windthread

Solstice 2018 I am here.

the Morning Tree.  Many of her leaves have fallen.  an Oak.  She is an Oak.   

it's Solstice.  the shortest day in a year,  the least Light.  You wake and then it's dark.  It's dark now.  I was just out to feed the buck Goats while there was light...to see to put feed,  Them,  to see to eat the feed.  

in the middle,  i went into Oroville.  Oroville.  this is where i live now.  Not Socorro, New Mex,  but Oroville,  California.  I went because i needed to go to the Post Office to mail Cloths.   Stood in line.  a long line.  and again,  though the Post Office at Paradise is now open,  people are needing to find their mail.  I listened to the man in front of me by two people having a conversation with a man on his way out.  They told their stories to each other,  of how it was.  How it is now.  over the top of a woman that had a rose pinned to her collar.    i said Thank You for that,  your rose,  and she smiled and nodded.

leaving town,  the town of Oroville,  there's TRAFFIC,  lots,  it's late afternoon Friday before Christmas, i guess?  is it the Friday before Christmas?,  i think so,  and there is lots of traffic  and me and my little desert honda make our way in the midst of it and i lucked out,  having to stop at a light and just to the right,  i can see in a little distance that green building that says Laundromat,  the one i will try next  and sitting at the next light,  i find myself saying....i am in California.  This is California.  I am in California.......

I am here.  I am in California.  California.  ??????,  California.  It is Solstice. No matter where you are.  Here,  the desert,  it's Solstice.  O.  Oh,  beloved Earth.  My so loved,  so so beloved Earth.

 

we went to the Rocks.  Boulders, really.   In the distance a little,  you can see Talkie.  She came.

 

 

Solstice Eve.  the Rocks.  How Puppy,  usually not so much for photographs didn't mind.   This is how i would like to be.  Like Puppy,  indistinguishable from Place .   Simply, part of Place.  No more,  no less.  This is the wish i brought to the Rocks.

this one....complex....Its story....about how someThing is always born from things. Always.

 

 

and how that's the thing we can count on,  that  someThing  is always born.  And will be born    The Begin Again will always begin again.  Maybe letting go of What we might want to begin again and just go with the faith that it will take care of its  Self.

human beings, the god Thing....spirit, the holy. That which we can never know.

there's an article in the local newspaper telling the story of a young woman,  25 and her mother,  66.   The  daughter fled the fire.  Her mother refused to go,  said there was time enough.   and died in it.  There is a large photograph on the front page of her,  the daughter,  her fingers holding a baggie of papers or photographs,  one of many in a plastic container of such things.

the story of this was written in a matter of fact spare manner.  raw.  told of  a relationship of mother and daughter that would be not unfamiliar to many.   i read it,  hearing Voice,  like those radio stories i listened to this weekend.  Voices,  telling.  Hers,  her mother's.   

It's painfully beauty full.  It's painfully horrible,  for the daughter....who had yet reached the age when she could stand up to her mother,  a mother who maintained her alpha position.  They would have come to a different balance in years just some ahead,  but not yet.  And the daughter is left behind.  Alone.  The title of the article is   I Want My Mother Back.

this time of year, when families come together, when so much is at the table.   To be sure to TRY to let it all go,  all of the contentiousness no matter how legitimate,  and to just say....Even Though.  Even Though,  i love you anyway.  I love you anyway.  I will love you anyway,  forever,  whether i want to or not,  whether you want it or not.  And whether it fixes anything or not,  no matter the response.  At least you said it.  

SHOP POST Last of 2018

Asking     6 x 7 in    $45

 

Grace and Magic    9 x 16    $70

 

Stand and Face What you know      13 x 24     $130

 

Celebrate    8 x 11     $55

Until i learn how to post them in the Shop on the sidebar,  this will do.   For details of each,  please email.   Love,

 

December, 2018 almost Solstice

one of the two Collard Trees.   All that remains of things i personally bought,  or planted.   

when i was down to the Wall Garden,  having walked through Campsite B,  onto the road,  down,  i thought.  Goats followed along,  Puppy bounded ahead,  Tay after her.  It's wet.  The road,  Carefree Way is wet.  Water pools.   I can hear the soft song of a few tree frogs.

Because Julian has been sick,  and because of difficulties in my daughter's world,   i have had 3 days alone.    Over the course of this last year,  this is unusual.  I have become accustomed to not being alone anymore.  Because of who they are,  that make me not alone,  i have taken this in.   But to be alone.   

and what i have done is look for the sound of human voice.  On radio.  I'd forgotten radio.  I listened to This American Life and followed that thread to a pod cast called   Invisiblia.    "Unforseeable forces control human behavior and shape our ideas, beliefs, and assumptions.  Invisibilia...Latin for invisible things...fuses narrative storytelling with science that will make you see your own life differently"  I listened to the pod cast...."What Do You Let In"

and as i finish Cloths and walk that walk down to the Wall Garden and feed Buck Goats and speak to Talkie and pet Puppy,  the day to day players in the life i live now,   this came:

I know i think too much.  I always have.  I was born that way.

This question:   How do i know you know me?   What makes me think you WANT to know me?

Why are either of those things important to me?

Solstice is soon.  and then,  my only real holiday,  well maybe now,  two of them,  Puppy Day too,  but New Year's Eve,  New Year's Eve....what am i thinking?   Who am I?   What do i think about this space here,  Windthread?

 

thought Full day

it was just moist in the morning,  till about noon and i walked again.  Still looking for those two little Ferns and spend time with this rock.  how it's cracked.   It's a large rock.  granite.  i wish i'd taken a closer photograph of the crack line.  I'll do that tomorrow maybe.

 

 

and then the rain begain.  RAIN.  the kind i remember from when i came last year.  Heavy RAIN.  constant.  it hasn't stopped.  Today is the day that all evacuation orders are lifted for Paradise and surrounding towns. The first day.  People can come and go.   

I thought about the concept of Grace.  How it is unasked for.  We might ask for Mercy.  but Grace  Comes as a surprise.    How the word    bestow  often is associated with Grace and how it's a concept most often associated with god.   god bestows Grace.  Or some other powerful authority.  The courts, maybe.  but that's more, Mercy.  

i thought a lot about those days in the Gridley Overflow Field.   How i read that some people came to that field after i left and remain.    Most of the more rudimentary tent camps have been cleared.  People for the most part i guess are "somewhere".  Shelters still.  There is an adopt a family program and many travel trailers have been donated.   It's supposed to be clear or at least partly sunny for the rest of the week.  In the low 50's.  Nice.  I can spend time at the Wall Garden.  Alyssia and i can shore up the Buck tents.   The things On Going between the RAIN days.  

finishing the 5 crows,  i realized that i'd not finished invisible stitching the body of this Cloth.  Did that and also realized that the figure needs to be more defined.  I don't want her to be,  but  this is not  "real life",  but a Cloth.  She needs to be more defined.  So...ok.  maybe tomorrow.  Depends what the light is like.

acclimating?

i wish this could be scratch and sniff.   It was a misty,  sometimes foggy day.  Slight rainfall off and on and i found self wandering,  looking for those two little ferns i saw the other day.  Could not find.  But there is such Energy,  you can feel the earth vibrating with it's  wet work and the fragrance of it....oh,  eeeeeeeeee,  

 

 

Manzanita.  Will bring some more small cuttings tomorrow,  for the dye jar.  Before i used dry ones.  This time,   when they are energized.

 

the back of one...sometimes they grow all forward.  I don't know why.  Here,  she looks naked.

On Being.  Conversation with Pauline Boss about   Ambiguous Loss.  I fell asleep last night loving those two words but woke in the middle of the night thinking....Ambiguous Unknowing.    She says that with ambiguous loss,  there is no possibility of closure or resolution and that's ok.  To learn how to live with it,  be with it.   And i am wondering if i found a way to make a world of ambiguous unknowing  to  allow for  my own joy?  Hoping tonight will bring more information.  

this one about Joy

 

so we are ready now,  to find out more about this Joy Cloth....

 

I went to a laundromat today.  Alyssia has been doing my laundry at her place in Chico for a year.  This month,  her washer has been giving up the ghost.  So off to the laundromat.  This is the first one i've found.  And receives the first less than glowing review of Things in California.  It was awfull.  Almost none of the machines worked...washers, dryers,  taped over or just missing the thing that receives the coins.  And it's on a main throughofare corner...????  like,  not on some sidestreet...in a little strip of Subway,  Autozone and UPS.  it's the 4th thing.  It was aesthetically worse than any laundromat i've ever been to...like in downtown Detroit in the 60's.   My kind of dumpy laundromat,  the Bubble Machine,  in Socorro was State of the Art in comparison.  ??????  Why?  When there is talk of infrastructure,  a laundromat is critical.  What's going on here????

There was only another couple there when i arrived.    Were they "street people" or just folks living in the margin?  I don't know,  but like me they stuffed their stuff in two of the 5 functional washing machines.  They got the big one.  Then,  another man came.  He had to wait.

The JOY here,  though,  is that the dryer i picked out of 3 functional in a row of 12,  WORKED.  and not only did it work,  but somehow magically went on and on and on with only one quarter.  It never stopped.  The second dryer i picked also worked but took 2 quarters,  till i transferred it's contents into the going forever dryer.  When i took all my stuff out i told the man about it and he put his stuff in and it was still whirring along.  The silver lining, ?  I'll try a different place next time.

At the Post Office i learned more.  Long line again and i know now that it will be that way for the forseeable future.  Months.  Still,  all the residents of Paradise, Concow and Magalia get their mail there.   I learned to day that even if your home was left standing amidst all the ones that burned,  there is great difficulty.  Wells are nonfunctional,  the homeowner is responsible for replacing the electric pole,  septics are in ruins,  water lines.  The homes themselves...interiors are needing to be gutted,  walls and floors, smoke and heat damaged.  The woman said that being the only building standing on her road,  her home was inundated with mice.  that took shelter.   People are more subdued now.  There is still greeting and hugging,  but it's quiet.  Faces are haggared.  The long haul has begun.   I heard that if you receive Cal Fresh,  California food stamps,  food assistance,  any purchases made on your card in the month prior to the day of the Fire has been re added to your balance.  Food gone bad.  Food burned.  California is kind.

 

don't know if this will work.  Typepad is having trouble this eve.  so...maybe or maybe not.

it's dinnertime and as we eat,  we talk.  I am still here with this being and we are talking about how we watched Utubes and read about Snails.  How Julian had brought home some snails from his old Montesori School garden.  How Alyssia had loved them so much.  How i won't let anything here be "kept".  Feelings of Julian about that but we go along and remember how we know that snails can change gender if they  feel the need.  and thought about going to read that again,  but he changed the subject to something he'd read yesterday.  His homework entails reading an hour a day,  after school....and he'd finished his book and so got a National Geographic out of the drawer to finish off the time.  He found it again and wanted Alyssia to read it aloud, which she did.

"Crustacean assignation  Patricia Edmonds

To a lobster couple,  this is normal sex:  For days the female squirts urine into the den of her desired mate.  (not unlike Goats, we note)  Beguiled by the scent,  he lets her move in.  Foreplay...stroking each other with antennae and with feet covered in taste receptors....lasts several days.

Once she's convinced that he'll protect her,  the female disrobes,  slowly shedding both her hard shell and the pouch where she had banked sperm from a prior mate.  Molting leaves her in a perilously soft new shell,  so he stands guard for the half hour it takes to harden.  Then,  supported by his claw legs,  he suspends himself above her and lifts her to face him, cradling her in his legs.  Her new shell has a new sperm pouch,  he thrusts a packet of sperm into it using appendages called gonopods.  The deed is done.

As soon as one mate leaves,  the male will welcome another.  The female,  meanwhile,  will use the sperm packet to fertilize thousands of eggs,  which she'll carry under her tail for about a year until the larvae hatch.  (a YEAR!)

it goes on.

 

But climate change is threatening this babymaking process, says Diane Cowan,  founder of the Lobster Conservancy.  When water is warm,  lobsters put their energy into growing.  When it's cold, winter water temperatures in the 30's Farenheit...they put their energy into making eggs and sperm.  Cowan says if climate changes shorten that cold period,  they'll produce fewer gametes.  And if it's steadily too warm,  they just won't produce.  No eggs...No sperm.  No lobsters."

THIS is how to learn about things.  At the kitchen table.  During dinner.   Our Hill Snail.  Lobsters.   For this,  i am deeply grateful.