I am loving this new phone. I use it as a camera far more than I use it as a phone. Anyway, I took it with me on my walk and into town last Thursday and here are some of the things I saw:
This is the old graveyard where the folks have been resting for a very long time. The dogwoods which surround the Peacefully Sleeping in Jesus are below:
I wouldn't mind having my ashes scattered here. Or better yet, my body, perhaps wound in an old soft sheet, buried without a box under these trees. Just me and the worms and one last way to do my little bit for the woods.
The next two are pictures of the pieces of the huge bouquet of flowers blooming right now. The first, the little yellow flowers, were in the woods.
The second, the red clover blooming on the shoulder of the road.
When Downtown Guy and Miss Maybelle were young'uns, we'd go out and pick the clover and I would make them little pillows stuffed with it.
The little old house with the wallpaper and the wisteria blooming in front of it. This house tugs at my heart very powerfully. It holds so many secrets in its walls.
This is the house where Lucy, prettiest dog in Lloyd lives. She sleeps on the front porch and when she sees me coming, she gets up and slowly makes her way to the front yard where I rub her up and croon to her about her beauty and sweetness while she snuffles and smiles. And oh yes, that's a fine oak tree, isn't it?
This is where I get my mail every day but Sunday. It's an old train station and Miss Joann is the postmistress and Miss Martha is her second-in-command. If they know you're waiting on a package, they will call you when it comes in.
This last one doesn't come from Lloyd, but from Tallahassee Nursery and I think it's a lovely picture and has some of my favorite things in it. The huge begonia which is the mother plant of my own, koi, and two types of ferns. And oh yes. Water.
So anyway, those are some images from a very, very good day of my life. It didn't involve a circus or tea with the queen or even a gulf or ocean or river. But it was, in its way, perfect. The cool spring air, the blooming flowers and budding trees, picking out plants for my yard and garden from nurseries where I wandered and admired and wished I had all the money in the world to buy every plant and pot I might have wanted, but quite content with what I got. More than content. Peacefully and quietly ecstatic with exactly what I got and exactly what I have.
Golly. I could just talk about spring until your ears burst or your eyeballs bled but I love you and don't want either of those things to happen and so I believe I'll just post some stray musings here today. Mrs. Lily is coming out to do laundry and visit and I'm thinking about that and how good I feel and how wonderful yoga was (no phone calls and lots of stretching) and how amazing spring is. I bought tomato plants yesterday and New Guinea impatiens... Wait. I wasn't going to do that.
So.
(And disclaimer: There is a huge possibility I have discussed these things before. So what?)
First off, I'm not paying as much attention to the news. I'm an NPR junkie as I've said before, and so I do listen to the news a lot and yet, these days, I'm not really thinking about what I'm hearing. I believe it's too depressing. Poor Obama is already being called a failure because he hasn't managed to bring the economy back and fix the world financial crisis. Also, we still have troops in Iraq. Plus, oh, you know. They haven't cured cancer. Thus, he's a failure. Yeah, fuck that. The plate he got handed was too big for god and let's give the man some breathing room. Back away from the president! He's not magic. He's a man. I'm taking the "let go and let Obama" attitude. Yeah, yeah. I have my head in the sand. Or my hands in the dirt. Either way, makes no difference to the eventual outcome of what's going to happen. I'll take care of my business and Obama can take care of his business. Which of course is mine, too, when you think about it, but he's the one in charge of the big things. I'll be in charge of what's for supper.
(Thank-you, DTG.)
Next. Why can't they come up with a gas pump delivery system which does not drip after you have cut off the gas? I don't care how much you shake that thing, there are going to be a few drops left. They will spill out on the ground. Total all that drippage up and we are (a) not doing the environment any good, and (b) probably wasting millions of gallons of gas a year. I'm not engineer but I truly think they could invent some valve that clicks off at the end of the hose to prevent this dripping. Don't you?
On to toilet seats. And I KNOW I've talked about this before but goddammit! Why do women pee on toilet seats? Why must they hover over them, thus creating the exact situation they are trying to avoid, which is nastiness? When we were in Milton I went in to use a bathroom in a restaurant and it was a one seater and the lady coming out as I was going in was a tiny, elegant, woman of Asian descent and JESUS H. CHRIST! she'd peed all over the seat. Which of course I did not realize until I sat down on it. Now I could have taken this woman DOWN with one hand tied behind my back. I mean, her wrist bones were as big around as my thumb. But did I? No. Because I am a LADY! But am I still cursing her? Obviously.
Now. Toilet discussion number two. Haha! No puns intended! Really. I am not that clever. Anyway, in another restroom stop on our trip at an official highway rest stop I found the toilet of my dreams. It was an out-of-the-wall toilet made of STAINLESS STEEL! Holy Moly and where do I buy one? Because how much time do YOU spend cleaning that whirly, stupid ceramic base of your toilet? Who invented that design? It wasn't a woman, I can tell you that. And stainless steel? Oh my. Well. I guess that's all I need to say about that except for when I build my own bathroom some day, it will have one of those toilets and an XLERATOR hand dryer. My life will be complete.
Speaking of completing my life. Yesterday at Target I bought an ergonomic weeding tool. This thing, if it doesn't actually complete my life, is certainly going to change it. It's no secret that I love to weed. Really. Give me a book on tape and a bunch of weeds and I'm as happy as I need to be. And with this new weeder, my wrists will be healthier, my work will go faster, and the bright green handle will mean that I won't lose it in the mulch. Yes. Yes. Oh my god, yes.
Let me ask you a question. When you see commercials on TV for all the fresh foods you can buy at McDonald's now, do you wonder if they're really fresh? I personally think they've figured out a way to preserve vegetables and fruits, allowing them to serve four-year-old apples and cherry tomatoes that look as if they were picked yesterday. I am not, however, tempted to go in try their "fresh" produce. Not. At. All.
Okay. Combining two topics: Did you see that the Obamas are getting an organic garden at the White House? I wonder if he'd like me to come up there and be his weeder because I sure would be happy to do that. Wow. Talk about your dream jobs. I swoon at the thought.
So get this: I wrote an email to a columnist for our local paper last week. She writes about religion and in her latest column she discussed Lent and how she asks God what He would like her to give up for it and how he personally answers her. This year he wants her to "lose her 'tude." Yes, God speaks like one of the fellows from the hood. She also said some other things which I thought were absurd and so I wrote her in the spirit of discussion and pointed out a few things from the Bible which I thought refuted her ideas and she wrote me back saying basically, "Yes. I used to feel the same way. Now I don't." God said it, she believes it, and that's that. Or maybe God didn't say it but she believes it anyway. Free country, baby.
One more thing. You know how people are always bitching about how guys wear their pants down around their knees and have to hold them up like Scarlett O'Hara had to hold up her petticoats to walk? Well, I too think it's a fairly ridiculous fashion but you know what? I don't care if they wear their pants like that. They're the ones who have to deal with the consequences if they need to run, like if there's a snake or an ax murderer heading their way. Plus, it's a boost to the underwear makers and business needs all the boosts it can get. As far as I can tell, almost all of fashion is ridiculous and yet, we all seem to need it. Except me. I believe in style, not fashion.
And now. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to change out of my yoga togs and get into my overalls because there is WEEDING TO DO! I am a woman who believes in wearing the proper attire for each and every day's activities and knowing that most of my days can be spent in overalls just makes me so very, very happy that I can't even begin to express it. Overalls are just my style.
What's yours? If you got to wear whatever you wanted to to go about your daily routine, what would it be? Would it be sylish? Fashionable? Comfortable? If you're a man would you wear a skirt sometimes if you could get away with it? L7, I know you would. And do. Which is one of the many reasons I love and respect you so much. If you're a woman, would you secretly love to wear false eyelashes and glittery eye shadow every day but are afraid people would mistake you for a show girl or someone who works in a hair salon? Would you wear flip-flops, Hawaiian shirts, red-sequined dresses? Your underpants? Those great little "playsuits" we all wore as children back in the sixties that tied at the shoulders? Whatever happened to those playsuits? Dang. They were great.
Okay. Okay. I'll shut up. But never fear. I'll be back tomorrow. No doubt to talk about spring.
Yesterday I spent the entire day giving myself and my house back to spring. I took all the plants which I'd brought inside to avoid freezing back out and I fed them all some Miracle Gro and I washed all the sheets and blankets and old tablecloths I've been using to cover up the ones I didn't bring in when it froze. I hung them on the line and then folded them up and put them away until next winter. I planted a row of blue potatoes and I weeded in the garden and I checked the progress of what we've planted. The peas are about to make that leap up to the fence where they will climb as high as it goes and then bend over backwards to offer us their sweet, crisp pods. I swept the hallway and picked a huge bouquet of azaleas, dogwood, honeysuckle, fern frond and ivy to set on the old chest in the hallway. I dug up some sago palm pups to give to Kathleen and I swept the porches. I made venison white bean chili from the dried beans on up and then put it in the crock pot to simmer for the rest of the day. I cleaned off the top of the refrigerator. And all day long, I had such hope in my heart. I felt like myself for the first time in forever and ever and ever. Such a subtle thing. I can't even describe it beyond that- I felt like myself. Back when I was going through menopause a few years ago, I tried taking some phyto-estrogen supplements from the New Leaf with rather disastrous and bloody results so I quit taking them. The other day, while I was in the cabinet where I keep my vitamins, I reached for the bottle where a few were left and took one. The daily dosage is four, so one? I've been having hot flashes that remind me of what it is that I do like about winter and I thought what the hell? Three days later, after taking one a day, here I am again. And instead of having about two hot flashes an hour, I think I had two all day. I have been sleeping better the last few nights than I have in forever. Is it possible? I've always said that hormones were the strongest drugs there are. I remember those days of having PMS and wanting to rip heads off of whoever crossed my path. Those weepy, angry days of knowing without a doubt that it was all just hormones, but a hell of emotions nonetheless. I remember those days around the time of ovulation when I would find myself putting my silver bracelets on for no particular reason, when I would look in the mirror and be so glad I was a woman, when I would welcome my husband home with particular coyness and warmth. Then the pregnancy hormones and then the breastfeeding hormones and then, the rapid decrease in all the hormones when I began to approach fifty and the grief I went through at first, knowing myself as I do, obsessed with bags and baskets and bowls- I am a womb-centered woman. And if I have no functioning womb- who in god's name am I? The babies left home, one by one. The aging process began in earnest for me. The skin, the texture of my very flesh. I have felt so old, so old, so very, very old and weary. Every woman goes through the many changes that women go through differently. Some women find every day of their pregnancies to be a sort of queasy, fatigued challenge while some women feel better than they ever have in their lives. Lily, my daughter, has taken on a bloom that makes her radiate with life force, makes her more beautiful than she's ever been as her baby grows inside her. Some women don't have PMS. Some women murder their spouses under its influence. Some women pass through menopause as easily as an opium dream, coming out the other end of the process feeling stronger and more sure of themselves and their places in the world than they ever have in their lives. Some women do not but have hot flashes for years, sleep disturbances, emotional changes that bring them to their knees. That would be me. I have fought taking artificial hormones. It just seems so wrong to daily ingest something made from the urine of pregnant mares and besides, they have been linked to some pretty serious illnesses. I am tough. I can deal. But I am tired. And if one of these soy-based pills a day can make me feel the way I've felt the last few days, then I will take one. And if it's all in my mind, then I am say- good- because it's my mind that's the problem. Who knows? Perhaps all of this is just spring or perhaps its the natural passing of depression which, as they say, is a self-limiting disease. You either get through it or you kill yourself and either way, it does go. All I know is that for the first time in so long I can't remember, I can think about the future and working in the garden doesn't seem like an exercise in futility. I am not just going through the motions here. I am reveling in the motions. I think of all the things I've tried to make myself believe for so long without success and suddenly, I have sparks of that belief I've been searching for: that I am worthy of this life, that I do have talents, that I am a person who has a purpose, that I will be a good grandmother, the wife my husband deserves, a person deserving of friendship. Well. We shall see. Meanwhile, I am going to go to the New Leaf and get a new bottle of those pills. Why not? I am not looking for eternal youth here. I am only looking for myself. And even if I've only found her for a day or two, it's a quiet joyful blessing to be reminded she's still here. Functioning womb or not, aging flesh or not, graying hair or not. Still here. I can plant, I can act, I can write, I can cook, I can love. Perhaps I can even still dance. We shall see. We shall see.
Is it the purple? Is it the birds? Is it the dogwoods so purely white like clouds drifted to earth to settle for awhile on their trees? Is it the gaudy playful joy that nature is displaying with this ridiculous excess of beauty, all this tender green growth, all this blossoming of white and light which has pulled me out of that eternal night, that ubiquitous fright? I feel something tender and green in my heart. It is pushing new leaves up towards the sun, it chokes my throat with a taste so sweet; this feels like the ash magnolia's velvet new growth, that delicate, that strong. I think the world waits during winter, no tree or bush quite sure what it is until suddenly the earth turns, the dirt warms, the plant remembers and births itself again, each unto it's own, coming unto itself with joyful, purposeful abandon. Maybe. Or maybe it's like a cover has been finally pushed aside, letting in the daylight which streams through the lace curtains over my head. I'm not sure. All I know is this: Little darlin', it's been a long cold lonely winter. Little darlin', it seems like years since I've been here. Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. And I say It's all right. It's all right.
So I went to the eye doctor today and I need new glasses, which I knew and I can't use the frames I have because they are bent which is one of the reasons I have not been seeing well for a year and a half now. The whole story of how I got those glasses is one of my favorite posts and if you want to read it, click here. I think it's a rather amusing story. Anyway, it's annoying that I need new frames and I think I hate the ones I got but they'd already dilated my eyes when I was picking them out and the choices were limited to say the least. La-di-dah. I don't have to look at them. You do. Well, you being used metaphorically if you've never met met me and live in Kentucky or Iowa or somewhere but I'm sure there will be a picture and you'll say, "Yep, she doesn't look so good in those. Why did she choose them?" Let me remind you: my eyes were dilated, I was blind, the choice was limited and the choice of frames within my budget were even more so. I'm lucky they come with those things that fit over your ears. Anyway, again I say la-di-dah because I like saying that. I also went to the dentist and need a filling to prevent a tooth from cracking in half and darn it! I did not expect that either. Well. Life goes on. Mostly. Until it doesn't. I was going to write a post about my yoga teacher and I have done that before but I am deathly afraid she'll find this and read it so I'll just say that only I could find a yoga teacher like this one. I do love her. But my goodness! Does her husband HAVE to have speakerphone meetings for his job with Microsoft while class is going on IN THE NEXT ROOM? Yes. Yes he does. And there's more but really, enough of that. I am doing yoga and that is what matters. Glasses, phone calls, fillings. Annoyances that mean very little in the scheme of things. I'm going to go cook a corned beef. My eyes are slowly getting back to normal and I think I will be safe around knives. I was not save driving a two thousand pound vehicle while I was blinded and neither were you if you were anywhere near me on the highway but I made it home without incident. I think. I was so blind I probably wouldn't have noticed if I'd hit anything although I was not deafened (any more than usual) and I didn't hear any loud thumps, so I think we're safe. It was like being on drugs without the happy side effects. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about here. I think my new glasses may even be purple. Good Lord. Is that possible? I hope not. Maybe they accidentally dilated my brain. We shall see in five working days.
I have an eye doctor's appointment tomorrow morning and also a dentist appointment and because I am obsessed with daily blogging, I'm getting this in now.
I want to show a little bit of what my yard looks like, all abloom with color and so there you have a picture of the azaleas.
It rained today right after I planted a few cardinal plants which I have been rooting since last fall and for that I am grateful. Here's what the front yard looked like in the rain: It did not rain long enough but it was beautiful while it lasted.
Do you remember the picture of the wisteria I took one week ago? Well, here's how it looks now and it is NOTHING like the way it will look in another week.
I mean really, you can practically hear them pop out, those purple flowers hanging like grapes, those fat little dangling darlings of perfume.
And since tomorrow is St. Patrick's day, I'll go ahead and give you the recipe for the Irish Soda Bread and forget the corned beef. Just make the bread. Smell it in all stages of preparation. Then eat it and be joyful and grateful to the Irish.
Irish Soda Bread
2 cups of flour 1/2 cup of raisins or currents or golden raisins or dried cranberries or whatever sort of fruit you want to use 2 teaspoons of caraway seeds (Do not skip these. Really.) The zest of one lemon, grated (Don't skip this either. I'm serious.) 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup buttermilk 3 tablespoons (at least) honey Sugar for sprinkling
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, fruit, caraway seeds, lemon zest, baking soda and salt. In a small bowl, combine the buttermilk and honey. Pour over the flour mixture; stir just until the flour disappears. Do not overmix.
3. Lightly sprinkle a work surface with flour; turn out the dough. Flour your hands and knead the dough lightly. Seven times or so. This dough will feel like a baby's butt, like fresh warm earth when you've planted your seeds and are patting the dirt over them with affection and hope. Form into a 7 inch round loaf; place on the baking sheet. With a sharp knife slash a cross (or peace sign- whatever) on top. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake in the upper third of the oven until browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40-45 minutes. Remove from the pan and allow to cool. Or not.
Really and truly I should just post pictures because they tell the whole story and because I did NOT get a Jitterbug but a phone that takes pictures, I have a lot. And since I am a terrible photographer you can tell no essential difference between the ones I take with a "real" camera and the ones I took with the phone, I'm not too worried about their quality. The one above was taken at night in a fairly dimly lit room and so it's not especially clear but I love that picture. That was Friday night in the living room of Lon and Lis's house and this was but one grouping of musicians who had come together to play for the joy of it.
That night and in that room, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was played and sung and I sang it too.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The drive over was uneventful and we got to Gatorbone in the daylight and dropped off Miss HoneyLuna and the giant pot of greens and kissed and hugged and greeted people we love, some we hadn't seen in two years, and then Mr. Moon and I drove the few more miles down the road to the state park where we were in the Cedar cottage (they all have tree names) and it was as lovely as I'd remembered. The smell of woodsmoke from the old Florida rock fireplace, the pine paneled ceilings and walls. The tiny kitchen, the perfect little porch with two chairs. It was a serene nest on a quiet little lake.
We unpacked and made a drink and sat on the little porch and wondered why we needed to go back to the party, but we did.
The music was going full swing on porches and on the stage out back and in the living room and food was being served out in Lon's mandolin shop and let me just say that it was so good to be back. The dogwoods were in bloom and the house looked so beautiful and there were old friends and so many smiles and so many notes pouring forth from strings and throats to float through the warm piney night sky.
We stayed for a couple of hours then made our way home back to the cabin where we slept for a ridiculous number of hours. We got up in the morning and made our coffee and I made our breakfast while Mr. Moon tried to catch a fish in the lake where there are obviously no fish- he's never had so much as a strike there but he keeps trying. We ate out on the picnic table and the birds were fussing and flirting overhead and then another friend staying at the park ambled over and had a biscuit and we ended up talking for an hour about everything from the weather (of course) to God and Obama and the Mormons and business and the economy and every durn other thing you can think of, fueled by coffee and the perfect weather and the pure joy of sitting outside on a Saturday morning, nowhere you needed to be, nothing you had to do, visiting with someone you like but don't get to see very often.
We eventually made it back to Gatorbone and Mr. Moon set up the oysters and I visited and was as purely lazy as I think I've ever been, talking, grabbing hugs, meeting children, patting dogs, listening to music, thinking I should get off my ass and make the corned beef and cabbage for the next day's dinner.
Oh. It was hard. But I finally did and once I got in the kitchen and let my hands do what they needed to do and got the corned beef cooking and the Irish soda bread in the oven (and that dough, rich with lemon peel and caraway seeds was the most fragrant, beautiful dough you ever patted) I finally felt completely at home. A woman that I'd met there two years ago joined me in my cooking and we caught up on the past two years a little bit and occasionally Lis would come through and then a small group of us women would share what Lis calls Valentinis (don't ask but they are pink and cherries are involved) and once again, there was music, music, everywhere.
We slept like rocks that night, Mr. Moon and I, with the door open to the little porch and I could see the lake from where we slept, shining in the moonlight.
The next morning I had an actual task to attend to- the making of the angel biscuits and my new friend Anna and I rolled out and baked 120 of them, cutting them with one of Lis's crystal glasses and sausage was cooked on a grill and it all came together perfectly and by lunchtime (okay, it was Sunday brunch by the time it was ready) everyone was happy and full.
We usually leave in the early afternoon to come home, but Mr. Moon wanted to watch FSU play basketball so he left for awhile to go find a sports bar that got the game and HoneyLuna and I happily stayed behind, to sit and chat and graze the food that kept coming in. I heated up the corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and we sliced that soda bread which was as heavenly as the dough had promised it would be (and I am going to post that recipe because it is so good and so easy) and there was more music on more porches
and then Lon got out the preborn mandolin he's working on for HoneyLuna and we all touched the wood and oohed and awed and HoneyLuna almost fainted with the promise of all the notes that she'll be playing for the rest of her life on this labor of love instrument.
Does that face tell a story or what?
And there were piped deviled eggs and more and more food and by the time Mr. Moon got back and we loaded up everything to go, there was still music being played and oh, it was hard to leave. It was so hard to leave.
But now we're home, promises of visits to come, and the wisteria has busted out purple and I've got so much to do here because it's spring and my heart- oh, my heart- it feels like some healing was put upon it by all the smiles and hugs and songs and by the sheer joy of all the comings-together of all the sweet people who carry their instruments in their hands and the knowledge and talent of how to play them in their bones and fingers, and the kisses of Mr. Baby, Lon and Lis's grandson, and the woman-sharings in the kitchen and the bird calls over the little lake and the stepping back and the taking it all in, or as least as much as I could hold.
We shall see if it was a healing which has taken real root. I hope so and there's part of me which feels that if it hasn't, there is truly no hope for me because there was so much just damn plain goodness and grace laid upon my soul that there is no way I can express it.
It's spring. There is an unfolding of beauty all around me. I have brought it all home in my heart and I am surrounded and filled with it still. Thank you, Lizzie. And thank you, Lon. Thank you for pure love, for beauty, for the boundless joy and gift of allowing me to be your friend and taking us all in to your home and your arms and into your world.
You have no idea what you've done for me. And for all of us who where there. The beauty of your souls and the sweetness of your hearts and life together shines on all of us who are privileged to know you.
Thank-you. I wish I had better words than just those two, but I don't.
But wait- how about this? I now pronounce you two as The Rulers of the magical kingdom of Bless-Our-Hearts because really, you do it better than anyone I know.
Every two years or so, our dear, dear friends, Lon and Lis Williamson (aka Big Lou and Maxine) have a party. This is not a regular party. This is a four day festival fiesta, with camping on the property and food and porta- potties in the yard and more music than you can possibly imagine. It's the kind of party where four-hundred best friends might show up to pick and visit and eat and drink. The kind of party where musicians from the never-known to the well-known show up with their instruments. The kind of party where on one porch a group of musicians made up of everyone from a seventy year old plumber who plays guitar and writes songs to a seventeen year old gal on mandolin might be playing Wildwood Flower while on a deck about fifty yards away some rock guy might be playing stand-up base with a woman on flute, a woman on violin and a former Eagle. You just never know. And Maxine? She never ever stops. There she is in her petticoats and crocheted sweater, her guitar in her hand, singing notes the birds stop to listen to. And Big Lou is right there too, nodding and being gracious and maybe, if you're lucky, showing you the mandolins he's building. I stand in awe and amazement as these two people open their home and their property and their hearts to all the folks who show up. They risk their yearly income, all their belongings and their septic tank for this one weekend. And me? I go because I love my Lis and I love Lon, too. I love a lot of people who show up at this party every year but you know me- I'm not exactly a party animal. And I don't play music. So here's what I do: I bring over a huge pot of greens from our garden for Friday night and twenty pounds of angel biscuit dough which I roll out and bake on Sunday morning.
I am becoming famous for my angel biscuits and it is not unusual for those biscuits not to make it all the way from the kitchen to the place where they are served, right down the path through the woods. Not bragging. Just saying. And I might cook a huge amount of corned beef and cabbage and a half dozen loaves of Irish Soda bread, too. I just might. But if you think I camp there, you would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Luckily there is a state park right down the road and I reserve a cabin eleven months before the event because I love those cabins. They were built by the CCC back in the thirties and I look forward to staying in one of them with all my heart. They're all built of wood and have stone fireplaces and a tiny porch overlooking a pond of a lake and have little kitchens and we have to put the mattress on the floor because otherwise Mr. Moon's legs would hang off the bed about fifteen yards and they're cozy and just all you need in life. I take my old enamel coffee pot and bacon and eggs and snatch a little of the angel biscuit dough to make us a breakfast on Saturday mornings and it's such a relief for me to have that cabin to go to every evening when the musicians are just getting all warmed up and I'm getting all wound down. It's sort of the perfect combination of socialization and isolation for a woman like me. So we've packed the ice chest with oysters to take and I've got the greens and biscuit dough ready to take and HoneyLuna will take her mandolin and perhaps her guitar and tent because she stays up all night to pick, and we'll be heading over tomorrow. I'll cook and visit and try to spend every second with Lis that I can. I follow her around with lipstick and rum and one time a guy asked me if I was her handmaiden. "I guess," I said, and that's okay with me. Lord knows I can't play a guitar. Sometimes, though, I might sing a little, if the spirit takes me and the song's in my key. So here we go, off to Gatorbone where the dogwoods are blooming and the music will be floating through the air and the tables will groan with food and the people will all be smiling because Lon and Lis have created a little piece of heaven that they invite all their friends to enjoy on a weekend in March. The kids will be swimming although it's too cold and playing frisbee and the babies will be passed hip to hip and the bottle will be passed lip to lip and you can sing Will The Circle Be Unbroken if someone plays it. I hope someone does. I surely do. See you when I get home.
Back when I was in nursing school and was the recently divorced mother of two, my children went to their father's house every Monday and Tuesday nights. He was a musician, so Monday and Tuesday were generally his days off and it was the hardest thing in the world for me to send them off with their clothes in their backpacks on Monday mornings knowing I would not see them for another two days.
At first, it was almost unbearable. I had barely been separated from these two for more than a few hours at a time since their births and they were so young. Three and five. My heart would tear out of my chest as I watched them go, knowing that for two days they would not be where I could take care of them. What if they missed me? What if I hadn't packed the right clothes? What if they woke up in the night with a bad dream? Would their father be able to comfort them? Would he take care of them properly?
Sometimes, after I dropped them off where they needed to be, I would sob inconsolably as I drove away to go to class where I studied microbiology, organic chemistry and how to prevent bedsores.
And what I had to do to preserve my sanity was to do just Let. Them. Go.
I had to (and this was the hardest thing I ever did) close off that part of my heart which had burst open when they'd been born and not let anything pass through there until they were safely back into my arms. Essentially, I had to pretend I did not have children for those two days or I would have gone insane. I know, I know. I'm so dramatic but I am not using hyperbole here. I am merely speaking the truth.
I am, quite honestly, crying now thinking of that horrific rending, that enforced numbing, the way I had to let my babies go off without me, always knowing, because I had grown up without my daddy, that my pain on letting them go was nothing compared to the pain of not having a father in their lives.
One Monday, or was it a Tuesday? when classes were finished for the day, I got in my car and did something I had never done in my life before. I drove to a bar and went in by myself. I was not much of a drinker in those days- two beers was a big night for me- and I have no memory of why I drove into the parking lot of Poor Pauls and went in, but I did. It was probably an avoidance tactic. I could not bear the thought of going home where the silence of the children's absence was so huge that it pushed all the air out of my lungs, all the life out of my bones. No usual after-school burst of their energy as they ran outside to play, no quick scramble to try and come up with a supper for them, no baths, no bedtime stories, no little bodies in my arms.
And so I walked into Poor Pauls and I ordered a beer at the bar and then I went over to the jukebox (and they had an amazing jukebox then) and for some reason, I punched in the numbers for Elvis Costello's Everyday I Write The Book.
Today, when I hear those opening notes I am rushed back in time, back sitting at the bar of Poor Paul's, not to get drunk by any means, but to sit in a place where grown-ups sat, a beer in front of me, that song playing and I remember how for a moment, or those four moments it took for the song to play, I was okay. I was a woman who had a plan, who got up every day to write the book of her life, who was afraid and unsure but who somehow managed to do what needed to be done by simply doing it.
Who had let her children go to their father's because it was the right thing to do.
Funnily enough, as these things go, Miss Maybelle just called me, all grown up now and yet still my baby in my heart, and we were talking and then she said, "Oh, Daddy's calling. I better go." She had thought it was her Daddy Glen calling, the man I'm married to now, who has been her stepfather for twenty-five years, but no, it was her Daddy Jerry, the man who was her first daddy, the man to whose house she used to go to every Monday and Tuesday. And when she called me back, we laughed about that and I told her what I was writing about here, this morning, and I cried, talking about how very, very hard it had been to let her and her brother go away from me all those years ago but how important it had been, not only for them, but for their father, too and how well it's all worked out.
She has two fathers who love her and who would do anything in the world for her and that is what I wanted for my children. Not necessarily TWO fathers- that was a more blessing than I could have imagined sitting there at Poor Pauls listening to Elvis Costello- but to have that man in their lives whom they would always know would always love them and be there for them. And by god, it happened. Those Monday and Tuesday nights were vastly important to my children and to their father as well.
And during the times when I feel as if I have failed at everything I've ever done, I think back on that girl-woman I was then, feeling so brave just to walk into a bar on a late afternoon and buy a beer and play a jukebox and have the slightest inkling that yes, I was writing a book of sorts with footnotes and a plot and longing looks and that maybe I was yes, a mother above all else but I was also this other woman who had a sliver of a life that didn't belong to her children and so all of that pain, all of that change, all of that difficulty and those tears and my fears and the ferocious love for my children which was so big that I had to let them go two days a week was going to amount to something better.
And this song, this Elvis Costello song with its eighties sound and those beautiful women was a part of it. He sang about finding strange hands in your sweater, of finding out that your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote. That there are chapters four, five and six.
And here I am, the mother of four, still finding I'm afraid of things, still blindly trying to find my way and when I feel lowest, when I feel that I have made horrible mistakes, I remember that I did my best and that even when it was hardest, I sometimes did the right thing.
And it's not over. Every day I write the book. Still. And it may not be the book I thought I'd write. It may not be tidy and neat with characters I can control and a plot and ending that leave everyone satisfied, but I love the characters in this book of mine and I realize I'll never know how it turns out in the end because there is no end to this book of my life until my life itself ends. And that's the way it has to be.
Ms. Maybelle wrote about anger yesterday and how you can be grateful and angry at the same time- they're not mutually exclusive which intuitively seems wrong but which heartfully seems true and seems incredibly profound and has given me something to think about. I wonder sometimes how angry I really am and what that might have to do with the depression I suffer. They used to say that depression is anger turned inward. Now of course they say that depression is a chemical imbalance and who needs to sit there with a therapist and talk, talk, talk about your childhood and your anger when what you really need is simply a medication to correct the balance? I can't believe this is entirely true. I think depression is probably a gray, mushy stew made up of anger, yes, and guilt over that anger and a genetic predisposition for the melancholy and all of this mess simmers and cooks and then perhaps the heat is turned up by some "precipitating event" until the brain can't keep up with it all and then that poor brain just shuts down in bad ways, thus the chemical imbalance. At least, this is how it seems for me. I know I'm an angry person. I call myself an old hippie but I am not now, nor ever was, a peace/love/hippie-dippie sort of hippie who ohmmmed her way into transcendence. Nah, I was too busy raising kids and digging trenches in which to lay PVC for plumbing. Not to say that I did not believe in peace and love. Well, I can't say for sure that I BELIEVE in peace because I've yet to see it but I sure do believe in love and have seen more than my undeserving share of THAT. And am always and eternally grateful for every ray of it that's ever struck my heart. So- back to gratefulness. See- I can talk about gratefulness but can I talk about anger? It seems so wrong to talk about anger when I have so much to be grateful for. But, but, but. I know I have so much anger in me. Last year I lost my voice. I literally could barely speak above a whisper. This had happened to me before, but this time it was the worst. And I knew in my heart that this was not a physical problem. It was a psychosomatic problem in that my mind was affecting my body. I think I had so much anger in me that I was afraid that if I could raise my voice I would bring down the walls of my very existence by "voicing" what I was really feeling. And I don't think I resolved any of this anger. I just kept on with the medication and with my life and then I got into a play and I HAD to have a voice and so it came back. It's not my way to confront, to voice anger. It's my way to simmer and shake and let it all bake and keep it inside and make myself ill with weird and undiagnosable and thus, untreatable physical problems and I really don't want to do that. I am not, like Miss Maybelle says she is, a bull on the rampage. I am a relatively meek woman who lets her anger out in little snippets of sarcasm, little barbs of sharp remarks. This blog is part of that and I think I'd be a lot healthier if I addressed the anger I have and actually plowed through it, telling the truth and fearing no man as they say, but I am not brave enough. Because like I said, there's part of me that believes that if I did, my very world would crumble around me. But I know that's not logical and not healthy and every human being on this earth (even the Dali Lama, sometimes, I'll wager) feels anger. And anger can be healthy. It can propel us into change and perhaps it is, after all, change that I am most afraid of. Which is ridiculous because there is nothing in this world that gets accomplished without it. So once again, I have no answers and I'm just talking out loud and it's the most incredibly beautiful day here, warm and the birds are singing and the rooster next door is crowing and Miss Honeyluna is here because she has a bit of illness and so I wanted her home where I could make her sopa de lima and kiss her goodnight and see her in the morning and put my hand to her forehead to check for fever. And my little neice and nephew are coming over because they, too, are a little too sick for school and mama and papa need to work and so it will be a sort of gentle-infirmary over here today and although I'm sorry they're all feeling poorly, I'm glad to have them all here to watch old Disney movies and go look at the goats. Back to gratefulness. Which I can talk about. Anger? Who me? What have I got to be angry about? A lot, quite actually. And in the next day or two, I think I'll take out a piece of paper and start making a list. Look at the anger right there in black and white and see if there's not some of it I can deal with and thus, eventually let go of. Because dammit, with so much to be grateful for, I am crippling myself by trying to only focus on that while on the back burner of my soul, there is such a toxic pot of anger simmering. And you? Are you constantly swallowing anger? Have you felt this, but tried with all your heart to hide it? I'm curious to know.
When we went to Milton, our director's husband who was our road manager got us all polo shirts that said Opera House Stage Company on them for us to wear on our great road adventure.
So on Saturday morning, Rich and Kathleen and I put our shirts on and posed for this picture. A nice man named William, I think, took the picture for us. He had an amazing belt buckle on. I wish I had a picture of THAT.
Anyway, here we are, three friends at the Pensacola La Quinta Inn right before a woman, confusing us for hotel employees because of our professional-looking shirts, asked if we could get her a box of Kleenex for her room.
This was only the second time in my life I'd ever worn a polo shirt. And the first time I wore one, it was borrowed and then returned.
Old hippies just don't wear polo shirts. It's not a part of our uniform. Really. Check the handbook.
But I wore that one proudly because hey! I'm part of the Opera House Stage Company!
It's so quiet in Lloyd tonight. This moment the only sound I can hear besides the crickets (I think) is the sound of my keys tap, tap, tapping.
I spent a little time in the garden today in the sweet light of late afternoon, weeding and planting totally inappropriate seeds. Then I set the sprinkler on and when I went out to turn it off, I took that picture above. It's not a from-the-balcony-in-Cozumel sunset, but it's a sunset over my little garden. See my cabbages?
And here's the way my wisteria looks this evening. I will take pictures of it in the next few weeks and you will be amazed at the way it changes. See the tiny buddlings? Oh. Just wait. If you were a bee, this would be foreplay porn.
Do you remember the picture I took of my baby begonia, less than a month ago? Here it is (was):
And here it is tonight:
My babies are growing. Oh, how my babies are growing.
And one last picture. This is what bok choy looks like when it bolts. Bolting is what plants do when they have given it their all. When they are done producing the tender green parts which we love to eat and are making the flowers which will create the seeds to ensure their immortality. Oh. If only humans bolted. Maybe we do. I dreamed I was pregnant last night- a tender, impossible flowering. But Lily, she is flowering. She is bolting into motherhood. She is ensuring my mortality and is prettier than these flowers, which are sort of Dr. Seussian in their orange vase. Don't you think?
And if a picture is worth a thousand words and the pen is mightier than the sword, I've just given you a dissertation, a ballad, a poem, a battle's worth of ammunition- a peek into the world in which I live.
I'm home and it's so misty this morning because while I was gone, the earth warmed up and the morning air is cool and so there is fog and the dogwoods are opening and so are the azaleas, purple popping all over the place. The time has changed over again and that, too is strange. We passed over into the central time zone on our journey and so for a while, I had no idea what the "real" time was and just accepted whatever my cell phone told me because those suckers are smart and the satellites feed them the correct information and it's all a myth anyway, this clock-stuff, this human-agreed upon measurement of the passing of something none of us really understands. It's time. It's time. Time for what? Time to get ready for yoga. Time to plant another row of spinach. Maybe, actually, it's too late for that, not really time, but maybe we can fool mother nature. The peas are coming up. The wisteria has green fuzzy buds on it. It's time for that. There was time on our trip to talk a lot and that was fine. Three friends who have found themselves in later age and we have to talk a lot to tell the stories of why we are and who we are and essentially say, "This is who I am and are you okay with that?" We discussed friendship and how we feel comfortable with certain people immediately and how there is some sort of attraction, some positive/negative attraction and with other people there is none of that so you gravitate to the people you're attracted to. The ones whom you feel are interested in your stories, in how you came to be this person they somehow feel comfortable with, not judged by, accepted by not because of something you wish you were but because of who you are, exactly as you are. This is tricky stuff, and yet at the heart of it, the simplest thing of all. The play was fun in that we were together, doing it. The high school where we performed was freezing cold and our audience was, so say the least, scant. But we did it, twice, and then we tore it all down and they took us out to a beautiful place for food and drinks and it was lovely and by the time we got to bed that night, we knew we'd done something and we felt a bit like a troop of gypsy actors and the little boy at the convenience story where we went to get coffee wanted to throw off his uniform and come and join us. You could tell. His eyes followed us longingly to the door where a giant black man in a Superman shirt held it open for us and his eyes held a different story but we didn't have time to find out what it was. We had a show to put on. And now I'm home and it's a foggy morning and time to go to yoga and because of the time change it's just really now getting light and I wish the light would flood into my heart because it's time for me to throw off this darkness that I can't seem to get out of. I feel as if I've locked myself into some sort of closet and I've forgotten where the door is to get out. It's time to quit losing track of time. Maybe my friends and my family and the new-coming baby and the wisteria buds and the oaks wreathed in mist and newly born leaves can call to me loud enough so that I can find the way out, see the light beneath the crack of the door, reach for the handle, turn it, step back out. Maybe there's time to find a balance again, take care of myself better, turn towards the light instead of pulling the black-out curtains around me. Realize that even the strangest and most bizarre of wishes can be, at least symbolically granted (the black cowboy on the horse, trotting down the street, his back straight- the universe does listen? I don't know but oh, what a story). What time is it? Check the clock, check the calender, check the wisteria buds, check the heart, check the mind, check the arms and legs and knees and check the misty morning's breath for honey, for secrets, for stories, for warmth, for clearing, for promises. I am home. It's time.
So Mr. Moon went and re-upped our plan with Alltel (yes, I know- that is Chad's company and I hate myself with a loathing that knows no bounds) and we have new phones. He got his numbers transferred over at the Alltel place but my phone just came home with him in its little fancy box with its little fancy booklet and I almost cried when I saw it, not from joy, but from the frustration of knowing that I'll be dealing with that thing for hours, trying to figure out ringtones and transferring numbers and so forth. It's blue and shiny. It takes pictures. Oh boy. It's funny how much I love my Mac and all the beautiful things I can do with it but dealing with a cell phone makes me insane. Same with the digital camera. In a perfect world, I'd have an iPhone but let me tell you something you may not know: This is not a perfect world. A friend of ours came over last night to borrow an engine hoist (and yes, that's a whole other story) but he had an iPhone and he showed us how our house is not where the iPhone says it is, which I do not find remarkable, but the way he could show us the map and the actual location where we stood was, well, I can only say that folding clothes in mid-air just does not compete for magic. Cell phones have certainly gotten all Dick Tracey on us
and I'm intimidated, although my Mac does not intimidate me at all. It soothes me. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It takes my words and transfers them out to the world and brings me the words of others and sometimes even pictures of Brangelina and their brood. Anyway, la-di-dah and I need to pack for Milton, Florida and don't let me forget the Xanax because I am stressed out to the maximum over this little trip, which is completely absurd. I used to have to plan and pack more carefully to take the babies to the park than this trip will require, and yet, I'm a mess. Just a mess. Throw in the new phone and I'm not sure I can handle it. I'll just sit in the back seat going over there and cry and try to push buttons until I figure out some of the mysteries of the darn thing. And let me add that HoneyLuna wrote a poem about my feet and I'm still leaking tears from reading it and I read it about twenty minutes ago. How did I get such kids? Tell me, because I do not know. I made so many selfish mistakes with those children that it's a miracle they're still alive, that they still want to talk to me at all, that they all haven't turned to a life of crime. But no, they're amazing and if I could tell you how much I love and respect them, you'd explode from it. Okay. I'm a little over-emotional this morning, having to leave Lloyd and all. I'll just end here and say that I'll report in when I get back because I'm leaving my Mac here. This is another stressful decision, but I need to cut the cord, fly off unfettered (as if that were even possible) and concentrate on doing the play and being a good friend, etc. Have a good weekend and I'd say don't do anything I wouldn't do but that would mean you'd spend the entire weekend sitting in your house and weeping silently, looking out on the beautiful day, your new blue cell phone in your lap, useless, ringtoneless, and feeling completely inept.
There is nothing so sweet as clothes hung on the line There is an art to hanging them, you know, so that taking them down And folding them into the basket is organized, So that the pins do not mark the clothes themselves So that they hang straight and do not develop Wrinkles As they swing on the line, as if inhabited By thinnest ghosts Who thrive not in darkness But in brightest sunshine. I especially loved hanging the diapers, When the babies were little, I would take each diaper from the basket And snap it straight And then hang it, each two sharing a pin, a long line Of white cotton, bleached and rinsed And here's magic: breast-fed baby poop stains Disappear in sunlight It's that pure. On very hot days, by the time I'd strung out all the diapers The first ones would be dry but I would let them hang With all the others And when I'd go out to collect them, Laying my baby on the grass on a blanket to Watch from underneath, the white flags of cotton The blue sky, the branches overhead They would be stiffer than if I'd dried them in the dryer More substantial As all things are, hung on the line to dry. I love that. It's as if they have been given A new meaning of their own A new language of fiber wind-blown and sun-dried And they fold under my hand like a magic trick Which I do in the air on their way to the basket Where they rest, ready to be put away Made pure and clean again By water, by soap, by sun and air. I remember picking up my wide-eyed baby in one hand The basket in the other, Propping them both on my hips Heading to the house With two perfect armsfull Of sweetness While the birds sang us all the way To my back door.
Some days, even after almost twenty-five years of marriage, you can wake up and look at the man you're married to and ask yourself, "Who the hell IS this guy?" and then go on to wonder why his socks and pants and shirts are part of your laundry. Seriously. And then, three hours later and who knows why- the tide has rushed back in again, swirling around your feet, leaving you a little bit breathless, a little bit in wonder, and you wash his socks and pants and shirts and smile while you're doing it, exactly certain of the rightness of it all.
Let me tell you something. I don't deal with stress very well. I never really was much good at dealing with stress, but since the madness descended upon me last year, it's been really bad.
And when I say stress, I mean anything and everything that happens. Or is going to happen. Or might happen.
Or is happening.
Such as- right now the gas guy is here to deposit gas in our tank for the heater. Should this be stressful? Not really. And yet, for me? I'm stressed.
My cell phone's battery is useless and I need a new one. As in, it'll be fully charged and one short conversation later it will power off due to low battery. Now I'm no cell phone technologist, but I'd say there's a problem there. This means I have to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Which really is my problem. Having to do something about anything. Especially if it involves making decisions. Any decisions at all. They all, from minuscule (should we have rice or couscous with supper?) to um, less than minuscule (what am I going to BE when I grow up?) throw me into a tailspin of anxiety and panic. But a situation doesn't even have to involve decision-making to cause me to want to crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head.
For instance: my dogs are so shaggy they can't see out of their own eyeballs due to the bangs they've developed. And the woman who grooms my dogs is the nicest, most laid-back, easy going woman in the world and the dogs love going to see her and my lord, but how stressful can it be to take them in to see her?
Well, first off, I have to CALL her. And I'm still having problems with that aspect of modern life so really, why do I need a phone battery anyway?
Okay. Because I'm going out of town on Friday and although women used to cross the entire country, pregnant and with seven children all loaded up into a wagon being drawn by oxen quite possibly never to be heard from again, it is unthinkable these days to drive ALL THE WAY TO PENSACOLA, FLORIDA without a working cell phone. Right? Am I right or what?
You know I'm right.
And here I am, fifty-four years old and not only have I never crossed the country (okay, I did once but it was with my family in a Vista Cruiser Station wagon and the memory, even after forty years, is so sharp and horrific that I am TRYING to block it so let's quit talking about that) I have never gone in and gotten my own cell phone. Mr. Moon always handles that. Because there's the PLAN. The cell phone plan which no one on earth understands and I think they make that shit up right there on the spot because one plan comes with NOTHING but oh, fifteen minutes a month and you have to pay for the phone and it costs ten thousand dollars and then with another plan you get free texting, unlimited minutes, a free phone that'll do everything in the world except sexually gratify you (that app is a tiny bit extra) and for that plan you pay fifty cents a month.
Or something like that.
And god knows I can't be the one to make decisions about cell phones or their plans and I have no idea what sort of plan we're on now- family, unlimited, circle-of-friends, whatever.
Personally, I would base my whole decision on those incredibly annoying commercials with Chad in them and I would NEVER, EVER buy his plan, even if it was free. I hate CHAD. I want to kill Chad, starting with his hair.
Anyway, to make a short story of madness interminable, the idea of going-out-of-town is also worrying me to pieces. Not so much the going-out-of-town part. That will be fun. Kathleen and I and another friend in the play are driving over to Pensacola on Friday and then we'll be doing the play on Saturday. Twice. As I said before. And we have no idea how many tickets have been sold or how we're going to set up the stage and dressing area situation and if we'll have anyone to help us. And so forth.
This, to me, is stressful to the nth degree, although I trust our directors and somehow everything always works out. Yes. Breathe. It will all be fine in Milton, Florida. All will be fine.
I'll have a phone that works. I'll take my medication. There will be gas in the tank so that when I return, the house will be warm for my well-groomed dogs because I have actually called the dog groomer. I am taking them in tomorrow.
And this Saturday I will wear that pink sweater you see above and my mind will be like a clear lake of peaceful and calm thoughts as I go onstage and become Marion who screams at her husband with all the frustration and anger of fifty years of bad marriage behind her.
And someday, some way, I am going to quit being a person whose equanimity is upset by the need for a new phone battery, the need to make a phone call, the need to write a check to the gas guy or call Miss Beverly, the dog groomer whom I have known for thirty years.
I am going to be the calm and namaste-blessing old woman of my dreams, the one who smiles placidly at all life throws her, who reaches out her gnarled and liver-spotted hand to her grandchild or to her husband, who sweeps her front yard, who wears softly-faded dresses she's made from flour-sacks of printed blue cotton, who can face fire and flood and storm and the running-out of toilet paper with perfect tranquility and control. A woman who can as easily pick up a non-poisonous snake which has found its way into her house and deposit it gently in the azalea bushes as she can dispatch a rattler threatening her grandchildren with the hoe she uses in her tomato garden. A woman whose house always smells of lemon furniture polish and oatmeal cookies. A woman who always has a crystal bowl filled with flowers she's grown sitting on a gleaming oak table atop a lacy doily she's crocheted. A woman who is strong and wiry, calm, and level-headed. A woman who loves her face in the mirror, even as it ages into the sort of wrinkles you could lose a chihuahua in. A woman who one day fixes a nice meal for her family and then goes to lay down for a nap and is discovered an hour later, her white hair braided and nicely arranged beside her peaceful and serene face, her hands folded on her dear old bosom, completely and utterly dead and gone on to her reward, the quilt she made tucked sweetly around her.
Yes. That will be me.
In the meantime, it's not. That is not me at all. I'm still alive, still kicking, and still freaking out about every dadgummed thing in the goddam world.
So please, try to be understanding. Try to be compassionate.
And perhaps more importantly- keep those chihuahuas out of here because one might get lost.
And one more thing- OH GOD! I HATE TO THINK OF SOMETHING TO COOK FOR SUPPER!
I think I need a nap. Don't worry. I plan to get up from this one.
Well, it would appear that I am not heading into a new career as a barmaid. Barmatron?
The story goes something like this: A few months ago a fellow approached Mr. Moon about renting part of the plaza to build a pool hall and sports bar. This was exciting news as we needed tenants. However, the fellow never followed up with so much as a phone call so Mr. Moon decided that opening a bar was not a bad idea and that we could do it ourselves. And so he started, as you know, doing the research, tearing out walls, making plans, contacting carpenters and electricians and spending time down at the city getting code information, etc. Full steam ahead, no holds barred.
And then one day the fellow who had first approached Mr. Moon about the idea of a bar showed back up.
"Stole my idea, eh?" he asked Mr. Moon who was covered in white dust and wielding a sledge hammer.
"You never called back," said Mr. Moon.
Well, it turns out that Original Fellow had been doing feasibility studies and so forth while Mr. Moon had taken a look around and made the decision that a bar was feasible and then grabbed his tools and set to work.
But Original Fellow was still interested. Very, very interested. And he had partners. And they wanted to open a bar and well, it looks like we're going to be landlords instead of bar owners, which really, was the original intent of building the plaza.
But they want to hire Mr. Moon to contract the build-out, which is good. I guess they admire his work-ethic.
So. I guess we're on to Plan B.
There's a part of us which is somewhat disappointed. We were sort of excited at the idea of having a family business. But there's also the fact that opening a business like that takes a hell of a lot of work and energy and long hours that stretch into the night and frankly, Mr. Moon and I like to be asleep by eleven p.m. at the latest.
But there's still no contract in place and we've learned through the years that what looks like a sure-thing can dissolve quickly into a surely-not thing so who knows?
And thus, life goes on. I've got another part in another play and this one- well, it's a different sort of play altogether. It's an "interactive murder mystery" which purports to have elements of Hitchcock and The Postman Always Rings Twice in it but which to me sounds more absurd than anything. Instead of playing five characters I'll only be playing one- a psychopathic assassin named Natasha and yes, there is a Boris. Strangely enough, no Rocky or Bullwinkle though. I'm not exactly sure why I'm doing this except that it gets me out of the house, forces me to use my brain, and as I've said so many times before, lets me play. I am not at all good at playing on my own, so being not only allowed but sort of required to play is a good thing for me. Plus I think there may be an opportunity here for a really fun costume and a LOT of make-up. And I'll be walking around for the next few months talking in a fake Russian accent which can only be fun, fun, fun! right?
This weekend we are taking the play we did last month over to Milton to perform there. Click on the picture above to read all about it. I'm the old lady in the pink sweater and if you could see that sweater in a close-up, you'd drive all the way to Milton just to see it in person. I swear! I can't really believe we're going to pull all those costumes out of the closet and put them on again, say those lines again, do that play again.
But we are. Twice.
Which reminds me, I better go through my lines again before rehearsal tonight because baby, I have a mind like a steel sieve.
And that's the news today. No philosophizing or meditating on the higher meaning of spring. No politics, no ranting, no poetry. No metaphors and no point, for that matter. No mention of Jennifer Lopez's ass, no funny blather about kissin' de boys or smokin' de dope.
Just bloggity, blog, blog, as I have come to say and I think that my stop is coming up so let me gather my bags and my coat. Enjoy the rest of your ride.
We'll talk more tomorrow. Perhaps about my new career as an ACTOR in the THEATER!
Pass ze vodka, dahlink, and I will make you ze potato zoup.
