Monday, May 23, 2011

Post-Raptures Recovery


Can't get going today. Nine hours of coma-sleep, one dream of insanity, up and half a pot of coffee and some floors swept and some laundry hanging and a bed made and three phone calls and the chickens fed and why do I always say, "I haven't done shit today?"
Feels like it. Not that I know what I'd be doing if I was really productive. Performing brain surgery? Plowing the lower forty? Building a potting shed?

Gawd.

I feel as if I've been beat with a stick. My brain, especially. Hips, too.

The heat is creeping in, the earth is so dry. The grass has gone brown and crisp and I take my little sprinkler around and water this patch of hydrangea, that patch of lilies and phlox. The other day I watched a squirrel lean over and drink from the little pond, just like a human but with such a bushy tail. It's already the season of mosquitoes and yellow flies, wasps, and big fat regular flies who find their way in and feast on the bowl where I keep kitchen scraps for compost and chickens.

Speaking of chickens, I don't know which is worse or more depressing- losing a hen to a hawk or keeping them in the coop all day. Why is it so important to me to have my chickens scratching about my yard? I don't know but it just gives my heart such joy to see them. Elvis seems so de-masculated, standing in the coop. He wants to be out, finding troves of goodies for his girls, keeping watch over his flock by day. He's just standing there, barely enthusiastic enough to crow a few times, peering out into the yard-world where he wants to be.
Well, at least I'm getting all my eggs.

My mother has called me at least twice to tell me how much she enjoyed yesterday. She sounds happy again, she sounds grateful and she sounds good. Who knew that dementia could make a person so sweet? Instead of clinging to all of her stuff, she is offering it away. She is taking pleasure in the fact that her grandchildren can find use for some of it. I can feel her spirit lifting as every bag leaves her house. When she's out of a room, I pluck old artificial flower arrangements, throw them in the garbage bag, old dresses I don't even remember and put them in the Goodwill bag. She doesn't care. She's just happy to see things go. We keep reassuring her that anything she gives us can be given back if she needs or wants it.
She is good with that.

Ah-yah.

Pray for rain, try to rest and restore. Hang on, hang in. Hang the clothes on the line, napkins like prayer flags, red and green and blue-checked, my own grandmother's bridge-table tablecloth, used last night in service for our May birthday supper. I think it was the first time ever that the amount of food we cooked was the amount of food that was eaten. Almost every morsel. A little okra and tomatoes left. That's about it.

And that's about it from Lloyd. Today.

This is my recording of this life in this place. There are things I could (should?) be doing but I am doing what I can, and today I am not asking of myself any more than that.

Keith Richards will be involved.

15 comments:

  1. Great photo of Keef.

    I hope you enjoy the day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stephanie- From Hair:
    " I would just like to say that it is my opinion
    That longer hair and other flamboyant affectations
    Of appearance are nothing more
    Than the male's emergence
    From the drab camouflage
    Into the gaudy plumage which is the
    Birthright
    Of
    His
    Sex."

    I remember that emergence so fondly. I wonder why men allowed themselves to be submerged back into drabness again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, my gawd. That photo of Keith is priceless. I so appreciate my morning when I come here to read you and relax with you. I love you a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ms. Bastard-Beloved- It's rather iconic, I think.
    And I hope you enjoy YOUR day.

    Elizabeth- And I love YOU a lot, too!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I feel so full after catching up with all your blog posts that I don't want to go read anyone else right now. And that? Is a good, blessed thing to me. Thinking of you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. hehe. sb said keef.

    if that picture is representative of recovery, than i'm...i...no words.

    xo

    ReplyDelete
  7. Kori- That's so sweet!

    adrienne- That was his childhood nickname, believe it or not. Well, he looks like he might need some recovery, you know?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the Keith picture.

    Your mother will feel so much better without all that clutter. You're doing the right thing slipping a few things in the bags.

    Don't give yourself a hard time, you do tons! Put your bloody feet up!

    It hasn't rained here for weeks but it did today. I hope you get some very soon. Love you xx

    ReplyDelete
  9. PS. I think you have a problem when there's nothing to do as you're always on the go. I on the other hand have a PhD in wasting time xx

    ReplyDelete
  10. PPS. Although as John Lennon once said "Time you enjoyed wasting wasn't wasted"

    ReplyDelete
  11. You know, we should all keep a picture of Keef somewhere. No matter what happens, how often and how much it sucks we can glance towards the picture and remind ourselves that the human spirit (and liver) can survive anything.

    ReplyDelete
  12. It is sad about losing one of the hens. I forgot to write a comment on that the other day. She was enraptored, I guess. I saw a fish hawk snatch a large mullet from the water the other day. It went to a piling and proceeded to eat. Natures way. That photo of Keith makes me miss my jeans with the studs down the seams. I still wear my jeans, but the ones that with the studs are long gone.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I am grateful for your mother being in a way that is giving Mary. It makes it easier on you each to have her be this way as she lets go of what can not go with her. I hope that this transition stays this positive as time goes by as well.

    Our hens are still locked up too. My Love wanted to let them out yesterday and I say NO! know way!! Give some time for the coyote to find a new fast food place. Not our home.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.