry them into the post office.
In a NY Times book review on a novel about a good marriage, they spoke about the couple standing crotch to crotch talking about weeding. Ah, that comfortable intimacy, being able to hug someone without worrying about what body parts touch, and routinely having complete body contact just for the pleasure of that contact.
I would often call out, "Okay!" Mike understood and joyfully came to hug and kiss me. I heard again today how people die wishing they had worked less. I don't think work per se is the problem. I think a lack of love is. Mike and I both worked hard, but we also loved each other consistently. We loved being in each other's company, just being together. I had complete trust in him. I think he may have been a little less trustful of me, not because of me but because of his background with his mother. It colored his whole life. He never recovered from the trauma of her treatment of him. It makes me so sad.
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Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.
What does it mean to have Heaven on our list? Why is that important? Some people have Heaven on their list the way others have Disney Land on theirs. It's a place to go where they expect to enjoy themselves. What is the advantage of thinking of it?
I think the priest thinks that it changes your life priorities when you have Heaven on your bucket list. Material gain can pay for Disneyland, but it doesn't do much good for entry to Heaven. Handing in a resume of our accomplishments, which gained our status in the world, won't fit the bill either. It's supposed to put your focus on the ethical issues of life, the way we treat others, and what we do for them.
When I was in my early twenties, I taught in a Long Island school district and lived with two other women who also taught there. It was a nice arrangement. I still look at my time with them affectionately, although I have not maintained contact. One of the women was a cradle Catholic. She came up to me one day and said she had always been taught that people outside the church were never ethical. She said I was one of the most ethical people she had ever met. I had been raised outside of any religious institution by two people who professed not to believe in God. My father used to say, "The Pope is too intelligent to believe all that nonsense."
I didn't learn my concern with ethics in a church. I learned it at the dinner table and at my father's knee. He didn't hand me rules as to what was right or wrong. He engaged me in discussions. I don't think he had anyone else interested in pursuing these topics, so I became his philosophical partner, inappropriately. At the age of twelve, he brought up the subject of sadomasochism. He said that it would be all right between consenting adults.
At the time, I didn't think he meant it in a sexual sense; of course, I had no context for understanding what that would mean in the first place. Being older and wiser, I now know what that might mean, and I still don't think he meant it in a sexual sense. My interpretation, even at the time, was that his relationship with my mother was sadomasochistic. At the time, I thought he was the masochistic, and she the sadist. She certainly had that tendency. My uncle, his brother, told me that he once asked my father how he could tolerate her. His answer was, as my uncle told it, a helpless, "I love her." But I think he demeaned her as much as she tortured him. They each gave as good as they got but in different arenas of the relationship.
That was one of the more extreme discussion topics between my father and me, and those were my thoughts as a preadolescent. I don't recommend it. It's too much for a young mind to grapple with. But, having survived, I did come out with a mind that always asks about the ethical implications of everything I do. At 78, I'm finally comfortable with it, well, reasonably comfortable.
As Mike called it, this ethical imagination was something he and I shared and valued in each other. I don't know about Heaven, but I know that it is easier to live with myself knowing I've done the best I could.
