One Day In The Church Of The Batshit Crazy

That was the sky through the pecan leaves this morning. The color was that blue and true, the green that new. 

I needed something so clear and sharp this morning to bring me back to this place and time and life. I slept late and had dreams that caused the tears to spill down my face while I sipped my coffee. Some of the dream was as tender and beautiful as anything I've ever dreamed. Some of it was like a peek into what my life would be like in a parallel universe if I had made that choice and not this one, had become that woman and not the one I think I am. 
Perhaps we really do contain multitudes and even the dream women are me, whether I know it or not. 
The tender part involved seeing Chloe. I was in Cozumel and suddenly- there she was. I find it fascinating how our brains work things out for us as they tell these stories, both the ones we want to hear, and the ones we don't. Chloe was as surprised to see me as I was to see her but we got over the shock immediately and we hugged so tightly and for so long. It turned out that she had faked her death to move to Mexico and leave the craziness of this country behind and although she did not want her deception to be known, she was as glad to see me as I was to see her.
And then she braided my hair. 
That is the part of the dream that broke my heart. As a mutual friend of ours said, she was an earth mother. And that is exactly what she represented to me. 
There was so much more to it all, the parts where I had stepped into a rapidly flowing tributary of what is perhaps the matrix. 
Who knows? Not me. 
But I have been emotional all day long. 

It's very, very quiet in my house this evening. Mr. Moon left this afternoon to go pick up Owen and head to the coast to spend the night so that they can get up early and go fish for grouper. I am so thrilled for them. Mr. Moon has been waiting for this moment since Owen was born. I hope the boy has the fishing gene. Lily and Jessie surely do and they are all talking about a father-daughter fishing trip and I hope that happens. Both of those girls love to fish and they surely did not get it from me. 
I did my part for the Owen-Boppy adventure by making cookies for them to take. I saved a few back because Jessie was going to bring out her boys for a little while. And she did. And they spied those cookies right off. We had a very nice visit. I was slowly getting it together to make mulberry preserves while they were here. I got out my jars and canning kettle, the jar lifter, the canning funnel. I measured out my mulberries- twenty cups! I added almost all the sugar I had and set it all to cook very, very slowly in my big jam pan while I sterilized my jars. I grated in lemon peel and squeezed a little of the juice in and cooked it down for awhile. This time I added two packets of liquid pectin and I am not seeing any signs that those preserves are going to gel at all but we shall see. I probably didn't add nearly enough sugar and not enough of the pectin either. 
But while all of this was going on the boys were playing and we were all cracking jokes and there was some lunch eating although as I think about it, I never did really eat lunch. This is a first for sure. 

Besides being emotional all day, I have been hyper-aware of the beauty of the day with its light and brightness, it's strange but lovely coolness, as well as the beauty of the forged love-links of my family. It's almost as if my dream about Chloe lifted the veil for a moment between life and death and I have been more finely attuned to that which is what we call life on this earth while being quite aware that one day we will not be here to see it, live it, revel in it. And the day has certainly lent itself to that as if showing me all that there is to wonder at, to be amazed by, to enjoy. 

Turns out I was wrong about Dottie. She is not sitting on eggs. She was just laying, I guess, when I thought she'd settled into her own nest. But Darla surely is. She is puffed up to at least twice her size, keeping the eggs beneath her at the perfect temperature. It's supposed to get down to the forties tomorrow night which is unheard of for this time of year in North Florida so she has her work cut out for her. I have estimated her due date, or rather, her hatch date, as May 24 which is my May's birthday. Wouldn't that be sweet? Again- we shall see. I was reading "Make Way For Ducklings" to the boys today and Levon told me that he wanted to hold a baby duck. I said that if Darla's eggs hatch, he can surely hold one of those. He was happy about that. I hope it can come true. I know that Maggie would love to hold one too. 

From all of my hours and hours and hours of listening to the Mormon Stories podcasts, I've learned that Mormons are taught that the feeling they get sometimes of being overwhelmed by the spirit is where they get the testimony that their church is true. It is their proof. 
"I know..." they say, when they give their testimony in church. And when people lose their faith, one of the things they discover is that people from all religions have their spirits overwhelmed. Even atheists feel this. It is not an emotion confined to Mormons, it is a human emotion. 
I've felt that today myself. And of course I have no need to attribute it to a god or a belief or a religion but simply (amazingly) to what is here before me, around me, within me. No need to worship a creator but a deep need to be able to take it all within me with deep love and appreciation for what is here. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon