when it began just at first light, i thought it would be mine. i watched the Wall, and thought about how it is so much an altar
i kept watching and do you see that scrap to the right of the head of the megamendung woman? i have been watching it. and yes. i think it might be a goat.
so all is smooth until i go out to feed the goats and the dogs are at the gate and there is someone out there. he wants to know if i want to sell the old Honda. no. but he is talkative. and we discuss the old honda, how my granddaughter wants to "pimp it out". so i need to keep it. ok. but then we move along to, would i want the weeds along the fence cleaned???, well, i think...i can do that, but i am thinking how Marti and her husband are coming and there are a trillion things to do and how these are weeds, just brown sticks from last summer's crop maybe 3-4ft tall. and yes, i CAN do them but....so i think...and say how much and he says $40, which is the same exact amount of the check i will cash today for my Alz. B weekly duties. i think. he says he will clean them AND burn them. this is a plus. then i realize that he is riding a bike. i ask where he lives...his sister just moved in down at the end of the road but he lives over across the freeway near my across the road neighbor's old dad . so...thinking more...and ok. so i go find him all the tools he needs, 2 kinds of rakes a flat shovel, drag the hose out through the gate for the burning, the wheelbarrow, on and on. and....a perfect job. he is maybe in his 40's. he is "old school". knows how to do things with no electrical or gas powered stuff. a shovel. a rake. when he is finished, it is
clean
like a White cloth, i am thinking. so, i decide, Why Not? and i tell him that one other thing i need is either 4 very BIG rocks...big as in maybe 3ft high and 3x3 ft surface. this is BIG. but i want them for the goats to jump on and off of. i need at least 4. i would like 5. and just then the across the road neighbor's son pulls up to her house and he sees us talking and greets the man and i yell over...is this guy ok? and he, this is my neighbor's son, Strongman, who i have known since a young boy, says Yessss, pretty lady. he is ok. (he calls me that, no matter how ratty i look) and so i let him in the gate and we look at the goats and decide that if the 4 very big rocks are something he can't do, what about a truck full of large irregular flagstone and i say ok. so...this is hanging in the wind
like this, that the dead husband and Louie of the message post brought back and put all over around the front steps. (i am going to stop calling the dead husband the maniac. just dead husband now. it's kinder.)
and just before going he askes if i want that old radiator over there and i say well yes, because it plugs a hole in the fence and he says no...it's just lying on the ground, so...ok and i go get it out of the buck pen and all it's entrails are falling out and they are COPPER!, how amazingly beautiful! so i kept some
HOW beauty Full is This! and how can it be used for dyeing????????
THEN. off to the Old Folks Home to visit Alz B and it is really almost rowdy there....being Easter weekend and all. and parked near her in the big area near the nursing station is Lucy who used to be back in the Alzheimer's Unit with Betty until they both got "voted off the Island" as Betty's son puts it. Meaning they got too combative and need more staff for daily care. anyway...i sat and watch Lucy snore...her teeth out...head back and mouth open. B is sleeping also. so i get to enjoy the general comotion going on of residents, staff, TONS of family visitors. and i watch Lucy who is a totally "white" person. someone comes and french braids her very beautiful long White White hair. it is perfect. and Lucy wears pearls. pearl earrings, a simple but elegant pearl necklace. and often, White clothing. all very Lovely, tho like today, a juice stain. something green from lunch. but i know Lucy had linens. so i thought about Lucy. her hair. her pearls, her refined demeanor, even without her teeth, snoring with wild abandon. still. Lucy is a lady.
and i came home to read Cathie's post in the What If Forum and somehow it pushed me over the edge. OK. OK. i will see about white. but then, when looking for white scraps, looked up and there on the Magic Diaries cloth
it's not a White white. not a Lucy white. but greyed. i can't imagine what that cloth went through to achieve this grey. but for sure...it WAS originally white. it is the texture of a diaper. ?????
and then looking down...i'd pulled out some things to cover the basket of very small scraps that i love and that the cat Tazmeena also loves to sleep in and there
this muslin 9 patch. it was covered with cat hair. i brushed it off and washed it...hung it to dry. it is White enough. i can't remember. i think it was from the very first online of Jude, the Spirit Cloth. i had looked so closely at her work so long before that first online class. i think i made it then. in anticipation. it has some stitching. it's backed with harem cloth.
and what i almost forgot. but what is important here.
When i was coming home, off the freeway, is the local cemetary. and there, bizzing up the road was a form. it was Tina Santillanas, in her electric wheel chair heading at breakneck speed as she does for the cemetary to visit her family there. Everybody visits their family and friends for sure on Easter weekend at the cemetarys. and i pulled over and walked in to where she is....talking to her dead relatives. Tina has cerebral palsy. she's probably 50 something how. and we talk, and make plans to "have a coke" SOON. i promise. I Promised. and so. I Promised on Easter weekend, in front of the family graves. i gotta do it now. We sit out in front of their family home there she in her wheelchair, me on the adobe low wall. i bring cans of coke. and we sip. we talk about all kinds of stuff. we watch cars and trucks pull to the stop sign and discuss kinds of men. it's been a while. i need to keep that promise. Tina is a good woman.
and more. Yes. Elizabeth. it IS all an altar. hearing the Goats doing their almost dark thing, hearing their hooves clicking on things, i went out, just now. sat there some. they come and i cannot say in any language i know how much these Goats give. and we just be together and i realize that i forgot to say yesterday that the crickets have begun. it is their spring singing. very soft and almost tentative. but it's begun. so me, the Goats, we Are Here. and yes. it IS all altar. ok. enough for this one day. enough.
