Monday, April 29, 2019

If You Eat A Butterfly, Do You Feel Like You Have Butterflies In Your Stomach?


Another one of those tilt-a-whirl days with every emotion bringing up a new wave of eye water that threatens to spill and more than enough emotions to go around.
Why, god? Why?
Am I fourteen again?
No. At least when I was fourteen I had beautiful skin.
And hair.

I have three hens missing now. Three. Still no sign of Dearie and both Big Mama and Connie were not in the coop this morning and I haven't seen hide nor feather of them today.
I am about to give up on the chicken tending. I really am.
Darla's still on the nest, her feathers puffed and full and when she does get off to eat she sings the chick-calling song.
Oh Little Mama. That makes me cry too.
It's getting hot and I can't help but think that those eggs under her (a few of hers and a few of the other hen's) are just going to cook instead of whatever-you-call it that they're supposed to do.
Also? The Confederate jasmine has turned from a sensual delight to an assault on my senses. This always happens. They start out so blissfully perfumey and end up as a battalion of overwhelmingly strong scent molecules that you cannot avoid either in the yard or in the house.
And dammit, I planted those fuckers myself. They make my head ache.

I took a walk. I walked down the sidewalk and then down a dirt road I've never walked before but it's a nice road and I will walk it again. There is one yard that has two dogs who barked at me. One is some sort of husky/German shepherd mix and the other a pit bull.
In other words, they could and probably would kill me if they got out of the fence.
Maybe I won't walk down that road again.

I went to town. I had a firm destination in mind having to do with Jessie's birthday. I was going to get her a gift certificate at a shop that we always find fun things in and I realized, as I was driving there, that I hadn't been in that part of town in forever. When I walked into the place I felt anxious. I felt weepy (see above) and I shopped around a bit to see if they had anything I thought my girl would want worth getting her a gift certificate for.
They did not.
And the woman behind the counter kept talking to me. Asking me inane questions. I was the only person in the shop and there was no way to avoid her. I felt a definite be nice to the old lady vibe.
I ended up buying two cards and getting the hell out of there.
I went somewhere else and bought a gift certificate. A place I will not name here on the off chance that Jessie reads this. But it's a place I am sure she will find something she wants. I also took that picture at the top of the post.
And this one, too.


A fierce little green anole was trying his best to swallow a butterfly. A man saw me taking the pictures and he told me that he'd witnessed the killing. That the butterfly had just landed near the lizard and the lizard pounced. 
Farewell, lovely butterfly. Farewell. 

Then I went to Publix. Because of course I went to Publix. I bought stuff. I came home. I carried stuff in. I was exhausted. These are the days where I wonder if 
(A) I am dying, or 
(B) Merely suffering a touch of the insanity. 

Hard to tell sometimes. 

I've made coleslaw for our supper. It's not that good because I am too much of a wimp to add the amount of sugar to the dressing that would make it delicious. I'm also cooking okra and tomatoes. All I have left to do is cook the grouper and a small pot of grits. I have the good kind of grits that take forever to cook. I am thinking about a friend of ours who is very, very ill. Not the friend who lives here. He's...okay. Another friend. He lives in another city, a bit far away and I am thinking about him and his wife and to be honest, mostly her. She has been the quiet partner who has made everything possible for their life to be a sort of magical thing. I think of her now and I can't imagine how she feels, how she is coping although I know she IS coping and doing it like a goddess queen because that's who she is. We have known each other since before Jessie was even born. In fact, we both had our fourth and final babies at about the same time. I love them both. I keep thinking of them and there's nothing I can do to help. They have millions of friends and yes, the four children who adore their parents. 
If only we could shoot our love, pure and strong across the miles directly into people's hearts so that they could feel it like you feel full after a good meal that someone made for you or like you feel after you've had the sweetest time with your lover. 

I guess I'll send a card. 

Hey! I'm going to make a beautiful cake tomorrow. I hope it's beautiful. A chocolate Tres Leches cake. For Jessie. It needs to sit overnight and let all three of the milks soak into it. Won't that be something? 

I guess I'll go start the grits. 

Love...Ms. Moon







20 comments:

  1. I am so sorry about your friend's illness. I'm also sorry about the chickens. I hate when the chickens go missing.

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  2. sorry to hear that the hens are incognito......I am cautiously optimistic that they too, may be brooding somewhere? I hope. Your day...... yes, I can feel it from your post.....emotions at the surface..... let it flow, you must. And I'm sorry to hear of your friends illness.....but Mary, you *are* shooting love across the miles.... it's pure energy that is flowing from you..... be sure of that
    Susan M

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  3. What sad, hard days these are for you. Like so much of life, it just isn't fair, and if that is a three milk and tear cake, that's OK, too. It goes to a table of love and understanding.
    PS--stay off that road.

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  4. It's so hard to see the suffering of others. I always feel helpless and try to compensate in other ways that don't really help except keep me busy I suppose.

    Sending hugs for you.

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  5. Please stay away from angry dogs. I'm sorry about your friend but they do know you love them and your chickens do too, wherever they may be. Hugs!

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  6. I used to call it 'getting the blues,' but it's so much more than that, isn't it? There have been times when I can count my millions of blessings, yet be inconsolable because I thought I'd lost my insurance card (yes it happened today and I cancelled my lab work then had to call back and ask for my appointment when I'd found the card). It's fickle Mother Nature at work again! Now I must go, for I'm almost to a sob over Dearie and her sisters.

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  7. Oh, Mary. I'm sending you one of those hugs you described. ❤

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  8. Oh Mary. Sometimes it's just really hard and A LOT (or as Jonah used to say when he was little, "I AM HAVING TOO MANY FEELINGS.") May the chickens come back and no dogs bite and some grace alight.

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  9. I'm so sorry you're having a hard time. I hope the cloud lifts soon. I know how when it's like that everything seems to pile on at once. Keeping my fingers crossed for the chickens...

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  10. Oh Love, you're so far from insane. You're a beautifully sentimental human. Confounded rumor has it we don't get to experience joy without the pain. And grief, i believe is a measure of our love for a thing that we've relinquished along the way. Anyhow, what i'm trying to say, is you *love*, and i know I'm not the only one who admires how wonderfully you do- tears and worries, and all. XO <3

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    1. Also, :| ok, I was a strange child and used to eat moths at the neighbor's house, and, no. :-#

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  11. Also, you reminded me of the song, Tilt-a-Whirl by the Railsplitters. Not very Stones'esque but maybe listen-able?

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  12. Sometimes we can feel just a bit too emotional. Or at least I can. I think some of us have more volatile nervous systems than others. The upside is being able to appreciate things strongly, too.

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  13. Thank you for this post Mary. I am glad to know that I am not alone in this emotional landscape. Please tell how you will cook that hunk of fish. Keeping chickens is a crap shoot; I hope they turn up.

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  14. oh no! more missing chickens. it's why my sister quit keeping chickens. well, they could still show up. perhaps they're just on walkabout. the jasmine will be done soon and then you'll miss it. and I hate going into shops and then having the clerk want to talk to you the whole time. I went into a hippy kind of import store once, small store full of neat things but the guy would NOT stop talking to me and it basically ran me out before I was finished browsing. I probably wouldn't have bought anything but I wanted to look at it all.

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  15. I'm sideburns striding... Um, nĂ³, autocorrect, suddenly struggling too, this period. I hate hormones. Hate everyone, and myself. Love you and your cake, though!

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  16. Wow -- a lot going on! First of all, those are fabulous pictures of the anole eating the butterfly. Nature, she fierce!

    I'm so sorry about the chickens. I hope they're just roosting somewhere else and will return ASAP. I do feel bad for poor Darla. She wants to be a mom in the worst way.

    Sending a card IS shooting your love across the miles -- maybe not quite the way you described, but it does help.

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  17. I'm sorry to hear of your Friend's Family struggle, mercifully it sounds like they have a solid Network and Inner Circle of Present Help, which is always so much better than the alternative of NOT. I do Hope your missing Chickens are OK? You have a lot going on.

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  18. I'm sending you great big surges of love.

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  19. I am sorry about your friend. I can hear your grief for that family, but go ahead and shoot your beams of love to them, they will feel it, I'm sure of it. I know the feeling of wondering if I'm dying. I wonder it too sometimes. And then I realize I'm merely aging, and good god, it sucks. I hope all the chicken babies comes home soon. Love to you dear Mary.

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