Good Lord. Feedly is out, being hacked and held and ransom demanded.
Are you shitting me?
Do we live in the craziest times or what?
Oh maybe not. I think of the Crusades. Oh wait. People are still being killed in the name of one god or another all over the world. Plus- hackers. So maybe yes. Craziest times ever.
Things are moving apace here in Lloyd this morning. I spent a few incredible hours reading Elizabeth's book last night, having my mind blown. I mean, I knew it was going to be good, I just had no idea how good. Look- I'm not a book reviewer. I'm just someone who has read about a million books and this one is amazing. Everyone who comes here knows Elizabeth but you have not heard her story like this. Not to mention that as a writer she blows my doors off.
Buy it. Read it.
Speaking of publications, I went to the post office this morning on the way home from my walk and in our box was a beautiful magazine which I'd never seen before. It is called "Lei: Hawai'i For The LGBT Traveler."
Link to a lovely little video here.
Now, you know, I'm not LGBT or Q (how did they forget the Q?) but many of my friends and some of my family are and okay, I can maybe see how they'd get me on their mailing list. But here's the thing- it's addressed to MR. Moon! And the only other magazine he gets is "Florida Fisherman" or something like that.
Ah, the mysteries of life.
So. In continued chicken news, Drogo either had sex or tried to have sex with Eggy Tina last night. With chickens it is hard to tell. I must say that Eggy Tina was not receptive to the idea and ran screaming towards the woods.
But my babies are growing up!
Sniff...
And also, ever since he started crowing (or trying to crow, to be more accurate) Drogo has been sleeping alone. All eight of the young hens and all five of the old hens and Elvis go to roost in the hen house at night and Drogo goes into the old shelter in the coop where the young'uns used to roost.
I think Elvis may have had a talk with him that went something like this:
Son, you are not allowed to sleep with my hens. I, on the other hand, can sleep with ALL the hens. Either your hens sleep with you somewhere other than the henhouse or you, my scrawny pretender to the throne, can sleep alone. And since I am big and strong and old and wise and wily I feel certain that your hens will choose to sleep with me. We don't even have to mention the fact that I am the handsomest rooster in the county. And if you don't like this, I will murder you in your sleep.
So poor Drogo sleeps huddled and crouched on the bag of chicken food in a tiny shelter, all alone, and I just heard his most successful attempt at a crow so far and I'll keep you informed as things develop. Can you imagine how excited I'm going to be when the hens start laying eggs? I'll probably have to get a pace-maker installed.
I think I am so content to be excited about the very, very small things of my world because I can't deal with things like yet another school shooting or the open-carry gun laws in Texas, or George Will's speculations on why women might report sexual assault. I just can't. I have decided that saying one is a Republican quite literally translates to saying that one is a homophobic, non-compassionate, bigoted, jingoistic, paranoid nut-job who would rather believe in myths and hand-picked rules and regulations from a religious tome, parts of which were written over 1500 years ago, than science.
Should I tell you how I really feel?
Well, that's just me.
And I can't deal with all that shit anymore. I'd rather deal with chicken shit which is what I need to do right now. And why is it that I would rather clean out a poopy henhouse than mop the floors of my house? I do not know. Another mystery of life.
There are so many. I stand in wonder.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
A Birthday And A Chicken Video
Thirty-eight years ago, about right now, I decided that after twenty-eight hours of labor at home that I probably needed to go to the hospital. My midwives were exhausted, my husband was exhausted, I was...well. You can imagine.
The trip to the hospital was exactly what I needed because it got me up and moving and by the time we'd checked in, I was pushing whole-heartedly, squatting on the floor while the nurse was laughing at me saying, "You better get up in this bed or you're going to have that baby on the floor!"
And I was quite okay with that.
I would have been completely joyful to have that baby anywhere in this world or any other. It did not matter to me.
But they got me up on the bed and Hank was born and we went home a few hours later and that was how I became a mama.
Long story short, so to say.
And here we are and my baby is definitely grown up and I am still a mama, always will be. These days I mostly mama my grandsons and my chickens and now a cat but my own-I-gave-birth-to-babies are still my babies and although it is completely different to be the mother of a thirty-eight year old than it is to be the mother of a newborn, some things never change and those things are the way I feel about those babies, as tender and protective and possessive and absolutely filled with the wonder of it all, as completely and eternally shocked at how much I love them, as I was when I first cradled them to me.
Just as with birth, it's all a messy, complicated, sometimes painful, often humorous thing, always bigger than I could ever have imagined- this being a mother to adult children. Plus, you can tell each other dirty jokes and drink beer together.
All right. Here's a little video I took this morning of my chicken-babies.
Elvis trying to make babies.
And I guess the bottom line is, that's what it's all about whether we are humans or birds or cats or tomatoes. We are here to make more of ourselves and/or to make the best of ourselves and it would not surprise me to know that even the oak tree, as it releases its acorns, feels a thrill of love and a tingle of pleasure.
Happy Birthday, Hank. Thanks for making me a mother.
Love...Mama
The trip to the hospital was exactly what I needed because it got me up and moving and by the time we'd checked in, I was pushing whole-heartedly, squatting on the floor while the nurse was laughing at me saying, "You better get up in this bed or you're going to have that baby on the floor!"
And I was quite okay with that.
I would have been completely joyful to have that baby anywhere in this world or any other. It did not matter to me.
But they got me up on the bed and Hank was born and we went home a few hours later and that was how I became a mama.
Long story short, so to say.
And here we are and my baby is definitely grown up and I am still a mama, always will be. These days I mostly mama my grandsons and my chickens and now a cat but my own-I-gave-birth-to-babies are still my babies and although it is completely different to be the mother of a thirty-eight year old than it is to be the mother of a newborn, some things never change and those things are the way I feel about those babies, as tender and protective and possessive and absolutely filled with the wonder of it all, as completely and eternally shocked at how much I love them, as I was when I first cradled them to me.
Just as with birth, it's all a messy, complicated, sometimes painful, often humorous thing, always bigger than I could ever have imagined- this being a mother to adult children. Plus, you can tell each other dirty jokes and drink beer together.
All right. Here's a little video I took this morning of my chicken-babies.
Elvis trying to make babies.
And I guess the bottom line is, that's what it's all about whether we are humans or birds or cats or tomatoes. We are here to make more of ourselves and/or to make the best of ourselves and it would not surprise me to know that even the oak tree, as it releases its acorns, feels a thrill of love and a tingle of pleasure.
Happy Birthday, Hank. Thanks for making me a mother.
Love...Mama
Monday, June 9, 2014
I'm tired. I'm so tired I don't have the energy to go feed the chickens their evening grapes. Or to make up a title for this mess.
Just...tired.
Plenty tired enough to be the mother of a thirty-eight year old.
But it's okay. The boys were so good. Gibson is afraid to walk and that's fine. He crawls some but mostly he wants to be picked up and carried and he is pretty good about staying in one place doing one project for awhile. He painted and he colored and he played cocktail mermaids and monkeys in a bowl of water and we read books and we pretended to sleep and we sat on the porch swing and sang Eensy Weensy Spider quite a few times and I swung him in the swing on the play set for awhile. Owen did all of those things too and other things- big boy things. He went and checked eggs for me all by himself. He went out and found the young chickens out in the wooded border between our house and next door. He played on the tower on the play set and swept it too.
He told me today that someday he wants to stay with me and Boppy for four weeks. I told him that maybe when we have a house in Apalachicola that he can come and stay with us there for long visits.
"But I'm going to live right next to you when you live there," he reminded me.
"Oh. Right. But when you're still a boy, not a man," I said.
He also asked me today if when he has children, if I'll take care of them the way I take care of him and Gibson now. I told him that if I was still strong enough I would try and that he better have nice kids who are easy to take care of.
Later on we discussed that again and he said, "If you not dead then, Mer," and he was so matter-of-fact about it that it just charmed me to pieces.
"Yes," I said. "If I'm not dead."
He better get on the stick with finding a wife, the way I'm feeling tonight.
Just...tired.
Plenty tired enough to be the mother of a thirty-eight year old.
But it's okay. The boys were so good. Gibson is afraid to walk and that's fine. He crawls some but mostly he wants to be picked up and carried and he is pretty good about staying in one place doing one project for awhile. He painted and he colored and he played cocktail mermaids and monkeys in a bowl of water and we read books and we pretended to sleep and we sat on the porch swing and sang Eensy Weensy Spider quite a few times and I swung him in the swing on the play set for awhile. Owen did all of those things too and other things- big boy things. He went and checked eggs for me all by himself. He went out and found the young chickens out in the wooded border between our house and next door. He played on the tower on the play set and swept it too.
He told me today that someday he wants to stay with me and Boppy for four weeks. I told him that maybe when we have a house in Apalachicola that he can come and stay with us there for long visits.
"But I'm going to live right next to you when you live there," he reminded me.
"Oh. Right. But when you're still a boy, not a man," I said.
He also asked me today if when he has children, if I'll take care of them the way I take care of him and Gibson now. I told him that if I was still strong enough I would try and that he better have nice kids who are easy to take care of.
Later on we discussed that again and he said, "If you not dead then, Mer," and he was so matter-of-fact about it that it just charmed me to pieces.
"Yes," I said. "If I'm not dead."
He better get on the stick with finding a wife, the way I'm feeling tonight.
Same As It Ever Was Only No, Not Really. Not Ever
It was foggy this morning when I got up and I hear that Lily and Jason are without power because a water oak threw its limb and disconnected the power line from the house and why anyone ever lets a water oak grow in their yard is beyond me and we have at least two that need to come out, come down. This one is going to take out not just our electricity when it falls but the electricity of half the people in the county as well, and we've talked to the power company and they say, "Well, let us know when it happens."
And we will.
But all the trees are standing this morning and all the chickens are alive and I found them all in the coop this morning, both flocks, instead of the younger ones being huddled up against the door, waiting for me to free them from the confines of sharing space with Elvis and his sister-wives. AND (do I know my chickens or what?) Drogo attempted a crow this morning. It was rather pathetic but very loud, only one note- a giant, air-splitting WHOOO! and then a shocked silence from all of the chickens and then one more WHOOO! and Maurice and I looked at each other and it was awesome.
I need to get to the store before the boys get here as we are out of bananas and Celexa and my pharmacy is at Publix and we can live without bananas but I am not sure I can live without Celexa.
Ah, Monday morning and time to get back into the groove of the week, not a rut, life changes too much and too constantly for there to be a rut, at least not when you view life on the micro-level which I most certainly do and the air smells of magnolia blossoms now and who knows? Perhaps Lily and Jason and Owen and Gibson will be moving in with us for a few days while repairs are being made and that could be fun and definitely out of the ordinary for us here in this little world we call Lloyd.
The fog has cleared now, the young rooster has greeted the day, the big, feral one-eyed orange cat is in the yard, I need to buy bananas and Celexa and cat food because all of the cats in the world eat at my house and chickens eat cat food too and thirty-eight years ago right now I was already in labor with Hank whose birthday is tomorrow and how in hell can this be? Thirty-eight years?
Well. It is and that is a fact, Jack.
Good morning.
Love...Ms. Moon
Sunday, June 8, 2014
A Sunday Of Leisure And Lightening
We had talked about going out on the river today to celebrate Hank's birthday in the traditional way but the weather looked iffy and the boat motor is still not-quite-tested and Gibson can't go in the water with his cast and Taylor couldn't come so we decided to give it a rain check.
But, Mr. Moon and I thought maybe we'd just sneak out of Lloyd and drag the boat down to the St. Mark's and put in and maybe take the boat out into the Gulf and anchor on the sandbar and pretend we were in Mexico so we put on our bathing suits and packed up some towels and water and beer and drove down to the coast and put in and the Gulf was bumpy as shit.
"Kinda rough!" I yelled at Mr. Moon after about half an hour of up and downdedness.
"Yep!" he said, his Viking smile intact.
"And I'm kinda not enjoying it!" I yelled back.
He turned around and we headed back to the river which was beautiful, as always.
But, Mr. Moon and I thought maybe we'd just sneak out of Lloyd and drag the boat down to the St. Mark's and put in and maybe take the boat out into the Gulf and anchor on the sandbar and pretend we were in Mexico so we put on our bathing suits and packed up some towels and water and beer and drove down to the coast and put in and the Gulf was bumpy as shit.
"Kinda rough!" I yelled at Mr. Moon after about half an hour of up and downdedness.
"Yep!" he said, his Viking smile intact.
"And I'm kinda not enjoying it!" I yelled back.
He turned around and we headed back to the river which was beautiful, as always.
But then we noticed that the sky was getting sort of really scary looking and so we turned around to head back to the boat ramp. It got darker and more ominous and lightening started forking and the breeze turned into a cool wind and thunder rumbled.
We got to the dock just as it started to pour and the wind was whipping and tying up would have been impossible without some sweet guy who took the line we tossed him.
We lived. But I'll tell you this- while we were sitting in the truck, waiting for it all to pass enough to get the boat on the trailer, Mr. Moon and I both saw a split of lightening that looked like a lit match. Where it hit the ground it was bright red orange with its silver tail of the devil above it.
It was glorious.
We drove on home to find that it had rained in Lloyd and Mr. Moon put the boat up and I greeted Maurice who greeted me.
I went out and fed the chickens some grapes. Drogo is definitely old enough to start crowing. And yet- not a crow out of him. I am convinced that he is afraid to crow due to Elvis and that means that at least he's smart.
Even if he does have crazy eyes. He's as long and skinny as a boy going into the eleventh grade who grew four inches over the summer. And probably as pumped full of testosterone. I haven't seen him covering a hen yet but it will happen. And I haven't seen Elvis atop one of the young hens but again, I feel certain that too will happen. I wonder how this is all going to shake out. All these hormones and comely hens. It's going to be Club Med for Chickens around here before you know it.
It's drizzling a bit and not too hot and cozy as can be here on my back porch. I checked out the fig tree which has gotten relatively enormous.
And it's full of figs.
Maybe. Just maybe I'll be able to make a pint or two of fig preserves this year. Don't hold your breath. We have hundreds of greedy squirrels and busy, hungry birds.
It's been a good day in North Florida.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Love...Ms. Moon
Sunday But Not A Sermon. Sort Of Not.
Sunday morning so it smells of bacon and pancakes around this joint, a green frog is croaking from somewhere right here on the porch and it's getting steamy already.
There is no longer any debate in the late afternoon about whether or not to turn on the air conditioner and it's probably ridiculous for me to ever shut it off but I can't stand the house closed up, doors not opened to the front and back porches, kitchen door open, screened door closed so that I can talk to the chickens when they come up to ask for grapes or whatever else I might have handy that I would want to share with them.
Maurice is lounging beside my laptop, one side crammed against it, the other barely touching my coffee cup. She looks up at me and asks that perpetual and eternal cat question, "Meow?" which in this case probably means, "Bacon?"
What am I doing today? I've already read most of the paper and it just makes me feel mean and itchy down in the bones. Such insanity going on in this world and it is ever thus. Humanity makes one step forward and takes three steps back, I swear. If I were the aliens who perpetuated this mess I'd just bomb the whole planet but perhaps we amuse them. Perhaps they sit up there watching us on whatever version of iMax theaters they have and laugh their little gray-green asses off at us as we preach and pray and fuck up our planet and worry about same-sex marriage and struggle and sometimes get it right (perhaps they even wipe a little tear away from their ocular orbits when they view those heartrending videos of cats saving children from mean dogs) and perhaps they're contemplating bringing back the dinosaurs just because they can and wouldn't THAT be awesome?
And still, Family Circus persists and probably will forever and ever, amen and god damn, those children need to grow the fuck up already.
I'm not really feeling bitchy. I am just expressing bitchy thoughts.
Here's a few more re: Facebook:
I am not and never will be a character from a TV show, a book, or a movie and I could not be less interested in who you think you are. I do not give a shit what color my aura is. I am not a famous painter nor do I want to know which one I resemble the most. When presented with one of those word graph things wherein words are hidden, I always see the word "fuck" first. This goes without saying. I don't really give a shit when people make picky grammatical errors. And to those who do let me just say- Get a life. I also don't believe that making natural bug traps can eliminate the need for Deet. Not around here, anyway. I don't believe that posting pictures of either brave soldiers or memes about saving the planet do one damn thing for anyone. Nor do I have to take a quiz to find out if my soul is hippie, punk or goth, which is the latest quiz I see posted on that horrible time-suck, life-wasting website and you may reasonably ask why I even ever read Facebook and I will answer with these words:
Interspecies friendship videos.
Show me a video of the loving relationship between a dog and a baboon and I will lose my mind.
Also, I don't mind seeing pictures of your kids if you don't post fifty thousand of them a day.
Sometimes I am vaguely interested in what you may be having for breakfast though.
And of course, one MUST keep up with Keith Richards on Facebook.
Speaking of which, we have had our pancakes (apple, flax, cinnamon, blueberry, pecan) and our bacon too. Mr. Moon is going to go fuss around with his boat in the garage which means he needs some Deet because the yellow flies are hell. I am feeling incredibly languid and may just sit here within arm's reach of my cat doing the crossword and watching the birds and the chickens and the way the light is falling on the backyard in puddles of silver. I have been thinking a lot about our cultural obsession with always being busy and productive and fuck that shit. Who's going to do all the crap around here when I die?
No one, that's who.
And guess what? It won't matter.
So how's your Sunday going?
There is no longer any debate in the late afternoon about whether or not to turn on the air conditioner and it's probably ridiculous for me to ever shut it off but I can't stand the house closed up, doors not opened to the front and back porches, kitchen door open, screened door closed so that I can talk to the chickens when they come up to ask for grapes or whatever else I might have handy that I would want to share with them.
Maurice is lounging beside my laptop, one side crammed against it, the other barely touching my coffee cup. She looks up at me and asks that perpetual and eternal cat question, "Meow?" which in this case probably means, "Bacon?"
What am I doing today? I've already read most of the paper and it just makes me feel mean and itchy down in the bones. Such insanity going on in this world and it is ever thus. Humanity makes one step forward and takes three steps back, I swear. If I were the aliens who perpetuated this mess I'd just bomb the whole planet but perhaps we amuse them. Perhaps they sit up there watching us on whatever version of iMax theaters they have and laugh their little gray-green asses off at us as we preach and pray and fuck up our planet and worry about same-sex marriage and struggle and sometimes get it right (perhaps they even wipe a little tear away from their ocular orbits when they view those heartrending videos of cats saving children from mean dogs) and perhaps they're contemplating bringing back the dinosaurs just because they can and wouldn't THAT be awesome?
And still, Family Circus persists and probably will forever and ever, amen and god damn, those children need to grow the fuck up already.
I'm not really feeling bitchy. I am just expressing bitchy thoughts.
Here's a few more re: Facebook:
I am not and never will be a character from a TV show, a book, or a movie and I could not be less interested in who you think you are. I do not give a shit what color my aura is. I am not a famous painter nor do I want to know which one I resemble the most. When presented with one of those word graph things wherein words are hidden, I always see the word "fuck" first. This goes without saying. I don't really give a shit when people make picky grammatical errors. And to those who do let me just say- Get a life. I also don't believe that making natural bug traps can eliminate the need for Deet. Not around here, anyway. I don't believe that posting pictures of either brave soldiers or memes about saving the planet do one damn thing for anyone. Nor do I have to take a quiz to find out if my soul is hippie, punk or goth, which is the latest quiz I see posted on that horrible time-suck, life-wasting website and you may reasonably ask why I even ever read Facebook and I will answer with these words:
Interspecies friendship videos.
Show me a video of the loving relationship between a dog and a baboon and I will lose my mind.
Also, I don't mind seeing pictures of your kids if you don't post fifty thousand of them a day.
Sometimes I am vaguely interested in what you may be having for breakfast though.
And of course, one MUST keep up with Keith Richards on Facebook.
Speaking of which, we have had our pancakes (apple, flax, cinnamon, blueberry, pecan) and our bacon too. Mr. Moon is going to go fuss around with his boat in the garage which means he needs some Deet because the yellow flies are hell. I am feeling incredibly languid and may just sit here within arm's reach of my cat doing the crossword and watching the birds and the chickens and the way the light is falling on the backyard in puddles of silver. I have been thinking a lot about our cultural obsession with always being busy and productive and fuck that shit. Who's going to do all the crap around here when I die?
No one, that's who.
And guess what? It won't matter.
So how's your Sunday going?
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Perhaps This Is Mostly About Mothers
The Golden Orb spiders (aka Banana Spiders) which hatched from the eggs laid by their mamas last fall have grown into gettin'-big mamas themselves and at least five have taken up residence on the swing porch, one right where the biggest one was last year, her web stretched from swing to ceiling. That's her up there. Right now she is about the size of a silver dollar, legs included.
In other words, still tiny.
But definitely identifiable.
I am looking forward to showing them to the boys who watched with me last year as their progenitors grew and grew and grew and laid eggs and then left.
"'Pider gone," Gibson said last winter, every time we'd go out to the porch.
'Pider back now. Or at least her daughter.
It has been a lovely day of not much beyond the small things. Sheets are clean, bread is in the oven, a little of the garden has been weeded, green beans picked, spiders noted and welcomed.
The best part of today was watching Elizabeth via live-stream from The Epilepsy Pipeline Conference. It will be archived and available to watch if you did not get to see it. The link is HERE.
I can't tell you how excited I was to watch this. Of course I feel as if I know Elizabeth so well through her words and her pictures but how would it be to watch her as she actually spoke and moved? How would she present herself? Her powerful story?
She was wonderful.
Here's a text I sent to Mr. Moon about it. He was excited for her too. I tell him about her, he feels as if he too knows Sophie and Oliver and Henry. He feels as if he too is somehow connected to her and to them.
God. I was so proud of Elizabeth. There were doctors and experts, PhD's, speaking before her and I listened as they talked about medications for epilepsy, for "rescue medications" for seizures, had their charts and graphs with results of studies about efficacy, side effects, how best to control side effects, dosages, routes of administration of these medications. They spoke of hope in new pharmaceutical developments but it sounded a lot like same-ol', same-ol' to me.
The man who spoke before Elizabeth, did speak of CBD and he was very positive about it. Spoke of the receptors we have in our brains for CBD which means that our own bodies make these substances, how CBD may work to help control seizures and how it seems to have no dangerous side effects that we know of.
And then Elizabeth got up and spoke about Sophie and how it was when she was diagnosed and how it's been for her for nineteen years until last December when she first started taking the Charlotte's Web, how please, we need to stop calling it a miracle because it hasn't just dropped out of the sky but is the result of years and years of the hard, hard work of development and testing and growing and the bravery of parents who have taken the situation into their own hands and given their children what is proving to be...well. Fuck. I have to say it. A miracle.
Elizabeth was beautiful and powerful. She sounded experienced and wise and educated and informed and she sounded loving, like a mother, and compassionate, as only someone who has been there can be. She expressed some anger that there isn't more research and study going on. That doctors keep calling things like Sophie's story "anecdotal," cite the placebo effect.
She was on a panel after her speech and a guy asked the panel if they didn't think that all this attention about CBD was taking attention away from "The Big Picture" of treatment for epilepsy. How people with one-year old children were moving to Colorado because they had given up hope in the medical establishment for treating their babies.
Elizabeth calmly answered that in hindsight, yes, she definitely would have tried CBD on Sophie at the age of one had it been available and if the treatment doesn't work, you would simply stop using it and what in the world is the downside of that?
Is it wiser to start with drugs whose side effects are not only powerful but dangerous? To go from them to brain surgery? And then, all hope being lost, to then try CBD? These are my thoughts, not necessarily Elizabeth's, but that's what I was thinking as the man asked his question.
Well. I think Elizabeth's words were powerful and I think that she is making a difference. She is one of the ones doing the hard work and she always has been. I could not admire her more.
Mr. Moon is home now, no new-old car in tow. Ah well. He is home and safe and that's what I care about.
I am watching the chickens strut across the yard for their final scratch-and-feed before bed. It is thundering off in the distance. The bread is baking. The house smells wonderful. A train goes by. Life is happening everywhere and babies are being born and people are taking their last breaths and seeds planted last week are breaking dirt with their first baby leaves and waves are reaching shore and retreating back again eternally, and Elizabeth gave hope today to who-knows-how-many parents, maybe speeded up the whole process of more people who could be helped being able to get that help. Which is, to my mind, something as real and true as the seeds, the waves, birth and death.
That's it from Lloyd tonight.
All love...Ms. Moon
Heart Threads
On this quiet cool holy morning of green here in Lloyd, I am thinking most lovingly of Denise on the west coast, who, yesterday afternoon midwifed her love into safe passage through that portal of light and darkness from which we come when we are born and through which we return when we die.
I am hoping that she is being as tender and gentle with herself as we would be with her, as that man who loved her was.
I am thinking of Elizabeth, also on the west coast, getting ready to speak at a conference on her experiences with CBD which she has been using to treat her daughter Sophie's seizures.
I am thinking about how this strange little world of magical (to me) communication has brought these people to my life and I to theirs. A plane drones overhead, Elvis crows, squirrels chatter, birds sing. My husband is on his way down to Orlando to possibly buy a vehicle to take to Dog Island to transport us from dock to house with all of our stuff. This day lies before me with nothing that must be done, this sweet gentle day and I think of how we are all connected, wherever in this world we are, whether we know each other or not, and connected as well to all of those who have been here before us and who have gone on and those who are not here yet but surely, one day will be.
Each of us with heart-stories, with true lives, with stardust in our bones with seawater in our veins.
Peace.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Another Theory
Lily and the boys and I ate at Moe's today after we went to the museum. Lily and I were starving, it was almost two o'clock and my smoothie had long since disappeared.
Moe's is a, well, what is it?
A sort-of Mexicanish place. A chain. You order your burrito or salad or nachos and go down the line and tell them if you want chicken or steak or tofu and either pinto or black beans, grilled onions, peppers, tomatoes, all the way up to jalapenos and cilantro and guacamole.
I got a Joey, Jr. which is a "small" burrito with chicken and pinto beans and spicy guac and jalapenos and tomatoes and cilantro. I got my choices of salsa at the salsa bar and we all started to eat and this is what I realized:
American food has no flavor.
It just doesn't.
Compared to what I was eating in Mexico this food tasted like wallpaper paste.
And I kept eating it because somewhere inside my head there was a voice that said, "If you keep eating, eventually you will taste something like food."
And you know what? That's why Americans are so fucking fat.
Well, one of the reasons, at least.
The only damn thing in that meal that had any flavor at all was the chips and their flavor was fat and salt. But it was flavor!
Our junk food is so packed with sugar and salt and fat that we can actually taste it which is one of the many reasons we eat it.
Cozumel is a small island and everything that you find there has to be shipped in by huge container boats that look like this:
And yet, no matter where you eat on the island, whether upscale restaurant which caters to tourists and American ex-pats or sidewalk hole-in-the-walls or beach bar on the side of the island which has no electricity, you're going to get food that tastes of...food.
The flavors are strong and real. The meat doesn't taste as if it came out of a factory but something that actually lived and ate and pooped on the ground it was raised on, the seafood tastes like it came out of a salty ocean, not from a fish-farm somewhere in Thailand. The tortillas are made wherever you're eating them and the chips you get with all of your meals are made from those very tortillas. The pico de gallo you get with those chips came from the kitchen staff's hands that morning, not a jar. And the tomatoes and peppers it's made from are probably not GMO and they probably don't look as good as the ones we buy in the store which are flavorless and have the texture of something that is not actually food-like. I noticed that the egg yolks of my breakfast eggs were as yellow gold as my own chicken's eggs. The guacamole is not a green slimy paste but merely chunked up avocados mixed with a few chopped tomatoes and garlic and lime juice.
Remember when I said that the lime soup Mr. Moon and I were eating when we talked to the cruise ship guy who told us about eating three entire lobster dinners aboard the ship, probably had more flavor in one spoonful than all of those lobster dinners combined?
It's the fucking truth. And that bowl of lime soup was as satisfying to the tongue and to the body as anything you would need. When we ate those fried shrimp tortas at the little lunch counter that day, I could hardly finish one and it was not the gargantuan size that one would be served here which I could probably have eaten entirely and still felt vaguely unsatisfied, even if my belly felt as if I had swallowed a brick.
And sure, my food in Mexico came flavored with peppers and I put more peppers on them but the other spices on the food were not overwhelmed. There was cheese, yes, but I didn't have to eat a pound of it to taste anything but the oil it was made from. I think of my Huevos Veracruz which I loved so much for breakfast, a plate full of refried black beans (which I am sure were made right there) full of flavor and fiber, two eggs overtop, over-easy with a bit of cheese melted on them. I would ladle the pico on it, a little macha sauce, and spend twenty minutes, enjoying every bite which would hold me through most of the rest of the day. The fruit plates I would get, always different depending on which fruits were available and ripest. Some days there was mango, some days there was not. Cantaloupes and watermelon, pineapple. Every bite delicious and full of juice and flavor.
No, the pork was not as tender as American pork but it was a thousand times more flavorful. Same with the beef, the chicken. These were animals who used their muscles instead of being caged up in spaces so small that they never could, fed growth hormones and who-knows-what to bulk and fatten them up in the shortest time. And no, they did not have as much fat on them and yes, they were incredibly delicious. Every bite, EVERY BITE, registered as food. Which meant that we didn't have to eat nearly as much of it.
We walked through the mercado, the old market downtown, and saw pieces of animal, hanging from hooks, bins of fishes, their eyes as clear as glass, fruit piled with brown spots on it, looking as if it had been plucked from trees, not grown in greenhouses.
And here's another thing- I ate peppers that burnt the crap out of every part of my digestive system when I was there. I drank molasses-brown rum like it was going extinct, I had lime and garlic and tomatoes as my main vegetable, fried chips twice a day, and I had absolutely no heartburn.
Here I am, home in American and eating pretty healthy, as you know I try to do, and yet, I've had heartburn every day. Except for the day I ate the ceviche with that I made myself with peppers and lime juice and tomatoes and onions and garlic. Raw shrimp and scallops, "cooked" in lime juice.
We are not eating food which our bodies recognize as such here. That's all there is to it.
And even if we grow our own, catch our own, hunt our own, we have to fill in with that which is available.
It's something to think about.
I've made a spaghetti sauce tonight with organic grass-fed beef, onions, squash and peppers from the garden, garlic, and olives, canned tomatoes and a jar of spaghetti sauce. I will make a salad with greens and cucumber. I think it will be good. I have basil from the garden to chop up into the sauce right before I serve it. I am hoping that my mind and tongue know it is food and tell me when I have eaten enough of it.
And I am thinking that we have gotten things truly screwed up here.
But that I will do my best with what is available.
I may be working in the garden tomorrow.
Love....Ms. Moon
Moe's is a, well, what is it?
A sort-of Mexicanish place. A chain. You order your burrito or salad or nachos and go down the line and tell them if you want chicken or steak or tofu and either pinto or black beans, grilled onions, peppers, tomatoes, all the way up to jalapenos and cilantro and guacamole.
I got a Joey, Jr. which is a "small" burrito with chicken and pinto beans and spicy guac and jalapenos and tomatoes and cilantro. I got my choices of salsa at the salsa bar and we all started to eat and this is what I realized:
American food has no flavor.
It just doesn't.
Compared to what I was eating in Mexico this food tasted like wallpaper paste.
And I kept eating it because somewhere inside my head there was a voice that said, "If you keep eating, eventually you will taste something like food."
And you know what? That's why Americans are so fucking fat.
Well, one of the reasons, at least.
The only damn thing in that meal that had any flavor at all was the chips and their flavor was fat and salt. But it was flavor!
Our junk food is so packed with sugar and salt and fat that we can actually taste it which is one of the many reasons we eat it.
Cozumel is a small island and everything that you find there has to be shipped in by huge container boats that look like this:
And yet, no matter where you eat on the island, whether upscale restaurant which caters to tourists and American ex-pats or sidewalk hole-in-the-walls or beach bar on the side of the island which has no electricity, you're going to get food that tastes of...food.
The flavors are strong and real. The meat doesn't taste as if it came out of a factory but something that actually lived and ate and pooped on the ground it was raised on, the seafood tastes like it came out of a salty ocean, not from a fish-farm somewhere in Thailand. The tortillas are made wherever you're eating them and the chips you get with all of your meals are made from those very tortillas. The pico de gallo you get with those chips came from the kitchen staff's hands that morning, not a jar. And the tomatoes and peppers it's made from are probably not GMO and they probably don't look as good as the ones we buy in the store which are flavorless and have the texture of something that is not actually food-like. I noticed that the egg yolks of my breakfast eggs were as yellow gold as my own chicken's eggs. The guacamole is not a green slimy paste but merely chunked up avocados mixed with a few chopped tomatoes and garlic and lime juice.
Remember when I said that the lime soup Mr. Moon and I were eating when we talked to the cruise ship guy who told us about eating three entire lobster dinners aboard the ship, probably had more flavor in one spoonful than all of those lobster dinners combined?
It's the fucking truth. And that bowl of lime soup was as satisfying to the tongue and to the body as anything you would need. When we ate those fried shrimp tortas at the little lunch counter that day, I could hardly finish one and it was not the gargantuan size that one would be served here which I could probably have eaten entirely and still felt vaguely unsatisfied, even if my belly felt as if I had swallowed a brick.
And sure, my food in Mexico came flavored with peppers and I put more peppers on them but the other spices on the food were not overwhelmed. There was cheese, yes, but I didn't have to eat a pound of it to taste anything but the oil it was made from. I think of my Huevos Veracruz which I loved so much for breakfast, a plate full of refried black beans (which I am sure were made right there) full of flavor and fiber, two eggs overtop, over-easy with a bit of cheese melted on them. I would ladle the pico on it, a little macha sauce, and spend twenty minutes, enjoying every bite which would hold me through most of the rest of the day. The fruit plates I would get, always different depending on which fruits were available and ripest. Some days there was mango, some days there was not. Cantaloupes and watermelon, pineapple. Every bite delicious and full of juice and flavor.
No, the pork was not as tender as American pork but it was a thousand times more flavorful. Same with the beef, the chicken. These were animals who used their muscles instead of being caged up in spaces so small that they never could, fed growth hormones and who-knows-what to bulk and fatten them up in the shortest time. And no, they did not have as much fat on them and yes, they were incredibly delicious. Every bite, EVERY BITE, registered as food. Which meant that we didn't have to eat nearly as much of it.
We walked through the mercado, the old market downtown, and saw pieces of animal, hanging from hooks, bins of fishes, their eyes as clear as glass, fruit piled with brown spots on it, looking as if it had been plucked from trees, not grown in greenhouses.
And here's another thing- I ate peppers that burnt the crap out of every part of my digestive system when I was there. I drank molasses-brown rum like it was going extinct, I had lime and garlic and tomatoes as my main vegetable, fried chips twice a day, and I had absolutely no heartburn.
Here I am, home in American and eating pretty healthy, as you know I try to do, and yet, I've had heartburn every day. Except for the day I ate the ceviche with that I made myself with peppers and lime juice and tomatoes and onions and garlic. Raw shrimp and scallops, "cooked" in lime juice.
We are not eating food which our bodies recognize as such here. That's all there is to it.
And even if we grow our own, catch our own, hunt our own, we have to fill in with that which is available.
It's something to think about.
I've made a spaghetti sauce tonight with organic grass-fed beef, onions, squash and peppers from the garden, garlic, and olives, canned tomatoes and a jar of spaghetti sauce. I will make a salad with greens and cucumber. I think it will be good. I have basil from the garden to chop up into the sauce right before I serve it. I am hoping that my mind and tongue know it is food and tell me when I have eaten enough of it.
And I am thinking that we have gotten things truly screwed up here.
But that I will do my best with what is available.
I may be working in the garden tomorrow.
Love....Ms. Moon
Paul Newman's Eyes, The Bones Of The Mastodon
Feeling dreamy this morning and I dreamed of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward last night probably because of two things: scallops and cat food. My camera didn't work, it had water in it, so I didn't get a picture of those pretty blue eyes, as blue as scallop eyes, of the man whose name is now on spaghetti sauce, cookies, and cat food.
"All profits go too charity."
Pretty simple philosophy and Maurice does like his pates for kitties.
Speaking of which, she is well. Very well, constantly hungry, being a cat, lounging about, always on alert even with her eyes closed.
Now she has gone to check out the birds on the feeder.
Oh, Maurice.
I think I am going to do something with these boys and their mama today.
I ordered a cast cover for Gibson last night so that he can more easily bathe and perhaps even get in the pool. We shall see. I don't know what we're going to do together but something to get Gibson out of the house and it's hard because it's so hot and buggy outside and the mall is just boring and stupid and we don't have an aquarium. Maybe the museum. We can push him around in the stroller and gaze up at the mastodon skeleton, pretend to pilot the riverboat.
But first a walk, make my way out of this dreamy land I'm in, struggle softly through it like a newmade moth from the silk curtains of the cocoon.
Good morning.
Happy Friday.
Love...Ms. Moon
"All profits go too charity."
Pretty simple philosophy and Maurice does like his pates for kitties.
Speaking of which, she is well. Very well, constantly hungry, being a cat, lounging about, always on alert even with her eyes closed.
Oh, Maurice.
I think I am going to do something with these boys and their mama today.
But first a walk, make my way out of this dreamy land I'm in, struggle softly through it like a newmade moth from the silk curtains of the cocoon.
Good morning.
Happy Friday.
Love...Ms. Moon
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Thoughts From A Butt-Lazy Woman On A Hot Lazy Day
I can't give you the recipe for hippie apple cake because there isn't one. I'm sorry. I just make it up every time. The one I made this week also had sweet potatoes and prunes in it. And a lot of spices. And buttermilk.
I was listening to Beggars Banquet in the car yesterday and it made me think about how, when a woman turns sixty, a woman who still self-identifies as a hippie, it might be a powerful thing to go out into the fields to see if the cow gods would give her a mushroom to eat and to eat it, to then listen to music. A lot and a lot and a lot of music. And to contemplate what turning sixty means.
I just like that picture. It was taken in Tel Aviv last night.
I love the internet. "It was taken in Tel Aviv last night."
Buying long-handled kitchen tongs was about the best thing I've done in forever. They save me getting out the step stool about 50% of the time. I can reach the oatmeal with them. And other stuff.
If you mix olive oil and a little sesame oil and some toasted sesame seeds and some balsamic vinegar and a mashed garlic clove and some Tamari together- you got a damn fine salad dressing. Especially if cucumbers are involved in your salad.
To rid your shower floor of absolutely the most stubborn staining and mildew, apply a generous coating of toilet bowl cleaner with bleach. Let it sit for a good long while. Don't even think about scrubbing it. Wash it all away. I am not kidding you. Some one should pay me for discovering this.
The number one reason I could never become a raw vegan is because I love to cook food too much. It is part alchemy, part art, part instinct, and a large pleasure for me. Plus, you can't eat beans raw. I suppose you could but they would taste terrible and probably make you really sick and break your teeth.
BIG CHICKEN NEWS! For some unknown, mysterious reason, all of the young chickens went to roost tonight in the henhouse with all of the big chickens for the very first time instead of going into the small shelter in the coop. I would give good money to know which of them decided to convince the others to do this. And how. Chickens...they never cease to delight me, amuse me, and pique my curiosity.
Maurice may really and truly have an invisibility cloak. Tonight as Mr. Moon and I were sitting at the coffee table in the Glen Den watching Pawn Stars (yes, this is our life) as we ate our dinner, we suddenly realized that she was sitting behind us on the couch and we had both seen her leave the room a few minutes before. This means that she walked back in the door, somehow crossed the floor right in front of us and jumped up on the couch with neither one of us seeing her.
I mean, we were watching Pawn Stars, not Game of Thrones.
Yesterday Owen wanted to take a bath so I let him, of course. He's four and a half years old and I feel I can leave him in a few inches of water for a minute or two at a time now but during the course of about fifteen minutes I probably checked on him eight times at least. I walked in the bathroom once to see him on his belly with his face underwater.
"Owen!" I yelled.
He raised up his hands a little and stuck both thumbs in the air.
God, I wish I had a picture of that. That cute little butt, the back of his head, those two thumbs reassuring me that all was well. He was practicing opening his eyes under water.
Every time I put raisins in cake batter, I think about The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew.
Did you ever read those books? Does anyone ever name a child Phronsie anymore? If not, why? What a beautiful name.
Every time I put raisins in cake batter, I think about The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew.
Did you ever read those books? Does anyone ever name a child Phronsie anymore? If not, why? What a beautiful name.
"Stray Cat Blues" might be one of the most wonderful nasty songs ever written.
If you need to get a little primal juice flowing, here you go.
God, I love the internet.
What's your favorite wonderful nasty song?
Any thoughts you feel the need to share? The floor is open for discussion.
Love...Ms. Moon
Loving Hard
Oh my glory. Last night was...well, one of our parties.
May brought me those flowers and I've never seen more beautiful. I swooned as I cut their ends and put them in the vase.
"Having you wasn't THAT hard," I told her.
I was overwhelmed.
It was a good cast of characters. Hank and Anna and Taylor and May and Michael and Lily and Jason and Owen and Gibson.
This is what Gibson's cast looks like.
It goes all the way up to his diaper. And he's handling it so beautifully. It's just his new reality but he broke my heart, shattered it, when he came in last night. His daddy set him down on the floor and Owen rushed up to see his brother (they had been separated all afternoon) and Gibson said in his husky little man voice, "Look Owen! It okay now! I walk!"
And then he slipped and almost fell and we all reached for him but it made him cry and he didn't want to try to walk any more after that although we put thick rubber bands around the foot to make it non-slip. But he had a good time being passed from person to person and playing Wii games with Daddy and Boppy and Owen.
The doctor told Lily to let him do whatever he wanted to do and could do within the confines of the cast and I'm sure he'll be getting around fine in a day or two but still- it's hard to see. No more swimming, no running around and it'll be hot and itchy. They're going to take it off in a week, do another X-ray, see what's what. I am just hoping that it heals miraculously fast.
I set up the ceviche in the kitchen with chips and diced avocados and the macha sauce I made with plain old crushed red peppers and everyone went crazy. It was delicious and when it was time to eat the okra and tomatoes and corn bread, we were already mostly full but we managed to eat some of those too. Between the supper and the cake-time, Mr. Moon set up the telescope outside and showed Owen the moon and he came in to get me so that I could look too. It was so awesome. Owen helped me put the chickens up in the dark, he helped me count them, make sure they were all safe. He is growing up so fast. Here he is, doing his now traditional job of putting the candles on the cake.
Which yes, was getting a bit slidey in the heat. Oh well. It ate beautifully. His daddy and I even let him help light the candles with a big kitchen match. No one got burned.
And wishes were made and candles blown out.
I wonder how many times in my life we have done this as a family. And it's always good. Always.
My beautiful May. My beautiful children. I can't wait until Jessie and Vergil move back and we will all truly be together for these celebrations.
Owen and Gibson helped unwrap presents.
There was approval.
And Owen got so tired that he started saying, "Can we leave?" and people packed up leftovers and dishes were washed and kisses and hugs given and the telescope put away and people left and the house was quiet again and we were so tired.
A long day. A good day, even with a broken leg involved and I know that Gibson is going to be fine but it doesn't mean that my heart is not sore that his mobility has become so much lessened. His spirit has certainly not been. He liked it that we all signed his cast with markers and he seems a bit mystified that we're all so concerned about him. As Taylor said on Facebook, "That baby is so cool and nonchalant about that cast." He seems to be in no pain at all. And that is the best.
"Whose birthday is next?" Owen asked me when we went out to look at the moon.
"Hank's," I told him. "Then your daddy's."
"And then who?"
"Boppy's and then mine. And then yours and your mama's."
It is the season of birthdays, it is another season of our lives. Whatever happens, we have each other to love and be loved by, to celebrate with, to hold on to, to hold up, to catch if we slip, to tend if we fall.
I think that's why we're here. Here's what Tearful said yesterday:
I hope you are feeling happy and blessed, I hope you are loved real hard by everyone around you, I hope you love them back even harder we are going to be dead for a long fucking time.
Exactly.
Loving you...Ms. Moon
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Dang
Well, little dude has a proximal fracture of the tibia. Non-displaced. And yet, he looked like this at the radiology place.
He and Lily are at the orthopedic clinic now and we'll see how they decide to treat it.
And Owen is here with me and when he just asked me if I could blow bubbles for him while I was typing and I said no, I could not, he said, "I think you're over-reacting."
Does he know me or not?
So. Gibson has a broken leg and by the way- it was NOT a kid cart he was in at Trader Joe's but the regular-sized cart and Owen, who is used to clinging on to the side of the cart at Publix and Costco where the carts are bigger and sturdier, had no idea that if he tried to do that on TJ cart it would flip over. So- head's up- don't let your child try to catch a ride on the side of the cart while you're shopping for edamame hummus and Two Buck Chuck. Actually, Lily was looking at watermelons when it happened.
Sigh...
When This Turns Into That
A beautiful morning here in Lloyd and I've already been to take the trash and go by the Post Office and pick up more trash (coupon books for places I'll never shop) and Maurice is fine, seemingly already back to her normal self although she was all over us last night to the point where Mr. Moon got up at five and put her out of the room. After feeding her.
The boys were supposed to come over at 9:30 but yesterday at Trader Joe's, Gibson had an accident in one of the kid carts when Owen flipped it over (entirely by accident) and caught his leg weird and he hasn't wanted to put weight on his ankle ever since and is grumpy and not himself and so Lily has to take him in to see if he's got a fracture or something. There's no swelling or bruising but he will not, can not seemingly walk on it. Poor baby. And Lily called me when it happened and I advised her to watch and wait because- well, that seemed prudent at the time. She iced the ankle and gave him children's Advil and did everything right and now she feels guilty because she didn't take him to the doctor right away and I feel guilty because I didn't tell her to take him in right away. And why, why, do we always rush to blame ourselves for things we really shouldn't?
I do not know. But we do.
So all morning, ever since I've gotten up I've felt rushed and panicky because tonight is May's little birthday dinner and hey- it's not a big deal and I've made a beautiful big bowl of ceviche of shrimps and scallops and tomatoes and onions and garlic and lime juice and peppers and salt and cilantro. It is a thing of wonder and glory. And the cake is done and essentially looks as if I constructed it with Lincoln Logs, all caramel icing and pecans but I think it will be delicious so I don't have that much to do today, really, just the black-eyed peas and okra and tomatoes that May actually asked for. And I need to go get those started because Lily just called and she's taking Gibson in to the doctor at ten and they're going to send him to get X-rays, I'm sure and Owen's going to be devastated that he didn't get to come out here today so I might go pick him up and bring him back out so Lily doesn't have to shlep him around to various medical offices, depending on what and where and why and how and so forth.
This is life. The plans we make morph into the reality of the various situations and really, all we can do is hang on and take a left when we thought we were going to take a right because no matter how safely we buckle our babies in, things happen we could not have foreseen and there you go.
Maurice is trying to cuddle me as I type and I need to get busy here and I am grateful for this blessed cool morning and fourteen living chickens and children to celebrate and children and grandchildren to celebrate with and we bunglemungle on, dealing with the real life events as they arise. As I told the guy in Publix yesterday who was trying to help me find the dried peppers to make the macha sauce who finally checked to find that they do not carry them, "Well, life will go on."
And so it shall.
Spicy and sweet, savory and sour. Hard as the floor of a grocery store when the cart tips over and gravity reaches up to slam you down, soft as the fur of an orange cat who seeks out your company.
Good morning from Lloyd.
May we be malleable and open to that which inevitably occurs and try not to feel guilty about that over which we truly have no control.
Love...Ms. Moon
The boys were supposed to come over at 9:30 but yesterday at Trader Joe's, Gibson had an accident in one of the kid carts when Owen flipped it over (entirely by accident) and caught his leg weird and he hasn't wanted to put weight on his ankle ever since and is grumpy and not himself and so Lily has to take him in to see if he's got a fracture or something. There's no swelling or bruising but he will not, can not seemingly walk on it. Poor baby. And Lily called me when it happened and I advised her to watch and wait because- well, that seemed prudent at the time. She iced the ankle and gave him children's Advil and did everything right and now she feels guilty because she didn't take him to the doctor right away and I feel guilty because I didn't tell her to take him in right away. And why, why, do we always rush to blame ourselves for things we really shouldn't?
I do not know. But we do.
So all morning, ever since I've gotten up I've felt rushed and panicky because tonight is May's little birthday dinner and hey- it's not a big deal and I've made a beautiful big bowl of ceviche of shrimps and scallops and tomatoes and onions and garlic and lime juice and peppers and salt and cilantro. It is a thing of wonder and glory. And the cake is done and essentially looks as if I constructed it with Lincoln Logs, all caramel icing and pecans but I think it will be delicious so I don't have that much to do today, really, just the black-eyed peas and okra and tomatoes that May actually asked for. And I need to go get those started because Lily just called and she's taking Gibson in to the doctor at ten and they're going to send him to get X-rays, I'm sure and Owen's going to be devastated that he didn't get to come out here today so I might go pick him up and bring him back out so Lily doesn't have to shlep him around to various medical offices, depending on what and where and why and how and so forth.
This is life. The plans we make morph into the reality of the various situations and really, all we can do is hang on and take a left when we thought we were going to take a right because no matter how safely we buckle our babies in, things happen we could not have foreseen and there you go.
Maurice is trying to cuddle me as I type and I need to get busy here and I am grateful for this blessed cool morning and fourteen living chickens and children to celebrate and children and grandchildren to celebrate with and we bunglemungle on, dealing with the real life events as they arise. As I told the guy in Publix yesterday who was trying to help me find the dried peppers to make the macha sauce who finally checked to find that they do not carry them, "Well, life will go on."
And so it shall.
Spicy and sweet, savory and sour. Hard as the floor of a grocery store when the cart tips over and gravity reaches up to slam you down, soft as the fur of an orange cat who seeks out your company.
Good morning from Lloyd.
May we be malleable and open to that which inevitably occurs and try not to feel guilty about that over which we truly have no control.
Love...Ms. Moon
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Update
Because I know you care.
Maurice is eating. All she wants to do is run outside but I'm keeping her in and quiet. I took a good walk. My troubles sort of poured off me with the sweat.
Tomorrow night we are going to have a little belated birthday for May and I'm going to get some of the cooking and baking done today because the boys are coming tomorrow and I am actually excited about the prospect of chopping and mixing and stirring.
I am going to make Macha Sauce and maybe even...ceviche.
Golly. Am I homesick for Mexico or what? I had to laugh the other night when Mr. Moon asked me if we had any chips and salsa.
But I'm not kidding you. I wish I had some right now.
And May wants an apple cake with caramel icing.
I do love making my hippie apple cake- a dessert which delighted so many stoned hippies back in the munchy days. And delicious even if you're not stoned.
And guess what? I canceled my dentist appointment. I feel guilty and blissful at the same time.
I believe I am calling off the cliff-jumping event for now. But let's all still feel free to hold hands which, as Mel pointed out, is always a good idea.
Maurice is eating. All she wants to do is run outside but I'm keeping her in and quiet. I took a good walk. My troubles sort of poured off me with the sweat.
Tomorrow night we are going to have a little belated birthday for May and I'm going to get some of the cooking and baking done today because the boys are coming tomorrow and I am actually excited about the prospect of chopping and mixing and stirring.
I am going to make Macha Sauce and maybe even...ceviche.
Golly. Am I homesick for Mexico or what? I had to laugh the other night when Mr. Moon asked me if we had any chips and salsa.
But I'm not kidding you. I wish I had some right now.
And May wants an apple cake with caramel icing.
I do love making my hippie apple cake- a dessert which delighted so many stoned hippies back in the munchy days. And delicious even if you're not stoned.
And guess what? I canceled my dentist appointment. I feel guilty and blissful at the same time.
I believe I am calling off the cliff-jumping event for now. But let's all still feel free to hold hands which, as Mel pointed out, is always a good idea.
Not The Best Of Mornings
I feel like the biggest loser today and not the kind on The Biggest Loser but the other kind, you know, where you put your fingers up on your forehead, thumb spread to make an L with your forefinger and that thumb.
Just little picky nags and worries and then the Big Ones, as well such as what have I done with my life, what am I going to DO with my life, etc. etc.
Maurice is not doing very well. She doesn't want to eat or drink water and barely moved at all last night. I let her lick some water and food from my fingers this morning but mostly she just licked a few molecules of each from her whiskers and then she wanted to hide in my closet and then she wanted to go outside and that's forbidden. She did pee a bunch and I can tell she's in pain- well, fuck yeah, she had a hysterectomy yesterday plus enough shots to stun a horse probably and she's just a tiny thing. I called the Animal Aid and got sweet Jo (another Sweet Jo!) and she advised me to give her her pain med and if she's not better by noon to bring her in.
I don't know whether I'm being abusively neglectful for not taking her in now or completely and neurotically worried.
I mashed up her 1/8th of a Toradol and mixed into about a teaspoon of food and crammed that down her throat and she licked up what didn't go in so that's good. I've got her shut into the little bathroom where it's dark and quiet and her litterbox (LITTERBOX!) is in there and some water and I'll go check on her. Way too frequently for her, probably.
I'm supposed to go to the damn dentist for my regular cleaning today at one and fuck me Jesus if I want to do that. A yellow fly has bitten me on the leg and ankle and I am not reacting well to that these days. They swell up like mountains and itch in exquisite and painful intensity and I'm wondering if I shouldn't have a damn Epi-pen on hand to jam into me should my throat close up but that's really going way too far. I could start with a Benadryl first.
I should take a walk because I haven't walked farther than about one-tenth of a mile in days and days unless you count all the miles I've walked in the house, putting laundry away but no, that doesn't count. I'm listening to the most horrible book because I haven't gone to the library. Not only is it so poorly written that I can barely stand it but the narrator has the most pronounced lisp.
"You shaved my neck!"
"Shit down."
"Relaxsh."
I mean, it's so funny that it's almost fascinating. It's the train wreck you can't step away from.
So that's me this morning. Worrying neurotically about a CAT and scratching my legs like a beast and dreading going to the dentist and feeling like a loser and oh yeah, I ate about half a bag of ginger snaps last night that someone left here. Ginger snaps. Really? Yes. Really. I guess it could have been worse, like half a chocolate cake and it's a good thing no one left one of those hanging around. Of course I ate my healthy salmon and broccoli before I ate all the ginger snaps in the universe.
And I didn't even mention the dreams I had and thank you, I'd rather not go into detail about that.
So what's up in your world?
Shall we all join hands and jump off a cliff or is there hope for us all?
Let me know.
Love...Ms. Moon
Just little picky nags and worries and then the Big Ones, as well such as what have I done with my life, what am I going to DO with my life, etc. etc.
Maurice is not doing very well. She doesn't want to eat or drink water and barely moved at all last night. I let her lick some water and food from my fingers this morning but mostly she just licked a few molecules of each from her whiskers and then she wanted to hide in my closet and then she wanted to go outside and that's forbidden. She did pee a bunch and I can tell she's in pain- well, fuck yeah, she had a hysterectomy yesterday plus enough shots to stun a horse probably and she's just a tiny thing. I called the Animal Aid and got sweet Jo (another Sweet Jo!) and she advised me to give her her pain med and if she's not better by noon to bring her in.
I don't know whether I'm being abusively neglectful for not taking her in now or completely and neurotically worried.
I mashed up her 1/8th of a Toradol and mixed into about a teaspoon of food and crammed that down her throat and she licked up what didn't go in so that's good. I've got her shut into the little bathroom where it's dark and quiet and her litterbox (LITTERBOX!) is in there and some water and I'll go check on her. Way too frequently for her, probably.
I'm supposed to go to the damn dentist for my regular cleaning today at one and fuck me Jesus if I want to do that. A yellow fly has bitten me on the leg and ankle and I am not reacting well to that these days. They swell up like mountains and itch in exquisite and painful intensity and I'm wondering if I shouldn't have a damn Epi-pen on hand to jam into me should my throat close up but that's really going way too far. I could start with a Benadryl first.
I should take a walk because I haven't walked farther than about one-tenth of a mile in days and days unless you count all the miles I've walked in the house, putting laundry away but no, that doesn't count. I'm listening to the most horrible book because I haven't gone to the library. Not only is it so poorly written that I can barely stand it but the narrator has the most pronounced lisp.
"You shaved my neck!"
"Shit down."
"Relaxsh."
I mean, it's so funny that it's almost fascinating. It's the train wreck you can't step away from.
So that's me this morning. Worrying neurotically about a CAT and scratching my legs like a beast and dreading going to the dentist and feeling like a loser and oh yeah, I ate about half a bag of ginger snaps last night that someone left here. Ginger snaps. Really? Yes. Really. I guess it could have been worse, like half a chocolate cake and it's a good thing no one left one of those hanging around. Of course I ate my healthy salmon and broccoli before I ate all the ginger snaps in the universe.
And I didn't even mention the dreams I had and thank you, I'd rather not go into detail about that.
So what's up in your world?
Shall we all join hands and jump off a cliff or is there hope for us all?
Let me know.
Love...Ms. Moon
Monday, June 2, 2014
News You Can Use
Maurice is sleeping off her anesthesia on my bed
and I'm sure she's fine but I feel so sorry for her. Her belly is flat-out shaved and she's shaved around one leg where they inserted the IV and she got all her shots and tomorrow I start giving her Toradol for pain. It can't feel good, having your belly opened up and your uterus removed. They also sent me home with an instruction sheet about how to administer a pill to a cat. I'm not sure that Maurice and my relationship can handle this but I'm going to try because I do not want her to be in pain.
Animal Aid is an interesting place and it struck me so hard at how much people love their pets, writing checks for two hundred, three hundred dollars, people who don't look like they'd have that much to spare but they do it. One hipstery looking guy was waiting for his dog and when they brought her out, he was so happy to see her. He knelt down on the floor and hugged her and called her by name and it was a sincere and real thing to see. I admire so much the people who work there. I can't imagine they're making any money at all and they have to put up with everything up to and including dog bites which I heard happened this morning to one of the employees. And yet, they are cheerful, patient, and kind.
Compassionate, I would actually say.
I noticed that there were vases and vases of gorgeous roses all over the desk. Pink roses, scarlet roses, orange roses.
"Who gets all these beautiful roses?" I asked.
"One of our employees has a sister who owns a flower shop and she sends them over," a lady told me.
So. The fragrance of Animal Aid is bleach and roses and dog and cat.
Yeah. I've smelled a lot worse.
It's been a full, long day. Two trips to town, a little boy-sitting which involved (oh god) Candy Land and some other game and alphabet and number foam puzzle pieces and a book and a lesson in how to use the remote (from Owen) and basketball.
Is the kid a rock star or what?
Gibson didn't want his picture taken. I complied. He's cute. Take my word for it.
We went to the Costco when Lily got back home and the sampling was sorely lacking.
1. Yogurt
2. Caramel and cheese popcorn
3. A sort of super foods trail mix with dried soybeans and some other stuff, all infused with the formerly currently-trendy pomegranate juice.
4. Protein bars.
Excuse me? Where were the damn Angus cheeseburgers? The dolmas? The cheese and crackers? The bagel pizzas? Huh? Huh?!
Ah well. All the better for me. I'm having a hard time readjusting to eating All Healthy And Shit after two weeks of eating things like eggs almost every morning, cheese, Chuleta Yucateca, guacamole, and fried chips with every meal. I never gain weight in Cozumel and I'm sure it's due to the vast array of peppers I consume which rush every bit of nutrient through me with the speed of light. It's AWESOME! Just bring me some sort of peppers or sauce with peppers in it and warn me that it's hot and I'm all over it. "Oh yeah, you don't think a gringa can handle this? Just watch me!" and I go for the endorphin rush and well, sometimes it's actually worth it and sometimes it's not but it always contributes to the fact that I don't gain weight there and in my opinion, it's all a win-win situation.
The restaurant at the Blue Angel served a sauce I'd never had before which was called Macha Sauce. I've looked it up on the Internet (of course) and here's a link to one recipe. You could make it with a milder pepper if you wanted and that would be fine or you can just go for the damn burn, put it on everything you eat and call it the Senora Luna Diet. Yes. You will be visiting the bathroom. Read a magazine. Enjoy the burn.
Well, that's about as crude as this Southern lady cares to get. Mr. Moon is out of town and I am going to cook a little piece of salmon and eat leftover rice and broccoli and squash with it. If Maurice ever wakes up enough to want to eat, I have last night's chicken and some (oh God, I can't believe this) Paul Newman organic canned cat food which cost as much per ounce as the Wild Albacore tuna I bought at the Costco for human consumption. She's supposed to stay clean, quiet, and dry and no, she does not have a cone but Animal Aid provides you with an instruction sheet on how to make one if needed. It has rained in Lloyd and it smells very good here and the chickens are fussing themselves to roost.
I sort of miss my husband. Okay, I DO miss my husband. But it's okay and it's fine and I am just most grateful that after thirty years together, I do miss him when he's gone. After all the trips we've taken to Cozumel I can say that there is at least one common thread about our visits and that is that every time we go, we come home more in love with each other.
Worth the price and more.
You are welcome for the dietary and marital advice.
Love...Ms. Moon
and I'm sure she's fine but I feel so sorry for her. Her belly is flat-out shaved and she's shaved around one leg where they inserted the IV and she got all her shots and tomorrow I start giving her Toradol for pain. It can't feel good, having your belly opened up and your uterus removed. They also sent me home with an instruction sheet about how to administer a pill to a cat. I'm not sure that Maurice and my relationship can handle this but I'm going to try because I do not want her to be in pain.
Animal Aid is an interesting place and it struck me so hard at how much people love their pets, writing checks for two hundred, three hundred dollars, people who don't look like they'd have that much to spare but they do it. One hipstery looking guy was waiting for his dog and when they brought her out, he was so happy to see her. He knelt down on the floor and hugged her and called her by name and it was a sincere and real thing to see. I admire so much the people who work there. I can't imagine they're making any money at all and they have to put up with everything up to and including dog bites which I heard happened this morning to one of the employees. And yet, they are cheerful, patient, and kind.
Compassionate, I would actually say.
I noticed that there were vases and vases of gorgeous roses all over the desk. Pink roses, scarlet roses, orange roses.
"Who gets all these beautiful roses?" I asked.
"One of our employees has a sister who owns a flower shop and she sends them over," a lady told me.
So. The fragrance of Animal Aid is bleach and roses and dog and cat.
Yeah. I've smelled a lot worse.
It's been a full, long day. Two trips to town, a little boy-sitting which involved (oh god) Candy Land and some other game and alphabet and number foam puzzle pieces and a book and a lesson in how to use the remote (from Owen) and basketball.
Gibson didn't want his picture taken. I complied. He's cute. Take my word for it.
We went to the Costco when Lily got back home and the sampling was sorely lacking.
1. Yogurt
2. Caramel and cheese popcorn
3. A sort of super foods trail mix with dried soybeans and some other stuff, all infused with the formerly currently-trendy pomegranate juice.
4. Protein bars.
Excuse me? Where were the damn Angus cheeseburgers? The dolmas? The cheese and crackers? The bagel pizzas? Huh? Huh?!
Ah well. All the better for me. I'm having a hard time readjusting to eating All Healthy And Shit after two weeks of eating things like eggs almost every morning, cheese, Chuleta Yucateca, guacamole, and fried chips with every meal. I never gain weight in Cozumel and I'm sure it's due to the vast array of peppers I consume which rush every bit of nutrient through me with the speed of light. It's AWESOME! Just bring me some sort of peppers or sauce with peppers in it and warn me that it's hot and I'm all over it. "Oh yeah, you don't think a gringa can handle this? Just watch me!" and I go for the endorphin rush and well, sometimes it's actually worth it and sometimes it's not but it always contributes to the fact that I don't gain weight there and in my opinion, it's all a win-win situation.
The restaurant at the Blue Angel served a sauce I'd never had before which was called Macha Sauce. I've looked it up on the Internet (of course) and here's a link to one recipe. You could make it with a milder pepper if you wanted and that would be fine or you can just go for the damn burn, put it on everything you eat and call it the Senora Luna Diet. Yes. You will be visiting the bathroom. Read a magazine. Enjoy the burn.
Well, that's about as crude as this Southern lady cares to get. Mr. Moon is out of town and I am going to cook a little piece of salmon and eat leftover rice and broccoli and squash with it. If Maurice ever wakes up enough to want to eat, I have last night's chicken and some (oh God, I can't believe this) Paul Newman organic canned cat food which cost as much per ounce as the Wild Albacore tuna I bought at the Costco for human consumption. She's supposed to stay clean, quiet, and dry and no, she does not have a cone but Animal Aid provides you with an instruction sheet on how to make one if needed. It has rained in Lloyd and it smells very good here and the chickens are fussing themselves to roost.
I sort of miss my husband. Okay, I DO miss my husband. But it's okay and it's fine and I am just most grateful that after thirty years together, I do miss him when he's gone. After all the trips we've taken to Cozumel I can say that there is at least one common thread about our visits and that is that every time we go, we come home more in love with each other.
Worth the price and more.
You are welcome for the dietary and marital advice.
Love...Ms. Moon
We All Have Opinions, Don't We?
On our last morning in Cozumel as Mr. Moon and I were eating breakfast with the perfect sky above us and the sparkling gin-clear water beside us, our peace was a little bit disturbed by some obviously American dude wearing camo pajama bottoms and a t-shirt who was drinking a smoothie. I think it was a smoothie. Maybe it was a daiquiri. Whatever. It wasn't his breakfast choice or his clothing which disturbed our peace but what he was saying. He was going on and on about President Obama and how HE IS NOT AN AMERICAN CITIZEN! Or at least, how he doesn't believe he is.
He cited several conspiracy theories involving birth certificates and a plane crash wherein the only possible living witness to Obama's birth had died whereas everyone else on the plane survived! Or something like that.
Very plausible stuff, you know. If you're a racist shithead who cannot accept the fact that a black man is the president of the United States.
Not that many years ago I probably would have confronted the guy but as I grow older, I find myself just rolling my eyes which is what Mr. Moon and I did and both of us agreed that yes, at this point in time, it is nothing but racism which fuels these done-beat-that-horse-'til-it's-so-damn-dead theories.
There is nothing I could possibly say in a restaurant at eight-thirty in the morning to someone like that which would change his mind and I do finally have the wisdom to know that. Which is not necessarily something I'm proud of. I like to think that if he'd been spouting actual racist crap I might have said something. Or homophobic. But he was smart enough (or chicken-shit enough) to couch his remarks in birther conspiracy theory costumage so I just held my tongue and let out a sigh of relief when he left the premises and enjoyed my huevos tacquitos in sweet peace.
The reason I'm bringing this up today is that just as that man in the restaurant felt he had the right and the need to express his feelings about our president, I do too. And what I feel is that I love our president. Under his leadership, our country is making strides in the areas of civil rights for all Americans, in the environment, energy, and of course, health care. Slowly, pragmatically, changes are occurring and these are changes which affect everyone in the long run. I am so grateful for that. So grateful for him. I do not think he is perfect nor do I agree with everything he's done or will do, I'm sure, but I think that he is truly trying to leave the country in better shape than it was in when he took office (and although we may think that would be almost impossible NOT to do, trust me- it could have happened) and I believe he is a fine and good man, a thoughtful and intelligent man, an eloquent speaker and I am proud he is our president.
So. That's my little retort to the guy in the restaurant in Mexico and no, he will never read this and even if he did, it would mean nothing to him. He will continue to live in his world and I will continue to live in mine which this morning is a quiet place and I've already been to town to take Maurice in and she sat quietly on my lap for the whole long drive and the woman at Animal Aid, a friend of Hank's, was so nice to us and so loving towards Maurice and I know she will be in good hands, just as I think our country is in good hands right now.
Compassion.
That's a beautiful thing to feel whether it comes from the woman behind the counter at Animal Aid or from the man who is our president. And I do truly think that he is compassionate and cares about the wellbeing of the citizens who elected him as the leader of our country and probably even for those who did not vote for him as well.
Good morning from Lloyd.
Love...Ms. Moon
Sunday, June 1, 2014
A Sunday Evening In Lloyd
Mr. Moon and I worked out in the garden together today, he staking and weeding tomatoes, me digging potatoes, weeding and spreading compost by the fence to plant cucumbers and more beans. We are late on that but every garden is nothing more than a deed and a wish. As we worked, the rain came and washed over us several times and I should have taken a picture of me, muddied from head to toe after kneeling in the composty-damp dirt, sitting on it too, at some points. It felt real, real good as did the shower I took when I was done, my wrist so worn out that I could barely hold my water glass.
And can I just say that those ridiculous stickers that come on every type of fruit and many vegetables these days NEVER, EVER COMPOST OR DISSOLVE which is odd. Not even the ones proudly proclaiming themselves to be organic.
We can till the garden and find some of those stickers from long years past, as brilliantly easy to read as the day they were stuck on the banana, the peels which have long since turned to dirt.
I fed the chickens grapes again this evening, trying to get the flocks to at least become familiar with each other and I swear to you, it looked like Elvis was trying to tid-bit the young hens. He took the grapes and dropped them in the direction of those comely (combly?) virgins but they were still sore afraid. It will be interesting to see how this all works out. I have never tried to blend two flocks like this with two roosters. Drogo is showing no signs of challenging Elvis yet and that, at least, shows some intelligence. But time will tell what happens when his chicken testosterone kicks in, his spurs grow fierce and his comb grows more mighty.
The rain brought such sweet coolness and we still have the doors open and the breeze blows through this old house like the whisper of a long-time lover. The ceiling fan on the porch is on, making the windchimes tinkle. It is quiet in Lloyd tonight except for that breeze rustling the leaves. This one is enjoying the clean tablecloth two feet from where I am typing.
Tomorrow morning early I am taking her in to get her uterus removed, her shots. I know from experience that she will come home groggy, belly-shaved and stitched, sad and completely mystified by the indignity has been foisted upon her and I will hate that but it must be done. I am cooking a little organic chicken tonight and I will feed her tiny shreds of the meat tomorrow when she is ready to eat again and will try to make it up to her. May she become a fat old lady who lives with us for a very long time. May she forgive me.
It has been a good day and the wind is kicking up and the air is stirring with excited delight and the chicken, lemon juice and garlic-bathed, is starting to smell very good. I need to put my living chickens up. The garden has been restored somewhat and in doing that, I too, have been restored somewhat. The rain is coming again in fits and starts.
A mockingbird calls, thrilling and trilling. Cardinals are gathered beneath the feeder and at it. My giant begonia is blooming its tiny bloom. Maurice is at the dog door, head out, body on the porch, looking at the backyard, the birds. If she has killed more than skinks so far I do not (thankfully) know about it.
Peace. Within and without.
Love...Ms. Moon
This I Believe, And This I Don't
Yesterday as I was weeding and digging potatoes I was listening to an old interview that Bob Edwards did with Maya Angelou. She talked about her work and her life, of course, her philosophies about giving back, and her Christian belief. She said that she was always shocked when someone introduced themselves to her as a "Christian" in that she had been trying to become one her entire life and screwed it up at least forty-five times a day.
But one could tell, her belief was strong.
Bob Edwards asked her what she thought about atheists and agnostics and she replied that she felt so very sorry for people without a belief because there was no way for them to lay their burden down, no one to go to who would take that burden on.
I nodded my head in recognition- I am one of those people.
And sometimes, to be quite honest, I wish I did believe in a god (or even gods!) who does have a personal interest in my life, my happiness, the health and wellbeing of my children, my husband. How incredibly comforting that must be, to let go and let God, in full faith that God will handle the situation, perhaps not as we would want (always the caveat in the deal, implied and understood) but as God in His almighty wisdom and vision would want it handled.
But I don't and I can't.
Perhaps it is because as a child, it became quickly apparent to me that no adult was going to take any of my burdens away from me but instead, increased them mightily upon me. At least no adult who had been charged to take care of me. And so my faith in even the earliest version of a child's higher power (and what is a parent to a child but a higher power who knows all, controls all) was proved false and thus, I never made the leap from father to Father. The Bible (which I read entirely when I was in Jr. High) speaks often of the Heavenly Father and how He loves His children as does an earthly father. I remember making a conscious decision to direct my prayers at a very early age to that "Father" because I did not have one here on earth. Oh, I did, but he disappeared from my life when I was five and was as good as dead to me and I will never entirely stop mourning that fact.
And so I prayed to Father and my prayers seemed to be answered when a stepfather appeared and then, well...that is truly when the pain began.
And the horror and the fear.
Abandoned and betrayed, not once but thrice, in a way.
Is that why I cannot trust a higher power?
If so, I think that is only part of it. Reading the Bible was definitely part of it. The Old Testament God was so obviously an Asshole and some of His most beloveds were sinners of the highest order and besides that, He craved and demanded such constant sacrifice and praise. His laws seemed to be completely arbitrary and baseless. A child could be stoned to death for being disrespectful to her parents. A wife who was divorced was an adulteress if she took another husband but no mention was made of the sin of the divorced husband. David had a gozillion wives. Plus, maybe a lover or two of the same sex. Where did the people whose children Adam and Eve married come from? Oh, it went on and on.
The New Testament had its problems too. Differing accounts of the life of Jesus gave different versions of events. I could never truly pin down just who this Jesus was. Was he a prophet who came to spread a message of love or was he a man who hated bankers in the temple? Why was he so mean to Martha when Mary was obviously a huge suck-up? And why in hell did God have only one begotten son when He could have had billions and why did He have to see his Son murdered in order to fulfill the murky message of His thirty-three years as that Son? And why didn't the disciples recognize Him when He arose from the dead, escaped the tomb? I guess three days of death can do a number on a human meat, even that of the Son of God.
Let's not even get into Revelations. I may have been a precocious 12-year old but I couldn't get through that chapter with even the least understanding and I seriously doubt I could now either.
And so, despite desperately wanting to believe in a God who would get me through, if not DELIVER ME FROM the increasing nightmare of my life, it all seemed to be falling apart for me, all of the arguments for faith that Billy Graham talked about on his much-televised Grand Religious Events, instructing me to pray on my knees, to beseech the Lord for that which I needed which I did try but it made me feel foolish, the imprint of the rattan rug beside my bed lingering on my flesh with far more reality than any imprint on my soul.
We did go to church, my family, but it was a very small non-sectarian church and the pastor was more of a speaker and a kindly dreamer who envisioned the integration of the races (which was beautiful) than a fire-and-brimstone kind of guy. And Sundays were the days I was most usually molested and it was on an Easter Sunday as my mother sang in the choir that she had to leave the church to go into the pastor's office as the umbilical cord of the fetus within her became kinked and the unborn child thrashed within her and then became still and died.
I cite all of these things as possible reasons for my non-belief but if you want to know the very most basic truth, I think it all stems from the fact that I see not one shred of evidence for any of it. One may let-go and let-God or one may simply say, "I have no more control over this," and the results will inevitably be the same. Things will happen as they happen once we step out of the way.
Two mothers with sick children may pray unceasingly and one child may recover and one child may die.
God's will, the faithful sadly intone to the mother whose child died. He is in heaven now.
And what good does that thought do to a woman whose child is dead? Cold comfort to say the least.
Of course, the self-proclaimed representatives of faith, the priests, the popes, the ministers, the Imams, the the Jerry Falwells, do such great disservice with such astounding frequency to the very religions they purport to be God's mouthpiece for. Not all, of course. But let me tell you this- you attend a sexual abuse survivor's group for any amount of time and you will realize that the self-identified religious are seemingly over-represented as abusers of children.
"My father was a preacher."
"My father was a deacon."
"My father was a Sunday School teacher."
And so forth.
In fact, it has become increasingly apparent to me that some of the most bigoted, ignorant, anti-life people on this planet wrap themselves in the cloak of religion to defend their messages of hate. I've seen children completely shut out of religious families because they came out as gay. What sort of a mammal would do something like that? A MAMMAL! Even a chicken will defend its young to the death. And yet, we of the "higher order" will tell a child that he or she is no longer welcome into the bosom of the family because of his or her sinful "lifestyle."
And then of course, there are people like Maya Angelou, like Jimmy Carter, whose faith is something that has to be respected because it is questioning, it is kind, it is real to them as way of life. And to me, it all simply boils down to this- you either have the gene for it or you do not. For religion.
And I do not.
And so yes, I wish I could pray, could lay my burden down sometimes, assured that God's eye is on the sparrow and so of course, He looks kindly upon me as well. That He would like my team to win, my country to be charmed above all others, my family to be healthy and happy forever and ever.
I have had, of course, profoundly spiritual and heart-and-mind-altering experiences. Some of those have happened with the help of psychedelic drugs, used judiciously and with great respect. Some of those have happened while listening to music. Some of those have happened at childbirths, my own and others I have attended. Some of those have happened at the bedsides of those in the process of dying. Some of those have occurred when I was doing nothing but watching water and sky.
I call all of these miracles and yet, find no need to relate them to a deity.
And yes, I do believe in great mysteries, even Mysteries, but I think that eventually we will figure them out with our amazing human (and often so very flawed) evolved brains. Perhaps. Sometimes I have very little faith in humans at all. But that is not mine to control.
And that is what I am thinking about today on this Sunday morning, surrounded by green and still-cool air. My flaws and sins are my own, my joys and my fears and my decisions the same. I can choose to share them if I want, to whisper them or to shout them, to celebrate them or to try to hide them.
I am a human being and as such, am yes, a part of it all, consciousness shared with it all, and when it's all over for me, my energy both meat and electric will be reused by the planet, the universe.
And that is good enough for me.
I need to go dig the rest of the potatoes and perhaps I will ponder some more on the great miracles and mysteries as I see them. The baby, the tree, the egg, the rain, the great creamy blossom of the magnolia, the reseeding of last year's zinnias and their blossoms of purple and yellow, the word upon the page, the eye and the sparrow, the love I have experienced in my life, the mighty whale, the tiny plankton upon which it feeds, the water which comes from the tap, Keith Richards.
Amen, y'all.
Happy Sunday.
Love...Ms. Moon
But one could tell, her belief was strong.
Bob Edwards asked her what she thought about atheists and agnostics and she replied that she felt so very sorry for people without a belief because there was no way for them to lay their burden down, no one to go to who would take that burden on.
I nodded my head in recognition- I am one of those people.
And sometimes, to be quite honest, I wish I did believe in a god (or even gods!) who does have a personal interest in my life, my happiness, the health and wellbeing of my children, my husband. How incredibly comforting that must be, to let go and let God, in full faith that God will handle the situation, perhaps not as we would want (always the caveat in the deal, implied and understood) but as God in His almighty wisdom and vision would want it handled.
But I don't and I can't.
Perhaps it is because as a child, it became quickly apparent to me that no adult was going to take any of my burdens away from me but instead, increased them mightily upon me. At least no adult who had been charged to take care of me. And so my faith in even the earliest version of a child's higher power (and what is a parent to a child but a higher power who knows all, controls all) was proved false and thus, I never made the leap from father to Father. The Bible (which I read entirely when I was in Jr. High) speaks often of the Heavenly Father and how He loves His children as does an earthly father. I remember making a conscious decision to direct my prayers at a very early age to that "Father" because I did not have one here on earth. Oh, I did, but he disappeared from my life when I was five and was as good as dead to me and I will never entirely stop mourning that fact.
And so I prayed to Father and my prayers seemed to be answered when a stepfather appeared and then, well...that is truly when the pain began.
And the horror and the fear.
Abandoned and betrayed, not once but thrice, in a way.
Is that why I cannot trust a higher power?
If so, I think that is only part of it. Reading the Bible was definitely part of it. The Old Testament God was so obviously an Asshole and some of His most beloveds were sinners of the highest order and besides that, He craved and demanded such constant sacrifice and praise. His laws seemed to be completely arbitrary and baseless. A child could be stoned to death for being disrespectful to her parents. A wife who was divorced was an adulteress if she took another husband but no mention was made of the sin of the divorced husband. David had a gozillion wives. Plus, maybe a lover or two of the same sex. Where did the people whose children Adam and Eve married come from? Oh, it went on and on.
The New Testament had its problems too. Differing accounts of the life of Jesus gave different versions of events. I could never truly pin down just who this Jesus was. Was he a prophet who came to spread a message of love or was he a man who hated bankers in the temple? Why was he so mean to Martha when Mary was obviously a huge suck-up? And why in hell did God have only one begotten son when He could have had billions and why did He have to see his Son murdered in order to fulfill the murky message of His thirty-three years as that Son? And why didn't the disciples recognize Him when He arose from the dead, escaped the tomb? I guess three days of death can do a number on a human meat, even that of the Son of God.
Let's not even get into Revelations. I may have been a precocious 12-year old but I couldn't get through that chapter with even the least understanding and I seriously doubt I could now either.
And so, despite desperately wanting to believe in a God who would get me through, if not DELIVER ME FROM the increasing nightmare of my life, it all seemed to be falling apart for me, all of the arguments for faith that Billy Graham talked about on his much-televised Grand Religious Events, instructing me to pray on my knees, to beseech the Lord for that which I needed which I did try but it made me feel foolish, the imprint of the rattan rug beside my bed lingering on my flesh with far more reality than any imprint on my soul.
We did go to church, my family, but it was a very small non-sectarian church and the pastor was more of a speaker and a kindly dreamer who envisioned the integration of the races (which was beautiful) than a fire-and-brimstone kind of guy. And Sundays were the days I was most usually molested and it was on an Easter Sunday as my mother sang in the choir that she had to leave the church to go into the pastor's office as the umbilical cord of the fetus within her became kinked and the unborn child thrashed within her and then became still and died.
I cite all of these things as possible reasons for my non-belief but if you want to know the very most basic truth, I think it all stems from the fact that I see not one shred of evidence for any of it. One may let-go and let-God or one may simply say, "I have no more control over this," and the results will inevitably be the same. Things will happen as they happen once we step out of the way.
Two mothers with sick children may pray unceasingly and one child may recover and one child may die.
God's will, the faithful sadly intone to the mother whose child died. He is in heaven now.
And what good does that thought do to a woman whose child is dead? Cold comfort to say the least.
Of course, the self-proclaimed representatives of faith, the priests, the popes, the ministers, the Imams, the the Jerry Falwells, do such great disservice with such astounding frequency to the very religions they purport to be God's mouthpiece for. Not all, of course. But let me tell you this- you attend a sexual abuse survivor's group for any amount of time and you will realize that the self-identified religious are seemingly over-represented as abusers of children.
"My father was a preacher."
"My father was a deacon."
"My father was a Sunday School teacher."
And so forth.
In fact, it has become increasingly apparent to me that some of the most bigoted, ignorant, anti-life people on this planet wrap themselves in the cloak of religion to defend their messages of hate. I've seen children completely shut out of religious families because they came out as gay. What sort of a mammal would do something like that? A MAMMAL! Even a chicken will defend its young to the death. And yet, we of the "higher order" will tell a child that he or she is no longer welcome into the bosom of the family because of his or her sinful "lifestyle."
And then of course, there are people like Maya Angelou, like Jimmy Carter, whose faith is something that has to be respected because it is questioning, it is kind, it is real to them as way of life. And to me, it all simply boils down to this- you either have the gene for it or you do not. For religion.
And I do not.
And so yes, I wish I could pray, could lay my burden down sometimes, assured that God's eye is on the sparrow and so of course, He looks kindly upon me as well. That He would like my team to win, my country to be charmed above all others, my family to be healthy and happy forever and ever.
I have had, of course, profoundly spiritual and heart-and-mind-altering experiences. Some of those have happened with the help of psychedelic drugs, used judiciously and with great respect. Some of those have happened while listening to music. Some of those have happened at childbirths, my own and others I have attended. Some of those have happened at the bedsides of those in the process of dying. Some of those have occurred when I was doing nothing but watching water and sky.
I call all of these miracles and yet, find no need to relate them to a deity.
And yes, I do believe in great mysteries, even Mysteries, but I think that eventually we will figure them out with our amazing human (and often so very flawed) evolved brains. Perhaps. Sometimes I have very little faith in humans at all. But that is not mine to control.
And that is what I am thinking about today on this Sunday morning, surrounded by green and still-cool air. My flaws and sins are my own, my joys and my fears and my decisions the same. I can choose to share them if I want, to whisper them or to shout them, to celebrate them or to try to hide them.
I am a human being and as such, am yes, a part of it all, consciousness shared with it all, and when it's all over for me, my energy both meat and electric will be reused by the planet, the universe.
And that is good enough for me.
I need to go dig the rest of the potatoes and perhaps I will ponder some more on the great miracles and mysteries as I see them. The baby, the tree, the egg, the rain, the great creamy blossom of the magnolia, the reseeding of last year's zinnias and their blossoms of purple and yellow, the word upon the page, the eye and the sparrow, the love I have experienced in my life, the mighty whale, the tiny plankton upon which it feeds, the water which comes from the tap, Keith Richards.
Amen, y'all.
Happy Sunday.
Love...Ms. Moon
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