What Time Is It, Really?

Hunting season is an odd time of year.

It's also football season and then there's basketball, too.
Mr. Moon isn't the sort of man who MUST watch every game on TV but there are some which appear to be more important than others. I have no idea. The only way I could possibly watch football is to have my ass superglued to a seat and my eyelids propped open with toothpicks and even then...
Even then.

Anyway, I went to bed last night after making Mr. Moon some brownies and read for as long as I could keep my eyes open and when I got up this morning, he was already gone to the woods. It's just...odd.

Sundays.

The banana leaves are tattering and turning brown. The wind rustles through the drying leaves of the pecan. I have given the jack-o-lantern to the chickens and they have done craniotomies on it, like mad med students on crack.

Well. Funny how it can be so bright and crisp and yet melancholy all at the same time.
But that, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and I am the one beholding this day.

Elvis beholds the withering, beak-beat pumpkin and sees nothing but food.


I wonder if chickens dream.
I doubt it.

Nor do they know Sundays from Tuesdays or Daylight Savings Time from any other time but only know that when the sun comes up it is time to go out and eat the corn I scatter and when the sun goes down, it is time to fly up to the roost to sleep.
When it is time to lay an egg, they do, when it is time to have sex, they do, when it is time to moult, they do, when it is time to go from this part of the yard to that, they do.

Funny how humans divide time which may or may not even be real. It is hunting season, it is football season, it is time to plant or reap or pile the leaves atop the garden and let it rest.

It is time for breakfast.

There are eggs.

I think I will cook one.

A Plain, Good Day

Okay, Elizabeth- here is your picture:


I only took one. I was shy.
But as you can see, for a branch library in Tallahassee, Florida, it is a fine building with a soaring ceiling and lots of huge windows. The shelves were nowhere near full, but I found treasures.

Books to read, books to listen to, two books with beautiful pictures to read and look at both.
I've read The Lacuna before but now I am going to listen to it. I am looking forward to that a great deal. I spent part of my growing-up years in Winter Haven where Cypress Gardens is which is why I got the book about C. Gardens, as we used to call it. It is a Lego Land now.
Sigh.
Not that there's anything wrong with Legos, it's just that it was SO old Florida with its beautiful gardens of amazing trees and plants brought from all over the world and that water ski show with its organ music and announcer and the gorgeous southern belles who stood around and posed for pictures in hoop-skirted dresses the colors of Melty Mints.
Sigh again.

Well, it is a fine library and everyone there was happy to be there and said so out-loud and praised the building and I saw a librarian from when the east-side branch had been the size and had the charm of a garage and she said, "Isn't it sweet?"
Uh-huh. It is sweet.

Then I went and spent money at Mike's Oriental And Seafood Store. I sure did. I bought one pound of stone crab claws and two pounds of rock shrimp. I haven't seen rock shrimp in years and I don't know why. They taste like tiny lobsters, sweet like that, and have exoskeletons that are hard like...rocks. You have to pull those little bodies from the shell after you split the leg-part in two. It is well worth the work.



Supper is going to be good tonight. I have bread rising in honor of the occasion. Rising TO the occasion, you might say.
I even bought real butter for Mr. Moon to dip his crab claws and shrimps in. I dip mine in hot sauce. Yeah. I know. But that's the way I like it and besides- arteries.

While I was at the Oriental And Seafood Market, I ran into Jessie's old fourth or fifth grade teacher. Mr. White. Instead of pretending I did not know him, I introduced myself and he remembered Jessie and he may have remembered me. I know I have changed since then but I swear to you- Mr. White has not. I think he was even wearing the same sweater he used to wear. He is still teaching elementary school and he looked GOOD!

Jessie- if you are reading this, Mr. White says, "Hello!" and he is glad to hear that you are doing so well. He asked me if you were president yet. I said, "Yes. Didn't you hear?"
He said you were special. I am pretty certain he meant that in a very, very good way.


So it was a good trip to town. I kept forgetting items at the Publix when I went there and had to keep crossing the store back and forth to get the horseradish and then the limes and bananas and then back for this and back for that but I think I got almost everything I needed. I hear that Tallahassee is getting a Whole Foods which means that we are going to be really cool and shit. Since it is much farther away than Publix I will probably hardly ever go there. I might just stand by my with-the-new-library-rule of never traveling farther into Tallahassee than what we used to call the Truck Route and which we now call Capital Circle and never ever go there once.
Hell, I'll go there at least once to see Cool People. You know I will. And then I'll write about it and probably say bitchy things.
(Sixty Minutes- are you paying attention?)

And so it's been a fine day. Mr. Moon has gone out to the woods to sit and wait for that twelve-point buck to show up. When he comes home we'll have a seafood feast and the house will be warm and cozy and smell of bread and shrimp and then we'll turn the heat way down low and sleep under the piles of duck feathers that humans so cleverly contain in fabric, or at least I will. Mr. Moon, as I have said before, doesn't care for the amount of coverage I do at night but we make it work. A few nights ago my duck, as I call the big comforter, fell off the bed and when I woke up with a semi-hot flash, I reached for it and it was cold from being on the floor and that sensation of the cold and the warmth at the same time was a high-point of my entire life.
I am not kidding you.

It's about to be time for Prairie Home Companion and I do not know how they will manage because their Foley Artist, Tom Keith died this past week. I can't even imagine that show without the sound effects he made. Kathleen and I discussed the fact that we could step in and take his place but then I said, "I don't have time for that," and it's true. But maybe I could. Just like maybe I could take Andy Rooney's place. I thought I was going to take Erma Bombeck's place but that didn't work out too well.

Still, I get to sit here and write my heart out every day and even though I don't get paid it's the joy of my life. Well, that and sleep.

And tonight we get an extra hour of sleep! I hate the changes between Daylight Savings Time and "real" time but it is nice to pretend that on this one night of the year, we get an hour for free, even if it's going to screw up our body-clocks.

A very good day, indeed, with more time to spend under the duck with less guilt.

Yeah. I'll take that. An extra hour, free books, riches from the ocean, fresh bread.

Grits will be involved.

There will probably be tears on Prairie Home Companion. I wonder how those folks will manage without their sound effects guy. The show must go on, so they say, and so it will, but I am sorry that it so often has to go on in sorrow and loss.

That, like libraries and crab claws and good teachers, is a part of life.

Enjoy your extra hour, y'all, however you may choose to use it.

Love...Ms. Moon

He Was More Than Just Eyebrows And Bitchiness

My brother just sent me the following in an e-mail and he is probably right and I'm sorry I criticized such an honorable old dude.
Sort of.
Mostly he was just damn cranky.
But obviously there was far more to Andy than I truly realized.
So. Correction noted.

Wow Mary, you were too tough on Rooney in my opinion. Why so hard on a guy who also quit his CBS job 41 years ago because they wouldn't let him give his anti Vietnam commentary on air......or reported on Allied atrocities against German civilians......or was arrested for refusing to take a Black's place on a bus ......anyway, more important than any of that was his steadiness in an unsteady world ....and he was occasionally very funny

I Am Laughing With Them AND At Them

Oh my dear Jesus God. I have just spent an hour laughing until I have cried, quite literally.
If you need a little of that, go here, although you probably already have but if you haven't, just go ahead.
I swear- I have a headache from all the laughing/crying.

I am so easily amused.

Unpaid Product Placement AGAIN!

Andy Rooney is dead.
I'm sorry. That just doesn't affect my life at all. Old garrulous man. Old curmudgeon. Old bitchy dude. I'm sorry for his family. I'm sure he had a charming side which he didn't share with most of us. Wonder how much money he made being an old bitchy dude?

I've reinstated the verification word. Sorry but that's it. It's done. I'm done going through e-mails notifying me of spam. Fuck it. I do not want to see any more shit about fake Uggs or how to get more readers to my blog. I have the readers I have. They make me happy. We do not want fake Uggs and if we do, we can go find them ourselves.

So, Ms. Moon, have you heard about Keith Richards' autobiography winning the Norman Mailer Center Prize for biography?
Yes. Yes I have.
Ms. Moon, are you still obsessed with Keith Richards?
Yes. Yes I am.

You see this picture?

It makes me fucking happy. You hear that? FUCKING HAPPY!

Would reading Andy Rooney's biography make me happy? I doubt it. What would it say? "I was a bitchy old young dude and it worked so well that I became a bitchy old OLD dude."

Maybe I just don't know the half of it. I would not be surprised.

So Bill Clinton is going to give Keith and his co-writer, James Fox, the award. I love Bill Clinton. And anyone who is trying to compare Herman Cain's sexual harassment issues to Bill Clinton's affair issues needs to be educated. Bill's sexual adventures were between himself and consenting women, as far as has ever been reported. They were his business and the business of the women and of his wife.
But Herman Cain sexually harassed women. Reportedly. To the point where they were paid off and signed agreements not to talk about it. Ever been sexually harassed? It ain't nothing like having a consenting sexual experience with someone you desire, even if it's someone you should NOT be having a sexual experience with. It's scary and it's wicked and it's having your back up against a wall and your whole nervous system screaming Danger! Danger! Get me out of here! and it's your mind reminding you that this man could fire you and how will you pay the damn rent? It's about power and it's about control and it's awful and the men who do it or who have done it are fucking evil.
I may be old but I remember.

Okay. I'm rambling again. It's a beautiful morning in Lloyd. God, it's beautiful. Mr. Moon and I walked around the yard and looked at the garden and I showed him where Owen likes to explore in the "jungle" which is a piece of overgrown property. That boy is obsessed with the jungle. When he woke up from his nap yesterday he sat up straight, lifted both hands in the air, pumped his arms up and down and said, "Yoo-hoo!" as if he was aware that he had indeed successfully napped and woken up and now it was time to play again.

I think I am going to go visit the new library today. I hear that the grand opening was so grand that they had to get police to direct traffic. That's so encouraging to me- that over a thousand people would show up at four-o'clock on a weekday afternoon to go visit a new library. Maybe there is hope for us after all. Maybe. I mean, that many people wouldn't show up just for the free snacks, would they? I don't think so.
So yes, I want to go to the new library. And I will. And to the grocery store to get something (WHAT?) to cook for our supper tonight. I sure wish I could make Madame Radish King's recipe for macaroni and cheese but my arteries can't take it. Just reading the recipe got me in trouble and I had to go heat up some of last Sunday's pancakes and put maple syrup on them for my breakfast. They were damn good for week-old pancakes reheated in the microwave.
I am trying to be sweet with myself today, having slept through another night of dreams that put me in another world of busyness for hours last night. Nothing terrible, just way too busy. It was odd though, every time I got to a place in my dreams where disaster was about to occur, it was averted. I find this strangely cheerful, as if my mind is telling me that the sky is NOT falling, look, here is your wallet, here is your purse, and there are kindly people who will help you.

I guess.

When I got up this morning I found the dining room table tipped over on its side. One of the legs is in serious need of repair and I suppose the dog jumped on it. No big deal except that every night before I go to bed I lovingly set my MacBook in the center of that table to protect it from harm and there it was, lying on its face, having slid off the tipped table.
I panicked a little, but as you can see, it is fine.

Everything is fine. Andy Rooney is dead but he was very old. I wonder if Sixty Minutes needs a new curmudgeon. I sort of fit that bill, don't I? But I am not negative about everything. I promise you. Didn't I just tell you that the picture of Keith Richards makes me fucking happy? Lots of things make me happy including the fact that although I just washed a load of clothes that held a pen stashed somewhere in its bosom, they were white clothes means that with the POWER OF OXY-CLEAN AND CLOROX BLEACH they are almost as good as new. I am washing them once more with that magical formula and am hoping for a complete white-recovery.
That is not racist. That is just laundry-talk. The sooner that everyone in the world is at least a shade darker than I am, the better in my opinion.

The well-built MacBook I write on makes me happy. This day with its bleach-pure light makes me happy.
Elvis crowing in the yard makes me happy. The thought of going to a brand-new library makes me happy. Green things growing in my laundry room window make me happy.

My babies make me happy. The fact that Keith Richards is alive makes me happy.

I wonder what made Andy Rooney happy? All that money he made from being a bitchy boy?

Who knows? Not me. But how ironic it would be to be made happy by the fact of being chronically unhappy.

But I'll tell you this- if left untended my eyebrows could look just like Andy Rooney's eyebrows looked.

And if paid enough, I could become as curmudgeonly as he was.

But I'd rather just be me. Happy and unhappy, bitchy and tender. Profane and holy.

Just like most of us.

Amen. Rock and Roll. Etc.

I Do Not Know

The sun is low in the sky and that yogurt-faced boy just left with a basket of toys and that is good because less for me to pick up although I am not sure his mama will be so happy about it.
It's so quiet when he goes home and these days, blessedly, Zeke goes home with him and so there is even more quiet.

When Owen was in his car seat and he and his daddy were about to leave, I said, "You know, I've had him for two days and here I am, about to cry to see him go. NOW DON'T GET ME WRONG!" I added, "I am glad he's going home. It's just that...I love him so much." And then I forced another kiss from him.

But yes, the quiet is good.

Mr. Moon will be home soon and I have no idea what we're having for supper.
Something. Food.
Do olives in martinis count as supper?

I doubt it.

I should get my ass out there in that garden and snip some tiny greens. Yes. I will do that. Soon. If we went out and got a salad of the very same greens it would cost seven dollars and if we lived in a big city, probably twelve. Or fifteen. Or a thousand. I have no idea.

I hardly ever eat salads in Cozumel. To tell you the truth, the vegetable category gets mostly satisfied with the ixchnepeche (I think that's how you spell it) which is the Mayan version of Pico de Gallo. Ixchnepeche means "dog snout" and Pico de Gallo means "rooster beak."
Hmmmmm.
But both have tomatoes, hot peppers, onions, garlic and lime juice.
That's salad enough for me and I eat it on everything including eggs.
I never, ever, even after ten days, think to myself, "Boy, I sure would like some vegetables."
Nope. I do not.

But of course we eat a lot of fruit there. Mangoes, bananas, papaya, pineapple. Etc. Also beans. Fish. Chicken. Some pork. Yogurt. Rice. Corn tortillas. It's a diet that suits me fine.

I think I am a peasant at heart. I have peasant wants and peasant needs. Art to me is the glowing zinnia in the twilight, it is the way the feathers gleam on my chickens. Of course I love human-made art. I often think that if humans have a purpose at all, it is to make art but I am not the one who decides what does and does not fit into that category. If it is the result of a creative overwhelming need-to-do, then I think it probably is art, even if it does not please my eye or my ear or even my tastebuds, or if my brain can't comprehend it.

Oh Lord, I must be tired. I have wandered from Owen to Cozumel to supper to art.
Including the possible purpose of humans.
Of course, elephants can paint pictures. Of course birds can weave bowers. Of course whales can sing songs. Of course glaciers can create sculptured landscape and so can wind and so can water and they do.

Maybe the purpose of LIFE is to create art and the purpose of humans is to see and register and appreciate it and imitate it.

I think it is time for a martini. My husband is home.

I shall ponder these things as I come up with a supper for us to eat.

Happy Friday night, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

I'm A Junkie

Oh my god. It has been a very, very stressful day.

I got up this morning and did my morning routine of feed-cats-chickens-dogs and read the paper and then opened up the ol' Mac and launched Firefox and...nothing. Nada. Bupkis.
Don't panic, Mary. DO NOT PANIC!
I went and checked the router. All lights on. I unplugged it, replugged it. I checked the phone line. Nothing.
My Airport icon showed all strength on my little icon thingee.
Restarted the Mac. Still nope.
Whoa. Starting to panic.
Called my next door neighbor. She had internet.
Starting to shake.
Called tech support.
Recording said that Tallahassee and surrounding areas not able to access high speed internet.
Felt a little better. But WHY COULD MY NEIGHBOR GET ONLINE AND NOT ME?

Owen came. Sort of in a pissy mood himself. He didn't get enough sleep last night.
Or something.
Didn't want to wear a jacket outside.
Cried because he didn't want to wear a jacket outside.
SCREAMED because he didn't want to wear a jacket outside.
Etc.

The morning went on, slightly askew. Like...my movie-making attempt yesterday.

Ms. Sarcastic Bastard called me to make sure I was alive. I assured her I was. We had a little chat.

I went and checked my internet again.

It worked! Here I am!

Phew. That's all.

I am feeling better now.

That's all. I am alive.

Dog Door Afternoon

Sorry about the side-ways photography. I am not a videographer. I do not even know how to spell that.

We visited goats and fed chickens and collected eggs and went on wheelbarrow rides and watered plants and dumped out all the toys and did puzzles and read books and made supper and pretended to be airplanes and monkeys and talked about the tiger in the woods.

We saw trains, we pretended to be scared, we hid from Mer-Mer, we hung out in the garden, we visited the goats again and saw the mule and the donkey too. We drummed. We built. We took a short nap and we were AWAKE and I don't know about Owen but I am going to sleep like the dead.

The child is filthy.
The house is a complete wreck.

He will be back in thirteen and a half hours. I may sleep for at least twelve of those.

Mr. Moon is out of town and I am thinking about leaving all of the dumped-out toys dumped-out. Why not?

Here are my words of wisdom for tonight:

1. Have your babies at as young an age as possible. Like, when you are twelve. Because twelve-year-olds have almost as much energy as two-year-olds and also, the grandmother will be like twenty-four. This will work out well for all concerned.

2. If you have never had or raised a child, do not ever, ever, ever open your mouth to offer parenting advice. EVER. I mean it. You can think whatever you want but keep your damn mouth shut because you do not know shit.

3. If there is anything sweeter than a spontaneous tackle and kiss from a grandchild, I can't even imagine what it is.

It's been a good day.

Now let's go to bed. As Owen would say, "Do it!" And he would mean it. And I do too.

News You Can't Use And Other Random Stuff

I just feel so boring here lately. So whiny. So over-and-over-again-you've heard-it-all.

I should talk about politics. Let's see...
Herman Cain.
Are you kidding me?
Every other Republican supposedly running for president.
Are you kidding me?

I could discuss popular culture.
But I am still unsure of who the Kardashians are although I am fairly sure that one of them just demonstrated quite vividly why marriage between a man and a woman is sacred.
For a few weeks.

I could discuss (going back to Herman Cain) how every freaking manager I ever had while working in restaurants sexually harassed me except for the gay guy who only harassed the guy servers.

I could discuss my agoraphobia but we've certainly all heard about that before.

I could discuss how completely unsexy/unpretty/unattractive I feel lately but we've heard that before too. Really though, I've reached a new low.

I could discuss the thing I was thinking about last night which is the family-famous story of how when I was a little girl I stole something from a grocery store (I was so young I don't even remember what OR the incident) and my mother made me take it back in, whatever it was, and apologize to the manager and I wonder now if if that has anything to do with my agoraphobia but it probably doesn't. It's probably just why I've never shoplifted anything in my life.

I could talk about how relieved/guilty I feel when I see Christmas commercials on the TV or see Christmas decorations in the stores because I am NOT DOING CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR. Okay. A little guilty, mostly relieved, and then I feel guilty because I don't feel guilty as much as I feel relieved.

I could point out that the furniture polish and a rag have been sitting on the piano for two days now. Gathering dust.

I would like to point out that two years ago today this boy was born:


Waylon Grady Lunsford. And that on that day he and Owen were this tiny:

And that now they are BIG boys and I am wishing the happiest of happy birthdays to Waylon and to his mama and daddy who are my beloved Shayla and Billy.
Two years, y'all.
Can you believe it? Can you especially believe, Shayla, that Waylon ever had trouble nursing? HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHA!

I could tell you that the new library is opening today but NOT UNTIL FOUR O'CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON AND WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT?

I could tell you that the train has gone by about fourteen times while I've been writing this.

I could tell you that Mr. Moon is going to be out of town for a few days to go pick up a car in South Florida and that I am going to be a wild, wild woman while he is gone. Wild as in Owen will be here most of today and tomorrow and so yes, I will be wildly trying to keep things out of his nose.

Oh, I could tell you all of these things and discuss every one of them but with the exception of it being Waylon's birthday, who would care?

Oh wait- here's some news: Ms. Mabel has feathers appearing again on her back. Moulting season is coming to an end and growing-in season is happening. Now if Elvis will just leave her alone she might look like a real chicken again.

And I do have other news but I am not at liberty to discuss it yet. Stayed tuned to his channel.
This news has nothing to do with Herman Cain OR sexual harassment. I promise you.

Okay. This wild woman needs to go get something done before she picks up Owen including going to the Costco where she hopes they are sampling salmon but probably will not be but will probably be sampling those nasty little frozen smoothie things instead. Or some sort of food-substitute nutritional bars. She needs to take a walk. She needs to wash her hair. She needs to shave her legs but she probably won't. Wild women don't need to shave their legs.
If their husbands are out of town.
Costco is like the Honey Badger. It don't give a shit. If you have a card.
Remember Honey Badger? Of course you do. He's nasty-ass. And if you haven't seen him, here he is. Yes, I've posted this before. So what? It's my blog?
I do not give a shit.




Better Honey Badger than Herman Cain.
In fact, that may be my new motto, my slogan.

BETTER HONEY BADGER THAN HERMAN CAIN!!!

Love...Ms. Moon

One Of Our Neighbors

Hawk in the twilight, standing under the sprinkler on the garden fence.

A Very Short Short

And if I'm not mistaken, that voice on the phone is none other than that of FC Rabbath's.

What If Tears Were Honey?

Lily is so beautiful right now that it's hard to believe- I mean, she's always been beautiful but this baby is making her shine brighter than these fall days or spring days or both together and I think it's all the love, love, love. You should see the way she loves that Owen boy. You should see it. She has never been more beautiful. She IS spring and she IS life and she IS Beauty and I remember those days of being pregnant and sometimes I did feel full-to-bursting with beauty and life and sometimes I just felt so tired.

That is life.

I tell Lily, "You are so beautiful." I tell Owen, "You are so beautiful."
I tell this day, "You are so beautiful."

Last night Mr. Moon was late getting in from playing poker (well, late for him, not really so late) and I woke up and where was he? and my stomach clenched and I curled around myself with a book and read, read, read, one tiny molecule of brain on the book, the rest all wrapped in worry and he came in and I said, "I was worried!" and he said, "Don't worry about your man!" and I said, "I can't help it."

He held me and we slept and maybe, maybe the older you get the more you can see the beauty, the more you can truly know how love makes beauty and the more you know how slick this road of life is and the more you fear the loss as the golden coins of all that love pile up.
The more there is of love, the more there is to lose.
The more you know of light, the more the darkness penetrates.

Or something. I do not know.
I only know it is so bright today, there is so much goodness and it scares me and I think of all the gold I have spent, unknowingly, already slipped through my fingers and that's all right- that is the way it should be- grasping at love is no good, it is, in fact, impossible, but how to let it flow like a sparkling river without wanting to haul buckets of it up to a safe place, knowing all the while that if it was not flowing, the water would be as gray as the bucket, as still as lead?

It is a day that I want to gather all of my babies to me and hold them so tightly. I want to touch their faces, their beautiful faces, I want to let my love for them spill off my fingers and into their heart-pockets. I want them to know how much I have always loved them, will always love them, how much love there is in this world for them, I only channel some of it, not all, but certainly all I have which is not inconsiderable.

I think love has made me crazy today. I think it has made me insane. I think the light is driving me out of my mind. I wasn't made to hold all of this and even as I have lived it, this life has not prepared me for itself.

Soup And Other Kindly Things

Owen grounded me today firmly in this world. "Hey there!" he said and he took my hand when I walked into his house and then he said, "Come on!" and I did and he showed me many things and he hid under a basket and we did a puzzle book and I am amazed at how quickly he is learning.

He is putting words together now and can make himself well understood. Lily asked him the other day what he did with his Bop in the woods and Owen told her about the four-wheeler and the tractor and the deer and he said that Bop put butter on the trees.
Lily was mystified by that last bit and asked her daddy about it.
"Peanut butter," he said. "I put peanut butter on the trees. The deer love to lick it."
(According to Mr. Moon's trail camera, the foxes love to lick it even more, but that's another story.)

I asked Owen today about Halloween and he told me that he'd had a good time and that he'd gotten candy. CANDY! He did indeed. I also asked him if he had put anything else up his nose. He said no. I asked, "Did it hurt when you put something up your nose yesterday?"
"NO!" he insisted.
That boy will NOT admit to being hurt. But he will let you kiss his bug bites if he gets them.

He did the puzzle animals so nicely. I was surprised. I didn't know he was able to do that. And I see him at least three times a week! Ah- lah. I can't keep up.

On the way home I stopped at a thrift store which used to be the best place in the world for treasure. They had no idea what they had, ever, and sold everything for pennies. They've gotten a little more educated. The store's profits go to the support of a very, very Christian home for young-ladies-gone-bad. I get their newsletter and it is full of how-I-got-saved-and-now-I-am-so-happy stories. The girls also sing gospel and sell CD's for money which goes to the school.
This of course is always a bit disconcerting to me but what the hell?
I know a woman who volunteers there. I went to nursing school with one of her daughters and I had heard that this woman's husband had died this year. When I went in today, she was there and we talked and I cried and we hugged. Fifty-two years they'd been married and they were up at their house in the mountains in North Georgia and had had a beautiful day and eaten supper on the porch and he sat down to watch a golf game on TV and she went upstairs and she heard a noise and she came downstairs and he was gone.
Like that.
She looks as if she has aged twenty years since I've seen her last. But she says she is okay, although she thinks about moving to some place like China because everything here reminds her of him. I understand. A little bit, at least.
I hope with everything in me that I go before Mr. Moon. I could not live in this world were he not by my side.
"Well," this woman said, "As my husband always said, 'We shall abide.'"
I suppose one could abide. I do not know if that would be living.

I looked at all of the stuff in the store and I didn't buy anything but some tiny fabric roses that I can use for my Virgin cards and boxes. I spent $1.61 and that's not going to buy very much toilet paper for the girls-gone-bad-who-are-being-saved but I didn't need or want another thing. Aunt Bob, the woman who runs the store and who appears to be immortal, thanked me "kindly" as she always does. I am glad I stopped by there, even if there were no amazing treasures for me to buy today.

And then I came home and I am making soup of as many colors as Joseph's coat.

Leftovers and some collards and cut-up yard-long beans from the garden all went into the pot and it is simmering now. Just what we need- leftover leftover soup. But you know me- nothing makes me as content as making soup. I wish I had some sweet potatoes to put in it or some sort of hard squash but I don't and it will be fine as it is. There is even some of the leftover chili in it and no, Mr. Moon did not win but yes, a person who brought in chili which tasted most like "chili" won. I fear that McCormick's chili seasoning and canned-everything-else was involved there. He did win a fifty-dollar gas card, though. And his chili was delicious. People just wouldn't know fucking gourmet if it bit them in the fucking ass.

I sure do swear a lot for a grandmother. I don't swear around my grandson. I promise. Although yesterday when I stepped in dog shit I did almost say shit. It came out like, "Shhhii..."
I refuse to feel guilty for that. No way, no how.

I still find it unbelievable that I am a grandmother and yet, here I am. And I keep thinking about how when you fall in love with someone you tell each other that you want to be with them when you are old and gray-haired and sitting on the porch and watching your grandchildren and well, here we are.

There are worse fates, believe me.

Especially when the one you love grows up to be as darling as Mr. Moon has. Especially when your grandson says, "Here there! Come on!"

The sun is setting. The soup is simmering. It smells real good here tonight.

If I learned anything today it is this- don't take joy for granted. It is also that fifty-two years is not enough. It is that we shall abide.

Isn't that amazing?

We shall abide.

Hovering Between Worlds

Chilly morning and quiet. My back aches as if I curled up into a ball last night and never uncurled. I know this not to be true.
This is a day to take a good walk. This is a day to walk it all off.

We had three trick-or-treaters. Three. Sigh. Children from across the street. There was a storm trouper, a Minerva, a Persephone. I think. I told Persephone I should have given her a pomegranate. She laughed.

I feel like a jelly fish, all blob and no way to reach out and control anything. Usually, that is okay in my book. Today it makes me feel helpless.
Is it the day to wash the sheets? I don't know. Is it the day to sweep the petals of the sasangua off the hallway altar? To dust it? To carefully wipe the face of the Queen of Mexico free of the black dust of Lloyd?
I don't know.

Here is something:
Jessie and Vergil are going to meet us in Cozumel.
This is...well, unbelievable.

It was Vergil's idea and Jessie joyfully jumped on the idea. They have flights booked and are looking at hotels. Do you know that I have been going to Cozumel longer than Jessie has been alive?
It's true. I have.

When she was a little girl, she would wrap a cloth around her head and talk about her "ancient land." Finally one day I asked her where her ancient land was.
"Meximo City!" she announced gleefully.

Jessie is coming to her ancient land. I have a strong feeling she's never going to want to leave. I never did either, but had babies at home to return to and so I always did but there have been, to be quite honest, tears at the departure gate far more than once.

The only thing that makes me sad about this plan is that Jessie's siblings have never been to Cozumel. When I had that Yankee agent and she was sending me flowers and swearing she was going to sell my book, the only think I wanted to do with any money I might make was to take all of my babies to Cozumel and rent some fine house on the beach and all be together in the place I have come to love so very, very much.
Well, la-di-dah on that one.

But the idea of showing the island to Jessie and Vergil makes me very, very happy. Of sharing it with them. I can't even begin to tell you.
They are probably not going to stay in the same hotel as we do and last night I talked to Jessie on the phone about different cheap places to stay and I kept saying, "It doesn't matter. Wherever you stay will be clean and you'll love it and if you don't, you can just move."
Her daddy and I moved hotels many times. It is the way of it.
They're going to fly into Cancun and then take a bus to Playa del Carmen and take the ferry over to Cozumel. We'll pick them up.
I just can't even imagine how that will be. We'll have been there for a few days by then and hopefully, we'll be our Cozumel-selves which means we'll be far younger and more beautiful, that Mr. Moon and I.
I wonder if Jessie and Vergil will even recognize us.
We shall take them to Casa Denis for sopa de lima, perhaps, for their first meal. And Jessie will finally know what the hell I've been trying to do with chicken and spices and lime juice all these years.



We shall take them to Plaza Leza where, no matter how long we've been gone, the waiter says, "Welcome home." We shall advise them to only order the pequeno margarita. A large one would kill a horse.

Okay. Stop.

I am so immersed in memory right now that when I just went out to feed the chickens, I woke up in the middle of throwing corn and thought, "Where am I?" and I looked around me and for a second, I was shocked to be in Lloyd.

This is how strong Cozumel is in my blood. This is how much I long to be there and can't believe I am going back. I wonder- will it become this way for my daughter and Vergil too?
What will happen if they go there? Because you know, the island is sacred to Ixchel, the Mayan Goddess of fertility and of childbirth and of creativity and of...the moon.

It could happen that they are merely embarrassed by the antics of the old people, kissing, kissing, kissing.


It could be a good thing that we shall be in separate hotels. I have a feeling there will be a lot of kissing going on between the young people too.

I can see Jessie walking through the zocalo at night, taller than the Mayan men, I can see the men falling down and swooning as she walks. I can see her father and I, holding hands and saying, "Do you see, do you see? Smell? Hear? Do you feel the soft air of this island?"

Oh, the free shots of tequila and Kahlua that child is going to receive.

I don't want to walk in Lloyd today, I don't want to leave this dream. It is the Day of the Dead and the curtain between here and there is thin. Perhaps Cozumel is nothing but a dream. Is it possible to have witnesses to a dream?

We shall see, won't we? We shall see if Jessie and Vergil's feet learn the sidewalks of Cozumel the way mine do. We shall see if they step into a dream, swim into a dream, swallow whole a dream, eat the sunset with dreaming eyes.

I wish all of my children could be there with their own loves.

Well, maybe some day.

Shake my head. Wake up to this good day in Florida. Dry my eyes which have filled and overfilled with memory and tears. God, that sounds so corny. Well, fuck it. It's true.

Buenos dias, ninas y ninos. Buenos dias and hello and let us all walk carefully today, choosing our steps well. The curtain is thin. Do not get lost somewhere unless it is where you really want to be. There is more magic than we know and I, I am lost in it.

Persephone would understand.

I have eaten the seeds of the pomegranate. I am swimming in waters of blue with my lover, mi esposo, mi hombre.

Do Not Feed The Nose

What an odd day. What a very odd day.

This morning was lovely. Owen got here very bright-eyed and happy and threw himself into his Bop's arms for one of the best hugs in history and then he trotted off with me to bed and we went back to sleep and when we got up we had fun galore and he was extremely generous with hugs and kisses but then the boy stuck something up his nose and I thought it was dog food, a tiny chunkette, and it hurt him and he cried and freaked and I didn't freak but ya know- those things can get sucked down into a lung and so I called his mama and then I took him to town although I knew in my heart he was fine.
He wouldn't let me look and he was crying hysterically so he was breathing okay and he wanted his mama and he coughed a few times and he sneezed a bunch of times and on our way to town he sneezed and said, "Did it!" but you know- can you trust the boy to know? Did what? Sneezed or got rid of the offending foreign object?

So we picked up Lily from work and decided to take him to get a burger and fries and so we did and he seemed normal, normal, normal but we took him to the pediatrician and they sort of laughed at us but hell. You have to get these things made sure of.

He checked out A-Okay and after I dropped Lily and Owen off at their house I looked in his car seat and sure enough, there was a tiny round seed in it which I cannot identify but which may well have been the object.

Kids. He'll probably have mostly forgotten about it by this evening when he will don his Halloween costume and go out with his plastic pumpkin to collect CANDY! as he has been calling it all day. It's not candy, it's CANDY!

I apologized to Lily about a million times although I know as well as anyone that a child will stick things into their orifices (the NP said she's just removed a clothing snap from a child's ear last week) but let's face it- I can't keep my eyes directly on him every second. Well, I could, but that would be crazy.

The ironic thing is, is that Lily has always dreaded the idea that he would stick something up his nose because when she was a little girl the boy next door stuck a peanut up his nose and almost died. He did not, though, and lived to stick a coffee bean up his nose on another occasion.

I have more to talk about but I'm exhausted.

Love...Not The World's Best Grandmother

Dark Now But Light Will Soon Be Here

Owen will be here soon and I will take him back to bed with me. He will try to get me to turn on the lights but I will be firm and say, "No, it is still dark, it is time to go to bed," and he will get under the covers with me and say, "Cozy," and it will be.

I just wanted to tell all of you that I do feel you, an army as such, behind my back, and that image makes me feel so strong, somehow. Dream world and virtual world meet up in my mind and I don't understand and I don't know but I keep thinking of Steve Jobs' last words which were "OH WOW, OH WOW, OH WOW," and that too, gives me comfort and somehow his life led to this place here where I write and where I read and where we are a sort of community which gives us all at times a reason to go on, a place to shed our bras, as it were, to sit down and reach out for each other.

I am grateful today, this early dark morning. I am aware, even in my half-awakeness, that I am so very, very grateful.

Thank-you.

Why Can't I Kill Him?

He keeps coming to me in dreams. For twenty or more years, maybe thirty or forty, I have been meeting him at my dream-door and trying to kill him.

So far, no good.

My blows are ineffectual and I never have a knife when I need it.

I know that now if he is alive, he is so old and suffering from Alzheimers and doesn't remember shit but none of that matters because in my dreams, he is still very much alive and his intent is evil.

"Go away!" I tell him in my dreams! "You cannot hurt me any more."

And still, there he is.

All the years of therapy, all the years of safety, all the years of goodness, and he is still there.

And my mother keeps staying with him, even though in my dreams I tell her over and over again how evil he is, how much he threatens me and my brothers. I keep finding her in bed with him, in those dream rooms.

Fifty-seven years old and I am a grandmother and still.

Still.

I do not know where pedophilia comes from. I do not know why it occurs. Some deep junk-bond of a DNA strand.

I am part of the whatever-huge-percent of people who were molested as children. We do not march or protest (mostly) and we get no god damn "special" benefits.
We just are.
Our molesters were scout leaders and priests, coaches and band leaders. Teachers and young-adult education specialists.
Our pedophile rapists were uncles and stepfathers and brothers and mothers and next-door neighbors.

We may survive and we may stop the buck here but we never, as far as I can see, stop having nightmares and if we are fortunate (blessed/lucky/smart) enough to stop that buck we will go to our graves fearing we did not.

That our children might have suffered what we did and in loving us, never told us.
In loving us, did as we did.
Kept our mouths shut.

Mostly I am okay with it all. I know that all of us- every one- suffered something horrible in our childhoods.
But sometimes it just breaks through the membrane of it all and I am enraged once again.

If he would just stop showing up in my dreams.
If I could just admit that although I loved him with all of my heart and saw him as a savior, a father, he betrayed us all and it was not my fault.

If I just had a knife in my dreams. If I just had some power in my dreams. If I just had more than a voice and fists that did nothing at all to stop him. I pummel him with those fists and he just steps on through the doorway.

So that. That is where my dreams take me. No matter what form they take or what the present stories are, that is what they are bringing me.

And tomorrow? I may wake up at five-thirty and get up and be ready for Owen to come at six and be happy and content. I may well be.

But for right now, this second, I am afraid to go to sleep because he may show up again.

Well. Sundays.

They can be hard. No matter what.

Some Things We Did With Owen

Feeding.






Building.

Kissing.

Bright Morning

Sunday morning and it is chilly and Owen is coming today. We don't usually get Owen on the weekends as his other grandma has him then but there was a wedding last night and other grandma is bound to be exhausted and so Bop and I are getting him. When Lily called last night, from the wedding, to ask me if he could come here today, she sounded so tired.
She even cried, thinking that she was asking too much because I'm going to have the boy this week for four days.
"Oh honey," I said. "Bring him over. We'll have a wonderful time with him."
And we will.
I think I am going to make him pancakes.

I'm glad he's coming. My dreams last night were horrible. Just awful. I have begun to feel that I am in a Poe story myself- one in which the protagonist refuses to go to sleep because her dream-world is so horrific, so wearying. And thus, she goes insane. Is she insane because of the dreams or does she have such dreams because she is insane?

Whichever, it is damn good to have sweetness while awake.

Pancakes. With maple syrup. There will be peaches in them today and bananas and nuts and half a sweet potato. The house will smell like syrup, Owen will be sticky-sweet. His Bop will be here to play with him too. What could be better? What could be more important?
It's so odd how I perceive myself as a grandmother. It is like being a mother and yet, nothing at all like being a mother. My role, as I see it, is to just deliver love and attention and such sweetness as there is available to us. To sit on the steps with the boy and share popcorn with the chickens.

The antidote to crazy.
Funny how well it works out for me.

Yes. We are happy to have that boy here today. He can play with his new toys on the kitchen floor while Mr. Moon makes the chili and I tell him what to do. We never got around to it last night. We will do it today.

It is Sunday morning. It is chilly. It is a bright and beautiful day here. I will creep out of this creeped-out state of mind I am in, the residue of dreams. I will give and collect an entire new bushel's worth of hugs and kisses.

This is life. This is not a dream.

I am grateful.

Here's Looking At You, Babe