windthread

california snow

Rain.  that continues.  day/night/day/night.  Rain.  Off and on,  Hail.  then rain.  Heavy rain.  like,  Heavy.  Big.  Rain.  the old mother, of the Lizard Clan,  the Desert clan,  feels it.  But  having seen the lizards here,  knows there is a way to be with it.  Be With It.  Other places, snow.  Here,  rain.  Water.  Sky Water.  No storms,  they say.  no electrical storms.  

today,  twice.  Lightning.  Thunder.  Great and Fine Thunder.  Goats run for shelter.

old mother,  young mother,  midlings read Harry Potter.  Infant listens closely.  Thunder.  Goats shelter.  

you need to remember or know.  This is like camping.  Here....it's like camping in its way.

old mother and midling boy

a gap between them,  but somehow   known to one another,  prior to this Round.  How? one wonders,  but of no point, the wondering,  there can be no answer.  Any answer will or will not come from the Living of the Life.  and only will be glimpsed in retrospect and the old mother will be gone then.  Interesting.

it rained.  All last night and All Today.  Constant rain and the old mother is uhhh,  weakened from it...drained.  But somehow ends up at the small table between the morning window and the stove...the small table and somehow ends up in an Arm Wrestling Challenge with the Midling boy.  They take a certain pleasure in this challenge,  who knows why,  but they do and it goes on and on....the Midling boy trying to get her off guard,  the old mother,  but she HOLds.   On it goes.  Until Young Mother calls it a draw.

it's almost dark and finally the rain has abated.  Goats mutter and call.  This world is wet.  Wet World and old mother looks out.

She has strung a clothes line in here,  in this tin trailer house she is stuck in.  She wetted cloths in the sink and smoothed them with her fingers and then hung them over a clothsline strung between the cabinets on either side of the place.  During the night they will dry.  They are all from Deb Lacativa.  

against all normal sense of how it goes,  in the morning,  she will take them down and somehow make something of them,  something that might make some sense or not,  but she will make because it's been too long and she is aching to make.  Something,  Anything. doesn't matter.

 

 

 

a friend

 

i need to think a little more before the words.     

Later:

when i "heard" Jude say she might do one more On Line Class,  I was beyond happy.  The thought set free so many images,  about  what it might be...and foremost  I guess was the hope that it might be a continuation of the 21st Century Rags...the robe,  the boro noragi,  maybe some kind of  "housedress" even.  Though i don't need any of these,  but just love them....And immediately there was the image of a "doll" figure.  Maybe a Person for Emrie.  Make whatever Jude gives US, FOR this figure,  this being....and simultaneously,  i thought, TWO of them,  one for Emrie,  one for Wendy Golden Levetts children.  Two.  And it all blossomed out from there.

The first drawing was immediately followed by the second.  I will need to sit quietly and wait for "instruction".....What kind of being will this be?  And right now, not so much a human figure,  but a Spirit Being,  taking human form.  Not this and Not that...something inbetween.

What i know  in the moment  is that the figure will be a traditional cloth figure...the seamed joints,  It would be important that it can move around OutSide...sit on a rock,  on a tree limb,  on the bank of a stream.  And so probably made of muslin.   It will be important that it is the right shade of brown, maybe Tea Dye skin.  It would be important that the "expression of the face remain somehow neutral so Imagination can let it carry many emotions,  any emotion,  as needed.

2 ft tall i think.

When i made the dolls before,  in the past,  (somewhere there are some pics in the Archives)  they were Art Dolls.  They were fragile.  Made to hang on a wall or sit on a shelf.  This one...made to be a Friend.  To partner up.  To live a Life.

 

 

 

anthropologist field notes

young mother is ready to leave for the day,  it's evening,  just becoming dusk.  She does not like this time of day,  makes her uneasy.  Old mother says it's "woman's time of day".    "then i must be a man", she responds.  

Ready to leave,  they call the dog.  Dog is not here.  Something new.  Old mother walks to the top of the hill calling.  Young mother walks down the road toward campsite A,  where Dog is not supposed to go alone,  according to the "plan".  Dog comes,  running,  breathing heavy.  Young mother found her,  at the far corner of the new fencing...over toward where the across the road people's back land extends.  Someone over there plays "mexican music" sometimes.....   Young mother says she was there, listening.  

maybe she was unsure where Home is?

addendum:  Old mother makes her bed.  Dog on the floor there,  breathing heavy.  Dreaming,  her legs moving.

old

field notes of the cultural anthropologist

create a Diorama.

Three mothers.   An old one.  Middle one.  Young one.  Two midling  young ones,  an infant.  Goats.  Dog.  Cats...old and young.  Lizards all ages,  Worms,  unknown indeterminate.  Birds.   A tin shelter in an old forest at the top of a steep Hill  in a land of many steep hills and many forests.

There is no rain.  Sun prevails.  Forest leaves reflect and glisten.   Young mother is laid low from a malady of the immune system.  Her limbs are weak.   She lies down with the infant and they sleep through the early part of the day.  The old mother goes off with the dog to walk the perimeters, hoping  the dog can learn what is her business what might be Not.   The door of the tin shelter is left open and the old cat goes in and out.    

The old mother and dog enter the forest of the doe Goats,  who descend  upon them,  rushing to know their business,  gathering around as they walk,  mumbling amongst themselves.  The dog runs the outer circle.  Old mother sits on a   forest trunk that has somehow circled around and  back into the earth,  and feeling this,  also feels a pull of earth in her body.    There is a rustling and looking up, she sees the young cat high above ,  carrying a twig in her mouth.  

It goes this way until the Middle mother arrives with Goat feed and all go into motion.  Carrying the infant,  unloading and stacking,  feeding into the bowls.  Some bedding too,  here from rice straw that is soft and billowy  for the bedding in the tarp shelters of the buck forestyards.   They talk as they carry and spread.  The infant squeals,  waving her arms,   kicking her legs.  Middle mother has also brought seeds.  Slenderette Bush Beans,  OG Gourmet Salad blend Lettuce,  Scarlet Runner  Beans, Sweet Watermelon,  Buttercrunch Lettuce....just guessing because she is not much for planting,  but brings them as a gift.

Dusk nears and the Young mother goes off with the midlings to get food,  leaving the Old mother and the infant to hold their own.  Infant is feeling loss and is restless.  Old mother begins to sing and somehow,  in the midst of the singing,  finds HER SONG,  that is part song and part vibration and the infant recognizes and accepts this song as belonging to her too.  They sing and listen until the Young mother returns.  They eat.  They leave.  The Old mother sits with the dog and old cat and remembers back through the day.  Marking it inside her body.  

 

 

 

 

how just going can be so many things, some, just being quiet, In Place.

a glade.  a small clearing.  There are two of these,  to the East and a little UP from Campsite B where one of these days i will live.  They appear to be spontaneous.  No sign of having been  "man made".    Just small clearings,  Sun filled and surrounded by the brush and 200ft trees.  When i can,  i go to sit there.  I go to lie flat into those grasses,  on my stomach,  face pressed straight into the earth,  on my back,  arms extended.  

There has been rain this week,  good "winter" rain for this part of the planet,  seasonal rain.  Sometimes coming as a downpour and the tarps for the Goat shelters watched closely.  Sometimes just a gentle rain.  But rain.  Just so close West of here  the Sierra Nevadas get snow.   That will become run off for that seasonal stream.    All of the Live Oak are leafing.

The fence around these 6 acres is complete.  Even parts where it was hoped there would be no fence.  The big gate is in place.  One part 12 ft and one part 6 ft  or something like that,  i'm not sure,  actually,  it's not that,  but you can get the drift.  A big side and a smaller side.  The fencing is IN on the side that runs to the canal/creek,  the hardest part in a way because of the slope.   We think now,  that nothing can come in and nothing can go out.  Even if all the Goats were to suddenly free themselves,  which they wouldn't want to,  but if they did,  they would be safe.  6 acres.   Six acres of some earth and a lot of granite.  The ecosystem is almost beyond imagining.

While Alyssia works,  Emrie and i find ways to be without her.  I don't do any more than she needs,  but encourage her independence and she works at that independence,  understanding that it's what there IS.  That her mother will return,  but that her mother is not here right now and she needs to make do.    I am witnessing this with some detachment which is really quite grand,  watching her, with her 6 month brain making order of things.  A new human being.  Watching how really delicate her beingness is,  but also how resiliant and capable.  I feel like a scientist.  When Alyssia does return,  it's with the sound of crunching gravel under foot and Emrie,  like an animal,  with ears pricked,  turns her head....

Alyssia enters and offers the breast.  All is well.    Later,  Emrie, sitting in her booster seat next to her mother,  pulls her arm close,  burys her face in her sweatshirt and breathes,  deep huffing sounds,  breathes her mother's scent in.   Again,  not a scientist, but an anthropologist.  I am an anthropologist.  of my own species. 

I am drawing.  I finally was able to draw an OLD face...it came out of nowhere.  I'll try to take a pic.  Once again, to repeat,  i can't upload pics  myself.  I show Alyssia  a pic from the phone camera and she somehow gets it into her phone and then somehow takes it to typepad and enters it.  I then add text.   This one today,  like once before,  was sideways a long time till she was able to get it upright.