Start With The Weather And Go From There

Miss Maybelle and I were talking the other evening about the weather. Well, we were talking about talking about the weather and how really, it is the default human topic of conversation. She said she starts her morning journaling almost every day with a description of the weather and we agreed that the weather really is an important thing to consider every day and that our ancestors really did have to think about it because who wants to go out and hunt the woolly mammoth when there's a storm coming in? I mean, it's hard enough to hunt the woolly mammoth and you really can't get a grip on your spear if it's raining and everything is wet.
Right?
And I told her that many days I start out my blog post with a description of the weather and as I write, something else will occur to me and I go on from there and it's not unusual at all to go back and delete all the weather stuff and aren't you glad I do?

But golly, the weather here is beautiful today.
It's pre-spring. The trees are all still bare and the predominant colors are still brown and gray but oh, holy shit, the air is so soft and you can just smell spring coming. The birds are going crazy and there are always tiny little finches and cardinals at the feeder and let me ask a question here- what is about getting older that makes us become fascinated with birds? Because it happens. I can remember my grandparents sitting on their porch and watching the birds at the feeder and wondering why.

I still don't know.

Mr. Moon is more fascinated by them than I. He gets out the bird book and identifies them. Me? I just look up every now and then think, "Wow. There are a lot of birds." The robins come through this time of year and when I say come through, I mean, those guys travel in packs. I'll look out to wonder why my backyard is hopping up and down and then I'll realize it's not the ground, it's a massive influx of robins, pecking away at tender treats just under the fallen leaves.
Anyway, Miss Maybelle was talking about her daddy (not Mr. Moon who is her other daddy) and how his birthday is coming up and what should she get him. I said, "Well, you know how we old people are fascinated by birds. Why don't you get him a bird feeder or something?"
Thirty years ago her daddy had two interests in life and his guitar was one of them and I'm not going to discuss the other but it wasn't birds (unless you're speaking in the British sense of the word) but I'll bet you that he loves the birds now. I'll ask him next time we talk.

The older I get, the more I like to grow begonias. Yes. Now there's a segue. Not a very successful one, either, but still a segue.



See that picture there? That's my baby. Last July, JULY FOR GODSAKE! a woman at a nursery gave me one leaf of a giant begonia and I stuck it in that pot and I kept it watered and there are now three new fully-formed leaves and two new babies. See them? Now that is the miracle of birth and patience. When I was a younger woman, I never would have had the patience to keep that pot watered and wait for new babies to arrive. I was too busy being pregnant and waiting for my human babies to arrive. But those little begonia leaves are precious to me in my older age.

Just PRECIOUS.

Yeah. We grow, we change.

Which brings me to Bruce Springsteen. Have you heard the new album? Working On A Dream?




I have. I ordered it from Amazon along with Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care for Lily. Dr. Spock is your go-to guy for things that occur in the middle of the night when your baby is two weeks old and you haven't gotten any sleep in a month and why he is making this sound, your baby? Is it normal? Is he it normal for a baby to breathe like this???!!!

You look it up in Dr. Spock and yes, it is normal and Dr. Spock said so, so go back to sleep. All is well.

But anyway, back to Bruce and one of these days I'm going to write an entire post about Bruce but I think today I'll just slip him in here in this little slot I've created about how some things are eternal in your life and some things only become interesting as you age and I'll tell you that my favorite line in the entire new album is this one:

I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun.

How many of us go through life like that, our good eye towards the sun, not even realizing we have a blind eye, not even realizing we're turning out backs to the light?

Birds, begonias, Bruce. Babies. Always babies.

As always, I have no answers and today I don't even have any specific questions, I'm just pondering stuff but I do believe we should all rock on.

Rock on, babies, with whatever makes your feet want to move, your hips want to shake, your arms want to reach up to the sky, makes your head want to fall back in wonder and supplication to the light.
Rock on. Let's open our eyes and realize things are getting ready to be born all around us, we might as well pay attention. Might as well learn to love new things.

We might as well dance.
The weather's beautiful.
Might as well dance.