Roseland Where My Memories Are Stored

The requisite Roseland water tower behind the Publix photo.

It has been an interesting day to say the least. We got up and I hustled us to the tasks of getting packed and ready to leave, leaving our little rental house in as close to a state of perfection as we could. We stopped and had breakfast and then hit Highway 1 down the coast of Florida until we finally got to the Melbourne area where things began to trigger my memories and the Indian River was to our left, the jungle to our right, all scattered with old grove houses and stucco buildings that I realized in a bit of an epiphany hold my memories.
My memories are stored in funky old buildings and fish camps and boat houses and cedar trees and gnarled oaks and mostly in the river itself, diluted and washed to other shores as they may be.
And that is simply the way it is.
We stopped at Publix on our way in to Roseland to buy stuff that I should have brought but didn't and we drove into Roseland itself, the river road still white sand, the Roseland Community Center still there, the strip of land between the Sebastian River and the road still pine-and-cedar-treed-and-mango-treed. The little cottages which had been there when I was a child still right where I left them, like an impossible fantasy of a homeplace.
We pulled into the driveway of this tiny cabana house with the spitting lion pool,

and the owner came out of his house next door and I hugged him and as always, thanked him for keeping this alive, for respecting the history of it all.
"A labor of love," he said.
And I love him.

Just as I was unpacking the groceries, the doctor from Mayo finally called. Glen put him on speaker phone and we listened as he said that blood tests were leading to some questions that may help to solve the mystery, possibly, perhaps, maybe, lead to a diagnosis. He speaks English well but I think it is hard for him to speak human. His native tongue is Medicine. And that's all right. But a few things he said and a few answers he gave me to questions led us to have the slightest sliver of hope that this may be an extremely rate syndrome which has a possible antidote.
I'm putting this poorly for several reasons.
One- he didn't give us THAT much information.
Two- We don't speak Medicine.
Three- The very little information online about the syndrome he spoke of was geared to neurologists and I do not have my Tabor's Medical Dictionary with me.
Anyway, Mr. Moon has to get more blood tests and they will take up to four weeks to make any determinations from and so we have to just wait and see.

Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.

And so we unpacked and went down to the river and Mr. Moon threw his line in the water and I held on to the seat of my pants and tried not to fly off the dock in the gusty, whistling wind, and a tiny strip of sunset showed above the trees on one of the islands in the river and I could feel and hear and smell and taste all of the memories and all that was happening that very second.

I drank it all in. 

My old, age-spotted legs. 

Goodness. What a curious thing life is. How amazed I am to be here. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Report

This was Mr. Moon getting an EMG this morning. Specifically, having jolts of electricity applied to his muscles. He said it wasn't fun. Really? We had to be at the appointment at 8:00 and so we chose to have something to eat in the "bistro" in a building next to where his testing was to take place.
I have to tell you- there are so many sick people in this world. So many people were carrying their files or bags of files and some were in wheelchairs and some were old and some were young. But there we all were in the bistro before the sun was really up, getting our eggs and bagels and coffee and the absolutely warmest, nicest person I've met at Mayo was the lady at the register there.
Of course.
It must be somewhat depressing to work at the clinic. At least in some capacities. Do they ever stop looking at a couple and trying to discern which one has come in hopes of help and perhaps a miracle and which one is the support looking for the same things for their loved one? One can appear as stricken as the other.
It all reminds me somewhat of Lourdes although of course I've never been to Lourdes but isn't a Mayo clinic the modern equivalent?
We all want to hobble in on our crutches and dance out without them.
So to speak.
Didn't see any dancing today.

Last night was rough. I was in sheer panic mode. I could hardly speak I was so anxious. I just sat like a mute thing, afraid to move for fear I'd crack and shatter.
It has not dissipated entirely yet but I'm well on the way to just my normal state of it. Which is a huge relief.

I suppose I should go back and describe yesterday's meeting with the doctor briefly. I've never quite experienced such a theatrical history-taking and exam. First off, the exam rooms are lit like a stage set or perhaps a hotel cocktail bar, as I wrote to a friend today. Dim around the perimeters with a light trained on an exam table which was the only thing in the room which wouldn't have fit in perfectly in that cocktail bar if the computer had been a cash register. That exam table may as well have been a zebra for the seeming absurdness of its presence. The doctor came in and was dressed to the nines. He wasn't tall and he was very, very trim. His hair and beard were perfect, his bow tie jaunty, his suit was seemingly a size too small which is what I hear is the hip way to wear one these days. Of course, I was put in mind of Pee Wee Herman. He was wearing loafers that somehow screamed Italian, Custom Made! His name was Bjorn Oskarsson and his accent was Swedish, his English perfect.
I felt like I was in a dream. Truly.
Anyway, it wasn't very long into the history-taking part of the appointment that both Mr. Moon and I felt that Dr. O. was not going to have anything new to add to the party. Before he even did the physical neurological exam he told us that these sorts of neuropathies can be divided into three sections as to diagnosis.
One third of them are related to diabetes. Which Mr. Moon does not have.
One third of them can be explained by various disorders and diseases which Mr. Moon has been tested for as thoroughly as medicine can do.
And, one third of them cannot be explained by science yet.
So.
He did the exam ("I will now have you stand up and extend your arm. Good. Other arm. Great." And so forth.)
It was, like I said, otherworldly. He was quite polite and respectful but I felt no real humanness from him. And I am quite sure that he was not hired by the Mayo for his warmth. I get that.

He finished by saying that he was ordering some blood work which we could get that afternoon and then was scheduling an EMG for today. And go from there.

After speaking with the doctor who did the second part of the EMG this morning, we were informed that unless something "funky" showed up on the EMG that there would be no more tests and that Dr. Oskarsson would call us.
He has not called us today so we are thinking that there was nothing really new to discuss although I think he probably will call tomorrow.

We were almost silly with relief to get out of the parking garage at Mayo and back out to the world. We stopped at Publix for coffee pods and a toothbrush and a hairbrush. We came back to our fun little house and changed clothes, drove down to the beach and walked onto the fishing pier where I could have gladly stood all day long, leaning on the railing and watching the green ocean and the incredibly normal and ancient and everyday activity of people fishing. I didn't want to speak, I didn't want the perfect peace I felt to be disturbed.

My husband seemed satisfied to do the same. We stood for a long time looking at the peaceful waves until finally we felt we'd gotten plenty of sun and walked slowly back to the car. We went to lunch at wonderful little hole-in-the-wall place that was both restaurant and seafood market and it was perfect. 

And this evening we went to a movie! We haven't done that in probably a decade. We saw Zombie Land, Double Tap, and it was ridiculous and silly and like lunch, perfect. We ate popcorn for our supper and leaned on each other and enjoyed it all. 

Tomorrow morning we'll be on our way to Roseland. You can only imagine how happy I am about that. I have to admit that last night when I was as absolutely fraught with the illogical fears I was experiencing as if I was tightly cocooned in a nightmare, even the thought of Roseland gave me no relief but now I'm so glad again to be going. 

And I am also thrilled to not have to set an early alarm. I am not good with abrupt early-morning starts. It takes me at least half an hour to get the wheels all turning again. 

That's how it's gone today. We're fine. We're good. 

We have no new answers but we're plodding along pretty well as we are. 

And we will just have to keep learning to dance in ever new ways.

Love...Ms. Moon

And My Crown Is Back Where It Belongs

Well, we're here and we're safe and I'm exhausted and it's been a terribly long day.
We saw the doctor and there are some tests to be performed and that's about that.
Mayo is industrial medicine if there ever was such a thing and oh yes, there is. I feel like we're in the belly of the beast but here we are, aren't we?
Time to take an Ativan, then a shower, then get to bed where I am going to read a little.
We have to be back at the clinic at 8:00 tomorrow morning.

And so it goes.

Love...Ms. Moon

Everything went fine last night. After the Blizzard at Dairy Queen and the shared giant bowl of popcorn with Boppy, the child ate a largish bowl of spaghetti, a piece of bread with butter including the crusts, and a good amount of salad.
I was flabbergasted. Where in the world can the child put all that food? His entire stomach can't be as big as a baseball. And then, and THEN, after his shower, he convinced his grandfather to give him a miniature ice cream cone.
But he appeared to be fine and after a thorough reading of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and There's a Wocket in my Pocket (which is sort of a creepy book, really) he got into his little bed, cuddled up to Old Zippy, let me kiss him good-night and was out before I'd gotten to the doorway. And he slept until about 8:30 so it was a good night.

Breakfast went fine with the usual pancakes and bacon and then his grandfather showed him how to play poker on his phone

and I did some stuff with him in a giant activities book and he played with toys and then his mama and his brother came to pick him up although Levon was asleep in his car seat the entire time she was here. August wanted his "good-bye treat" which in this case was a small container of sweet and salty Chex Mix which was regarded with great joy as there were about three miniature M&M's in it.

So that was all good and then I started some laundry and organizing and went to town to pick up a few things I needed and on the way home, as I was chewing my anxiety out with a Mento, the Mento attached itself to a gold crown of mine and pulled the fucker off.
Not the Mento's fault. I'm sure that it was ready to come off. I think it's probably a combination of age and the fact that I grind my teeth that had prepared it to give way from its tooth.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, etc.
I came home, googled "What do do if your crown falls off" and every fucking website said that the first thing you do is make an appointment with the dentist IMMEDIATELY.
And we're supposed to be heading out of town early tomorrow on our journey to Mayo and to Roseland.
I called my dentist's office and they do give the Doc's cell phone in case of an emergency if you are an established patient and so I called it and he didn't call back for hours but Mr. Moon had to go into town himself and so he picked me up some of that temporary dental adhesive and I finished the laundry and packed my clothes and toiletries and our supplements and snacks and medications and all of that stuff and Mr. Moon got home and I glued my crown back on and then the dentist called.
He said that if I'm at his office by eight a.m. he'll take care of me.
I said, and this IS a quote, "You are so precious."
He laughed in a way that makes me think that possibly people do not generally tell him that he is precious.
I am not having any pain or sensitivity so I am hoping with all of my heart that it'll be a simple matter of slapping that fucker back on with some of the real glue and sending me on my way. Then I'll speed home, we'll load the car and hit the road.
Funny how I was so anxious before about just the general packing and getting on the road early enough and all that stuff and then suddenly I was holding my crown in my palm and wishing with all my might that I was only sweating the small stuff.
And anyone who tells me not to sweat the small stuff is not going to get a grateful thanks from me because yes, it IS all small stuff and that's what adds up to the big stuff and besides that, when you have anxiety you don't even need the small stuff to worry about. You just pluck any ridiculous thing out of the air and start going crazy over it even if it doesn't really apply to you and god knows I should be used to it by now.
I still wish I only had the packing and timelines to worry about but talking to the dentist has helped tremendously. This is a guy who met me once at his office at dusk on the night before Christmas Eve to put that crown on originally and I appreciate his dedication.
And he IS precious.

I better go pack my jewelry which, like my make-up will probably barely be used.
But it IS my anniversary trip so I should take some of my girlie stuff.
And even as I write this I am thinking, Phone charger, headphone charger, pillows, New Yorkers, crossword puzzle, favorite pen, journal (?), laptop, camera (?), binoculars (?), Benadryl, Ibuprofen, martini glasses...

Jessie asked us today if we had a lot to do to get ready. Mr. Moon said, "Nah," and I laughed to myself. All he has to do is throw his clothes in a bag, get his fishing stuff together, and trust that I've packed the rest.
But quite honestly, I will admit that I am sure that he's going to be packing some anxiety himself as to whether or not Mayo will have any answers for him and if so, what they might be.
I am quite certain in my soul that they are not going to tell him he's dying any more than any of us are dying but still, as much as we want answers, we want GOOD answers with possible remedies.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
Repeat.
Think of Roseland and grandchildren and children and that sweater that Sue lent me which charmed this man into asking me to dance and what all that has led to and the Atlantic Ocean and the Sebastian River and sunsets on docks of bays and gulfs and seas, and torments survived and sorrows shared and joys multiplied and dreams verified and making the absolute most of whatever we have before us.

And not to forget to set the alarm.

Love...Ms. Moon

An Overnight Guest

I have wanted to do so much more to help Jessie this week before we leave and it struck me that tonight is the night that August needed to come stay. That way we'll still have tomorrow to get ready to leave on Monday. And of course, August thought this was a great idea and his mama did too.
The storm never did much of anything at all. It rained on and off and just as Mr. Nucatola said, it was breezy. I managed to walk to the post office and clean out the hen house.
Boppy went and got the boy and then Jessie and I both got this picture.

Good Lord! How can a Mermer compete with the Dairy Queen? 

Not with embroidered overalls, I'll tell you that. 

And then of course when they got home there was TV although Mr. Moon mostly napped through that. It's a napping sort of day. 

I had made up another loaf of bread just because I wanted to feed my starter and I'd rather use some of it to bake with than to discard. I didn't use a recipe because I didn't want to make the regular sized loaf and I didn't feel like using a recipe so I sort of just went by the seat of my pants and my god, after it rose, that dough was the silkiest stuff I ever felt in my life. It felt like living silk. That is literally the only way I can describe it. I kneaded a bit more flour into it and let it rise again and it still wasn't really substantial enough but I've plopped it into the heated cast iron pot and covered it up and it's in the oven and it is lovely-looking. 

I'll take a picture when I take the lid off to let it brown. I'm loving this cast iron pot baking. It just charms the hell out of me. 

This post is wandering like Moses in the desert. Did you know that it took Moses forty years to lead his people to the promised land, a journey of about 250 miles? 

This cracks me up so much. 

Anyway, yeah, so besides TV there's also been marble-playing and puzzle-doing and bed-setting-up. Oh, and popcorn-eating WHILE watching TV. As you can see above. 

The drastic difference in yesterday's temperature and humidity and today's has led to every surface in my house being wet, every mirror fogged, and everything feeling soggy and wilted. 

Including me. 

Mr. Moon just did a little work outside, came in and turned the air conditioning back on. 

He is not a man to suffer gladly if there is an alternative. Unless it involves, you know- hunting. 

And I guess that's about it. Here's what the bread looks like so far.

Now isn't that just pretty?

We'll be eating it with our spaghetti and salad. 

I better go get busy in that kitchen. Little boys need to go to bed at a reasonable hour. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Not Even A Dang Picture

Some of the chickens are making their way to the top of the hen house to roost on the tin roof under the trees. My favorite weather forecaster, a local guy named Rob Nucatola, has gotten home from vacation just in time to put out his thoughts on this tropical storm or whatever it is and as usual, I feel better after reading what he had to say.
And am not quite so worried about my chickens being blown up to Georgia.
Rob says that what we're going to be getting from this storm named Nestor is not going to be too bad.

Think of NESTOR as a rainy Saturday morning. Think of it as a breezy day. That SHOULD BE ALL.

The rain is already starting to patter down and it's been still and gray all day long. It's weird how quiet things get before a big storm. But Nestor is moving fast and hopefully it will come and then it will go. The craziest thing is that it hasn't reached seventy degrees all day long and no, no, NO I'm not complaining but I've been cold. We are so acclimated to heat right now that we have no tolerance for what feels like the frigid north for us. I am actually wearing a hoodie right now and grateful for the coziness. We got a fill-up on our tank of natural gas today and so have plenty of fuel for the heater but damn if I'm going to turn on the heater two days after we had the AC on. The duck may not come out of the closet quite yet but the duckling is already on the bed. I curled under the little down blanket and took a nap this afternoon, Jack by my side. 

Today was a pre-ordained resting day. I haven't had a day at home in quite awhile so I was happy to stay right here. I actually repaired the strap hardware on two pairs of overalls that have been sitting on a chair in the dining room for months. I would have done more but that was all of the replacement buckles I had. And I ironed a little bit in preparation for our trip. 
And.That.Was.It.
Well, I did cut our banana stalk. A few of the bananas had gotten so ripe that the bananas were about to separate from their stems. I plucked one all the way off, peeled it, and ate it. And it was very, very good. So now I have about a dozen bananas in my refrigerator and a few green ones still on the stalk. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all of these bananas. They're not huge but they're not tiny either. I could make a huge banana pudding but I'm not eating such delicacies right not and we couldn't possibly eat it all before we leave anyway. I could make a few loaves of banana bread and freeze them and that may be what I end up doing. Or perhaps we can just eat them, one by one, boosting our potassium levels nicely. 

I wonder if we'll lose power. The magic eight ball would probably say, "All signs point to yes." Of course we sometimes lose power on the stillest and balmiest of days for no apparent reason. So with a little rain and a little  wind, it's just about a certainty. But maybe not. 
Only time will tell. 

Turns out that this evening's post is every bit if not more lackluster than yesterday's. 
Well, I have been too. 

Anyway, I wish all of you a happy Friday. 

Love...Ms. Moon

To Quote Levon, "Why?"

I went into town earlier than usual this morning to stay with this little boy while his brother was in school and his mama had a chiropractic appointment. When it was time for Jessie to leave on her pink bicycle (the one her mother-in-law used to ride across the entire country!) he kissed her and said, "Bye Mama!" and then we played and read books and were silly for an hour and a half or so. He didn't make one tiny fuss and never asked for Mama. He did say "no" when I asked him if it was time to change his diaper but he didn't complain when I did it anyway.
We had some giggles and I got so sleepy when we were lying on August's bed in his soft blankets reading books that I had a fantasy of him falling asleep in my arms so that I, too, could doze.
But no. Of course not.
I did note today that after telling Levon something- I can't remember what- he asked me, "Why?"
And I thought, Well, here we go.
When Jessie got home and he'd had a little mama milk and was satisfied that she was truly home, he asked me to hold him when he was in her arms. I could not have been more pleased if the queen had asked me for tea.

I went to the library after I left Jessie's house and found some new books to take on my trip with me and then I met Mr. Moon at the hematologist's office. His GP had set up an appointment and it was concerning the blood clot he'd had a few weeks ago. It wasn't much of a blood clot and was in a small, superficial vein, but it was the second one he'd had in several years. I liked this doctor fine. He was a good listener. He asked pertinent questions but when things went a little off the rails into areas that he probably didn't need to know about, he was patient and didn't interrupt. When he said that the pharmaceutical industry ripped off people, my opinion of him only got higher. Anyway, there were no problems or surprises and a plan of treatment and a follow-up was scheduled.
I suppose this was a warm-up for next week's round of appointments.

I went to Publix, I came home, I got some laundry done, I drank some coffee. I am still so very tired.

It has been lovely cool all day long and I think we are going to be getting some rain quite soon.
A lot of rain.

And, according to the National Hurricane Center, some damn strong winds. 

Really? REALLY?! 

It's always the storm you didn't seem coming, isn't it? This will be coming tomorrow night and will probably be long gone from our area by Sunday. At least I hope. I also hope that this cooler air we have right now will damp it all down although they are saying that the Gulf waters are still very warm and that's a huge factor in development of these storms. 

I've been thinking about Elijah Cummings all day long.
One of the truly good ones. I had not known he had been having health problems but that speaks even more to his determination to do right by this country. I also did not know that he was the son of sharecroppers but what I did know was that every time I heard him speak I was blown away by his straight and unabashed ability to cut to the bone of the situation, to speak the truth and fear no man. And, and, and...
I'm just going to say it- why did he die and yet Trump is still alive?

Well, I don't have the answer to that and neither do you.
Unless you just plain accept that life is what it is and there is no justice and that disease and death come to us all but at different times in our lives.

This hasn't been a very entertaining or enlightening post but it's what I have. Things will probably pick up here along with the wind. I hope not TOO much, though. Honestly, branches have been crashing and falling just during the rainstorms we've had lately and I really don't want to face the prospect of leaving on Monday with a yard covered in downed branches, limbs, twigs and leaves. But if we get the winds they're saying we might, it's going to be unavoidable.

I just looked out to the hen house and saw some of my chickens doing their usual thing and roosting on top of it. Lord, if we get fifty mph winds tomorrow night, those birds won't be in Lloyd the next day. They'll be up in Georgia somewhere.

And that, my friends, is something I just cannot control.
Which is like about 90% of the rest of my life.

Some people say "Let go and let god," and I say, "Let go and go to bed."

Amen.

Love...Ms. Moon

I Am Here But Already Drifting Down To The Flowing River

The rain cleared today and now we're supposed to get the cooler temperatures tonight. Down into the fifties which for us is chilly weather.
Don't laugh. It'll be a reason to dig out the Goodwill cashmere.
For at least half an hour. Maybe.

Today's adventure took Lily and Jessie and me and the little ones to Monticello. There were some bar stools that I had seen last week and I wanted to buy them if they were still there. We stopped at the library first. All three of us women seemed to be low energy today. Jessie was awake with Levon in the night and then he was up at 5:45. Lily was tired from work and being a mother. And me? Oh, who knows? Still in my stagnant phase, I suppose. So the children played games on the computers and we mostly just sat and talked. I am so fortunate to have grown children who are my friends to talk to, to laugh with.
I am quite sure I'll never get over the wonder of that. And I most certainly never take it for granted. Besides that aspect of having grown children, I also love seeing how the sisters relate as mothers. They have different styles of mothering, for sure, but both styles absolutely have the best interests of their children at the base of them. Lily with her three children, her ten years of being a mama, is a bit more relaxed although Jessie is far from overly protective. And they effortlessly mother each other's children when the situation calls for it. Lily is like a mother bear, scooping babies up and loving them and Jessie is a relaxed and loving auntie to Maggie and Owen and Gibson. It's such a beautiful thing to see. When they were little, their relationship was difficult. Lily was almost four years older and had a very alpha personality if one can apply that term to an older sibling. She was, quite frankly, the boss of all of us, and they were discussing how much easier life was for Jessie after Lily moved out of their shared bedroom. But they don't discuss these things with animosity. They just admit that they were completely different in so many ways and that trying to share space with each other was a bit of a disaster.
I listen to them and think of how my brother who is closest in age to me and I simply cannot get along, even now. It's one of the saddest parts of my life that our childhood experiences still get in the way of us being friends. I know we love each other. There is no doubt about that. But no matter how much time passes between our visits and no matter how much we both (I am certain) vow to keep our tempers and our tongues, inevitably something will arise and the next thing you know there is more anger between us than I am sure either of us ever experiences with anyone else.
There is a sheer violence to it which scares the hell out of me. And my brother is not a violent man and god knows, I may have some anger issues but outward shows of them is absolutely not what I do.
I have my own theories about this, about why it happens but when I try to discuss those with him, he gets even angrier.
And I suppose we could say that my youngest brother and I are estranged (and he keeps a huge distance between himself and all of his siblings) and also that my relationship with my middle brother, although loving, is not what it could be. We do not see each other nearly enough. Our mother's death somehow precipitated a splitting apart of us all that is absolutely dreadful and painful and none of us are in close contact.
So seeing my children all being tender and sweet and funny with each other is a sort of miracle to me. In a way, I think it is a very good thing that all of my children are so different. Competition is simply impossible when differences are cherished and respected.
At least, that is how it has seemed to work out in our little family.

So. Back to our day in Monticello. Mr. Terez was happy to see us and we were happy to see him. After the library we went to the place where I'd seen the bar stools and they were still there and I bought them and Lily and I hauled them to her van.

Then we went to Wag the Dog but nothing was purchased today except for a few books. The scary Halloween bride out front gave Maggie and August an excellent photo opportunity though.

This is them acting scared. Which of course made them laugh. And made us laugh too. 

We had our lunch at the Rev and it was tasty as always. Our diets are so diverse now. We're like one of those new-age jokes about diet-obsessed customers in restaurants. 

"Does the meat have any soy-based products in it?" "I'd like the salad but please, no onions."

They accommodated us graciously. 

The children were happy with their kid meals with french fries. Maggie got her chicken, August and Levon had venison sliders. And I got a Greek salad with shrimp. 

And then home we came where I discovered that my bar stools are a bit too tall and so Mr. Moon is going to have to cut off the legs a little. Right now he's out taking a tire off the tractor. 

There is something so comforting about having a man about who can remove a tractor tire. Truthfully, I love having a husband who has a tractor. I'm not sure why. I guess because that represents something that I so primally need and am attracted to. 

I had a friend once who talked about "the changers of the oil and the tillers of the soil" and I suppose that is exactly who I married. On the other hand, he can tear apart a contract until an attorney weeps so there is that too. 

I can't believe that a week from right now, we'll be on the dock in Roseland, watching the last color from the sunset, hearing the plash of fish doing their twilight feedings in the shallow water, watching the current take the water from here to there and back again. The river of my heart. 

I dreamed this morning that developers were tearing up not only Roseland but the river. The islands were being dredged apart, the jungles growing on them torn up and the trees broken and twisted, the little strip of land between the white sand road and the water where there are pine trees and a few little houses, destroyed. 

I was trying to tell two people that I know what was changing, how horrible it was, and to explain to them what it had been like before. 

They didn't really care although they tried to be interested. 

"Do you want to go see the spitting lions?" I asked them. Somehow I knew they were still there.

"Uh, sure," they said, but I could tell it wasn't a priority. 

And then I found myself my in my grandfather and grandmother's old cottage and people were living there and it was horribly awkward and I saw amongst their things, things from my childhood. 

This is all so obvious and I suppose a response to Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again." 

Strangely, Roseland, sixty years later IS the place where I can go home again but there is always the fear that I will return to find that untrue. 

Well. We shall see, won't we? I have a feeling that the islands will be intact, the strip of land just as I left it. The little Community Center will still be sitting on the property that I just found out a few years ago that my grandparents had donated to the little village, the ospreys will nesting in the pines and the railroad trestle will  still be spanning the river as it has been since long, long before I was a child. 

And all of that is a joy I cannot even begin to express. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Reasons To Live

I woke up this morning groggy and dream fogged. I've been sleeping too much lately. I do not know if I am
A. Dying, or
B. Depressed, or
C. Anxious, or
D. All of the above.

And please don't suggest I go see the doctor. There is no visible blood anywhere so there is obviously no need.

But I got some things done around here this morning. Booked us a place to stay near Mayo in Jacksonville. It's only a few blocks from the beach and maybe we'll spend some time by the ocean. It's a very nice option to have. After lunch I met Jessie at Costco. It had been picture day at August's school and he chose his overalls to wear. His teacher told Jessie, "He loves his overalls."
That makes me feel so good. I asked him what he likes about the overalls. He pointed to the beaded dinosaur and wrecking ball.
"These," he said.
Bless his heart.
Levon was happy to see me. He's comfortable with me now. And Boppy and Aunt Lily. He's still very shy around people he doesn't know well. He doesn't throw his affection around willy nilly as some children do. You have to gain that little boy's trust.
We had a good time at Costco as we always do. The boys wanted to look at all of the Christmas decorations and August wanted to buy them all. His mother pointed out that he only has about three dollars and so he asked the price of every reindeer and Christmas tree and Santa. Sadly, there was nothing in his price range.
Pumpkin pie was being sampled and both boys liked that. Next up was beets. Plain, cooked, organic beets. August liked his okay and Levon seemed to like his but about ten minutes later I noticed that he still had the beet in his mouth.
"Levon, do you want to spit that out?" I asked him. I held out a napkin for him.
He spit out the entire beet onto the napkin, drooling a little drop of beet juice. He reminded me of a baby vampire.
"Did you like it?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
Hmmm....
I love the way he studies everything so carefully and closely. I took him into the bathroom stall with me while Jessie took August into the stall next to us and I could tell that Levon was not quite sure what he was doing there. When I pointed out August's feet under the partition though, he laughed and laughed. What a great trick! And Mama's feet too!
Although he is a serious guy, he loves to laugh and does quite frequently. Especially with his Auga unless they are tussling. Those boys really do remind me of puppies. They love each other and love to be close but when they get to wrestling over something, there can be, if not blood, then at least a need to separate them. Jessie has a full time job and that's for sure.

Our friend who's going to housesit came over this evening to get the lowdown on how we do things and where things are. She house and chicken sat for Jessie and Vergil this summer and she's going to be fine. I've known her since she was a child and she and Lily were good friends. She's all grown up now, has a boy of her own. Hank and Rachel are going to come and stay at the end of the week before we get home. They love Lloyd. I know the house will be in good hands, the cats and chickens too.

It's been raining on and off since last night. We got a mighty fine real pour-down earlier this afternoon. The kind that you'd have to pull over and wait out if you were driving. Luckily, I got home from town right before that happened. As much as I've yearned for the rain, it's not really bringing me a lot of joy. I don't think that there's any sort of weather that would have much of an effect on my mood right now. I'm not in a deep dark place nor am I in a panic place but I can tell I'm doing a lot of dissociation and that's certainly a signal that not all is well. I try to remember to breathe and to focus on what's happening right in front of me. It makes me a much less fun grandmother. I know that. And not much fun as a wife or mother either.
Things will change. They always do.
And just being around the children forces me to be as present as I can be. I am quite aware that one of the reasons I've survived all of these years is because I've had children and now grandchildren. One can't call it in when lives depend on you. One cannot simply crawl into a hole and wait it out. And children are so nonjudgemental about things like how you look or whether you are being merry or not. They take you as you are, as long as you are loving and they trust you. In some ways the children in our lives know us better than anyone. Perhaps not in conscious ways, but in the deepest, most profound ways. Mermer may not be as silly on some days as she is on others but because the children know I love them without reservation and because they know what I have in my heart and in my purse too, (gum and Chapstick), it's okay.
They know I love them and they know I love their mothers and those facts alone offer a safe place to be.
And sometimes, that is all I need to get me out of bed, to get me on my feet, to make me remember that no matter how low my own opinion of myself is, there truly is a purpose in my life. Every bit of love that I can offer my grandchildren is going to someday be of benefit in their lives.
I don't know much but I do know that.

Off now to tend the soup I've made with last night's roasted chicken shawarma and onions, greens and tomatoes and sweet potatoes and rice and carrots and corn. The loaf of bread I made doesn't thrill me. I have an awful lot to learn about using sourdough. But that's okay. I have an awful lot to learn about many things.
THAT never ends. And thank heavens.

Now. If I can just stay awake for three more hours, all will be well.

Love...Ms. Moon

The Sweet, Sweet Smells Of Rain And Fabuloso

My hired help showed up this morning around 10:30 and I put them straight to work. First I gave them each brooms and assigned half of the porch to Owen and half to Gibson. This job seemed somewhat daunting to the boys. There were a lot of leaves on it, blown in from the trees in the yard, many of them in hard-to-reach places behind flower pots.
"You have so many plants!" Owen said. "It adds to the awesomeness of your house but it's really hard to sweep around them!"
Well, he was correct on both counts. While they broom-bristled leaves about I scrubbed the glass top table and told them about my wild yeast. Owen thought that was really cool. We went into the kitchen to smell the starter and look at the bubbles. Neither one of them had ever heard about sourdough bread.
"Is it sour?" they asked.
I assured them that it was.
After several breaks and glasses of ice water, the porch was at least somewhat cleared of leaves.
We moved on to the windows in the doors in the hallway, front and back, and the panes beside them. This went somewhat better although they used up all of the glass cleaner and about half a roll of paper towels. I did the highest parts. I also determined that my all-purpose cleaning solution of Fabuloso, white vinegar and water works quite well on glass. The last chore was the sills on the back porch. I know I've said this before but the dirt in Lloyd is black as night. In fact, when I first wiped the table down and showed them what the rag looked like, Owen screeched.
I mean, it is BLACK. And sort of sticky. I think it's because of the over hundred years of trains rumbling by on the tracks behind my house.
But after the sills looked a lot better, cleared of at least some of their Lloyd dirt, I offered to make them toasted cheese sandwiches. I gave them samples of the sourdough bread to see if they wanted me to use that or regular bread.
They loved the sourdough.
And then it was time to head over to the Wakulla River. Since school was out today, there were quite a few people but it wasn't crazy. Jessie and her boys and Lily and Maggie all joined us and we set up our blankets and towels and chairs and snacks in the shade and the fun began. There was a bus from a church and it appeared that all of the little boys they'd transported were playing football. Owen, instead of jumping in the river started watching the game.
"Go ask if you can play," said Lily, but of course that's hard for a ten-year old boy. Finally when the bigger guys took a break, Owen did join them and by the time the older ones came back, he was fully invested in playing. And he played football with those boys for about two hours.
"Come get in the river and cool off," we'd tell him when he came over to slug down some water.
"No," he'd say, and then he'd jump back into the game instead of the water.
I think he had a great time.
Gibson and Maggie and August played together in the water and on the sand. Jessie had brought a big blow-up float and they enjoyed that a lot.

When I got in the water to cool off, all three of them pretended to be alligators and chomped me. "Don't chomp the mermaid, you alligators!" I kept telling them. They giggled and chomped some more. Levon mostly hung out on the sand although he was pretty interested in the snacks. Here he is sitting on Lily's lap. She did his hair for him. 

Jessie keeps saying it's time for him to get a haircut but I think he looks good with his little surfer-guy blond hair. 

And so it was a perfectly relaxing afternoon. We kept an eye on the kids and talked and people-watched. We handed out snacks. The kids can entertain themselves at the river forever although after about two hours, Levon walked up to this mama and said, "Back home now."

"Do you want to go back home?"

"Yes," he said. 

And eventually we all sighed and packed things up. Gibson had hip-hop dance class this evening and Jessie knew her boys were about worn out. 

So there were hugs and kisses and everything was stowed back into cars and off we all went to our various destinations. 

I tidied up where things had been cleaned and made up another batch of sourdough to rise. Last night I prepped a casserole made of rice and spinach and the getting-funky greens I hadn't finished during Mr. Moon's trip, so I added milk and egg and cheese and spices to the rice and cooked greens to get it ready for the oven. I watered the porch plants. The many, many porch plants which add to the awesomeness of my house. 

It's gotten warm here again today but the forecast says we're going to get rain tomorrow and the next day too. And just as I wrote that, I caught the whiff of ozone in the air and damn if it isn't sprinkling just the tiniest bit. With the rain cooler air is supposed to come and that will be tremendous. 

I've got house sitters and critter tenders lined up for the week we'll be gone. This takes some of the worry off my mind. I still haven't figured out a place for us to stay in Jacksonville. I need to do that. And look!

My bananas are getting ripe! 

It's still raining. 

Have you heard about ACE's? Adverse Child Experiences? Scoring them? And also, resilience factors? 

Jessie and I listen to the podcast Armchair Expert made by Dax Shepard and on one of his most recent shows he interviewed Nadine Burke Harris, California's surgeon general which is where I first heard about the screening program based on ACE's. It was fascinating. 

Go HERE if you'd like to learn more. 

And go HERE if you'd like to learn about the podcast. 

Shepard is quite open about the childhood sexual abuse he experienced as well as his battle with addictions, his sobriety, and his increasing awareness about how the experiences of childhood affect us throughout our entire lives. Not all of the podcasts are life-changing by any means but they're interesting and I enjoy them. 

Mostly. 

But this one in particular was pretty darn enlightening and I wish that every child in the US was screened by this criteria in order to get help in learning healthy, positive ways to deal with trauma. 

That's my little soapbox moment for today. 

Still raining. 

Damn, it smells good. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Watching The Wheels Go By

Well, things are almost back to normal here in Lloyd. Jessie brought the boys out this morning so they could see their Boppy, and Vergil could do his packing. He left this afternoon for two weeks in India. It sounds amazing and wonderful but in reality, almost every moment of his trip is going to be taken up in the work he's doing there. But, yes, it will be in India, not, oh, say Orlando, which is pretty cool.

The boys were so happy to see their grandfather and it was imperative that TV get watched IMMEDIATELY! Mr. Moon was taking a second too long to join them in the Glen Den and August raced in to the kitchen to tell him that he'd gotten his chair all ready for them. I'm not sure what that entailed but when I went in, this is what I saw.

"What am I going to do when you're too big to sit in my chair with me?" Boppy asked. 

"Oh, maybe I won't get too big and I'll still fit," said the boy. 

Can you just imagine a big old gangly teenager sitting with his grandfather in that chair one day? 

Levon likes to sit in his own chair. 

I made pancakes and bacon, and honestly there was not a whole lot of TV watching that went on. There were other things to do with Boppy outside which may have involved the tractor. I'm not sure. I was busy in the kitchen. 

We spent some time talking about what it's going to be like with Daddy gone. August asked Boppy if maybe he could help a little. 

"I think I can do that," said Mr. Moon. 

We're all going to pitch in and help. I feel so bad though that Glen and I are leaving a week from tomorrow, first to go to Mayo for his appointment and then, on Wednesday we'll be heading to Roseland to celebrate our thirty-fifth anniversary. Bad timing for sure. I know that Jessie will be fine. She's an extremely capable woman but she'll miss her husband. He's so good at getting the boys to bed and getting up with Levon who wakes up at what some might call an unreasonable hour.

It'll be okay but they sure are going to miss that good daddy. 

Owen and Gibson need to earn some money for the book fair and so they're coming over tomorrow (they don't have school) to do some work for me. I'm not sure what I'm going to have them doing but it may involve cleaning baseboards and the spindles on the stairs. And then we might all go to the river because soon it's going to be too cool for jumping in that icy water. 

Maybe. 

It'll be good to see the big boys. I miss them. "My boys," as Maggie calls them. 

I had to run to town this afternoon to get some groceries. I'd run out of vegetables, mostly. When Mr. Moon left I bought a huge bag of "super greens" that I threw into almost every meal I made and I ate almost the entire bag. What's left is getting sort of funky. Last night we finished up the last of the  cauliflower and asparagus in the house. Do you ever wish they'd invent some different vegetables? You have your broccoli and your cauliflower, of course, and your tomatoes and your cucumbers and peppers. There are plenty of different greens to eat both cooked and raw. Green beans. Squashes. 

Peas and carrots. Haha! 

We go through onions and garlic like nobody's business. I get in such ruts. Sometimes I like to steam a big combination of vegetables, salt them, squeeze a bit of lemon juice on them and grate a little cheese over them. Long, long ago there used to be a restaurant in Tallahassee that served steamed vegetables and they were so good. Squash and potatoes and carrots and I don't even remember what all. I add green beans or asparagus, maybe some broccoli, onions, red peppers. I've also really been enjoying roasting vegetables in the oven with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. That's how I did the cauliflower and asparagus last night and I threw some halved cherry tomatoes in with them. Delicious! Added garlic is always a bonus. Maybe a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar which reduces as the vegetables cook. Balsamic vinegar is one of the best inventions ever as far as I'm concerned. 

I must be hungry. 

I wish I had something more interesting to talk about but the honest truth is- I do not. It's going to be a busy week and the next week is going to be, well, interesting. I'm trying not to get too anxious about what's going to happen at Mayo. I wonder if the supposed "best doctors" there will have some answers. I am grateful that after we leave there we will have the peace and the serenity of the river, the sweetness of time alone in the little cabana of my childhood dreams, and the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean which has been a sustainer of my soul since I was a little girl. Not to mention the beautiful pool with the spitting lions guarding each corner and the bamboo surrounding it all to make its own percussive music when the breeze picks up and feels like playing. 

You gotta hold on to something. Love and Roseland do it for me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Man Is Home

I was wrong about the time that Mr. Moon would be arriving home. He called me last night and said that it would be sometime around noon today and so it was.
As I had predicted he was exhausted. He first said that he wasn't going to worry about unpacking but just as I figured he would, he felt like he had to get it out of the way and so in came all of the uneaten snacks, the clothes, the equipment. I started in on laundry and by 2:30 the clotheslines were full of now-clean jeans and camo wear and jackets and socks. He took a shower and changed into his shorts (there's a sixty degree temperature difference between where he was and where he now is) and got into his chair and I made him a little lunch and after he ate it he fell asleep and I laid down on the bed and took a nap too.
It was just a lazy day.
He had a good time and said that on this trip "no one was an asshole" which is not a guarantee on these jaunts. I think he missed my cooking. Not only was he served peas but also cooked carrots, another one of his least-favorites, and said that the cook had not bothered with even salt or pepper. They took their breakfasts at the local hockey rink which was one of the main features of the tiny village where they were staying but the same woman did the cooking there as at the place where the hunters were staying.
I really had nothing of importance or excitement to relate. I showed him my sourdough starter and made him sniff it. He was hugely impressed.
Okay. Not really. But he did like the toasted cheese sandwich I made for him on a slice of it.

And that's been it.
The mystery of where the hens are laying is still unsolved. I am actually contemplating having to buy eggs which is ridiculous when you're feeding a dozen chickens. Of course, four of those are roosters but still.
We are parched and dry. The leaves crackle and crunch beneath my feet as I walk to hen house and clothesline. The next rain forecast is for Wednesday and I would not bet the ranch on that one. No matter what the weather feels like, it is time and past time to plant the fall garden. Hard to contemplate as the temperatures are still in the upper eighties. Watering will have to be involved.

Last night Lily sent a picture of Maggie pretending to be scared by zombies.

I'm sharing the picture because it shows the outfit she was wearing in all of its garden-boot accessorized glory. A friend of Lily's gave Maggie a bag of outgrown clothes that her own daughter wore and they are fancy. Should we call this ensemble the Sweetheart of the Garden Rodeo? 

And this morning, Jessie sent a picture of August wearing what he had picked out to wear today. 

He loves his overalls. That makes me so happy. 

So does his bedhead hairdo. 

The big trial that I spoke of a few weeks ago has finally ended. One of the defendants was found guilty of murder and the jury deadlocked on the decision concerning his girlfriend. A mistrial was declared for her. The person we know who was on the jury is Lily and Jason's roommate and our friend, Lauren. I know she's glad for it to be over. The jury was actually sequestered for the deliberations. It's a strange case and most of us think (although I have not spoken to Lauren so I don't  have all the facts) that the victim's wife's family was responsible for hiring a hit on him but no one's been arrested for that yet. 

Divorce gone bad, people. It will be interesting to hear what Lauren has to say about the experience. 

And so it goes. The man is home, my red passion flower finally has a few blooms on it, the White House seems to be imploding but who knows? I'll tell you something I DO know- for some reason I am on the White House official FB page and it has become nothing more than absolute propaganda for Trump. For some reason, this scares me as much as anything. 

In my darkest moments I do believe that Orwell's "1984" is finally here. 

In my most hopeful moments, I try to believe that we shall overcome. 

If only one could harvest hope from thin air the way one can harvest yeast. Perhaps we can, believing that it is always there even if invisible to the naked eye. 

But it must be fed. Like the yeast, we must feed it. 

I'm going to try. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Another Ramble

I did laundry today for the first time in at least five days.
The last time I went five days without doing laundry I was in Mexico, I'm sure.
It was good to brush up on my skills (haha!) because Mr. Moon should be home some time early in the wee hours before the sun comes up. He is going to be so tired.
And he is going to have a lot of laundry.
Which is fine. I really don't mind doing laundry but it has been nice to have a break from it and to be honest- I've taken a break from a lot of household chores and instead spent a lot of time with kids and grandkids, making sourdough starter and eating peas.
No. Not really. I've eaten exactly one small can of Le Sueur peas but I surely have made myself some delicious meals. Tonight I'll be eating what was left from last night's salmon and braised greens and steamed vegetables. They were all so good. I've been trying very hard to eat more rationally and I think I've done well. Simple foods for the most part, but delicious, too. Stepping back and looking at each and every thing I eat is illuminating. The "just this once won't hurt" philosophy may stand up logically but it's always way more than once that I make choices that are not exactly eating all healthy and shit, as I've been known to say. Overall, my diet has never been horrible but I've been sliding down the slippery slope of being a bit too laissez faire about it all, reasoning that life is short and food is one of life's great pleasures. And this is true but it's not the entire truth and we all know that.
I'm not giving up anything although white sugar is easy for me to avoid for the most part and really- who needs that? But I'm not being weird about it. I refuse to slip down that other slope of disordered eating wherein a slice of cheese causes great guilt and consternation. Life IS too short for that shit.
Well, we shall see.

My sourdough bread does taste delicious and I love the texture. The crust is what crust should be and the insides are chewy but not too dense. It is satisfying bread. I am most pleased with it and it is easy to eat just a little of it. For anyone who is curious, I used this website as a guide to making my starter. I followed the directions closely but not obsessively. As someone in the notes for a sourdough bread recipe said- people have been making bread for thousands of years without the use of either weighing devices or measuring cups.
Or clocks, for that matter but still- following those guidelines certainly worked for me and I like the advice it gives about how it simply takes longer in some instances than in others for the yeast to start working but be patient- it will.

It was so lovely cool this morning and my walk was quite bearable. Jessie brought the boys out and we met Lily and Jason and Magnolia June at the Hilltop for our lunch. I've written about the Hilltop many times. It is the furthest thing in the world from either "fine" or "healthy" dining but one can make do there and it's always enjoyable. For one thing, it's not really a restaurant so the children aren't expected to sit at a table and behave while the food is prepared. We can go out back to the tables under shelter and the littles can find sticks to hit things with or do other things which are so pleasing and enjoyable to children. Today I read a few books to August and Maggie while we waited and also, I made a little video to send to Boppy. Here's a screen shot of August and Maggie from that video. Don't bother trying to play it. It won't play. It's just a picture.

Maggie looks forlorn but she was not. How could she be in that dress? You can't really tell but she was wearing hot pink garden boots too. When she walked in with her parents everyone in the place smiled. She is so full of sass, that one. August's message to Boppy was that he loved him and that he'd like to watch TV with him soon. I'm sure that Mr. Moon liked that. We all ate our very adequate lunches and talked and when it came time for good-byes, August and Maggie were happy to give kisses. Even to each other. August came up to me and reached for my face and I said, "What do you want, love?" and he said, "You," and I bent over and he kissed me right on the lips. 

I was delighted because his voluntary kisses are rare as emeralds. 

When Maggie was in her car seat, I went to kiss her again and she refused. "I already gave you my kiss," she said, majestic as a queen on her throne. 

As well she had. 

Jessie drove me home and I gave the boys tiny little ice cream cones that I had in my freezer because they'd been promised a treat and they sat on the back steps and were in heaven, licking the chocolate ice cream and crunching the cones. August knew that those things were in my freezer and he's been after me for days to give him one so he was finally satisfied. 

And there was some hallway dancing to a CD of Jessie's band, The Cicada Ladies, and then there was playing with toys and Lincoln Logs and trike riding in the hallway and the pushing of the stroller with babies in it. 

After they left I got the laundry off the line, folded it and put it away, made up the bed with the clean, sun-dried sheets and pillowcases and thought about how good that's going to feel to my husband when he gets home. 

It's been a fine week in Lloyd for me here on my own. I can't deny that. As I've so often said, I love solitude. It's not really about not having to take care of anyone but myself. It's about not constantly checking the clock to see where I should be in my day but letting the time flow as it will, filled with whatever it is I feel like doing. Of course, without the knowledge that my husband would indeed be coming home, this would all feel quite different. I am certain of that. And I seriously doubt that he feels guilty about wanting and needing to be out in the cold woods of Canada with guys and dogs and there should be no guilt on my part about wanting and needing to be here at home with only my cats and my chickens. 

But of course I am a woman so there is a little bit. Of guilt. But then I've always said that guilt is my default emotion so this is to be expected. 

The last of the zinnias, I think. Oh, how I have enjoyed them this year! How brave and hardy they are to have survived this summer's late heat, the lack of rain. Even under those circumstances they have bloomed and given succor to the butterflies and bees as well as brilliant color and sweet cheer to my hallway. 

Today is National Coming Out Day and I am humbled by all of the LGBTQ people I know and love who have done exactly that- come out- publicly and proudly. We who have never felt the need for any reason to declare our gender, our sexual preferences, or to have to defend our choices in who we love will never know what that's like. My hope and my belief is that one day no one will feel that need. That a child will no more have to tell their parents that they are gay or transgendered or bisexual or pan-sexual or gender fluid or whatever, than I had to tell my parents that I was, uh, straight. 

That such labels will be unnecessary and that lives will simply be lived and that loves will simply be loved. 

Of course, this is one more issue that we are having to deal with again as Trump and his minions fight to take back the rights of humans who do not fit into the cis-gender mold which have been so valiantly and often so bloodily fought for. 

It should not even be an issue in any way shape or form. But we are not nearly there yet. 

Well. 

It's Friday. The moon is almost full. My husband will be home by this time tomorrow and I will love the one I'm with, as we should all be able to. 

Love to YOU...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe

Oh my stars. It is good.

The Beauty Of Earthly Magic

I have done it! I have captured the wild yeast!
Today was Day 6 of the yeast-making project and just as was predicted, my starter did indeed begin to double in size after a few hours which means it's ready. It smells fruity and yeasty and sour. So I keep the starter in the refrigerator and every week I have to take some out and feed it and water it to keep it alive if I haven't used some for baking, at which point I'd use what I removed and give it more food and water. Its food is flour.
The success I've had in this process so far has been almost inappropriately thrilling to me. I mean- THIS is how risen bread was first made. Okay, not with store-bought flours from modern wheat and so forth, but the principles of capturing the yeast and the fermentation which causes the bubbling rising of the dough are the same. Have you read about this? 
In theory, this starter could be passed down for generations although I seriously doubt it will be. But I think about how it must have been not that long ago when packaged yeast wasn't a thing yet and I'm sure that when a woman got married she carried some of her mama's starter with her to her new home and that mama had probably gotten her starter from her mother and so on and so forth.
Like RNA- passed from one woman to another.
And if a woman lost her starter due to any number of things that could befall it, it would have been a major catastrophe, especially if she was isolated from other bakers of bread. I think of the women snowbound during the endless winters in the midwest or say...Alaska. It would have been nearly impossible, I think, to create another starter in such frigid conditions. The yeast needs not only food and water, it needs heat and that would have been hard to come by in a cabin heated by a wood fire where the temperatures probably never creeped above fifty or so.
Oh, I ramble.
But all of this reminds me of the first time that I was truly struck by the fact that cooking was in my blood. I'd been cooking for years already and was probably about fifteen years old and I knew I enjoyed it and I knew I could do it but at a primitive encampment on a mountain in North Carolina I was simmering vegetables in a cast iron dutch oven over a fire I had built myself to make into a stew and I had one of my few moments of perfect epiphany.
I was meant to do this.
So it makes perfect sense that fifty years later this little experiment has thrilled me so.

Last night, too impatient to wait for the finished product, I made a dough of some of the discarded stuff from the past two days' feedings, white flour, whole wheat flour, and oat bran, and set it to hopefully rise in a thick white crockery bowl with a red and white checked dish towel covering it and it did indeed rise beautifully overnight. I gave it a second rise today and baked it in a preheated and covered cast iron pot (you know how much I adore my cast iron) and this is what happened.

I have not yet cut into it but I will for my supper. I think it is beautiful. 

Speaking of the cast iron pot, I have a little story. 

Yesterday, on my way home from town, I stopped by the Bad-Girls-Get-Saved-By-Jesus Thrift store and they had a lovely, seemingly unused enamel-clad dutch oven. Not a Le Creuset but one made by Lodge, who makes quality cast iron ware. It cost ten dollars. And for some reason, I did not buy it. I picked it up, I set it down. I left and came home. 

And last night as I was mixing up that dough I thought about that pot and kicked myself for not buying it. Jeez! 

And so this morning Lily met me there after Maggie's dance lesson and guess what- it was gone. 

Someone was a lot smarter than me. 

Ah, sigh. When will I ever learn my lesson? 

But my own non-enameled cast iron small pot makes a pretty loaf too. 

Lily and I had a good time at the Children's and Maggie got a toy baby-carrier and a birthday teddy bear to go in it and I found Lily a pristine leather handbag for five bucks that retails for around a hundred and fifty so it was a good day anyway. 

Last night I turned off the air conditioner and opened the window above my bed and slept as sweetly as someone whose Baku has eaten all of her nightmares. I did dream about a house and there were many, many of the same elements in it of mess and so much stuff but at least in this one there was an attic filled with antiques, although none very valuable, and people were showing up to buy them with money in hand. Lis was there and she was advising me on the worth of things and so there was a positive element to it. I know the house represents my life, my mind, my spirit in these dreams, no matter which dream version of a house it is, and it is good to know that I recognize the value even in the clutter and disorder and confusion and sometimes filth of it all. The dream was more interesting than depressing, more hopeful than despairing. 

The air conditioner is still off. Has been all day. 

Mr. Moon is on his way home, I think. Tonight I will eat salmon with braised greens and steamed vegetables and some sourdough bread. Jack will sleep up against my hip, solid and comforting, and the sweet, yeasty air of Lloyd will fill my room. 

We shall see what I capture in my dreams. 

Take care, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon