Meaningful Mud's Monthly Mu - November 2024
"a single green sprouting thing would restore me"
Hey there,
And welcome to Meaningful Mud’s Monthly Mu November edition. Where you could definitely be a whole bunch of other places, I thank you all for being here. It is deeply appreciated.
Throughout this past month, for more afternoons than I can count, the first sight I encountered upon returning home was the street’s red emergency water hose carelessly discarded and tangled at the foot of my apartment’s door and the building’s exterior entirely soaked and muddy. Despite my neatly rolling it up, placing it back in its casing and securing the lock, the following day I was greeted by the same haphazardly strewn hose on a damp and puddled sidewalk, my very own Groundhog Day.
I imagined these not-putting-stuff-back-where-you-find-it-spraying-flooding-water-wasting rascals to be a group of neighborhood teenagers whose irrigation shenanigans were but one intentionally unruly act in their rebellious repertoire of mostly underwhelming coming-of-age antics (oh the pains and pressures of being 13!).
These thoughts and accusations were accompanied by brave, generous and mostly unrealistic imaginings of myself. In these musings I confronted the culprits with a Clint Eastwood-like sternness, the reverberations of which caused them, for the duration of their days and that of their children’s, to hurriedly scurry over to the opposite sidewalk as my apartment’s facade ever so faintly emerged in the distance.
Each day feeling as if I was oh so marginally close to catching these crafty and elusive adolescents, last week, upon approaching my building, I faintly detected the vibrating hissing of water and its swooshing rise and fall as it alternately made contact with the concrete surfaces and squared off shrubbery.
Mentally preparing myself for this showdown, upon turning the corner my built-up adrenaline and energy evaporated into the humid air and my metaphorically raised finger of unequivocal accusation slowly dropped to my side, promptly plummeting me into an icy gully of sadness and despair.
Uncombed matted hair, torn and faded t-shirt, dirt-stained skirt and sagging socks. Standing before was a homeless woman watering the sidewalk’s trees, plants and hedges with such care and undiluted affection and attention.
Disenfranchised and locked outside the realm of societal belonging.
Isolated and excluded.
Removed from and robbed of the opportunity to contribute and help something grow.
Here - the plants and the trees and the bushes and the water hose - the senders of the sole invitation received in years to partake in the life affirming act of nurturing and giving; her sanguinely and ever so presently inhabiting this last remaining vestige open and available to her.
"The immensity, the torrent of the world, in a little inch of matter."
“The turbid ebb and flow of human misery.”
The folly of our certainties.
Where does it all lead?
Beats me…
But my fellow readers, friends, family and everything and one in between, I wish you all a month of growing, of growing things, of helping things grow, of making space for others to grow and for others to grow things.
I thank you all again for your being here and hope you find this little read worthwhile.
Take great care everyone.
Tyler
Abundance
in memory of Mary Oliver
By Amy Schmidt
It’s impossible to be lonely when you’re zesting an orange. Scrape the soft rind once and the whole room fills with fruit. Look around: you have more than enough. Always have. You just didn’t notice until now.
Shout out to Raphi for sending this excerpt my way (and of course for holding down the Tinos and Andros forts with such grace!)
“Among the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard anyone say came from my student Bethany, talking about her pedagogical aspirations or ethos, how she wanted to be as a teacher, and what she wanted her classrooms to be, she said: ‘What if we joined our wildernesses together?’ Sit with that for a minute. That the body, the life, might carry a wilderness, an unexplored territory, and that yours and mine might somewhere, somehow, meet. Might, even, join.
“And what if the wilderness — perhaps the densest wild in there — thickets, bogs, swamps, uncrossable ravines and rivers (have I made the metaphor clear?) — is our sorrow? Or, to use Smith’s term, the ‘intolerable.’ It astonishes me sometimes — no, often — how every person I get to know — everyone, regardless of everything, by which I mean everything — lives with some profound personal sorrow. Brother addicted. Mother murdered. Dad died in surgery. Rejected by their family. Cancer came back. Evicted. Fetus not okay. Everyone, regardless, always, of everything. Not to mention the existential sorrow we all might be afflicted with, which is that we, and what we love, will soon be annihilated. Which sounds more dramatic than it might. Let me just say dead. Is this, sorrow, of which our impending being no more might be the foundation, the great wilderness?
“Is sorrow the true wild?
“And if it is — and if we join them — your wild to mine — what’s that?
“For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation.
“What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying.
“I’m saying: What if that is joy?”
- Ross Gay, The Book of Delights
Sonic Suggestions
This past month I was swallowed down many a beautiful rabbit hole of throwback ‘Together at Home’ COVID concerts. Sharing with you one of my all-time favorites. I hope you enjoy.
Also, please do sign the petition below calling for the swift return of concerts such as these together with the fleeting societal appreciation we all had for essential workers!
The menu ain’t the meal but give it a bash anyway
“He bought a banana from a fruit stand, and then another several blocks further down. He had always been passionately fond of bananas; they were the sole indulgence of his sudden affluence.”
- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Sharing with you all a banana infused/inspired recipe of my dear friend and captain of the swimming team. Presenting Nathan’s Bountiful Banana and Pecan Teabread.
What you need:
3 large ripe bananas
1 cup of self raising flour
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1/2 cup of unsalted and softened butter
2 eggs
2 tbsp of golden syrup
Handful of pecan nuts
Instructions:
Peel (obviously) and mash bananas in a bowl. Beat in the rest of the ingredients (apart from the pecan nuts) until well combined.
Spoon the mixture into a pre-greased tin and spread out evenly. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 160 degrees until golden, well risen and firm to the touch.
Patiently observe the loaf resting for 30 minutes, write a poem and then turn out onto a wire rack.
Thank your divine and enjoy.
“Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke ‘em down to nothing.”
― Tom Waits
Thank you all once again for stopping by here. It is not taken for granted. Not for a moment!
Please also consider forwarding this little offering to a loved one, friend or stranger and feel free to reach out should you wish to share any comments, critiques or suggestions. I would love to hear from you all.
Wishing you all a neighborly November!
