YOUR ONE LIFE MAY NOT BE WILD, BUT PRECIOUS IT IS

 

June 2026

I'm giving too much to this world 

Well, not the world perhaps, but the news

Well, not the news perhaps, but the tiny man who dominates the news

That tiny man:  tiny heart, tiny brain, tiny thoughts 

So I swam today, back and forth, right stroke, left stroke, breathe, turn, push off, kick

Hold my breath, float, look at the blue sky, white clouds, green leaves high high above, 

North Carolina tall straight trunks, bending boughs

 Lizards hanging about looking for water

We've had a drought, many weeks without rain

Squirrels bedraggled, thin, weak perhaps, not playful

I don't miss them, they topple my plants

The deer are skinny too, as if it were winter, keeping deep in the forest, 

The meadow brown, clipped and not inviting, nowhere to shelter 

I don't think they are nesting under the cedars, their usual spot

We don't see their morning or evening pattern, too hot, too dry

But the pool, the pool was nice, cool even at 85 degrees with the heat over 100

Something for which I am always grateful, happy, having a pool

Wet hair now, a glass of white wine, fresh clothes, shorts and top

Is it true, the older we get, the more precious Life is?  

Each lizard, each wren (we're keeping the bird baths full)

The blue hydrangea I'm nursing through the drought, encouraging them with water and word

(Yes, I talk to my plants, the trees, the boulders big enough for a buffet )

The salvia and sage, hellebore, marigold, begonia, lantana I water from our well

We had an anniversary recently.  We've been married a long time.  

Friends and grandchildren came, family

I can tell you for sure and you can believe me 

Your one life may not be wild, but precious it is

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD (John 18:36)

 

Trinity Episcopal, Santa Barbara

"If you will trust in God to guide you, and hope in God through all your ways, God will give you strength what 'ere betide you, and bear you through the evil days." (l7th century hymn)

I didn't awake this Sunday morning thinking of God. I began it on my phone reading what we needn't call news anymore because there is nothing new about it:  the Epstein Files, the Strait of Hormuz that I couldn't have located before we bombed Iran, the southern states that are gerrymandering Black voters out of representation now that the Supreme Court majority has reversed the Civil Rights Act, the billionaire grifters ruining/running the country, the liquidation of the United States . . . .  See, not news.  

Then we went to church, the church we are visiting while we are here in Santa Barbara, California.  And the words from a hymn written over 300 years ago about evil days brought everything into focus.  God will "bear you through the evil days."  My morning read was about nothing but evil days.  

We sang the rest of the hymn.  "So do your own part faithfully, and trust God's Word" we continued. I'm not sure what was going on in the 1650s, but today that must mean live out our faith in strength, working for what is just and right for all of us.  I felt like the hymn was speaking to me:  trust in God, hope in God, and do your own part faithfully.  

This seems simple, doesn't it?  Trust, don't lose hope, and follow the commandments.  

I read Engaged Defenders 4 Democracy, ED4D, on Substack.  A Durham based state-wide advocacy group for democracy.  I can't claim to be an active participant in the daily demonstrations across our state.  But I can sign my name, phone, spread the word and donate.  Maybe I/we can help keep hope alive, the mantra popularized by the late Rev. Jesse Jackson in his electrifying speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention that I listened to again today. The man who, sounding a lot like Jesus, said that his Rainbow Coalition was of "the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised." The man who gave us the rainbow as the symbol of inclusivity. 

The Communion Anthem was one we sing often at my home church in North Carolina:  "Let us Break Bread Together on our Knees."  The Blessing was adapted from the Rev. William Sloane Coffin (1924-2006), who prior to his ordination was a CIA officer (I didn't know), which lends a new credibility to his prayer "the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth." 

When I began the morning with the "news," I did not expect or want the journalists to lament the breaking of the Ten Commandments by the regime; or to note its sinful disregard of "Love your neighbor as yourself."  What we want from the free press now under siege, are the facts unadulterated by threats from a political party. We want a separation of church and state.  That separation allows the church to speak truth to power, from the pulpit and from the pew. 

Yes, from the pulpit and from the pew, the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth.  Too small for anything but love.  Attending worship is always a gift.  It is where we hear "You have the words of Eternal Life." Nowhere else.  

Where we are this month, the ocean and mountains remind of the eternality of things.  But so does the Gospel.  Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36). No, but in this world we must keep the commandments, trust, hope and do our own part faithfully. Praise be to God.  AMEN

 

 

 

 

MAY GRAY IN SANTA BARBARA

Fog Lifted, Clear Night

 Not on little cat feet, no, but everyday

The fog floats over the wavy lines of Santa Ynez 

Seen out the window disappeared.

The city too, no valley, no mountain, no horizon;

All obscured by mist.

We could be anywhere.

We could be in the arctic, blinded by snow

Or in a sandstorm.

We could be asleep dreaming, no place no time,

Only close, close the bougainvillea visible,

The water in the fountain heard.

The doves nibbling seed, the woodpeckers the suet.

Can there be an ocean near? The cliffs? The thousand stairs? 

Maybe later, maybe then the city lights shine 

In the valley below this house on a hill

Where we live now this short time happy in the fog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CALIFORNIA THOUGHTS

 While we've been out in California (new reader, North Carolina is our home), I feel like we've visited some of the most beautiful places on earth.  I could be exaggerating, you might say, if you've been in Switzerland, or Fiji, or the Bavarian Alps or the Norwegian fjords.  Where else?  Upstate New York maybe, the Great Lakes, Costa Rica, the American West.  But to me the California coast is a wonder.  One of the best parts is that it is accessible; Hwy 1 (State Route 1) travels up and down the Pacific coast, a kind of harrowing drive actually, according to my husband who did most of the driving. 

At 656 miles, it is second longest State Route in the U.S.  The Big Sur section, from San Luis Obispo to Carmel, is designated a national scenic by-way and we drove the whole thing the other day. It was breathtaking, over and over again. 

Cliff Top homes, Carmel

Point Lobos, Carmel

Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur

Whenever I travel I think about people who were born and raised there.  People for whom this view, this culture, this climate, is what they are used to.  I remember on our honeymoon we had saved every penny to budget-travel Western Europe.  We were in a Zimmer Frei, a room in someone's house available to let. Pre-internet, you would hop off the train and look for a Zimmer Frei sign in a window.  

 

I had barely ever left the Midwest and here we were in Interlaken, in the Swiss Alps with a spray of cold mountain air freshening the streets and outside tables.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to be born here, I thought.  To have my brother and parents and friends here and we knew how to ski and raise goats and we picked Alpine meadow flowers in spring.

 

What if Big Sur weren't someplace you traveled across country to see, but a place you came for picnics on weekends and school holidays?  Do you ever have imaginings like that?  Maybe everyone does, thinks of other lives in other places.  And some are able to make that happen, relocate somewhere exotic or special to them.  

 

My husband and I are too satisfied, too deep into our North Carolina lives to move. That's always been true of some of us, hasn't it?  We like to travel but we love to be home.  Our reality is actually as good or better than any fantasy.  I don't think this is sour grapes (you know, Aesop's fable where the hungry fox decides that the grapes he cannot reach must be sour and not worth eating).  It's healthy to be satisfied.  Smart to admire something but not want it.  Energizing to appreciate some thing, some place, and move on.

 

So, sour grapes notwithstanding, here are a few of the places I am loving and from which, in just 16 more days, we will move on. I hope you enjoy the photos, that they bring up some of your own travel memories.

 

The View from Nepenthe, Big Sur

Back Garden Orange Trees

A long walk down . . . Santa Barbara

Giraffe with an ocean view. Santa Barbara Zoo

 

With all these photos, I feel like this has been a self-indulgent post. I.e., giving me more pleasure than it may give you.  But we do all need breaks from the regime that is too much with us, the crazy-tweeter too much with us, and his exploitive billionaire cohorts too much everywhere.  So, thank you for taking this break with me.    Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMORIES OF HOMES

 Is there one place you have lived that you love more than any other?  Is it because of the place, the time or the people?  I may be thinking about this because we are living in our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California.  I have been posting about this.  They have a view of the mountains.  None of my own homes has ever been in a setting like this. 

My life is more prosaic.  Our North Carolina home is mid-century modern with trees and a meadow. Lots of privacy but always needing clean-up and repair.  Fallen branches, flooding creek, piles of debris.  Deer ticks and humidity.  A lovable place in every way, but hard to keep up.  Here, "seems it never rains in southern California," as the song goes.  So as house-sitters, we are watering desert-like pot plants that sit on a pebbled patio (no grass of course).  I never knew how vibrant bougainvillea are. 

Where do you live?  Overlooking a city street?  Traffic sounds out front?  Do you have a balcony to lean over?  Can you wave when a neighbor walks by?  Or is it swings and a sandbox in the back yard for you?  Have you been able to make all the places you've lived feel like home?

Where we have lived in Princeton, New Jersey for short stints, the bathroom window abuts the sidewalk where the kids line up for their school bus.  The kitchen door opens to a fire escape and laundry is in a moldy basement.  But with plants, pillows and fairy lights it's a super place to live.  I could make that home.

Where we stay in London, we carry our laundry to the basement across the street.  Years ago when we lived there as international students, we were all young and having babies.  Decades later we lived in a colleague's apartment in Zimbabwe while our London-born daughter taught in Lebowa, South Africa. Twice a week a woman washed our few clothes in the bathtub and swept the worn carpet with a broom. I remember all these places with affection.

I think about people who have lived in the same place forever.  Maybe that's you.  My best friend from childhood-to-now, has lived in our native state her whole life. Her children and grandchildren too. Same with my favorite cousin who is like an older sister. I can't help but think that because their friendships are longer, they must be deeper than mine. Deeper connections with place, with the history around them.

The other thing about homes, though, is they aren't just places of comfort.  We all know that tragedies happen in our homes.  Bad news.  Hurtful discoveries.  Facts that won't disappear.  Words that can't be unspoken:  forgiven, yes, but not unsaid.  Where love is greatest, emotional distress is too. Our beloved pets die.  Our parents die.  A spouse, a partner and yes, even a child may die.  So home isn't just a refuge.  It's where we get bad news as well as good.  We have fights there.  We get hurt there.  We crawl inside our closets and hide our scars. Home is not such a simple place after all.

The sayings about home are interesting. Is home people or a place?  I don't have a single friend in London, but the city myself is my friend.  I know the bus routes and alleyways, the neighborhood restaurants.  I can shelter in a museum or cafe. Many of us have a favorite city.  

Robert Frost (1874-1963) says, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  That may be true if our parents are alive.  Or a brother or sister or friend who loves us.  But not everyone has a place like that.  The greatest scourge is homelessness.

British poet Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) says that winter is the time for home--good food, comfort and warmth.  But so are the other seasons, we might say.  I am here in our friends' home in spring.  That too is a time for home, when we might grow with the season.  Or summer, when the sun warms our souls and bodies. Or fall, when the reds and yellows remind us of death and rebirth.

My widowed father lived in his home until two weeks before he died at age 94.  By that time home was a small apartment in a retirement community where he had spent the last ten years. He enjoyed it as much as any home where he had ever lived: company, good food, activities and just 10 minutes from me.  May we all be so fortunate.

Thoughtfully, Nina Naomi 

  

  

THIS IS OUR WORLD TODAY

We are still at our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California marveling at the different vistas of creation--the Santa Ynez mountains, the Los Padres National Park and the endless Pacific.  Have you visited friends or family in distant places?  North Carolina has mountains and sea, cities, college towns and villages.  It is my favorite state--home.  

But different ecosystems are a wonder to see.  Here we have sage brush, sea lavender and the iconic ice plant all protecting the cliffs from erosion.  The fig and eucalyptus trees--the latter the tallest known flowering tree on earth--are abundant.  Also the jacaranda with their purple blooms in May.  

 

This is different than visiting a city. No skyscrapers or even tall buildings as this land is earthquake prone.  Fires a present danger too.  Maybe you have lived in California and know more than I.  I am awed by the shoreline and cliffs, mountains and sky.  The people too, all friendly and dog lovers, as am I.  Without a pup now, I covet the animals we see being walked along the shoreline or off-leash on a designated beach.  

The other thing we love is visiting other churches.  Here we attend an Episcopalian church.  We can see the spire from the window of our friends' home, which is on a hill.  I light candles in our home church and in churches where we visit.  I have done this for over 30 years, wherever we find ourselves.   It is good to be with people who worship the same God.  It is good to be with people like Californians, who work so hard to protect their immigrant population.  My first NO KINGS day was here. 

Our friend whose house this is, is bilingual and coordinates a community carpool to take immigrants to doctor's and other appointments.  Her husband, a pastor, has served churches in vacancy.  Like Durham, North Carolina, this is a good place. 

Since 2017 I have been posting in my mother's name, Nina Naomi, in this blog titled "Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover."  With Mother's Day next weekend and house-sitting in a spot where mindfulness faces not a single obstacle and nature is wild and abundant, I feel grateful and calm.  I hope you do too.  We, you and I, are not replicating each other's experiences.  I am usually at home with the chores an old house brings and the stresses of age.  You may be home with chores, job and family.  But we share the need for time outdoors, time with trees and garden, time for possibly prayer and reflection and perhaps to light a candle, if only for ourselves.  

So wherever we are, let's take care.  Of ourselves, each other and God's creation.  And if you are inclined to share your reflections on this post, please do.  I would love to hear from you.             Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

 

 

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US"

 

Dwarf Red Maple and Snap Dragons

I started writing this post last week, seated outdoors with time to think. Having just finished my peruse of The Guardian, half my mind was on Donald Trump, who facing 80 and dementia, posted an AI picture of himself as Jesus Christ.  Inanity and blasphemy. Like all of us when "[t]he world is too much with us," to quote William Wordsworth (1770-1850), I needed to transition back to the moment.    

How better than to share the beauty of the courtyard where I was sitting, the dwarf red maple newly blooming with last year's snap dragons reseeded?  My daughter-in-law had said that morning that we must pace our attention to the state of our country. So I worked in the yard, watering the moss because we are in a drought; pruning the dead branches from the hydrangea, which always bloom on our anniversary, early June; and best of all--swam. (Yes, it reached 81℉ that day where we live in North Carolina.)

Last year's fulsome bounty!

We live in an old mid-century modern house with a small concrete pool.  Great for my bad back.  I can slide in and reach the other side in eight strokes.  A luxury I never dreamed of until we found this abandoned property over 20 years ago.  After a lap, I raised my head to a small field mouse, paddling in desperation.  I put a float under it and out it scampered, into the grasses.  Whew!  

So a small but, to me, luxurious day.  I always feel like I may not deserve this old house in the woods with mice and a pool.  I may not deserve a long marriage and retirement.  I may not deserve the free-time to sit and blog.  Do you ever feel like you don't deserve your good things?

Now, this week, we are back at our friends' house in Santa Barbara, California; the third year they have invited us to house-sit while they're gone, leaving our sweet old home to the field mice, squirrels and deer and my indoor plants to my gracious daughter-in-law. Here the purple jacaranda are in bloom.  I feel lucky again. 

How do you feel about your life?  I hope you mostly--if not entirely--love it.  Are content with it.  Wouldn't want to trade with anyone else at all.  Most of us say that, I've read. We may need more security and better health, but our life is ours. We won't give it away. 

No matter how we feel, here are my suggestions for spring, the suggestions of someone who has lived long:  Stick with the outdoors, stick with nature.  Wordsworth's poem continues, 

"late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" 

Backing away from the news from time to time keeps our hearts intact. Loving nature helps us love our lives, doesn't it?  I plant a few pansies and when the heat takes them, choose impatiens, begonias and geraniums.  Here at my friend's I am planting her thyme, basil, mint and oregano. My own has come up fresh and fragrant.

While here, I enjoy the orange and lemon trees, the amazingly fuchsia bougainvillea and the sight of the cold Pacific Ocean.  This is unusual for me.  Many people live in vacation spots or cities and towns known for their charm.  Not exactly true of Durham, North Carolina, a blue-collar town we do not intend to leave. 

So, there is no moral to this story.  Trump and his cruelty continue but so do our lives and loves.  So does God's creation.  So do our daily needs and resets.  So does the means of our salvation, our relationship with our God, with our families, with the life and water outside our door. 

Somehow after writing, this feels to me a bit like a prayer.  

AMEN

Nina Naomi