over 100 degrees. the hardware guy swore it was 104. his phone said so. Hotter tomorrow. When it's over 100 it becomes uncomfortable. No wind and the beloved oscillating fan oscillates and moves the heat from here to there. Yesterday was probably the same and there was no wind. Tay slept outside last night. Once Sun goes over the rim it cools. It's this metal house that holds the heat. I woke after sleeping a couple hours and went outside to sit with her. It was gentle and there was that sense that desert expresses so well of reprieve. The Stars were breathtaking. Really.
i gave water long. Just for some, will finish in the morning. I stayed with the ones i did to repeat filling their water wells twice.
the Vitex is doing well...has Grown...wide. I don't trim it anymore. I'd wanted it to be a tree, which it can, with trimming, but that winter a few years ago when it went to 17 degrees BELOW ZERO brought it to its knees. It grew back from nothing and i think it feels stronger as a bush. Today it's BeautyFull. Bees.
also known as Chaste Tree.
just this. and only maybe. The Stick is ....asking a lot of thought. a lot of looking. More than i would have imagined. The stick is another entity, no less than the woman. no less than the Crow. I wait.
Jenny called at end of day. she and Alyssia had gone to the Hill to work some more. So slow and steady, the work there. But they finally, for the first time, and maybe because it was just the two of them (or three, Emrie) they actually
sat. Sat and looked. Sat and were quiet. Sat and talked. They sat for the first time. And she called not to tell that, but to tell that while they were sitting, MANY lizards came and looked at them. She said they were Flying Lizards. They would LEAP, as if flying, branch to branch of trees and undergrowth, leap distances. Almost as if they could
fly
and she told me how they would come close, because she and Alyssia were still, would come close and LOOK at them...cock their heads, as lizards do, make Eye Contact, turn their heads while listening [as if] making an effort to understand....and she kept telling me and i closed my eyes listening, imagining her and Alyssia there, imagining HER, Jenny, my "hard won" daughter, (i guess me, her hard won mother) telling me what i KNOW, what i KNOW, that lizards are so curious about human beings, are so interested in us, so engaged, really, so willing, so INTERESTED in living in community...
she is saying all this. SHE is saying all this that i know, so deeply inside me....SHE is saying this...
my daughter.
the Lizards are doing their work. and it's working. Gratitude.
