More About Purses. Also...Fabio

A day, a day, a day.
This day. Almost done. Home from rehearsal. It was not a terrible rehearsal. We're getting there which is a good thing in that we open in nine days.
Nine. Days.

Holy shit.

Anyway, here's a weird thing- I will be having my first stage kiss in this play since I was in high school. Uh-huh. And my first other-than-my-husband kiss in oh, well, how long have we been married? And of course it's a stage kiss. And of course, it's not really Jon and Mary, it's Leonard and Harriet.
But they do use Jon and Mary's faces and honey, that's just weird for me. And I'm sure for Jon as well, although he's done this more recently than I have. Stage-kissed, that is.
We've faked it with pecks up until tonight. At our rehearsal last night Jack said, "You guys need to start going ahead and doing the kiss so it won't be so weird."
Yikes!
And tonight, Jon just leaned over and kissed me on the lips.
Whoa!
Isn't it funny that it's a funny thing? I mean- well- it just is and I'm not sure why but honestly, it is. I got all flustered and everyone cheered and I said, "I think I might have a hot flash."
But I didn't.
Adventures in Community Theater!

Here's something else that's funny: In the play my character is a publisher at a feminist publishing house which specializes in romantic fiction. So- what could better represent romantic fiction than...Fabio?

Oh yes. Fabio. The man of a thousand romance covers art.



The I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! guy.

Yes! Fabio!
And so Jan has ordered a life-sized, cut-out, stand-up Fabio for Harriet's office!
It will look like this:
Oh my god. I am going to have so much fun, fondling Fabio while I make feminist pronouncements.

No. We are not furthering the cause of feminism in this play. And I don't care.

Hell, I am a grandmother. I got cast in this role and I intend to have some damn fun with it.

Me and Fabio. It's gonna be like...butta.

And so that's the report. I called my mother today. It was painful. There is absolutely nothing I can do for her dizziness and her headaches or her general unhappiness and when she told me she was lonely, I almost died in shame.
And guilt, of course. Let us not forget the guilt, the gift which keeps on giving.

The guilt I felt after I talked to her filled me up and overflowed and made me ache and feel so tired and weird that when I went to Publix, Lily asked me what was wrong. Was I okay?

No. I am not okay. But yes, I am fine.

I changed purses today. I changed over from a brown slouchy Coach backpack bag to a smaller black leather bag with pockets. I got the Coach bag on e-bay and the black leather bag at Goodwill. Both are beautiful, both are leather. But I'm going to have to change over again. The black bag is not big enough for my stuff. Not the good stuff and not the other stuff either. And the brown slouchy Coach bag is too...brown. Too fucking brown.
I have a red one just like it and a worn-to-the-bone black one too. I got them all on e-bay. And they are not what I need.

I do not know exactly what it is I do need but I need room for all of the treasures and all of the worries and all of the guilt and the love and the joy and the days-filled-with-everything and the future and the past and yes, yes, yes. It is a womb thing, it is a heart thing, it is skin/holding/touching thing.

It is a medicine bag thing. It is a lot to ask from a goddam purse.

Fabio. My mother.

Such are the things a day can be made of.

Also a grandson, groceries, and a stage-kiss on the lips. And the feeling of a baby's butt hard at the top of a daughter's womb under my palm.

It's been a day, a day, a day.

And tomorrow will be another.

I swear. It will be. I swear.

I Need A New Purse

Y'all! I have lost my writing ju-ju. My thoughts are as substantial as Angelina Jolie's arms, which is to say- someone needs some sustenance!

Some nourishment.

I think I have leaked all of mine out for the moment. Given it away. I do not think that eating macaroni and cheese would help me, although it sure would not hurt Angelina Jolie.

I kept waking up last night with alarming thoughts such as, "I must clear off that area in the kitchen by the toaster! It's a mess!"

Okay. What?
Who cares about the area in the kitchen by the toaster? Not even me. Not really.

I am thinking of my hen, Miss Flopsy who seems to be broody, which means she is sitting on the nest and will not get off and yesterday I found Miss Ozzie almost on top of her, tired of waiting for that particular nest and dammit, there is only ONE egg under Flopsy and if she intends to hatch that out, it's going to be a fool's errand.

Okay. I don't understand anything right now and I am running around in circles like a damn bulldog trying to catch its own stub of a tail for no apparent reason and I AM GETTING NOTHING DONE and am merely leaking more and more of anything that I may have had in reserve but this is not really depression, it's not really anxiety, it's just wonderment, really, at what it is I think I have to do and why.

It all seems so important and yes, I guess it is. Lines must be learned, costumes created, babies prepared for, groceries bought, meals made, laundry done, children tended, nests sat upon, etc., etc., etc.
But this is the way it always is. This is life. My life. Yours is probably similar although what wakes you up may not be the area by the toaster in your kitchen but the contract unsigned, the closet which you are afraid to open, the child whose grades are suddenly falling, the distance between you and your loved one in the bed, the squeal of brakes in your car, the outgrown shoes of your child- a million and one nagging worries that we all carry with us all of the time which prevent us from really sleeping or even really living or...writing.

I find myself wanting a new purse, which is ridiculous. I have at least forty-two purses, all of them beautiful and yet, none of them seems to suit me now, please me, whisper whatever purse magic it is that I love so much.

I think I just want a place to put all of my stuff. The stuff that wakes me, that bothers me, that annoys me as I rub up against it all day and all night. Also, the beautiful things I want to have with me at all times, the red fountain pen, the small notebook, the magic book reader which, if I have at hand, I can read almost anything in the world at any time from.

I want a soft place to put everything with a drawstring, perhaps, to pull tight and keep everything safely together inside.

No more a real answer than a bowl of macaroni and cheese and no more apt to change a damn thing.

Am I a bulldog chasing her tail? Am I a hen, sitting in paralysis on a nest for no good reason? Am I an old woman who needs to get off her ass?

At last- an answer to a question.

Yes. I am an old woman who needs to get off her ass.

Good morning, y'all. Good morning.

A Boy With His Circus Plunder

He saw elephants, y'all. And horses.
I asked him what the clowns did.
He said they rode in cars.
Imagine that!

I Am Annoyed

Everything in the paper today just made me so mad. You know what? People are just STUPID. That's all there damn well is to it.
Some dude (always a dude, always) wrote a letter to the editor about how, even if you are an agnostic, even if you are an ATHEIST, then you can still realize that women do not have the choice of aborting a child, yep, that nine months is just something you have to go through if you get pregnant because "logic and common sense require us to allow the natural process to continue without human intervention except to nurture." (Italics mine.)
Hahahahahahaha!
What an idiot.
There are so many things wrong in that statement that I don't have numbers big enough to count them.

Yeah. Nine months. That's it, babies. Oh wait. I'll give you a little bit of nurturing. Here's a titty. You can have it for five minutes.
Okay. Done now.
Buh-bye.

The writer also said that another reason abortion is wrong is because women should not get special rights.
Oh. Okay.
So when men can get pregnant and lactate I think this conversation might make more sense.

What a fucking idiot!

There was also the article about people getting their damn pets freeze-dried and taxidermed. That's not a word but you know what I mean.
Oh gawd.
If I had to look at the face of my poor old pets forever I would just go ahead and shoot myself. Even if I had loved my pets.

Haha!

I might, however, like to have a stuffed tiger in my house. That might be awesome.

Or a grizzly bear.

But a Yorkie?

I think I am going to eat a boiled egg. With toast. That's about as normal a thing as I can imagine.
I made a salad last night with arugula and blackberries. It was possibly the best salad I ever ate.

Well, here is the day. The grandson is coming. I am trying to remember how to feel the okayness about everything again.

The birds feel it, I think. They seem to.

The sun doesn't care. It just burns.

And me? I guess I'll provide a little nurturing. And eat an egg.

Happy Monday, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon

If Nothing Else, This

They're called Pink Perfection for a reason, no?

Owen caught five fishes at the sink hole today and now he's at the circus with his mama and daddy. Big day for that boy. Here's his new thing he says when he doesn't want to do what you have in mind: Hang on!
Hang on. I love it. It's somehow better than No way! which he still says. A lot. Two year old boys have their own agenda and it frequently does not agree with their grandmother's.

Mr. Moon and our friend Tom came down to the Opera House today to help build the stage. We're doing this play downstairs, which means that a stage has to be built and those men got 'er done. Judy and Jack and George helped too. I took my script and walked around in Monticello and studied lines and looked at old houses and stole those camellias from a yard in which sat a house that had "For Sale" and a number to call spray painted on it.
Why not? No one was living there. The thorn vines were taking over the camellias. Now they are a glory on my hall altar in my grandmother's old tea pot. The handle has been broken and glued so I don't trust it for tea any more but the color is too blue and lovely to throw it away and so it holds camellias when they are blooming. I could fill the house with camellias. When I hear the term "Japanese Import" I think of camellias.
Camellia Japonica.
Thank-you, Japan.

Some Spanish moss came home with the camellias. I liked it and left it.

When Lily told Owen that they were going to go fish with Bop, she asked him if he thought Mer would come. He told her that no, Mer would not be coming. She had to make dough.

Am I already stereotyped?

Actually, I had to stay home and study lines. I feel the lace of my swiss-cheese brain trying to retain these lines. The ones I know, I know. The ones I do not know I most certainly do not know. And they are all lines like this:
Hello, hello. Are you all right?
Hello, hello. Where are you?

The great blasts of dialogue lines I can handle. It's those little sparks of inset hellos which are making me insane.

My hands smell of arugula. I picked some for our salad.
Camellias have no odor that I can detect. Unlike roses and other scented flowers, camellias don't need perfume. They are perfection in their appearance. They are sometimes red and sometimes white and sometimes pink and sometimes coral and sometimes striped but they are perfection, no matter what.

It's going to get cold tonight. The moon is a slice of silvered melon. The cats meow for their dinner. The chickens cuddle on the roost. I go out to tend them and look up to the stars on my way there and back. The magnolia leaves are dark and sharp against the light of the house.

The camellias were free and I took them. They are the ones who found their way home and will not fall to the ground, brown and unnoticed.

If nothing else today, I did that. I brought home doomed camellias and I let them be as beautiful as they were meant to be, right here and called them glory and I guess that's something. In my grandmother's blue teapot beside the found turtle shell with Spanish moss they are glory. And every time I pass them I shall call them that in my mind and also, I will remember that house, abandoned, spray painted with a number to call and for sale, the camellias bending to the thorn vines, but glory, nonetheless, just unnoticed, just waiting to be freed.

No Sermon Today

I really don't have words this morning. The sunlight pours down through the cool air. The pancakes made and eaten. The birds saying this, saying that. My heart feeling small and hidden.

No reason why. Just is.

Much to do today. Clean out the chicken nests. Study lines. Go to the Opera House and work on set building. The list of all the things that need to be done before this play opens is starting to loom towards me like a giant pair of jaws on a neck of rubber. It will find me. The gnashing will commence.

Lily's bringing Owen out and Bop is going to take them fishing. For real fishing. In a sinkhole or a pond.

The camellias, the birds, the trees, the hanging moss in the trees, the thought of the boy and his soft smooth face which I cannot pass without kissing. These are good and real. So is the man who opens his arms and takes me to him. His old shirt is warm from his body. I press into it.

My heart feels as tiny as the finches at the feeder but, it is there. In this whole glorious world of everything and vast nothingness, it is there. It is here. I hold it up in a crystal cup, offer it out, offer it up.
It flutters, wing-like, it beats. It stills and then it gathers itself, quivers in blood-red jelly. The sunlight pours through it, lighting it like rubies.

Yes. Maybe. Probably.

A Few More Pictures From Last Night

Both of the men I have been married to! I have good taste.

So do those men. Lucia is a jewel and gorgeous to boot.





Okay. I was posing.

Me, my two oldest children's other-mother, the beautiful Lucia, my before-husband and a Tallahassee famous fella named Mike Ferrara and his sweetie. I wish I knew her name. I do not.

Uh-huh.

Me and Liz.


I totally stole all of these from Ted Tollett's Facebook page. No, you do not know who Teddy Tollett is. Doesn't matter. He took some lovely pictures. And he looks like this.



Also- from what he posted, it would appear that we left WAY too early.
Damn.

I got history with these people, y'all. I mean, REAL history.

These are the ones who are still married.

Louis and Janet.

Mike, Julie (who got this whole thing together) and one of Tallahassee's most beloveds, Jiggs Walker:

And another picture of him with John Babbit. Another incredible Tallahassee musician.


Honestly, I do not know these woman. But my god, aren't they beautiful? Yes. Yes they are.


The famous Diane Roberts. I FINALLY got to meet her. She is a writer whose work I have been admiring since the eighties. I am not kidding you.


Cam. The chef.

And a man who was practically my brother-husband at one point and who is one of the finest guitar players in the world, Missippy James.



Lon and Liz of the West.


Darling Kati Schardl.


Yeah. I totally whispered secrets in her ear.


All right. Thanks for indulging me. This is part of the reason I do this blog- to record the life.

And these are some of the people in it. I am so grateful to Teddy for taking these pictures and putting them up where I could steal them.

Saturday Night

I cleaned two bathrooms and a bedroom today. I still reek of Fabuloso and Pledge. And bleach. I feel very, very clean and even a tiny bit...holy, wearing that particular perfume. Eau de Housewife.

I swear- I feel better today than I felt yesterday and why this is is a complete mystery to me.

It's been a good day. It took Mr. Moon awhile to get rolling this morning but after some great eggs and grits and toast and some other magical healing powers which I possess, he was rockin' again. He worked on cars all day and actually sold one, too. A sort of friend-deal and that's always a good thing.

The hens laid me three eggs, which I guess is okay for winter although they need to up their game, those ladies. Chicken feed ain't free although bugs are and they'd rather eat bugs and tasty shoots than chicken feed. Speaking of tasty shoots, Owen ate about eight white violets the other day. "One more!" he kept saying and so I kept popping them into his mouth. I think he is just charmed that he can eat flowers.

That picture up there is one his grandfather took yesterday afternoon when they were playing on the boat. Owen was "fishing." I love watching the relationship between those two developing. Owen has grandmothers out the yang (well, including the greats) but he only has one granddaddy. His Bop. And he adores his Bop and he's a good boy for his Bop. When Bop changes his diaper, Owen actually helps with the process unlike when I change him whereupon he becomes a whirling dervish of a giggling boy who does all in his power to escape me. He already knows not to fool around with the Bop.
The other day we were all eating lunch and Owen jumped up and ran to the refrigerator and came back with a stick of butter which he presented to his grandfather. Then he ran back out and came back with a jar of black olives. For his grandfather.
No. I am not jealous.
I swear.

I hear that Mitt and Newt are in Florida today, telling lies and speaking bullshit, i.e., campaigning. I hope they don't cross my path. I seriously doubt they will here in Lloyd. We have no military base or huge contingency of retirees or, well, anything that's gonna do them any good. I guess I'm safe.

So I've been a happy little homemaker today, dusting and polishing and sweeping and mopping and scrubbing and bleaching and hanging clothes on the line and I'm making hamburger buns because Mr. Moon is going to grill us some of those grass-fed burgers he got in Tennessee. Grass-fed hamburgers deserve homemade buns, don't you think?
I do.
I was inspired by our Elizabeth who has restarted her food blog. Unlike Elizabeth, though, who served broccolini with her grass-fed burgers, I'm going to make a little pasta salad. I don't happen to have any broccolini on hand for some reason. But I have celery and tomatoes and olives and some artichoke hearts and other tasty things.

Man, I love to eat. Plus I just realized I forgot to eat lunch. Well, that's sort of silly in that we ate breakfast around noon. And those eggs had a bunch of vegetables in them. So. No. I didn't really. Forget. I never forget to eat.

Yeah. It's been a good day and Prairie Home Companion is on and the hamburger bun dough is rising and the floors are drying and the rugs are washing and after last night's Great Ya-Ya-ectomy, I am feeling fine and dandy being at home and grateful for such a fine place to be. I keep thinking about seeing an old friend last night for whom I performed a marriage ceremony a long time ago and he said, "We're still married!" and that made me happy. It's making me happy right now, just thinking about it. It was a beautiful wedding. I remember it well.

I hope you're happy too. And content. Clean floors or not. It doesn't really matter.

Love...Ms. Moon

Waxing moon. January 28. 2012

You Cannot Have A Bad Time In A Pair Of Red Cowgirl Boots

Oh, y'all.
It's almost ten in the morning and I just got up and I think I might still be drunk.

Yeah.

It was a fabulous night.

I was being so wussy about it but something kept saying go, go, go, and so I did. We did. I finished my make-up with Owen tearing my bathroom apart and putting powder on his face. When I put my red lipstick on he studied me and said, "New lips!" and I kissed him with my new lips and we took him to his mama and went on to the Legion Hall where this reunion was taking place and I felt shy as could be and we walked in and I thought, "Oh, Jesus. There are going to be so many people here I thought were dead."

We found my ex and his wife and sat down at their table and it was all just starting to happen. It occurred to me quite strongly that hell, if I had felt compelled to come down for this reunion, everyone else in town would too and yes, that was true.



It was like some sort of huge family/high school reunion except for the fact that it was joyful and since we were at a reunion for a bar, basically, there was much drinking going on and as the night got deeper into its hours, we got deeper into our celebrating and the music got deeper into the blues and the dancers got deeper into their dancing.

I saw people I hadn't seen in years. And not just people I'd known from the bar, either. I saw my midwife and damn, if she doesn't look exactly the same as she's looked forever. She delivered Lily (probably the scariest birth she ever did) and although she's not in the biz anymore, she said she'd love to come to Lily's birth. We shall discuss. She's done a birth with Lily's midwife before and she really likes her. My Liz and Lon of the west were there and they were carrying tequila and sharing it out.


There they are together. Liz and my midwife, Erice.

It was a coming-together of what was once a community, in fact. We were a disparate group of people for sure, but we all went to Finales for companionship, for drinks, for food, for music.
And thus it was again.

The old chefs for Finales had gumbo and pork butt cooking outside. Delicious. Oh, how I have missed the food at Finales which stayed open until four a.m. and you could come in at three and get a steamed veggie platter and how many places can you say that about?

Well, in Tallahassee at least.

And yes I did see people I honestly thought were dead and some of them looked better than they did twenty years ago if you want to know the truth. Not all of us have aged so well but there we were and we danced, a lot of us, and we all walked around in a sort of agogness going, Isn't this just something? Isn't this just amazing? and it was. It truly was. Turns out we might all still have a few ya-ya's left. This is a fine thing to realize.

We left around midnight, amazing for us, and I am feeling incredibly none-the-worse for the experience.

It was just a beautiful evening and there were beautiful faces and beautiful smiles.


There was music.



There was food and there were so many hugs. People kept saying, "We should do this more often," but honestly- I think the fact that it has been so long made it so special. Plus, it's hard to get us old folks out much any more.

And we don't have enough days left to waste that many of them in recovery-mode. Although you know, once in a while it's worth it. It's worth it to see the faces, it's worth it to hear the voices, it's worth it to let the tequila open your heart full-wide to enjoy it all, to give your body permission to dance. It's worth it to hear the blues and remember what it was like to go hear music every week of your life, to be grateful for those people who play it and to be so glad that they are still here, still playing.

I'm glad I went. I sure am. I'm glad I put on my red cowgirl boots and my red lipstick and went out after dark and I'm glad I danced and I'm glad I got to hear the music and I'm glad I got to whisper secrets in ears and I'm glad I got to laugh and I'm glad I got all those hugs and that bowl of gumbo and Cam's recipe for etouffee and that I had two shots of espresso and several cups of water in the middle of it and saw people walking around and happy who I seriously thought were maybe dead and I'm glad it's a beautiful day today and it's like last night was one more gem in the necklace of beads around my neck which are the days I've lived.
An especially pretty bead. One that I'll cherish.

It was a night of remember? remember? and how are you? and some of the folks, well, you could tell that death has come a little too close with his cold dark breath but that's the way of it if you live long enough and there we were, come together again, changed and not-changed, dancing and smiling, saying Damn, it's good to see you, saying, Isn't this something? Isn't this just something?

And oh, y'all. It was.

Here And There And Oh Yeah, There Too

I woke up about one million times last night which gave me the opportunity to go back over my dreams.
Whoa.
I've decreased my antidepressant dose tremendously in the past few months and am barely on them anymore at all and so I can't blame all this night-time crazy-dream-movie-shit on them any more. It would appear that I am just insane all on my own.

Lucky for you I am not going to discuss them. The dreams, that is.

Anyway, what was waking me up was sorta-like pain. I feel achy everywhere and my hips feel like they might have teeth in them. Snap, crunch. I wonder if I am coming down with something. Isn't it funny that we "come up" with ideas and plans but "come down" with a cold or the flu? How does anyone learn a new language and speak it fluently? I do not know.

Well I really and actually do not have a lot to say this morning which is vastly apparent by now. It's Friday. Owen's coming over this afternoon and will be here until seven and we might go to town, Mr. Moon and I, for a restaurant/bar reunion.
Yeah. I know. Sure beats a high school reunion, though.
There was a great bar and restaurant in Tallahassee called Grand Finales and we spent many a Friday night there, eating yummy foods, drinking rum and cokes and listening to music and dancing. It was our weekly ya-ya-getting-out event. Back when we had ya-ya's to get out.

Anyway, some of the old bands will be playing and there will be food and drink and I sort of want to go and I sort of don't. It'll no doubt be one of those Oh God We Have All Gotten So Old situations. I mean- I'm spending the afternoon taking care of my grandson.
I don't know. We'll see.

Beyond that, there will be line-studying this weekend and set building. The play opens in less than two weeks.
Groan.

Hey- if you're in the mood to read something by a real writer whose columns I love, go here.
It's about Mitt Romney doing laundry and it's hysterical and Tina Dupuy wrote it and if you don't know her work, you should.

All right. That's it.

Happy Friday, y'all. Not unlike Mitt Romney, I have laundry to do. Haha!

Love...Ms. Moon

If We Could Only Agree That We Are Going To Disagree

The rain is coming down and the way it sounds falling from the roof is like the earth is being pat, pat, patted, gently and sweetly from the heavens.
Ah. Sigh.

We had a line-rehearsal tonight, which means that we sat around and said our lines and it was at Jan and Jack's house because the Opera House has a big ol' event going on and we sucked.
Yep. We did. It's actually harder to just sit and say lines than it is to be up and doing it because we associate where we are and how we are using our props as memory devices.
Maybe.
Or maybe we just suck.
I was sitting next to our young'un on the couch and she was texting inbetween her scenes and I watched her fingers flying on that tiny keyboard and I was amazed. Oh, youth. There is no substitute.

Anyway, we got to talking a little bit about politics. At least three of us there are pretty damned die-hard liberals and one of us is definitely not and we didn't get into it but I said that I think they're going to find a gene for whether you tend towards the liberal side of things or the more conservative side and that's just the way it is and that people hardly ever, EVER change sides of that fence.

I do believe it, too. The older I get, the more I think we're hardwired by our genes and that goes for religion as well as politics and I was just thinking about that. It occurred to me that we waste SO much time trying to fight the other side and how it does no good and what seems SO VERY OBVIOUS to one side seems like the biggest stinking pile of dog crap to the other and vice versa and maybe we should just give up the fight.

Maybe we should just take turns, you know? Democrats this election, Republicans that election and quit all the name-calling and shit-throwing and just accept that we are a nation made up of both ways of thinking (okay, probably many, many ways of thinking but you know what I mean) and stop wasting our breath. Maybe everyone would be a little more chill, knowing that their time is coming up.

Yeah, yeah. I know. It'll never happen and it probably wouldn't work but it's a thought. What's going on these days sure isn't working. Hell, Richard Damn Nixon would be too liberal for today's conservatives and the space between the two parties has just gotten so wide and so rocky that it doesn't seem like anyone can cross it anymore, which only leads to nothing getting done at all for the good of anyone.

Except for the very wealthy. They always make out like bandits, somehow.

Well, shit. Whatever.

The rain is coming down harder and I have an azalea bud opening and this is just crazy but it's nice, too. The pecans sure aren't opening anything up yet. They're tightfisted as ever.

They're wired like that.

I'm wired the way I am wired and you're wired the way you are wired and yet, we can all agree on some things.

The sweet sound of rain coming down, for one thing. And the way a sweet boy in Elmo pajamas feels in your arms.

and the way crock pot chili tastes at the end of a long day.

Yeah. Like that.

Sweet sleep, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Good Day

And Will He Bring Cheese Toast Today?

Owen's coming in the deep dark quiet; he's headed this way.

Might be a little quiet here at Blessourhearts today. That boy requires a lot of attention.

That's all right. I don't have much to say anyway.

Just this- people I have met through this blog continue to have me on my knees with amazement.

Not to pray about them. (You.) Just knocked right down with the very essence of strength and resilience and the ability to still laugh.

I am so glad we've met.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

A Decision And A Book

I am done with the contacts. Done, I tell you. There is no way that they are a fair test of my ability to see in monovision because they don't give me decent vision far away or near, either one. My astigmatism is too bad, I think, for them to work at all and I am not going to put myself through that shit one more moment.
I do believe I am just going to go get a new pair of glasses and be done with this situation. I cannot commit myself to an expensive surgery which may leave me with vision no better and maybe worse than I have with glasses.
So there and that's it.
I tried for eight days.

I went to lunch with Hank today and I could hardly read the damn menu. There was no place I could hold it and see the words properly. Not near and not far. Nope. Fuck it.

So okay. Have any of you ever read a book by Joshilyn Jackson? I never had but am listening to one on CD now and I can't tell if it's a really good book or if I am just fascinated by it or if the narrator, who is Ms. Jackson herself, is just incredibly talented.
It's got my attention. Too much of it.
It's called Backseat Saints and it's about a woman in a relationship with a man who, to put it bluntly, beats the shit out of her.
Now I've never been in that situation myself. My "issues" do not include being attracted to men who might do this. I went out with a guy once who hit me ONCE and that was it. Out of there.
And if any of my good friends has ever been in this situation, they never shared it with me although I deeply suspect that one of my friends (now deceased) may have been.
And so, this is a subject I really don't know much about beyond what I learned in nursing school and have read about. It is so very easy to think that the solution to domestic violence is to simply leave, although intellectually, I know that's a hell of a lot easier to say than to do. A hell of a lot easier. And I even understand some of the reasons why.

But listening to this book has been an eye-opener and it's a page-turner (or, if you're listening, a keep-goinger). The writing is a bit...lush...but it works very well in this story. Sometimes I think an editor should have perhaps stepped in with a red pen but really? Who am I to say that?

Okay. That's all. Just wondering if any of you have read any of this author's books (And how southern is the name Joshilyn? Was she named after her daddy? I do not know but I sort of hope so.) I would be tempted to read another. This is not Great Literature but it's a good story and there is certainly a voice to it and as such, I am enjoying it a great deal, albeit the subject matter which is painful and hard to fathom but which I know is as real as can be and as mostly untalked about as the sexual abuse of children.

And now I'm going to go make some SHAKE AND BAKE PORK CHOPS and no, I do not need any help, and also sweet potatoes and there are gorgeous greens from the garden soaking in the sink which shall be our salad. And don't you laugh at Shake and Bake pork chops. They are delicious and don't be a damn snob.

It's been a good day and I'm damn glad I have taken the contacts out and admitted that this is not working out for me although I gave it a fair try and am not sorry that I did.

I am grateful that my man has never once threatened in any way to raise a hand to me in violence and quite frankly, I beat myself up enough as it is and do not need to do so with sticking lenses in my eyes which only make my vision worse.

And Another Thing

If you want to research your family tree, chances are you can thank the Mormons for having all the records. Want to know why?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/mormon-church-mitt-romney_n_1229322.html

I read about this years ago and it creeped me the fuck out then.
Still does.

Clown Make-Up

I can't even stand to read the paper right now or read the articles on the internet about politics. It's just all a bunch of disgusting mess. I have been alive for fifty-seven years and I don't think I've ever seen such a craptastic slate of Republican candidates although why I am surprised, I do not know- I mean, GW Bush not only got nominated, he got elected twice.
Well. Not really.

What lit my fuse this morning was a quote from the paper from a woman commenting on Obama's State of the Union address last night which I did not watch as I was at rehearsal. Anyway, this woman said, "It's nice to see the president in full campaign mode. What we heard tonight was a series of empty platitudes and false dichotomies as the president gave lip service to issues like controlling our debt and getting our economy moving again. He was right about one thing, though. The American Dream is under attack. What the president fails to understand is that it's under attack by his own policies."

What. The. Fuck.

This sort of sums it all up for me right now. The hypocritical bullshit and yes, empty platitudes and false dichotomies. Yep. Right there.
But not Obama's.

Maybe I'm just having an old-hippie moment here but what the fuck is going on with all those old Republican White Men with their freaky sprayed hair and their mouths going, "Blah, blah, blah," and their lives saying, "Nah, nah, nah."

Right now the two biggest dicks in the barrel seem to be Newt and Mitt.
Newt with his three marriages, his "I'm not a Washington Insider" and his "I've never been a lobbyist."

I mean- come the fuck on. The truth is no farther away than yesterday's newspaper. Dude spent untold sums of money and wanked out the government to impeach Bill Clinton for letting an intern smoke his cigar WHILE HE WAS CHEATING ON HIS OWN DAMN WIFE! Listen- I'm a big believer in what you do with your private parts are your own private business but when you start moralizing and demonizing another person for doing the same exact thing you're up to, then I have to say that we need to take your soapbox away.
Plus. He was Speaker of The House. I loved what Jon Stewart said which was something along the lines of "Newt, when Washington gets a prostate exam, you're the one who gets tickled."
If being Speaker of the Damn House isn't being a Washington insider then it's being a Washington Vital Organ, at least.
And can you say, "Fannie Mae?"
But nah, go on, just keep opening your mouth and vomiting up the lies and eventually, someone will believe you.
Obviously.
Doesn't say much for American voters, does it?

Mitt? Who knows what the hell he really believes? He changes his own deeply held beliefs faster than he changes his Mormon underwear.
And speaking of Mormons- no, we do not have to accept the fact that Mormonism is just as regular a religion as being a Methodist. Methodists do not have secret rites and rituals in a TEMPLE, y'all, which you participate in and are sworn to secrecy under threat of...what? Death? I don't know.
I'm not saying that Mormonism as a belief is any crazier than any other religion but even within the definition of weirdness which to me encapsulates most religious belief, Mormonism sort of stands out.

Okay, okay. Whatever. What I'm saying here is that it's all a bunch of just completely bizzaro-world bullshit and I'm done with reading about it. Mostly. My biggest fear is that after the people-with-dicks bite each other's asses to oblivion, Sarah Palin is going to step back into the ring. Hey- it could happen. That Freaky Ass Big Tent those Republicans are always going on about has red and white stripes on it and it's always the scariest clown that steps out of the car last.

And the people always cheer and the lions roar and the elephants stand on their hind legs and balance a ball on their trunks and the ring master dashes around cracking his whip and the children cry because goddam- the circus is SCARY- but it's so much more entertaining than a lecture at the library and we all just buy another beer and a bag of peanuts and settle back and enjoy the show until we realize it's not a show, not at all, and the clowns are running the circus and no matter where we look, it's all crazy and confused and even when it's over and we step out into the light of day, the smell of the shit and sawdust is still in our nostrils and we can only imagine the clowns taking off their wigs and sitting back, their giant-shod feet propped on the coffee table, swigging whiskey and counting the till and laughing their asses off at how there's a sucker born every minute.

Fighting The Good Fight?

I'm struggling a little bit again. I decided today to really sort of take the day off. I mean, I did dishes and laundry and I went to town to hear my grandbaby's heartbeat and I had a rehearsal but beyond that, I didn't do much.

I laid down for a nap this afternoon- something I haven't had much of a chance to do for a long time and before I went to sleep I read a few articles in this month's Esquire, including an interview with Bill Clinton and one with Woody Harrelson, very different men, but I think both are men who consider things, who think about the consequences of actions, and who are both (well, in my book) sort of precious.

And that was nice and I had a short, deep nap but before I fell asleep, I felt flooded with guilt. Guilt about not spending this time doing something I SHOULD have been doing. Like studying lines or taking a walk. Or taking a walk while studying lines. I thought about how I need to come up with costumes and how I should have gone to Goodwill while I was in town- it's Tuesday! We seniors get a discount today! I thought about my mother and how I haven't even called her in two weeks. Or more. About friendships I have not tended. I fretted a bit with it all and tried to remember how fucking HEALTHY I'd felt in Mexico when I had had nothing to do at all but relax and enjoy and well, you know- just be. I tried to remember that water, to recapture that feeling of being perfectly and completely in the moment.
I did not succeed very well. But I slept.

I got up and did a few chores around here and then studied lines some more. I went to rehearsal.

It was, for me, the best rehearsal yet. I felt my character slipping out of me, taking over. The lines came somewhat easier. I had, can I say it? Fun.

Ah-yah.

I think about Kathleen and how she refuses to say that she is "battling" cancer. I love that. I have always hated that phrase. I remember when my friend Lynn died from a devastating neurological illness and I begged them not to say in her obituary that she had died after battling a disease.
They did anyway.
But I know the truth. There is no battling such a horrible illness. But if you read the obits, you'll end up thinking that everyone in America dies after battling something. Unless they die suddenly. It's like if Martians came to earth and observed all the convenience stores, they would think that all humans lived on ICE! BEER! and COFFEE! And gas, of course.

We have a warrior mindset. We fight our diseases, our demons and tooth-decay. We try to believe that we can actually make war on drugs and on terrorists. We stay busy all of the time battling fatigue and cholesterol and depression and pain.
And you know what?
We're going to fucking die anyway.

And what will have been the point of all this battling, fighting and all of these wars?
Some of us may be warriors and okay, go on, fight all you want. But some of us- well, we're not. We are not warriors, we are pacifists and dammit, maybe we just want to make peace with ourselves and our world and okay, change what we can but surrender to that which we cannot.

And I think that when I was in Mexico where the culture is very different, I felt at home in a way I never will here. We Americans have this history of fighting for every damn thing. We fought for freedom, we fought the Indians for their land, we fought for every square inch of this huge country and we are still fighting.

Jesus! I give up! I don't want to fight. I want to make love, not war.
I want to love myself, my family, my life. I want to work WITH circumstances, not against them. I want to enjoy the damn process and if I have to fight, then hell no, I will not be enjoying a damn thing.

And in the end none of it will have mattered.

It's like labor-until you surrender to the forces and let yourself sink into the pain and difficulty, the body will stay tight. But once you do surrender, once you let go and let the process take over and stay out of the fucking way, the body will do what it must do to let the baby be born.

I know this. I know these things to be true. So why, WHY do I constantly arm-wrestle myself into trying to believe that it is only through struggle that I can be a worthwhile human being?

I don't know. Acceptance and surrender seem to me to be not the lazy way out, but the intelligent and sensible solution to most things. If we quit expending the energy to fight, we may actually have the energy to DO.

All right. I'm going to think about these things. And if you have any thoughts to offer, I would be grateful for them.

I'm going to bed.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Baby, Baby, We Can Hear Your Heartbeat. With Captain America

Brain Chatter

Thinking, thinking, thinking. Too much thinking but it's interesting to think and wonder and ponder and ruminate and I don't have time to really put any of it down here but here are a few of the things tossing around the constantly whirling machinery of my mind this morning:

Beautiful celebrities
Ugly celebrities (politicians)
Last Night's Guest Dream Musician
What Love Is
What Love Isn't
Why sex?
Romance/Shromance

And finally:

Depression and Anxiety and why we neither really know what causes them nor best how to treat them.

My friend L7 sent me a link today and yes, I've linked to articles about this before but it just intrigues the very hell out of me.

http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/24/magic-mushrooms-expand-the-mind-by-dampening-brain-activity/

All right. I'm off to town for Lily's midwife appointment. A good midwife, in my opinion and experience, is something of a Shaman.

Where did all the Shamans go?

More magic! Less bullshit. That may be my new motto.

More shall be revealed. Later, y'all.

Just...Oh. Just Watch It. You'll Be So Glad You Did

Jo posted a video today that I have now watched in its entirety.
I am humbled and I am stunned and I am grateful and I love women more than ever and I wish that everyone who has ever been pregnant or who loves someone who has ever been pregnant or anyone who has had issues with her body after pregnancy or who thinks that her belly is not beautiful, would watch this.
Every moment of it.
And if I could kiss my own belly, I would. My own wrinkled, bigger-than-I-wish-it-were, nest of a belly.
Thank-you, Jo.
This is beautiful.

Silver, Leather, And Parallel Universes

Do you see those earrings? Those shiny silver earrings?
Those are my earrings. The earrings I bought the first time I ever went to Cozumel and I bought them for ten bucks and they have been my favorite, favorites, ever since. My go-to, default earrings for when I needed to be fancy or feel prettier or braver.
And I thought I had lost them last March when we went to Gatorbone and stayed at a cabin at the state park and I have been in despair about losing them ever since. I also lost a pretty necklace, one of my favorites, and a pair of red earrings which are crystals swinging on chains which I love and they have a crazy history of their own involving loss and discovery.
Also, one funky silver bracelet.
I had thought that I must have left them all in the bathroom of that cabin in a little bag, perhaps on a shelf and I had even called the office at the park and no, no one had turned them in and I'd thought to myself that if I'd found them, it would have been mighty hard not to consider them a gift from the girly-gods and kept them for myself and I didn't really hold any grudges or beat myself up for losing them. I just missed them.

I have dreamed about finding those earrings so many times.
So many times that this evening, when I reached into a bag that I thought I'd searched fifty times, at least, and I found them, I thought, "Well. I must be dreaming."

I don't think I am. I found the little bag and it had the two pairs of earrings in it and the pretty necklace. The bracelet, she is still MIA. And who knows? Perhaps she is the ransom I have paid for my earrings which is fine and right and I do not mind. When I was in Mexico I looked everywhere for earrings like these old ones and couldn't find any that were like them at all although the ones I ended up buying have a similar shape and I do love them. They're the only earrings I've worn since I got home.
Until tonight.

I have this theory that belongings (especially jewelry) go into and come out of parallel universes and if you've got a better explanation for why things dis- and re-appear, I'd like to hear it. It's happened too many times to me to be explained by carelessness or forgetfulness. I am not a careless person when it comes to my jewelry.
For instance- I have had these earrings now for twenty-five years.
I think that leather bags may be depots of some sort for these parallel-universe-travelings. I lost a lid of pot once, a long, long time ago, in a leather purse and it was missing for weeks and then it reappeared as if by magic. Lid of pot. Haha! What an old, old hippie I am.

I don't know how the magic works.

I'm just so glad it does.

It is a quiet night and I am home from rehearsal and Mr. Moon is out of town and I can hear the distant rhythmic chirping of crickets and I am feeling peaceful. Tomorrow I will go to town for Lily's midwife appointment and I will get to hear that coming-soon baby's heartbeat. Or heart-beep, as we are wont to say around here. Another holy moment.

I think I will wear my earrings. My once were lost but now are found earrings.

Unless I am dreaming.

Night, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

No. That is NOT All

I would like to find the man who wrote this stupid dialogue and then stick these contacts in his eyes and tell him to "adjust."

Yeah. That would make me happy.

And then maybe I'd find the person who made these contacts, stick them in THEIR eyes and tell them to study this script. With them in. While adjusting.

Justice. (Or at least sweet revenge.)

I Now Officially Hate

1. This script.

2. These contacts.

That is all.

Big Love

All right. It turns out it was actually real and valid and nothing to joke about but I got an e-mail yesterday and the subject line was

BIG VICTORY! re: Lesbian Torture Clinics and I'm sorry, it's wrong, I suck, but come on- wouldn't that make you sort of laugh if you had no idea what it was about?

What's that old saying? Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians?

Okay, okay, that's not what I came here to talk about.
What DID I come here to talk about?
I have no idea.

It's just the most glorious, amazingly beautiful, cool-but-not-cold, bright day in Lloyd and the birds are beside themselves with it and are composing special musical works dedicated to it and practicing them as they go and yes, I need to take the trash and yes, I need to take a walk, and yes, I have to study my lines MORE AND MORE, and yes, there are horrible things going on in this world (and I know this because there always are and even Lesbian Torture Clinics-no joke) but right here, right now, I just have to stop and say, this is heaven. This is a type of heaven and if I could, I would teletransport all of you here right now for an emergency service at the Church Of The Batshit Crazy and the sermon would be given by the air, the dirt, the birds, the light, the trees and the incense would be provided by the tea olive

and then we would all have biscuits and honey for communion and we would hold each others hands tight enough so that we wouldn't fly up into the glory and close our eyes and feel each others fingers, bone and flesh and blood, for real, all of us, and open our eyes and there we'd be and wouldn't that be something?

Good morning.

Japanese Magnolia blossoms, attempting to fly off into heaven.

Violets Are Blooming And The Sap Is Already Rising

Jesus Christ. I just studied lines for 6.5 hours. Okay. I took a few breaks.

And I took a few pictures.

While walking around the back yard, doing my lines, I found three white violets which had opened. I was shocked. I don't know why. If the Japanese Magnolias are blooming, the violets can't be far behind. The white ones always open first and then the purple ones. When there are more than three, I will start tossing them in the salads.

I found one of Owen's animals in the back yard, too. His elephant. I wonder if he's missed it. I miss him. I'm studying my lines with my iPhone. I downloaded an app for a voice recorder and when I recorded some of my cue lines and then my responses last week, I was also following Owen around and his voice comes through on the recorder and it makes me feel sort of weakified with love and longing to kiss him. I can also hear Elvis and the train but they don't have the same effect.

Anyway, I found Owen's elephant and I posed it with a little piece of stick that has what is possibly a lichen on it (Syd? Kathleen? Anyone?) which is so common here I almost never notice it but damn...it's sort of beautiful.



I don't think I've ever taken the time to actually look at it close up.
I'm glad I did today. I need to learn more about it.


I love that color- it's almost the color of my kitchen and it looks like a cross to me between lettuce or a stag horn fern and some sort of sea creature. I swear to you- I have been around this stuff my entire life and it wasn't until tonight that I actually LOOKED at it.

Which makes me wonder, as it does whenever something like this happens- WHAT THE HELL ELSE AM I MISSING?

I swear to god. I should try getting stoned once in a while. You see more stuff like that when you're stoned. We won't even talk about what you see if you've ingested a few sacred and holy mushrooms.

But today's sight was not enhanced with anything but script-concentration and these contact lenses which, if anything, decrease what I see but maybe that actually causes me to look more carefully. Looking and seeing are of course two different things but one will lead to another.

For example: A husband who, after eating an omelet and sausage and biscuits with honey will wash the dishes and give you "that" look. You know the one. The one that leads to foolin' around.

It's been a good day.

Yes it has.

I am grateful for every damn bit of it.

Brunch

I wish I could truly capture the yellow of our hen's eggs.

It was fittin'.

It's Okay. Plunder My Soul

Last night Mr. Moon and I played cards and I beat his ass soundly.
This never happens. Ever.
It sort of upset me. The way the luck has settled around here is something of a miracle and I want no portents that it may have changed in any way.

Silly. I know.

Very, very gray here today and wet, too. This makes for a different sort of sound-stage for this particular all-the-world's-a-stage.

I keep taking pictures of resurrection fern, hoping to impart the true beauty of it but it always just ends up looking like fern growing on log.

I guess that's what it is anyway, but this particular fern curls up and looks deader than your great, great, great grandmother when we haven't gotten any rain for awhile. And then...comes some wetness and it furls out and turns green again.
Obvious metaphor and beautiful on its own.
Can't beat that.
Especially on a Sunday morning.

I have a camellia opening up which is almost obscenely pink, if pink can be obscene. Especially against the brown and gray of today.

It is almost unbearably tender, too, with the droplets of water upon it.

One had opened fully, it's face bowed low, almost to the ground. I plucked it and brought it in, put it in a vase and gave it to the hallway altar table.

And you ask why I live in Florida. We are not all palm trees here in North Florida. Although we have a few of those as well.

When I moved here, almost eight years ago, there were no palm trees in the yard (excluding sago palms which are not actually palms) and one scraggly camellia. I remedied that in a hurry.
Well. Maybe not a hurry.
But pretty quick.

I brought over two camellias from my old yard and they are doing well. One fairly spectacularly well. I drove by that old yard the other day and saw that a tiny live-oak I'd planted has grown amazingly and looks for all the world like a teenaged boy, all height and gangle. When I die, that tree will still be there and hell, if no one interferes with it, when my children's children are having children, that tree will barely be mature.
That's something.
At least I think it is.

My friend Tom brought me two small palms in pots and I planted those by the front porch and then I bought two Canary Island Date palms and planted them on either side of the front gate.
They are doing well. They'll look better when they get more height to them but I feel quite affectionate towards them, even as they are now.



Again, it is warm and so my thoughts turn to the earth and what grows in it and on it. We are still getting good greens from the garden, both cooking-kind and salad-kind. I gave Judy a little dish of collards and mustards I'd cooked on Friday with tomatoes and shallots. They are good. I ate them again last night myself. I can't wait to make a salad with that basil-infused Spanish olive oil that Ross brought over with some of Tom's green onions and garlic. He grows the best garlic.

I hadn't seen Ross in years. I've known him since Winter Haven, back when we were kids. He came over as did Tom and our across-the-street neighbor yesterday afternoon to watch a basketball game with Mr. Moon. I could barely walk in that room with all the testosterone crashing around. Even with the door closed, I could hear the yelling and screaming coming from in there all the way out here on the porch. It was funny. All the gals on the back porch, all the fellas in the Glen Den.
I told Ross we were doing lines, us girls.
He looked at me with that tilted look of "oh really?" and we laughed.
Ah, the old days are gone forever.
The years have pounded us out and mellowed us all.
Somewhat.
We can still laugh about it all. Those of us still here.
There is something of great comfort in that. It was good to see Ross.

I wish I could see any damn thing today. These contacts- well- I'm not sure they're a very good experimental device. My eyes are so astigmatized that contacts have to find their float-point to work and it takes forever in the mornings. Honestly, I can't see shit here. I am writin' blind. They'll get better as the day passes.

Mr. Moon is out in the woods. It's the last day of hunting season. I think. For me this mostly means that I can start using Suavitel Fabric Softener again, which I like because it, like Fabuloso, reminds me of Mexico. Anyway, he'll be in soon and this day will truly begin. I might make him some breakfast.
I might even make some biscuits.
I can cook blind. Believe me.

Speaking of cooking, if you haven't visited Tearful's new cooking site, I advise that you do. Plate and Fork.
I especially like his header which has the words, eat what you want and die like a man.
There's no one like Tearful.
I don't know that I'll be making his recipes. They're far more gourmet than the hash I sling around here but I sure am entertained by the pictures and the words and who knows? I might get inspired.

Well, that's enough of that.
It's Sunday Here At The Church Of The Batshit Crazy and you know what that might mean.
Yeah. Time for a little hymn.
Here's a grainy old piece of film showing some boys before time had done its pounding work on them. Showing time DOING its pounding work on them.

Bless and amen.

Love...Ms. Moon

And Even MORE???!!!!

Stepping Back

A good day. A very good day.

I studied and then Judy came over and she helped me. She read me lines. And then Kathleen came over to help. And then Denise.
They did not have to, any of them.
I didn't ask them to.
But they did.

They made me feel loved and if there's anything more important than that in this world, I do not know what it is.
Well, maybe TO love. Of course.

I've gotten nothing really accomplished today, I have done no cooking. There's plenty of leftovers from last night, anyway. I have allowed myself to cry, to laugh, to feel loved.

And guess what? The world still spins and my chickens gave me four beautiful eggs, three brown and one that impossible Tiffany blue. A very old friend brought over some basil-infused olive oil he had made. Another friend brought over clean green onions that he'd grown, in a bread bag. They are pure white and greenest green. My husband has been loving all day long.
Especially loving.

And tomorrow I have nothing planned but to study lines. That's all.
To study those lines and let the character continue to come out as I can step back and allow her to do so.

To step back and be mindful of the moments and not worry about the ones to come nor to try and plan for them.

To just be.

I will probably check the progress of the opening of the first Japanese magnolia blossom in my yard, see if it wants to show me its purple throat, listen to what it may have to say.

I watched a red cardinal today bathe in the birdbath. I hope to remember that. It was a glory.

That's all.

Love...Ms. Moon

I Am Homesick

One of the things I got Owen at the Target the other day was a Thomas The Tank Engine Pop-up tent thing and he loves it. Who wouldn't? It looks like this in the ad at Amazon:

Perfect for a kid his age and size. He made his daddy bring it to our house yesterday and when Bop got home, he got in there with Owen too. Which pretty much meant he had to put it on like a shirt and Owen was just beside himself with glee.


I mean, look at that face!

It was a beautiful and fun day yesterday with Owen and he was mostly happy and we even took a nap and had snuggles and I don't know what happened but I just suddenly became overwhelmed and it may have occurred when Mr. Moon discovered that one of the dogs had gotten up on the coffee table in the Glen Den and POOPED! On the table. Where Mr. Moon and I frequently eat our supper.

Okay. This was a first and I just lost my...shit. No, not really. It didn't happen then. I cleaned it up and did a bleach scrub on the table and I'd made baked chicken and collards from the garden and mashed potatoes and homemade bread for god's sake (remember? I told Owen we would make dough and so we did) and studied lines and did about four loads of clothes and washed the sheets on the bed and had a really good time with Owen and then...
Well. I lost it.

I looked at the kitchen needing to be cleaned up and then I looked at those pictures Jessie had posted on Facebook and I lost it.

"I can't...." I think I said. "I just can't...."

And Mr. Moon cleaned the kitchen the way he usually does and I realized I had lost my sense of Just Be, thinking once again that I need to do and do and DO to be loved, to be appreciated, to be worthy of life on this planet and let me tell you something- for me that is toxic thinking. That is evil thinking. That is what leads me to insanity.







And so I went and found that video and I remembered and still, it's like a dream.
Really?

And I wonder- am I having my ten thousandth midlife/oldlife crisis? Should we just move to a little cottage in town? Should I forget trying to do chickens and a garden and living in this big old house that needs so much attention and be where I'm closer to my children and my grands and Publix?
I know I need to get rid of the dogs.
I know that.
No shit.

Should I quit doing plays and being on the Opera House stage company board?

What is really and truly important to me? How do I refine, define, find the time? Without going insane?

I can't live in Cozumel. I can't stay in a hotel all the time where everything is magically cleaned for me every day. I can't eat out three meals a day. I can't lie about in a hammock beside the water, waiting for my next serving of pico de gallo and chips and beer.

That is not real life.
Well, no. yes. It is real life. Just not the one I am able to lead all the time.

Nor would I want to unless my children were there too. I would die of missing them.

Well. Time to struggle into those contacts. Time to study lines. Judy is coming over this afternoon to help me. Guys are coming over this afternoon to watch a game on TV.
This is real life.

Or at least the one I am living now which is the one I have chosen, which, is also like a dream. Which includes messiness. And joy. I mean LOOK at that face poking out of Thomas The Tank Engine. I get to kiss that face!

And I need to remember, no I have to remember, that my worth as a person does not depend on how much I get done in a day and that honestly, I am not in a contest with myself.

Or something like that.

And to take time to breathe. And to remember that there is autonomy and I do get to make choices and changes if I feel that changes need to be made as I grow older.

And that tears are just an overflowing heart sometimes.
Yes. That too.
And that I can be homesick for a place where I do not actually live.

I sure as hell can be and I am.