Housewife…wait, when did I marry a house?!?!: February 2013

Thursday, February 28, 2013

to sit

It happened like this.

I told BC I wanted to go camping.............for about a month.

No really, I want to sit in the desert for a week.

Then I want a week of running and hiking.

Another week of sitting.

And a week of watching.

I picture myself in a plaid lawn chair in the middle of nowhere while Beach runs through fields of sage and the pain between my shoulder blades lessens.

"You know what we could do? Hike the Simpson Range for a week into Judd Creek." He offers.

I picture me back packing with a lawn chair tied to the outside of my Kelty, Gypsie and Kilo at my heels.

"I want to sit and Judd Creek has biting flies. What about White Rocks?"

"You would be bored out there." He says.

"What about Desert Mt? I could sit there."

He paused to think. "You're not okay are you?"

"No, I'm fine...."

"I just really-really need a place to sit down."

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Sometimes my memory of pictures fails me. Under stress I tend to lose segments of time and chucks of information. When I try to go back to get what I need I find broken movies and empty pages.

What I recall about yesterday was Beach telling me she wanted to be a photographer. The delivery to the farm of a backhoe. An eye appointment. And bad news: Beach's good eye is for unknown reasons losing vision and there is an urgent need to know why.

I remember coming home to tell BC, standing in mud among heavy machinery and finding he had cut down the Holly Tree. In my not so great mood I had snapped at him, "You're not really a very good green builder if you can't figure out how to save a tree like that, are you?"

I ran off the anger until through exhaustion I found a nice flat spot in my heart to rest.

There is a bad reason why the loss of the Holly Tree bothers me. An unacceptable reason to snap at BC over it. Shortly after we moved in my X had paid a little visit to the farm. He walked around the property inspecting the landscaping, it is his profession one that he is extremely good at, i would argue he is the best master gardener in the state. He had stood next the Holly a shrub so large the word tree applies. He looked up and down the trunk. "This is probably the biggest Holly I have seen. This is nice. Don't let BC fuck it up."

I remember something else something I had said when he gave me his estimate for how tall it was in feet." "How big is that?" I asked famously poor with dimensions. "As big as a two story house." I stood in the shadows and asked again, "How big is a house?".... it is the feeling of being stupid and powerless. Not trying because you know you will fail anyway.

"There is nothing helping her make the decision to see when the images her eyes carry back to her brain are this blurry. She needs to learn how to see." The Eye Doctor said rather quietly handing me the card of yet another specialist.

Today a different tree is on the chopping block to make way for the new garage and workshop. This one unlike the Holly is putting up a fight.

"I liked the Holly, didn't you?" Beach asked.

"No, I never actually liked it. It was unforgiving and hard to care for but I respected what it was."

good impractical advice to not follow

I have been taught to fear lots of things. Driving over a cigarette on the freeway can blow up your car. Hiking is dangerous because you might fall off the mountain. Jeeps and motorcycles big no-no's. Pilot lights, lighters, and campfires all highly explosive. Lightening & outlets kill at random. And never stick a knife in a toaster.

So I am standing barefoot in the kitchen with a steak knife and butter knife shoved in the toaster using them (unsuccessfully I might add) like chopsticks in an attempt to remove a piece of bread that I have managed to wedge in but not out of the toaster. And as I am watching this go down wondering about whether or not you can actually be electrocuted doing this I thought of a rather good assessment & piece of advice I was given late yesterday: I think it is safe to say the box you stuff all the things you can't deal with has reached capacity. You have 1 of 2 choices, either have nothing else go wrong your entire life or start unpacking your shit.

I think I'll try my luck with what is behind curtain #1, Dick....lol

Saturday, February 23, 2013

the stories we don't tell...dreaming

They stood together hunting in unrealistic proportions, the largest a grey wolf beside her a dog, then the lion, a bobcat, a domestic cat, a mole, a mouse. It was the lion who scared me.

Above them a winter orchard exploding with black bare branches, in place of hanging fruit soulless shadows (Death Eaters). They were sleeping but if you looked them in the face their eyes would flicker red.

Beyond the trees a sandy ridge-line tumbling steeply to the valley where a city wet and lit-up with skyscrapers repeating rose to meet low clouds. It was unmistakably my city. Among the cluttered skyline of steel I searched for the lights of the Walker Center. I would find its steady blue lights then lose sight of it and have to search for it again. I watched rain turn to snow then I heard one of the black shadows groan. The lion roared. I was afraid. I started making my way through wet clumps of last autumn's leaves rotting among the roots and drifts of dry crumbling snow towards the shelter of the house I could not see but I could feel and knew to be on the other side, somewhere. Beyond the garden and the buried dog, beyond a clothesline, and slick matted grass. I knew there were lights on casting orange shadows, something to drink, and a fire going- perhaps a red blanket and a book.

My footfalls warned the prey of the predators. The pack turned to glare at me having lost them their meal; a wolf, a dog, the lion, a bobcat, a cat,a mole,a mouse. It was the lion who scared me. I quickened my pace to hopefully avoid being eating by him. I could hear the storm coming at my back, the Death Eaters stirring to their morning of night. The bobcat looked away from the rest seeing her chance, leaned over the cat and the mole and ate the mouse.

....I woke up sick.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

dinner faces

What I loved most about today was getting to see how each of my friends and I fit together from the tricksters (who plotted to spend the day with me under the strangest of circumstances) who seem to always be by my side when I need them, to those who listen to the details of my heart, the ones I count one, the ones who always surprise me, those that dig deep to help me see in myself what they see in me, and those who no matter how far away they are let me know I am sheltered and loved.