Nina Ate My Blue Grama Bookmark | Reflecting on Upper Lake Mary | Flagstaff, AZ (August 28, 2018)
My neighbor lent me a book to read and I went to the lake to start reading it.
The trip was also a way for me to test out my new portable hiking chair and read outdoors in a new location without having to search for two suitable trees to hang my hammock from on days when I just want to lounge someplace beautiful instead of walk/hike/bike/drive.
The plains coreopsis domination has ended along the area of the lake where I choose to sit, and there is now an abundance of (but not nearly as many) curlycup gumweeds and blue gramas (among other things).
It was a windy day, so I could comfortably sit in the sun for about an hour at a time without having to retreat to the shade of the tree where I hung my day fannypack. Butterflies, grasshoppers, birds, and the pages of my book all battled against the wind from time to time, but with sunglasses on to block my eyes from the gusts, all was well.
Between reading, I would stare at the lake and the blue gramas and think about how nice it is to see them in their youthful state since it answered my question about what these grasses were when I collected their dried skeletal remains on my winter hikes last season. I love it when I get an answer to my silent questions or to my silent wishes...like when I fantasized about doing a night hike from the west to the east side of Van Courtland Park in New York City on one of my day hikes through the area and then my little cousin's summer school project unexpectedly allowed me to take her into the woods to observe the ecosystem in the area...At some point on our hike to the west side of the park, she lost her homework packet, and when we were ready to head back to her home, I gave her the option to either take the train back or for us to walk back (keeping in mind that night was fast approaching). To my silent delight she chose the latter and I got to share with her the increased volume of the woods on a summer night, anecdotes about Native Americans roaming through the area hundreds of years ago like we were currently doing to the light of the moon, the fact that some plants spread their seeds by sticking to animals (as she found out when she brushed against a bush that had her freaking out for a moment), and the fact that there are stars/celestial bodies that are visible in the sky (even though they were not very abundant or very bright since we were in NYC, she saw a few of them and she had never seen anything in the night sky before). I was incredibly proud of her bravery and developed a deeper level of admiration for her when we emergeged from those woods. She was scared but marched onwards anyway, and fortunately, I was familiar with those woods...I got my wish in a very beautiful way...
That day on the lake was full of warm memories...most likely triggered by the book that my neighbor lent me (a story about the German Occupation) and the context of me having the book (my neighbor lived in Germany through the German Occupation and shared some stories from that time with me as she was also reflected on her life the other day due to the fact that she is now moving closer toward the end of her days here on Earth). That context reminded me of many things...one of which was, as I looked out at the lake, Assi Ghat in Varanasi and the bookstore that Mia-ji recommended...I won't go into what that memory eventually led to. But ultimately, I felt a great sense of gratitude.
At some point during my reflection/lounging/reading, I picked a stalk of blue grama to use as a bookmark since I did not want to crease the pages of a borrowed book and did not remember that I had a bookmark in my pack that also doubles as a ruler. Today, my cat found it when I rested the book on her spot that I created on my desk. She immediately pulled the stalk out of the book, dragged the plant to the floor and ate the grass heads...Her breath smelled really nice afterward...but now I'm googling whether blue grama is safe for cats...I have no definitive answer, so I will keep both eyes on her.
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