I did what I said I'd do today and wandered and roamed and knelt in the dirt and the fucking ants bit me through my overalls but that's their job. I cannot hate them although that does not stop me from cursing them.
So much in life is like that, don't you think?
I didn't get much tidying done in the house, although the garden is a tiny bit less messy, the bug-laced collards gone to the goats, the bonsai, slug-snotted cabbage heads too. I did a little weeding, I picked a nice bowlful of cherry tomatoes, some fine regular ones, a squash (it is time to pull those up, they are wilted and sad and I can tell they are weary and would love to be put out of their misery) and a good number of banana peppers. And one lovely fat onion which was bent over and ready to be plucked for sure.
I am so behind everyone with my garden this year. People are talking about what a great year for green beans it was and mine have just truly begun to bloom. And my cucumbers...well. The less said about them, the better.
I had forgotten but then remembered that there was a Stage Company board meeting tonight at six so I took a shower and put on a bra and some other clothes and drove to Monticello to attend. I enjoy these meetings but feel guilty because I never really DO anything for the Stage Company. I merely show up to the meetings (and I am extremely punctual!) and sometimes I crack jokes and sometimes I make a motion and sometimes I second a motion and I often bring up shit that has nothing to do with the Stage Company and get us off track and I usually say something incredibly and blatantly blasphemous and I don't know why I do that. I just can't seem to help it. I don't even know if I want to act in plays anymore. I had a lovely run doing that but it gets harder all the time, memorizing lines and showing up for rehearsals which isn't so bad and is really the part I love but then there are the performances with all the necessary costumage and make-up and hair and the nerves and the fear that I'll ruin the entire production by forgetting pages and pages of dialogue and for a woman who finds it stressful to figure out what to make for dinner, it's a lot.
But my dear friend Judy wants to direct Arsenic And Old Lace and she wants me to read for it and so I've taken a script to read. I may be the only person on the planet who has never seen this play.
Well. We shall see.
Mr. Moon is out of town and I still have a load of laundry to fold and all of it to put away and the center island in the kitchen is one big clusterfuck of mail and books, both audio and real-with-pages and the tomatoes and peppers I picked and the eggs I gathered and my purse and the script of Arsenic And Old Lace and another script I'm supposed to read and the treasurer's report and magazines and index cards and Mr. Moon's lunch box and crap, crap, crap. I swear that before I go to bed, I'm going to DO SOMETHING with all of that shit and create order there. Somehow. Some way. And I suppose I need to make something to eat although it would not hurt me one bit to eat nothing at all, maybe a cherry tomato and call it a day.
The night critters are calling so fiercely that it's like a velvet curtain of sound pulling in the darkness. I have got to go to the eye doctor, I can barely focus at night and writing this, I find myself closing one eye and I do that every night and I do it while watching TV and I do it while reading and this can't be good. This has been going on for years and is one more reminder that aging is a fucking bitch, a biting, stinging red ant of a fucking bitch and like with the real ants, I understand, but still, I curse it. I keep thinking about David's mother, twenty-five years older than me with her long white hair, her strength, her sparkly shoes and her pearl-laden hair clips. I think of how she conducted that orchestra and chorus, her back straight as a young oak's trunk. I think about her saying, "I had cancer and it took me awhile to get over that and now I need to get healthy," and I feel like a baby, a whining baby.
It's okay. I can feel however I want and need to feel.
It's dark as ink now. It is well and truly night. I will sleep alone tonight. Tomorrow I will see my grandsons and my children and my husband will come home.
I wonder why I need to sit and write this. I wonder why I need to blaspheme. I do not think that God's eye is on the sparrow nor do I think His eye is on me. Which is sort of a relief.
Love...Ms. Moon
Monday, June 17, 2013
A Blackberry Day
I'm moving slowly today but I did take a walk. I feel like maybe my heart exploded and it's trying to patch itself up again or at least become accustomed to its new construction. Deconstruction. Whatever.
When I ran into Bubba-With-One-Leg (not the one who shot himself but the one who walks) and we chatted for a moment, I found my eyes spilling with tears for no reason at all except that he has the kindest eyes and he is always so sweet to me and he gets out and he walks and he notices when I've been missing and that was all it took.
"I'm a mess," I told him. And I am.
But it's okay. Maybe, like in the Jason Mraz song, a beautiful mess.
The blackberries are ripening and ready to begin picking. Some of them are small nubbins, the sort that you have to pick a million of to make a pie but some, the ones more in the shade, are big and plump and beautiful.
Those bushes, of course, are more scarce and I should get out there with my cut-off milk jug tied around my waist to pick the large ones and the small. There are no riches to compare with jars of blackberry preserves stored in the cabinet to open in winter, sweet purple-black jewels to spread on biscuits and pancakes. When I pick them, even if I am wearing long sleeves (a torture in this heat), the prickly bushes catch me and my arms end up bleeding and the thick, clotted spots look not unlike the the juice of the berries themselves, especially when have been cooked down with the sugar. We are made of salt though, so there the comparison ends.
The Gulf Coast Fritillaries are out, sipping from one plant to another. They are fluttering flowers, moving in and out of the bushes and it's not until you stop to look do you realize the sheer number of them. I hear that their favorite food is the nectar of the Passion Flower and those are beginning their blooming. I will get a picture soon although I have posted them many times. They delight me every year and every year, when I see them, I am reminded of the first time I ever saw one and I was so shocked by it- it was so completely unlike any flower I'd ever seen- that I truly did think it had arrived from another planet. There was no other explanation. But here is the butterfly, no less beautiful for its abundance.
I am so grateful to be surrounded by all of this nature, even if sometimes it ends up being TOO MUCH NATURE as Lily screamed once when confronted with not only a bat but a cockroach in the small confined space of the bathroom. I just swept up and tossed outside the desiccated corpse of a small frog, covered in red ants from my porch and Mr. Moon finally successfully trapped a huge rat which has been nesting beneath the lawn mower in the garage. The only snakes I've seen so far this year have been flattened ones on the road, though. I know they're here, I just haven't run across one yet. It will happen either in my yard or in the fields when I pick berries or on the path as I walk. It always does. I would much rather NOT find one in the hen house, an egg halfway down it's throat but that, too, is always possible and I am careful when I check for eggs. They are no threat to me, those oak snakes, but they are a shock to the system.
Sssserpent, says my brain. Beware.
Even the most beautiful black snake I ever saw, lying in the sun and spied by me while I was picking berries a few years ago gave me that immediate reaction but I stood back and watched it for some time, awed by its beauty which is somehow alien too, like the Passion Flower.
I have two sagos blooming in my yard. One, the female.
It is making seeds. Can you see them?
And the other, most decidedly and proudly and erectly male.
Sagos are not truly palms at all, but are more closely related to pines. That is the cone you see and isn't it a fine thing? I looked around on the internet a little bit and read that some people find these offensive and wonder if you can cut them. Oh my. What sort of a prude would you have to be to think like that? The expert suggested merely throwing a towel over them if they offend because cutting them before they dry up is deleterious to the plant. The sight of that one which is growing in front of my front porch delights me. As I always say, when Nature finds a design she likes, she uses it wherever she can.
I have on my overalls now. I think I will get out in the garden (moving slowly, so slowly) and do a little work there. I feel the need to journey with no apparent destination in my yard and house, perhaps like the Fritillary, flitting from this task to that one, from kitchen to laundry room, to garden, to hen house, picking up this, pulling that, trimming back this, washing, folding, tidying both in house and in yard. I do not want to identify myself today as anything in particular, neither indoor-creature nor out, and I have the AC off and the doors open so that there is no real delineation. The crickets are singing summer chorals and the air is still. I am putting myself back together again as I put my tiny world back together, or at least in some regard.
I do not really think I'm a mess at all. Not even a beautiful one. I am simply being. And if tears come easily, well, all for the better. There is no reason not to cry if I need to. There is no reason not to realize that this is a perfect day as it is, as I move slowly through it, as much a part of it as a sago bloom, a butterfly, a hen's egg, a tiny frog. This day is not unlike a blackberry, ripe and plump and ready to pick, sweet and warm from the sun.
When I ran into Bubba-With-One-Leg (not the one who shot himself but the one who walks) and we chatted for a moment, I found my eyes spilling with tears for no reason at all except that he has the kindest eyes and he is always so sweet to me and he gets out and he walks and he notices when I've been missing and that was all it took.
"I'm a mess," I told him. And I am.
But it's okay. Maybe, like in the Jason Mraz song, a beautiful mess.
The blackberries are ripening and ready to begin picking. Some of them are small nubbins, the sort that you have to pick a million of to make a pie but some, the ones more in the shade, are big and plump and beautiful.
Those bushes, of course, are more scarce and I should get out there with my cut-off milk jug tied around my waist to pick the large ones and the small. There are no riches to compare with jars of blackberry preserves stored in the cabinet to open in winter, sweet purple-black jewels to spread on biscuits and pancakes. When I pick them, even if I am wearing long sleeves (a torture in this heat), the prickly bushes catch me and my arms end up bleeding and the thick, clotted spots look not unlike the the juice of the berries themselves, especially when have been cooked down with the sugar. We are made of salt though, so there the comparison ends.
The Gulf Coast Fritillaries are out, sipping from one plant to another. They are fluttering flowers, moving in and out of the bushes and it's not until you stop to look do you realize the sheer number of them. I hear that their favorite food is the nectar of the Passion Flower and those are beginning their blooming. I will get a picture soon although I have posted them many times. They delight me every year and every year, when I see them, I am reminded of the first time I ever saw one and I was so shocked by it- it was so completely unlike any flower I'd ever seen- that I truly did think it had arrived from another planet. There was no other explanation. But here is the butterfly, no less beautiful for its abundance.
Sssserpent, says my brain. Beware.
Even the most beautiful black snake I ever saw, lying in the sun and spied by me while I was picking berries a few years ago gave me that immediate reaction but I stood back and watched it for some time, awed by its beauty which is somehow alien too, like the Passion Flower.
I have two sagos blooming in my yard. One, the female.
It is making seeds. Can you see them?
And the other, most decidedly and proudly and erectly male.
I have on my overalls now. I think I will get out in the garden (moving slowly, so slowly) and do a little work there. I feel the need to journey with no apparent destination in my yard and house, perhaps like the Fritillary, flitting from this task to that one, from kitchen to laundry room, to garden, to hen house, picking up this, pulling that, trimming back this, washing, folding, tidying both in house and in yard. I do not want to identify myself today as anything in particular, neither indoor-creature nor out, and I have the AC off and the doors open so that there is no real delineation. The crickets are singing summer chorals and the air is still. I am putting myself back together again as I put my tiny world back together, or at least in some regard.
I do not really think I'm a mess at all. Not even a beautiful one. I am simply being. And if tears come easily, well, all for the better. There is no reason not to cry if I need to. There is no reason not to realize that this is a perfect day as it is, as I move slowly through it, as much a part of it as a sago bloom, a butterfly, a hen's egg, a tiny frog. This day is not unlike a blackberry, ripe and plump and ready to pick, sweet and warm from the sun.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
We are home. We are home and the chickens are going to roost and I've filled up their waterer and turned the sprinkler on in the garden and slapped one mosquito dead.
We're home.
I wish so much that I had a hundred photographs so that I could show them all to you.
"This," I would say, "was Becky when she was a baby. And then I could point to another picture and say, "This is how we all looked back when Hank and May and Sarah and Becky were babies. Don't we look so young? And over here," I'd point to another, "this is what Sarah's children look like. Aren't they gorgeous? And doesn't Sarah look just like her mother and didn't Becky too?"
I would have pictures of the small orchestra that played at the service yesterday with David's mother conducting it, her long white hair braided and wrapped into a bun, her posture like that of a nineteen-year-old ballet dancer's, the life-force bursting from her as Bach and Mozart was played. I would have pictures of Becky's aunt, and tell you about the soaring soprano voice of hers which raised to the rafters and floated above us all and moved our hearts and was sacred. I would show you pictures of the band who sang a John Prine song and a Bonnie Raitt song because Becky had loved them and that was sacred too.
But already you can tell- pictures wouldn't do it. There would have to be sound.
The sound of David's voice as he talked about his daughter and the camp she wanted to start for kids with severe disabilities like the kids she taught, so that the children could go to camp and their caregivers could take a break, a vacation.
There was all of that and e.e. cummings and there were all the people. The people who knew Becky as an adult and the people who had known her parents since they were young themselves, before they knew what heartbreak was. When life was perfect before them, everything complete potential and despite the problems of how to make a living and toddler tantrums, knew in their hearts that everything was good and as it should be and that this is how it should be and I'm not telling this right.
There was the sound of crying. There was the husband who had married Becky a week after her diagnosis and loved her with all of his being up until and still. Who was by her side until that was denied him by her passing.
There was the sight of pure, steel strength. There were children and there were hands clasped tightly and there were whispered stories and there were deep, full hugs and I-love-you's.
No, no, no. I'm not getting this right.
Listen. We came together. All of us. The parents and the step-parents and the aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and grandparents and step-grandparents and the friends. If I laid out a chart of how all of these people are part of my life, you would not believe it. I would show you pictures and say, "See this boy? I loved him and his mother is right there and his brother was one of my best friends, and see this boy? I loved him too and his mother is there, his father there. See this man? I was married to him and he was the father's best friend from childhood and...oh, it's already confusing.
Life is so strange and we get so entwined with each other.
When I was a very young woman I was intimidated as hell by David's mother. Everyone was. EVERY one. She was a force of nature. She raised four kids and taught music and stil managed to get from Winter Haven to Tallahassee (and she flat-out flew down the highways, she was famous for that drive and how quickly she could make it) to get her PhD in music and she gave parties and she was the wife of a doctor who was also a grove-owner and her kids all grew up to be musicians and she scared the living daylights out of me.
Last night she said to me, "I like your hair." My hair is currently extremely long but not as long as hers.
"I like yours, too," I said.
"I just got eight inches cut off," she told me. "It was down to the bottom of my butt."
And after all these years of me thinking she never liked me, we got down TO IT. We talked about life and mothering and mothers and kids and grandkids and this morning when I saw her at breakfast, she called me "Sweetie" and something in me is healed by that.
And just saying that makes me feel so selfish but there you are.
Another good friend from high school showed up. I looked up through the window of Becky and Chris's house where we were all gathering and I saw his face and it was a complete surprise and it was completely not a surprise. My best friend from high school's brother, another man I loved to pieces. And we all sat around and we told stories and we laughed and of course we cried and I held the mama of Becky and I kissed her face over and over again and I told her, "You are such a good mother. Such a good mother," and she said, "Maybe I was too proud of her. Maybe that was it," and I said, "No, no. That's not it," and she knew I was right.
And then one of her grandsons told her he needed to poop and she took him to the bathroom.
I remember when she was having her first child and I held her like that and told her how strong she was being. And she was. And she is.
I told her about Owen saying that his heart was filled with chicken-banging poop for me and she laughed and she has the most beautiful laugh in the world.
And then we cried again in each other's arms.
It was like that and when you are all so entwined together, there is such strength.
Do you see these pictures? Can you hear the soprano voice, the beautiful laughter, the sighs, the sobs, the child asking to be taken to the bathroom?
And my husband stayed by my side and he carried me up there and he carried me back and I was so anxious at times and I was the worst navigator ever and I got pissy and I was a mess and he just let me be a mess and he talked to David's daddy about cows and he held my hand during the service and I hear that David's stepmama (whom I have known for forty-one years) said that Glen Moon is a "sweetheart."
And it's Father's Day and he IS a sweetheart and if you don't think that meeting him was the best thing that ever happened to me, you don't know me very well and that's saying a lot because I've met a lot of people who are the best, good people, and I saw so many of them this weekend and despite the nine hours up there and the nine hours back, it was one of the most important things I ever did, to go to that service and to celebrate the life of Becky Davidson May, and that sweetheart, Glen Moon, held my hand and got us there and got us back.
Bless the fathers who help the mothers all the way from birth until whatever happens. Bless the fathers who do not run when things get crazy and hard. Bless the way they work and always want to do the best for their kids and then their grandkids. Bless them for recognizing and honoring the mothers. Bless them for being there.
For being there.
All right. I don't have pictures. I don't have sounds. I don't have anything but words and I'm so tired and so wired that they're not coming out right.
We're home. The chickens are shut up and I guess I should unpack and I'm not doing one load of laundry until tomorrow. I'm home in the house that Glen Moon bought because I wanted it so badly and I'm so grateful for all of it, this crazy life, his love, the love of friends, of family. I dreamed this morning of parrots, their feathers so brightly colored that they hurt my eyes and of dogs with the softest fur brushing my legs and of grandchildren arriving in the early dawn and me holding them in my arms and saying, "I have missed you. I have missed you so much."
There are my pictures. There are the sounds.
I might fall apart now or I might not. It's all swirling in my head, and my heart is busted open and taking in and leaking out.
Bless us all. Bless David and Karen and Chris and bless Becky who was born and who lived thirty-three years and who loved and who was loved by so many and who taught kids that everyone else had given up on and who sang and wrote songs and who was something golden and special and who is not here on this planet with us anymore and here is the poem which David said at the service, at the celebration, that no one could read without breaking down so they just projected the words on the wall and we all read it in silence and I give it to you.
Good night.
Love...Ms. Moon
We're home.
I wish so much that I had a hundred photographs so that I could show them all to you.
"This," I would say, "was Becky when she was a baby. And then I could point to another picture and say, "This is how we all looked back when Hank and May and Sarah and Becky were babies. Don't we look so young? And over here," I'd point to another, "this is what Sarah's children look like. Aren't they gorgeous? And doesn't Sarah look just like her mother and didn't Becky too?"
I would have pictures of the small orchestra that played at the service yesterday with David's mother conducting it, her long white hair braided and wrapped into a bun, her posture like that of a nineteen-year-old ballet dancer's, the life-force bursting from her as Bach and Mozart was played. I would have pictures of Becky's aunt, and tell you about the soaring soprano voice of hers which raised to the rafters and floated above us all and moved our hearts and was sacred. I would show you pictures of the band who sang a John Prine song and a Bonnie Raitt song because Becky had loved them and that was sacred too.
But already you can tell- pictures wouldn't do it. There would have to be sound.
The sound of David's voice as he talked about his daughter and the camp she wanted to start for kids with severe disabilities like the kids she taught, so that the children could go to camp and their caregivers could take a break, a vacation.
There was all of that and e.e. cummings and there were all the people. The people who knew Becky as an adult and the people who had known her parents since they were young themselves, before they knew what heartbreak was. When life was perfect before them, everything complete potential and despite the problems of how to make a living and toddler tantrums, knew in their hearts that everything was good and as it should be and that this is how it should be and I'm not telling this right.
There was the sound of crying. There was the husband who had married Becky a week after her diagnosis and loved her with all of his being up until and still. Who was by her side until that was denied him by her passing.
There was the sight of pure, steel strength. There were children and there were hands clasped tightly and there were whispered stories and there were deep, full hugs and I-love-you's.
No, no, no. I'm not getting this right.
Listen. We came together. All of us. The parents and the step-parents and the aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and grandparents and step-grandparents and the friends. If I laid out a chart of how all of these people are part of my life, you would not believe it. I would show you pictures and say, "See this boy? I loved him and his mother is right there and his brother was one of my best friends, and see this boy? I loved him too and his mother is there, his father there. See this man? I was married to him and he was the father's best friend from childhood and...oh, it's already confusing.
Life is so strange and we get so entwined with each other.
When I was a very young woman I was intimidated as hell by David's mother. Everyone was. EVERY one. She was a force of nature. She raised four kids and taught music and stil managed to get from Winter Haven to Tallahassee (and she flat-out flew down the highways, she was famous for that drive and how quickly she could make it) to get her PhD in music and she gave parties and she was the wife of a doctor who was also a grove-owner and her kids all grew up to be musicians and she scared the living daylights out of me.
Last night she said to me, "I like your hair." My hair is currently extremely long but not as long as hers.
"I like yours, too," I said.
"I just got eight inches cut off," she told me. "It was down to the bottom of my butt."
And after all these years of me thinking she never liked me, we got down TO IT. We talked about life and mothering and mothers and kids and grandkids and this morning when I saw her at breakfast, she called me "Sweetie" and something in me is healed by that.
And just saying that makes me feel so selfish but there you are.
Another good friend from high school showed up. I looked up through the window of Becky and Chris's house where we were all gathering and I saw his face and it was a complete surprise and it was completely not a surprise. My best friend from high school's brother, another man I loved to pieces. And we all sat around and we told stories and we laughed and of course we cried and I held the mama of Becky and I kissed her face over and over again and I told her, "You are such a good mother. Such a good mother," and she said, "Maybe I was too proud of her. Maybe that was it," and I said, "No, no. That's not it," and she knew I was right.
And then one of her grandsons told her he needed to poop and she took him to the bathroom.
I remember when she was having her first child and I held her like that and told her how strong she was being. And she was. And she is.
I told her about Owen saying that his heart was filled with chicken-banging poop for me and she laughed and she has the most beautiful laugh in the world.
And then we cried again in each other's arms.
It was like that and when you are all so entwined together, there is such strength.
Do you see these pictures? Can you hear the soprano voice, the beautiful laughter, the sighs, the sobs, the child asking to be taken to the bathroom?
And my husband stayed by my side and he carried me up there and he carried me back and I was so anxious at times and I was the worst navigator ever and I got pissy and I was a mess and he just let me be a mess and he talked to David's daddy about cows and he held my hand during the service and I hear that David's stepmama (whom I have known for forty-one years) said that Glen Moon is a "sweetheart."
And it's Father's Day and he IS a sweetheart and if you don't think that meeting him was the best thing that ever happened to me, you don't know me very well and that's saying a lot because I've met a lot of people who are the best, good people, and I saw so many of them this weekend and despite the nine hours up there and the nine hours back, it was one of the most important things I ever did, to go to that service and to celebrate the life of Becky Davidson May, and that sweetheart, Glen Moon, held my hand and got us there and got us back.
Bless the fathers who help the mothers all the way from birth until whatever happens. Bless the fathers who do not run when things get crazy and hard. Bless the way they work and always want to do the best for their kids and then their grandkids. Bless them for recognizing and honoring the mothers. Bless them for being there.
For being there.
All right. I don't have pictures. I don't have sounds. I don't have anything but words and I'm so tired and so wired that they're not coming out right.
We're home. The chickens are shut up and I guess I should unpack and I'm not doing one load of laundry until tomorrow. I'm home in the house that Glen Moon bought because I wanted it so badly and I'm so grateful for all of it, this crazy life, his love, the love of friends, of family. I dreamed this morning of parrots, their feathers so brightly colored that they hurt my eyes and of dogs with the softest fur brushing my legs and of grandchildren arriving in the early dawn and me holding them in my arms and saying, "I have missed you. I have missed you so much."
There are my pictures. There are the sounds.
I might fall apart now or I might not. It's all swirling in my head, and my heart is busted open and taking in and leaking out.
Bless us all. Bless David and Karen and Chris and bless Becky who was born and who lived thirty-three years and who loved and who was loved by so many and who taught kids that everyone else had given up on and who sang and wrote songs and who was something golden and special and who is not here on this planet with us anymore and here is the poem which David said at the service, at the celebration, that no one could read without breaking down so they just projected the words on the wall and we all read it in silence and I give it to you.
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Love...Ms. Moon
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Pretty Sure This Is True
I guess what this year has been for me is a reconnection with people whom I love. I have been offered one lesson after another that there are people in our lives who are meant to be in our lives and whose presence, even if limited, is a blessing and a forever thing.
I am feeling that especially strongly tonight.
We have arms for holding each other. We have hearts for loving each other.
Use them, people.
That's all for now.
Love...Ms. Moon
I am feeling that especially strongly tonight.
We have arms for holding each other. We have hearts for loving each other.
Use them, people.
That's all for now.
Love...Ms. Moon
Friday, June 14, 2013
We're Here
The worst thing that happened today is that I walked back from supper through a strip mall parking lot with the slip lining of my skirt tucked into my panties.
I ain't complaining.
I ain't complaining.
Ready
Wasn't going to take my silver bracelets but you know- they demand to be worn on trips they sing on the road, out of town, they are the tinkling music of our travels together.
Owen told me yesterday that I kiss and hug him too much. Okay, I said. I'll stop kissing and hugging you so much. What I will do is kiss and hug you more.
He tolerates me.
We are packed up but nothing is loaded. There is really no hurry. Services are not until tomorrow. Back up the roads through Alabama, country roads, fine and four-laned, you can get off anywhere. Stop, stop, pee, coffee, I will make another nest in the back seat. I will read aloud for hours and hours and hours.
Hank is coming with Elisha to take care of the chickens and dogs and cat and goats (not really) and bluebirds. Jason's birthday is tomorrow. We will miss it. We will miss him, that fine father, that good husband, that man whom we have come to respect as well as love.
Owen was going through the birthday list yesterday. Daddy's birthday first, then Boppy's, then yours. Are you going to have a party?
I just give parties, I told him. I don't really have them for myself.
But you need cake, he said.
Cake is good, I agreed. Everyone needs cake.
I'll be on the road for my birthday too. Up to Asheville. For someone so in love with her own house, so magnetically inclined to stick to her own two acres, I certainly seem to travel a lot.
We might have our breakfast at the Waffle House. Why not?
Time to go.
Back up to Nashville.
Let's all be safe and then come home for kisses, hugs, cake.
I'll be talking to you.
Love...Ms. Moon
Owen told me yesterday that I kiss and hug him too much. Okay, I said. I'll stop kissing and hugging you so much. What I will do is kiss and hug you more.
He tolerates me.
We are packed up but nothing is loaded. There is really no hurry. Services are not until tomorrow. Back up the roads through Alabama, country roads, fine and four-laned, you can get off anywhere. Stop, stop, pee, coffee, I will make another nest in the back seat. I will read aloud for hours and hours and hours.
Hank is coming with Elisha to take care of the chickens and dogs and cat and goats (not really) and bluebirds. Jason's birthday is tomorrow. We will miss it. We will miss him, that fine father, that good husband, that man whom we have come to respect as well as love.
Owen was going through the birthday list yesterday. Daddy's birthday first, then Boppy's, then yours. Are you going to have a party?
I just give parties, I told him. I don't really have them for myself.
But you need cake, he said.
Cake is good, I agreed. Everyone needs cake.
I'll be on the road for my birthday too. Up to Asheville. For someone so in love with her own house, so magnetically inclined to stick to her own two acres, I certainly seem to travel a lot.
We might have our breakfast at the Waffle House. Why not?
Time to go.
Back up to Nashville.
Let's all be safe and then come home for kisses, hugs, cake.
I'll be talking to you.
Love...Ms. Moon
Thursday, June 13, 2013
I Could Do This In My Sleep By Now
Bring down the bag, pack the dresses, the underwear. Fill up the little glass jar with the doses of supplements we'll need while we're gone, put it in a bag with almonds and crackers and prunes and Chex Mix. Road food. The books on the counter, ready to go. The toiletry bag half packed in the bathroom.
Make and eat the supper, clean up, pour the water into the coffee pot, fill up the basket with grounds, set the timer.
Tomorrow finish up the packing, load up the car, drink the coffee, eat something and get on the road.
Here's something interesting- on Mother's Day we were on our way back from Nashville. On Father's Day we will be on our way back from Nashville.
It's been a very strange year. So very, very full and it is just half over. Four weddings and a funeral. And a death without a funeral.
Somehow, though, it doesn't seem like a movie.
I'm going to go pack my great-grandmother's pearls. I am getting some use out of them this year, those pearls.
Night falls and in the distance, the thunder rumbles.
Make and eat the supper, clean up, pour the water into the coffee pot, fill up the basket with grounds, set the timer.
Tomorrow finish up the packing, load up the car, drink the coffee, eat something and get on the road.
Here's something interesting- on Mother's Day we were on our way back from Nashville. On Father's Day we will be on our way back from Nashville.
It's been a very strange year. So very, very full and it is just half over. Four weddings and a funeral. And a death without a funeral.
Somehow, though, it doesn't seem like a movie.
I'm going to go pack my great-grandmother's pearls. I am getting some use out of them this year, those pearls.
Night falls and in the distance, the thunder rumbles.
Hiding Place
I came across this handsome turtle on my walk this morning, his or her back end covered in duckweed from the pond right next to the path where we met up. I know this turtle, I have seen it before, its shell more shiny than any I have ever seen, almost lacquered looking. I was glad to see it.
I took its picture and went on my way and by the time I came back down the path, he or she had disappeared into the woods and once again I thought about all the creatures which may see me pass by which I never even realize are there, registering or not registering my presence because it does not matter in the least to them.
I feel flat and uninspired today and on the verge of tears for no reason. In my head I go through the litany of all the ways I fail, that I am not good enough and I try to dismiss them, get on with it, but the list stays there in place, ready to be roused at any moment, ready for me to begin to tick the items off again, one by one. The garden overgrown already, the ridiculous annoyances I projected onto my grandson yesterday, the meal I made last night, my inability to go out into the world and engage with it, my weight, my (lack of) writing, the mildew in the bathrooms, the words I could not say to my mother as she died, the words I could not say to her when she was alive, and on and on and on. It never ends. The items loop and loop, like an iPod with twenty songs on continual shuffle.
And then the next list begins. Things to do to get ready to leave tomorrow and things to do to get ready to go out of town again next weekend, something which should be so much fun, a trip down south my sister-in-law has arranged to celebrate her birthday and my husband's and all of it is just overwhelming to me and so add to the first list ungrateful bitch, silly, silly depressive bitch, self-centered neurotic woman.
Grow up, I tell myself. Grow up, get up, just deal with it all.
I think of places I have been happy, I think of places I feel as if I have left pieces of my soul for safekeeping. They are all by the water, they are all hidden from sight. I am homesick right now for each and every one of them. There are creatures there and trees too, and my ghostly bits of soul do not disturb them one bit. They go on their way, duckweed on their butts, they do not miss me at all nor should they, even as I long to be hidden among them.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
My Stupid Little Life
The heat is not unlike a fist that slams you when you walk out into it, an oven entered unawares, a hot-flash wrapped in a wool blanket which has been toasting before a roaring fire.
Fucking fiery hot.
And I've had the doors and windows shut against it all day as we do, those of us who can possibly afford it and the dogs have made me crazy. They want in and they want out and they bust into the door from outside and I have to get up and shut it and the great beast of the AC unit chugs and chugs and I feel as if I am going to simply melt from the inside out with the heat, with the simmering anger it brings on as the air temperature becomes one with body temperature and I assure you that humans end up in emergency rooms in this weather, the victims of such melting and fire.
I was less than a good grandmother today. On edge and yet, at the same time, with too much lassitude to want to do anything fun and after ten it was too hot and buggy to go outside anyway and so we moved from room to room, playing with whatever toys were there and finally, Gibson went down for a nap and Boppy came home and he and Owen did things together and I laid down with the baby in the coolness and it helped but then I had to get up and after the boys left with Boppy following behind to help with a plumbing problem, I had to go outside to clean out the henhouse and just that small thing was enough to bring the kettle back to the boil.
Ah well. This is the way it is and we do have air conditioning and I think of the people who live in the metal boxes, the trailers right down the road and I do not know how they stand it. I used to live in one of those and it was hell and so we went out to the used appliance store and bought a rattly old AC window unit and put it into our bedroom and at night we were in heaven and lay there, sweat-free, and felt guilty, guilty because none of our friends had air conditioning.
We were half-assed-hippies. We had sold out and were sleeping in refrigerated air but sleep we did and the cold, noisy air beat out the guilt but I still feel traces of that. Unless we all have air conditioning, how can it be right?
I don't know. I don't know that it is right. It's certainly not fair.
Well, what the hell is?
Not much.
I've been writing on this on and off for hours and inbetween bouts with it I've done some laundry (of course) and taken some leftovers out to the chickens and made a casserole out of different leftover leftovers and talked to Jessie on the phone and then, just now, to a friend who called and it's always a surprise and nice to hear his voice. He's one of the Good People. He's been there and back and he's gentle and he's kind and I started out feeling so man and bitchy but now that we've talked and after he told me to keep the faith, I feel better. It's getting cooler and the night time sounds are coming on so loud I can hear them over the AC and I may not be entitled to air conditioned air but I will never feel as if I am, I will never take it for granted, no and I won't take a lot of things for granted either that I really may not deserve but sure as hell have been blessed with anyway.
So I'll just end it there, the night coming on, another day in my life, except Ms. Yobobe gave me a quote today in a comment that was so damn good that I have to copy it here because it is perfect and it is right and I feel it full on and true right now, heat and lassitude and having been less-than-a-perfect grandmother and all.
It is this and Ms. Yo says it comes from Lester Burnham, a character from American Beauty played by Kevin Spacey.
"I can't help but feel gratitude for every moment of my stupid little life."
Amen.
Love...Ms. Moon
Fucking fiery hot.
And I've had the doors and windows shut against it all day as we do, those of us who can possibly afford it and the dogs have made me crazy. They want in and they want out and they bust into the door from outside and I have to get up and shut it and the great beast of the AC unit chugs and chugs and I feel as if I am going to simply melt from the inside out with the heat, with the simmering anger it brings on as the air temperature becomes one with body temperature and I assure you that humans end up in emergency rooms in this weather, the victims of such melting and fire.
I was less than a good grandmother today. On edge and yet, at the same time, with too much lassitude to want to do anything fun and after ten it was too hot and buggy to go outside anyway and so we moved from room to room, playing with whatever toys were there and finally, Gibson went down for a nap and Boppy came home and he and Owen did things together and I laid down with the baby in the coolness and it helped but then I had to get up and after the boys left with Boppy following behind to help with a plumbing problem, I had to go outside to clean out the henhouse and just that small thing was enough to bring the kettle back to the boil.
Ah well. This is the way it is and we do have air conditioning and I think of the people who live in the metal boxes, the trailers right down the road and I do not know how they stand it. I used to live in one of those and it was hell and so we went out to the used appliance store and bought a rattly old AC window unit and put it into our bedroom and at night we were in heaven and lay there, sweat-free, and felt guilty, guilty because none of our friends had air conditioning.
We were half-assed-hippies. We had sold out and were sleeping in refrigerated air but sleep we did and the cold, noisy air beat out the guilt but I still feel traces of that. Unless we all have air conditioning, how can it be right?
I don't know. I don't know that it is right. It's certainly not fair.
Well, what the hell is?
Not much.
I've been writing on this on and off for hours and inbetween bouts with it I've done some laundry (of course) and taken some leftovers out to the chickens and made a casserole out of different leftover leftovers and talked to Jessie on the phone and then, just now, to a friend who called and it's always a surprise and nice to hear his voice. He's one of the Good People. He's been there and back and he's gentle and he's kind and I started out feeling so man and bitchy but now that we've talked and after he told me to keep the faith, I feel better. It's getting cooler and the night time sounds are coming on so loud I can hear them over the AC and I may not be entitled to air conditioned air but I will never feel as if I am, I will never take it for granted, no and I won't take a lot of things for granted either that I really may not deserve but sure as hell have been blessed with anyway.
So I'll just end it there, the night coming on, another day in my life, except Ms. Yobobe gave me a quote today in a comment that was so damn good that I have to copy it here because it is perfect and it is right and I feel it full on and true right now, heat and lassitude and having been less-than-a-perfect grandmother and all.
It is this and Ms. Yo says it comes from Lester Burnham, a character from American Beauty played by Kevin Spacey.
"I can't help but feel gratitude for every moment of my stupid little life."
Amen.
Love...Ms. Moon
This Is My Universe
The boys are coming this morning and will be here for most of the day and I'm awake, I had good sleep and Mr. Moon brought home chicken scratch last night so we're all good.
Such dreams I've been having and the one last night was epic with a hurricane-coming AND I had a baby AND there were dozens and dozens of people in my house AND the house was not this one but older and frailer and as the storm approached, mice lept from hiding places and ran, little mice scurrying everywhere and then the police came looking for one of the people here and Lord, what is going on in my mind?
Also, my husband was MIA so throw in the nightmare of not being able to use a phone for love nor money, the buttons don't work, the thing falls apart. Whatever.
Too much, too much, too much.
This year has been too much.
Well, this is my life and there may well be a hurricane before the season is up and there are babies, some of them mine and grown, some of them my daughter's and definitely not grown and people do die and plans are made and we must go along with them and it's one day at a time, make sure there's watermelon for the children, make sure there's food for the chickens and the cat and the dogs and there are plenty of potatoes and eggs for us and the green beans are starting to blossom and make tiny pods and no, the okra is not in the ground yet and your life is the same, maybe without the chickens but with something. Always something and it can become too much for all of us and we should all be doing yoga, we should all be meditating, we should all be leaning in and leaning out and perhaps reading those books by French people who can tell us how to do everything better from not being fat to raising better children to having better sex to aging gracefully and hell, maybe it's just that everyone in France is slightly buzzed on the good wine all the time.
I don't know.
Neither do you, I suspect.
It doesn't help that our world is so small now and instead of just comparing ourselves and how we live and how we cope with just the people in our immediate community, we have to compare ourselves to everyone in the whole fucking world and even if we don't, even if we've mostly given up caring what others think of us, we can't help but feel as if some people have loped ahead and are viewing the whole thing from the top of the mountain, the sunrise/the sunset, the glory of it all spread around them, sitting in lotus, humming ommmmmmm and we are back somewhere in the beginning of the trudge, the sludge, wondering if we remembered to pack sunscreen, the children whining are we there yet.
We're never there until we're there and then we're gone except for a few moments here and there when, with open eyes and hearts we let the glory of it in, we can't help it, we stop, time stops, this moment, this second, this flower, this sight, this light, this love, this life.
Phew.
Well, they're coming and there's a frog on my porch croaking and how can such a tiny thing make such a huge noise rackety, rackety, rackety he calls to the frogs croaking across the yard, just as the roosters call across the distance from one pen to another, just as I, sitting here, call across to you, hello, hello, hello, how is it with you? Too much? Yes. I get it. Here. Stop for a second. No, none of it is so important, yes, all of it is so important. Hold both of those thoughts in your head at the same time, breathe, let your shoulders drop a bit, sit up straight, what's the view like from where you are? Close your eyes and just feel it all, open your eyes and see what it is you can see from there, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Yours in love and confusion and acceptance and denial and sobriety and drunkenness and all of it, the whole crazy whirling purring one-breath-of-it-after-another...Ms. Moon
Such dreams I've been having and the one last night was epic with a hurricane-coming AND I had a baby AND there were dozens and dozens of people in my house AND the house was not this one but older and frailer and as the storm approached, mice lept from hiding places and ran, little mice scurrying everywhere and then the police came looking for one of the people here and Lord, what is going on in my mind?
Also, my husband was MIA so throw in the nightmare of not being able to use a phone for love nor money, the buttons don't work, the thing falls apart. Whatever.
Too much, too much, too much.
This year has been too much.
Well, this is my life and there may well be a hurricane before the season is up and there are babies, some of them mine and grown, some of them my daughter's and definitely not grown and people do die and plans are made and we must go along with them and it's one day at a time, make sure there's watermelon for the children, make sure there's food for the chickens and the cat and the dogs and there are plenty of potatoes and eggs for us and the green beans are starting to blossom and make tiny pods and no, the okra is not in the ground yet and your life is the same, maybe without the chickens but with something. Always something and it can become too much for all of us and we should all be doing yoga, we should all be meditating, we should all be leaning in and leaning out and perhaps reading those books by French people who can tell us how to do everything better from not being fat to raising better children to having better sex to aging gracefully and hell, maybe it's just that everyone in France is slightly buzzed on the good wine all the time.
I don't know.
Neither do you, I suspect.
It doesn't help that our world is so small now and instead of just comparing ourselves and how we live and how we cope with just the people in our immediate community, we have to compare ourselves to everyone in the whole fucking world and even if we don't, even if we've mostly given up caring what others think of us, we can't help but feel as if some people have loped ahead and are viewing the whole thing from the top of the mountain, the sunrise/the sunset, the glory of it all spread around them, sitting in lotus, humming ommmmmmm and we are back somewhere in the beginning of the trudge, the sludge, wondering if we remembered to pack sunscreen, the children whining are we there yet.
We're never there until we're there and then we're gone except for a few moments here and there when, with open eyes and hearts we let the glory of it in, we can't help it, we stop, time stops, this moment, this second, this flower, this sight, this light, this love, this life.
Phew.
Well, they're coming and there's a frog on my porch croaking and how can such a tiny thing make such a huge noise rackety, rackety, rackety he calls to the frogs croaking across the yard, just as the roosters call across the distance from one pen to another, just as I, sitting here, call across to you, hello, hello, hello, how is it with you? Too much? Yes. I get it. Here. Stop for a second. No, none of it is so important, yes, all of it is so important. Hold both of those thoughts in your head at the same time, breathe, let your shoulders drop a bit, sit up straight, what's the view like from where you are? Close your eyes and just feel it all, open your eyes and see what it is you can see from there, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Yours in love and confusion and acceptance and denial and sobriety and drunkenness and all of it, the whole crazy whirling purring one-breath-of-it-after-another...Ms. Moon
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Whiny, Whiny, Bitchy, Bitchy. Also Hungry
Despite nine hours of sleep I'm still exhausted. My back hurts. I have to go to the dentist today. We're out of chicken scratch. The garden is all weedy. We need some goats.
No we don't.
I've had my walk. Two and a half miles of torture. Thank you very much, I have now suffered mightily and can enjoy the rest of my day. If I can stand up.
What else can I bitch and moan about?
Not last night's supper which was lovely and good. Yep. That recipe works for me. I think it needs a little sitting time though after the cooking is well and truly done for it all to set up and thicken some. This is not the recipe for you if you are avoiding gluten although I suppose you could use gluten-free pasta. I don't know. I sort of want to use high-gluten everything these days as a backlash.
"Can I get you anything else, m'am?"
"Yes. I would like a side of gluten, please. And do you have any extra-gluten-y beers? I'll have two of those. Thank you."
Etc.
Anyway, the addition of spinach was good and so were the extra cut-up cherry tomatoes and the diced peppers. If you like that sort of thing. You could add squash to it. Yellow or zucchini. You could add olives or capers or both. Instead of Parmesan (which I skipped anyway), you could add some nice goat cheese at the end. You could do anything!
So what I guess I am saying here is, it is a terrific recipe. Go forth and make it.
If you want to. I'm not the boss of you.
I'm hungry. Walking always makes me hungry. After the nausea passes. Well, there are plenty of leftovers. Now I have to figure out what to make for supper tonight. It never ends! Never! We are souls attached to mouths and digestive systems. You know this is the truth. Forget sex. Well, okay, maybe not entirely. But it is food and what we eat and where it comes from and how we make it and eating too much of it or eating the wrong things or not enough of the right things or TOO MUCH of the right things which we are obsessed with.
Me as much as anyone. Me more than anyone.
Perhaps I will make a nicoise salad. Yeah. That sounds good.
See? I'm obsessed.
Fuck. I'm exhausted. It's hot. How long until I can go back to bed? Hours and hours and hours. Last night I dreamed I was dancing with a man. I thought, "This is a dream and if it happens, it happens. It's just a dream." In the next dream scene, there were two Catholic priests. They were dying of AIDS. Talk about a buzzkill. So no, it didn't happen.
How crazy do you have to be to dream something like that? How monogamous? How faithful? How guilt-ridden?
I never dream about eating.
I might buy a new bedspread today. This could happen. I might go to play with the boys today. This, too, could happen. I am getting my teeth cleaned. I have already suffered and so now I can enjoy myself. Well, not at the dentist. They always try to give me an apple when I leave my dentist's office. I always refuse it. Who wants one of their crazy Red Delicious (now THERE'S a misnomer, at least as applies to the "delicious" part) mealy apples with no flavor? Who is that going to convince to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables?
See? It's all about food.
I'm hungry.
I'm bitchy. I'm whiny.
Good day.
No we don't.
I've had my walk. Two and a half miles of torture. Thank you very much, I have now suffered mightily and can enjoy the rest of my day. If I can stand up.
What else can I bitch and moan about?
Not last night's supper which was lovely and good. Yep. That recipe works for me. I think it needs a little sitting time though after the cooking is well and truly done for it all to set up and thicken some. This is not the recipe for you if you are avoiding gluten although I suppose you could use gluten-free pasta. I don't know. I sort of want to use high-gluten everything these days as a backlash.
"Can I get you anything else, m'am?"
"Yes. I would like a side of gluten, please. And do you have any extra-gluten-y beers? I'll have two of those. Thank you."
Etc.
Anyway, the addition of spinach was good and so were the extra cut-up cherry tomatoes and the diced peppers. If you like that sort of thing. You could add squash to it. Yellow or zucchini. You could add olives or capers or both. Instead of Parmesan (which I skipped anyway), you could add some nice goat cheese at the end. You could do anything!
So what I guess I am saying here is, it is a terrific recipe. Go forth and make it.
If you want to. I'm not the boss of you.
I'm hungry. Walking always makes me hungry. After the nausea passes. Well, there are plenty of leftovers. Now I have to figure out what to make for supper tonight. It never ends! Never! We are souls attached to mouths and digestive systems. You know this is the truth. Forget sex. Well, okay, maybe not entirely. But it is food and what we eat and where it comes from and how we make it and eating too much of it or eating the wrong things or not enough of the right things or TOO MUCH of the right things which we are obsessed with.
Me as much as anyone. Me more than anyone.
Perhaps I will make a nicoise salad. Yeah. That sounds good.
See? I'm obsessed.
Fuck. I'm exhausted. It's hot. How long until I can go back to bed? Hours and hours and hours. Last night I dreamed I was dancing with a man. I thought, "This is a dream and if it happens, it happens. It's just a dream." In the next dream scene, there were two Catholic priests. They were dying of AIDS. Talk about a buzzkill. So no, it didn't happen.
How crazy do you have to be to dream something like that? How monogamous? How faithful? How guilt-ridden?
I never dream about eating.
I might buy a new bedspread today. This could happen. I might go to play with the boys today. This, too, could happen. I am getting my teeth cleaned. I have already suffered and so now I can enjoy myself. Well, not at the dentist. They always try to give me an apple when I leave my dentist's office. I always refuse it. Who wants one of their crazy Red Delicious (now THERE'S a misnomer, at least as applies to the "delicious" part) mealy apples with no flavor? Who is that going to convince to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables?
See? It's all about food.
I'm hungry.
I'm bitchy. I'm whiny.
Good day.
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