Coffee With Eben

Each morning this week I rise at eight o'clock, after five hours of sleep, turn on my light to be sure the puppy has not left anything ugly on my bedroom carpet and rush over to get dressed. Then it is the fifty yard dash to the kitchen baby gate, which I always lose. Chauncey gets to go through. Gabrielle does not.

I grab my keys as Chauncey and I leave the house and he follows me all the way to the gate while I chant, "stay, stay, stay." I am really not quite awake yet, but I know he must not leave the yard. Slipping out the gate, I trudge up the short, but very steep hill to the upstairs. Pumpkin, the cat meets me halfway, meowing and running in and out between my legs with some perverse intention that I do not understand yet. She does not want to be touched, or petted. It seems as if she simply wants to trip me up, which I am sure cannot be true. Who would feed and water her if I were to spend the next five days lying at the bottom of the road waiting to be missed?

I climb up to the patio, unlock the door, and listen for the bounding horde on the other side. Duke, an arthritic old character who was rescued from a cruel master up on Black Mountain, does a sort of hobbled leap as he dances in circles. Joplin, rescued off the Interstate and cementing her place in the family when she pounced upon and killed a rat, leaps up and nearly knocks me over in her joy. Eben, the Australian cattle dog and first child, always plays coy and runs into the bedroom to hide once she is sure I am here.

It took me a while to figure out that Eben just needs more attention and she is smart. She does everything but have a cup of coffee and chat about the morning news, both of which I am sure she would be glad to do if I only had the inclination to make the coffee and buy the paper. I need a piece of sausage, or cheese, or a dog cookie, or something to lure her out of the house in the mornings. There, I share whatever it is I found with the other two, who have learned to wait for their recalcitrant sister so they can enjoy the treat too.

I have to slip back into the house and shut the big door, or Eben will tear out the screen trying to follow me before she's had time to do her business. Inside there is more to do. All the fish need their lights turned on. The river fish eat every two days and the tropical ones eat twice a day. The tropical ones are thrown off by my presence at first. It took three days before they decided I was okay. Now they come rushing up to the top like a bunch of puppies when I tap on the edge.

I go into the kitchen, top off the dog bowl and refill the water, then go let in the pack at the front door. Eben zips in and falls on her back waiting for a tummy rub. Joplin leaps up and knocks me aside and Duke, who has settled down on the front pathway down the mountain just looks at me. I don't know whether he is in pain and doesn't want to move, or just prefers to be outside. He never appears to be in pain, but I always give him the benefit of the doubt, calling and calling. Waiting and waiting, and sometimes going to the bedroom door down on that end of the house to let him in.

The only bad part about this is that Joplin seems to feel anyone entering through that door is suspect. She utters a low rumbling growl that is truly fiercesome to hear and I have to remind myself that I am top dog here. Did I mention that I am terrified of dogs I don't know? I don't know why, but I do know that exhibiting any fear at all makes me a prime target for bullying. It takes all my reserve not to back down as Duke comes in and I am trapped between the bed and the door with two big dogs, one of them very unhappy.

Both of my sons have large dogs and both have worked to teach me how to handle them, so that I do it with confidence most of the time, but I am still prone to panic if I don't keep a tight rein on my emotions.

Anyway, the dogs and fish and cat are fed and I am free to go take care of my own two until noon, when it is time to do most of this all again. And, then six and eleven and....I feel a little bit like a dog farmer this week. Getting up at the crack of my dawn to do chores....well, I do have a big imagination, but I have to admit, schedules and responsibility are not my favorite things in the world. I thought about staying upstairs this week, but it's just not home and my puppies would miss me more.

People Laughed

It used to be that we looked for the best gasoline prices around. Now we look for stations that have gasoline.

Ingles grocery store had gas for the first time in weeks on Friday, but it is closed again, as is the station down the street from it. I found gas in Clyde, a small town about eight miles from here, when I went to pick up my prescriptions. I still have about a half a tank so I am holding out, hoping for lower prices and also letting those who really need it, have it.

They say that as soon as the stations get some gas, people race out and buy it all up until it is gone.

I am concerned about this winter, too. My apartment is heated by propane. I have purchased an alternative that is supposed to supplement heating and if it is possible, will not use the propane at all. My son collects scrap wood all year and uses it to heat his home most of the winter.

People laughed at me when I bought my hand push lawn mower last year. It has been very useful this year.

I have a feeling that this is just the begining. We are up in the mountains where things have been more expensive in the past, but available. Now, with one thing after another, they are not even that.

Living In The Present, Can Sometimes Be Too Late.

If a rock is teetering over my head, on the tiniest of pinnacles, I'd like a moment's notice, to step aside instead

Of standing there and meditating on the beauty of a moment that is just about to end by the crashing on my head

Of little bits of mica and bigger ones of granite, all because I could not see that there was something there to dread.

And if the moon is rising but the sky is very dark, I hope I hear the thunder before the lightning becomes too stark

For if I see the lightning, feel its breath upon my neck, that's a little close for comfort, especially in the dark.

I feel no need for passions if they're just a simple lark, nor do I want the fantasies that come up in the park.

If the next moment crashing through me, I become the roux, a simple little thickening for some great eternal stew.

So if you want me to be present, please grant this simple boon. Give me a little warning, before you make me leave the room.

My Thots

My Thots are once more locked up inside of me, hidden from my own heart and eyes by the desire to write something more meaningful than what is going on in my day to day life, and feeling too tired to find it.

Yet, when I think of it, what could be more important to me than my present life? If I were in some sort of terrible danger, or involved in changing the world on a grand scale, I would not hesitate to write of it, but whose life is always, or even mostly, busy with these sorts of things? Most of us live lives in a very modest sort of way.

We are not romance heroines, or dashing Machiavellian figures. And, let's face it, the poverty and melodrama that makes up movies on painters and poets and musicians, was probably not all that much of a thrill for them. Had they known they would be famous some day, it might have made them feel better, but an empty stomach and cold room is not much of an inspiration after a while.

So, I am warm and well fed. I am loved by my family and dogs. I have a home to live in and a beautiful world to look at it. Politics are tense right now. Unfair wars rage on, killing innocents. Life is perceived as important in different ways to different friends. I am not unaware, nor am I completely uninvolved, but neither am I beating myself to death because I am not suffering.

I feel as if I should feel guilty for something, but I honestly do not see what. Guilt is probably just an ingrained part of my psyche. I am so used to drama and melodrama that living empty and content for a while might just feel odd.

The Nap

Today I had the honor of holding my grandson while he slept. For all I say it is possible for him to nap without being held, I must admit that the joy of holding him far exceeds my need for his independence at the ripe old age of two.

I get to watch him whenever his mommy and daddy's work schedules overlap. Today was one of those days. We ate banana nut muffins and drank juice while playing at his little table. Then we went upstairs to his house and played with his superman dolls until he went and lay down on the couch saying, "Read me the black and white book, Gramma."

I didn't make him say please, I simply found the book, which turned out to be a library book about opposites, and we began to read. It was a pretty hands on book, requiring much page turning and many flaps to lift, but by the time we got to the book about the little prince who wouldn't sleep, Lennon reached up and said, "Hold me." As much as we try to discourage this little prince from issuing orders like the young tyrant he would like to be, nap time is not the best place for debate.

For two hours I held him and marveled over those golden eyelashes and that sweet little heart shaped mouth, producing the most raucous snores you can imagine. Then, long after my arm fell asleep, he began to toss his tangled curls around and scratch his arm. (He has my curls and itchy skin!)

Imagine a sixty five year old man, sleeping soundly in his bed, dreaming of being rocked in the arms of his gramma.

Unconditional Love

I am trying to housebreak a new baby shih-tzu, which is sort of like trying to teach the Queen of England all new rules. Shih-tzus have never been bred for anything except companion dogs, and very elevated little companion dogs at that. One of the breed descriptions is arrogant. I don't know if that is actually the word I would use, but it works. Tell either one of my shih-tzus not to do something and it cocks its little head to one side and looks at me as if I am crazy. Patience, patience, patience, is the only thing I have ever found that works.

I don't think any other dog could possibly be more loving that Chauncey and Gabrielle. Chauncey was a real handful as a baby and he was almost a month older than Gabrielle when I brought him home. So, we are basically living in the kitchen right now. I pushed the love seat in there and put a long baby gate between us and the living room. As long as we stay in there, they are both perfect little angells, using their potty pads faithfully. So far that has not carried over into rooms with carpeting for Gabrielle. I imagine it's going to be a long haul. She is only nine weeks old.

Unconditional love is not always the easiest thing to practice.

Visitors Beware

Visitors beware. Rumor has it that someone took a large spoon and stirred up Wonderland. The white rabbit is missing. The Queen of Hearts is playing croquet with the Mad Hatter's balls and the Cheshire cat has been seen hiding under the teapot sporting a white fluffy mustache. The last time anyone saw Alice she was out on a limb wearing an ear to ear grin and all the cookies said, bite me.

The Way

The butterflies have changed. The big black and yellow ones are gone and the Monarchs are starting to filter through the yard. Some have laid eggs and skinny little caterpillars creep around the porch now.

I suppose this is the way of this world. Change occurs in unending cycles, some predictable, others not so.Still, the sun rises in the morning, the moon lies over the mountains and the clouds hover protectively over the horizon.

The ocean still ebbs and flows. Babies are born and people die. The symphony of life continues without any consultations with me. I am only one note among millions, in harmony with some and discordant next to others.

I wonder if I chose my creator, or my creator chose me?

Older Wisdom

I try to use the extra years I have to put some perspective into my life. I have experienced so many things at least once that very little is ever really a surprise anymore. I stand like the old cliffs along the Colorado river, knowing that it will take a great deal to finish eroding what is left of me and in the mean time I am still pretty strong.

Not only is there strength here, but there is also a certain amount of wisdom and that wisdom tells me to hold fast, to wait, to endure the moment so that the future can be more than the present.

Neediness, lusting after out comes, trying to manipulate, or organize some things is really pointless. Most things happen in their own time. Allowing the river to carve its own banks, allows room for the water to find its own way. Without all the dams maybe there won't be so much flooding.

Even the Chinook is here for a purpose. Not knowing what it is, does not give me the right to try and control it.

Yet, there is an older wisdom than me that says ask and ye shall receive, so I do ask. I ask for understanding and patience. I ask for faith that the right thing will happen and if I am to be part of it, I will find that too.

Doing not doing is often the hardest thing of all, but throw water on a grease fire and all hell will break loose.

The Noise In The Attic

Friendships so close that a breath will not pass between them. Relationships closer than that of brother and sister, mother and child. Each one lasting for a period of time then ending in some mysterious dark way that is incomprehensible.

Patterns like this are not by chance.

They become the pattern of lives torn by insecurity and fear. Voices from the past interfere with the present, creating echoes that drown out the present and recreate the past. A new play, a new plot, same central character, same ending.

There is no point in labeling, no point in looking for the cause, because reason is not present. Unhappiness breeds like rabbits. It finds fault with the sunshine and the rain, the noise and the silence, the doing and the not doing. It is black or white, for me, or against me and there is no need to talk about it because the only truth comes from me. Everyone else is wrong unless they agree with me.

The voices in the attic are so loud they block out reality.

Little Edens

The world is too complicated. If I tried to figure out all the craziness around me, I would have time for nothing else. I think I'll do my part by trying not to add to the craziness.

Being human means this might be a full time job.

I think most people of a certain age dream of living the simple life. We look at Biblical pictures of sheep grazing peacefully in meadows forgetting the untamed young shepherds who spent too many hours with them. We gobble up stories on castles of old that neglect to tell us about the drafty rooms, open toilets and stagnant moats whose very state made them such effective barriers. We imagine little prairie houses with flowers growing on top of them and don't think about the bugs, worms and critters that fell upon those inside when it rained.

I know I once dreamed of living alone in a farm house surrounded by bluebirds and finches and labyrinths of sunflowers without considering that rats, snakes and mice were also part of this idyllic scene. I imagined small town living in the Heartland with morning coffee at my brother's and evening meals with my sister. I did not even dream of a week alone without heat or electricity or company of any sort.

Life is not a dream, it is a day dream that must embrace the realities of each little Eden. I am coming to believe that the peacefulness and simplicity comes when I am able to accept the truth within each dream and use it to grow. Instead of running screaming from each and every perceived horror, perhaps I may learn to understand what my place is in its being.

Truth

Questions of conscience are the toughest ones of all, especially in today's post sixties world.

Ethics, morality, simple fair play, may all be construed in different ways by different people. Some people admire the crafty businessman, or politician, others find them repellent. For each action there are probably as many reactions as there are people aware of it.

Relationships should be simpler though. In theory people are friends, couples, lovers, because they have something in common. It is this commonality that makes them what they are and the more intertwined that commonality is in their lives, the deeper the relationship.

We are a complicated species, expecting more from each other than food and comfort and protection. We not only don't want you to eat our young, we would prefer that you not antagonize them either.

For me it all boils down to truth.

From Dionysus, "The truth is to be prized and reverenced above all things else."

To Henry David Thoreau, "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

To Emily Dickinson:

Truth— is as old as God—
His Twin identity
And will endure as long as He
A Co-Eternity—
And perish on the Day
Himself is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe
A lifeless Deity.

And many more before and after, it has been said by better writers than me.

Company Behavior

I have not felt well again and could not think of anything to write. It seems that most people have great thoughts pouring out of them in the books I enjoy, but it occurred to me that the email I enjoy most either sparks a common bond with me in some way, or tells me something about the person who wrote it, or both.

When my son was very small he asked me if it wouldn't be fun to go to his best friend's house and see what they were like when they were all alone. At first I thought, oh no voyeuristic tendencies like a certain relative we have in common, but then I realized he was still sorting out the world and what was expected, or normal, or even real. I think all of us have those feelings sometimes. We wonder if we are fundamentally different, or if everybody else is going through and enjoying much of what we are. Because we have been taught "company behavior" we doubt the rest of the world too.

In our house we most certainly did have company behavior. When that began to erode, so did other things. It is hard to change the rules half way through the game. Yet, they can change if one is willing to suffer the consequences and they are worth the agony. In the end, I got tired of company behavior and when people were led to ask where the bread machine was -- I simply took them to the garage and pulled it out of the trash for them.

It was just a beginning. None of us knew how big it was at the time. Life became more confusing for a while, a pretty long while, but in the end it all turned out to be for the best. Each one of us from that family is now a much happier person and in a much better place. Life is too complicated to waste time playing games. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing with heart and soul. All the rest turns out to be the scraps left lying around when I cut out the good parts and store them away for future reference.

Ya Gotta Love Em

Family is who you love because of, or in spite of, who they are. Sometimes it is easier than others, but mostly a good sense of humor will take care of everything. I will admit that hind sight has always been a much easier way to develop my own sense of humor than the present -- in the past.

I am proud of most of my family. They are very loving and very caring people. Most of us work in jobs that involve helping people out to the best of our ability. Some of us are very down to earth and some of us are way beyond quirky. The only two things I think we all have in common are that we are part of the family and our hearts are in the right place.

Today my brother called to tell me he and his wife are celebrating their divorce. It was finalized at 10:15, then they went out to lunch. They are coming out to visit soon.

I went upstairs to the big house to take some things for storage this morning and when I left my son was in the bathroom playing his Martin backpacker guitar for his two year old son who was sitting on the potty. It was a song with a great beat, heart warming tune and lyrics about using the toilet! Except for the words, which rhymed and were very apropos, it could be a hit.

I hear my niece finally has lights after suffering through two months of battery operated television, but now she misses the water.

My son won his second first case as a public defender, this one after he took the Bar.

My cousin is the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who likes to build houses.

My daughter finally figured out the third pedal on her car is just a foot rest in disguise.

And on it goes...

It's A Beautiful Mystery

I have had a small surge of energy lately. There are probably more possibilities about why this could be than there is extra energy, so I am not going to dissect it. I am simply going to allow my world to benefit from it.

I am nesting! I haven't done this for a very long time and it makes me feel young -- very young and I like that. I bought a mop type thing and cleaned the hard floors, reorganized my closet, redesigned the window treatment for my bedroom and then put it all together and put it up.

I hung a hummingbird feeder and already have several hummingbirds coming. I mowed the yard and pulled some extra weeds. I am working on my painting and am also trying to match the paint on my living room walls that someone, in a fit of thoughtful, but insane, goodwill, patched in over thirty little white places.

I scrubbed the bathtub from top to bottom and brushed both my little shih-tzus from head to tail.

I cannot say that I physically feel any better than I have for several years. My joints are still creaky and I can only lift my left arm to a certain point, but it hasn't seemed so over-whelming the past few days and I love this! I have not felt so mentally good since I cannot remember when. Color my world clear! It feels as if someone erased all the gloom from the picture, or maybe even painted in a new set of clouds and sky. This one based around a child's version of a big round sun with rays pointing out in every direction.

Oh, and in celebration of her first week with me, Annie informed me that her name is Gabrielle.

Ten Fold

I went to the greatest park today. I think it might be more accurately called a recreational area. There were tracks for professional bicyclists, a field for roller hockey, a sort of dark wooden Russian play park complete with castles, Gothic windows, airplanes, fire trucks and climbing walls for the younger set, and something they called lawn bowling that looked more like Bocci Ball to me. There were basket ball hoops and a baseball diamond and to get to most of it, it was necessary to walk up two sets of stairs, cross a bridge over the bike track and go back down two sets of stairs.

We had to park a long block away before even contemplating the bridge, so I was not sure I was all that excited about it at first. It was definitely worth it. My son and grandson entertained me with their climbing and swinging for the next couple of hours. I watched them leap nimbly from one place to another without any thought at all.

Of course this was just the afternoon. In the morning we went to the library, which means first a walk along all the walls in a small attached cemetery, then time spent reading and doing puzzles, before more walks along taller walls. Lennon fell three or four times and I watched my son pick him up and teach him to shake it off before laughing and taking off again. Once more I was touched by the wonderful father my son is, always patient, always ready to play, or explain, or correct, but mostly always overflowing with love. Lennon is a very lucky little boy.

And I am a very lucky mother and gramma. We give our children love, life, whatever we have to share. Then they turn around and return it ten fold.

It's Up To Me

Asheville, North Carolina. As far as I can see, it is the home of the very rich and the blissfully poor. And a good thing about both of these here, is their general consciousness when it comes to living green and free from prejudice.

I don't live in Asheville. I live in a small town that has a lot of people whose grandfathers and grandmothers were among the founding fathers in this area. Along with that comes a much closer attachment to the Civil War than I experienced in Illinois and a certain number of fine lines delineating what is good, or bad, or just not right.

The people here are friendly, they just naturally assume I think the same way they do. What other way is there? I also found this to be true back in Illinois, so it really isn't surprising. What I did find surprising is the Southern hospitality and gentility. Among people in my age group, it is more like the fifties, the younger people I am not so sure about. Unfortunately, that same fifties attitude carries over into less palatable things.

Ignorance is not really a crime and the opinions of the locals that don't gibe with mine are almost a moot issue here anyway. It is a homogenous little community untouched by most of the things that cause problems in cities.

I realized today, that one of the things I really love about living here is that I don't have a recognized address. Well, I have a mailbox outside my fence with my address on it, but no one is allowed to use it since the woman who originally lived here moved. She was grandfathered in. I get my mail at my son's house. My front yard looks like my son's backyard, because it is, so there are no traveling salesmen, or Guidepost people, there are no invitations to local churches, or neighborhood potlucks. There are no freebies to tear off my door knob, or dig out of the bushes. All this business goes to the front door -- my son's door! Partaking, or not, is solely up to me.

I can run around in my pajamas, or sit on my swing in my robe and no one is the wiser. It is like living in the wilderness on the edge of town and I love it! I suspect that I will eventually want more company and then I will have to decide where to go to get it, but it will be a choice and Asheville is certainly close by.

Mundane

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley."

Bobbie Burns. I wonder how he would feel at such familiarity from a woman he has never met? Probably just fine. His problems did not seem to lie in the area of lasses, neither young, nor old, but in his profound way of looking at life.

Speak of writing about mundane things and the things of life. A twenty six year old man plowing a field in November of the late 1780s turns over a field mouse's nest and writes a poem that people still quote, though not quite precisely, over two hundred years later.

I was thinking of it today when all my plans went awry.

I, like Robert Burns, am much luckier than that mouse. I have not lost hearth and home, only a few planned pleasures. I won't even go into all the people that do lose everything in the breath of a moment. Such a subject is truly incomprehensible except to them alone. I write of all the little things that make the road fork into all sorts of other possibilities.

Including another poem.

Annie

Annie is such a sweet little thing. Only seven weeks old today, she always uses her potty pad and follows me around like a tiny shadow. Her only problem is that she cannot bear to have me out of her sight yet. She lets out a tiny little shriek and then a wail, but let's face it. She has been taken away from her mother and siblings less than three days ago.

I marvel at the way she can already eat solid food and the way she is gnawing at anything her tiny mouth can get around. She toddles around on short stubby little legs, her belly almost touching the ground. How anything this small and this young can already be so self sufficient is amazing.

I have been ill since she arrived, so this morning will our first day to do anything. My son and Lennon are coming for breakfast and if the weather is nice I might put Annie in the stroller and we will all go for a walk. I don't want to take her out around other dogs until she's had all her puppy shots.

Such simple and mundane things are really the stuff of life.

Relearning Our Perfection

Life's best and worst moments often seem to mix into an elixir of living that has a confusing aroma and taste. Unfamiliar scents get labeled things they are not and nasty tastes seem to overwhelm the palate of undiscerning connoisseurs.

It is an old soul who can always swirl these around and pick out the reality of the moment. Most of us stumble along doing the best we can and that varies from thinking it is unbearable to knowing there is always a moment of light. Experiencing the light is an art we are born with and lose little by little as we age.

Relearning our perfection takes a long time. After all we are such vulnerable and impressionable little creatures when those we love best begin to take it away. And even should we not lose it from them, there are always the others we meet as we are tamed and civilized by a mostly well meaning world.

There is no getting use to the light. Every time I discover it I am in awe, so it would seem that finding it in every moment should be easy. It is just that I seem to accept things very easily and thus, also forget them the same way. The light that awed me two minutes ago, may not be so visible tomorrow, or even an hour from now. I need to be conscious of it, watch for it, listen for it, sniff around until I know it the moment it enters my space.

I practice this until it becomes almost second nature, except that I am human and eventually I forget for a while and have to start again. The beauty of being is that the ocean just keeps flooding around me, whether I notice it or not, so there is never a penalty box where someone says, "alright, you messed up, you are banned now."

The opportunities are endless.

Marvel A Little

Hard work is cathartic, even when it is done in a lazy woman's way. Today I used the push mower to continue on what my son started with the weed whacker the other day. The part of my yard I have to take care of is very small, but it is also full of rocks, roots, holes and it slopes down rather perilously along the edges. If I didn't have a fence, I suspect I would have already fallen down the mountain a few times this summer.

I have developed a method of doing hard labor that allows me to keep doing those things I really can't do anymore. I work until I am so hot and sweaty and out of breath that I think I should quit. Then I do. I sit in the shade, or on the swing, and cool off while I marvel at myself. You might not marvel, but it helps me to find reasons to get up and do a little more -- and this cycle repeats itself until the job is done, if I am lucky.

I used to do the whole job at once when I was younger. I would start out feeling very noble, work into a state of solid self pity, finally climaxing in a state of fury that is terrifying to imagine, and finish off with a mantra of something mean spirited and vindictive running through my mind like a broken record.

I find it is healthier to marvel.

Today's My Thots

I notice that I am coming together, as if the parts of my life are finally knitting themselves into something recognizable and it is not a shroud which I am actually very grateful for.

I don't know how I got to be who I was. I don't know if it was genetics, or upbringing, or just my nature, or a few traumatic events, but I have lived most of my life in fear of something. Fear that I would do something wrong, or had done something wrong. Fear that something bad would happen soon. Fear that disappointment was always waiting just around the corner to drop on me like some giant spider whose primary purpose was to keep my life in constant upheaval.

Whether or not these became self fulfilling prophecies, or whether they were learned responses I may never completely understand, but what is important is now. Now. Right now. I am in a place where I feel safer and more content than I can ever remember being, even as young as three years old.

Some signs of this are my two blogs. One was for the present and the other originally was started as a sort of shrine, but now the two have become the same. That tells me a lot, because I am a writer. Writing defines me better than anything else I know and when my thoughts come together like this, I am together.I am not reliant on anyone else for my happiness right now. I'm sure that has helped considerably. There are no abandonment issues, no infidelities, no one but myself and God to be accountable to.

This feels very good, but I have to watch it or I will find myself being afraid it won't last-- and that would defeat the whole process.

Addendum

I feel myself changing, truly changing in very definite and deep ways. Symbolically, my unconsciousness speaks to me in dreams where I meet a tall, dark mysterious stranger, not one who would usually call to me, this one walks beside me, becomes a part of my life and it is different. It is still a little uncomfortable, the old angst is still present, but it is different.

My blogs, which were once two separate entities have somehow merged into one, a symbol I think of my own pieces mending themselves, becoming whole once more, or perhaps even for the very first time.

I feel more secure than I can ever remember feeling in my entire life. I think I am happy? Not a hilariously madly bacchanalian state, but a tree growing in the forest filled with light and shade sort of way. A deeply rooted, part of the state of things way.

How fascinating.

The Visitor

There is a cloud in my yard.

I watched it being born far away over the mountain tops, just a wisp at first, a breath of life born from the old ones who have been here since time began.

It comes from good stock, from those first primeval waters collected over molten rock and chaos in the beginning of our universe. A creature without shape, or size, enormous beyond belief on one occasion and hidden deep within a drop of water on another.

A shape shifter of massive proportions, it slithers down over the rivers and, on frosty days, freezes the plants upon their hoar frost stems. Its regal elders rise into the air on command from the Sun, colossal royalty resplendent in their billowy white robes and soft fluffy beards. Terrifying when called upon to carry the storms across the land with forks of lightning and roaring voices richer than the deepest musical instrument.

There is a cloud in my yard. Not grand, nor frightening, just a small cloud lying on the grass, climbing up over the edge of the ridge and creeping towards my door. I think I'll open the windows and invite it in, watch its tiny tendrils investigate my home.

I feel its dampness wrap around me and I shiver at the strangeness of it. Never before have I had tea with a cloud. It dips invisible fingers into my cup, licks the brownie in my hand until it is soft and melty. Then it creeps on into the kitchen and around to the music room. I almost expect to hear ethereal music wafting out from under those delicate appendages caressing my dulcimer, but there is no sound at all, only the silence, the sound of eternal wisdom that accompanies those things that are forever.

I go to sleep, sheets clammy with the strange bedfellow who is here tonight. Chauncey and I crawl under the sheets and cuddle together in the middle of the bed, knowing that tomorrow, when we wake up, it will be gone. Back into the mists of time and mythology, into the place of stories and conjecture, leaving behind only the memories of our evening with an archetype who came to life.

Spiders and Slugs and Snakes, Oh No...

In the ever lasting battle with spiders, I am losing. I admit I bought some Black and Decker thing a madoobies that are supposed to plug into the wall and drive the spiders nuts. The spiders look pretty good, maybe these are deaf, or maybe they have ear plugs. I put my glasses on and a spider dangled down in front of my nose. I went to put the dishes away and a big one was in the sink.

I bought some bug spray that is supposed to keep them at bay for up to eight weeks. That was three weeks ago and they are no longer at bay, or perhaps they just like walking along the bay, because they seem to be building for the next onslaught. I reached for my book in the bathroom only to discover a good sized (half dollar) spider sitting on the end of it. I dropped the book and tried to step on the spider, but he jumped! And jumped and jumped until I was totally freaked out and called my son to come down and save me. By the time he got here, the spider was gone. Where? I don't know and I don't really want to think about it, or I won't be able to sleep tonight.

Right now the score is nine to nothing and the spiders are ahead. I guess I prefer spiders over slugs, which I had in Taylorville, or snakes which I had in Nokomis. I feel bad about the poison spray. I don't generally deal with things this way, but spiders are just too creepy to live with. My conscience is bothering me, though. The bug spray can make me sneeze ten or fifteen times if I am not very careful with it. I know it is not a good idea, but so far it is the only thing that appears to work at all.

My ego must be getting a little bit too big. I was thinking about these spiders all flocking to be near me and I thought of a man climbing the highest mountain just to get closer to God. Right at the top, the clouds part and the man's face takes on a look of awe just as a cosmic scream pierces the air and a giant foot stomps on him.

No Wonder

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie dissed us all and made us cry, but when Barack came out to play. Georgie Porgie ran way. There's a new cat on the wall now and he is fiddling with everything as hard as he can. If he can make that lame old cow appear to jump over the moon, the fundamentalists will still vote for war and taxing the poor. It doesn't matter. It's all an illusion anyway.

All the king's horses and all the king's men have absolutely no desire to put anything back together again. Humpty didn't fall. He jumped when he realized they were going to scramble him up with onions and sausage and serve him to the people as hors d'oeuvres just before that great pie with four and twenty advisers went into the oven.

Dark angels are having a picnic with Darwin and mad scientists are making tea in secret places, which I suppose is better than making nuclear weapons, but I would not drink this tea for all the oil in Iraq.

The mirror is wrong side out and this is not wonderland anymore. White rabbits have become harriers and the Queen of Hearts is playing hard ball with the Knave. One more stolen tart and we all turn back into mice at midnight.

Naming Names

Names are a very important part of life. People once thought if you knew their name, it gave you power over them and it does to some extent. Funny names, weird names, awkward sounding names can make life much harder than it needs to be, or, as some people believe, it can create character. I think most of us have heard of "A boy named Sue" and Barack Obama said is wasn't always easy being a Barack.

I had a very distant relative who named all his daughters boys names, Billie, Jo, Charlie, and thought it was hilarious. He wanted boys, and in my opinion he ended up with something that was neither this or that. They were very odd women. Although I am very sure it was much more than their names that made them that way.

Then there are the names that seemed to inspire their carriers. George Washington Carver more than lived up to his name. I had relatives that some of us were inspired by, Grover, Burl, Vivian, but I never was inspired enough to name my children after them. My grandson is named after John Lennon and if you ask him he will tell you that, adding, "but he is in heaven." I'm not sure how he learned this, or even what it means to a two year old, maybe when he is older I can ask him.

I had a fish named Claude, after Monet, and I named Chauncey after Chauncey Olcott, who wrote My Wild Irish Rose. His first companion was a male cat, Nijinski, named after a ballet dancer. His next was Chester, named by the vet's daughter. Neither had the best luck, so I was not going to get another pet after moving out here, but I have the yard and Chauncey does not do well with the big dogs upstairs. Soon we will add a small female shih tzu and I am trying to come up with a name for her. She will probably be off white. I thought of Gabrielle, Gabby, Gwendolyn, Gwennie, Isabelle, Izzy, or Merry Grace, Gracie. I even considered Frosty and Pearl, but those just aren't me.