And Please Go Read This. We All Need To Remember What It Says

Thank-you, Elizabeth, for this post and all your others, too.

http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/2009/10/stubborn-gladness.html

Childlike Poetry From A Very Greatful Heart

Mr. Moon brings home the bacon
And the chickens lay the eggs
It's the sort of live I never dreamed
I drink it to the dregs.

I work out in the garden
Which Mr. Moon has tilled
I daily sweep the old pine floors
I keep the bread box filled

The lizards hunt on fields of screen
The spiders spin and wait
The rooster crows, the hawks cry out
Is this truly my joyful fate?

To live beneath these trees so old
To have this yard and house
To have this tribe of kids and grand
To have this loving spouse?

And as a child I didn't know
I couldn't even guess
That all my dreams undreamed by me
Would become this beautiful mess.

I am so far from perfect
And I am so far from sane
But on certain perfect mornings
I am also far from pain

I let the fears and sorrows
The anxieties and anger go
I sit and watch the trees dance
I really truly know

The blessings I've been given
This life, these loves, this place
These friends, these trees this heaven
And I really feel the grace

I really truly cherish
I feel and smell and see
I really truly appreciate
What all I have before me

And it all comes down like raindrops
From the vast bowl of sky above
It all adds up to one thing
I know it all is love.

And no matter what else happens
As age and years pile up
I've had these joys and graces
I've drunk from a silver cup

Of wine more sweet than cherries
Of water more pure than rain
Of love more strong than sorrow
Of love more strong than pain.

I sit and think of all of this
I send my grateful prayer
Out to all the universe
Out to all that's there

All that I will never see
All that I have known
To thank my lucky stars above
For this life, this love, this home.

******************
Sorry folks, sometimes I just gotta make a rhyme.

I'll not be taking my computer with me and I'll be back on Sunday.
See you then.
Happy Friday, y'all.
Love....Ms. Moon

A Celebration Weekend

Apalachicola is one of those places just eat up with charm. I mean EAT UP with it. Old houses both stately and funky, palm trees, a beautiful bay, a gorgeous winding river, great shopping, great eating, fishermen, tourists, artists- hell, it even has its own homosexuals. It could be Key West but thank god it's not.

You can sit down in a bar and have the owner of some company sitting on one side of you wearing madras pants and an oyster-shucker wearing jeans and a ripped T-shirt on the other side.

And that's where Mr. Moon and I are headed tomorrow for our anniversary weekend.

Twenty five years we'll have been married on Sunday and no, I can't believe it either.

This is not going to be one of those sappy posts. I already wrote one of those today.
No, it's just a post about how nice it's going to be to get in a car (maybe the Cutlass!) and drive that beautiful road down to the coast and then crossing a bridge that looks like the back of some prehistoric reptile



which ends right in front of the Gibson. We've booked a room at the Gibson and some of you might look at it and say, "But Ms. Moon, your own house is older than that, and a lot more private and just as charming," and I'd say, "You're right!" but they have restaurants in Apalachicola and one of my favorite shops in the world, River Lily, where I can buy some of my favorite perfume and drool over the jewelry, lamps, clothing and great fun stuff I've never seen anywhere else. There are also antique stores, a fabulous book store, and the best oysters in the world, not to mention a lot on the bay that Mr. Moon and I own and which we hope to build on some day. Plus, someone else will be washing my towels and sheets and you can't beat that with a stick and it certainly doesn't happen here in Lloyd, plus, if a dog shits on the floor, I won't be expected to clean it up.

We've stayed in Aplachicola many times before and I wrote a novel based there and it's just the kind of place that grabs your heart and makes you think, "I could live here," and next thing you know you're calling a realtor and going around looking at houses. It's changed a lot since we first started visiting back in the eighties but not so much that it doesn't still smell like salt and fish and primeval funk. Makes me feel right at home, having grown up by a river in a fishing village. And the people at the Gibson will welcome us with open arms, or at least a friendly smile and we'll sit on the big wide porch and have a drink and watch the traffic, of which there is not much, and we'll walk down to the water and sit on a dock and ask people what they're catching and we'll go out for supper and we'll celebrate twenty-five years of marriage, which in this day and time is pretty remarkable.
We'll toast to each other and the kids and the grandkid and we'll look at each other and say, "How did this happen? Where did the time go?"
And we'll climb the creaky flights of stairs to our room where we'll sleep together under clean sheets and it will be fine and we'll feel at home in the little town where one day we might have a home.

And on Sunday we'll drive home and get out of the car and look around and if I know us, we'll be glad to be home in Lloyd and really, wherever Mr. Moon is, that is my home, and this life- this life of ours- this twenty-five years together of a life is worth celebrating both there and here and we shall do that.

Why Can't Words Say It All?

Lily and Jason came out yesterday with Owen to pick up some grass seed and a few other things and after Jason had gotten everything loaded up, we all sat out back for a few moments. Owen ate some, of course, and then he just hung out on his mama's lap, enjoying being outside. As do most babies, Owen likes to get out and go to different places. He likes to look at light and sky and the way the trees move in the breeze.

He's still at that googly baby stage where everything takes so much concentration to control- eyes, head, hands. But I can tell that every day he is getting better at this thing we call life.



He opens his eyes wide when I talk to him, he seems to like my baby-babbling. Of course I speak in that high-pitched voice which a few years ago some parents disdained using because, well, I don't know. They probably thought that if they didn't use it, their babies would start talking earlier or be smarter or something. It's no accident that we talk to babies in this ridiculous manner- they like it, they pay attention to it, it's part of the process. They know we are talking to them.

It's part of our nature to do this. To adore our babies, to want to hold them, stroke them, nurture and care for them. To keep them warm and comfortable and fed. I think it's funny sometimes that one of the very things we hold up as most sacred and holy- the madonna and her love for her child- is to be found in so many animals, not just human ones.

I think I learned as much about mothering from Jane Goodall's reports and stories about the chimp Flo as from any mothering book concerning humans. Protect the baby, keep her close, feed her when she's hungry, sleep with her. As she gets older, watch her as she explores, let her try new things, teach her how to hunt for termites. When it's time, send her out into the world to live her own life, stay friends, keep her in the tribe. As long as you are able, keep an eye out for her and her own young's safety, help when you can.
And so forth.

Really. That's how simple it is. Of course we humans have so much more to worry about than marauding males from other tribes. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? TV or no TV? Go back to work or live in poverty? This car seat or that one? Solid foods? When? and on and on, our ape-brains having to deal with modern human circumstances and so we go to the internet for answers, and yet, we can still call our mothers for answers. She may go to the internet too, but usually she can say, "Oh, you did the same thing when you were a baby. It's normal."

And so the new mother learns and the grandmother learns too.

When I was taking pictures of Owen yesterday I thought about how, if it were acceptable, I would probably still be obsessively taking pictures of my children, even though they are adults. They walk into a room and my heart still leaps up with such love for them. What very few people tell you is that when you have a baby you fall in love. Romantically with roses and pink hearts and goo-goo eyes and gushy words that come from your mouth and like with a new lover, you want to kiss them all day long.

And guess what? This doesn't go away.

I would aim my camera at Hank and May and Jessie and Lily every moment I was with them if that wasn't so ridiculous because I am still so in love with them.

My child, my child, my child my heart beats. My heart can still barely hold the glory of them, that glory it knew first when I held them first, cradling their still-wet bodies to my chest. And when I see Owen, it brings it all back to me and as I witness the love his parents have for him, I am hurtled back in time to when my babies were that small, that young, and they needed me every minute and I was so gob-struck, god-struck in love that every thing they did made me melt in wonder, in awe and the need to protect them was so fierce that I could have died.

None of that goes away. When there's a storm, I want all my babies around me. I know this isn't logical but what of a parent's love is? I still want to protect them, even as I know I can't. But I look at Owen and I know why I feel this way.

I took this picture and it was, quite obviously, posed for.

And then, right after I took it, I clicked another.


Jason and Lily were already curled back around their baby. Look at the way they look at that baby. Look at the way they are adoring him.

I still look at all my babies like that. And there is part of me which wishes I could still hold them all in my lap, gather them all into my arms. I can't nurse them any more but I want to give them soup to take home, eggs, bread, whatever I have in my cabinets, my refrigerator. "Take it- eat it- let me nourish you." I want to have them here when they are sick or hurt to take care of. I want to protect them from winds and rain and from hurt and disappointment and frustration and all the things that humans have to go through and I can't and it literally hurts me that I can't.

It's so amazing how being a grandmother brings all of this back to the forefront. Like I said in another post, it just adds another layer of love to it all. When I am loving Owen, I am loving his mother, his aunts, his uncle. I am loving his grandfather. I am loving our tribe and in some ways, I am feeling fiercer than I have ever felt in my life.

It all feels right. It all feels like what I was put here on earth to do. And Owen is the ten-pound essence of it all and no wonder I need to touch him, hold him, sing to him, smell him, kiss him as often as I can. He sums up the love-drug of motherhood in his tiny arms, his perfect body, his round, sweet head.

"I'm your grandmama," I tell him when I hold him. "And I love you."
I tell him that over and over again. I sing it to him in silly rhymes. I whisper it into his ear. I kiss it onto his face. I breathe it into his heart where he will know it forever.
He lets me do that because he has no choice.

And I wonder if my children know how much I still want to sing words of love to them. How much I want to stroke them, kiss them, take their pictures.

I doubt it. But I'm telling them today, clumsily, because as we get older, the ways we can show our babies we love them becomes more complicated.
But it doesn't become any less, that love. It doesn't become any less fierce.
Take my word for this.

This is my high-pitched crooning. This is my deep soul loving. This is my holding you in my arms. This is my message to you. You are always my babies. Can I take your picture? Can I kiss your head? Can I hold you close? Can I let you go?

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

And I love you. Always.

Mama

Hang On To Your Uteri, Girls (Or, Things In Round Places)

I had pregnancy dreams last night. The last time this happened, Lily turned up knocked-up. Now I don't think Lily's quite ready to get pregnant again and last time I checked, neither May nor Jessie were engaging in baby-making ceremonies although I am quite aware we do not tell our mothers everything.
And the good lord knows I am not about to get pregnant so who IS IT? Is it you????

I was reminded of the dreams this morning when I saw old Pearl curled up in a small dog's bed. She loves to do this. It makes her feel cozy. I have even found her asleep on Zeke's bed which is more like a little hut than a flat bed but Pearl just lays down on it and smashes it out and snoozes away. Anyway, here she is in the small dog's bed as opposed to the tiny dog's bed:


She has a Pearl-sized bed and Dolly, a small dog, snoozes there:


No. I do not put those pretty ribbons in her hair. The groomer does and they will be gone by tomorrow, I am sure.

Anyway, seeing Pearl in that bed reminded me of the dreams because not only was I pregnant, so was Pearl. Now Pearl has never had sex as far as I know and was spayed at a very early age, plus in dog years, she is far more ancient even than I who, as we all know, is ancient and hoary and filled with wisdom but no functioning eggs.

So despite all of this, Dream Pearl delivered her puppy and at first it was a normal puppy and she bit the string-like umbilical cord but then, as things will happen in Dream World, the puppy turned into a creature which had a head like an adult Lab's head and I said, "Holy fuck! That puppy's head is as big as Pearl's head!"

I was amazed.

And I was walking around with this giant pregnant belly and just waiting for that tipping point which casts you into labor and I liked having the belly. This probably comes from my near-fat experience yesterday and I've spent my entire life being depressed about my fat stomach except for when I was pregnant which were the only times in my life I could walk around without holding in my stomach and it was glorious and I loved my pregnant belly more than I can say. It was my glory, my joy, my round Buddha vessel of life. Ah.

So in the dream I was waiting to go into labor and instead of my usual pregnancy dreams where I think This time I will get an epidural! I thought about Lily and how brave she'd been in labor and I knew I could do it again if I could only begin this process. I searched my body for how things felt and I realized I was guarding against pain by holding my muscles in to keep my belly from dropping down because THAT triggered what could have been a contraction and so I tried to relax and let that contraction-thing happen, even though it was painful.

There were lots of people around and one of them was a woman I used to know in high school and to whom I am still somehow connected through a mutual friend. I know she has been through troubled times recently and in my dream she was beautiful and well and I hoped she would be there for the birth. I took her aside and said, "Sally, if you are here when I'm in labor, please remind me...."
And I can't remember what I told her to remind me of but perhaps it was something like, "Don't be afraid of the pain and don't hold back from letting it happen."
I think that may actually have been it because I think now, as the sun is shining on me and I am coffee-ed and yoga-ed up that this was the message of the dream.

Don't be afraid of the pain. I have to relax into whatever the pain is because through pain there will be new life.

And beyond that, I haven't a fucking clue.

And then there was Pearl, a big dog in a round space and I thought of her having a puppy and me having a grand round belly and the message came back to me and maybe that's all there was to it- inner wisdom being transmitted to my consciousness and it had nothing to do with anyone I know actually getting pregnant.

But just in case- if you don't want to get pregnant, be careful. I'm warning you.

But if you do want to get pregnant- go for it! Attend the baby-making ceremonies with great joy and energy. Relax and give in and surely, one way or another, through pleasure and/or pain, there will be new life.


And that's it for today. Or until I get inspired again.
One never knows here at The Church Of The Batshit Crazy, does one?

And it is the anniversary of May's near-death/rebirth and as I think about it, perhaps that was part of my dream as well.

I love you, May. I love watching you be reborn again and again and again, each time more beautiful, each time more filled with light, each time more sure and strong and true.

My children are my teachers and if I do indeed have any wisdom at all, it is because of them.
And of that I am quite sure.

Denim Girdles And Other Wonders Of Modern Life

That picture has nothing to do with anything. It's one of my tiny begonia blossoms. They are so delicate, so pink. Nothing you could pick and put in a vase. Well, you could but they look so nice on the plant it wouldn't be seemly somehow.

I took it because my back yard is just so beautiful right now. The sun is shining down through the magnolia leaves and the ground is dappled in that light and it's cool but not cold and the chickens are busy pecking around at the corn I gave them and there's a plane overhead, flying somewhere.

I went and peed in the cup. The nurse practitioner was as nice as nice can be. Nothing showed up in the pee that shouldn't be there but the NP said that if I've been drinking a lot of water (and believe me- I have) it can be so dilute that they can't find anything but they're sending it off to be cultured- where? and doesn't that sound like they're going to show my urine artworks and Fellini films or perhaps turn it into yogurt? and yes, I know what it means because I am a NURSE, goddammit, and don't you forget it! even if I try to. And she gave me a 'script for a bactericide of sorts to prohibit the reproduction of the bacteria if they are there and so let's hope things clear up because my lady bits, as delicate as that begonia blossom, I am sure, are important to me. Also my plumbing bits, if you want to know the truth. And who wants bacteria reproducing right there in one's urinary tract? Not me.

So then to further punish myself I went to the MALL and tried on jeans. Fuck that shit. They don't make jeans to fit me and why should they? After having weighed at the doctor's office, I can no longer float down the river of denial, waving my handkerchief to the people on the shore and eating candied dates one second more. I am fat. Well, if not fat, then at least close enough until the real thing walks down the road, as a woman I used to know used to say. I wonder if she still says it. It's a good line.

Okay. Back to jeans. I have decided that if they MUST put spandex in jeans, they should use a mixture of 99.5 % cotton and .5 % spandex because dammit, 1 % spandex makes them feel like leggin's and I don't want to wear leggin's unless I have a dress over them. Know what I'm saying? And get this- they make "slimming" jeans. I tried on a pair. You know what they were? A girdle with legs on them. Made of denim.

Again, I must say- fuck that shit. I'd rather just look fat. What Marquise de Sade came up with that idea? Fuck him.

I did see a shirt that I coveted. It was gray silk and could have been one of the four perfect shirts you get in your lifetime. Can you name yours? I can name mine. Anyway, I didn't even bother to try it on because it cost $168 fucking dollars.
Right. No way.
Gonna have to be some one else's perfect shirt because it sure ain't going to be mine.

I did find Kathleen a birthday present and that made me happy. Not at the mall. It was made by a local artist and that made me even happier. I hope she likes it. She's so generous and loving to me and has pulled me into life when I didn't want to be pulled and I want to tell her how much I appreciate that and love her. Isn't it the hardest thing in the world to buy presents for someone you really care about? You want them to show just how much you love them and appreciate them and really- WHAT can show that? Home made gifts are the best and last year I made her one of my silly Mary boxes and I know I could string her up a necklace of macaroni and she'd claim she loved it but still....

And then I went to a restaurant in the vicinity because OWEN, MY GRANDSON, WAS THERE with his parents who were eating lunch so I stopped in to inhale his head. I swear, I could just SNORT his head. I try. I do. He was asleep but I snorted and inhaled quietly and he didn't wake up. It was bliss.

And I'm trying to shake this ennui, this sadness, this weird bit of unreasonable funk. I have observed that all of us who inhabit this blog world I read, the ones who are members of the batshit crazy, spend a lot of time apologizing for being depressed or blue or crazy when THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING ALL OVER THE WORLD AND WE HAVE IT SO GREAT AND YES!!! THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN WITH NO LEGS! and of course I do that too. Repeatedly.

Well. I apologize for all the poor-me's, the pity party, the overcapitalized letters and also the number of f-words I seemed to have to throw in there. Which reminds me. I never finished telling my jeans story. Here it is:
I didn't buy any.

So I will lose weight and feel better in my old jeans which Jessie pointed out to me today I have had since she was a child but since she was a child yesterday, that means nothing.
And I'm making stuffed peppers for our supper early because I have radio play rehearsal tonight and the chickens gave me five beautiful eggs today. I believe one of my baby chickens is laying now too, because for two days I found an egg not in the nest but on the ground in the hen house and both of the eggs' shells were so thin they were more like skin than shell. I believe she is just figuring this out, whichever one it is and I wish I knew which one.
Probably Elvis who is actually Elmira after all. Damn bird hasn't crowed once or shown any interest in any of the gals so if he IS a boy, he's possibly gay or possibly just very slow growing. I think it's going to end up that I gave away Henry for no reason whatsoever and if that's true, I am going to be PISSED.

And that's what's going on this afternoon.
Perhaps you can relate to the jeans shopping. It was only slightly less agonizing than shopping for a bathing suit and slightly less traumatic than stepping on that scale.

And if you are going through terrible things, truly terrible and seriously bad things, I ask your forgiveness at making such a big deal out of such small and ridiculous anxieties. At least I know I'm being ridiculous. I do.
If I were Catholic I'd confess and say a few rosaries but I'm not so I'll just say I'm sorry, I'm an asshole, I know it, which is sort of my mantra anyway.

But I have hopes for my delicate bits all being healed soon.
And I did it- I faced my fears and peed in a cup and stepped on a scale and no one told me I was dying and I tried on jeans and didn't scream in the dressing room OR cry and there you go- another successful day.

With the added bonus of five eggs, a snort of baby-head, and being able to laugh at my poor, pathetic self.

Signing off from Lloyd and wearing overalls....Ms. Moon

Argggh

I am girding my loins and heading into the doctor to pee in a cup.
That's what I told the woman on the phone after going through the menu ("Listen carefully because our options have changed"). I said, "I think I have a UTI and I need to pee in a cup."
She didn't even hesitate. "How far away are you?"
And then she gave me an appointment and so here I go and it's so damn ridiculous that I have such fear of going to a doctor but I do.
They'll want to weigh me. They'll want to take my blood pressure. Something will alert them to the fact that I am dying.
I just know it.
And that's how batshit crazy I am.

That's a strange picture. I looked outside this evening and the setting sun was lighting up the railroad track in a way I'd never seen before. Now believe me- this may happen every evening or it may not. The trees are dropping leaves and the sun is shifting in its quadrant of our sky and this event may be like the solstice at Chichen Itza for all I know but there it was. And it's not a good picture. But I took it.

I live in a tiny village. There is one flashing light on the corner and if there are two other lights in all of Jefferson County I am surprised, even though it is a large county, stretching from Georgia to the coast. I had a blog-visitor yesterday. A real live one. Angie of A Whole Lot of Nothing stopped by with her family on their way back from Seaside to Orlando. While they were here, they asked me how big Lloyd is. I stretched out my arms and said, "This is it."
They laughed because this ain't much.
It was funny- her family was exactly as I had pictured them, although her two daughters were far more beautiful than I could have imagined. They had the most incredible eyes and I was so happy to show them how to throw the corn to feed the chickens, to pick them up so they could toss some potato vine into the pen next door for the goats to eat.
And here we were- people who had met only online meeting in real life. I wonder what they thought of me and my home. Did they think that it was smaller in real life than it is on the blog? Did they think I was older in real life than I look like on the blog? I have no idea.
But it was a very interesting experience and they were such nice people.

This morning I went to the post office after yoga to find a package from Barnes and Noble. A book, The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson, had been sent to me by someone who reads my blog. Mary, I think, who has no blog site. I've lost the e-mail she sent me, asking for my address but I think that's her. She sent me a book- a real book I can hold in my hands and I can't wait to read it to see why she thinks it is something I would love.
I have been sent other books by people who know me through this blog. And Adrienne sent me three beautiful diaper covers for Owen which she made herself.

And every time this happens- that I get sent something which someone who only knows me through this space on the internet or whom I meet because of it- I am blown away.

Look. I write a blog because I have to communicate but doing that with real, live people is hard for me. And so when someone makes the effort to do something or make a visit which results in real actual molecules of real actual things or hugs, I can just hardly believe it and I am grateful.

The light was shining on the railroad tracks tonight. They were lit up golden as if to say that I could follow them anywhere. The road in front of my house often gives me the same message. And although I am happiest right here, or perhaps down the road a few miles where I can inhale the scent of my grandson's head, can stretch my arms around one of my children, can get to yoga or the Opera House, I need to remember that there are other places.
And I also need to remember that the roads and the tracks can lead this way, too. That people can touch me who have never met me in very real ways.

And I am grateful for that. This blog has turned out to be something that expands my world, even as I sit on this porch.

Thank all of you who comment daily. I feel as if we are family in some way. I thank my children for commenting because they make me feel as if this is not just a dream I am living, but a reality.
I don't think I know how to draw the line between reality and cyber-reality any more. I have been given too much of the real kind of reality to be able to mark that distinction.

And every time it happens, every word I get as comment, every person I meet, every package that comes in the mail reminds me of that.

I live in Lloyd but I could get anywhere in the world from here and the world can come to me, as well.

Think about that. I am.

And it astounds me.

Monday, Monday

Well, it's a Monday.

Mr. Moon did get the heat working. It wasn't a pilot light. We don't know what it was. He hit it with a hammer. It began to work.

My yoga teacher is back and so I will be going to class this morning for the first time in weeks.

My dogs (why is it that every time I go to type "dog" I type "god"? I don't dyslex other words like that) are going to go see Miss Beverly, their groomer woman. This means I have to take them.

And I'm going to town because I haven't seen Owen since Friday and this is not right.

The blender broke when Mr. Moon was trying to make the smoothie at six a.m. I don't think a hammer was involved. I suppose I need to get a new blender. There are smoothie-dregs all over the kitchen.

There is also hunting laundry and assorted laundry all over the laundry room. The Lloyd water system was down last night for awhile and I didn't get to it in a timely manner.

I still can't fit into my jeans. Well, I can but it's not fun.

And such a tiny day of tiny things and I feel completely overwhelmed already although I think Lily and Owen will be going to the library with me and this will be a big thing and I already suggested to Lily that he should get his own library card. I mean, he'll be a month old next Saturday.

I wonder if my medication is working.
And if so- how well?

I hope your Monday is going smoothly. At least I'll get to kiss a baby and you can't beat that.
I will hold that thought in my mind.

Bitchy, Cold, AND Bat Shit Crazy

Why the hell does it have to go from ninety degrees here to forty degrees in a matter of hours? Please. Why?

I turned the heat on last night and it did nothing. Nothing. Mr. Moon called from the hunting camp to say good night and I told him about the heat. He offered the opinion that the pilot light in the unit is not lit and I'm sure he's right. This damn hulking unit which has broken down over and over again is sitting there doing nothing but collecting the leaves of the pecan trees which are falling at a frightening rate. They are the first to drop in the fall and the last to open in the spring and my back yard is covered in about three feet of the leaves. I actually pitchforked them off the back deck yesterday. With a pitchfork.

I didn't sleep well last night because my hand kept going numb and waking me up because I weeded for several hours yesterday and that always fucks my hand up. The only damn good thing about winter as far as I can tell is that when I have a hot flash I can grab one of the dozen or so pillows from underneath the window and hold it to me which feels better than anything on earth but there's nothing I can do for the numb-hand except change position and hope for it to come unnumbed.

And I'm cold. Two days ago when I walked I sweated so much that my hair was soaked. Today I'm shivering. And of course my damn jeans don't fit. Fuck.

Why do things always happen when Mr. Moon is out of town? Not that he knows how to light the pilot light but he could probably figure it out. I would die of freezing before I could figure something like that out. I would just stand there in front of the hulking monster with a box of matches and weep until I died.

Luckily, it's not THAT cold and besides that, I do have these gas log heaters in every one of the five fireplaces in the house. I could get down on my belly in front of one of them and turn the little dial and hold in the little button and wait, wait, wait for the gas to get there and then release the button and pray for the whole thing to work and then do it all again because it didn't.

Yeah. I'm a real pioneer woman, aren't I?

On top of all of this, I feel like I may have a UTI which, as all ladies know, always happens on a Sunday when the doctor is not IN and so I'm drinking water like crazy and taking that cranberry stuff. Maybe it'll disappear.
Dreams can come true, they can happen to you. Or so I've heard.

I think what I'm going to do is to fill up my giant bath tub with hot water and turn on a space heater in the bathroom and soak for awhile. Simmer like my soup last night until I turn rosy and get warm. All summer long the bath tub has been used to throw my not-quite-dirty-enough-to-wash cargo shorts over the side and occasionally to bathe the dogs in. It's time to put it to better use.

And in the bathroom with my ears underwater I won't be able to hear the rattling, skittering skeleton-like noise of the pecan leaves when the wind comes and whips them around. The sound of winter in Lloyd.

And that's the Sunday report from the Church of the Batshit Crazy where it's cold and the heater doesn't work and the chickens, luckily, have their own down jackets and the sun is shining through the naked branches of the pecan trees and I am feeling bitchy and not quite peachy keen.

Dear Lon and Lis

I have been making soup tonight. There is no one here to feed but me so let's face it- cooking is something I do for pleasure.
You gave me some very small sweet potatoes which you had grown and I knew I wanted to use those in my soup. And so I did. Hank had told me that there was a soup mix that you could buy at the store which had beans in and which would be a good base for soup and so I started with that.
Okay. I lied. I did not start with that. I stared with water and vegetable concentrate soup base and celery and onions and garlic (oh- so much garlic) and a jalapeno pepper from the garden and some okra hanging there on the spindly plants as well. I cut up and put in a few green and red bell peppers. Then I peeled and sliced up those tiny, perfect sweet potatoes and added them to the bubbling pot and a few carrots too. I spiced it up with Dale's Seasoning and chili powder from the New Leaf and bay leaves and I let all of that simmer for awhile and then I added the beans from the soup mix and some mustard and collard greens from the garden. When the beans were mostly done, I cut up a piece of deer sausage and threw that in the pot with a can of diced tomatoes and some frozen corn, and oh, it was smelling so good. I wished I could put that smell on the blog the way I can pictures and words. The person who can figure THAT one out is going to make billions.
I had some whole wheat rotini which I also put in there and then I put the lid on and let it simmer.
I really wish you two were here to eat this soup with me. It's chilly here tonight and soup is such a good food to warm the body. It's so easy to eat- everything in one bowl with maybe a piece of bread to go with it. We could share a nip of rum and eat our soup and maybe you would be reminded of how much I love you both.
So many people love you. I like to think that I am the one who loves you who makes you soup and bread.
It's quiet here tonight and I'm sure it's quiet at Gatorbone, too.
Why don't we live next door to each other?
I do not know except that we are all so settled in our places, so in love with our own trees and houses. And yes, grandsons are involved.
But I am going to eat soup tonight which has sweet potatoes in it which you grew in the dirt of Gatorbone and it is going to warm me, body and soul.
Thank-you, for the bass notes to that soup. Thank-you for the gifts you give me.
Thank-you for being Lon and Lis.
I love you.
And you know that.

Ms. Moon

The Hunt

I posted this picture before, I believe, but I'm posting it again. It was taken last Thanksgiving. Mr. Moon had recently gotten that bow and had set up a deer stand and a target in the yard and was practicing. Isn't he beautiful, that man of mine?

Every year when it begins to get cool, Mr. Moon's thoughts turn to the woods and he longs to be there. He yearns to be there, sitting silently in the predawn morning, waiting to hear the chuff of the deer, watching wild turkeys come in, watching the light fill the day beneath the trees, listening, looking, feeling the cold air on his skin.

I, of course, a sometimes vegetarian and a woman who does not want to leave her warm bed for anything before dawn, except perhaps a flight to Cozumel, have a hard time understanding this yearning of his. This need to get up and go into the woods and wait for the right shot. I have no idea what he feels when he hunts but I know it is powerful. I know how I feel at certain times of the year when the air feels just so, the light shines just so, the length of the days is just so. Perhaps what I feel is that I have to get in the dirt and plant or that I want to be in Mexico or that I wish to be by the water. But I'm not certain that I feel anything as strongly as his need to be in the woods, quiet and waiting.

Well. Perhaps the writing. Maybe that is as strong- my need to capture the words.

When the children were young and his need to be in the woods overcame him and he planned a trip to hunt, I was, quite frankly, resentful. He was working ten, twelve hours a day, six days a week and god knows he deserved to allow himself that time. But I was raising four children and had no time at all to get away, and I look back at that now and I realize how hard I was working and I am compassionate to that young woman I was with her resentment. It was not just the time away from us, it was also the fact that he did not choose to spend that time with ME. I couldn't understand it because if I got time to go off without the children, I would want to spend it with HIM.

I didn't understand.

I still don't, really. But as I have gotten older and am more sure of his love in every way, I understand that his need has nothing to do with me at all. It is something very primal in him and so strong that I cannot resent it. I can't begrudge him the time away and I have learned how delicious deer meat is and I have seen over and over again his delight when I cook it well. It makes him love me more.

Last night I had cooked two backstraps, which are the tenderest part of the deer. They are so lean that I have to put a few strips of bacon in there to give them some fat. I could use olive oil and sometimes I do, but I had the bacon, I used it. I put them in the crock pot and I covered them in garlic and onions and potatoes and carrots and I made up a broth of this and that and I covered them up and let them simmer until they were all done and I made a loaf of bread and realized I had forgotten to pick salad until it was already dark and so I just opened a can of green beans- so what? - and it was good. And he was happy and he washed the dishes.

He's already gone this morning to spread the dirt around in Lily's yard where he dug it up to lay the sewer line and this afternoon he's going to come home and get ready to up to Georgia where he hunts sometimes and he's going to spend the night so he can hunt this evening and then again tomorrow morning. It used to be I would have begrudged him that time but now I don't. He's the hardest working man I know or have ever known except perhaps for his own daddy who is the one who took him to the woods when he was a boy and there you have it. When his daddy was growing up, poor as poor can be in Tennessee, they had to have that meat. Hunting was not a sport, it was a way to keep the family alive. And I think that in Mr. Moon's soul, that belief is still there, even if it is not logical (and what is logical about me sitting here on a fall morning, typing this story, these words?) and that every time he takes careful aim and shoots and a deer falls, he feels he's done something as real as real- he has provided meat for his family.

He is respectful of the animal. He doesn't shoot unless he has a clean shot, he humps that beast out of the woods, he and Jason cut it up and package it. And then I cook it and he is satisfied in some very deep way.

Chili Colorado with venison, venison tamales, white bean chili with ground venison, venison meatloaf, simmered venison with vegetables, barbequed venison, venison cube steak with gravy and mashed potatoes, venison sausage for breakfast or in a pot of beans, venison stew, vegetable and venison soup....I take the meat he brings home and I turn it into meals that sustain us, that nurture us. I respect the meat, too.

I am no longer a vegetarian. If I had to kill my own meat, I would be. I know that. And if given the choice of giving up meat for the rest of my life or beans, I would give up the meat. Luckily, I don't have to do those things, make those choices. But it feels so much more correct, so much more honest, to cook and eat the meat that Mr. Moon brings home from the woods. He has taught me so much about life, this man. I have said before and I will say it again- I don't even know if I would still be here if I hadn't met him, he hadn't fallen in love with me, taken my hand and said, "Let's be a family."

And so when he goes this afternoon to Georgia, I will send him off with a kiss and a tupperware container of leftovers from last night's supper that he will eat in the woods and I will stay here and do whatever it is that I do. Write, knit, make my own supper. Perhaps a bean and vegetable soup (it's going to be cold) with deer sausage. I don't mind being alone. I love and need that time.

And I love and need him. It's as simple as that. Some things are not logical in today's world but that doesn't mean they aren't true. We can try to analyze them, we can analyze them to death and not find the truth of the simplicity of our needs and I choose not to do that. I choose to just realize the truth of the matter and love the man who taught me this.

We fall in love. We do not talk ourselves into it. Next Sunday Mr. Moon and I will have been married twenty-five years. I find it fitting that he married me in hunting season. That year, 1984, he hunted me and he slayed me with his love and goodness.
His aim was true.

It still is.

And I Believe In Love

Owen came out to visit today. He brought his mother, just in case he got hungry.
All activity ceased when he got here. There was nothing going on except for him.
One of my favorite things to do is to change his diaper. Lily is using the cloth diapers I gave her which I had leftover from when she and Jessie were babies. I change him and then I talk to him. I tell him stories and blow on his belly and he opens his eyes wide and listens to me. I swear, he does. He opens his mouth and makes little noises as if he is talking to me too. I kiss him and touch him and he is quiet. And then suddenly, he realizes that he is HUNGRY and that is mother is right there and he begins to cry.
I give him to his mama and she nurses him and he sucks, sucks, sucks and falls asleep at her breast and then she hands him over to me. Sometimes he wakes up and when he does, he is so PISSED! Why isn't the tittie in his mouth? WHY!??

Finally he fell deeply asleep and I held him on my chest under a quilt I made for Jessie. It is getting cool here this evening and the temperature was dropping, even as we sat there on the couch.
I swear, when I hold him, the entire world is fine. I am at perfect peace.

I tried to talk Lily into moving in with Jason and Owen. I tried to bribe her with meals and laundry done and so forth. But no, she wants to live in her own home with her own husband, her own baby.

Sigh. I understand completely. And the funny thing is, six years ago she would have done anything not to have to hang out with her mama and now she loves coming out here, loves how much I love her baby.

She has no idea how much I love her. She may have an inkling because she knows how much she loves her son. But I am sure that like me, she is certain that no one on earth ever loved anyone as much as she loves her baby.

And so it goes.

I always told my kids that they would have no idea how much I loved them until they had their own children. And now I am saying that they will have no idea until they are grandparents.

Maybe what God is, is the greatest grandparent of all. And we have no idea. Because as much as we think we know about love, there is always another level of loving.

But what do I know? Not much. I just know that when I hold Owen, I know a little bit more than I ever did before.

It's getting cold tonight. Bundle up. Love each other. That's what it's all about.
Or as least as far as I know.

Sweet dreams. Stay warm. Believe in love.

Wildflowers

And who knew the blooming in fall
could be
Such a startlingly glorious thing?

When Did Things Get So Messed Up?

For those of you interested in all-things-birth, go read this article by Christiane Northrup:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/c-section-or-natural-birt_b_323422.html

She says exactly what I think about birth in America.

The Beauty Of The Blog

Is that even when words are scarce, there are pictures.

I took these this morning.
First. Begonias. I don't know why but I am fascinated with begonias. I don't know a damn thing about them except that they grow well in my yard, they come in all shapes and sizes and they have beautiful blossoms.



I am most proud of that large one there. I started it from one leaf. If you click on the picture, you can find a post that will include a little thing about it when it was still a baby.

The volunteer marigolds in the garden have exploded:


So have the pinecone lillies in the office yard:



The firespike plant is blooming everywhere. The humming birds love it.


The chickens want their fruit tray, their pastries, their worms (I made Billy help me gather worms yesterday for the chickens. He was so sweet to do that and the chickens were ever so happy).


And random other pictures. Just things I like:




And now it's time for me to step off the property, go for a walk and see what's blooming in the woods and on the road. Fall is a glorious explosion of yellow and purple blossoms here in North Florida. As if all of summer's growing suddenly blooms, quick, quick! before winter can bite it all down with its sharp tooth.

Happy Friday, y'all.
Love....Ms. Moon

The Pretender

When I go out in the garden in the evening when the setting sun is painting the sky with streaky gold and blue and pink and pick the mustards and bring them in and wash them two times (because mustards will grab the sand and black dirt of Lloyd- believe me) and set them to dry on a white cloth and prepare the skillet with bacon and onion, I feel a connection with women who have lived here for one hundred and fifty years.
I planted these greens with my own two hands, tiny baby seeds, round as Owen's head, and I think of the bible verse about if you have faith as big as a mustard seed...
I have faith that my seeds will sprout and so they do and they grow up through the black sandy dirt and I pick them, pinching the stems between thumb and forefinger and put them in a bag and bring them into the house where I wash them.


I get the same feeling when I gather the eggs and feed my hens. I am doing something which is real. I am going out into my own tiny world and bringing back protein and bringing in folic acid and bringing in vitamins and minerals sprung up right here where I live.
I read articles about people who have "vowed" to live on food gathered no more than 125 miles from their homes and what sacrifices they will make and what they will have to do to make this vow a reality and I think about how one-hundred and fifty years ago, the people had no choice in the matter. Grow it and raise it, tend it and feed it, gather it and butcher it or die.

And then I think I want bees for the sugar and I want goats for the chev and I want pigs for the smoke house and I think how grateful I am for the venison, the grouper, the snapper, the bream.

And then I think about the mustard greens and I am happy to start there and also with the two fried eggs that Billy cooked on my stove for his lunch.

I am doing the best I can with this dirt, this house, this home. I swear I am. Doing the best I can and I know I can do better. I am sure I can. And this is MY astonishment. This is my wonder and task.

Links To Enlightenment, Or At Least Some Good Instructions

Sssh, sssh, ssssh. There, there. It'll be all right.

That is what I would tell my soul if I could this morning.
I think that forgetting to take my antidepressant until bedtime is not a good idea. I had dreams...oh, I had dreams. The kind that take me a good long while to shake because for one thing, they were powerful, for another, they were so complex and full of personal insights (and none of them good, believe me) that I have to go back and keep picking them apart like a scab on a blooded knee from where I fell on the gravel driveway of the school yard.

Sssh, sssh, sssh. Everything's all right. It's all okay.

Some days, I am just so weary. I slept too late because I was so weary. And I am not weary in the body. I haven't walked in over a week (my foot, Owen, Gatorbone, life) and I am suffering from that not-body weariness and that alone is probably wearing out my soul. It's all a vicious cycle of more weariness leading to even more and despair leading to deep despair and more weariness and I think I dreamed about everyone I've ever known, like a virtual dreamland Sergeant Pepper's album cover.

So now I have to go take a walk and the chicken coop MUST be mucked out and Billy is coming out (Billy is coming out!) and this yard- oh, this yard it needs help and so does the garden. And the day is half over.

Listen- if you have any interest in writing (and what blog-writer doesn't?) I advise you to go here:
http://melcarroll.blogspot.com/ and read what Annie Dilliard says about writing. It's long. Print it out and read it at your leisure.
What caught me most were these lines:

There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

And then, as if the universe had a purpose, Adrienne sent me a link this morning that rounds that thought out- it's not just the writing about something that only you find fascinating, it is the doing, too, which makes each and every one of us unique and as I see it, a tiny part of whatever it is I call God, functioning here on earth, rounding out and creating the universe, each of us, one tiny word at a time, one tiny stitch at a time and if that's true, maybe there's a reason I'm here and that's what I'm trying to believe this morning. Trying to keep those thoughts in my mind to fight my way out of the silly brown paper bag I've wrapped myself in somehow in my sleep, somehow in my life. Those are the thoughts I am using to sssh my silly mind.

Warning: Cursing Is Involved

When I woke up this morning and was getting my coffee, I heard the most mournful sound I think I've ever heard. I went to the back door to see what I was hearing. It was a woman in a red dress, walking down the misty road calling out, "Buddy! Buddy!" But she was doing it so that the Bud syllable was a G on the piano, the dy syllable a G flat. I went and found the notes. It was so minor in key, so mournful in tune. She was walking swiftly, crying out for her lost dog, I suppose. The same word, the same notes, over and over again.

While I was at Gatorbone, I was in constant awe at how well-behaved and lovely Lis and Lon's dogs Buck and Daisy are. Buck and Daisy are both black labs and they are huge and gentle and loving and they can be in the same room as a wedding cake for twenty-four hours and not even think about eating it.

My dogs can't be trusted to be in the same room alone with the salads on the table for two minutes. Setting the table in my house takes two people- one to set it and bring out the food, the other to keep the dogs from eating the food while the table is being set.

I was praising Buck and Daisy to Lon and Lis and then I said, "No. I do not even want to discuss how great your dogs are. I can't handle it." And I can't. And my dogs act the way they do because I have not trained them to be different. They are spoiled and rotten and I've already cleaned up one poop and three pees today. I think Buck and Daisy would explode before they peed or pooped in the house.

See that tiny dog up there doing a perfect yoga pose? He weighs about what? Six pounds? And yet, he can get under our bed at night and scratch and the entire bed moves as if he was the size of a Great Dane. How can this be? And he jumps off the bed and then he whines to be lifted back up onto it and then he jumps off and scratches some more. I think I got about four hours of sleep last night and he was 90% of the problem. This happens nightly and WHY do we let him sleep with us? Because I have no baby to sleep with, I suppose, and when he gets chilly and snorgles under the covers and cuddles up to the backs of my knees I love it.

When Mr. Moon is out of town, the other dogs know it and they also know that I will let them sleep with me. Pearl doesn't care so much to sleep with me unless it's raining, although Kathleen said that Pearl slept with her for part of the night when she was staying here. But dogs love Kathleen. No. They worship her. My dogs wouldn't bat an eye if she replaced us in their home. When I got back from being gone for three days they were slightly excited. Like maybe someone had returned a piece of furniture they like to sit on. They get a lot more excited when Kathleen comes over and when Mr. Moon gets home. All I am to them is the woman who feeds them, takes them to the groomer, cleans up their pee and poop.

I call them all sorts of names. Motherfucker is part of most of these names. Cocksucking motherfucker is a favorite endearment of mine which I use frequently to refer to them. This could explain their ambivalence towards me. Perhaps. Do you think?

I am constantly trying to figure out how to get rid of one or all of them. Except for Pearl. Time is taking care of that on its own and she is old and sweet. But the rest of them. Damn those little cocksucking motherfuckers and their peeing and pooping and bed shaking and food-snatching souls.

And yet, if one got out and disappeared, I know I would be walking down the road, calling for him. "Zekie," I would call. G, G flat. I would be panicked, I would be freaked, I would be so scared. I know because this has happened. The last time it happened, I found him next door, snuffling around in the church yard parking lot. "Oh Zeke!" I said and I scooped him up in my arms and I wasn't thinking about how he pees on every vertical thing in this house and I wasn't thinking about how he tortures me at night. I was only thinking about how he feels, snuggled up to me under the covers when it's chilly. I was only thinking that he was my baby and he had been lost and now he was found.

Fucking cocksucking motherfucking dogs. They take our hearts and then gnaw on them as chew toys and then pee on our shoes and they don't even lay eggs.

God, I hope that woman found her dog. Her lost-song broke my heart as she walked in her red dress, fearing to find her pet dead on the side of the road, praying to see him alive, her Buddy, her friend, her cocksucking motherfucking dog.

Mostly Owen

Today I went into town to Lily's and Owen had just fallen asleep at her breast. "Can I hold him?" I asked. She let me. It felt so good to get my hands back on him, to hold him to me again. I cried.

Jessie was there too, that beautiful girl. Mean Aunt Jessie. She's so mean. Let me tell you how mean she is. She's so mean that she'd throw her own body in front of a truck to protect that boy. I know she would. But she is trying so hard to be mean. "Are all babies' penises that small?" she asked Lily.

And then both girls ganged up and were mean to me.
"Why are you always crying?" they asked. "Stop it!"

So I did and we went to see Uncle Hank at his office and give him some eggs. That Uncle Hank loves his Owen boy.



We used Hank's boss' office (Thanks, Denise!) for Lily to nurse Owen in because of course he was hungry after a ten minute drive.


Lily is knocking me out with the way she's taking care of her son with so much love and grace. Isn't she beautiful?

And then Owen needed a diaper change.


He really liked Denise's pencils. He was fascinated by them.

Jessie and I were fascinated by Denise's miniature beach. I've never seen one of these. Have you?


Why are miniature things so much fun? Miniature beaches, miniature donkeys, miniature humans.

It was a lovely day with Lily and Jessie and Owen and Hank. Well, except where I opened the car door and dinged the car next to us. Shit. That wasn't lovely. I had to leave a note. Now Mr. Moon has to deal with it. Like he doesn't have enough to deal with. Sigh. He's such a good husband.

I wish May could have come along with us today. I think she was working. Work, bah! I miss her.

I went to the Opera House this evening for auditions for the radio plays we're about to be doing. If you want to know what THAT's all about, go here. I wasn't auditioning. Kathleen and I ARE the Miller Sisters- the Foley artists- and that is THAT. We get to play with all the toys and make all the sounds effects. We get to do TWO avalanches this year! TWO! Hoo-boy.

So things are about to get busy here. Grandson, radio plays, garden, chickens, Mr. Moon. And there's another wedding we're attending in November. And then Thanksgiving and then- oh dread, oh damn, oh shit, oh fuck- Christmas.

Well. Anyway. There's always the possibility of that comet hitting the earth before Christmas.
But if it doesn't, it'll be fun to see what Mean Aunt Jessie gives Owen as a gift. Will it be a box of coal? A baby penis extender? (Seriously, I think Owen's penis is quite large for a young man of his age.) His very own pit bull?

Stay tuned. The fun never ends here in Lloyd.

The Never Ending Story

You know what? -As my friend Sue-Sue always used to say, as if asking permission to speak- I am tired of dreaming about my stepfather. One would think, that after forty-something years of healing and recovery (hahaha!) I would stop being haunted by him.

I've dreamed of him several times in the past few days. Once, when I was at Gatorbone, he came into my dreams and I got witnesses to his foulness and I called the police.
Last night, I dreamed he walked into a room where I was and he was wearing a beige suit coat (I do not like beige. I always say life is too short for beige) and someone said, "Oh, you look nice in that suit," and I wanted to kill them both.
If you're new to this world of mine and you have the desire to know who my stepfather is, go click on that subject label childhood sexual abuse. You'll discover more than you want to know, I'm sure.
I can figure out the dream I had at Gatorbone. I'm still trying to make him accountable for his deeds and sometimes in my dreams, I confront him and scream at him and sometimes I've even hit him.
But what was the deal with the beige suit coat? The compliment? Was that my mother, always trying to bring to my attention how lucky we were to have this man in our lives? Handsome, tall, smart, willing to take on the responsibility of two step-children?
I don't know.
All I know is that I wish that by now I was done with all of this and yet, I doubt I ever will be. Not entirely.
And if he only haunted my dreams it would be okay, but I know in my heart that what happened to me as a child affects me to this day in more ways than I even realize and in many ways that I do realize and I hate that. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
I have peeled away so many layers of this onion and yet, there are always more, it would seem. I have been peeling away since I was a child, trying to get to the heart of what is me and what is the me which was created when that man came into my life and changed me into someone I wish I had never become.
I think I fear more because of him, I do not trust goodness unless it is proven beyond a doubt, I feel safest when alone, which isolates me, and I do not trust my own instincts, my own love for others.
Because I loved him.
And he said he loved me.
And then...he damaged me.

Mr. Moon has been the stalwart and faithful soul who has stood by me, suffering for the sins of that man and there have been times when he was so weary of suffering for the sins of another that I am sure he contemplated leaving. How could he have not?
But in staying, in giving his love, he has given me the space and the place to do more healing than I ever could have imagined.
Having my babies the way I did and loving them the way I did gave me back my body in ways that I never would have been able to reclaim it as mine, to learn to respect it, to realize its power, its ability to give life.
I had a counselor who was not afraid to hold me and cry with me and she did more for me than she will ever know.
I've had friends who have listened to my stories and nodded and held me and let me go on in my ranting, my tears.
I've been given this life that provides me all the space and time one could want to peel away more and more layers as I become aware of them, as I have strength to do.

And yet, here he comes back into my dreams and that makes me so sad. Because I have made so many wrong choices because of what happened to me in his home. I have spent so many years trying to shed those layers, trying to get back to the me I would have been, could have been.

I recognize and respect the fact that I am who I am with some strengths and some awarenesses I never would have had if I had not gone through that. I have more compassion, I have more sensitivity. I know that.

But you know what?- as Sue-Sue would have said- I would gladly have given all of that up not to have been abused. I would gladly not be as compassionate, as sensitive if I never had to dream of him again.

I'm tired of having to defend myself over and over and over in that dream world. I visualize that whole story as a pebble in my brain that the waves of my psyche bump up against, even now, and I wish it had been worn away by the years and years of the tides of my emotions, my actions, my reading, my writing, my receiving counseling, the love in my life, my life itself.
And I keep thinking there must be something I can do to let it all go, to finally dissolve that rough place, to prevent him from showing up, unannounced and most definitely unwelcome, a dream reminder that his influence seems eternally upon me, and that I will never get to the last layer of the onion, no matter what.