Rainy August and other mysteries

Can you believe the summer we're having? I only wish I'd planted the trees I plan to plant this fall (say that 3 times fast), as all the rain would've helped things establish in their first year! As it is, I'm in waiting mode. The solarizing plastic is still down, and it seems to be working except around the edges. I'm nervous that all this effort will be for naught and the damn grass will come back with a vengeance... except, we were successful with the damn 'boo, in the end. I'm planning to hire a crew to come dig out the bermuda remnants, and I hope it's not too insanely pricey. With 3000 square feet to worry about, this is a manual labor job that's just too big for me. I've already told the family all I want for my birthday is a contribution to the Big Garden Project fund. Is that mercenary? I don't know. The weekend was hard. I thought I'd gotten numb to all the funerals this year, and I didn't quite prepare. Mom's having a hard time. I had lots of memories about dad. For goodness' sake, the memorial was in the same place as Dad's rosary service. It's all just too heavy... Welcome to adulthood, I suppose. People die. Shit goes wrong. You don't get those sunny, relatively trouble-free seasons you had when you were in college and the worst things that happened were you got drunk and fell on your ass at a party. Meandering along...we had an interesting discussion about spirituality, my sisters and I. Mostly, I still feel like the family alien, but at least we found we could share our perspectives and disagree with respect. That's progress, as it used to be a taboo topic. One sister is very Jesus-centric, the other is mostly so, though less fundamental in her point-of-view. Mom's hardcore Catholic. Me, I think all the stories are true. The Buddha stories, the Jesus story, the native american legends, the Greek myths... There's a kernel of truth about the ineffable in them, and that's what is meaningful for me. I get lost in the details when I try to adhere to any one faith completely. It stifles me. But when I just connect with the mystery that I believe all the stories are trying to elucidate, I find peace and serenity. In family discussions of spirituality and religion, I feel like the outsider. But my husband and I essentially share the same worldview, despite the fact that I was raised with an overload of religion and he was raised with none. Last night when I got home, he hit the TIVO and we started watching Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth, and suddenly I felt less alone in my heart. That's what matters.