Friday, May 29, 2009

And In Our Eyes You Can See Our Madness


So here it is Friday afternoon already and the sun is out and perhaps I am discorporating, one resentful molecule at a time. Perhaps they rise up, these molecules and swim above my head for a moment, making such a tiny bit of steam above me that it is invisible to the naked eye.
The entire earth here is steaming like some vast savanna after a rainstorm, like a rain forest in the heat but in reality none of us discorporate. We merely steam and listen to the fierce song of the crickets, rising and falling according to some sheet music we do not know but which seems to be written by the sun. We humans are learning again to walk slowly, to take something with us when we're outside to wipe the sweat from our faces, to save and gird our strength for the trip to the clothes line, the chicken coop, the garden. We dream of naps even as we sleep. We, all of us, are weary and gravity tugs on us with almost irresistible force.
I think of the scene in Gone With The Wind where after the barbecue luncheon, Katie Scarlett and all the girls go upstairs to loosen their stays and lie upon the big feather filled beds covered with sheets made of the Georgia cotton to rest and recoup for the evening's coming events while the men, still in their coats and ties are downstairs, awake, going mad in the heat and committing to war. It always bothered me that they didn't get to have that evening's ball due to the stupid war. Yet another reason to hate war. Scarlett O'Hara did not get to dance at the ball with Ashley Wilkes and take him from that mealy-mouthed Melanie.
Oh Jesus, where am I going with this? It gets hot and I turn into a southern matron, still mourning over Scarlett's disappointment. It's like when I lived in Denver and after a while I started speaking as if I, too, were from Long Island where so many of my friends there were from. Until, that is, I got stoned and then my accent would turn true again and people would ask me to please fry them some chicken.
And laugh at me.
And try to mimic me, which they did poorly, the motherfucking yankees.
I wonder where they are now. Probably all rich CEO's or formerly rich CEO's, wondering what happened to all that fine green money, never taking the time to wonder where I am, that girl from the south who tried to talk like them.

See? This is what the heat does to you. It cooks your brains and takes your loving heart. I don't have the energy to love in this heat. I only have the energy to hate: the blackberry thorns, the mosquitoes with their whining warning and abdomens swelling with my blood and then the itch, itch, itch where they drank from me. I hate the drive to the grocery store, the aphids on my tomatoes, the need to cook anything. Anything at all. The need to eat.
Summer brings on these feelings and I am, as Kenneth said on a 30 Rock re-run last night, being the "c" word. A Cranky- Sue. Indeed I am.

So why don't I turn on the AC and cool off and dry out? I'll tell you why. Because I love to hate the things that summer brings. I admit it- I feel most myself when it's hot and humid. I was born in El Paso, Texas on July 28th in a military Quonset hut and don't you think I've been used to heat since the moment of my birth?
To be honest I love to be so hot and dirty, on my knees in the garden yanking out weeds and trying to avoid the red ants (my feet are covered in their bites, little pus pockets of red itchiness- I am not very good at avoiding them) and wiping my face with a rag from my pocket which is so dirty that I know I am black-faced. I love the cricket's song and I love the baking of the earth with the rain so fresh upon it, and I love the way my dogs find the coolest spots in the house to lie down in and pant, no need for them to move. I love the way the smell of the steaming trees reminds me of summers past and I love the way everything slows down and crawls on its belly like the beautiful blue indigo snake I saw a few years ago when I was picking berries.
I love the taste of a very cold beer when the weeding is done and I love the ceiling fan as it whirls above me and hums the windchimes.
I close my eyes and think of sinkholes and the time Bill Wharton tied his towel around his neck like Super Man and jumped in from a high place and forgot he was wearing his glasses and he lost them in that endlessly deep cold water. I think of Wakulla Springs and the icy chill of the water when I was forty-eight months pregnant with my daughter, Lily and the way I'd be cool for hours after I swam there.
I love thinking of that and knowing those places are still there.
I love succumbing to that nap yearning, laying down on top of the quilt on the bed, turning the fan on my face, sleeping so hard for an hour that when I wake up I have no idea if it's day or night, much less what month it is.
I love it.
I love it when we turn on the AC in the evening and being so thankful for it that I can hardly stand it, and I especially love walking out the back door onto the porch and feeling like I live on the banks of a bayou in deepest Louisiana, the air so thick with heat and water you could wring it out and make something dangerous to drink with it. Something dank and with a distant taste of rot and life, touching different parts of your tongue. Something you might think is nasty at first, but you find yourself wanting more of- like so many of the good things in life.

Ah yah, it's summer, babies and it's only going to get hotter. We're going to bitch and complain and we're going to pray for rain and we're going to huddle in our air-conditioning because it's not nearly as hot as it's going to get. But we stay here. We're all crazy down here and that's the truth. It's not a cliche or a stereotype- we are all crazy down here. We must be, to live here in this heat that we love to hate. This heat that is hot as blood. This heat that brings out the worst in everything and everybody. We sit on our porches and we watch the insanity happen and we tip our heads back and we laugh because we are insane too and we take another sip of our sweating drink and we reach over and scratch the dog's head and he chases rabbits in his sleep, his legs going like crazy, pitiful tiny yelps coming from his sleeping lips, and we laugh at that too.
Sometimes we look up at the icy burning moon and we howl like the dogs as we travel with the top down through night dark pine woods and the air becomes cooler as we drive and off to the west lightening crackles and we laugh at that too because it means rain is coming to wet down this mad, hot place and wash us of our sins as we drive through the night, as we sleep in our beds, as we stand in the yard, our joy complete as the first cold drops hit our faces, and we all receive our blessings. Our hot, summer blessings and we stand like the crazy people we are, loving every blessed minute of it even as we despair that we will survive.

37 comments:

  1. Beautiful language but I could not live where you do!

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  2. Oh yeah, it's that time of year there again. Ugh.

    And, when I lived down there in the south, it was all so foreign and exotic to me. It was the first time I had ever seen Spanish moss on a tree, plantations, orange trees, alligators in lakes, small lizards running around like squirrels, and the ocean. After seven years of living down there, I started talking like "y'all," instead of "you guys."

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  3. When I get home from work and I've been in the car and my window won't go down and I've got sweat rolling off my head and down my back and I peel off my shirt and undershirt and just stand in front of the window ac in my boxers for a minute or two: THAT is the best moment of the day.

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  4. unless you can find a way to stand OVER the A.C.

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  5. I SO want to come see you; I really and truly do.

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  6. "We sit on our porches and we watch the insanity happen and we tip our heads back and we laugh because we are insane too..."

    Oh my god, I love that.

    And to Juancho - the AC vents in my house shoot straight up from the floor. This is ESPECIALLY nice in the kitchen when one is cooking. Shivers...

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  7. I wish I loved to hate the heat and humidity as much as you do. I just really hate it. Then why do I live here? I must be crazier than bat shit.

    I love that you mentioned that GFTW scene. That whole barbque in the beginning is one of my favorite parts, and whenever I think of life without A/C I think about those fancy ladies lying around in corsettes fanned by small slave children.

    I just can't imagine how people handled the deep south in the days before A/C!!

    Fiddle-dee-dee.

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  9. That was just pure deliciousness.

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  10. You are a damn fine writer, Ms. Moon! Beautiful. When I get home to Savannah, I feel the same damn way.

    I'll drink to that.

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  11. I like turning off the water heater in summer, cooooool showers makes papa so fresh and so clean clean.

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  12. Scarlett and Ashley would have never worked out. Even she realized that at the end, when she could finally have him - after Melanie died - but instead tried to get Rhett to stay.
    If Scarlett had married Ashley in the beginning, there would have been no book and no movie, and no 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.'

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  13. discorporating again! i love it you write so beautifully. its winter here, so the heat and humidity of summer is hard to remember. in the grip of damp heat when i look at the garden its like its on acid - hyper green and its all literally growing and moving as you watch - the life force is strong in the wild things in that kind of weather

    enjoy your ac and your cold beer!

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  14. Ms. Jo- Well, thankfully for you, it is not required. But it is a nice place to visit.

    Nicol- Seven years it took you? Do you miss us?

    DTG- Really? Better than the moment of getting in bed with clean sheets and knowing you can sleep? Oh wait. I'm old.

    Juancho- Mmmm. Floor vents? Wearing a skirt.

    Kori- You would like to visit the mystical land of Lloyd? Okay.

    Steph- My kitchen has ONE vent near the door. What idiot (non-cooking man) came up with that one?

    Lady Lemon- I think about that all the time. And women had to wear so many clothes then. They were stronger than I am.

    May- Thank-you, sweetie girl.

    Ms. Bastard- We should meet up in Savannah and sweat.

    Magnum- Nice idea.

    Ms. Hope- I know, I know. But still...

    Anna- Exactly!

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  15. Dammit you can write about anything can't you?

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  16. I do miss it a lot sometimes. Not so much the maddening heat and humidity though. :) And, this was some really great writing, as other people already said.

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  17. XBox- Not anything that requires... you know, actual research.

    Nicol- Thank you.

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  18. ooh, my mawmaw and pawpaw's old house had the c vents in the floor and man do i miss them! layin upside down on the couch while holdin your shorts legs open just doesnt get the same results.....

    ooh, and i thought i was lucky when you wrote about cher. gone with the wind is one of my favorite books AND movies. i'm currently tryin to get my lady to let me name the baby vivien leigh if it's a girl.

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  19. and to everybody that reads this blog:

    dont you know by now that ms moon can write about flies on shit and make it sound pretty? that woman and words just get along, i tell you.

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  20. that sounds like a challenge to me Mrs Moon...

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  21. matter of fact, now it IS a challenge. me and xbox are waitin on a post all about flies and shit.

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  22. A PRETTY post about flies and shit in fact!

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  23. Ms Moon,

    You make the south sound so sultry and sexy and mysterious... this is magnificent piece. It makes me wish I lived in such a place. :-)

    I have to admit it though, I love it a whole lot more reading your words and seeing the images and feeling the sensations that you create than the real thing.

    I am with LL on this one. I don't have the love/hate with the muggy buggy environment... I pretty much just hate it. Why am I still here? Too exhausted from all this heat to actually move.

    You're right, we are insane.
    xo pf

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  24. ps I am also picturing Natashia throwing up her hands and laughing that evil insane fabulous laugh!

    HA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

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  25. and make the pretty shitty fly post start with, "as god as my witness..."

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  26. Kentucky is as far south as I ever want to live, I can't stand the heat and humidity and the bugs and the...ok, I guess in my own way, I love it too. But, steamy hot and me just don't mix. And yeah I agree with the above posters -- I think you could write poetically on just about anything!

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  27. Oh, listen y'all. This is silly. Anyone can write a pretty sequence of words about flies on shit. (Her mind is churning as she writes this.) Let me consider. I may. Or I may not. This is my blog and I will write what I want.

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  28. PPS: When you do the famed "Flies on shit" post, would you please include a small section on spider poop? Some of us have been waiting for that one.

    Thanks... and I thought my life was strange. HA!

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  29. Awe, MM... why's it gotta be all that?

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  30. I could point you to a number of my co-workers who could not, trust me, string together a word on just flies. Let alone flies on any kind of waste product.

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  31. Yeah, totally agree with these folks on this post. This was beautifully written Mama. I think it's Oxford American worthy...what you think? Or who knows, maybe the flies on shit post will be.

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  32. Oh you described my feelings of summer perfectly. I have set out on a new venture that will require me to be out in the Texas heat the entire length of the hottest months of the year. I am already looking forward to fall when our project is complete and we will enjoy the benefits of our labor. And my little Hope, well she wants a garden, she has begged for a garden for as many years as she has been able to speak. This new home (our project) allows her the space to have one. She is so excited and has begun planning the layout that includes carrots and cucumbers and wild flower seeds and the pretty white daisies... I hope that she finds all that you find in your garden (with the exception to the fire ants, that is something I know she will not be able to tolerate). Your words are so beautiful. You put them together like few people are able. I reserve that comment for only a select few individuals. They touch me way down deep in my soul.

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  33. Ms Moon, when you write about the south, you write about my heart, my home, and always you bring my right back there so easily. The part about swimming and being cool for hours afterward? Who else would think of that and know how delicious it is when you can't go outside without immediately acquiring a film of sweat? Only you, Ms Moon. I am homesick, but I love being reminded why it's home.

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  34. SJ- Well. You know.

    Maggie- You got the Southern Girl thing. I could tell.

    HoneyLuna- You think?

    Sarah- Kind of late to start a garden in Texas but maybe you can get some good peppers and tomatoes in. I hope so. It's wonderful to share the magic of growing food with a child.

    Ginger- Time for a visit?

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  35. I wish I could afford to go home, but not this summer. It would be a nice escape.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.