Sweet Rain, Sweet Day

It's been a gloomy, rainy old day and I have loved every second of it. I had nothing I had to do outside of the house at all and so used the rain as an excuse to stay inside and be cozy and sit on the couch and play with yarn and watch two episodes of "All The Light We Cannot See" on Netflix. 

I read the book years ago and loved it and as I told Jessie- I even remember a lot of it! From what I gather, there are some major differences in the movie and in the book and I hope they do not disturb me. So far I'm enjoying it, or at least as much as one can enjoy a story set in wartime Occupied France with Nazi's everywhere and a blind girl doing her best to survive and continue broadcasting from her attic, all alone and starving. 

I have to tell you that the scenes where Nazis are marching and unfurling flags and Heil Hitler-ing are even more chilling than they would have been ten years ago when I would never have ever thought that anything like that could happen here.
But the acting is good, especially the scenes with the younger version of the daughter with her father. Their love for each other is palpable. 

I finished reading Patchett's "Tom Lake" last night and I wish I could say I loved it as much at the end as I did at the beginning but I did not. It was fine. There were parts of it that rang so true when it comes to mother-daughter relationships and especially how hard it is for daughters to realize that their mothers had entire lives before they were born. That there are things about their mothers that they do not know. That they may never know. Things that mothers keep in the tiniest, deepest recesses of the very hearts that are mostly filled with her love for her children. So the exploration of that was good. And I did love the connection with "Our Town". I have to admit that although I know that "The Cherry Orchard" was also an influence, if I have ever even read that play, I do not remember any of it. 
I know. I know! How can I call myself educated? 
So any ties with that play go beyond my ken. 

And I'm not sure why my interest in the story faded a bit. But it did. I will say that there are scenes in it that I will probably remember for a very long time. Scenes that I recognize all too well. 

I made a soup today, as one does on chilly, rainy days. 

You want to know the truth? I am sick unto death of turkey. That soup has carrots, celery, tomatoes, onions, collards, broccoli, lemon juice, and...turkey. And turkey broth. I will add some orzo at the end.
I still have more turkey in the freezer. And that is where it's going to stay for awhile. The soup that I do not eat tonight may go into the freezer too. In fact, unless I give it to one of the kids, that's exactly what's going to happen to it. 

Jessie came over for a little visit this early afternoon. She was dropping off the equipment that Mr. Moon had lent them to process the deer he got last week into ground meat. The boys helped Vergil do that and then Jessie and Vergil vacuum-sealed it this morning. So we had a little chat and discussed Very Important Things and also, silly things. Mothers and daughters. Mothers and daughters. 
I am so grateful that my daughters and I can speak way more openly together about things than my mother and I ever could. I always felt that she was judging me and was disappointed in me which made it hard to want to discuss any but the most shallow subjects with her. Never the heart things. 

Sigh. God, I hope reincarnation is not real because if I have to go through another relationship with her in another lifetime in order to work this shit out, I either never want to die or else I want to die right now. I don't know. 
Luckily for me, I don't believe in it. 

That's sort of one of the things Jessie and I talked about today. Not reincarnation, specifically, but religion in its many forms from Catholicism to New Age stuff. I told her about the baby-welcoming ceremony I'd been to many, many years ago that was held at a Unitarian church where the first thing the pastor did was to invoke the spirits of the four directions and I had to restrain myself from yelling, "What the fucking fuck? There's not one Native American in this entire church and you're invoking the four directions!?"
Things like that just truly do not make any sense to me. And you know me- I believe in the sacred and the holy but they are things like the way a mother and her newborn look at each other right after that baby is born, the way the sun looks when it slips beneath the horizon over water, the ancient trees whether oaks or redwoods, the creation of music and art, the miracle of the seed when it meets with dirt, water, and sun, the way humans can show empathy and caring for strangers. 
The pragmatic miracles, as I call them. 
Well, as I also always say, some of us are born with the religion gene, some are not. I was not. 

The man reports in that he is doing well. They are up early to go sit in a deer stand, come in to eat lunch and take a nap, and then they go out again. He is having so much fun being with his community of fellas. I love that. There is very little that makes me happier than knowing he is happy. 
And he sends me the sweetest texts when he is gone. He is the Boss of love notes, that man. 

Well, that's that for tonight. A series review, a book review. A "my view" about religion. 
And soup. 

Just about the same as always. 

Love...Ms. Moon