windthread

Missing

for a long time, like years,  I was never there often enough.  How I would call to get a grocery list...deliver the stuff then later that day or in the morning he'd tell me what he'd forgot.  So i had to go again.  I would always tell him to get better at making the list,  but i pretty much always just went again because he couldn't go anywhere by himself, 10 years, give or take,.  He was dependent.   (I wonder what that felt like?)  (I wasn't always easy on him)  (He knew he was annoying me)  (But he was good at walking a fine line...pushing it,  just as much as he could, but not too much)  (he was lonely).

This last year or so, momentum.  His need became not choice but reality.  Thinking back, almost daily, it grew.  Until his life was as imminent as my own.

I woke in the middle of the night last night and there was this:

if you agree to

matter

to someone,

no matter how, (you matter to them)

then,  really

Matter Well.

 

Went there today to wait for the Hospice equipment people to retrieve their bed, commode, nebulizer, etc.  They never came.  When finally i got to the bank to get the Will out of the Safe Deposit Box because since I am not blood to him,  they need the Will that says he wants to be cremated, and i got to the funeral home,  nobody answered their door so i came home with his safe deposit papers and a fire proof box from Walmart, just in case.  And i did some things here,  started a crock pot of beans,  some things Out Side,  pet the dogs a lot, Tazmeena, try out scraps on the pouch, maybe, and all the while,

Something's Missing.   Not in Place.  Missing.

I think of him there,  downstairs at the Funeral Place,  his body in that fetal position waiting for what's next,  his spirit hovering,  How he is dead now.  and like i always said,  I didn't love him.  But i am learning how much he Mattered as time went by.  How much of who I am I put into Mattering,  being Mattered.  It's more than i'd thought.  I miss him.  So i am drifting now,  for awhile,  finding self just looking at stuff

looking for scraps for rocks i found this ....  had forgotten all about it

 

 

front and back of the other half of the Maria Cloth

Old Cowboy is Gone

what i think i can say with all confidence is that the moment of Death is Gentle.  We are taken back by What gave us.

Mending

Mending.

repairing.  or  filling a space that is empty in some way.   Jude's teaching of design mending.  So,  not to just fill a space,  but to fill it by 

design,  or maybe some kind of Beauty.

The Thing itself is strong still,  has vertical and horizontal,  but there are spaces  that if they are not filled,  will become weak.  If left alone,   become spaces,  which in and of themselves would maybe be Beauty Full but yet,  vulnerable to On Goingness.  

Mending.

Once again,  i get home from the work away and phone rings.  Can they come visit the Goats?  OK.

They come,  after picking up from kindergarten,  they come and they bring Gifts.  How amazing.  I don't know how to think of it.  They bring Cottonwood branches and 2  50lb bags of Goat Pellets,  a bag of shredded carrots.

you will have to double click to see him,  the child, Zarek,  in the "door" to the beginning of the corridor

he wanted to know what i was doing,  taking his pic and then wanted to take a pic of his mother and of Travis  

 

he did.  He held the camera and listened to the order in which the buttons were pressed.  Yes.

They stayed about an hour.

Maybe people mend without really  knowing?  but are "drawn to" ?????  Somehow,  mutual tendency?,  pull,  or if we want to go that far, Karmic energy?  or , even further, well....i won't go there now.  But they called.  Could they come by again?,  ok, yes.

I talked to Rebecca about helping with the hoof trimming.  She listens.  Quiet.  I like that VERY MUCH,  quiet listening.  

 

the MOON is stitched in place,  part of the Lizard except the tail which will need to be in motion with some rocks,  so loose for now,  until the rocks....then.....

there is a very quiet satisfaction to this Making.

 

??????????????

Did I or didn't i...say anything about how last ?Friday,  when the computer came,  the new Vet from Magdalena also came?   I don't remember and well...will just go from here.  SHE came.  New Vet.  A Woman.  She came to take blood from Sonny Ray and do a TB test on him.  These things for Jan the Dog Trainer who will "use" Sonny Ray to breed her Nigerian/Saneen doe Nughat.   Once Sunny's tests come back good,  we will load him up and he will stay there till spring.  This will give Gideon,  his OLD father and yard mate a good break.  I will bring back Flash,  Jan's young wether from the Tenzen breeding,  to keep company with the old Gideon through the winter.

Moving buck goats around.

It is no easy task,  drawing blood from Goats.   Goats,  even Snowbunny,  don't like being restrained.  This new Vet,  the Woman,  had Ways....

when we were taking blood from the neck,  one held the head,  the second knee'd   the Goat into the solid structure while gripping the flesh at the top of the hind leg tight.  For the TB test that happens under the tail,  in the soft flesh there,  head held the same.  Knee'd into the solid structure the same and  tail held, arched over the back,  firm.

She knows these things.  but

she is fast and uh,  well,  in a hurry.  For Snowbunny,  she commented several times how she carries her tail down .....but maybe this was because she had just stuck her finger in her butt???????????????  She is not much on herbal remedies....gave me something to use two times a day.  Ok...for Snowbunny,  but,  we'll see.  And said it might be some kind of cancer.  OK.  that too.

After she left there was comotion out there.  I'd put on a new collar for Snowbunny and everyone was noticing that in the first place and then when 2 other people showed up,  one sticking their finger into Snowbunny and making her bleat,  well....Everyone had thoughts they didn't understand so there was a lot of head butting 

 

 

 

 

 

the Vet visit itself caused comotion.   Mostly between Snowbunny and Ginger,  but Ona came into the fray on behalf of her mother.

This is what i WISH Vets would be willing to know.  But they  aren't.  Women or Men.  They don't care.

 

another pouch,  or pocket,  whatever,  but i want to make it,  Lizard and Moon,  for whatever

the day after and the evening Before

in the last several days,  Tenzen has transformed.   No longer the quiet one,  he has become very suddenly a vocal tyrant.    Standing on the roof of their hut,  he repeats and repeats his most heartfelt vocalizations that are the tongue blubbering followed by a shrill falsetta call.   Repeat.  Repeat.  etc.  Young Nogal stands rapt beneath him,  does not challenge him,  but mutters quietly as he is sprayed (willingly) in the face  with Goat jiz.   This has ended with dark until last night.  I was awakened at 11:30 by something and listened and there we go again.  My hood can be completely silent at night.  This night it was so and   I "willed" him to stop for a half hour,  he was the only only Sound.   The ONLY sound.  Over and Over and Over.  So i got up and with the flashlight turned on the hose at the house, went out in my underpants in the dark and 

hosed him.

it was a distance away,  his roof,  so he only got sprayed but it did the trick.  Enough was Enough and today was moderate in comparison.  But tonight,  a day from Full Moon.  From these days forward i will call this moon the Tenzen Moon.  It's not something easy to forget.  It is just dusk now.  How will things go tonight????  And Why,  has he suddenly changed?  By next year,  if all the same of us are still here,  young Nogal will challenge him and it will become a different story altogether.  Nogal has large scur horns.  Tenzen, successful disbudding which means,  no horns.  Next year it will become Nogal's year.  So maybe that's it.  Take your one year when it comes.  Live it to it's fullest.  So, Ok.

Tomorrow the new Vet returns to "read" the TB test under Sonny Ray's tail.  How difficult is That going to be????  with two people,  me being one?  I have no idea.

 

stitched down.  Enough.

 

maybe this will go in?   From Roz Hawker.   Were supposed to be earrings,  but that was in my dreams,  i no longer wear earrings,  so instead on a string,  which i also no longer wear.  Me.  Nothing but a body.  But  sometimes i wear the necklace....the silver with a Goat's Head,  the copper with the Diamond and a Dot.   I think it will go In,  for the granddaughter.  Sometimes, i'll wear it still.   But anything on my body now feels like too much.

 

first pouch.  Finish the inside Rim

 

then they will be sewn together,  back to back.  Just the two might be enough for the small bits of paper.  I don't know,  but enough to begin.

 

At the old cowboy's today he was frail.  weak.  but restless.  Had been awake since 3 am but wanted to sit up,  so ok....

We sat,  probably an hour and a half, him in his Del Rio Bar Tshirt and diaper on the side of his hospital bed.     me in my bleach design La Rana (frog) Tshirt and i guess what are called capri pants on the seat of his 4 wheel walker,  knees to knees.    He fumbled.  He dropped his little pieces of paper towel on the floor,  then leaned precariously to retrieve them.  Over and over he did this.  Alz B used to do something very similar and i wonder what this is,  dropping and retrieving.  Much mumbling that i couldn't understand.

From the book,  Die Wise,  Stephen Jenkinson

"Dying well is the same kind of act as Gandhi's cotton spinning or salt harvesting; a nonviolent insurrection that dares the statuus quo to oppose or prevent it.  Dying well gathers adversaries.  Of this you can be sure.  Dying well means dying knowing that there is much at stake for the greater good.  Whose death is it, anyway?  It is all of our deaths,  one death at a time, until our time comes.  It is one enduring place where we can declare what and who we are willing to be to each other.  We can reclaim our way of dying and decide upon it,  and we must do so now.  We can take it from the hands of professionalization and privacy  and legislated monopoly only by assuming the greater responsibility of learning about death in the course of our lives, and teaching it if we are able, and by being an exemplar, an incarnation of what we advocate when our time comes."

SO.  We,  he and I,  have reclaimed and claimed.   Declaring who and what we are willing to be to each other.  Ok.  Ok.  

and ok.  

Jenkinson talks a lot about stories.  and it is true,  it seems.  that Our Stories are what we GIVE Life.  How we feed ourselves and one another and Give,  back into Life,  what there is that can be taken of us, forward, through and beyond our death.

so i searched in my mind, my memory for stories he had told me over the years and really,  there are only a few.  Most of his story is about his money.  But there are the stories about what his father told him.   

Use Common Sense.  Judgement.

If you don't know,  find someone who might and get a second opinion.

Don't steal.  You are only stealing from yourSelf.

Respect your elders.  You will be one, someday.

 

over and over,  he has repeated these things to me so i think to say them back to him today,  as what his dad Leroy had always said,  how they had become his story and by telling me this so many times,  they have now become My story too.  How he gave me Good Story.   But it seems that he isn't listening.  I don't know tho.  I don't know how to Help.  It seems such a struggle for him.  We spent a lot of time in silence.

 

 

 

 

How it was

It turned out to be mostly just this

 

 

all week the clouds were astounding.  Driving in to the Old Cowboy's,  the Sky was FILLED FILLED and FILLED with clouds....Clouds MOVING,  in layers of differing speed.  I would get dizzy looking into them.  Like different worlds,  floating,  moving.  In the evening, they would rest.

 

watched Moon,  morning,  day, evening and into the night.

 

Watched a flock of Juvenile Grackles come every day to drink from the Goats water,  to play on those pieces of wood,  the ones all falling down back behind the stump.   Here, not so much, because many flew as i came to the window of the door,   but all week and continuing,  they stay....before their migration.

I could not stop looking.  The first morning I sat imagining all the things I might accomplish,  so much more than the ordinary,   but i just Looked.  There was such a Silence to it.  It soon became Surreal,  and then soon after,  going to the Old Cowboy's every day,  usually mid morning,  Returning  to the continuation here,  there came to be a sense of some kind of parallel reality.  It was disorienting.   It was Full of Wonder and i realized that putting pictures here,  putting words, Sharing image and thought has been such a Gift ....a Gift that blends everything into a kind of Whole,  the All of It.  And does so because of the sharing,  the exchange.  I missed EveryOne.  I missed traveling to Other People's Places.  I missed how i have become This familiar,  this so much Kin.  The We that we Are to me.

Half way in the week,  Travis and his woman Rebecca and her young son Zarek came.   We sat on the Way Back Porch for such a long time...over an hour....watching the Goats.  They are young.  and that they could sit like this,  just Looking.  The 5 year old child played with gathered sticks and a piece of rope.  Snowbunny was in complete attendance to every move.  The rest,  an arms length away but the herd moved with him as he pretended to be lost and building campfires.   Shhhh, his finger to his mouth,  Shhhhhhhh,  go quietly,  he would say.  They would.  Sometimes he could get me to "go quietly" after him,  kind of crouching,  but moving fast,  him carrying the wood bundle,  me and the Goats,  following kind of fast.   All this heightened the sense of parallel reality,  so unexpected.  

As they were leaving we began picking Yellow Hot chilies for them to take....suddenly Zarek screamed and flung a dark thing off his handfull of chilies.....dark and limp....i rushed to see....  the Mystery was solved.

 

 

 

 

All pics pretty much the same but i couldn't pick,  so i put them all,  and 

 

Tomato Worm,  Child of Hawk Moth.  First of this whole season.  Because of the almost Nothing of this Tomato season,  when i saw this Being,  actually,  the day i turned off the computer,  i decided to leave it.  To Let it.  Normally i would want to save the plant.  But since it's so late in the Circle of season,  i thought.....Let it.  Watch. 

so...much time this last week was looking so close.  Beginning in the morning,  all through the day,  on into the Dark.

But then....suddenly,  s/he was Gone.  Had been looking Everywhere,  HOPING to see the beginning of a cacoon spinning????????????   There, though,  there s/he was.  On a pepper plant,  darkening to a brown,  limp, dead.  Zarek and i looked close,  looked close,  his face inches from mine,  and i told him the story of this Being and wanted to run in to print out a pic of it in its other form,  

We were all quiet awhile.  This added to the sense of parallel reality.

 

Seams on the Out Side....invisibly basted flat as Jude teaches.  The Satisfaction of this was immense.

 

the Creature...some kind of Wind Being that carries her.  When it's Time,  I will recognize this.

Old Cowboy remains.  Most times flowing in a nether world of dream.  But he remains.  Here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am

HERE!!!!!!!!!!   HOME!!!!!!!!!

I can't figure out how to post pics in the moment...just finished  a long session of SpyWare,  but it's ok,  i'll figure it out and OH just so OH and OK and i have missed this Very Real Part of my World

and i want to see if this posts and if it does i might come back later, or i might just be so incredibly full of GRATITUDE that i go back to sit on the porch as i have done for a week tomorrow,  sitting and looking and trying to know something about all of it,  but

I have MISSED You All,  so so very very much and I love EVERYONE,  so so very much......

 

 

 

OK

I can't BEAR the thought of losing all my photographs...not just the ones from here,  but for instance the ones of my Granddaughter giving birth to Julian in San Diego....those...can't stand the thought.

So i am going to play it safe.   Will turn this oldie off in the next couple hours and leave it off.  Will order a new one tomorrow and soon as he can,  Travis will do the transfer.

Until then,  Everyone, Be Well and Much Love....

 

 

hanging by a thread

Computer had a hard time Opening this morning.   I really don't expect it will continue to be  able to.  And at this time,  there's nothing i can do about it.  So chances are that i won't be here for however long.  I'll continue taking any pics that seem to want to be taken.  

Hope to see you here later today, after i get back from the Old Cowboy's,  but if not,  see you soon,

Love to All and Thank You

 

Goodness

to Mo....a Bell.

 

 

from the Yard Gate.  The other things i stole when i stole the Janet Chairs.  The fabric they are tied with is rotting.  Last WIND,  this one fell.  I knew one was missing because i have to duck when i walk through,  ordinarily.  I looked but couldn't find it.  Tay did.  

 

Shelter is finished.   The first pic,  to get the truest of the center orangered post

The second pic,  more true to the other colors.   I put it in the shop although it is reserved,  has been for a while,  but the shop is how i keep track of things i've sold.  Just in case i need to ever be accountable.  I doubt it.  it's not much,  but you never know.

 

Will miss this scrap.  I have loved it so much for a long time

 

 

 

a piece of Deb Lacativa after a walnut dip.  Can you see the lightning??????

 

 

and then the far left.....eeeee....What is This?

 

The young Fig.  Enjoying the weather below 90 degrees and bizzzzzy making new leaves.   What to do when cold comes?   Bring it in?    Swaddle it and leave it Out?  If it lives through this winter i'll plant it in the Earth for next year and Let Be what will.

Today Old Cowboy slept.   I watched him sleeping.

Travis,  the Loved Caregiver,  also knows computers and when i described the Events,  said it's my harddrive.  Ok.  So we are typing on the razors edge here.  Again.  Cross fingers, please.