Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Back On My Knees In The Dirt


I took about an hour and a half walk this morning but please- that is so misleading. I spent at least half that time talking to my favorite Lloyd ladies.
I took Miss Liola some eggs and pickles and we chatted for a while about the storm and the grandchildren and local gossip and so forth and so on. She is a merry woman and laughs a lot and for some reason, has just loved me from the start. She always hugs me before I leave and I cherish those hugs. I took a picture of the fally-down house after I left her yard and if that tree on the side wasn't there, having grown into the little old cottage, it would have surely collapsed by now. That right bottom corner is coming apart and the whole place is leaning more and more precariously.


I will be sad when it goes entirely. Then again, that may take another decade. Who knows? The earth has its own time to reclaim what it wants. 

Miss Mable was out in her yard when I walked by and I stopped to chat with her too. It took quite a while for her to come to trust me and feel comfortable around me. She's a different sort of woman than Miss Liola. She's a proud and stridently independent woman and her house and her yard are her constant concerns. I swear, every oak leaf that falls bothers her. She pointed out a limb that had fallen in the woods that encroach her yard and told me she has to get someone to take that out because a bear could hide behind it and she can't have that. I didn't have much to say about that. It is true but I doubt it's going to happen. Still- who am I to say what a bear will or will not do? 
She asked me if I knew how to get rid of a vine and I couldn't figure out what kind of vine she meant so she took me around to her back yard and showed me. It was one of those damn invasive potato vines and I told her I had them too and the best way was to get a goat but if that wasn't practical, to do her best to pull the roots and gather all the damn potato-looking fruits it drops and burn it all. They are a horror show. I did not know that her backyard had once been a sort of nursery before she bought it and there are lovely plants back there. Rose of Sharon and Confederate Rose and camellias and sagos and all sorts of things. We talked about plants and roofs and yards. She pointed out another branch that had almost fallen, but not quite, in a tree in her front yard and said that she had to get that taken down. It was driving her crazy. "You're so funny!" I told her. "I'd just let it be until the day it dropped and it wouldn't bother me at all."
I never would have said that to her when we first were getting to know each other but I said it today and she just laughe. I need to take her some eggs and pickles too. 

When I got home I cooled down some and then got to work out in the garden and it almost killed me but goddam it, I NEED TO PLANT ME SOME GREENS! I yanked the spent eggplant and okra and hauled it to the burn pile at which point a swarm of red ants attacked my arm. They'd been crawling all over the okra and I hadn't noticed them. I about gave up at that point but for some reason, although they looked horrible, the bites didn't affect me as strongly as they usually do so I just carried on. 


They still look like a mess but they aren't itching so I'm fine. 
I sweated through my clothes and my hair and my hat but I got maybe a quarter, at least, of the garden cleared and I'd love to get the rest of it done this week so that Mr. Moon can till and then I can plant. I am sick and tired of the sad salad greens in the store. Even the ones in the fancy plastic jewel boxes, even the organic ones, are way past their peak even when they're still in the store. I opened a fresh package of arugula the other day and took one sniff and threw it all out to the chickens who probably didn't eat it. 
It wasn't fittin' as we say around here. Not even to throw into soup. 
I also cleaned out the hen house and gave my sweeties fresh hay. 
I mended a sheet and I did laundry and I just feel pretty darn accomplished for the day although I know that by bedtime I'll be doing some quiet moaning about how my hips hurt but fuck it. It's been worth it. 

Oh! I have been communicating with the lay minister but I'm done with that. His whole thing is the cliched belief that if all you believe in is science and evolution and that we humans are nothing but animals, there is absolutely no reason to act in a kind and loving manner. This always strikes me as the thinking of a person who has a great fear of doing horrible things. Of course I told him that that was insulting and pointed out that the Bible is full of rules and crap that we just simply do not follow these days (such as slavery and stoning to death your recalcitrant child) and also asked him which god I should follow, there being so many. 
He suggested a "simple" book I could read to show me the light but I told him I'd already read the Bible and that that action had actually made me the nonbeliever I am today. 

He has the religion gene. I do not. 
He also obviously has a great need to be told what to think which is something I have never been able to tolerate or understand. 

And so it goes, as dear Kurt Vonnegut so often said. 
And so it is. 
We move on. 

Love...Ms. Moon




21 comments:

  1. I suspect I believe in God because I have declined to delve into the Bible. What I was exposed to reading with my parents each morning of my childhood did not invite me in. God is Love to me. Love moves the universe. Something like that. I love you.

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    1. Well, you know I believe in love. It indeed moves the universe. It is the engine.

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    2. Well if the three of us have come to the same conclusion without no book or nothin', then there's gotta be somethin to it!

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  2. it astounds me that people think that without god we have no reason to act in a kind or loving manner, that without fear of punishment, we would never be kind or loving or compassionate or sharing. how empty those people must be that they don't understand kindness is it's own reward. even animals act in kind and loving ways. we've all see the videos of animals helping rescue other animals and different species at that.

    you were so busy today! I'm being able to do less and less everyday. just run out of steam. that's OK, a slower pace is welcome. I do want to get some things planted. I thought I would not do a winter garden but I have some seeds someone gave me and that little bed in the back.

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    1. like my friend who kind of went crazy in the years before he died who thought I didn't have any morals because I didn't believe in his god.

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    2. How sad about your friend. I absolutely understand your running out of steam. I am amazed that you have gotten done the work you have. Amazed and humbled. I know that tomorrow I will need to take it easier. Maybe I'll go buy seeds to give me incentive to finish my garden-clearing. Oh! How I look forward to those tiny sprouts breaking dirt. And if all you planted was arugula, which grows like a weed, you would definitely be happy with your salads all winter.

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  3. You had a tremendous day of productivity! I believe in the God of love as well. I always have. I never read the Bible, don't want to. Call it God, call it a tree, whatever, there is something bigger. My belief makes some very angry. I don't care.

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    1. Ain't nobody's business what you believe.
      Amen.

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  4. Something about those last, feeble trusses in old barns and sagging structures - the remaining strongholds in the fight against gravity. They give me pause too - witnessing for a minute, their imperceptibly slow, final groans and breaths.

    Gosh, Miss Mabel sure sounds like my grandma.

    THE HELL kind of ANTS have you got there?!

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    1. Yes. Watching that old little house fall back to earth is a lesson in something. I'm not sure what. Respect for one thing.
      We have red ants. And fire ants. Every ant we have will bite or sting. Florida. Damn.

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  5. I'm enjoying your conversation with the minister and like to imagine him up at night pondering your wisdom and perhaps even dreaming disturbing dreams that rock his world.

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    1. I hate to say this but the lay minister really has nothing new to add to the debate about whether or not god exists. I really feel sort of sorry for him. But then again, not really.

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  6. Hmmm. His perspective is interesting, but I have to say I do not understand it at all. Do I need to be TOLD to be good and moral in order to be good and moral? (As good and moral as I am, anyway, which probably isn't the optimum.) Can't we be kind to our fellow humans and other creatures and the planet just because it makes everyone's lives a little better, not because "God" told us to??

    I love your conversations with your neighbors. And it's good to see the fally-down house again, but I believe it IS more fally-down than it was when I saw it in real life!

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    1. Well, although we may not be perfect, at least we don't try to do the right thing because we're worried about going to hell. Can you imagine?
      The fally-down house is definitely more crooked than it was when you were here.

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  7. If that old house was mine I might be tempted to restore it as a garden building, to sit and reflect on the world in, or something.... those ladies sound like real characters.

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    1. It's not mine, that old house. It sits on a lot owned by a distant and uninterested owner. And I think it's far past the point of restoration. But it is beautiful, in its way.

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  8. The fally-down house is definitely leaning more and more in each picture.

    Sometimes it's very, very hard to have the religion gene.

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    1. You know, Birdie, I've thought about that before. It MUST be hard. But then again, you also have the think-for-yourself-gene. Which is a powerful gene.

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  9. It sounds like you did well with the lay minister but ... well, there's not much point, is there?

    I'm afraid that all the babies in your day contribute to the babies in your dreams. It's inescapable, maybe.

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  10. Sorry I am late to the conversation, but I more and more believe this is a hell realm that we are in, and to make it more hellish than it already is for other people, by acts of unkindness, is the real "sin." It's hellish enough already.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.