Could I Have Rambled Any Further? I Think Not

Poor old piano. It sits in my hallway and has for many years. My ex-husband gave it to us when Jessie was still living at home because she was showing such an interest and aptitude for music. The ex was (still is) a guitar player and he and his wife were getting rid of this piano which was very old and funky then and in need of tuning and in the sixteen or so years in which it's been sitting in the hallway it has gotten neither less funky or more in tune. I'll never forget when Jerry brought the piano over in a U-Haul he'd rented and he and Glen managed to get it into the house and in the hallway, he said, "Looks like it grew there," and it really sort of did and there it still sits. 

Since no one plays it except for me, very, very occasionally and extremely badly and haltingly, it mostly just holds pictures and the speakers from the stereo and the router for the internet. I keep my old student piano books on it and there's an ancient Methodist hymnal

although I have no idea why I've kept it. In fact, I'm not sure how it came into my possession to begin with, but it was probably my mother's and here's a clue. 

Although we never attended the Methodist Church in Roseland (which, by the way, is still a very growing concern with a connected thrift store where I shop every time I'm in Roseland), the one-time minister of that church, Denny Hendry, eventually started his own church which was the Roseland Gardens Community Church on the bank of the Sebastian River in a beautiful wooded spot and he did actually grow a rose garden. So I suppose Denny may have taken some of the hymnals with him and Mother sang in the choir and had the hymnal for practice and pleasure. We had a piano and she wasn't a bad piano player. I took lessons when we lived in Roseland but I showed no talent whatsoever and eventually, even Mother realized her money would be best spent NOT paying Hildred Mueller, my teacher, to screech and scream at me when I invariably hit the wrong notes and which, by the way, I still hit. The same exact ones. Hildred and her husband Harry had a little act together. Hildred and Harry, I think it was called. Could have been Harry and Hildred. Harry was a jolly little round man with a very large tummy and he sang while Hildred played and she may have sung too. I only saw them play once and that was at a PTA thing which for some reason had entertainment that night. 
How the hell did I get here? 
Piano. Things on piano. Hymnal being one. 
So yes, we attended the Roseland Gardens Community Church and of course my brother and I were bored out of our minds but at least there were giant jalousie windows to look out of and if the preacher and/or the choir weren't too loud, we could hear birds and the wind in the pine trees and that was pretty okay. I swear to you though, almost every page of that hymnal has a song on it I remember and every fucking one of them is an ear worm. 

Since we've made it this far, I'll go ahead and repeat something I know I've written about at least five or ten times which is that eventually, after Denny Hendry crashed his church and lost his wife due to an unwise affair with another church's organist (no jokes here, please), the church and land were eventually sold to a spiritual community led by a former Jewish Brooklyn housewife named Joyce Green, rechristened Ma Jaya Sati Bagavati. 

It is now the Kashi Ashram. Arlo Guthrie was one of the devotees of Ma Jaya, which is why he has wintered in the communities of Sebastian and Roseland for many years. Ma Jaya died in 2012 and as is so often the case with spiritual leaders of all kinds, including ministers for Community Churches, there were allegations...
And far more serious ones than a plain old affair with a consenting adult. 

I have no idea if Arlo is still associated with the Ashram. I do know that he still seems to love that area very much. 

But isn't all of that odd? What would the little group of older, retired people who attended Denny's church in the early sixties, most of whom probably had no real belief in religion but who believed that going to church on Sunday was just what one did and a way to be part of a community have thought about all this?

My memories of that place were of watching manatee slowly swimming by in the river, of the smell of roses, of those many pines and palms, of Helen Kretshmer, the choir director at the piano, her white hair pinned up in a knot on top of her head, the sweet little congregation who often all went out together to Sunday lunch after church was over, the Christmas pageants where I once got to be Mary, the soprano with the huge breasts who sang "Where You There?" on Easter Sunday whom my little brother had stood motionless and watched as those breasts quivered as she emoted the words to the song during rehearsal, the gentle sermons which never once, as far as I can remember, mentioned hell or an angry god. 

It's bizarre to know that none of the people who pay big bucks to visit Kashi for yoga training or spiritual retreats have any idea about these things although perhaps they do still get to see the manatee.
Sigh. 
Such is life. 

Enough of this nonsense! 

Mr. Moon is back up at Lake Seminole and tonight he is catching huge catfish and is very happy. I made chicken soup for him to take with some rotisserie chicken I bought last week and some chicken stock I had in the freezer AND another container of chicken soup I'd tucked away in there a month or so ago, thus fulfilling my purpose on earth which, as we all know, is to take leftovers and create more leftovers out of them. The soup has quinoa and the chicken, green beans, carrots, kale and mustard greens, garlic galore, onions, celery, spinach, and lots of lemon juice. 
Once again, my man shall not suffer from hunger. 

It's going to get so cold this week, possibly 26 degrees by Friday. For us, this is almost frighteningly cold. The plants will have to be wrapped again and there are a few that I'm going to ask Glen to help me bring in despite their large size because I don't think the wrapping alone is going to protect them. 

Here's a door knob Glen found while digging the trench for the water pipe. 

I am wondering if it came from this house or from the little Episcopalian chapel that was once housed in that area of the yard. 

Speaking of churches. 
When the congregation dropped to two members, they moved the chapel to Tallahassee where it still sits right beside an Episcopalian church there. 
St. Clement's Chapel. 
The woman who told me this who grew up in Lloyd and who is now deceased, seemed to still be upset that the chapel had been moved. 

No one can hold a grudge like an old Southern lady. 

Ask me how I know. (That is MY river, you Gee Dee Kashi's!)

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Now I remember what triggered this whole thing! I sat down at that piano and played badly and haltingly this afternoon and I loved it.