Maybe I'm Feverish

She is home.
Since she's been working nights and has her days and nights all mixed up anyway, she got up at 1 a.m. and drove though the night and got home just before I got back from my walk.
Poor thing. Her daddy had already gone to work and her mama was somewhere unknown.
The dogs were excited.
"Where are my parents?" she asked them.
They looked at her like the deaf and dumb animals they are. They really are deaf these days and they've always been dumb. Buster took his own bandage off and his ear is swollen up again. It sort of looks like it's been puffy-quilted.
Great.

Anyway, yes, I have a cold. Did I get it at the movie theater? Who knows? Not me. But I went and walked anyway. Fuck it. I actually had a moment of small ecstasy on the trail. I had transcended pain and heat and sickness. It was awesome! Then I sort of wanted to die but for a moment there, it was good.

So get this- after defending AOL they've gone and changed up their e-mail and now I'm having trouble viewing it. Ain't that life? Ain't that just the way life works? Oh well. No big deal.

So I'm going to rest today. I took a shower and did not put on my overalls. I put on a sort of night-dress thing which I've had forever and it's linen and I wear it in Mexico after I take my evening shower and go sit on the balcony to dry my hair and write in my journal. I have been thinking about Mexico a lot lately. One year we were there for my birthday. Last year I was in Asheville with Hank and Liz and we were visiting Jessie and Vergil. Liz and I were staying in this incredibly fancy condo that belonged to a friend of hers. It had artwork and a hot tub and there was a kava bar downstairs. I'd never had kava before, not in that form, and every afternoon I'd go down there and drink a bowl of tasty-dirt tea and feel my tongue get numb and I'd be all relaxed and shit. It really wasn't great, as highs go, but it made me feel like I was getting away with something, it being legal and all. Plus, the woman who worked at the kava bar was beautiful and I may be a straight woman but I have never been immune to the glory of a beautiful woman. I wonder how she's doing.

Well, that was then, this is now. It's almost my birthday and I have a cold and my baby girl is home and the mosquitoes aren't quite as bad and I have four children and two grandchildren and a husband I love and I remember I turned eighteen in Paris, France, and it's been a real good life. I've been the luckiest woman on earth.

I still am. Even with the dogs and the mosquitoes and the chigger bites and the cold and the heat. Sometimes there is ecstasy and even when there is not, there is just plain old goodness. You know what I think? I think that's a miracle. I think when life works out even half decently, it's a miracle. I think that when you find love and are surrounded by love and are able to give and receive love freely, that's a miracle and I think that noticing and being grateful for those miracles is a holy ritual and it's my job to practice it.
I don't need a church, I don't need a magical god up in the heavens listening to my prayers, I don't need images of poor old Jesus on my grilled cheese sandwich. I don't need a priest or a preacher or a pastor or a rulebook. 


I've got all of this and my baby girl made it home safely and today I am quite aware of the miracle of all of it.


Glory.


Love...Ms. Moon