jungle bunny hops

olives to bananas
i know, it's been many moons and so much has happened. this is certainly a time of transformation and being pushed to the edge of the burning platform that signals change. for the entire world, globe, planet and me.
from olive picking to banana bunches as bird food. the bicycles are a link but the road surface has shifted from lumpy tar to round rocks over mud. swimming from salty turquoise to river flowing brown at the banks. croatia to costa rica with 30 hours flying or roaming airports, then another 5 meandering from the capital to this village school site.
I did locate a man and there have been leaps to and fro from his place to mine and back. didn't realize that it would be such an undertaking, huge challenge to meld two lives. I mean I knew intellectually but had no idea it would take so much time and energy and throw me off my gyro center and my sense of self out the window. everything came into question. all those dust bunnies in my brain corners were exposed and spotlighted. or another image, having someone reach into your gut and bring out the bloody bits and you're faced with looking at them without blinking. and then the looming question of - is it all worth it? if expectations can be released and behaviors observed without judging, what does the final story resemble - tragedy, comedy, drama, light or heavy? and of course we know that time will tell and the tide will wash us up on whatever shore the current chooses. can this hare be patient with the turtle and let go of past patterns and pains? at this late date i'm no tabula rasa though my memory seems decidedly thin at best. I'm thinking my childlike attributes include experiencing as if for the first time linked with the ripeness creating a framework of having done this before to guide. whenever I talk to my coupledom friends the exact same issues and points of difference arise so that makes me think that this is bigger than bingo and collectively highlighted as a challenge for men and women. Must say I'm hearteded to learn that the vedas predict the next wave will be women-led though probably later than my time here in this body.
my toes are adorned with black-eyed susans at their winking corners and thin green fronds on the dusky pink curved canvas. there's a wedding this afternoon so the entire village will be there in their finest. we'll join them, gawking and gabbing and generally going glam.

oddities of life

ritual
No one I've asked so far seems to know the original purpose for this, but the locals say it is the penis of Grgur Ninski who is the giant statue a stone's throw away-it's his toe that is golden smooth because you must rub it for luck. when a friend was visiting I told him the ritual was to kiss it. oops. And how did the penis fall so far from the statue you might ask? This and other questions I ask myself when encountering life in another country, another culture of tradition and deep history.
But daily life and its details rise to the surface. Like the paint situation. I want to repaint my kitchen and I'd like some gloss so that it's easier to clean. Not wanting to start a thought with "In America" but I must since I was just there and buying paint for a bathroom. "How glossy would you like it-we have 4 choices?" But the local hardware stores have only matte finish paint. Shiny does not exist. At the cafe below my street, well it's more like a tiny alleyway, the young guy who manages it had a paint chip fan in front of him and my pupils dilated. I asked where it was from and if they had shiny paint. "Of course, they have everything!" The store is a few villages away, the next town of size. So I hitched a ride with a neighbor and got a bucket of white for starters. Came home, slapped the creamy glop on the ceiling and voila- matte again. so it's back to the search for any kind of gloss. And a penis that doesn't fall so far from the man.

the more things change

'Have you been swimming yet?' That's the local greeting these days. It's been an odd spring here. The first of May is when we non-natives usually start jumping into the turquoise waters while the Croatians traditionally wait until St. Anthony's day in the middle of July to take the plunge. Last year- for some reason I remember the date though usually numbers slip through my sieve brain oh so quickly - I began the sea ritual on the 28th of April. So now we greet each other with the question, to ascertain if there is a braver or randier soul in our sphere.
Tourists were plentiful over the first of May holiday when the bars started opening in the morning and all of the ice cream parlors stocked their freezers. But now it's rather quiet again. Some bicycle tours in colorful lycra with bird beak helmets with heads down to get up the hill to where I live. And mostly there's daily work to do in the field - weed the onions and potatoes, tend the grapevines and above all use that weed whacker under the olives and everywhere else you can reach.

where have all the bees gone?

I had heard there was a problem of dying bees. But that was from an American and I thought that this island hadn't been - and might not be - affected because the hum of the multitudes of flying pollinators was so loud behind my house. This year, when I asked my neighbor if he was selling pollen as usual, he said there had been a very bad year, 'slabo', and he didn't have much. And my local friend, who showed me how to use an extractor one day when I stopped by to see his wife and fresh baby, said they'd lost more than 30% of their bees this winter. The world does come to paradise...
So I decided to do a little research and found that it is a world-wide problem and that some scientists think the bees' immune system has been compromised. When tested, they carry every virus plus a few fungi that bee people know about. There is some evidence that they lose their orientation and can't find their way back to the hive. Who would think that intricate navigation instinct could be twisted? I don't want to get morbid, which is soft in Italian, but without bees the whole revolving system of plants and people is rather tilted.

solar rain

this is reputed to be a ridiculously sunny island so when it rains there is a sense of relief and comfort. this morning the air was still and almost imploded with anticipation. i planted spinach and plucked some archived chard-blitva in the local lingua-in my compact garden. Taku, my Japanese neighbor who swells the ranks of foreigners in the village to a whopping two, came over with the salvaged wooden bed sides that he trimmed for my kitchen-shelf-to-be.
and now it's raining. steadily, diligently through the birdsong-they are no help to know when it stops dripping as they sing on-and watering the olives, budding lemons and mandarins, flourishing artichokes and lavender greening up. I can still hear the lament of the weed whackers but anticipate the wet may silence them soon.

chirps abounding

spring is in the air and throbbing in the wildflowers. bird activity is high with sounds to accompany. i'm procrastinating morning yoga and accepting the avian voices as a call to prayer. the church bells are sounding nine so it's well nigh time to call for loosening of muscles and mind.