windthread

a sunday, giving water visiting the dump transfer station

it takes more than a full day to give water.  I am maybe about 2/3 of the way.  Since early morning.   Out in the Native Olive water bowl,  the hollow under the tree/bush,  birds came.  I'm not sure what they were,  bronze colored birds,  5 of them,  and they

bathed.

warily checked it all out but going closer and closer and finally,  fluttering down into the small pool of water and Bathing...fluttering,  flashing,  chattering,  flickering up then to flutter their wings and groom their feathers then back down to splash into the pool,  over and over.

desert willows begin blooming

 

do i Take this?  or leave it?   It's a rocking chair.  Old Cowboy's mother's.

 

 

a lesson in Listening

looking,  more branches and limbs and Listening.  Realizing that this Cloth is the Tree's story...the Old Russian Olive's story.  Not mine.   I didn't know that,  but now i understand.

how my story of the Old Russian Olive was mine,  but not Hers.  Her story is of an entirely different depth and meaning,  not so much  how  she appeared to be FOR me,  but what she WAS of Her SELF and 

IS still,  of Her Self.   And the Cloth...the pieces,  the placement,  all of it,  is as she needed for her story to Continue.  As i go,  she will tell the story of Her Self in all the ways she can.  I will stitch them and by stitching them,  will take her story into my heart and carry it there always.  I will be able to tell the story to the trees in the new place.  I will be able to see them differently because i will have her story as a template.

the Cloth offers understanding......then!!!!....ADDENDUM!!!!!

it's OK now.  Just some dark brown stitching to the branches and it's just very much ok now.  And there is reason why it's been hard that i understood when adding the dark brown...that Fallen Old Russian Olive Out Back...how yesterday eve and then again this morning i tripped on some of the scattered branches,  seeing self clearly,  how i've made ZERO effort to move any of them,  they lie where they fell and both those times realizing how that was such heartache,  even tho it had been dead for so long...but still there for the birds and how now,  all the ones, birds,  that have migrated back from wherever they went,  no longer have the tree.  This coming to me because i realized that the Mocking Bird pair no longer drive me crazy just outside the window...are somewhere over by the ditch where i still can hear them, but softly.  So now i understand this Cloth.  It's Good.

Listening to Jude talk about weaving sent me back into the Picasa archives to look at the Daughter Cloth i made for Jenny's initial trip to California with the Goats...that was in 2011 .  I was going to post the pics here tonight...they are beauty FULL,  how it was woven while hanging from the beam to the ROOM,  how i stood on a ladder to weave it.  But as it is and has been,  for some reason i can't upload those years onto Typepad.  Typepad only goes back to the 2015 pics in Picasa.  I don't know why.  So,  i fooled with things and now have created an uncomfortable mess that i don't know how i created and have no clue how to undo.  Uploading photographs at the end of the day is no longer pleasant.  It has more steps and i can't see what i'm uploading,  just the numbers of the pics.  This is a bummer.  But oh well.  Soon enough i'll disconnect this computer and need to reconnect There.  They know how to do things.  I'll wait.  

ADDENDUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I JUST THOUGHT....!!!!....if i go to the blog Archives and click,  it took me back...clicked into March of 2011!!!  and even there,  is the pic of when Ginger was new,  she's 6 now and just Out Back  HERE !, in this NOW,  with HER daughter Cinderella,  her mother Onday,  and even there is a pic of me and the Belov~ed Kadir.  OH EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee

attachment....

how i have blindly counted on having access to my life through these pics.....today,  feeling how it might be to rely on my memory,  what a small room that is,  my own memory,  and how solitary.  I would not blog without pics.  There would be no point.  I could never begin to tell it in words. 

To be Grateful then that for now it's all here and to accept the possibility that it might not always be so.  Ok.  

choosing

i don't love this Cloth.  I didn't in the beginning and i haven't all along.  But it HAS happened that when i'm unsure,  something will appear that changes things.  Not here.  So this morning i folded it and poked it into one of the scrap baskets thinking that sometime there will be the urge to cut something out of it,  use it elsewhere.  But i went back not long after and unfolded it,  put it on the wall, the OtherSide of Magic Diaries,  and all day off and on i stood in front of it looking.   I will,  choose,  to keep working on it.  There is a lot i can learn from that,  with the stitching, the use of the Inktense Pencils,  the incorporating of the very abstract small images with the rest.  Balancing that top heaviness with what is below.  A LOT i can learn.  And it's a good time for that.  The days are fragmented by doing all the small things that need to be done,  like today,  cleaning the wood splitter,  the oil that leaks out...it's hydraulic...getting it ready to load.  Loading the truck with all that goes to the Thrift Shop from yesterday.  Putting in their places all the things to KEEP and TAKE that rose to the surface yesterday.   There's an urge to take days "off",   daydream that other Cloth,  but i choose to keep going with the small necessary things so that when it's time,  i'll be Easy with things.  I want to be Easy with things.

 

 

salt cedar...it's most Beauty FULL year yet.

i feel good. like James Brown. na na nana na na Na!

a whole Day ahead and i couldn't get a grip...till i read Dakotah's post on junewildflower.wordpress.com .  You can go look to see what i mean.  She's dealing with Stuff.  and i loved looking at her dilemma and somehow it broke a little Spell that had taken hold here and i set to it.

 

a LOT for the Thrift Shop.  a LITTLE to take.  and inspired by that,  i moved on to the one cabinet under the West Weather Watching Window and didn't take before and after because it was too intense.  It's amazing what i let happen in there.  a rats nest of paper stuff, mostly. 

 

but also this completely PRISTINE batch of Cray Pas!!!!...Never USED at ALL!!!  and i have no memory of having them and was so happy,  HAPPY, to see them,  how GREAT Cray Pas is with kids,  with anyone,  with me!  oh, EEEEEEEEEEEEE.....so so great, them.....

and here,  for Dakotah,  

 

my organizational shelves.  Here is not how they ordinarily were.  I've packed a lot already.

but there are two 3ft wide X 6ft tall utility shelves,  metal.  They take up the north wall of my BED room.  I roll the cloth and tie it.  so i have like burritos.  which are ordinarily stacked nicely,  their butt ends available for easy viewing.  (pillows usually not there.  that great wad of white is miles of cheese cloth????,  usually not like that)  This is the cloth that is from the Thrift Shop in the form of clothing,  or,  just yardage of something,  like here,  some silk noile, the curtains from the thrift shop...a kind of monks cloth.    There of course are the multitudes of baskets in the ROOM,  in addition,  with the stuff i need to touch a lot,  but small pieces.   These shelves Work.  For the first time for me.  On the lower two shelves of the right,  not pictured here,  are my clothes i wear.  In comparison,  nothing much.

so this is how it's been.  In the new place,  something different will need to happen and i have no clue.  But today felt really really good.  Like i CAN go and take what i need and WANT.  After all was said and done,  i typed in UHaul  and looked again.  I'd thought i would go for the 10 ft truck.  But i think maybe the 15ft.  There is still the Albatross.  Tools.  Canning. the Sun Oven.   Stuff for Survival.  Goat stuff.

but i feel very OK about it all now and can just go with it.

So, thanks,  Dakotah....

 

 

small things....addendum

work away and home to this afternoon's atmospheric events of electrical storms, 3,  WIND from alternating directions and hail.  So ok.

i actually wished i had vodka, kaluah, and cream.  crushed ice.   it's the only thing that appealed.

but then....

 

that jar,  no lid,  buttons and sand from a winter and spring,  sitting on the Weather Watching Windowsill...ok...i washed them.  Which led to more buttons,  beads,  also under cover of dust, dog hair and spider webs

 

 

 

 

 

these are all from i guess,  almost 30 years ago.   

What?  do i think about that?   There were maybe twice this much but over time,  the kids used many that i wasn't attached to.  

ADDENDUM

so this is about human love...how we can stay,  stay within kinds of adversity and then feel such relief when it stops

just moments ago.  Suddenly.  and i mean Suddenly.  Suddenly,  it all STOPPED.  It is totally still Out There.   SUN is at the exact RIM.  and there is the voice of the Boat tail Grackle...a single sound of a single  bird.  No more than this.  Singular things.  And this is how you keep loving it,  even tho half of it is HARD.  Suddenly,  that Other Half appears and in comparison,  it is so sweet....like nectar from a tiny clover.

 

 

 

till death do us part

part of me would like to die here.   to grow incapable,  to just lie down and die.  Here.  But before that,  to continue watching.  Continue continuing.  day unto day.  I'd read somewhere a while ago that Climate Change here would manifest in increased heat,  but also WIND.  And i am seeing this now.  March is usually the month of Wind.  In the last two years this has extended to April and this year,  here we are,  Mid May,  usually the PeaceFULL month,  WIND.  Weather.gov,

the National weather channel calls what it is as Breezy.  35 mph straight line.  Not so much breezy.  Trying to put Goat feed over the fence is frought with frustration.  Expensive feed flings out in Wind and scatters while my eyes get hit with sand,  my hair obscuring my vision,  i squint.  These walls rattle.  Things fall off them.   WIND.  My true love.  How true love changes over time.

But still,  a part of me would like to stay here.  Till the end.

 

look at this.  I took 11 pics...the same ....and kept going for whatever reason,  just to see how they might show the wind i guess and this last one...look.  oh,  eee....WHAT IS THAT GREEn WHIRRING form?  not in any of the previous?  A deva,  saying look.  look at me.  See me.

Jenny,  my daughter called.  just after this.  I said so what's the reason for the call,  it's Monday night and she doesn't call on Monday night and she says...no reason.  Just calling and the conversation goes on just easy,  nothing significant other than a recounting of the work of the weekend with jackhammers on the Hill to place retaining wall so Alyssia's home can be brought and jackhammers through granite there.  They had sent me short video's of this.  But she goes on and somewhere in the late middle of it,  says that Ashley,  Fate's mother is so excited and happy that i am coming.  We wondered together about this because i don't remember being anything but really very neutral to Ashley,  Fate's mother when she was here, both times,  kind of low neutral,  really,  but Ashley is SO Happy AND she has the older son,  Elijah who is 9 yrs who is Ours by Extended,  and i think....ok.  for these Children.  This planet is their inheritance.  What you leave behind when you are dead.  Inheritance.   and though i might want to be here.  Here.  till death do i part,  i need to be There.  There is stuff still to do.  Ok.

 

Water for worms

had decided NOT to plant any vegetable plants.  At some point,  soon,  it will all change gears and become GOING.  There will be much to do.  Gathering.    Hosing down.  Cleaning off.  Stacking,  piling.  that's OutSide.  Inside,  well.... but it will happen suddenly.  Gardens need things.  They need above all else,  time.  Focus.  Care.  I thought about just starting things.  and then telling Everett so he can carry on.  But that's ify for the plants and i think ify isn't ok for plants.  They need you for the duration.  So i have been giving water to the bushes and trees.  This means,  toads and lizards.  Spiders and beetles.  Birds.  maybe the snake?, most likely.   But suddenly this morning,  i was stricken by the thought of the

worms

all fall and winter i have layered Goat manure and scrap feed on the vegetable beds.  Like always.  But also partly more  because i need to put the manure SomeWhere and Gideon's place has taken the space of the Big Compost.  It's piled and incredibly GOOD.  

the planting of the vegetables would have begun late April.  But it didn't.  Those beds have been still.  Down,  i don't know how far,  the worms live,  rising with water.  

so today from dawn till almost Rim Time,  i hand watered.  Held the hose long moments on every bit of them,  dug in with my hands to see if the water penetrated the heavy mulch.  Staying staying staying till it did and when i dug in with my hands,  i felt and saw such incredibly BEAUTY FULL 

soil

black.  black.  no longer any trace of sand that it was.  Earth.  i lifted it to smell and held it for Tay to smell...it is intoxicating,  that fragrance of composted Earth...partly the work of Worms.

so a Beauty FULL FULL FULL day,  giving water to worms.  

 

and while waiting for the water to seep in some places,  i began gathering things that i might take.

 

 

an unidentifiable day

i can't even try to talk about it.  I guess it was/is as if there were TWO day's going on at once and they kept bumping in to each other so that neither of them could be Today?  

and then...a kind of Of Course,  my long long Michigan friend Luna,  sent me these

 

she and her family had gone to a Music Festival up the hill from this house here so she took a couple pics to send...this is My House.  This is MY HOUSE.  This is my house.  Where Jenny was born into.  My Spring Street house in Ann Arbor Michigan.  There,  to the right is the neighbor's house,  the Lum's.   I don't know if any of the now very adult children live there?  But it's the house that Jenny would escape to.  Wearing only her yellow boots from the Netherlands.  Nothing else.  And Mrs. Lum would call me and tell me in Chinese that she was there and i would walk over and retrieve this naked child with her little plastic bag of noodles and almond cookies.   they used to call her Fioke.  that's a guess of how it might be spelled in Chinese.  I would ask them now and then,  the then young 4 children of Mrs. Lum,  i would asked them  what that meant and they would look off and kind of away and not answer me but then  George, the youngest son said

brat.

so my naked brat in yellow boots from the Netherlands.  Fioke.  They loved her.

if you try really hard,  you might see the front of a red car toward the back left of the pic and it's facing where there looks to be an addition to the shape of the front of the house and that's my Kitchen and it looks to be an addition because it was,  it's over 100 years old, this house, an Old Woman House and there was a kitchen added on before we lived there.  There was a dry sink.

That's my kitchen.  When i type those words, i get all teary.  

but i see these pics here that Luna took just a couple days ago and i see how Old Woman House is all very nicely Yellow and how they took off the railing on the left,  probably for convenience of some sort and how they have purple tulips growing out front and some kind of sedum on the Lum's hill.

 

behind the house is a long long rectangle lot that is flat near the house but then goes down into a terraced garden space and then beyond to the wild place where the Lilac Forest was and where the kids had their "tree fort" world.  First, what comes to mind was how Snake Louise lived there....the Garden Snake,  the Snake Louise from a Wind at the Door,  Madeleine L'engle,  and all the Toads,  all the Toads  that my son Jonathan would feed mulberries to.

I used to LIKE,  actually, LIKE telling the story of how i left this house,  the Life lived in this house.  I would tell it hard and fast.  It was FULL of Ego,  mine,  and i was full of it.  I told it as such an adventure.  Which...it was.  but i look back now....

Now...it's hard.  Hard to look back.  Hard to see it,  to see my self then,  to feel that self then still alive in the me that is now,  almost 30 years later.   oh,  eeeee.......

 

maybe

 

maybe it's because there is Beauty in it all.  in every moment.  in every iteration.  

 

on the Other Side of the Magic Diaries because it takes that whole wall,  the Magic Diaries,  but also i love how it looks there with the thread marks from the Front,  how well they ARE together,  sharing space

 

the altar is getting crowded