It is cool this morning and I have the doors open to let the air and light into the house. Fall's sweet first kiss is upon us.
The sky is that shade of blue. That washed-five-hundred-times Levi's shade of blue. Paul Newman's eyes shade of blue.
The pinecone lilies are turning red.
The crickets are singing leisurely, languidly.
I am here and have eaten two fresh eggs and might defrost the tiny refrigerator I keep in my kitchen where I store grains and beans and so forth so that the critters don't get in them. I can barely close it now and have been planning to do this for a month at least. Today may be the day.
Whatever I do today, I am going to do it in the style of the crickets. Leisurely. Languidly. I feel bereft of energy, of the desire to do anything at all, to be honest.
Like the chickens, dappled and drowsy and ready for sleep.
About four o'clock yesterday I got the word that the memorial service for our Taylor's mama who died a few weeks ago, would be this morning at eleven. Although I am not even sure I ever met Taylor's mother, Taylor herself is a part of our family and always will be and so of course I had to go to the service.
I wasn't looking forward to it- I mean, who looks FORWARD to a memorial service- and when I got up this morning it was pouring rain. That kind of rain which seems happy to be where it is, no plans to move on any time soon.
But I had to go and had agreed to pick up our friend Togi from work to take him and that cheered me. Togi is man I just adore. On the surface two people could hardly be more dissimilar than Togi and I are but somehow, on some deep visceral level, we are much the same and every time I've ever had a conversation with him, it's been a good conversation. We skip the boring shit and get right to the real shit and we make each other laugh and I think we understand each other in a lot of ways.
Today was no exception.
When we got to the church, the rain had slacked some and we were very early but we found Hank and our friend Anna and we all settled in. Now Anna is a good Lutheran. And her church family is a good family. They are supportive of her in many ways and have been there for her when times were roughest in real and concrete ways. And she loves her church. She is a Christian and a church-going one at that but she never says a thing when I spout my atheist stuff but usually just laughs and she knows I respect her and even what she believes because if Anna believes what she believes, there's a reason. She's one of the smartest people I know. So I sat between Anna and Togi, who is also a Christian although the Jesus he follows is a radical Jesus and he and I share many beliefs about religion.
So before the service started, I told Anna to please not be offended if I didn't say all those creeds and things because I just don't believe them and she said that was okay and I didn't and she did and that's totally cool. I did not feel uncomfortable one bit.
And we shared a hymnbook and I sang the hymns because I grew up singing those songs and I know them and that was cool too, although can I say that these particular Presbyterians could not possibly sing any slower and every hymn was a dirge to wade through although at one point, the organist (and they do have a nice organ) got a little jiggy with it and that was nice. Anna had helped Taylor organize the event and all of the hymns and prayers and she did a good job and the minister did a good job and he'd known Taylor's mama as well as Taylor and her sister, for thirty years so he could speak from the heart to Taylor and her sister which makes a huge difference in such circumstances.
This was the same church my mother went to and at the reception afterwards, several people came up to me and talked about my mother. Which was not always comfortable for me. One woman told me she'd gone to see Mother the day before she died and that she'd been furious with the way the nurses were treating her and had even complained to the supervisor.
I'd seen Mother the day before that and it was a horrible experience. She was so angry and was taking it out on the nurses and staff and saying terrible things about them which I knew weren't true. Between the onset of dementia and the pain she was in from having broken her ribs and the drugs she was on for that pain, she was not in her right mind and she was accusing everyone of things that they were not guilty of which is not uncommon behavior in such circumstances. And this woman who was talking to me today had no idea that the things Mother had told her were not not exactly representative of the truth, so to speak. I feel bad for the nurses she chastised. I wonder what Mother told her about me, if anything. She wasn't happy with me the day I went to see her, I know that.
But it didn't cut me, this conversation, the way it could have. Or might have, once.
I remember at least a decade before my mother died, talking to a friend of mine about my troubled relationship with my mother. She told me, "Mary, you need to work these things out now because one day she will die and you will have regrets for the rest of your life."
As much as I pondered that, I just didn't see then or ever how that was going to happen. The working-out part, at least. I'd given up by then.
Mostly.
And whether the burden of that impossibility rested on my shoulders or hers or both of ours, I accepted it. And yet, I was a bit afraid that my friend had been right and I would go to my grave with regrets.
Well, I do have regrets but not the kind my friend was talking about. I regret a lot stuff about our relationship. A LOT! But I don't think I could have changed anything and I'm at peace with that and although I may be deceiving myself, I think I did the best I could.
And she may have too. That, at this point, is neither here nor there. It is just the reality of it.
There's so much blah-blah in our culture about forgiveness and understanding and healing and you know what? Sometimes I just don't think it's possible. As much as people talk about how forgiving someone is for our own sakes, I disagree. And what does that even mean if you're doing it for your own sake?
Forgiving someone (and I'm not necessarily talking about my mother here) and coming to peace with the knowledge that something unforgivable was done to you and/or someone you love, are two entirely different things.
Will I ever forgive my stepfather?
No. And so what?
While he was alive I had no desire whatsoever to allow him to believe for one second that I forgave him. Am I a cruel and unenlightened being?
Possibly. But I don't think so.
And I've seen so many people suffer and waste so much damn energy because they feel it is their duty to forgive a parent or someone who did them irreparable harm and they have been told over and over again that until they are able to do this- to forgive the unforgivable- they will never be able to heal.
Guess what? Some things you never do heal entirely from. Ever.
I always liken it to a friend of mine who had polio as a child. Did he survive the disease? Yes. After years in an iron lung. Is the virus still in his body? I don't think so. Will he ever be able to walk without crutches?
No.
Some things a person can heal from entirely and truly and go on, stronger than ever before.
Some things however, will leave marks, scars, even deformities that will never go away.
And how ridiculous would it be for someone to suggest to these people that if they just forgave their disease, their accident and let the pain go...they would be fine and whole again?
No one in their right mind would suggest such a thing.
Do I think that it's entirely possible to release a lot of the anger and do a lot of healing from emotional injury? Yes. I do. Obviously. But a lot of that has to be acceptance that it happened along with the knowledge that it was in no way the fault of he or she who was abused or abandoned.
And often, just those two things are about the hardest thing you can do.
Well, as Lyle Lovett sang in this video
"God does, but I don't,
God will, but I won't
And that's the difference between God and me."
Such a great song. Definitely a favored hymn in the church of the Batshit Crazy.
I'm glad I went to that service. Not even so much for Taylor although I wanted her to know that I care about her and love her enough to be there. But also because I got to be with other people I love (May and Michael and Mark were there too) and because I got to share a hymnbook with Anna and because I got to talk to Togi and because I was reminded of a difficult time and it was okay.
Plus- all those great little crustless sandwiches and the punch with sherbet in it. Good Lord, but I love church-lady food.
Well, I guess that's all and god knows it's enough.
And so do I.
Not a great selling point for me. Seen at The Children's Lighthouse thrift store.
No. I did not buy it.
I did truly have the best time today. I loved going with the two pregnant ladies to Lily's appointment. When we were sitting in the waiting room, I sat between them and I swear to you (and this is not woo-woo) I could feel the sweetest, best energy floating between them. I felt like I was in a vortex of contentment. The is the absolute best way I can describe it. Contentment and a sense of peace and well-being. It was all just coming off those two daughters in waves.
The new Ativan?
Just set your butt down between two happy pregnant ladies. Maybe they have to be sisters. What do I know? But as Lily pointed out, "You are sitting between four people."
Sort of blows the mind.
So we loved our tech. She was smart and funny and before two seconds were up she said, "I know what you're having. Let me get you a good picture."
And she did and she said, "It's a woman!"
Which I just adored.
My little woman grandchild!
My daughters laughed at me because I could not see what they were seeing.
"Look Mama. There's a butt cheek and there's a hoo-hoo."
"Okay. Sure."
Finally, yes, it all clicked in between my eyeballs and my brain and I saw that little one's tender parts. Oh my.
And I know, I KNOW! Boy, girl- what's the difference? And sometimes? Genitals lie and next thing you know, the kid you thought was a boy all these years turns out to be a girl! Hey! I've seen it happen! Talk to Catlyn or however she spells her name. And if that is what happens, we'll be happy with that too.
But if things match up with what they look like, Lily is indeed having a woman-baby and until we know better, there will be pink and lots of pink and more and more pink which is already Lily's favorite color so there you go.
I can't wait to see what happens when her Boppy holds her for the first time. And her Daddy. And her mama and, oh well. You know what I mean. And Owen! And Gibson! Be still my heart.
Meanwhile, Jessie could go into labor at any time. She is ready for this little man baby she's bringing into the world. We all are. So ready.
Although- seeing Jessie pregnant is such a beautiful thing that I am almost loathe to give that experience up. Aw, she'll probably have more than one child.
After the appointment we went to that crazy Wilderness Cabin Buffet with all the stuffed dead animals and deer horns on the walls. We ate greens and chicken and black-eyed peas and green beans and macaroni and cheese and all sorts of delicious southern foods.
And then, AND THEN!
I decided to get a massage. Are you kidding me? There's a place at a strip mall by Lily's house called Chen's Massage and I thought, well, why not?
I walked in the door and a woman came to greet me and she said, "You want massage?" and I said, "How much?" and she told me and I said, "Yes."
I don't think she spoke much English but she was very good and I feel better and more adjusted now. I gave her an extra five bucks over the regular tip and told her it was for my dirty feet. She laughed and said, "It's okay!"
Still, though. I was grateful to her. So very grateful.
But wait- there's more! I bought a Roku. I bought a Roku so we can theoretically, at least, watch Netflix streaming on our TV. Are we about to enter the 21st century?
We shall see. The instructions all look pretty simple but there's some part of me which thinks that if I try to hook it up, I'll blow up the TV or something and then what will I watch the Keith Richards documentary on? Oh yeah. My computer.
Okay. Wish me luck. I feel like one of those old people they make fun of on Damn You, Autocorrect.
Mr. Moon just should not leave town. He goes off and I do crazy ass things like get a massage and buy a Roku. And hell- tomorrow Lily and I might get pedicures!
It's a brave new world, y'all. And when you think about what I've seen in my lifetime- from TV with three channels and high tech devices being a party-line telephone and a transistor radio- to all of this! Ultrasounds to see your baby before it's born, phones that do more than Dick Tracy's watch ever did, wireless computer stuff (computers!), movies you can watch with the pushing of a few buttons on a remote (a remote!)...it's endless. There are smart phones, smart cars, smart appliances, and smart houses. And who knows what this world will be like when my grandchildren are my age? I can't imagine. Literally. I cannot.
BUT, let us keep balance. Babies are born the old-fashioned way in the best of circumstances, chickens lay eggs, food is grown in the dirt, trees and plants make our world livable, music is best made by people playing instruments and singing, reading is best done from a book on paper. Love is love. And my wish is that I can give those things to my grands, to remind them in whatever world they are living in that we are still smart apes who can dance, who can grow food for ourselves, who can keep chickens, who can read books on paper. Who can play music on instruments made of wood and metal and sing with our own voices.
And that everything, EVERYTHING, is better with love.
This is what I decided to make for supper tonight. I knew that Mr. Moon was going to head out to the hunting camp in Georgia and I wanted to make something delicious and comforting and spicy and good for myself.
The recipe is HERE and it's a damn good one although I have substituted one acorn squash and one sweet potato for the butternut, don't ask me why, I just did. There are no recipe police who will bust into your kitchen and haul you to the pokey if you mess with recipes, even from the venerable New York Times.
Know this and feel free to fool around in the kitchen. So to speak.
Right now my soup is in the simmer stage. I have the squash and sweet potatoes simmering with spices and sauteed onions, garlic, and cashews. It smells like heaven. The kitchen is a disaster area because while I was chopping and sauteing I was also making my husband an egg and cheese and bacon sandwich to take with him on the road to Georgia. He's busted his ass six ways from Sunday to get on the road this evening and Vergil came out this afternoon to help him load the deer blinds they've built up in a trailer for him to take with him.
I doubt I've ever seen my husband happier and although that does make me happy too, it is also something I've had to learn to deal with- seeing him so thoroughly thrilled with an adventure that does not involve me in the least way.
I do my best.
And make soup.
Jessie came out with Vergil this afternoon and we got to chat and I gave her that soft, soft dress I got at the Goodwill for her to wear in labor if she wants, if she needs to slip something on if she wants to go outside while she's laboring, which I loved doing when I was having my babies. I liked walking during contractions and I think she may too. If I know my Jessie, she may dance as well. Labor is so full of unknowns- especially for a first-time mama. I have tried to be very honest with my daughters about how difficult it can be. I remind them that even I could do it and in fact, did it four times, and that I know they are strong women and they know the rewards of doing it at home without drugs, if possible. The incredible comfort of being able to take your baby into your arms in your own bed, to be surrounded by loved ones, to be able to welcome this child to life outside the uterus slowly and at your own pace and your baby's pace, uninterrupted by unnecessary and rigid medical protocols with a midwife so sensible and accommodating that all of the things which need to be done are done in such a graceful and unobtrusive way that no one is disturbed. To have the new family of father, mother, and baby (the holy trinity in my religion) treated with the respect it deserves. In the hospital, it is as if there are two patients, the mother and the baby, while the father is tolerated and yet treated almost as lagniappe instead of being given the respect and space with the baby and mother he deserves.
Jessie and I sat on the couch and talked about these things and many more and we stroked each others arms and I was once again amazed at her, the regal and natural way she carries this swelling belly, ripe and filled with life. She astounds me, as does Lily.
It rained today too. I was out in the garden weeding and at first there came heavy drops and I continued on, just happy for the coolness, until it began to rain in earnest and I came in and watched the rain from the porch in great contentment.
Now it is almost time to puree the vegetables and cashews for the soup to mix with coconut milk. The fragrance and joy in making the soup almost make the eating of it unnecessary but I am looking forward to that part too.
I am looking forward to a lot of things. For instance, tomorrow Jessie and I are going with Lily to get one more ultrasound to see if they can make a definitive determination on the sex of Lily's baby. She has already bought up half the girl baby things in Tallahassee (that's a vast exaggeration) and she just wants to know, truly, truly, if she can buy the rest of the girl baby things (another vast exaggeration, sort of).
I feel so incredibly humbled by it all.
I feel weepy and anxious today for no reason whatsoever and it makes me feel stupid because I'm a grown-up ("you're never grown-up") and it's only about a 3 on the old anxiety scale but even that's enough to make me feel horrible and today it's all combined with the tears trying to force their way out of my eyes and I took a walk and now I just feel worse even though this:
Also, stupid motherfucking dreams and I don't even know why I bother to go to bed, it's just one nightmare after another. I kept thinking, "I wish this was a dream and I could wake up."
Which, of course it was and eventually I did.
Wah-wah-wah.
Anyway, hello. This too shall pass.
Hurricane lilies:
How can anyone be morose when they live on a planet which produces things like this?
I'm back in the I-don't-understand-this-world state of mind.
Oh, hell. I'm just tired and my joints hurt and I probably need to eat some kale or drink some green tea or do some yoga or something.
But no, I'll just go to bed and as always, accept and welcome the ecstasy that brings me, the lying down on the very comfortable bed, the clean sheets enveloping me, my light, my book, maybe my cat eventually sometime in the night, same with my husband who is back out in the garage working on deer blinds.
The appointment went quite well. We saw the nurse practitioner because otherwise we would have been waiting for hours and all the labs were pretty darn good. My husband is a healthy man and thank god for that, except of course, for this muscle and nerve loss.
Which.
They think is probably a genetic neuromuscular thing which is not uncommon and it's not going to kill him or even shorten his life and so hurray and hurrah and we shall be going to the geneticist soon to get that confirmed and yes, I am so glad that this is "all" it is and he is vastly relieved and yes, is out in that garage, building things with wood and saws and hammers and nails and so why am I sitting here falling apart and weeping a bit?
Just tired. Truly just tired. Relief is in there too. And of course, a bit of the crash.
I spent twenty minutes of my day waiting to talk to someone from our internet service provider who, when I finally got him on the phone and explained my problem (our router is very old and we need a new one), suggested that because the service provider no longer provides routers as part of their service but, instead, RENTS them by the month (as a part of their service, obviously) we might just want to go to Walmart or Best Buy and purchase a new one for $55 which is a bargain, really, when you compare it to the rental fee.
Thank you, Mr. Tech support. SIR! For that fucking great helpful advice.
Here's another thing that happened today:
I went to pick up Owen at school and when he got in the car he said, "Mer, I have good news and bad news."
"What's the bad news?" I asked him.
"I got a crayon stuck in my ear today."
"Oh no! Well, what's the good news?" And of course I thought the good news would be that he got the crayon out of his ear but no.
"Well, actually, there is no good news," he said.
"It's still in there?"
"Yes."
"Does it hurt?"
"Only when I try to get it out."
"Did you tell your teacher?"
"No."
"What color was it?"
"Red."
"Okay."
And then I had to drop the boys off with their mother and race to the appointment and Lily texted me that they were in Urgent Care and they did eventually get the crayon (just a tip) out of his ear and it was up tight next to his ear drum and BOYS! Well, I know girls do things like this too but it seems to me that boys are far more apt to be sticking things into head-orifices where they do not belong. Remember when Gibson stuck a peanut up his nose and even the doctor couldn't find it and he sneezed it out about three months later and it was green? He even suggested that Owen sneeze the crayon out but I tried to explain it wouldn't work that way with ears.
Owen and I had a long discussion on the phone after we all got out of our various doctors' offices about how humans are just very curious creatures and unfortunately, we often learn what not to do by doing things and then finding out it was not a good idea.
Whereupon we learn in a way in which we do not forget and that's just part of being human.
He understood. And hopefully, he will remember. At least not to stick a crayon tip in his ear.
All right. One more thing. The reason I WILL be getting Netflix post haste.
Oh Keith! My spirit totem animal.
"You're never grown up," he says at the end of this little trailer.
He's right, you know. We aren't. Not really. We just pile up a hell of a lot of experiences, some of which we learn from, some of which we never learn a damn thing from.
And some of them are mighty fine.
Say what you will about anxiety, it sure can fuel a proper walk.
I pass one place that is covered in wild morning glories of some sort and today the sulfur butterflies were darting and feeding there in great numbers. I took a little video but I'm not even going to bother to post it. I know it wouldn't truly show what I see there.
I don't know what I'd do without my walks. Even on the days when my anxiety is so high that I am disassociating with the best of my ability, I know that the woods and the flowers and the creatures and the movement and the sky and the water all help to soothe me. To ease things, to bring me back to earth, to calm my soul.
Back to town today to do a little bit of child care and then to an appointment with Mr. Moon to find out the results of those many, many tests he gave blood for a few weeks ago. I am thinking we might just have to go get supper after that. The appointment is for four and if they are scheduled like they usually are in that office, we won't get out of there until after six. Thankfully, I got two new magazines at the Post Office today and will have plenty of reading material. A small reminder that the universe CAN be abundant if you count the very small things.
I had a huge day, y'all. HUGE.
For me.
I did a kamikaze journey into town and didn't tell any of the kids I was coming in. I wanted to get things DONE and boy, did I, but I still felt guilty and it still took me five hours.
I felt especially guilty in Costco, wheeling through the produce room without either of my boys who love the "coldy room." They shiver dramatically when we're in there. It is part of our routine. As well as sampling everything to be sampled while today I sampled nothing. NOTHING. I was on a mission.
But I lived through the guilt and pushed on to the Big library, meaning the main library. I got books to read with both eyes and ears. While I was perusing new fiction, I overheard a phone conversation between a homeless guy and some agency dude. I know it was a homeless guy because he said on the phone that he was. It was painful, that conversation, and it hurt me to hear it and of course I couldn't hear the other guy's words but I could hear his voice, droning on, and finally, the guy in the library said, "Sir, Sir! We need to just end this. I'm upside down in the water and I ain't got no paddle or no sail and that's all there is to it."
Agency Guy must have said something at least a bit helpful because the homeless man said, "Okay, okay, why don't you text me that information?" He didn't sound completely hopeless when he said that. Not completely. Oh god. I hope he gets some help.
This is the country I live in. How do people do it?
And what did I do? I made my selections and went on downstairs and checked out.
Checked out.
Yeah.
Talk about guilt.
After the library I took myself to lunch and ate a falafel and pita sandwich and it was delicious. It came with enough hummus and vegetables to make a whole other meal and I packed that up and brought it home.
Then on to Goodwill. I got my first cashmere sweater of the year along with either a dress or a nightie, I'm not sure which, but it's as soft as the sweater and it does have pockets. And a skirt that I knew would not fit me but I bought it because it was so pretty and brand new and I thought perhaps my May would love it.
I hope she does.
My favorite overhearing there was also a one-sided phone conversation. It was an older woman and she said, "She hasn't told me and I ain't asking."
How can you not wonder what was going on there?
The cell phone has certainly added spice and color to eavesdropping.
THEN I went to Publix and I didn't do much overhearing there. I got my groceries and drove home on the interstate where I actually saw a rainbow's ending. I did not notice a pot of gold but did see some trees and a doublewide there. It felt like a good omen, just driving through that rainbow.
And here I am and I just feel so lucky and so grateful. I was okay out in public, I didn't die or fall down or say anything to anyone that was too stupid. I had enough money to buy not only what we need but what we might want. A sweet friend of mine texted back and forth with me all day so that I felt as if I had company. I was not alone. I came home to my beautiful house with my beautiful yard guarded by these magnificent oak trees and unloaded my groceries and my books and my Goodwill treasures and put everything away and collected eggs and repotted my tiny cactus that crashed last night and I have a place to sleep every night which is safe and cozy and cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I have a stove and I am simmering peas from the garden on it. I have a husband who will be home soon. I have a family who loves each other to infinity. I have so much. So very, very much.
And Lily reports that Gibson's rash cleared right up after some Benadryl and a nap.
Which is how it always went with her too, when she was a child.
I wonder what sort of quirks these new babies will be bringing with them?
Whatever they bring, they will be loved with all of the love that such rich people can bestow.
And as Keith Richards said in a recent NYT's interview (thank you, thank you, dear and darling Beth Coyote!), "I know what luck is. I've had a lot."
It never occurred to me that the story about the possum would be such big news. Things like that happen here every day. So what did I do when the possum fell through the dog door? I let out a howl and he fell away from the cat food container he was obviously familiar with and Luna, the feral Oldest Cat In The World (whose cat food the possum was after) was hissing at it from outside the dog door and Maurice was yowling at it from inside the house behind a door so I went through ANOTHER door back into the house, not wanting to let Maurice get tangled up with the critter, and got Mr. Moon. He armed himself with a broom but by the time we got back to the porch, the possum had disappeared. I suppose he tumbled back out through the dog door and trundled home, hungry and disappointed.
He must have come back last night though because when I got up, two plants which I had stupidly put on the skinny rail by the screen on the porch had been tumped over, one broken.
Between the crash which probably scared the poor thing to death and the fact that we've moved the cat food container, he probably won't come back.
But who knows?
Who the hell knows what goes on here in the dark hours?
Certainly not me.
So good morning and I had a nice dream about the Pope who is just the nicest, most humble guy. He spent the night at my house which was fine although he left his humble belongings behind and I was all freaked out because I didn't have a clue as to how to get hold of him to tell him that. The Pope may spend the night at your house, y'all, but he ain't gonna give you his phone number.
The whole situation was made even more complicated due to the fact that people thought my house was some sort of store and kept coming in to buy things and a woman moved her shop into my house and as payment, told me that I could pick anything out of her merchandise that I wanted but I didn't want any of her crappy jewelry and I told her so.
I still let her run her little shop though.
Jeez.
And I also had no desire to become a Catholic, despite my fondness for the Pope.
In real life I see he's pissing off a lot of Vatican Royalty or whatever they call those high-ranking Catholic dudes. Always dudes. Can you imagine what would happen if the Pope suddenly announced that GOD was now ready to let women be priests?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Real nice of the Pope to announce that this is the year of mercy and that women can now be forgiven for having had an abortion.
What the fucking fuck?
Don't get me started.
All right. That's the news from Lloyd where it is gray and drizzly. Lily called to ask me if Gibson could have possibly gotten many bug bites here because he is suddenly breaking out. We barely went outside so probably not. He is just like his mama who used to break out for no apparent reason whatsoever and I would take her to the doctor who would sigh and say, "I have no idea. Give her Benadryl," and of course I already had and she was my hivey kid and Gibson is hers. The fact that so many of us are allergic to our own planet gives strong credence to my theory that at least some of our DNA comes from another planet.
Gibson did not want me to take his picture but we all had a good time at Japanica! and someday I need to take a picture of my Bento Box with curried tofu but I always forget and just start destroying it immediately. I love it because although I always order the same thing, the green curry tofu always comes with different vegetables and they are always delicious. Owen ate all his miso soup, TWO salads, and all of his sushi. Oh, how that child loves Japanica!
There was a little boy there, probably about two, the child of someone who works there obviously, and he kept strolling out of the kitchen, chewing on sheets of seaweed. He was so precious I wanted to scoop him up and kiss him but of course we can't do things like that. He and Gibson made friends though, and before we knew it, the little boy had taken Gibson out to where the Lion's Club (I think) has placed a box of candy for people to take a piece and donate some money and were just about to plunder it when they were discovered.
Here's everyone but me. Please note Owen's daughters. He brought them in a knapsack. They are very shy but they did come out to eat some edamame beans.
I brought the boys home and I was not feeling at the top of my Mer Mer game but they are sweet and good boys and all went well. I slammed my finger in a pocket door and I'm pretty sure it's not broken but it's swollen up good and made me curse when it happened. Hurt like hell. We played the matching game again and the boys gave me a make-over which was so extreme that even Owen suggested I wash my face in order not to scare my husband. I looked like a Celt or something. Lots of blue. We played hide-the-stuffed-animals and the boys played tea party. We fed biscuits to the chickens and the boys watched more Sponge Bob than was probably necessary. They also took a long and very energetic shower. They are clean. Trust me.
Jason was late getting off work. Now that he's a manager, it's never quite cut in stone as to when he'll be able to leave. He was exhausted when he got here but I had fed the boys a pancake supper and they'd had their showers so hopefully, they can go straight to bed when they get home. Both he and Lily work so very, very hard. I am in awe of them and love them for being the incredible parents they are. When the boys left, Owen's words to me as they were pulling out of the driveway were, "Give Boppy a hug and a kiss and tell him I love him!" This sort of thing does not happen by accident.
In the midst of all of this, Mr. Moon left for auction and so here I am, alone in the quiet. I have a potato in the oven. That is what I want for my supper. A baked potato.
It's been that sort of day. I want a baked potato, all salty and warm and delicious. I remember when I was a child and the "elegant" restaurants brought out those little stainless steel servers with sour cream and bacon and chives to add to your potato.
Remember that?
And the same sort of stainless steel things they brought out with the salad? They held Thousand Island dressing, French dressing, and Roquefort.
Simpler, more comforting times.
Except for the, you know, Civil Rights movement straining in its birth pangs and the Viet Nam war and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Yeah. Good times.
We move on, we move back. Things change. Nothing changes.
Potatoes pretty much stay the same. And little boys. And pregnant ladies. And how grandmas feel about their grandchildren.
Time to put the chickens up. I hope that tonight a possum doesn't fall through the dog door like one did last night, freaking the fuck out of me. I was sitting here, five feet away when it did that and my immediate thought was, "That is the clumsiest cat I have ever seen."
And here we are and it's a gray Monday and depression has leaked into anxiety but not too bad but there you go and this is what it's like, having a brain on weirdness. One day up and one day down but I'm not bi-polar, I don't think. I've never experienced mania and thank god for that.
I'm sick of that news. As someone I know posted on FB this morning, I have NO MORE FUCKS TO GIVE about certain things and that crazy woman in Kentucky is one of them. I am pretty sure I will not be taking in a refugee and so what can I do about that? Dress myself in sackcloth and ashes (sounds pretty much like my regular wardrobe) and moan and tear at my hair?
I just want to cut my hair.
Fuck it.
This does not mean I don't care about anything, it just means I've lost my ability to remain on high alert about any of it. Give me a trowel and send me off to the woods to dig up plants. The world is insane, it always has been, it always will be until we humans make it unfit for life at which point, whatever happens will certainly be beyond my ability to do a damn thing about.
Hell, I can't even control my dreams because if I could, I would certainly not have dreamed about THAT shit.
I'm going to town to have lunch with Lily and the boys and whatever of the children want to come and then I'm bringing the boys back here. Since Owen started school we've sadly missed our Japanica! dates and so we shall go there unless for some reason they are closed. Would Japanica! close on Labor Day?
We shall see, won't we?
Someone in the hood is having a party already. I hear the music. I heard the music at four-thirty this morning, too.
As Mr. Moon said about these eggs this morning, the only way they could be fresher was to put the skillet under the hen's butt.
I swear to you- I have no idea in this world why I am so tossed about by my emotions. Chemicals, sure. But why and how do they change? Is the weather part of it? The moon, the stars, the planets? At this point I am disregarding nothing.
But the fact of the matter is, here it is Sunday and I am feeling quite well and not unhappy or dragged down by it all or hopeless or helpless or any of those other usual Sunday feelings.
I haven't done squat. Well, I cooked those eggs and some bacon and made biscuits. And lazed on the bed with Maurice who has been even lazier than I am. She let me pet her for a little while and then she grabbed my hand and then she softly bit it and then she licked it and eventually, she jumped off the bed and went her own way.
As I told a friend of mine via text this morning, I'm almost ashamed to admit how much I love that cat. She and the chickens are the perfect pets for me. They are not demanding and are content to live their own lives, sometimes intersecting with mine. I do not feel guilty if I don't spend "quality time" with them. They all love it when I give them treats but if I don't, they do not sulk or look at me as if I had failed them. Dogs are too much like children and thank you very much, I have raised mine and actual dogs too and enough is enough of that. I love the time I spend with my grandchildren but I am so very grateful that their parents are doing the heavy work.
So yes, a cat and chickens are plenty for me and they mostly bring me nothing but joy and giggles and eggs and the occasional snuggle. Maurice has never once pissed or shit in the house and I think she's only puked once.
Okay, okay, there is the occasional murder to clean up after.
Whatever.
Yep. Cat and chickens and...okay, plants.
Let's face it- I have to grow something or the nurturer in me will explode.
My latest joy in that regard is so tiny that taking a picture would be useless. And highly unimpressive. The two Surinam cherries I stole from the yard of my best childhood friend in Roseland about a month ago have finally sprouted. The sprouts are so tiny as to be almost hair-like in size but that's what they are and I could hardly be more excited. I've also successfully rooted a very small sprig of hibiscus and some succulents which grow wild in the jungle down there.
And do you remember this picture from last week?
A friend and reader texted me that she thought it was Bee Balm but when I looked it up this morning, I think what it actually is is the Bee Balm's cousin, Horsemint.
The Bee Balm is Monarda Citriodora and the Horsemint is Monarda Punctata.
How beautiful are those names?
Anyway, in my state of good spirits today, I think I will walk down to where I found them and dig a few up (yes, I will be trespassing) and bring them home. There is a lovely web article about them here.
All right. Enough verbal rambling. I think I will go and literally ramble. Mr. Moon just came in and showed me a walking stick he's been making for me. It's beautiful and almost as light as the dog fennel stem that I use to walk with. He is my darling, that man.
I hope that your Sunday is going well too. Report in and let me know. Data can be collected. We will all benefit.
A woman named Kristina Rodriguez posted these two pictures on Facebook today.
Say what you will about the FB.
I get to see things like this.
(Oh my heart)
What a fine little fellow, clinging to an orchid plant when I watered it.
And there was this today, too.
And this.
In order for the artist to do this.
And there was game playing and bed-making and then bed snuggling and clothes on the line and Hank visiting and men building box blinds for deer hunting and plenty of snacks and back-scratching and head-rubbing and me telling Owen as Jessie and I were doing those things for him, "This is the best moment of your life. You will spend the rest of your life trying to have a moment as good as this." There was holding-Gibson-like-a-baby-and-rocking-him-and-singing-to-him-and-giggling. There was pea picking and pea shelling. There was puzzle-doing and me trying to explain what "freak" means and there was toy-sharing and toy-envy and there was a lot of laughing and so yeah, I pretty much got my attitude adjusted.
Now I'm going to cook some beets and I told my husband that he doesn't have to eat them but he does have to try them. He does not like beets. One of the very few foods he really does not like the taste of. So we shall see.
Saturday morning and I slept late, dreaming I was in Roseland, but the dream Roseland which is situated a bit differently than the real one and Jessie was a baby and I was carrying her around in a basket and I was trying to tell people about what it had been like to grow up there and no one really cared.
And who could blame them?
And it was so hard to keep my Jessie Baby safe in her basket.
Ah, lah. I don't think we need to call Dr. Freud for that one.
I just feel like crying this morning. It came over me last night, this feeling of living a pointless life in a pointless world. Okay, actually, yesterday morning. Which is so ridiculous because obviously, my life is not exactly pointless and the world is not either although maybe it is and we're all just running our little hamster wheels as fast as we can to invent religions and myths and philosophies to create meaning where there is actually little less than chaos.
Or we wash our sheets to hang on the line and the purpose of that is to reward ourselves for having lived another day and now we get to rest on clean sheets, to sleep and try to make sense of it all in our dream world.
Or we write it all down and try to make sense of it that way. Hold it in place long enough to examine it, search for the inner, true meaning.
Or we go on social media and repost stuff that proves our points, we sing to the choir, we feel good about "liking" the idea that something must be done about...things.
Or we dig in the garden or we find meaning in the chickens or we read all the books or we listen to all the music or we walk or we meditate or we do whatever it is we do and sometimes, sometimes, sometimes...
It just doesn't seem to matter.
Luckily, and thankfully, this passes.
It is one of those days.
I'm sure I'll get my head out of my ass soon enough.
And until then, I'm thinking that perhaps the only true meaning of life is cats. Sleeping.
For a day I in which I didn't feel like talking much, I sure had to do a lot of it. Or at least, some. And sometimes, just some is a lot.
I had to go sign some papers at the bank where Mr. Moon has his office and ended up playing secretary although not in the fun fantasy way where the pretend boss pretends to call you, the pretend secretary, into the office and says, "Bring your pad. I need you to take a letter," and you sit in the chair across from him with your skirt hiked up and so forth and so on.
What the hell am I talking about?
I have no idea.
Anyway, so what I did was help him amend a contract and god only knows if it's legal but it probably is and various notaries witnessed all sorts of signatures.
Then I raced over to Jessie's for her midwife appointment and all is very, very well. Baby is head down and has a good strong heart beat and all of Jessie's numbers are good and her pee is perfect! I was completely amazed to see what all Vergil has done with their kitchen and the house in general. Their nursery is coming about and they have a couch now and light fixtures and the best, the sweetest- Jessie has a changing table set up in her beautiful bathroom with all the diapers stored and everything all ready for this baby and I can't wait until their house smells like baby and new mama milk.
Oh my goodness. Soon, soon.
I had a little talk with Vergil about grand babies and grandparents and I cried a little bit. And I studied the hands of Diana, the midwife and thought about how strong and capable they looked and how she, with her hands, is going to help usher this baby into our lives in such a short while and that felt completely right.
And then I had to go BACK to the bank to sign some more papers which were duly witnessed and notarized and then raced to the grocery store and did my shopping and raced home because I knew that Lily was here with the boys already and they were indeed here when I got home and so I put on my Mer Mer overalls and jumped into that role.
Phew.
Chile', I am tired. And Mr. Moon is exhausted.
But I had fun with the boys. We sidewalk chalked and put together a puzzle and had snacks and played a matching game and Gibson actually played with us too and he did a good job. He totally got it and followed the rules and waited his turn and I was so proud of him.
Owen had a big gold medal around his neck that he got in school for being a good citizen or as he said, "For being the nicest."
Lily told me that this morning he said, "Thank GOD for a three day weekend. Or maybe thank George Washington or Hammerhead Lincoln."
That's what he's been hearing instead of Abraham Lincoln and now for forever and always, I will think of Abe as being Ol' Hammerhead which is actually pretty appropriate.
He also told me that "your child" is going to take him to the flea market tomorrow. "My child" being Hank. He said, "Me and Hank love the flea market."
So. That's been my day of not feeling like talking and once again, let us remember what the Rolling Stones said which of course was, "You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just mind find, you get what you need."
I raised my children on this saying and I remember once, when Hank asked me for something that I could not give him I said, "Remember that the Stones said," and he looked at me and said, "Yabba-Dabba-Do?"
Well, I finally got my mojo working and managed to mop three rooms and the hallway. Oh wait. Should I include the extremely small bathroom and laundry room? Sure, why not? So I mopped five rooms and a hallway.
And hung all the clothes out and then had to bring them in before they were dry due to rain and blah, blah, blah.
Before you get all up and congratulate me or anything, please note that I did very little desperately needed dusting and what I did was hardly what you'd call "dusting" but more like "spreading Lloyd greasy black dust around."
Whatever. It smells really good. If you like the scent of Fabuloso, vinegar, and bleach.
Which I do.
I also smell like those things now which I'm not sure is what every husband wants his wife to smell like when he gets home from a long day of work but hopefully the smell of venison meatloaf and apple/blueberry cobbler will distract him from that.
Yes. Yes I do live in the fifties and don't you wish you did too?
Oh wait. You don't? Well, please take into account that I wear ugly overalls 99% of the time and he never complains and he makes MY martinis.
Again I have walked.
Again I have lived.
This is a never-ending miracle to me in the summer.
Should we start a lottery to guess on which date I'll start bitching about how cold it is?
But seriously folks.
Okay. Let's play Jeopardy. Here's your answer:
"Something wicked this way comes."
Question:
"What does the post master thinks when he smells me coming?"
Haha! I got a million of 'em!
I feel like a wild beast. I really do. Not in a good way. In a way like I'm an untended creature whose coat has grown so shaggy that twigs and leaves are tangled in it and whose hooves are three feet long. I need a pedicure so bad that I can't get one because I am completely too embarrassed to allow anyone to touch my feet. I'd have to tip in the hundreds. I mean, I did cut my toenails yesterday but the callouses on my heels are deep and cracked and, okay, permanently dyed black from the good old Lloyd dirt. I just checked to see if I am exaggerating.
No. I am not.
There will be no picture.
I remember talking to a woman once who said she soaked her feet in Oxyclean before she got a pedicure. I should go buy some Oxyclean. Next time I go to the store, I'm going to get some.
Onward. Here's a butterfly on a zinnia.
Now isn't that pretty? See the watermelon vine all up in there? That little red blossom in the lower right is the watermelon flower. Black swallowtail. Red zinnia.
I like to be precise about these things.
Hey! Does anyone know what this is?
I espied it when I ducked off the path into the woods to pee.
So I'm on disc 33 of the 38 discs of A Dance With Dragons.
It's taking me even longer than it should because sometimes, in a fruitless effort to glean a clue about what I'm listening to, I start a disc over.
Look. George RR Martin has created more characters in these books than I have neural pathways in my brain. I am not kidding you. There are entire families I have no idea about. But still, I listen. And I even enjoy. Fuck it. I don't need to follow everything. And eventually it always comes back to Tyrion Lannister and he's my favorite character so it's okay.
Well, half the day has passed and I haven't done one damn thing. My goal for today is to do some inside cleaning (that's of my house, not my personal body) and once again, try to create a supper which doesn't require me to go to town.
I did spend most of the day outside, but moved so very, very slowly. It has been hot and it has been humid and perhaps now we might get a teeny tiny bit of rain although the radar shows the merest band of weather heading this way. I did hear thunder a moment ago but that often means nothing, these late summer storms, skating about, missing us by less than miles.
Teasing bitches of summer.
So oh, the chickens have fresh clean water and a fresh hay for their nests and their feeder is refilled with their feed. I have potted plants I've been rooting and repotted plants to make way for other plants and then repotted THOSE plants. I think this may be my own old lady method of nesting which I am doing for Jessie. I picked up fallen branches and hauled them to the burn pile and I had a happy few moments, feeding cut-up grapes to the chickens.
Mick will not take food from my hand. This is my fault. I did not hand train him the way I did Elvis. Well, he did take ONE piece of grape from me but it seemed that this one small action took all of his courage and although he came close again and stared at me with great intention, he would not take another.
Speaking of my darling chickens, I really do think I may have gotten an egg today from Lisa Marie.
Here are all the eggs I got today (the ladies are slacking in this heat) and the one on the left is Camellia's and the next is either Chi-Chi's or Cha-Cha's and the next two are Butterscotch's and Lucille's and after that- well, I do not recognize that egg. It is a big smaller, and lighter than the other brown eggs I get. Nicey's eggs are a bit paler too but her eggs are quite distinctive in that they lack the shiny smoothness of the other hens' eggs. And they are sometimes a bit freckled.
So no, that it is not Nicey's egg.
I really think it is Lisa Marie's.
As I was sitting on my pack porch steps, handing out grapes, I thought about a day I came to the house before we'd moved in. I'd been cleaning and scrubbing and walking around thinking, "This is mine, this is mine," and loving it all so much, feeling amazed at the gift of this old beautiful house. I sat on those steps and it was March and the sun felt good on me and I closed my eyes at the wonder of it all, the pure pleasure of it. I felt as if I had finally come home.
Here I am now, over eleven years later, still amazed at the wonder of it. I could not have imagined all that would happen to me and my family and my friends in these eleven years. Grand babies were but gleams in their parent's eyes. Jessie and Lily were still in high school. I had no chickens and had not even met Kathleen who gifted me with my first ones. I had not acted in any plays at the Opera House nor had I planted my garden. The bed which now holds camellias and ferns was filled with thorns and ratty pyracantha and nandina and the yard was wild and untamed. The only palms in the yard were the sagos in the front yard.
I still thought my book was going to be published.
I had yet to turn fifty.
I had never cooked a meal in this house nor made love in it or changed a baby's diaper in it or danced in the hallway of it or heard musicians playing in it or washed a load of clothes in it or sat through a rain storm on the porch of it or drunk martinis with my lover in it or taken a bath in it or lived in it at all but I knew I wanted to do everything in it, maybe die in it, if that was part of it all.
And here I am now. And there have been weddings and parties and flowers and gardens and there are palms and camellias and babies and more babies to come and there have been joys and there have been sorrows and more meals than I can count, more love than I could have fathomed.
There is even a dishwasher. Which I have not grown sanguine about in the least.
I have chicken parmesan in the oven and a loaf of rosemary and olive bread. My husband is home and it has been a good day for him. I am dirty and I have sweat today and I am content.
You never know. You just never know.
But this I do know- I was right when I felt that I had come home.
Home.
In the true sense of the word.
And I have not grown sanguine about that either.
Thank you for coming to visit me in my home. It is raining, yes, a teeny-tiny bit. It is splendid indeed and the dirt and the air smell like life.
I decided to take my house dreams and do something productive with them. Before I fall asleep I have been visualizing those houses and trying to bring them into better being, to merge them into one beautiful house, to clean them out to the boards and walls, to replace the many non-functioning filthy appliances with the appropriate number of new ones, sparkling and made mine. Lay the floors with oriental rugs with ruby hues, clean the windows so that light comes in and replaces darkness, fill the dark corners with light and with books and with plants.
All the while, incorporating those things which I do love about these dream houses. The hallway lined with windows and plants, the little pool and fountain outside the door, the ocean somewhere nearby.
And still this morning I woke from horrible dreams. A hurricane had passed. I had nothing to wear. My stepfather dogged my every step, begging me to let him take me in his arms. I yelled at him, I ranted, I cursed him. He would not leave.
People were partying in yet another dream house addition, a guest house, and I chased them out.
I tried to explain depression to someone who insisted that all I had to do was to focus on all of the good things in my life, this world.
The dreams dragged me down into a pewter depth of feelings that were, to say the least, not comfortable.
What to do?
Let the chickens out, drink the smoothie. Go for a walk.
This blooming, finally, on my front gate.
The moon flowers.
The sky as gray as my soul, the air as humid and murky as my thoughts.
Heavy clouds, as ponderous with water as a crooked politician with lies.
How could someone lose this?
Their sparkly eye shadow in all of my favorite colors. The colors of the sea around Cozumel.
I saw a rabbit, hop-running across the road in front of me. I saw a huge gopher turtle slip into his or her burrow.
I was sad not to get his picture but then I looked up to see another, that one's twin (at least to my human eye) lumbering along, also heading towards the burrow.
He allowed me to come close and although he started to pull his head and legs into his shell, when I spoke softly to him, he stopped and looked up at me, as if waiting to hear what else I might say.
I thanked him (her?) and we both went on our separate paths.
I am home now and feeling better, dreams drifting on to probably waylay me again.
But this.
The Firespike has begun to bloom and I swear, it is happening before my eyes.
This is a plant very easy to root and I have done just that and planted it all over the yard.
The yard.
This is where I am going to spend my day. I need a day of retreat and dirt and caring for what I have right here.
I have plenty of company, none of which will ever torment me in my dreams.
Jesus fuck.
I just called the NP's office and guess what?
They did respond to my email yesterday by calling the pharmacist where I get my hormones refilled and simply refilled them for five more months.
Holy shit!
Okay. Now I can collapse. It would have been mighty nice if they'd told ME about this but what can you expect?
I have been going over my childhood to try and figure out what in the world caused this horrible and illogical fear of doctors I have. We had a very nice pediatrician who actually dated my mother for a short while. I know that at one point when I got what I remember as a "flu shot" but which may have been any kind of immunization, it took three people to hold me down to get it.
Yeah. That was bad.
But there has to be more.
And there is something I remember but I don't remember all of it which I find odd. And somehow it all has to do with shame and helplessness and all that murky stuff that gets stuffed back into the darkest recesses of the mind but which can poison everything for life.
Well, anyway, time for the crash. The amount of adrenalin in my body is not going to go quietly.
Thank you so for putting up with my own (not very) unique brand of insanity. It helps to talk about it more than I can say. And I will also say that at least having this form of insanity makes me so much more compassionate for others who have their own kinds which, on the surface, may appear to be ridiculous, but which I know has nothing to do with that part which shows.
Nothing.
