A Pleasant Evening Indeed

Last night I babysat for the just-turned three-year old next door. We shall call him Harley because that's what Mr. Moon called him when he was a baby for some indeterminate reason. Certainly not because that's his real name.

Anyway, I have known Harley since birth because I was there when he was born, a mighty child from the get-go. He's grown up here in Lloyd and is like the village mascot, having charmed the hearts of the post mistresses, the local wine-o's and all the neighbors as well. Hell, he's probably friends with that guy who throws his beer cans in the ditch for me to pick up.

Harley is a loving child.

His mom and dad dropped him off here at six to go on a much-deserved night out in town and Harley, as is his wont, headed straight for my piano and there he pretty much stayed the entire time he was here. He plays the piano with great and dramatic technique and sings along.
He knows quite a few songs.

I tried to get him to eat supper but he wasn't interested and headed back to the piano to serenade Mr. Moon and me while we ate.

The little man is a born performer. At Lily's wedding back in April, he took the stage during the reception and played air guitar and sang during every song and the seriousness with which he took this gig was amazing. He looked as if he was being paid the big bucks to stand up there and by golly, he was going to make sure he gave his money's worth.

I'm not sure I'd ever seen a two-year old display such serious intent. No ADD for that boy. He had a job to do and he did it for two hours.

I have a feeling that "performer" is written in his chart somewhere.

But he was quite open to going back to his house and leaving the piano behind. We read some stories before he went to bed which I loved and probably enjoyed more than he did. I realized that although I had thought I wasn't doing any acting for many years, I actually was because the way I read stories to a child is a thing of beauty. I'm not kidding you! They should film me! I am as dramatic a story-reader as Harley is a piano player.

When it was getting close to bed time, I asked him what he sleeps in and he, being in the literal stage, gravely replied, "I sleep in a bed."

Well, yes. But what do you wear when you sleep in the bed?

"Night clothes."

And so I got him into his night clothes and he used the potty and brushed his teeth which mainly meant he sucked the training toothpaste (really- they make training toothpaste) off the brush while saying, "Round and round and up and down," and so forth.
Not being his parent and responsible for his oral health, I was merely amused.

I offered him two choices before bed- one more story or a game of Candy Land. He tried to bargain me into both, but I stood my ground and after a rousing game, he amiably agreed to go to bed, which he did. He turned off his own light and got in his bed and told me that he sleeps alone, which I took to mean that I should leave now, so I did after I kissed him good-night.
He called out to me several times to make sure it wasn't time to get up but there was no whining or fussing.

It was really a lovely evening that I had with Harley and I feel like he's crayoned on my heart, which already looks like a parent's refrigerator, all filled up with the scribbled drawings of dozens of little children whom I have loved, some of them my own, some of them belonging to others, but all of whom have left their mark there.

I thought of this as I walked home under the dark, drizzly skies of Lloyd, the village where Harley is growing up, the place where he is loved.

Deck The Halls With Balls of Folly

Well, Christmas is almost upon us and I have been notably silent with a few exceptions on the subject.

As we all know, I hate Christmas down to my very bones. I have no idea why although I have some suspicions and at this point, it doesn't matter; it's not going to get better and I am not going to be suddenly and miraculously blasted through with the "true meaning of Christmas" like some Hallmark special.

Ain't gonna happen.

I still don't know what I'm going to "do" about Christmas and there are many factors to consider, some out of my hands, so at this point I am ignoring it and hoping it will simply go away. It's easy if you stay out of the mall.

I was discussing this at yoga today with my teacher and the one other student in the class. Both of them are Catholic and they were tolerant of my heresy as I pointed out that Christmas is essentially celebrated when it is because of the ancient Pagan holiday which was no doubt created to get us through the long days of winter and that also, yes, I do think it's very cool that Jesus was born, etc., but in my beliefs, EVERY baby that is born is Christlike or Buddha-like and so what's the big deal with that one particular baby?

I mean really, do we believe his mother was a virgin?
Hmmm. The midwife must have had a few problems with THAT delivery but oh well.

So my teacher, bless her heart, suggested lightheartedly that I COULD become a Christian and then I would have reason to celebrate and I said something like if Jesus wants me, he's going to have to find me, quoting a Lyle Lovett song, but to myself I was thinking that it was just about as possible that I would become a Santeria priestess.

At least that way I'd get to wear really cool clothes and smoke giant cigars and drink mass quantities of rum and slice through chickens and other small farm animals with a machete and dance myself into a trance where I could speak to the dead and channel their voices and I'd get paid for it!

Man. That would be AWESOME!

And I just keep thinking about the poor baby Jesus who has been dragged from the manger to the mall in a short 2000 or so years- as if it wasn't bad enough that he was born with the unbearable weight of being destined to save mankind by being nailed to a cross.

And I think about the poor Christians who have been waiting for his imminent return for these 2000 years and who are passing the time by buying junk no one needs and putting up Christmas trees which are Pagan in origin and continuing to talk about a baby born in a manger while all around the world and even in my neighborhood, babies are being born every day, no one noticing that they, too, are god, they too are born of a miracle, destined for who knows what while the world keeps turning and the days will begin to become longer and the light will return again.

Why Do We Write?

Juancho, over at the Big Ring Circus, is having a crisis of faith.
He's not sure what direction he wants to take in his blog and he's thinking of ending it.
I say, "Pshaw!"
Well, I'd say that if I could pronounce it.
Juancho can't quit blogging and I'll tell you why:
He's a writer.
As many have pointed out, no matter what he writes about on that extremely popular blog of his, whether it's a specific bike trail or an incident in a convenience store or an experience he's had in a church, the man writes what we want to read.

Why does Juancho write? You might as well ask why Juancho rides.
Oh sure. He's staying fit and healthy by riding. He sometimes rides with others and probably enjoys the company. He sometimes rides alone and I imagine he works through things he's struggling with in his very stressful occupation. Or in his life.
He rides for all of these reasons.
And because he can.

You know what? I'm making all this shit up. I have no idea why Juancho writes, much less why he rides.
I'm projecting.

Because I only know why I write and I'm not really so sure about that but I think the answer is:
I have to.

A lot of people have responded to Juancho's crisis of faith by telling him to write a book. Hey! I'm one of them! But I know, as well as Juancho does, that writing a book isn't easy. Almost everyone thinks they themselves could write a book and as Yoko Ono says, "Everyone has a story to tell."
The thing is, that not everyone is capable of telling a story in a fashion that anyone else would want to read.
Only writers can do that.
And only someone who really, really wants to write would.
It's a sort of obsession. It has to be an obsession to make yourself sit down and pour your heart out on the keyboard day after day with no real goal in sight. But the truth of the matter is, when it goes well, the writing, it's a soaring joy. When it goes badly, you want to maybe kill yourself, which is why so many authors drink, probably, not to mention why a notable amount have in fact killed themselves.
It's the agony AND the ecstasy.

There was a column in the paper today about how "real" writers feel when someone like Joe The Plumber or Sarah Palin get a book deal.
The author of the column was too polite to say it but I think what he was thinking was that a writer who spends years and years and years of his or her life struggling with words wants to basically KILL someone like Joe The Plumber when a publishing company forks over big money for some ghost-written pile of crap. That people will buy. That people will read.

Because to get a book published, the agony and ecstasy of writing it is the easy part. The hard part is rolling over on your back and showing the soft underside of your belly to agents and publishers and trying not to pee on yourself with the fear and anxiety and depression of the rejection of your baby- your book, your words, your blood and toil and guts.

There's no logical reason why anyone should put themselves through that sort of punishment.
But a lot of us seem to have to.

I have. And it's a bit like giving birth to a beloved child and having everyone who sees that child say, "Eh, that ain't much of a baby, is it?"

But the blog. Oh, the blog is pure fun. You write the words, you send them out, people read them. No agents, no publishers, no editors. Of course, sometimes an editor might not be such a bad idea.

But it's a training ground, a release, a connection, an invitation to others to share our hearts, our lives, our minds, our ideas, our hopes and dreams and schemes and pain and thoughts and joy.

There are millions of blogs written by millions of bloggers. But let me tell you something- they are not all written by writers.

And the ones that are should be cherished.

Juancho is a splendid writer. And he is cherished far more than he knows, I'm sure.

And I'm not sure why I'm saying all of this today. Maybe because I feel old and my bones ache and I am facing the serious truth that nothing I write may ever get published and if I ever did have a dream beyond healthy kids and love in my life, being published was it.
And in talking about Juancho, I am talking about myself and all the other would-be authors out there who really care about the words they put down and send out.

I heard an interview once with F.X. Toole, the writer who wrote the story that the movie, Million Dollar Baby was based on. His real name was Jerry Boyd and he wrote for most of his life while doing many other jobs to make money, including being a fighter and a trainer. In the interview he said that after a certain number of rejections to his stories, he just quit sending them out and that getting cut up and beat up in the ring was nothing, NOTHING compared to the pain of rejection.
I've never forgotten that.

And I've never forgotten that even if I never get published, I have to write. I have to.

I think Juancho does too.

I hope so, because here's another thing I have to do:
Read.

And I sure do like reading what Juancho writes.

Perfect little circle there, don't you think?

Like the shape of the Big Top in a circus.

A Big Ring Circus.

We're all just clowns on this bus, tumbling out of the doors in our big, floppy shoes and our funny red noses, running around in circles, hoping to make people laugh and maybe cry.

You're a good clown, Juancho. You're a good writer. We all trip and fall. We all get up and brush ourselves off and try to make it appear as if it were all part of the act.

And selfishly, I don't want you to get off that bus.
I like your funny nose and your big floppy shoes. I respect them. You give me something to think about even though I'll probably be an astronaut before I ever become a trail rider.

Because you're a writer.

And that picture up there? Well, it has nothing to do with why writers write but dammit, I found it on a one-thing-leads-to-another Google image search and it's just too good not to share.

And yeah, we love you Juancho. Evil, sweet, funny, tired, riding, not riding.

But we can't keep loving you if you quit writing.

As if you could.

Life In Lloyd

So yesterday I was taking a bath and trying to learn some of my lines from the play when I noticed that the water pressure was dropping precipitously. I mean, serious water pressure droppage.

So I finally crawled out of my tepid bathwater and went to find Mr. Moon to report the problem and he went up to the community water place to see what was what but never made it because on the corner, which you can see in that picture, a little way past the last white fence on the left, a man was standing there and watching water gush out.

A broken main was the problem and since it was Sunday, faggetaboutit.

So I went to bed with no water and then woke up with no electricity either. And honey, it was cold.

I made a pot of coffee in the old percolator on the gas stove which takes about forty-five minutes and then went to yoga. I got home and the electricity is on but still no water and I've also received a notice that due to possible intrusion, I need to boil my water before drinking it but that's not really an issue since, as of yet, I have no water to boil.

When I passed the corner on my way home from yoga there were a bunch of guys and some big equipment and bags of cement and also, a medium-sized black dog chained to the stop sign. They appeared to all be very interested in the big hole that had been dug, especially the dog.

This is life in Lloyd.

We have a well but it's not working. Could be the pump. Could be the well. Who knows?
Perhaps now we will investigate that problem.

And I need to go to town because my husband needs some keys that were on his dresser. There are approximately a hundred keys on his dresser and he couldn't identify which ones he needed so I am taking a HUGE wad of keys to him and I also need to go to the library. I finally finished listening to all two volumes of Stranger In A Strange Land and THANK GOD because I couldn't take one more second of grokking and waiting until fullness is.

Fullness, as far as I am concerned, was way over before the book was.

And I suppose I should buy drinking water.

On a completely non-related note, it is the twenty-eighth (I think) anniversary of John Lennon's death and I am thinking of him today. He was forty when he died and the fact of his death is still incomprehensible to me. I miss him and so does the world, whether they know it or not.
So I'm thinking of dear John and also the fact that thirty-three years ago today, I got married for the first time in Bainbridge, Georgia, a pregnant child-bride. I sat in front of a judge with my hippie guitar-playing man and promised things I could not fulfill but in some ways, those promises HAVE been kept even though we are no longer married.
And I celebrate that day because I have two amazing children from that union and because that man and I are still good friends and don't have to pretend that it never happened and can still be grateful for it all.

And that's what's happening on my street in Lloyd, Florida today. I am looking forward to the sharing of water again and am grateful for the electricity.

Amen, y'all. Amen.

May you never thirst.

For Ms. Lopo

I don't think it'll ever be livable again.
Plus, I hear the man who owns it is trying to buy up that part of Lloyd to build a Hardee's on and he never sells anything.
It's tiny and there's no plumbing, no electricity and never has been.
It would be better to find a little piece of land and build something else.
I'll keep my eye out for you, though, for something else.

Things I See On My Walk

This is the old shack that I wrote about In The Secret Message of Wallpaper back in July. I thought about poking my head into it today, but I'm a bit worried that a person may have taken up residence and spread out a sleeping bag during this chilly weather in one of the rooms that still has a floor.
Or that a fox is raising her cubs. Or something. I love old, falling-in houses on an existential level, but they scare me a little bit, too. There's something so sad about the lack of life in a place where there once was life.
A corpse, of sorts, I suppose.

Which naturally leads me to this picture:



This is an old graveyard which lies right beside one of the roads I walk. I didn't see it for months when I first started this route. It's not until winter comes and the underbrush thins out that you can see the headstones from the road. I wonder where the church was, because surely there was one nearby. Almost all the names are related in one way or another and I find it beautiful there- such a tiny resting place, the graves laid out so neatly in two straight rows. A surprising number of the graves hold people who lived to be into their eighties and even nineties. I think you had to be tough to live in Lloyd, back in the nineteenth century. I wonder if any of the people buried there ever lived in my house. Some of them predate it. It was (and is) such a small place that I am sure it's quite possible.






And then there's Lloyd Creek, running it's way through the old woods a few hundred yards from where Edward and Clara sleep. I've written about the creek before. Here and here. It's so beautiful down there and quiet. The water was a bit higher today because we've had rain recently but sometimes it's a tiny trickle and sometimes it's a bit more roaring. Today it was a nice silently running creek, making its way through the white sand with the trees above it.
I'm always happy down by that creek.

What is about water that calms the soul and soothes the heart?
I don't know but it's a sort of magic I am grateful for.







So that's it. These are a few of the things I see when I walk. I walked slowly today, considering what I should take pictures of. Maybe next time I'll take pictures of some of the trash and the truck stop which I also see, neither of them quite as picturesque, but interesting, nonetheless.

It's a beautiful Sunday here in Lloyd. And Mr. Moon is back. He didn't shoot a thing because he didn't see any deer he thought worth bringing home from Tennessee but he had a good time.
I think he's happy to be back, too.
It's nice to have him home.

No Theme Today

Mr. Moon took the camera to Tennessee and so I am left with the little camera on the MacBook and that picture above was taken with it behind the screen of the back porch, thus presenting an even worse photo than I usually manage. It's raining so I couldn't take the MacBook outside and so there you go. It's a poor representation of the bright oranges and yellows and golds in my backyard, but it's the best I can do.

It's raining that slow drizzle that tells you to crawl back in bed, or at least onto the couch, and even the dogs are affected. They are doing some serious napping and Zeke, the smallest dog and the one who sleeps with me, didn't stir all night and I overslept this morning, which is something I NEVER do and awoke in a mild panic, one half hour before I was supposed to be at yoga.
Oh well. I called my yoga teacher and since it was just going to be the two of us, it would be no catastrophe for me to be fifteen minutes late, which I was.

I finished up rereading and checking the novel yesterday and sent it on where it was received and put into the reading queue. This publishing company is so small that I believe they only put out one book of fiction a year so my odds are more than slim and I am told that I'll get no response for 6-9 months so let's not hold our breaths. Who knows, though? I may be buoyed up enough to search out other small regional houses and send it out to some of them. Why not? What can it hurt?

It's been a pretty good week being here on my own in Lloyd. I haven't been lonely for a second and I've had no more dreams about losing babies or dogs although I have had some other ones so strange that I will keep them between me and my god, and last night it was the old hair-falling-out-in-great-hanks dream which, as sucky as that is, is far better than the teeth-all-falling-out-dream.

Hey! I know I'm getting old, brain! No need to remind me.

I was talking about that to my yoga teacher today. It seems to me that we've been sold a bill of goods on the old age-is-just-a-number crap. You're only as old as you feel, say the advertisements for the miracle creams and fiber-rich cereals and I have to say hell, yes, and some days I must be ninety-seven. I am most certainly NOT thirty-four and every day seems to bring a new ache or pain and I have to wonder whether it will be one of those things which mysteriously appears and then just as mysteriously disappears or whether it will become part of the whole bag of stuff that I suppose I am just going to have to put up with for the rest of my life.
One never knows.

And I often wonder what it would be like to suddenly be able to switch bodies with someone else, to feel what they are feeling, and then to switch back. I think we'd all have more compassion for what others are going through. One of my daughters was hit by a car at the age of fifteen and will always carry the pain of those shattered bones, no matter how long they have been mended. She doesn't complain much but I think it must take an awful lot out of her and I feel guilty when I complain to her about my little bullshit aches. I would probably be seriously shocked if I could feel what her leg feels like all the time, or especially when the weather is like this, so damp and chilly.

I am a whiner and a complainer and I know that. I have no idea what my pain tolerance level is. How could I? I have nothing to compare it to. But I suspect it's rather low. This is one of the reasons that when I talk to other women about childbirth I always say, "Look, if I could do it without drugs, so can you," but then I hasten to add that if I had been in a hospital situation while giving birth, I would have been SCREAMING for drugs so take that into consideration as well. I mean, I did instruct my husband to go get the big knife and kill me with it while I was in labor with my third child and I was deadly serious and was disturbed and angry that he did not do what I had said, but allowed me to go on, having one contraction after another.
Compassion? I don't think so. He did say that he would gladly take over for me if he could have, but what a cheap offer that one is.

Anyway, I have no real theme here today. It's gray and it's rainy and the venison jerky is drying in its little plastic tanning bed and I need to find the seam ripper so I can rip out the last bit of embroidery I did on the Levi jacket I've been desultorily working on for months. I've last the little bastard which leads me to what I should really do, which is clean the house and try and create some order but I do not feel motivated for that sort of work.

I'm going to get a massage this afternoon- something I do about twice a year. Maybe. As much as I love it, it of course makes me feel guilty on so many levels. Paying good money for such an exquisite selfish pleasure just seems to go against everything in my genes. My puritan grandfather probably rolls in his grave every time I lay my body on a massage table and give myself up to the blessed hands of a healing woman. I always think of the people who touch us who are not loved ones or friends. The nurses, the hair stylists (ah- the soothing shampoo with the warm water and busy fingertips on our scalp) the manicurist, the massage therapist. It feels so strange to pay money for pleasure and I am not insinuating anything here. I think all of the people who touch us in their work, literally touch us, are blessed and I celebrate them and their touch and truly believe they're doing god's work, especially for the people who get no other human touch in their lives.

Anyway, I am going to go lay my body on that table and it's going to be so good that it will overwhelm the guilt I have and be worth it in every way. Perhaps it will even help with the small but tenacious achy problems I have that cause me to reach for the Ibuprofen far more than I should.

And I'm happy. My life is rolling along fairly well right now. I am doing things with friends, I have lines to learn for the play, I sent the book in, and for the moment, at least, I am completely ignoring Christmas.

How are you doing? What do the leaves look like where you live? Are there leaves at all on your trees or are they bare and covered with snow? What is making you happy and who has touched you lately on the back of the neck, on the tight muscles of the shoulders, or on your heart or your soul?

Tell me if you'd like because you know I'd love to know.

A Rebirth Of Sorts- A Different World And All My Own

After having not looked at my manuscript for literally years, I am surprised at how much I still like it.
Listen- I don't know if this book will ever be published but in a way, that's hardly the point.
I wrote a book. A complete book with a beginning, a middle, an end. With lots and lots of words which somehow magically came together to paint a story. It all started with one character and I saw her when I walked down the streets of Aplachicola. She was looking out of a kitchen window on a beautiful spring day and her entire life was crumbling around her while the azaleas bloomed and the birds sang and the children at the church preschool down the street played. Her name was Rose.
And then came other characters. A mother, children, friends, a no-good husband, neighbors, a brother, a sister-in-law. A wise old woman. There's always a wise old woman, right?
My main character is profane and she drinks too much and she smokes too much and her grammar is not good. She makes mistakes with her children. She has no self-confidence.
But she grows. She changes. She adapts. She tries. She always, always tries.
And of course she finds love. There's always love, right?
And that's what my book is about and I'm enjoying going blind, rereading it, revisiting it, remembering the decade it took me to write it.
In fact, it's a sort of heaven.
Because I did this. I created, out of my own mind, this entire small world of Rose's.
I had forgotten I did this. I mean, I knew I had, but I had forgotten how much I love Rose and her world.
So back to work. Although, to call this joy work is ridiculous. I feel guilty. That's how much I'm enjoying it.
Back to Rose.
Who is standing with her hands on her hips saying, "It's about time, you fucking so-called writer. Do you know how lucky you are I gave my story to you?"
I do.
I had forgotten but now I remember.
It was like giving birth and forgetting the baby. And now I'm holding that baby in my hands again, patting her here and nuzzling her there and realizing that miraculously, she's still alive.
For me anyway.
And for now, that's quite enough.

This Is What My Computer's Been Staring At All Day Long

Is this what they're talking about when they say if you do it too much you'll go blind?

Never Time

I think I have figured out where some of my anxiety comes from. I believe it's a direct result of all the years of having children at home with so little time to myself and now finding myself with great stretches of time to call my own.

I keep trying to come up with a metaphor for this feeling (and I know, I know- a feeling is only a feeling) but I'm having a hard time. I suppose I'm like the retired midwife who goes to bed every night, still making sure she has clothes ready to jump into if that call comes, waking up in a panic, wondering if she's supposed to be at a birth.

No matter what I'm doing there is still some little voice inside of me shouting that SOMEONE SURELY NEEDS TO BE PICKED UP AND WHAT AM I GOING TO MAKE FOR DINNER AND DOESN'T SOMEONE NEED A RED TURTLENECK FOR THE CHRISTMAS CONCERT?

Or something.

I still dream that I've lost a baby, put her down somewhere and gone off and forgotten her for days. Very often in these dreams I find the baby, only to discover that yes, she's still alive, but has shrunk to the size of Thumbelina. Have you ever tried to nurse an elfling? It's not easy.

Will I ever get over this feeling?

This week I have all to myself, yet I feel in somewhat of a panic. Mr. Moon left me with two bags of venison to deal with in the refrigerator- one to take to get cubed, and one to make into jerky. For some reason, this feels like an impossible chore. I have to wrap everything up once it's done, too. Big deal.

BUT, I have a project of my own I need to do. I have to go over my old novel to send it in to a local publisher like RIGHT NOW but for some reason, the jerky and cube meat have become the symbol for all the times I wanted to sit down and write or do something on my own but did not have the time and I feel like I MUST deal with that before I can deal with my book.

Not logical, Mr. Spock.
Sounds crazy, Dr. Freud.

Thank god I have yoga this morning. I'll take the cube meat to Monticello when I'm done there. I've got the jerky marinating. I'll clean out the old dehydrator. I'll wrap up the cube steaks. I'll dry the meat. I'll go over the novel. The rest of it all can go to hell as far as I care.

But I guarantee you that as I sit and read what I wrote so long ago, there will be a tiny baby crying somewhere, needing me. There will be a child waiting at dance class for me to pick her up, and she'll be all alone in the parking lot and it will be growing dark. There will be a class of children, waiting for their cupcakes. There will be a karate promotion I'm supposed to be attending. There will be a softball game I'm supposed to bring snacks for. There will be a child who needs her hair washed, her shoes tied, her homework checked, a bedtime story to be read, a diaper to be changed, groceries to be bought and meals to be cooked and dishes to be washed and laundry to be done and WHY THE HELL AM I JUST SITTING HERE ON MY ASS?

That's what my bones and gut will be telling me anyway, and of course it's the bones and gut that dictate everything.

I have to ignore all of that. I have to.

This is my time now, this is my life now.

So they say.

But....
Is there a baby crying somewhere? Did you hear that? What have I forgotten? Surely someone needs my tending.

Shhhhh......

Oh, please, bones and gut- just shut UP!

Corniest Hunting Poem Ever Written

Mr. Moon has gone away
He left the house before the break of day
He took his guns, his boots, his camo,
He took his bow, he took his ammo
He's gone to hunt in Tennessee
And the only thing he didn't take was me.

I got up this morning before the sun was up
To make his breakfast and fill his coffee cup
I held the door while he loaded his gear
I cooked his eggs while he dreamed of deer
The deer he'll hunt in Tennessee
The deer he'll hunt while away from me.

It's strange to be in an empty house
Just me and the dogs and occasional mouse
It's quiet and it's warm and it's cold outside
And for six days now it'll be a solo ride
Because Mr. Moon's headed to Tennessee
In a car that's traveling north without me.

When the babies were young and so was I
I resented these trips and would often cry
Because I hated the thought that he'd left our home
To go off to hunt, all alone
But now when he heads up to Tennessee
I'm fine with the fact that he doesn't take me.

Because he's that sort of man who has to go
To the woods to hunt; he loves it so
And I like the quiet of the peaceful home
While he's gone to the Tennessee woods to roam
And I've sent him with love off to Tennessee
Because I know he'll return when he's done, to me.

And while he's gone I'll write and read
I'll walk, I'll yoga, I have everything I need
In our sweet little house under the oaks right here
While he's off to the woods to hunt white-tailed deer
At night maybe I'll dream of him in Tennessee
And I hope while he's there he will dream of me.

Hooked On A Feeling

When I was in the midst of my troubles last summer, I knew that I had reached some level of insanity which I could not battle by myself.

I knew this because the feelings I was having of anxiety and panic and depression were not ones that I could shake off. I could not, no matter how much I walked or slept or read, pass through them. There was no talking myself out of them. There was no getting away from them. There was not one second of escape from them and it was this relentlessness which sent me to the doctor, which brought me to my knees, which scared the holy living shit out of me.

I am not feeling that way now. I still have feelings of anxiety, panic, depression, but they are not constant and even though they are with me more than I'd like, they are not so loud, so overwhelming that I can't fit my life around them.

On Saturday night, I was privileged to be in a situation where I heard some heartfelt truths, and the one that resonated with me the strongest was this one:

A feeling is just a feeling. One day you may feel like killing yourself and the next day you can wake up and everything is great.

How true. That is just life. Feelings pass through us, sometimes they come and settle for awhile, a day or two, a long night or three, but we know, somewhere inside of us that they are not necessarily the truth.

Sometimes I worry that I am too much the product of my emotions, my feelings. I let them toss me and boss me. I let them take me and sometimes they feel as if they might break me. They certainly did feel that way when I was insane.

But you know what? Even then, they did not. They did not kill me, those feelings. They felt as if they would and as if they could, but they didn't.

And when I heard a man say those words on Saturday night, it gave me so much to think about.

It rained here all weekend and you know I love the rain, but after a few days of gray sky, it's possible to forget how it feels when the sun is shining, how different the world feels under a blue sky. And the metaphor of using weather to represent feelings and emotions is so over-used as to be ridiculous, but it's true- the sun does come out. We get up off the couch and we go outside and we are amazed at how different the world looks.

Last night when the rain began to clear, I stood on the back steps and stared in renewed wonder at the way the setting sun was painting the sky with color. The dull pewter had been replaced by a deep blue and the clouds were being stained pink and red and for a few moments I just stood there, appreciating it all, trying to take it all in, trying to give it my full attention. This morning, the sky is completely clear and the Bradford pears and the dogwoods and the Japanese maple are bright orange and red and magenta and the wind is blowing and it's growing chillier. The weather has changed and it will change again, and it's the way that our planet works, it affects everything from the trees to the habits of animals.

And my feelings do affect me, from the way I feel emotionally to the way I feel physically. But I don't have to let them hurt me. I can admit that I feel this way right now but I can know that I won't necessarily feel this way tomorrow. Or even in an hour.

And I am so grateful to have heard that man say those words. That a feeling is just a feeling. And that a feeling passes.

I suppose what I really heard in those words is that I don't have to be so afraid of my feelings. It's not that they aren't real because sometimes they are. But that they will pass. And I don't have to live my life being dictated by each and every emotion I have, tossed like some bit of underwater debris at the mercy of every current.

Those simple words that man spoke on Saturday night have given me a lot to think about. Which is how you know when you're heard the truth.

A feeling is just a feeling. Those words are a tool that I obviously needed to hear. If I hadn't, I would have let the words pass right over me. Or acknowledged them and put them away in a drawer labeled "THE TRUTH."

I don't want to do that. I want to keep the words out where I can see them and use them as often as I need, like the kitchen utensils I use the most and keep in an old pottery vase that was my grandmother's. It sits right there on the kitchen island where I work. I don't have time to go looking through drawers every time I need one of those utensils.

I feel like a have a new tool. One that's as simple and plain as my most-used wooden spoon.

And one that I have a feeling is going to be as useful. If I let it.

I want to let it.

I do.

Beautiful Mess

Ah yah. I've got the downs. No real mystery here. It's two days after Thanksgiving, I haven't been off the property in four days and Christmas is coming up. People are murdering people from India to your local Walmart and Toys (backward) R Us and I want to go to Mexico.

Why Mexico?

Quien sabe, as they say down there, who knows.

Well, I know. But I've gone into that before and what the hell?

The man has offered to take me to Dog Island for Christmas and I suppose that will do although after my breakdown there last July, I'm not sure that going to a place I was more depressed in than I've ever been in my entire life in order to escape depression is the answer.

Quien sabe?

I gotta get engaged, I think. I gotta get out in the world and do shit.

Yeah, what?

I read a book yesterday as the rain came down and I moved from one prone perch to another. It's called The Legend of Colton H. Bryant and it's by Alexandra Fuller and if you haven't read her books, go find them right now. This book is about a Wyoming kid and his family and his friends and about the oil and gas companies and what they'll do for a buck. Sound heavy and depressing? Well, it is and it's not. Fuller's writing is the kind that makes you open your eyes wide and gasp out little sounds of amazement, makes you stop and reread, makes you want to fly through the book and then dip down, soar up and come back again for another flight.

Anyway, those people in Wyoming have a saying, which is Cowboy up, Cupcake, and I keep thinking about that but hell, I'm not a cowboy and I'm not a cupcake, I'm just a depressed middle-aged woman on the swift downside of life who'll never be able to write like that.

Depression is a weird thing and at least it's not anxiety. There's a blessing for you.

It did rain all day yesterday and I was glad. We need the rain and I wanted an excuse not to do anything. Mr. Moon went hunting in the rain and he doesn't mind that at all. An old friend dropped by on his way back home to Tennessee with a CD for me to listen to, especially one song. The CD is by a guy named Jason Mraz and the song is called Beautiful Mess. We sat there in my hallway and listened to it, the dogs all over us and I wept. I wept. My friend plays the violin on the CD and he can make your heart soar with his playing and he and his violin are in high demand for session work. But I know him from when he was a student at FSU, and I'd listen to him practice in a little house on Call Street that isn't there any more, an old slave shack, I guess, and his playing even then could bring me to tears.

We only see each other about once a year, if we're lucky, and we catch up and he's one of those friends that there's no awkward pauses, no speed bumps in the conversation, just get straight to it and cry if you want. His wife was at one of my births, I was at one of hers, and she couldn't make the trip this year because one of their daughters just gave birth to a four pound premature baby and she couldn't leave that precious, perfect child. Their fifth grandchild. A fertile family, indeed.

Anyway, there we were and then it was time for him to leave and he said, "Mary, suffer all you need to," and he didn't mean it in an ugly, you're-really-stupid sort of way but in a loving way, like this-is-how-you-are-and-it's-okay sort of way. Like maybe I'm a beautiful mess.

Like maybe it's all a beautiful mess, babies and depression and the music business and love and holidays and general life and trying to figure out who we are, even now, fifty-something years down the road, working on that one daily.

I don't know. I do not know.

But what are the choices? Fold your wings and give it up? Give up that gift of flight we all have, even if we've forgotten that we have it?

I guess not.

Suffer if we have to. Weep for the suffering of it, the beautiful boys working the rigs in Wyoming; the people driven to take guns to the streets of India for some reason, not clear, but it probably has to do with poverty and hopelessness and fear. Weep for the weirdness in our fellow humans that causes them to get out and stampede Walmarts at four a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving for electrical devices and toaster ovens.

Weep for the beauty of it, the words, the music, the way the wind tosses the orange Bradford pear leaves down to the ground. Weep for the whole damn beautiful mess it is. Weep for the joy and the hardships of the years behind us, maybe the ones in front of it.

I don't know. Quien sabe?

I do know that life is not a Mexican vacation with a musician playing at your table.

But sometimes it's a good book. It's an old friend. It's a song that makes you cry.

Tears are tears, whether they're sad ones or sweet ones, they're the overflow of the heart-juice.

Cowboy up, Cupcake. Get on with it. It's all just a beautiful mess.

The Turkey's Not The Only Thing That's Cooked

Dear god. It's over.

I made myself stay out of bed until nine last night at which point I brushed my teeth, fell into the sheets, pulled up the covers and read until I realized I was asleep with my eyes open. It was ten. I turned out the light and didn't get up until ten and a half hours later.

Now I feel like someone beat me with a stick the entire ten and a half hours.

It was some Thanksgiving. At one point on Wednesday night there had to be at least twenty-five people crammed into my library. And four dogs. When they built this house back in 1859, they were into symmetry, I suppose, so every room in the house is the same size. The library has the least furniture in it and so there we were, the porch being too cold for the musicians.

And it was as awesome as I'd thought it would be.

Family/friends/neighbors.
No difference.

Then came yesterday and the oven fiasco and the 18.92 pound turkey (what the hell was I thinking?) and the forty-five casseroles and four desserts and the angel biscuits.

The kids did over half the work, not only of the cooking but of the clean-up and set-up, too.
And it's a good thing they did or else I'd be dead now instead of just really, really tired.

We had about fifteen for dinner and the highpoint (or low-point, depending on your particular point of view) was when the six-year old took off running across the back yard being chased by four dogs who had suddenly turned into a snarling wolf-pack trying to bring him down to get the turkey in his hand.

Mr. Moon loped off across the yard and saved the child who learned a whole lot of lessons in one twenty-second segment of time and who will probably hate both dogs and turkey his entire life, even if he can't remember why.

I sent everyone home with plates of food and dammit, my refrigerator is still crammed full of food. The sort of food I never eat. And a turkey carcass wrapped in foil and tied up in a plastic grocery bag.

Ah well. I'll just make soup.

And now I am hungry, believe it or not, so if I can find the soy milk in the back of the refrigerator, I am going to eat some cereal. And then I need to go take a walk, although I certainly feel like I could just get back in bed and sleep another ten or eleven hours.

That would be wrong, right?

I'd go into how amazing and wonderful and worthwhile it all was but fuck, I'm too damn tired.

And I'm seriously thinking that Mr. Moon and I might just skip out on Christmas entirely this year. I mentioned that to the kids and there were actually sort of excited about the prospect. Miss Maybelle volunteered her apartment for the gathering if we leave and they were all making plans when I went to bed on Wednesday night. Mr. Moon has no problems with the idea, so maybe....

Would the world still spin on its axis? Would the sun continue to rise and set on schedule?

You know, I think it would.

I'm considering it.

Meanwhile, I need to go find that soy milk. I sure ain't cooking breakfast and that is a fact.

The Oven Is Working And The Turkey Came Home

I gave up and in despair asked my neighbors if I could use their oven. They're vegetarians, mostly, and weren't using their oven so they happily said we could.
But then our oven started working and I said, "Mr. Moon, bring that turkey home!"
And he did.

At Least The TV Is Working

Well, the oven isn't working and there's a nineteen pound turkey stuffed up the butt with cornbread dressing and about ten casseroles and angel biscuits to cook.

Now what?

We'll figure something out.

But the party?

Oh yes.

Some pictures follow.

Happy Thanksgiving and love from North Florida where the turkey may be done by this time tomorrow.



Old friends.



A girl and her daddy.



Billy and Downtown Guy.




Miss Maybelle and her brother, DTG.





Miss HoneyLuna and her sweetie.

Lily is not represented here because by the time she and Jason got off work, no one was working the camera. It was late.

I hear that after I went to bed at one-thirty, Miss HL and Jason both discovered that they could indeed crawl through the dog door.

I only wish I had a picture of that.

HoneyLuna Is Practicing Her Dance Moves In Preparation For Tonight's Event

The highlight of last Thanksgiving was a spontaneous combustion of a throw-down party the night before which made the actual Thanksgiving Day feast a definitive study in anticimaticism.

Yeah. I don't think that's a word, either, Spellchecker.

And oh boy, here we go again.

I started getting calls last week. The ex called and wanted to know if we were going to be doing that night-before Thanksgiving thing. I said I had no idea but that he and the wife should come on over because all the kids would be here and to bring guitars.

Then yesterday his old best friend from childhood, the man whom I moved to Tallahassee because of (long story) called to ask if we were going to be doing it again.

Yes, I said. I guess we will be.

I hope he remembers his fiddle.

I called the Sauce Boss, and he and his wife are probably coming over and I'm sure he'll bring a guitar. Billy and Shayla and Billy's mama are coming and two of my brothers will be here and who knows who else will show up?

I don't.

It seems rather insane to throw a party the night before Thanksgiving, doesn't it?

I keep it low key. I boil some frozen tortellinis and throw those in a bowl with pasta sauce, heat up some bread and make a salad. There you go.

Hopefully, Mr. Moon will locate some oysters.

Surely there will be beer and perhaps a bottle of rum to warm up our insides because for some reason, everyone ends up on my skinny porch and it's cold, baby. Perhaps Mr. Moon will drag the fire pit a bit closer to the house. Nothing says Thanksgiving like a fire pit and some oyster shucking. And home made music. And people you only get to see once a year, most of whom you've known since we were younger than the "kids" are now. And seeing those kids playing music with the old ones, some of whom play music for a living but on this night are playing for the joy of it, just like in the old days, everyone singing and dancing, too. The joy in my heart when all this comes about, to look around and see faces and hear voices from my past, my present, my always. Bonds formed criss-cross and straight-across and catty-cornered and all pieced together until we're like some crazy quilt stitched long ago so tight and so strong that you just want to wrap yourself up in it and dream away all darkness.

As I start to stress out about all the work I have not yet done but which must be done before tonight, before tomorrow, I force myself to think about what the Beatles said, which is that all you need is love.

Corny?

Oh hell yes.

True?

I think so. I believe so.

And something else they said:

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Tonight I'll be reminded of how much love I've made, because if tonight's gathering is anything like last year's, I'll be taking in so much love that my heart will feel as if it's bursting.

And that, my babies, is worth more than a clean house.

And that, my loves, is worth more than anything.

Post Script: Any of you bloggers out there who might want to join us tonight, call me or e-mail me. There will be loaves and fishes.

Red Means Stop and Green Means Go

Yes. That is me.
Me in the star's dressing room of the Monticello Opera House, preparing for my next role.
Don't you love me?
Don't you want to BE me?
I thought so.

Wait. Wait. I'm having a delusional moment here.
That's not really me. That's not the dressing room of the Monticello Opera House. Did you guess that already?
Yeah. I figured.

But really, I do have a role in the next production. I get to play:
Sally, Marion, Nancy, Esther, and Judith.
In a seventy-minute play.
Five very different women.

I haven't been this excited since I got to play Emily in Our Town in high school.

I am also feeling a bit nervous and fragile. It's two days before Thanksgiving and all I have done is the partial shopping. Oh yes. I made the cranberry relish.

And then I ate it all.

No, no. Again, I am telling a fib. I did not eat all the cranberry relish but I did think about it. It's so good, those tart cranberries and the orange and the apple and the pecan. And the cup and a half of sugar.

This is the time of year when it's so easy to let all the good things we do for ourselves fall by the wayside. The walking. The eating right. The being sensible, sane and sober. All of that tends to get left behind like the quietest child still in the bathroom when the family pulls away from the truck stop.

Where's Jamie? Oh my God. We left Jamie at the truck stop. ERRCCCKKKK! Dad does a U-ie on the interstate.

Where's my sanity? Where's my peace? Where's my thigh muscles? Where's my fat jeans?

The best thing to do, of course, is to take inventory before you leave the truck stop and pull out onto the crazy highway of Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years. Think about it all. Determine what is worth jettisoning and what is necessary for survival. It's so much easier to carry on with all passengers on board than it is to halt the breakneck speed of this particular interstate and try to turn around mid-race.

I fear I'm mixing my metaphors.

Sorry.

Okay. I'm checking the car. Everyone here? Speak up.

I am pulling slowly out onto the highway. I see landmarks ahead. Happy family, big feast, fun times at the Opera House. I am ignoring the wrecks on the side of the road. The house that isn't very clean. The chaos that is definitely going to happen.

I have both hands on the wheel. I am eating my cereal and soymilk. I am cleaning up the garbage that some animal got in last night. I am going for a walk. I am remembering what my daughter just told me which is One Thing At A Time and First Things First.

I am obeying the speed limit. I am watching out for the other traffic. I am remembering that it's all about the journey which means, take the time to enjoy it. Arrive safely with everything and everyone on board.

Lock the doors. Put on your seat belts.

Here we go. Turn up the radio.

Sing along. Dance in your seats. Enjoy the view.

We'll get there when we get there.

Meanwhile, here we are.

I'm Old But Not That Old

I just got back from the grocery store having spent approximately nine thousand dollars and that was just the preliminary Thanksgiving shopping.

This is how I do it:
On Monday before Thanksgiving I go without a list. I just browse the aisles and get a few things I know I'll need including sweet potatoes, oranges, cranberries, baking chocolate, crackers, cheese, olives, pickles, white potatoes, cream cheese, sour cream, pecans, brown sugar, the pasta I'll be cooking for the night-before-Thanksgiving celebration, apple cider, butter, marshmallows, etc.

Oh yes, also the turkey.

And Easy Off oven cleaner which is a fucking misnomer if I ever heard one.

I was sort of reeling and feeling like oh god, why do I have to do this again when I passed a little old lady with a green corduroy coat on who also had a shopping cart full of the ingredients for a real, home-made Thanksgiving dinner. She could barely see over her cart and was going at about a one-mile-a-day speed down the aisle and I immediately shut up the whining in my head.
Hell, if she can do it, I can do it.
I suddenly felt about twenty years younger and a whole lot stronger than I had before.

I was telling my daughter Lily about this as she was helping me load the car with my groceries (Lily is the beautiful smiling girl behind the counter at my local Publix) and she told me that she'd seen two people who were SO old and SO fragile that it had taken BOTH of them to lift the turkey into their cart. Together.

Can you imagine that? Can't you just see it? Doesn't that just make you want to cry?

What can I say but Bless Their Hearts and that I need to do what I told the Pope to do and shut the fuck up and go make make my cranberry relish.

And a real grocery list. Because you know I didn't get nearly everything I'll need before this feasting is over.

But honestly, I do hope that by the time I'm so old that it takes both me and Mr. Moon to hoist a turkey into the cart, Lily or one of the other kids will be cooking the Thanksgiving dinner and I can show up with a jello salad and a six pack, find a place to sit and wait for dinner to be served.

Well Now, That Just Makes Everything All Right

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7744282.stm

Audacious announcement from the Vatican announcing that John Lennon has now been forgiven for his remark about the Beatles being more popular than God.

First of all, I didn't know the Vatican really concerned itself with such matters.

Secondly, the remark was made 42 years ago while John himself ascended to the right hand of (my) god almost twenty-eight years ago.

For some reason, this just makes me so angry.

As if an offhand remark made by a twenty-something year-old rock star forty-two years ago requires an official forgiveness from a man who dresses in dresses and claims to know What God Thinks.

I suppose we can all sleep more peacefully now.

Thanks, Pope for setting it all straight.

And when I say "thanks" I mean, shut the fuck up. This reminds me of how the Mormons like to volunteer their time to go get baptized for every dead person in the world in absentia so that everyone can go to Mormon heaven, whatever that is.

Religion.

It's not just content to screw around with the living.

Nah. They have to fuck around with the dead, too.

They're either raisin' 'em or baptizing 'em or forgivin' 'em.

I wonder what John would say. Probably something like, "Bite my ass, Pope."

Or maybe that's just what I'd say. But since John's not here anymore to say anything, I'll just say it for him.

Bite my ass, Pope.

And that's all I have so say about that.