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Change. in Buddhist terms, Impermanence.
What doesn't change?
Cloth. Cloth does not change. I unrolled this...looking...and no. No change. Maybe it's time to pin the spirals into place, whatever that might be...and begin stitching. Holding them so they can hold me.
her music teacher says She sings with all her heart.
there is DELUGE outSide. Great....horizontal strikes of lightning and then the THUNDER. Minnow is afraid. She lies at my feet, her eyes glued to my face, sometimes getting up to press herself into the cabinet door. We don't have electrical storns. Just incessant Deluge.
They are on the way to the airport. Fly with stop at Las Vegas then on to Houston. they will be met by the Tia's Yesi and Beatrice, the half brother Aiden and the Grandmother. Four hours later Alyssia is returned to the airport in order to fly back and in 2 hours drive again to the airport to set Julian off to New Jersey and his father. Christmas vacation it used to be called.
this has been long prepared for. All family in Houston, there are many aunts and uncles, chipping in for the airfare. Aunty Beatrice, a kindergarden teacher, will fly back with her in
2 weeks. TWO WEEKS.
They went last when she was going on 3. She remembers. then Covid. She used to talk on phone video things with her Dad pretty frequently. As time has gone on, not so much. But her Dad is BIG in her mind. in her Heart. in her imagination. Her Dad. She will stay with the Aunties. The Dad thing is still to be worked out. He is a cop, an undercover cop. Works lots of hours, but that's just part of it. He has a
fiance
So. What all is in her head...there's no way to know. She can't begin to verbalize it all. But she is BEYOND ready for this Visit, is so so excited for all of it, there are many cousins, they are a large El Salvadoran family...she loves
family
has claimed them for all time she can remember.
my Friend Raina in Ann Arbor sent her a dress. She loves to cruize Target for Emrie things...i think things she wishes were for her, but can be for Emrie. This one is well, an extravagance...all a bold floral print with an emerald green velvet bolero jacket. They brought it when they came the other day to bring ice to show me. I said Ooooo, you can wear that to church with your Grandma there, her eyes widened......I went on to say how much her Grandma loves her church. After a while she said..... What IS church? We were feeding Goats so it was a distracted moment and i just said well...it's a very BIG BeautyFULL building and people go there, many at the same time and they sing and they talk about God, they love to talk about God. and then after a long pause she said and that's where you get married.
this morning Alyssia got a text from
Luz
the fiance. Saying she knew it was past time....and what size is Emrie and what is her favorite color. Alyssia sent a
thank you for reaching out response and told Emrie that her dad's fiance's name was Luz. Emrie thought and then said
can i just call her StepMother?
there is ROOM. AMPLE ROOM in Emrie for Everyone. She will hug them. Like she does. We will see how that goes. Can Luz survive her distance after being hugged by Emrie?
the Grandma, the Aunties are so so HAPPY for this, the church is a Big spanish language Catholic Church of the large El Salvadoran community there, they will make pupusas and hopefully she will bring some home for me in her backpack. Her Grandma's dream is to take her back home to El Salvador some day. Show her. Emrie will see her self in these people, these people who are Family.
the best definition yet. and work enough to fully take in the meaning of such simple words. Put to the test today. It's begun. 24 hours of constant and steady downpour with a couple vague windows of light rain to fast feed Goats. Forecast is 3 days of this. a single day reprieve and then it will begin again. Mala beads set the pace, the rhythm for the mind. Pull me back when i wander.
Cookies from Nancy. As Every year....she sends a tin of cookies. Alyssia brought them today when she brought the ice for my refrigerator. We opened them and Emrie remembered from years before....the BEST cookies EVER she exclaims and again wants to be told how Nancy MAKES them....not buys them....but MAKES them
so we shared the cookies...little baggies for some to take home and share with Brinley Jax and Julian. There's still a lot for me. And there was a card and
this
Nancy said she was sorry to include it with the cookies....but
i looked....who is this old geezer? I would have NEVER recognized it to be him....he had a beard and a long very beautiful pony tail down to the middle of his back. he was a hippie sublime. we worked together at that Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of Michigan... We lived together for a time. A story too long to tell.
he had come up just in the last days. when Alyssia and i were into one of our late night phone conversations where we tell stories about our lives and i said. I said Out Loud. to her......I guess it's true. I really DID love him. and in that moment, it felt so good and so right, to say that aloud to someone....to acknowledge it, because it was true...to not just blow it off as something that .....happened for a while. I told her how he loved the smell of my armpits....would lie in bed with his nose close so he could .....enjoy....the smell of my armpits.
a few years ago i'd asked Nancy if she could help me get in touch with him. She tried, but it didn't happen. and i just let it go because i'd thought....who does it serve?.....i'd wanted to get in touch with him to say that i understood that i'd been a real asshole about "breaking up"....not asking for forgiveness....but just to tell him that i understood it as what it WAS. I think back then, a few years ago....i might not have been able even then, to say
i really did love you
i can say it today. I really did love you, Jeff.
lately i've thought a lot about Friends....about people i have known for years now, this way on line. those words....
on line
friends...through this internet...this form of existence And how many have come to be no less than people i have known In Person. If you are reading here, you are one of the ones i'm talking about. Some of us have chosen to be present to each other often. Others, now and then. Some just appear out of no where and i am delighted....like Beverly, yesterday....
it's the same with the in person friends. we have moved and live in different places. Some of us keep.....in touch....often. Some this time of year...sending a card to catch up. Some i send an email asking....are you still alive? and they say yes and we exchange a few times and then drift off in a gap of time And then....there is the phenomenon of the Gathering....how things are happening there, at least for me, feels like a Sisterhood.
i could, and probably should be more clear about what i mean, but what i want to also say...and batteries are lowish, i have also only recently understood that many of the people who appear on FaceBook etc, are.....real people. It is Their on line presence as this blog i guess is mine....but they are real people. As i've said...i go there because extended family posts their doings there...old sister in laws, nieces and nephews, a way to be a small part of their lives but who i am talking about here, a good example is someone called Victoria Erickson...she's a writer and then Deja Hu who i don't know all of what he is...but he is a REAL human being...somewhere overthere in the UK They MATTER to me.
and the reason i'm writing this here is
Someone who MATTERS to me a LOT....like.....a LOT is Erika Heilman of the podcast RumbleStrip VT. If i could be anyone besides my self...if i could choose, i'd be her. Here's that word love again. I LOVE Erika Heilman. Every single pod cast, i love so much for so many reasons and she, the content of her podcasts, MATTERS to me....makes a DIFFERENCE in my life. and................SHE IS A PERSON. Today she came on to tell us about someone who is sponsoring her podcast. This is the first time i know of that she's done this. There's that donate button, but she doesn't say much of anything at all about it. I do a monthly $5.....measly amount, but..........anyway...............she tells us about East Hill Tree Farm and i listen and then go read and then....i think....immediately, this is a way i can let her know that i am out here and love her but then it morphs into a surprising thing that how i can say that is
i CALLED East Hill Tree Farm on their ..................land line...............and it said leave a message and i begin my weird message and after a long time was interrupted by the PERSON, Nico, who said Hello and what i ended up doing was to gift Forrest Foster, Dairyman, friend of Erika $50 of some tree or berry bush or bare root something, whatever he might think, and that Nico will talk to Erika and they can figure out how to do this between the two of them
the last regular podcast....Erika hung out with Forrest. I am here. Me. trying to understand Radical Acceptance. I listen to Erika and Forrest as they drive through Hardwick VT in a pickup and Forrest, Forrest has the key. Forrest IS
radical acceptance
and i am so grateful for them...my Friends. I love them. Love. love them.
Addendum 12~16
there's something about these words....either something missing or something unintended implied.....?......that has bothered me all day. Again....these wordy kinds of posts....come from fragmented thoughts throughout a day and come to be a post just with stream of consciousness late in the evening. i never organize any thoughts ahead of time. long ago in the past, when i've tried, things felt stilted. Anyway....i'll keep thinking and just let things simmer. Come back later. Above all else, Love and Love
and think !!!! how have i never seen this before????? All it says is Petroglyphs depicting whales Qagorlog Greenland
a new discovery????? But i go on with the day....sprucing up the Curry House for these next WET
winter days, sweeping spider webs, dusting the feed bins, readying the spent pellet bags for removal , raking up rice straw into a nice fort under the milk stand and getting Puppy's old cat bed from the horse trailer....dusting if off, fluffing it up. Things like that and now....this evening....and on....into early night....i follow through and see that these are examples of Art in this town of Greenland that has devoted its self to Rock art...these being part of a project called Stone and Man
no. They are not petroglyphs. does that make them any less ? no.... and i thought about drawing on stone....what might that FEEL like?
there is something i don't understand about Radical Acceptance. A Key thing. I will take this question to the next Gathering at the Well. ask Wendy. She always says....can you give us an example? I saw this this morning. Perfect.
there was a brief window of time when my kids were little...they were 3 years apart...when both were wondering and asking about the God thing. And I also was. Wondering.
So...what i came up with, for them, and for myself was.......Well....what about all the astoundingly amazing things?...all the Beauty, all the magically beauty Full amazing things.... WHY? All the myriad forms....of insects, of Butterflies...so easy an example, of the fish in oceans, their incredibly extravagant coloration , design and magical form.... Why not just brown things?
if things...like fish, like insects, are food wouldn't just variations of brown work? their movement would attract enough? or....if color mattered, then that too. But that's not how it is. There is so much MORE.....this spider for instance...i lost the words to the pic but it's an Australian spider.....this spider.......What On Earth is ALL THIS FOR ?
All i could come up with is that there must be some Crazy Wonderfull INTELLIGENCE ...."out there" ....beyond anything we can imagine that LOVES Beauty and Magical form that would provide these things for US...for the living beings of this planet to thrill us, to makes us Wonder, to pull us toward Its Self, to pull us Out ....... toward It.......to make us ask the questions that might help us Grow as a species
this answer is faulty...but it's still the answer i have today. What extraordinary kind of Intelligence might GIVE this?
memoriam bells from Jan at Tay's grave
