Oh My God!

How did I totally miss this? Hank even put it on the calender he made me!

IT IS KEITH RICHARDS' SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY TODAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEITH!

I hope he's surrounded today by his family, noodling around on his guitar and making bangers and mash and just having the finest time. Maybe having a drink or two, enjoying his life.
I sure have. Enjoyed his life. And his book, Life.
As we all know.

Thanks for the all the music, Keith. Keep up the good work.

Love...Ms. Moon

And Now The Words

Well of course no one watches the videos I put up because THEY ARE NOT VIDEOS OF CUTE ANIMALS (and hey- I get it- I love videos of cute animals) but it makes me happy to have Dear Keith on the blog. You know it does.
The one of he and Scotty Moore playing together is especially lovely to me because Scotty Moore was the guitar player in Elvis Presley's band and his playing was what made Keith want to be a guitar player and well...there you go.
Also- Levon Helms? Be still my heart.

But it's a beautiful morning here in Lloyd, crisp and cool and Mr. Moon and I just had pancakes and he's taken the garbage and I've washed the dishes and all is well. I have nothing profound to discuss and nothing to rant or rave about. I've got a list of should-do's that reaches up to the sky and I'll get to work on them but I am feeling no real pressure, just a sense of possibility and I have rehearsal at three this afternoon. We're not meeting at the Opera House but at the Episcopal church rectory because there's something going on at the OH which involves a lot of children but that's fine with me. The last time we met at the Episcopal church I was in a play with a VERY staunch Christian and I made some joke about hoping that God wouldn't strike down the entire church (there was a horrible storm going on at the time) because I'd entered it and the VERY staunch Christian took that opportunity to point out that I'd probably said that for a reason and the reason was that I was secretly hoping to be taken back into the bosom of our Lord and that he, the VERY staunch Christian, was praying for me and everyone there was a bit horrified, including the pastor of another church who was also in the play.

Ah. Good times.

I suppose I will take this opportunity to say that one of the many things I do not understand about religion is why it is better to do things which are good because God tells us to rather than to just do them because we know they are the right thing. If it takes the fear of hellfire to prompt good behavior for some, I suppose that the fear is a good thing but I believe that for most of us, we either want to do the right thing or we don't care or we're crazy or just plain evil and I seriously do not think that the Fear Of God is going to stop us from doing thoughtless or crazy or evil things.

But that's just me.

Whatever gets you through your life is all right. All right.

Love From The Church Of The Batshit Crazy.

Ms. Moon

And This (Why Not?)

Sunday Morning Hymn From The Church Of The Batshit Crazy

Foreplay

So a week from tonight, instead of cooking the Traditional Christmas Eve Supper and then filling the stockings with care and passing out from exhaustion, I will be gazing upon something like what you see above.

Shitfire, y'all.

I still don't believe it but I have gone a ways today in trusting that a little bit more. I sort of took the day off. I haven't done squat except for to go on a lovely walk and spend some time with the man and eat brownies.
Okay. I had some soup, too.
And write that poem. Can you believe I don't work for Hallmark? Me either.

So here's some news- we're getting iPhones. Mr. Moon lost his phone last week, probably in the woods, and because he can't run his business or his life without a cellphone, he went down and did the deed, signed the contract and has a loaner phone. Our real phones won't be here until the day before we leave, but this is pretty exciting. I've never had a phone that did anything but make phone calls and take pictures so you know I'm happy although, as Mr. Moon did point out, I never GO anywhere but hey- if i do- I'll have an iPhone!

Jessie, this may mean I visit more often. Especially if I get that GPS app. Which I will.

Mr. Moon has been playing with his phone and I think he likes it. This is the first time he's ever had an Apple product and after about half an hour he was set up with voice mail and figuring out ringtones and finding games and looking up the weather and I think this is pretty cool.

Lord. Here we are with two computers, two iPhones and a Kindle. I still haven't put enough books on my Kindle for the trip but I'm getting there. Of course I'll be taking at least ONE "real" book in case I drop my Kindle into the ocean. Maybe Lonesome Dove because that would hold me and I know I like it and I've only read it two or three times.
I always love spending time with Gus and the cowboys. Plus, I'm stockpiling magazines to take. And I bought a new journal and I have my beautiful red ink pen.

An owl just hooted one hoot, the sun is setting here behind the pecans. Not as showy a sunset as I will be looking at in Cozumel, but a sunset nonetheless. I swear that the clouds in the sky at sunset in Cozumel make the profiles of Mayan gods. You probably don't believe me do you? If you've been there, you do. There is something absolutely profoundly magic about the Yucatan. In fact, magic is too cheap a word. It's one of those places of power, attraction and wonder, whether it's because of the metal of the meteor that hit there so long ago which is embedded in the very dirt of it or because it's a place where the aliens made contact (trust me) or because of the spirits of the gods and goddesses or of the people who lived there or the people who live there or because of...
I don't know.
I just know that it's a pretty sure bet that when we look out of the plane window and see the Yucatan peninsula bathed and bordered by that water of startling blue and green and I know that underneath all of that jungle there are ruins discovered and undiscovered and also the ancient "white roads" called Sacbe which the Maya made and which probably cross and recross the entire peninsula, and the cenotes, the hidden deep wells of water in the underground limestone and all of this covered up and hidden, like some fevered dream of crazy explorers and also the villages and towns and communities of now, well, I will cry.

Yep. I'll cry. Sure as shit I will and then here will come the island, that tiny dot growing bigger and bigger


and I'll press myself back into the seat so I can see it better and then- modern magic- we'll land and step off the plane and the soft air and heat will hit me and the sounds and the smells will envelop me and the voices of the people at the airport, stamp, stamp the passport, outside again and into the van and there, the water, close-up and there the people, and there the hotels and there, there, there, we will be there.

Let's see. Am I going to really be worried about the stockings I am not filling, the dinner I am not preparing?

Oh. Hell. No.

I am going to be in my heaven-place with that man, that man, that tall sweet good-looking man and I'm going to be crying and smiling and saying, "Look, look! Here we are! We're here again!"

A week from today.

Ah-lah.

Bless Our Hearts

Bless, bless, bless us all,
Each and every one.
Bless us as this day is lived
This day is blessed with sun.
Bless the chickens in the yard
And bless the child and mother
Bless the man who is the friend
The husband and the lover.
Bless the dirt and bless the trees
Bless the leaf and flower
Bless the tub and bless the water
Bless the sink and shower.
Bless the crazy
Bless the sane
Bless both straight and gay
Bless the velvet of the night
Bless the break of day
Bless the balls and bless the cock
Bless the breast and tongue
Bless the cunt and bless the belly
Bless the old and young.
Bless the chores that never end
Bless the bed and sleep
Bless the birds and bless the squirrels
As they fly and creep.
Bless this moment that I take
To sit and write and think
Bless the machine and bless the pen
Bless the paper and the ink.
Bless the friends whose voices I hear
On the phone so dear
Bless the ones so far away
Bless the ones so near.
Bless the quiet, bless this house
Bless the hands and feet
Bless the womb that did me well
Bless the food we have to eat.
Bless the Beatles, Bless the Stones
Bless Beethoven too.
Bless all the books I have to read
Bless chicken's eggs, brown, green and blue.
Bless the wind, the earth's own breath
Bless the needed rain.
Bless the joy and bless the tears
Fuck unneeded pain.
Bless the ceilings, bless the walls
Bless these old pine floors
Bless the porches, bless the shelves
Bless the window panes and doors.
Bless our babies
Bless their lives, bless ANY love that's true
Bless us, bless us everyone.
Bless us, both me and you.

What a day. What a true waste of a day. I went to town.
Why?
Oh god.
Who knows?
Not me.
I had the idea I could get my hair trimmed. I haven't had it trimmed since Steel Magnolias and that was last, uh, March? How hard is it to get your hair trimmed? Impossible for me. I went to a place that May had told me about where there was a certain stylist who did good things with longer hair. The place was closed.
Closed. For rent.
And when it got to the point where I was just aimlessly pulling into any place that said Salon, I knew my fate would be to get the worst hair trim in the entire world- not that it would matter one damn bit- but it didn't matter in the end because every place I tried was CLOSED.
What's the damn deal? Tough times for the beauty biz I guess.
I will call my lady in Monticello tomorrow, see if she has time for me next week.
It was one of THOSE days where I kept driving around, stopping at places for fools' errands and nothing made any sense at all. The most important thing I did today was to buy a new non-disposable coffee filter. I am not kidding you.
When I was in the Bed, Bath and Beyond, buying that coffee filter, a woman was talking on the phone to someone about a coffee maker and the phone was on speaker and everyone in the store could hear the person on the other end yelling, "I don't want a one-cup coffee maker! I never said I wanted a one-cup coffee maker!" and all of us shoppers looked at each other ruefully- I mean, we couldn't NOT hear this. And the woman in the store with the phone was so patient and if it had been me, I would have told the rude girl on the phone to get her happy ass down to the Bed, Bath, and Beyond her own damn self and get whatthefuckever she wanted. Fuck it. You're done, bitch.
Ho, ho, merryfuckingho.

But in one store, and it may have been Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Happy Christmas, War Is Over came on the Muzak and I had to stop and listen to John and Yoko and those sweet children and think about the fact that pretty soon, very soon, our troops will be out of Iraq and dammit, that is something. We may still be fighting all over the place and sending out drones- I do not know- but look- we won't be sending our men and women over there.
Our girls and boys.
Our children.
To kill their children.
Thank-you, President Obama. Thank you for that.

And I was grateful and I remembered last night when some old dude from the home got up and said a little thing about how our troops would be coming home and he remembered being in WWII, I guess, and he sang I'll Be Home For Christmas in his old man voice, but it was true and strong and listen to me- if we wanted war to be over, enough of us, it would be. I'll never forgive George W. Bush for starting that war for no reason, NO REASON WHATSOEVER, but based on lies and more lies and nothing has come of it that will help anyone. I don't care what anyone says- war is never the answer. And if it is, I am living on the wrong planet and we are asking the wrong questions.

Shit. I don't know. I feel worn down like a penny left on the railroad tracks. Being in town with all of the Christmas shoppers has flattened me, the traffic, the way none of the shoppers seemed happy, the woman screaming on the phone, the way all of the beauty salons were closed, the way Walmart's garden center had not one flowering plant besides poinsettias and enough of those to provide a small nation with one apiece for its citizens, lines and lines of hothouse poinsettias, doomed to death by early spring and what was the point of all that water, that fertilizer, that energy?

But. But we'll be pulling out of Iraq. That part of war is over.

I don't know.

I went looking for War Is Over on Youtube but dammit, because of some legality we can't get the old version here in America anymore but we can get this one and it's got John speaking about government and the people and the power and it's eerily prescient and I couldn't get through the whole thing because it shows war.
You don't have to watch the whole thing either. You can just watch the part about peace and love and peace on earth and watch Yoko talk about how it's also about nonviolence in homes and bless her. Bless her heart.



My home is peaceful tonight. I am making soup. This is how I deal with things. I chop and I simmer and I cut and I gather and I make soup. And I am so grateful that this year I am not participating in something I do not either believe in or understand. John Lennon talked about how the government was focusing on long hair and stupid stuff like that and now we are focusing on giant screen TV's and buying, buying, buying and it's all the same- don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain. Buy the crap, buy the party line, buy the lie that war is justified and if you don't believe it, you are not a true American while the main contender for the Republican party in the presidential race believes that giving children jobs as janitors is the way to educate our youth in moral values and the work ethic.

Yeah, well, I'm done with all of that. For now, at least.

I know there is much to celebrate and be grateful for in this world but for tonight, I am hanging on by my fingernails with not a whole lot of hope for the fucked-up human race.

I'll probably see things differently tomorrow and for tonight, I'm just grateful for peace here, in this house, in this part of the planet we call Earth, for the fact that troops will be coming home.

Amen.

Death Of A Man Who Thought

Shit. Christopher Hitchens has died.

Or go here.

Not everyone had the balls to say that Mother Theresa was fucked up. Or to be waterboarded to see if it was really torture.

May he rest in peace. No more torture for him.

Christmas Cheer

The anger has passed. It went away and now I'm tired. Not only because I got up at five-twenty this morning but because I carried around that big old box of mad all day and I didn't need to and I knew it and I did because I'm a stubborn old mule, but I've let it go.
Mostly.
And I've thought about it a whole lot and I hope I've learned something.
I doubt I have, but I hope I have.

The whole family except for Jessie and Vergil (whom we miss so much we can barely talk about it) went to the assisted living place where Mother lives for the holiday dinner this evening and it was really very, very nice and we had a good time. I'm not kidding you. The food was good, there was entertainment which ranged from professional local jazz musicians to three of the employees singing three part harmony with one of the resident's very young granddaughters doing the hula. Also a woman singing at the piano and after about half a song, my mother turned to May and said, "I've heard better."
Haha!



Santa was there. I have known that particular Santa for approximately thirty years. He is a kind, good man and tried to charm Owen into sitting on his lap but Owen was shy. He sat on his mama's lap, though, and let Santa talk to him.

We all sat at a big round table and Owen behaved himself pretty admirably. He ate his salad, some of his steak and his bread. He had a bite of the pie (which was really very good) and spit it out. The kid just doesn't care about sugar very much. He did have a cup of coffee (decaf from his mama's cup with about four creamers and some sugar) and I think that was his favorite part of the dinner. Except for the bread. He really liked the bread.


He also liked all of us taking turns to go outside with him to play, especially Aunt May.
And I think my mother had a good time. I tell you what- that place she lives is just beyond belief at how lovely it is, how sweet the employees are, how every detail is taken care of, inside the buildings and all around them too. The grounds are like a park. There are libraries and reference and reading rooms and lectures and a gym and a pool and activities around the clock. You just sort of want to sit down and start working on a jigsaw puzzle. You know?

After the supper we went up to Mother's room to see her decorations and her room is just as cozy as can be. She had her electric candles in the windows and she showed me the garden porch again. She is so proud to take care of the ferns, to help Miss Mabel , to haul the water in the little red wagon which sits in the hallway just for that purpose. She's so funny though. She was talking about Miss Mabel who will be 102 soon and said, "She just can't live much longer," which I thought was pretty hysterical. I mean, Miss Mabel looks fine to me. And anyone who can keep a beautiful little garden like that going has got to be at least a few miles from death's door.

So it was a good evening. I guess that was my Christmas celebration and it was enough for me. We sang carols (which horrified Owen and if we had started dancing, he probably would have died on the spot) and we drank alcohol-free champagne. Well, some of us did. Lily appreciated that. In fact, I believe Lily would move into that place in a heartbeat, especially after she saw the coffee shop which leaves Starbucks in the dust.

A woman took a picture for us but as you can see, May was moving and Owen was screaming. He did NOT want to pose tonight.

Well, hell. That's how we look except May's beautiful face is usually more defined.

And I took a shot of Lily and Jason and Owen as we were leaving.

I have so much to be thankful for.
I am humbled sometimes.

I am amazed.

Well. Long day. Time for bed.

No Owen tomorrow. Maybe I'll go to town and see if someone can fix up my hair.

I don't suppose you can get emergency liposuction and face lifts, can you? Sigh. Not that I would, of course, but it's amusing to think about it.

Sleep well, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Old Testament Ms. Moon

You know how God is an angry God? Well, today Ms. Moon is an angry Ms. Moon.

I am not going to get into details but I'll just say it- I am angry. Not at Owen or any of my sweetlings or Mr. Moon but I am just PISSED OFF!

It's sort of a universal pissed-offedness with a soupcon of personal directed anger.

Is "soupcon" the right word? Spell Check doesn't seem to mind it.

You know what I mean. You've been there.

And for once, I am not taking that anger out on myself. I am not going to direct it inwards. I am not even spending a great deal of time trying to be all compassionate about it. I am just going to be angry and eventually I won't be and that's that.

Boy Oh Boy

Oh god. These dreams are going to kill me.

But that's not what I came here to talk about.
Actually, I did not come here to talk about anything. Owen came again at 5:45 and we went back to bed and I just got up again and between the Sarah Palin showgirl dream and the I-was-lost-in-a-big-city-dream, I'm exhausted.

He'll be up in a minute.

I'm going to have to get back to you. I think I better make some oatmeal.

Love...Ms. M

Family Friendly With The Occasional Use Of The F-Word

 Well, it was a good day here at Mer's Playhouse and when I say good, I mean we got a lot of sleep in. For some reason, Owen does like to sleep in our bed about as much as I do and if someone told me a story every time I laid down with them and also rubbed their back so very gently while they did it, I would think I had died and gone to heaven and I don't know that Owen feels quite that way about it but he does seem to accept nap time here.
Thank god.
And no, when he's asleep, I do not get up and go do things like laundry or dishes, I just go to sleep too.
I am no fool.

But when we weren't sleep, we were doing all of our regular things which these days includes a lot of Owen testing me and me trying to decide whether the issue is worth arguing about or not. Some things are, some things are not. For both of us.
I showed him the bag of Reese's Pieces and he was immediately pretty excited about that but when he heard that he'd have to poop or pee in the potty to get some, he was completely disinterested.
"No way," is what I believe he said.
I think he would have said, "No fucking way," had he known that word and I am just grateful as hell and a bit amazed at my restraint in not using the F-word around him that he does not. I had a friend once who said fuck approximately once a sentence and was shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU! that one of her daughter's first words was indeed that particular one. Anyway, Owen does not seem to know it yet and his strongest curse word so far is "heck" which I have reported here and he uses it like, "What HECK?!" This cracks me up.

Anyway, we had a good time playing with some strange citrus fruit that a friend brings us which is sort of like a cross between a grapefruit and a lemon and I never know what to do with them. He swears he eats one every morning but I just don't think I could. The juice would probably make delicious drinks of the alcoholic and -ade sort but I am not Martha Stewart. Today, however, the fruits and a box of nails were in proximity and Owen began to stick the nails into the fruit and he did that happily for about fifteen minutes while I read an article about Queen Elizabeth in the Vanity Fair magazine. Why not? And let me say this- Queen Elizabeth may be a tip-top monarch but she sure gave her children short-shrift. I guess it's hard enough to be a working mother, much less the Queen of England AND a mother and thank god for good nannies.

Another thing we did with the fruits was play catch. That was fun and then I showed Owen how to throw them into a pot where flowers used to be until they froze and the chickens ate them all and that was enjoyable too, especially since every time we threw them in there, Owen got them out and wiped them off carefully and earnestly before he threw them back to me which caused me to say, "Oh Owen, I love you so much!" and he looked at me as if I was insane and immediately quit wiping them off and we went on to something else.

And of course we gathered eggs and I actually did a tiny bit of weeding in the garden while Owen dug holes with a trowel but then he decided to help me and began to weed up my sweet little lettuces and so we left the garden but it was great while it lasted. He played on Bop's trailered four-wheeler and when I tried to remove the key from his hand he threw it on the ground and it took me approximately twenty minutes to find it, all the while saying things like, "Owen! Bop would not like this! Bop would be SO mad!" which did not disturb Owen one bit although he did get down and try to help me for about two seconds and then he said, "Mer do it," and climbed back on the four-wheeler.

I was relating all of this misbehavior to a friend of mine via the e-mail and he, the grandfather of two, wrote this back to me:

"Kids are brats, especially boys, and must be dragged into civil behavior, if not beaten. Try thumping him with your finger, firmly on the head , but be careful not to hurt your finger."

I found that comforting and will consider it, especially the next time Owen is fighting me about changing his diaper and kicks me in the ninny, which he did the other day. I doubt I will actually thump him but I will think about it. This friend raised three sons of his own and they have all grown up to be good boys and fine men and so I know he must be right although I wonder what his wife would have to say about this advice. She would probably look at him and give him that look which wives give to husbands but maybe not. Maybe she would agree. All I know is that Bop is far less apt to accept behavior which I tolerate which is why it's a good thing for children to have grandfathers as well as grandmothers.

Of course Owen redeemed himself about fifty times and not just by wiping the grapefruit-oranges clean but with hugs and kisses and "pleases" and "thank-yous" and general clever and angelic behavior when he wasn't being a terror.

Here is a picture of that very same Sweet Wild Boy and the chickens:

He was sharing his apple with them, especially his best chicken-friend, Elvis.

His mama called and asked if we could spare some eggs to send home with Owen and here he is, holding the carton we got ready:


 

He did not break a one.

And while we're doing pictures, here's one for Michele R who wanted a picture of the gray cats:



Luna (top) and Ballsy, the one-eyed-fattest-feral-cat-in-the-world.

In a last and completely non-related topic, I would like to pass on a link which I think may be better than Ativan for feelings of anxiety and self-doubt. Hank has been telling me about this radio show forever and I'm always, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," but today he said, IT IS TIME! and so I went and listened to one of the archived shows and I'm not even going to try and describe it but if you are feeling stressed out and need the comfort of a good, southern voice talking about spirituality and puppy-murdering (not really!), I suggest you check out The Miracle Nutrition Show With Hearty White.

Hank just finished his last final of his first semester back at college and of course he got all A's and he's going to go eat a burrito and drink some margaritas tonight and I am SO PROUD OF HIM! Meanwhile, I am going to go cook some stir fry and brown rice and hopefully, Mr. Moon has found his phone in the woods which he lost yesterday and will come home soon with that and maybe even a deer.

Life is full of wonder and if you have nothing at all to do, go ahead and stick some nails in a citrus fruit while listening to Hearty White and get back with me on how that works out for you.

Love...Ms. Moon

Moon Light And Morning Sun

The first time I woke up this morning it was five-twenty and when I went out to get the paper and feed the cats the moon was so bright it was shining off the tin roof of the garage and making shadows of the pecan branches and I thought I might swoon with the still, quiet, cold beauty of it.

Owen was happy when he got here and wanted an apple and asked where Bop was and when I told him that Bop was still in bed he said, "No way!" and then he wanted to get in bed with Bop and Mer and he wanted Mr. Peep to be told and his back rubbed and so it was and we all went back to sleep and he's still asleep and I'm up and the day is full on light and it looks like this:



And now Owen is up and I gotta go.
It's going to be a good day.

Fast Forward

Well, hell. It turned out to be a pretty damn decent day.
I went to Target because All Women Must Go To Target and I bought a shirt on sale and some trip-sized things like shaving cream and the best, the best- I bought that new-baby-coming some little sleeper thingees, all in yellow and white with duckies on them, size 0-3 months and isn't that fun? Oh. Yes. It is. A new baby coming! Little cuddly little thing with a face and personality we have no idea of yet at all.
Oh my. My heart can barely believe it. My arms already ache to hold that child.
(I must take a moment to gather myself. Okay. I'm all right.)

I went to ONE store in the mall that I know has kick-ass 65% off sale racks this time of year with all of the summer stuff and I tried on a bunch of things and bought a few that were not HIDEOUS which most of them made me feel. The clothes weren't hideous. I just looked hideous in them.
Sigh.
But. Still.
And then a few more errands and I got gas and why is getting gas such a damn pain in the ass? It's easy as hell to do but I still hate it. Maybe because I was raised in the days when you'd drive into the gas station and the bell hose would ding!ding!ding! and the guy would come out and you'd roll your window down and say, "Five dollars, please," and he'd put in five dollars worth and that would fill up your tank and while he was filling up the tank he'd wash your windows with great sweeping swipes of the squeegee and then polish it all off with a blue paper towel and he'd say, "Check your oil, ma'am?" and you'd say, "No thanks!" and then you'd give him five dollars and he'd tip his hat and you'd drive away.
Oh my.
I miss that.
Then back home to unload the car and put everything away and then to the Opera House where we did another read-through and oh my. Jon. He is just SO good. So good. I hope to be able to hold up my end of the banter because really, I'm just the straight woman in this play (not sexually, you know, but yes, that too, but I mean in the comedic sense) and now I'm home and it's time for bed because Owen is coming in the early-early and I have missed that boy.

I did see Santa today, by the way, but he was just hanging out with the photographer lady and wasn't torturing any kids.

And I bought Reese's Pieces to try and bribe Owen to use the potty but I don't think that will work because his will is far stronger than his desire for candy and that cute little puppy potty is just taking up space in the bathroom.

That's all. I hope you've had a nice day. Sleep well. I mean it.

Well the sun has come out, it has warmed up and I took a walk and I don't care what my problems are- those three things can make anything at least a little bit better.
I still feel overwhelmed and over-daunted but dammit, the sky is blue and I got off my ass.

I think I'll go hang the clothes out and gird my loins (or at least my bosoms) and go to town.

I will not be going to see Santa, however. You can bet on that.

Thanks for not coming and kicking me in the ass no matter how badly I deserve it.

Love...Ms. Moon

Someone Tell Me To Just Shut Up

I finished reading Swamplandia! last night and I don't get the hubbub over it. Sorry. For me it got bogged down in the swamp of it all and I do not know what the redeeming value of it was and maybe that's just because I'm ignorant.
I feel terrible saying something negative about a book that someone wrote with her very own mind but there you go. The truth is, there was too much, too much, way too much going on and it got to the point where I did not CARE what happened to these characters except maybe the brother, Kiwi, who had the good sense to escape the dank island of Swamplandia and leave the gators behind. It did not work for me on the level of metaphor and it did not work for me on the level of surrealism and it did not work for me on the level of realism. No one in this world could stumble around the everglades for days without water or food or bug repellent and not come out dead or at least in need of hospitalization and what the fuck was that Mama Weeds character all about? Or the red gator for that matter?

Ah Jeez. I should just shut up.

It's probably just me and this eternal grayness we seem to be consigned to like being consigned to a cold, damp hell of a tin cup for a world lined with damp paper towels and put into the refrigerator.
I think I probably have mold. Well, still, that beats the hell out of being lost in the Everglades with a bird-man rapist on your tail and nowhere to hide but a gator nest.

Thank god for small favors, eh?

I wish I had something witty to say today. I wish I had something pithy or enlightening or god, what's that word? INSPIRING! yeah, that's it but I don't.  I'm just in one of those phases when it takes everything I have to face the reality of life, even if it's a cushy-ass reality and the reality IS that I need to go to town and DO THINGS which I vaguely have an idea about but not really.
I swear- where do these moods come from?
I went to a website for survivors of childhood abuse and they all talk about "triggers" and I am thinking and thinking but I can't think of a trigger one lately, I just went to bed happy on Sunday night and woke up in deepest funk yesterday morning and that's the truth of it. No rhyme, no reason, just there you are, here's your breakfast of cold, gray grits, YAY GIRL! you washed the sheets and cleaned the nests in the chicken house, here, I've done my job, let me sleep.

Well, I can't sleep any more today (that's a lie- I could sleep all day long) and I better get off my ass and fake it 'til I make it and when you're smiling the whole world smiles with you, baby. I need to go off on a quest, perhaps, find the meaning of the red gator in the Underworld, thirst for knowledge, for meaning, for water, sweet and pure, keep my eyes open for buzzards circling overhead, for the rescue plane which could appear at any moment, either one.

Here's all of this and five dollars and forty-seven cents, go buy a cup of coffee.

Stay out of the swamp, don't trust a man dressed in a coat made of the feathers of dead birds, don't believe in the Underworld, don't believe a thing I say, it's all in my mind which is a swamp unto itself, filled with snakes and gators, filled with sawgrass that'll cut you to ribbons.

I think I'll go to the mall/take a walk/spend all day knitting in front of the TV/sleep until my skin falls off/take up crew rowing/find an open bar at ten a.m./get pregnant/go buy apples and a rotisserie chicken/make the bed.

I think I'll run away but no, that never works, you always take yourself with you and besides that, the Rapist Bird Man is an excellent tracker.

"Woof," says the dog and Santa Claus is coming to town and I'll bet he's at the mall right this second, waiting in his faux velvet suit to be spat up upon, to be cried on, to be adored and pleaded with and lied to about how good we've all been this year. Maybe he'd make room for me on his lap. Maybe he'd let me tug his beard, tell him my lies.

Maybe I need to shut up and plug in my Robert B. Parker book and go take a walk.

Yeah. I'd be a fool not to.

I Am Grateful For A Woman's Heart

I went to Kathleen's house today. She is home from helping midwife a friend into death and taking care of that woman's husband as he is not only going through such grief but also back surgery and so much pain. Kathleen has had to bear witness to too much pain and suffering in the past few years and she is weary of it. She is weary from it too.

I had to go over, you know, because sometimes there is nothing else that can be done but to go see someone and hug them and let them know that you are alive, you are here, there is still life on Planet Earth. I wish I'd had a bouquet of gorgeous flowers to take her but I didn't and so I took a plastic bag full of salad greens, all washed and ready to go. Her dogs have eaten all of her greens and so she has none at the moment.

She looked tiny and frail but her hug was strong and then Judy came over too and we sat in Kathleen's house and watched her measure and weigh and simmer and mix- her soap-making routine. I didn't help a bit. I just watched and kept out of her way and so did Judy and by the time I realized it was getting dark, we had all laughed a lot and talked about everything from death to taxes, quite literally, with a bit of birth thrown in and, okay, sex as well.

I guess that when Kathleen and Judy and I get together, we are something of a cackling coven.

Works for me.

Works for me.

As much as I would like to say that I went over there for Kathleen, I know that being with those two women was more comforting to me than I can even admit. Just sitting there and talking and being able to say whatever outrageous thing I want to say and to have that accepted and even laughed at- well, that's good. That's acceptance. That's love.
We are three such very different women but we have seen each others souls and we approve.
I feel gifted by the afternoon. I feel so lucky.

Judy and I left her with her gentle giant dog Harry with his paws around the untouchable cat Marina, with her boy-dog Bob, her baby clown girl-dog Edna and a bunch of cats whose names I honestly can never remember. She has good company, Kathleen does, in her little house with the blooming Flame Vine, her chickens, her animal kids. I bet her house smells like heaven right now with the soap-making. I hope she is not too worn out.

I hope that she and Judy both know how much I appreciate their company.

That's all I have to say tonight. Just that I needed that woman-fellowship and I got it and it was good.
We do not have to bear our burdens or our weariness alone. We may not be able to share the weight of them as such, but we do not have to be alone as we bear them.

Thank goodness.

Still Gray Here But At Least We Got Some Rain

This morning I saw a hawk fly down from a tree to sit on my garden fence and he stayed there until the baby chicks next door started fussing and then he flew off to investigate and I couldn't bear to watch. How any baby-anythings make it around here with all the hawks is beyond me. Yes, those hawks are gorgeous but scary too with those swoop-swoop wings that scoop air hard. They are big birds. They are predators.

I wake up almost every morning feeling as if I am already a failure at life. Then I spend the rest of the day climbing some sort of self-imposed ladder to something far short of "success" but mostly just acceptance of myself. As if. My craziness is as strong and scary as that hawk and any tenderness I may have for myself is as fragile as those downy chicks next door.
And yet, I mostly manage to do it.
It's a sort of miracle.
And then I get up the next day and have to do it again. It takes a lot of energy. More than I have sometimes. 

When we did our read-through last night I enjoyed it so much but still, after we were done, I had to say ONE MORE TIME- Look guys- I am too old for this part. I love this part but I am too old.
They all told me that I am not. That it will be fine. What touched my heart was when the wife of the man who is playing opposite me said, "Mary, you are gorgeous."
She did not have to say that. She is not one to throw compliments around like confetti. She is a fairly quiet woman.
She had no idea when she said that how hard I am going to hold those words to my chest as protection, as totem, as comfort.
It was a Mitzvah, just like when Jason picked up Owen's toys the other day before they left.

I read an article in Vanity Fair the other day by Christopher Hitchens. Here it is, if you want to read it.
He has recently been going through hell on this earth being treated for cancer and in the article he takes on that old saying, "What does not kill us makes us stronger."
He doesn't believe it and neither do I.

I was reading another blog this morning and in it, the woman wrote that all of her growth and all of her blessings have stemmed from difficulties. She's religious and brings Jesus into the mix and I love her attitude about so many things but this one- nah.
Specifically, I was thinking about how different I might be had I not had to survive childhood sexual abuse. I did survive it but goddammit, I don't think it made me stronger. I think it made me fucked-up in ways that will never, ever be completely healed.
It was not a blessing.

In fact, it has interfered with my ability to accept my blessings my entire life. It has given me the fear that no matter how good things are, there will be a hawk coming from the sky to swoop in and take those blessings from me. The better I have it, the more I have to lose, the more I have to fear.

I thought, I thought...(I was nine years old) that the man who was about to marry my mother would make everything better. He would take away her depression, he would make her HAPPY, he would complete our family, he would be...my father.
Instead, he made everything worse and he filled my life with fear.

You don't really get over shit like that. At least I haven't.
And oh sure, I am more empathetic because of what I went through. I am...well, to tell you the truth, I can't really think of anything else that's very positive to talk about which came from that experience. Nope. Just can't.
It wasn't a blessing in disguise and a whole lot of other horrible things are not either.

I'm not talking about not having enough money to buy a new car or breaking your arm or all of the things that befall us that yes, we do get through and can look back and see that we are stronger than we knew because we survived them. There ARE things which we survive which make us stronger. There is pain which has a purpose. Childbirth, for instance.

But there are other things which come like the hawk- the predator- that take so much from us. Even the basic sense that we deserve a life, not of riches or ease, perhaps, but just a plain, regular old life.

And when I write a post like the one I did last night wherein I talk about the incredible blessings of my life, I wake up the next day and think, "I do not deserve this. Something will come and take it all away." I could sit here and list a hundred things that I fear to the point of almost-paralysis. It would be so easy.

And every day, every single day of my life, I get up and I struggle through those fears and I do put one foot in front of the other and I get through. Just as many of us do who have gone through, who are going through things which seem unbearable. Things which do NOT make us stronger but instead take away all our reserves of strength and leave us panting for breath.

Of course we go on. Of course we do. Unless we don't. And some do not. Can not.

And this is the way it is. We humans want so badly to give everything a happy ending. To believe that there is meaning in suffering and we make up stories and religions that tell us exactly that. That even if this life is cruel and even if we are given more than we can bear, that in the next life, we will be rewarded for our struggles here.

See- I don't believe that for a second. I don't believe that and I don't believe that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger and I surely don't believe that god doesn't give us more than we can bear.

I just believe that it is what it is and that life can be beautiful and that life can be horrible and that life can be easy as walking down a dusty road under a clear blue sky and whistling a tune and life can be looking up to see the hawk flying low, heading straight for you and your babies.

And I believe that any kindness we can offer another is a good thing. I believe that we should be able to appreciate the smallest goodnesses of our lives and not dwell on that which is not a goodness which doesn't mean I am a Pollyanna but that we should do our best for our own self-interest to realize what we do have which is good and true. And that we should, in turn, be aware and grateful when those things are offered to us.

Because what else is there?

Perhaps I focus on the smallest blessings- the egg, the arugula, the softness of Goodwill cashmere, the son-in-law who picks up the toys, the kind comment from someone- because these I can accept. These I can be sure of.

Everything else is too much for me to bear sometimes- the very real and perfect weight of them in my life, my arms makes me know how much I have which makes me know how much I could lose.

So. There you go. Not very uplifting. But it's what I have to offer today.

And I want to say that if you are one of those people who carry burdens beyond what any human can bear (and I do not consider myself to be one of them), I have this to say:
I see you and I do not think that it is fair and I love you for continuing to bear that which is impossible to bear.

That's all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Back from the read-through and I am excited and calmly thinking about this woman I am playing in a play and how it can be funny and I can be funny and there were a few moments, even in this first reading where I could feel magic creeping in. I think I may have found us an actor for a role yet uncast and I am hoping (fingers crossed) that it will happen. He would be perfect or at least, very, very good. Oh god, I love the Opera House. I love the process of word-to-voice-to-movement with words from the page. Voice, body, make-'em-laugh, make-'em-cry. Make ME laugh. Make ME cry.

Came home and talked to Jessie, my baby, out there in the world, on her way to work and there she is- away from me but tucked always into my heart. I picked salad in the dark with a flashlight and when I snapped the arugula with my thumbnail, the scent of it flew up and I mentally paired it with tomatoes and vinegar and olive oil and garlic and it was like eating in the garden, it is like shopping in the ground.

Mr. Moon keeps opening his jacket when I am near to draw me in to his warmth, his heart. He has made a fire to cook the giant Tennessee grass-fed steak he traded for oysters from the bay we may live on one day, god willing, and I am thinking of the way they have found coastal seashells in the mountains of Georgia which were obtained from trading back so long ago and for this moment, it all makes sense.

Somehow it does and the bread is in the oven, the potatoes are in the oven, the steak is resting in a bath of oil and garlic and spices and the salad is waiting to be made, conceived in dirt and snapped with my thumbnail and the olive oil is resting in its bottle, the garlic is waiting in its paper-skin, the vinegar is waiting in its green-glass to anoint the arugula in its bowl. The fire is snapping, ready for meat to be cooked on it.

God. I am rich.

Not A Bad Sunday

It's like Groundhog Day here over and over again, this overcast damn chill-bone weather. There is nothing inspiring in it for me, I am like a plant who can survive the gray but who does not thrive in it, not at all and yet, do I do anything to move towards some light and cheer?
No. I do not.
I hunker down and take baths in boiling hot water and drink coffee and tea and make chili and watch the chickens and read Swamplandia! and fret over the fact that I should AT LEAST make a list of things I must do before we leave for Mexico.
I am inert.
Well, to everything there is a season, and so forth and the chili was very good, at least.
And truthfully, I am not unhappy.
Not a bit.

I am, in fact, pretty darn content.

I don't have a lot on my mind today that needs discussing or airing. I am thinking about the play and the first read-through we're going to have this afternoon and how it'll be the first time since Wednesday that I've left Lloyd.
I'm thinking about that list I need to make for my trip but even though we are leaving two weeks from today, it just seems completely impossible for me to even imagine leaving not only Lloyd but Florida and indeed! the country! But somehow, in my mind, Cozumel is only an extension of my heart-home so it doesn't seem like a very daunting prospect. At least not yet. I still remember the things I bought to take to Cozumel the first time, some of which I used or wore and some of which I did not. I didn't realize how hot it would be there so the jeans I took I wore exactly once, I think, and that was the last time I ever took a pair of jeans. I did use the water-proof eyeshadow I'd bought in mermaid colors and also some Dewberry perfume from the Body Shoppe which I don't think they even sell now but if they did, I would buy some because I loved it. I had no idea how young and beautiful I was back then. 1987. I was thirty-three years old. I wore that Dewberry perfume and had mermaid eyes, even when I swam, and we danced in a discotheque there called Scaramouch and for a week I was not a mother or an old hippie but a mermaid/madonna/goddess with silver flashing in her ears and on her arms and every picture taken of me I was wearing an expression of bliss.
Ah me.
Ah lah.

I tell you this- I will be taking eyeshadow in mermaid colors again and I will be wearing it. Maybe not when I swim or snorkel, but for going out to supper. Believe it. And silver bracelets. Oh yes I will, even those these arms are not the arms of someone I recognize anymore. I recognize the bracelets. Perhaps I will even buy some more.

I have so many memories of Cozumel. I hope we make some new wonderful ones this trip. Memories that can shoot through even these Groundhog Days of winter's continual gray as my once-blond hair grows gray, as my face and arms grow ever-less recognizable to me. That handsome man who has traveled so well with me over the years and I may not dance at Scaramouch but we can still dance. We can still trace the path of the moon over the water to Tulum by its silver trail. We can still laugh and we can still love and so yes, I am thinking of that today, this gray day, as the leaves continue to fall, as the chickens scratch in the dirt, as I am content with memory, with present, with looking-forward to what may come. The good parts, at least. I think there will be more.