From Far-Flung Places

It's raining again even though at least a third of the sky is blue and although that would make a wonderful metaphor, in this case it is merely the physical airy truth. It has not been a bad day nor has it been a good one. It simply has been. It's been short on physical interaction and long on quick comings of tears to the eyes, a sting, a blink, gone.

I do not even know what I am on such a verge about but I suspect the usual culprit which is the loss of youth and how long do I get to grieve for that one? Every day it would seem another horror of aging appears and another gift of youth disappears and there has been a tipping, an unbalancing and as fast as I scramble to find my center in each day's new reality, I cannot keep up.
I am undone.
And it is no longer just the cosmetic factor (which is bad and quite horrifying enough) but the physical factor. I seem to be living with more pain every day and this was not part of my plan, my Old Southern Lady Working In The Yard plan.

Well. The Tung tree is blooming.

A species introduced from China and once quite useful but now not so much although the nut-oil is still used in oils for protecting and preserving wood. I hear that every part of the tree is poisonous and that even one nut (and I believe I have said this before) is enough to kill ya and it is considered an invasive these days.
This may all be true but the flowers of it redeem it in my eyes, their delicate color and form. There used to be huge groves of them that I would pass on my way to town but now there are only clumps here and there, peach clouds of yes, a certain Oriental grace which surprises and delights me again every year. Their bloom comes and goes quickly and this one is in my back yard, nestled beneath the giant oak beside the railroad track.

Funnily enough, several of my favorite plants in this yard and which grow here in North Florida come distantly from Asia. The wisteria, the camellia, the mulberry, the Japanese maple and so, come to think of it, are some species of my beloved magnolias.

Something else I've talked about here before is the picture of a rooster and a hen and some chicks which belonged to my grandparents although I have no memory of ever seeing it hung in their house. It was, however, in their things when they died and I took it and have had it ever since and long before I ever even thought about having chickens. It is painted on silk (whose maker-worms were no doubt fed on mulberries) and I have no idea how old it is or where it came from or how it fell into my grandparents' hands.

I find it a little amazing and very amusing how much the rooster resembles my Elvis, even and especially the tail feathers which glow with iridescence from green to black and which the artist captured in his (or her?) rendering.

Sorry. Not a very good picture. But. Can you see it?

My grandfather kept chickens too so there is that.

When I started writing this, I did not mean to venture into such distant realms but I hardly ever know where I'm going when I sit down to write. And now Mr. Moon is home and it is time to cook some grouper. The sky is the color of a bruise where it was blue just an hour ago and the dogwoods are stark white against it.

I want a tidy ending, a package tied up with silk ribbon but I am feeling pressured to go cook and besides that, when I am in this state of my mind, nothing goes smoothly in it and so I will just say that I am glad you have come here from wherever it is you are. Just like the tung tree and the magnolia and wisteria and the picture hanging in my hallway, you fit right in and I am so very grateful for what you bring to my life.


Love...Ms. Moon