Fast Forward

Well, hell. It turned out to be a pretty damn decent day.
I went to Target because All Women Must Go To Target and I bought a shirt on sale and some trip-sized things like shaving cream and the best, the best- I bought that new-baby-coming some little sleeper thingees, all in yellow and white with duckies on them, size 0-3 months and isn't that fun? Oh. Yes. It is. A new baby coming! Little cuddly little thing with a face and personality we have no idea of yet at all.
Oh my. My heart can barely believe it. My arms already ache to hold that child.
(I must take a moment to gather myself. Okay. I'm all right.)

I went to ONE store in the mall that I know has kick-ass 65% off sale racks this time of year with all of the summer stuff and I tried on a bunch of things and bought a few that were not HIDEOUS which most of them made me feel. The clothes weren't hideous. I just looked hideous in them.
Sigh.
But. Still.
And then a few more errands and I got gas and why is getting gas such a damn pain in the ass? It's easy as hell to do but I still hate it. Maybe because I was raised in the days when you'd drive into the gas station and the bell hose would ding!ding!ding! and the guy would come out and you'd roll your window down and say, "Five dollars, please," and he'd put in five dollars worth and that would fill up your tank and while he was filling up the tank he'd wash your windows with great sweeping swipes of the squeegee and then polish it all off with a blue paper towel and he'd say, "Check your oil, ma'am?" and you'd say, "No thanks!" and then you'd give him five dollars and he'd tip his hat and you'd drive away.
Oh my.
I miss that.
Then back home to unload the car and put everything away and then to the Opera House where we did another read-through and oh my. Jon. He is just SO good. So good. I hope to be able to hold up my end of the banter because really, I'm just the straight woman in this play (not sexually, you know, but yes, that too, but I mean in the comedic sense) and now I'm home and it's time for bed because Owen is coming in the early-early and I have missed that boy.

I did see Santa today, by the way, but he was just hanging out with the photographer lady and wasn't torturing any kids.

And I bought Reese's Pieces to try and bribe Owen to use the potty but I don't think that will work because his will is far stronger than his desire for candy and that cute little puppy potty is just taking up space in the bathroom.

That's all. I hope you've had a nice day. Sleep well. I mean it.

Well the sun has come out, it has warmed up and I took a walk and I don't care what my problems are- those three things can make anything at least a little bit better.
I still feel overwhelmed and over-daunted but dammit, the sky is blue and I got off my ass.

I think I'll go hang the clothes out and gird my loins (or at least my bosoms) and go to town.

I will not be going to see Santa, however. You can bet on that.

Thanks for not coming and kicking me in the ass no matter how badly I deserve it.

Love...Ms. Moon

Someone Tell Me To Just Shut Up

I finished reading Swamplandia! last night and I don't get the hubbub over it. Sorry. For me it got bogged down in the swamp of it all and I do not know what the redeeming value of it was and maybe that's just because I'm ignorant.
I feel terrible saying something negative about a book that someone wrote with her very own mind but there you go. The truth is, there was too much, too much, way too much going on and it got to the point where I did not CARE what happened to these characters except maybe the brother, Kiwi, who had the good sense to escape the dank island of Swamplandia and leave the gators behind. It did not work for me on the level of metaphor and it did not work for me on the level of surrealism and it did not work for me on the level of realism. No one in this world could stumble around the everglades for days without water or food or bug repellent and not come out dead or at least in need of hospitalization and what the fuck was that Mama Weeds character all about? Or the red gator for that matter?

Ah Jeez. I should just shut up.

It's probably just me and this eternal grayness we seem to be consigned to like being consigned to a cold, damp hell of a tin cup for a world lined with damp paper towels and put into the refrigerator.
I think I probably have mold. Well, still, that beats the hell out of being lost in the Everglades with a bird-man rapist on your tail and nowhere to hide but a gator nest.

Thank god for small favors, eh?

I wish I had something witty to say today. I wish I had something pithy or enlightening or god, what's that word? INSPIRING! yeah, that's it but I don't.  I'm just in one of those phases when it takes everything I have to face the reality of life, even if it's a cushy-ass reality and the reality IS that I need to go to town and DO THINGS which I vaguely have an idea about but not really.
I swear- where do these moods come from?
I went to a website for survivors of childhood abuse and they all talk about "triggers" and I am thinking and thinking but I can't think of a trigger one lately, I just went to bed happy on Sunday night and woke up in deepest funk yesterday morning and that's the truth of it. No rhyme, no reason, just there you are, here's your breakfast of cold, gray grits, YAY GIRL! you washed the sheets and cleaned the nests in the chicken house, here, I've done my job, let me sleep.

Well, I can't sleep any more today (that's a lie- I could sleep all day long) and I better get off my ass and fake it 'til I make it and when you're smiling the whole world smiles with you, baby. I need to go off on a quest, perhaps, find the meaning of the red gator in the Underworld, thirst for knowledge, for meaning, for water, sweet and pure, keep my eyes open for buzzards circling overhead, for the rescue plane which could appear at any moment, either one.

Here's all of this and five dollars and forty-seven cents, go buy a cup of coffee.

Stay out of the swamp, don't trust a man dressed in a coat made of the feathers of dead birds, don't believe in the Underworld, don't believe a thing I say, it's all in my mind which is a swamp unto itself, filled with snakes and gators, filled with sawgrass that'll cut you to ribbons.

I think I'll go to the mall/take a walk/spend all day knitting in front of the TV/sleep until my skin falls off/take up crew rowing/find an open bar at ten a.m./get pregnant/go buy apples and a rotisserie chicken/make the bed.

I think I'll run away but no, that never works, you always take yourself with you and besides that, the Rapist Bird Man is an excellent tracker.

"Woof," says the dog and Santa Claus is coming to town and I'll bet he's at the mall right this second, waiting in his faux velvet suit to be spat up upon, to be cried on, to be adored and pleaded with and lied to about how good we've all been this year. Maybe he'd make room for me on his lap. Maybe he'd let me tug his beard, tell him my lies.

Maybe I need to shut up and plug in my Robert B. Parker book and go take a walk.

Yeah. I'd be a fool not to.

I Am Grateful For A Woman's Heart

I went to Kathleen's house today. She is home from helping midwife a friend into death and taking care of that woman's husband as he is not only going through such grief but also back surgery and so much pain. Kathleen has had to bear witness to too much pain and suffering in the past few years and she is weary of it. She is weary from it too.

I had to go over, you know, because sometimes there is nothing else that can be done but to go see someone and hug them and let them know that you are alive, you are here, there is still life on Planet Earth. I wish I'd had a bouquet of gorgeous flowers to take her but I didn't and so I took a plastic bag full of salad greens, all washed and ready to go. Her dogs have eaten all of her greens and so she has none at the moment.

She looked tiny and frail but her hug was strong and then Judy came over too and we sat in Kathleen's house and watched her measure and weigh and simmer and mix- her soap-making routine. I didn't help a bit. I just watched and kept out of her way and so did Judy and by the time I realized it was getting dark, we had all laughed a lot and talked about everything from death to taxes, quite literally, with a bit of birth thrown in and, okay, sex as well.

I guess that when Kathleen and Judy and I get together, we are something of a cackling coven.

Works for me.

Works for me.

As much as I would like to say that I went over there for Kathleen, I know that being with those two women was more comforting to me than I can even admit. Just sitting there and talking and being able to say whatever outrageous thing I want to say and to have that accepted and even laughed at- well, that's good. That's acceptance. That's love.
We are three such very different women but we have seen each others souls and we approve.
I feel gifted by the afternoon. I feel so lucky.

Judy and I left her with her gentle giant dog Harry with his paws around the untouchable cat Marina, with her boy-dog Bob, her baby clown girl-dog Edna and a bunch of cats whose names I honestly can never remember. She has good company, Kathleen does, in her little house with the blooming Flame Vine, her chickens, her animal kids. I bet her house smells like heaven right now with the soap-making. I hope she is not too worn out.

I hope that she and Judy both know how much I appreciate their company.

That's all I have to say tonight. Just that I needed that woman-fellowship and I got it and it was good.
We do not have to bear our burdens or our weariness alone. We may not be able to share the weight of them as such, but we do not have to be alone as we bear them.

Thank goodness.

Still Gray Here But At Least We Got Some Rain

This morning I saw a hawk fly down from a tree to sit on my garden fence and he stayed there until the baby chicks next door started fussing and then he flew off to investigate and I couldn't bear to watch. How any baby-anythings make it around here with all the hawks is beyond me. Yes, those hawks are gorgeous but scary too with those swoop-swoop wings that scoop air hard. They are big birds. They are predators.

I wake up almost every morning feeling as if I am already a failure at life. Then I spend the rest of the day climbing some sort of self-imposed ladder to something far short of "success" but mostly just acceptance of myself. As if. My craziness is as strong and scary as that hawk and any tenderness I may have for myself is as fragile as those downy chicks next door.
And yet, I mostly manage to do it.
It's a sort of miracle.
And then I get up the next day and have to do it again. It takes a lot of energy. More than I have sometimes. 

When we did our read-through last night I enjoyed it so much but still, after we were done, I had to say ONE MORE TIME- Look guys- I am too old for this part. I love this part but I am too old.
They all told me that I am not. That it will be fine. What touched my heart was when the wife of the man who is playing opposite me said, "Mary, you are gorgeous."
She did not have to say that. She is not one to throw compliments around like confetti. She is a fairly quiet woman.
She had no idea when she said that how hard I am going to hold those words to my chest as protection, as totem, as comfort.
It was a Mitzvah, just like when Jason picked up Owen's toys the other day before they left.

I read an article in Vanity Fair the other day by Christopher Hitchens. Here it is, if you want to read it.
He has recently been going through hell on this earth being treated for cancer and in the article he takes on that old saying, "What does not kill us makes us stronger."
He doesn't believe it and neither do I.

I was reading another blog this morning and in it, the woman wrote that all of her growth and all of her blessings have stemmed from difficulties. She's religious and brings Jesus into the mix and I love her attitude about so many things but this one- nah.
Specifically, I was thinking about how different I might be had I not had to survive childhood sexual abuse. I did survive it but goddammit, I don't think it made me stronger. I think it made me fucked-up in ways that will never, ever be completely healed.
It was not a blessing.

In fact, it has interfered with my ability to accept my blessings my entire life. It has given me the fear that no matter how good things are, there will be a hawk coming from the sky to swoop in and take those blessings from me. The better I have it, the more I have to lose, the more I have to fear.

I thought, I thought...(I was nine years old) that the man who was about to marry my mother would make everything better. He would take away her depression, he would make her HAPPY, he would complete our family, he would be...my father.
Instead, he made everything worse and he filled my life with fear.

You don't really get over shit like that. At least I haven't.
And oh sure, I am more empathetic because of what I went through. I am...well, to tell you the truth, I can't really think of anything else that's very positive to talk about which came from that experience. Nope. Just can't.
It wasn't a blessing in disguise and a whole lot of other horrible things are not either.

I'm not talking about not having enough money to buy a new car or breaking your arm or all of the things that befall us that yes, we do get through and can look back and see that we are stronger than we knew because we survived them. There ARE things which we survive which make us stronger. There is pain which has a purpose. Childbirth, for instance.

But there are other things which come like the hawk- the predator- that take so much from us. Even the basic sense that we deserve a life, not of riches or ease, perhaps, but just a plain, regular old life.

And when I write a post like the one I did last night wherein I talk about the incredible blessings of my life, I wake up the next day and think, "I do not deserve this. Something will come and take it all away." I could sit here and list a hundred things that I fear to the point of almost-paralysis. It would be so easy.

And every day, every single day of my life, I get up and I struggle through those fears and I do put one foot in front of the other and I get through. Just as many of us do who have gone through, who are going through things which seem unbearable. Things which do NOT make us stronger but instead take away all our reserves of strength and leave us panting for breath.

Of course we go on. Of course we do. Unless we don't. And some do not. Can not.

And this is the way it is. We humans want so badly to give everything a happy ending. To believe that there is meaning in suffering and we make up stories and religions that tell us exactly that. That even if this life is cruel and even if we are given more than we can bear, that in the next life, we will be rewarded for our struggles here.

See- I don't believe that for a second. I don't believe that and I don't believe that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger and I surely don't believe that god doesn't give us more than we can bear.

I just believe that it is what it is and that life can be beautiful and that life can be horrible and that life can be easy as walking down a dusty road under a clear blue sky and whistling a tune and life can be looking up to see the hawk flying low, heading straight for you and your babies.

And I believe that any kindness we can offer another is a good thing. I believe that we should be able to appreciate the smallest goodnesses of our lives and not dwell on that which is not a goodness which doesn't mean I am a Pollyanna but that we should do our best for our own self-interest to realize what we do have which is good and true. And that we should, in turn, be aware and grateful when those things are offered to us.

Because what else is there?

Perhaps I focus on the smallest blessings- the egg, the arugula, the softness of Goodwill cashmere, the son-in-law who picks up the toys, the kind comment from someone- because these I can accept. These I can be sure of.

Everything else is too much for me to bear sometimes- the very real and perfect weight of them in my life, my arms makes me know how much I have which makes me know how much I could lose.

So. There you go. Not very uplifting. But it's what I have to offer today.

And I want to say that if you are one of those people who carry burdens beyond what any human can bear (and I do not consider myself to be one of them), I have this to say:
I see you and I do not think that it is fair and I love you for continuing to bear that which is impossible to bear.

That's all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Back from the read-through and I am excited and calmly thinking about this woman I am playing in a play and how it can be funny and I can be funny and there were a few moments, even in this first reading where I could feel magic creeping in. I think I may have found us an actor for a role yet uncast and I am hoping (fingers crossed) that it will happen. He would be perfect or at least, very, very good. Oh god, I love the Opera House. I love the process of word-to-voice-to-movement with words from the page. Voice, body, make-'em-laugh, make-'em-cry. Make ME laugh. Make ME cry.

Came home and talked to Jessie, my baby, out there in the world, on her way to work and there she is- away from me but tucked always into my heart. I picked salad in the dark with a flashlight and when I snapped the arugula with my thumbnail, the scent of it flew up and I mentally paired it with tomatoes and vinegar and olive oil and garlic and it was like eating in the garden, it is like shopping in the ground.

Mr. Moon keeps opening his jacket when I am near to draw me in to his warmth, his heart. He has made a fire to cook the giant Tennessee grass-fed steak he traded for oysters from the bay we may live on one day, god willing, and I am thinking of the way they have found coastal seashells in the mountains of Georgia which were obtained from trading back so long ago and for this moment, it all makes sense.

Somehow it does and the bread is in the oven, the potatoes are in the oven, the steak is resting in a bath of oil and garlic and spices and the salad is waiting to be made, conceived in dirt and snapped with my thumbnail and the olive oil is resting in its bottle, the garlic is waiting in its paper-skin, the vinegar is waiting in its green-glass to anoint the arugula in its bowl. The fire is snapping, ready for meat to be cooked on it.

God. I am rich.

Not A Bad Sunday

It's like Groundhog Day here over and over again, this overcast damn chill-bone weather. There is nothing inspiring in it for me, I am like a plant who can survive the gray but who does not thrive in it, not at all and yet, do I do anything to move towards some light and cheer?
No. I do not.
I hunker down and take baths in boiling hot water and drink coffee and tea and make chili and watch the chickens and read Swamplandia! and fret over the fact that I should AT LEAST make a list of things I must do before we leave for Mexico.
I am inert.
Well, to everything there is a season, and so forth and the chili was very good, at least.
And truthfully, I am not unhappy.
Not a bit.

I am, in fact, pretty darn content.

I don't have a lot on my mind today that needs discussing or airing. I am thinking about the play and the first read-through we're going to have this afternoon and how it'll be the first time since Wednesday that I've left Lloyd.
I'm thinking about that list I need to make for my trip but even though we are leaving two weeks from today, it just seems completely impossible for me to even imagine leaving not only Lloyd but Florida and indeed! the country! But somehow, in my mind, Cozumel is only an extension of my heart-home so it doesn't seem like a very daunting prospect. At least not yet. I still remember the things I bought to take to Cozumel the first time, some of which I used or wore and some of which I did not. I didn't realize how hot it would be there so the jeans I took I wore exactly once, I think, and that was the last time I ever took a pair of jeans. I did use the water-proof eyeshadow I'd bought in mermaid colors and also some Dewberry perfume from the Body Shoppe which I don't think they even sell now but if they did, I would buy some because I loved it. I had no idea how young and beautiful I was back then. 1987. I was thirty-three years old. I wore that Dewberry perfume and had mermaid eyes, even when I swam, and we danced in a discotheque there called Scaramouch and for a week I was not a mother or an old hippie but a mermaid/madonna/goddess with silver flashing in her ears and on her arms and every picture taken of me I was wearing an expression of bliss.
Ah me.
Ah lah.

I tell you this- I will be taking eyeshadow in mermaid colors again and I will be wearing it. Maybe not when I swim or snorkel, but for going out to supper. Believe it. And silver bracelets. Oh yes I will, even those these arms are not the arms of someone I recognize anymore. I recognize the bracelets. Perhaps I will even buy some more.

I have so many memories of Cozumel. I hope we make some new wonderful ones this trip. Memories that can shoot through even these Groundhog Days of winter's continual gray as my once-blond hair grows gray, as my face and arms grow ever-less recognizable to me. That handsome man who has traveled so well with me over the years and I may not dance at Scaramouch but we can still dance. We can still trace the path of the moon over the water to Tulum by its silver trail. We can still laugh and we can still love and so yes, I am thinking of that today, this gray day, as the leaves continue to fall, as the chickens scratch in the dirt, as I am content with memory, with present, with looking-forward to what may come. The good parts, at least. I think there will be more.

The Full Moon From My Backyard.

Google is still messing with me. Click on 'em if you want to see them fully. Haha!

Full Moon Wishes And Dreams

Oh, goodness, I feel like the quiet hub of a buzzing, whirling world. Not the center of the universe, just the part that is still.

Mr. Moon is in the woods for the second time today and besides that, has sold a car. He comes in to shower with take-your-scent-away soap and change into whatever outfit he needs for the activity before him. One thing I do not enjoy about hunting season is having to use all unscented washing detergent and softener. Laugh all you want, I love the smell of some fabric softeners. But if anything smells of anything, the deer will know and so there you go- he must be unscented, as if that were possible.
He brings home trail camera pictures and videos of the deer and other animals that trigger the contraption. Today there were two bears. Bears are big, y'all. But Mr. Moon just laughs and shoos them away if they get too close. They look like big cuddly pets in the videos but those are blurry and black and white and I know that up close they are huge and have very long claws and very sharp teeth and no, black bears do not generally (hardly ever!) attack a human unprovoked, but still...
Jason hunted this morning too and came in to report that he'd seen some young bucks or does or something. I guess bucks. "I've seen them grow up," he said. "I feel like their father. I can't shoot them."
This is the kind of hunters I know and love. They go for meat and to see what is in the woods and they go many, many times without raising a rifle.

Anyway, all of that is happening in the woods and in the world and I have been here, going as far as the trash place, the post office. That's all. Hank and Anna came out to visit and we did and I have chili cooking and that is all.

I had to water the plants. Had to. And in doing so, I discovered that some of the hens are laying again in the fern on the front porch. Those eggs above are the ones I found in there. I know they are fresh because I only uncovered the plants a few days ago. Eggs are packaged to last. Believe me.

I put two cans of tomatoes in my chili, paranoid now about the report that canned tomatoes leach some horrible chemical from their containers and that we should never, never use them.
Oh fuck it.
I can't possibly keep up with this shit. And then someone will come along soon and say, "Oh, no big whoops. We were wrong." And if not, we'll, I guess my chili is going to kill us.

Eggs might be killing us with cholesterol or maybe this year they aren't, but I'll tell you this- the way they are packaged will not. And how beautiful! No Madison Avenue art department could come up with a fancier package, no label required.

When Hank was here, I gave him a quick run-down on what his chicken duties will be when he house sits for us while we are away. "I guess you don't really need to know their names, do you?" I asked him.
"I don't think so," he said.
I sighed. And then told him all of their names anyway and pointed out how to identify them all. I know it looks like I have six identical black hens but if you know them, they are as different as night and oh...a different night.
It doesn't matter to a soul on this earth except for me. The chickens don't care although I am convinced that Elvis knows his name. I have seen Owen call him and he has come to the boy. Owen and Elvis have grown up together. Do you remember when they looked like this?

And then this?


So hard to believe. Now Owen lets the chickens out and calls them and feeds them. "Owen DO it," he says. He cracks crackers for them by stomping on them with his boots. And then casually reaches down and picks up a piece which is bigger than the rest and pops it into his mouth.
Sigh.
He also lets the goats nibble on carrots and then before I can stop him, puts the carrots back into his own mouth. But he returns the favors- he chomps up collard greens and spits them out for the chickens to eat.
So far, it's working for all of us.

Well. Saturday night. Prairie Home Companion is about to be on. The chickens are up in their roost. The sky is growing dark. I need to remember to go out look at that full moon.

And it's Lon Williamson's birthday! Mr. Moon and I need to call him and at least leave him a message, tell him how glad we are that he was born, that he is a part of our lives. Happy birthday, Lonnie! We love you truly! Always and forever. There is no one on earth like you which is sad, because if there were, it would be better here for all of us. As it is, your presence graces us always.

And to dear Elizabeth- thank-you. I cannot wait to read this book to my grand boy. It made me so happy to read it to myself and I hope he loves it as much as I do because I want to read it many, many times.


I am not sure why my pictures got so small but they did and it's just one of the many mysteries of life, especially when Google is concerned.

I'll leave you with this, which is the last paragraph of that book:

That night, when she went to bed, she was very tired. But she looked through the branches and she could see a million stars. The wind blew gently and rocked the tree like a cradle. It was very peaceful and Miss Suzy was happy once more.

May we all sleep peacefully and be happy once more.

Love...Ms. Moon

Comfort And Joy

Dear Jo sent me this as she knows how much I love Bill Murray and hate Christmas. Add that up and this is pretty much the perfect greeting.

This ignoring Christmas thing is going pretty well for me. I have no guilt about it, well, mostly, and I am looking on at the hysteria with a bemused expression on my face wondering why we don't ALL just say no to the ridiculousness of it all. I mean, if you love putting up a Christmas tree, well then, do it and enjoy the hell out of it. If you don't, fuck it. If you have a way to celebrate which is joyful and meaningful to you, then that is a beautiful thing and be grateful and if you don't, well I'm here to tell you that it is A-Okay.

I'm looking at it this way- I did Christmas for my children, not for me. They are grown up and can do Christmas for themselves which allows me to finally and at last, step away from a situation which causes me mostly depression and pain. Thank goodness my husband doesn't really care, one way or the other. But if I don't eat one Christmas cookie, much less bake a bunch of them, I'll be perfectly fine.

Man, I used to go all out. My first husband and I used to throw a wingdinger of a Christmas party. I'd make eggnog that would knock your socks off and bake and freeze cookies for months. I'd cook a turkey, a ham, make a fruit salad big enough to fit into the engine compartment of a DC-10. I made and decorated cookies specifically to hang on the tree. I made fruitcakes in early November and wrapped them tenderly in rum-soaked cheesecloth and set them to ripen in bright tin containers. I wrote Christmas letters and sent cards. I made gifts. I bought gifts. I drove five hours to Winter Haven on Christmas days so that we could share the children with two grandparent-homes and still have Christmas of our own.
Yeah, boy. That was fun.
Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.
Done.

Am I going to be sad to wake up in Cozumel on Christmas morning to see that beautiful water chuckling against the beach instead of seeing Owen's eyes light up at all of the booty underneath the tree?
I seriously doubt it.
Does that make me a bad grandmother? A bad mother?
No, it does not. I am here almost 365 days a year, being the best mother and grandmother I know how to be and if not being there on Christmas morning makes me less of a grandmother then so be it.
I'll be less.
I'll take it.

I might make the traditional Christmas Eve dinner Moon chicken salad and give that to Lily before I go. I wouldn't mind doing that. And that's about as much of tradition I care to do.

Ah-lah. I'm still not feeling well and it's another overcast chilly day here in North Florida. The sort of wet-chilly that gets in the bones and settles there. The sun is a milky disk behind the clouds and does nothing at all for warmth or cheer. I am going to rest today and perhaps get out my old sewing machine and do some repair work on clothes I want to take to Cozumel. Perhaps.
I'm still plowing through Swamplandia! but it is not making me happy. Definitely surrealism. I get enough of that in my dreams, thank-you very much, but I do appreciate a fine writer and so I'll keep going with it, I suppose.

It's one of those days and I am thinking of the Myth of Mary, Mother of Jesus and how unfair it is that not only have we created the story that she gave birth unattended in a stable (and I am sure that the number of women who have given birth unattended in less-than-perfect circumstances is legion) but we have insisted that she had to witness her son's death and then go on to become a goddess herself to whom we go with every sort of prayer and heart-wish and how saying her rosary is a punishment and how confusing all of this is and how I am NOT a goddess, my heart always in my hands in offering, but am a woman, a real one, a mother, a wife. As much as I love my images of the Holy Mother I also resent them because even in her feminine guise, it somehow seems to me that there is more than the whiff of the patriarchal in the insistence of her pureness, her never-ending patience and giving and eternal suffering.
This is what a real woman should be, religion tell us. The Madonna is the example to which we should aspire.
And if we are not, do not, then what are we?
The whore?
Well, we can be both and not perfect at either but able to choose which and when and where and how.

Does any of this make sense?
I doubt it.

I am Mary but I am not THE Mary and I am the mother and I am the wife and I am mostly just the woman who lives now and will someday die. I have done Christmas and this year I will not.

I will find my own magic and gratefully so and the world will go on just fine and the wrapping paper in that tiny room under the stairs in my house can be used by the mice for nests for their babies as far as I am concerned and I am just so glad not to be feeling the need to be out in the marketplace buying trinkets and stuff that no one needs and resenting the enforced cheer of the canned carols and bottled snow and I am no good at either giving or receiving gifts, having already been given more than anyone's share of bounty in the form of this life, this family, this love and of that, I can give continuously back in my own imperfect, human, womanly way and this is what I plan to do until I cannot do it any more.

Beans and rice. Sky and water. Man and woman. I will celebrate all of that which is human and ours to enjoy.

Comfort and joy. For me this year, not to be sought in places I know I will not find it.

And that is the truth.

Surrealistic Pillow (and if you know what THAT is, you're old as shit like me)

I do not feel well. In fact (she whined) I feel sort of like shit. I am serious. I ache everywhere and I am tired. Tired, tired, tired. Like my body weighs four hundred and fifty pounds or maybe tons. I am not sure. Maybe I have what Buster had.
I hope not. Dog-to-human contagion cannot be good.

I was the worst grandmother today. I bet Owen watched four hours of PBS children's programming. The whole day has been gray like perpetual twilight and that did not help. I did go flamingo fishing with the boy but I was SO glad when he dropped the last of the flamingo legs into the pond and we couldn't find it. Hahahaha! Now those flamingos are permanently napping. Owen doesn't care. He carries the legless birds around like dolls or pets. He makes them eat out of the chicken feeder and drink from the birdbath. He rides them like horses. He throws them in the air and tells them to fly.
They never do.

Before Owen left, his daddy picked up all the toys in the den. He couldn't have made me happier by giving me a diamond and pearl tiara. I washed the dishes and thought I might die. I took a bath and boiled myself and finally got warm. I read some of Swamplandia! which I think I am enjoying but am not entirely sure. The woman can write and some of her phrases just crack me up but it's a tiny bit surrealistic and as my daughter May pointed out the other day, I don't really like surrealism. Maybe it's not surrealistic. Maybe that's just what it would be like if a family lived on their own island in the Everglades and had a tourist attraction called Swamplandia. Maybe.
Hell. I don't know.
I don't know shit.
I just feel like shit.

I think it's surrealistic.

Mr. Moon is on his way back from Ocala. When he left, he thought he'd be back by 6:30. We joke because he always bases his time estimates on what we call Glen Time. I always add at least an hour or two to whatever he says and I'm generally right. He just called to say he'll probably be back by 7:30. I am wondering what to do about supper. I am not especially hungry but the idea of food is not unappealing since I am not actually dead. We have leftovers but they are leftover, leftover leftovers and I have no interest in them at all. I'd just as soon eat a boiled potato. I wish that something unbelievably yummy would show up as if by magic (I guess it would HAVE to be magic, wouldn't it?) that I would want to eat. I can't even think of what it would be. I told May the other day that when I die, I hope people bring over hams. Then I thought about it and said that actually, it would make more sense if people brought over hams while I was dying but could still eat. She said she'd bring me a Connie's Honeybaked Ham. That made me happy. One time I asked Lily if she and her sisters would brush and braid my hair for me every day when I am very old. She said they would. That made me happy too. I would like to be a bright-eyed old biddy whose children braided her thin, white hair for her and then sat her down at a table with a plate of sweet-fatted ham and some collard greens every day. Wouldn't that be nice?
I think it would.

Well, I am not dying and so I guess I'll have to braid my own damn hair if I want it braided and cook my own damn ham if I want one. I don't actually cook ham because if I did, I would eat the whole thing and I doubt there is anything in this world as bad for you as eating an entire ham. Some people want to eat cakes, I want to eat ham and by god, when I am old, I am going to eat the SHIT out of some ham. I'm going to eat ham until my skin turns pink and I start peeing brown sugar.
Sorry if that makes you feel slightly queasy. Let's try to think of it as surrealism.
Would it help if I added a dwarf (sorry- little person) clown to the image?
Who ended up dead in a musical brain? Because that's what happened in the story that May and I were discussing which sparked the surrealism conversation in the first place.
I hated that story.
She told me that when she read it, she knew I would.
She knows me so well.

So do you.

Let's check in tomorrow. I got nothing more to say tonight.

Junk In The Trunk Of The Mind

Owen's lying on his belly on the coffee table watching Sesame Street. It's gray outside and cold.
I got him out of his pajamas and changed his diaper and feel like I have pretty much done my job for the day.
I might just keep this couch occupied all day long.

So I see on the news feed on the interwebs that Michelle Dugger has had a miscarriage with what would have been her twentieth baby.

I just read (could this possibly be true?) that she had a miscarriage with her second pregnancy and she had been taking "oral" birth control (my mind went to strange places when I first read that one) and that's when she and her husband decided to let God decide how many children they would have.

I wonder if God decides how much sex they have. I can just imagine it. There's Mr. Dugger, living his daily life, trying to support his tribe of children, maybe driving to the Costco where they probably take their own personal fork lift to help load the groceries when all of a sudden, God says, "Jim Bob! I want you to have sex RIGHT NOW!" and Jim Bob sighs and says, "God, must I? We're out of diapers and frozen mashed potatoes." And God is all, "YES, JIM BOB, you MUST HAVE SEX NOW!" So he turns around and goes home and there's Michelle, trying to make dinner for twenty-five and the kids are screaming and she's wearing the same thing she was wearing the year they got married and she hasn't washed her hair in four weeks and she turns around when her husband comes in and she says, "Where are the diapers? Where are the mashed potatoes?" and then she sees that God-given message on his face and she peels the children off of her and heads resignedly to the bedroom where she does God's will.

I'm going to hell. I know it.

Happy Friday.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Have any of you read Swamplandia! by Karen Russell?

P.P.S. Owen just asked if we could go fishing.

A Boy Goes Fishing

When Bop heard that Owen was patiently fishing in the fishless pond in our back yard with a pole made of a wire flamingo leg, he wasted no time in getting to the store and buying that boy a real fishing pole of his own.

This is what ensued:



And then this happened:

The boy caught his first fish. And there were seven caught in all. Caught and released to swim away and perhaps be caught again.

He had a great time with his Bop and while they were gone, I played with my new Kindle and all I can say is that for the grand total of $2.99 I have The Complete Works of Charles Dickens, Little Women, and Little Men on a $99 device and as far as I can tell, I'm already ahead.
My library is begun.

And Owen and his mama have just left and the dishes are washed and Owen is coming back tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. and this old woman is going to bed.

And one more thing- Buster, as you can see in the first video, seems to be making a rapid recovery. He is eating again as well as moving around.

Love...A Grandmother

Agitato

Everything is just pissing me off today.
I looked at the paper and was informed that our governor is cutting more jobs and using his voodoo economics to try and run Florida like a business and god dammit, government is NOT a business, it's to keep the roads paved and the kids educated and the people taken care of who can't take care of themselves and, oh, don't get me started.

And then there's this whole hazing thing at FAMU where a kid died and oh boy, all of a sudden it's like everyone's going HAZING? HAZING? who let THAT happen? when, in fact, it's been going on forever and everyone knew it and now pastors are getting together to PRAY about it.
Like, okay, God- here's something you need to pay attention to because it's bad and we know you've been busy but please- can you do something to stop it? Just thought we'd point this out. Thanks. 

Then there's the Lifestyle section or whatever it's called these days and HEY! Did you know that this year PURPLE is huge? Yeah, but you know, you have to use it properly because it can be overwhelming. Like, oh maybe just use a lovely shade of purple to cover a favorite chair in the hallway.

The chair in my hallway is covered with toys and a hat. Who has the sort of life where they redecorate whenever one color becomes more popular than another?

Madge, did you know that purple is hot these days? Shouldn't we redo the wallpaper in the den with maybe some flecked plum thing? What do you think?


I think that if you like purple, it's already being used in your house and if you don't, who cares if it's the hot color for decorating this year?

Jesus. Humans. We're so fucking weird.

And I'm agitated because Buster is obviously pretty darn ill. I didn't think he'd make it through the night. So what do we do? Go spend hundreds on lab tests to find out he has some horrible dog disease that we're not going to treat him for anyway? Approximately thirty percent of what Mr. Moon and I talk about is how we wish these dogs would disappear and how tired we are of cleaning up their poop and pee. The dog is eleven or twelve years old. And I apologize to you dog-lovers out there. I do. But honestly- I've never been one and I've been stuck with four dogs forever and finally Pearl died, the Oldest Living Boxer on the planet, and Zeke is mostly living with Lily and Jason and Owen and now...well...

But THE GUILT!

Well, he doesn't seem to be suffering. He's just sort of laying there. He did get up and go out this morning to pee and he did drink water. So.

I don't know. I just do not know. I know I feel overwhelmed and although I haven't looked in the mirror, avoiding that at all costs most mornings, I feel certain that there is a big L branded into my forehead, perhaps scarlet, perhaps PURPLE and that's what it's like here in Lloyd this morning where it's cold and clear and Elvis the Rooster has his feathers back and looks fine and sartorial in his black and white with that lovely accent of red and Owen's coming at one.

Frankly, I think you should stop whatever you're doing right this second and go read what Maggie May posted today or maybe last night, whatever. I love it. And it suits my mood.

And oh yes, today is the anniversary of John Lennon's murder and perhaps that explains why I am in such a foul mood, still angry after all of these years when actually, I should just be grateful that he was here with us for the time he was, bless him, bless him, bless him.

This Night

Oh life and it just keeps going until it doesn't and that sliver of a moon whose picture I took so recently has swelled again, deep belly-full, almost truly full. It hangs silver in the dark black sky, one star above it shining like it's little sister.

As soon as I wrote that post about the wind and the pewter this afternoon it all changed. Suddenly and without fanfare, all of the sky cleared and turned brilliant-winter blue and every trace of cloud was gone, blown away or wiped away, like those magic slates we used to have, one pull up on the plastic, all clean again.

Changing and changing is the ever-constant of it all.

I wrote this morning and then deleted about my dog Buster puking on the rug and I was complaining about it and tonight he is not well. I don't know what's wrong with him. Lately he has been acting so old and his cataracts shine like road-played marbles. He doesn't seem to want to move tonight and I had to take him into the house. He was lying on a chair on the porch in the cold and he made his way slowly into the den where he eventually and slowly got up onto Mr. Moon's chair.
Damn. Animals. Damn.
We just spent over three hundred dollars today on Zeke going to the vet for his TEETH and his itching and damn. All I do is complain about these dogs and then they get old or sick or old and sick and change...
Change.

I am cooking chicken (I am such a hypocrite) and all sorts of vegetables and olives in a red sauce and bread is rising and Mr. Moon is just getting in from the woods and salad is picked and rinsed and waiting in the refrigerator and cooking never seems to change. Same pans, same knives, same ingredients in rotation but the movements I make in the kitchen seem always to be the same. Reaching for this skillet, the cutting board, slicing, chopping, sauteing, simmering, steaming, mixing, kneading. Turn on the flame, turn it down, check the bread's progress, stir the sauce.
It is a sort of constancy that I love. Set the table, bring out the butter, the salt, the hot sauce, the glasses of water.

This is life. This is life. Constancy and change. I told Owen today that his Bop and I were going to Mexico and we were going to get into the ocean and look at fishes just like the ones we were looking at in the salt-water tank at the restaurant where we were having lunch. "Stop," he said, and put his hand up to my mouth. "No."
"Yes," I said, "We are," and I told Lily about it and she said, "He is going to miss you so much," and I said, "And we will miss him too but sometimes, you have to go away together, you and your man."
"I know," she said. But I am not sure she does. I doubt she remembers when her father and I first went away to Cozumel but as we packed, she kept putting her toothbrush in my suitcase. She probably remembers in her bones, missing us.
But we always come back.
Better than we were before.
Always. And if going away together is what keeps us together and fills us up with something magical, then we are not only doing for ourselves, but for our family too.

The weather changes, the wind blows in this air and that, the world turns and turns and turns but in the same patterns, the moon rises and increases and decreases and we barely register it and do not feel the earth's turning at all beneath us, we reach for the cutting board, the flour, the yeast. We grow up, we grow old, we are born and we live and we die and we resist change with all of our hearts and we yearn to get away, go away, we yearn to come home to the ones we love.

We are brave, we are not, we are strong, we are weak. The moon rises. The bread rises. Our spirits rise and fall, we are a part of it all like a symphony, like a river, like the moon.

Translation

And now I know what that wind was saying this morning and there was no innocence at all in its blustery insistence, no, it was saying exactly this:

I am about to blow some cold motherfucking air up your ass. Dress accordingly.

Cold and getting colder every second and the wind is rippin' it, telling more of the same and the sky is pewter and when I was just about to turn into my driveway, a huge hawk swooped down in front of the car and magically lifted up into a tree, just like the horse did in my dream this morning, same color, even, but this was real and a hawk and he glared at me from the tree branch, as if angry that we had almost been in the same spot at the same second and it was all my fault.

The Interpretation Of Communication

It's gray as an old blanket here this morning. A tiny bit of drizzle. Not enough to wet the whistle of the collard greens, but better than nothing, I suppose although at this point, it feels more like the old gray blanket is trying to smother me rather than offering any sort of relief. The kind of weather that makes you constantly look up to see what is what, what is coming? What has been? What IS it that the wind is whispering about? Where's the code book? Something sinister it would seem but maybe not, the wind is just two mean girls in the bathroom at high school, discussing a third girl whose clothes are all wrong, who thinks she is all that but really, is not at ALL, and she has big breasts, too, have you seen the way she flaunts those things?

Who knows what the wind is saying or the breeze or the silence, when it comes right down to it?

When I go to let the chickens out of their house and into the run in the mornings, they are all making a sound deep in their throats. A sound of anticipation, of eagerness to be let out and it is almost as if they have become one machine and you can hear it beginning to rumble, to whir as it starts up for the day, as if the hen house is, in fact, a machine, vibrating with that day-beginning mechanism warming up.

I love my chickens so much. Who knew that having chickens would be like this? My heart swells, absolutely, at the sight of them. I study them, I have come to know their different sounds and what they mean. Sometimes. This is not to say I understand everything nor ever will.
For instance, there are three nests which the hens generally lay in but one never knows which nest will be the favorite and some days, they line up to use the same nest and when that happens, as it is happening right this second, the hen-in-waiting will cackle a song of impatience and hurry-up. I have no idea why she doesn't just hop into another nest to lay- the two nests which were the favorites a few days ago are empty. So why is she so determined to lay on the nest which is already occupied?




That's Miss Trixie, waiting. With great, rhythmic chanting of reminder that there are other patrons, please finish up your business and let me do mine.

Elvis ignores these small squabbles, if indeed they are squabbles. But as soon as the hen on the nest lays her egg and jumps down and begins to proclaim her accomplishment and her plea for an escort back to the flock, he will come running to her. It is the Way of the Chicken.

And if anyone ever tries to tell you that chickens are stupid, just slap them for me, okay? Tell them that no, chickens are smarter than we know and if they are perceived as stupid, it is because we are blind to their sort of intelligence which has nothing to do with humans. We see dogs as smart because they can fetch this or figure out that or please us in some way but chickens have no need to please us and believe me- they have more figured out than a dog ever will.

As far as I can tell, at least.

The camellias are starting to open. Another thing which brings me more pleasure than I could ever have imagined in my youth.

Winter's reward and reminder of life always renewing, always there-is-a-season, even if there is much brown, even if there is dry, rusty rustling and unkind-gossip-whispering and the squirrels race down the trees and across the fence, they are the toddlers in the midst of the funeral party, they only care about their own pleasure, their toenails scampering along the bark, they chase each other for fun or for the prospect of fucking- who knows? but they do it and when I tell the Mr. Peep story to Owen I have the grandmother squirrels calling the young squirrels to the nest at naptime and they all cuddle in together and the grandmother squirrels says, "Close your eyes, my little darlings. Time to go to sleep."
And why not? Perhaps it is true.

 


Well, I have written far more than I intended and I suppose it is time to go about the business of human communication and interaction which is no less complex, nor more either, than that of the leaves, the wind, the chickens, the flowers, the squirrels.

Thank you for coming to Lloyd this morning. Thank you for listening to the words of my heart, for sharing these things with me.

I absolutely mean that. I hear your whispers, too.

It is all one. Of that, I am most certain.

Fantasy Fishing And Other Fine Things

Long day involving many activities including one I've never done before which was fishing in the almost-pond in my backyard with the metal legs of the flamingos. Those flamingos. They get around, let me tell you.

Owen is so the boss of me. I think I'm just too old and tired to fight him. He tells me what to do and basically, I do it. I can just see someone asking me, "Why in the world did you let the child play with a knife?" and me saying, "Well, he wanted to. He said please, for god's sake."

I'm like Flo, my mother-mentor, the famous chimpanzee whom Jane Goodall studied for years. She was so old when she had her last baby that she didn't have the energy to discipline him or make him grow up and when she died, he did too.

Good thing Owen has a real mother who is only twenty-six. That's all I can say.
If he were my actual child, he'd still be nursing and in diapers when he was nineteen because I wouldn't have the strength to wean and potty-train him.

That would be so bad.

Anyway, he's home now with his young mama and I'm home alone. Mr. Moon may be stuck down in Ocala. I'm not sure. He asked if I wanted to drive down there and spend the night. At that point Owen had just left and I looked around at the chaos which was my house and said (whined), "I haven't even washed the breakfast dishes yet," which was the wrong answer. I should have just gotten in my car and driven down there and spent the night with him in a motel and it would have been an adventure AND fun but no, I'm old as Flo and all that pond fishing wore my old ass out.

Besides, Jan called and I got that part and I need to start memorizing. NOW!
What have I done? Oh Jesus. But I'm excited.
I should do like Colin used to do when he got a part- make a spread sheet with timelines and so forth to check off every day of lines memorized. Seriously. That's how he did it.
Alas, I have no idea how to make a spread sheet. I think Colin used spread sheets to tell him which pair of Levis to wear daily. It worked for him. He looked fabulous in those Levi's.

Well, Mr. Moon called. He'll be home around ten. I'll probably be in bed by then.
I'm going to heat up some soybeans and cook some broccoli and read this script and enjoy the peace and quiet. There's a whole world out there and I'm not involved in it and that's fine with me. From what I read on the internet, there's some crazy shit going on out there and the Muppets are Communists and Rick Santorum says that if gay marriage was legalized then "their sexual activity" would be seen as equal to heterosexual relationships.
Say what, Rick?
Have you tried gay sex? If not, then you shouldn't comment on the equality of gay versus straight sex.

I'll leave you with that one. It is obviously only my opinion and frankly, as I always say, I don't know shit.

The world is lucky that I am neither a mother at this age or a political candidate and one is about as likely to happen as the other.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

A Little Bit Cranky This Morning

Turning off my alarm I knocked a pair of earrings off where I had set them before I fell asleep last night.
A favorite pair.
They are somewhere under that bed or the little dresser or the vanity. In the dust.
It's going to be a long day.

Wait! Wait!
With the aid of the Tinkerbelle flashlight I just found them.
And a lot of dust.
Crisis averted.
Dust is winning, though.

And could I please just have ONE more dream about living in a house that needs complete cleaning out and repairing? Could I? Please?

Thanks.

And I Dreamed Of Chickens...

Owen threw no hissy fits when he got to the house this morning although he did assure me that he did not want a nap. I agreed that it was a bit early for a nap.

We did our regular things and he is starting to use short sentences. He is a busy child. He loves to play with my mixing bowl and the three different beaters. He hangs the whip from the dough hook, he tries to figure them all out. He is a thoughtful child, Owen is. And sometimes, when you ask him something, he will literally put his hand up to his face and say, "Mmmm. Think."

He has no interest in the alphabet or numbers and will sometimes even put his finger up if I am trying to "teach" him something in those departments and say, "Stop." It is as if he knows he is not ready- let's not waste time on this shit. But I can watch his mind working, I can watch new concepts forming and taking hold. It is a glory.
Having raised four children of my own, I know how each child learns so differently. My first child wanted to read desperately and taught himself at age three. Just...one day the boy could read. Sesame Street and me reading him endless books. And the same ones, over and over again.
My second and third children learned to read right in late kindergarten, first grade. "Normal" kids.
And then came Jessie who didn't really seem to care about reading much. She liked it when I read to her but she, like Owen, wasn't interested in learning the alphabet herself and then (poor fourth child, as she was) she came home from kindergarten one day and said, "Mama. I can't learn my ABC's."
"What?"
"I can't learn my ABC's."
Turns out the child had a reading disability of a fairly serious order. I was stunned. Reading for me has always been just opening my eyes and letting the words in. Simple as that. It all made so much sense.
But I had to pay attention, I had to realize that she really did have what we perceive as a problem. Since she was my fourth child I didn't freak out. I knew the child was smart as a whip and could memorize like no one else in the house. And also, I knew that her father probably would have been diagnosed with a reading disorder if they'd known what the hell reading disorders were when we were young. As it was, he was just made to feel stupid. And then went on to get a college education and lead a life where reading wasn't really that important to him. He can tear a contract apart but reading for pleasure is not something that came naturally to him. I can remember other kids when I was in elementary school who just could not "get" reading and even the best teachers had no idea what the problem was and those children too, were made to feel less intelligent than all of us little smarty-pants who could read anything. Remember when we all had to read out loud in class? Hell, I was so good that the teacher in the second grade let me read our after-lunch chapter books out loud to the entire class while she went and got another glass of tea while some of the children were still stumbling over the second-grade reader.
I wonder what all was set in motion there.
For one thing it made those stumbling children hate my guts. I do know that.

But back to Jessie- she was lucky in many ways. She was born in a time when it was recognized that not all brains process words and letters the same way. That there are different learning styles. And she was diagnosed and had a reading teacher who tucked that child under her wing and worked with her and loved her AND Jessie was born with a persistent spirit and a strong soul which served her well. And she, of course, graduated from nursing school with a BSN and a very, very high GPA. I even think that having to come up with strategies to learn to read has helped her in countless other ways in her life and so, in a way, she was doubly blessed.
She learned not to give up, for one thing, and I hope she knows how incredibly smart she is to have conquered that "disability."

So when Owen shows no interest in learning the alphabet song I don't freak out at all. So what? The child knows which animals live in the woods and which live in the jungle and which live on the farm. This is important to him so he knows. Reading, for now, is not and he is two years old and when he tells me to stop talking about it, I shut it right down. No problem. He knows how to hold a fishing rod properly, how to use tongs, where beans, tomatoes, greens, and eggs come from. He can get his desires, his jokes, and his meaning across. Knowing that he already understands humor makes me know how smart that little boy is.

And I get to watch this. I get to be a part of this.

He and I took a long, lovely nap today. We read a book and then he asked for Peep and turned his back to me which means he wants me to scratch his back and so I did and he fell asleep and then so did I and we slept for forever, or at least a few hours and when he woke up, he had the wildest bed-hair I've ever seen.





I gave him snacks and then took him to his mother. And he'll be back tomorrow at eight.
This is my life and if I am sure of one thing, it is that I can't do shit to save the world but I can sure as hell pay attention to my grandson and do whatever I can do to encourage his strengths and let him know that he is, in his own very Owen self way, perfect.

Nap hair and all.

That's me.
Night, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon