pb53_jam

Not glamorous.  Not movie stuff.  Just IS.   What feels like another life time; another person did it.  I want to say "goof ball" but that is not the facts.  That is me disparaging that person who did it.   I thought I was invincible, perhaps.  I thought I was Cowgirl who could control all horses, I guess.  I did not think I was working on middle age and I did not think I was fat.  I was.  I paid.  I pay.  I did not take into consideration my family; those who depended on me and who depend on me now.  Praise the Powers that Be that I still am alive; alive enough to feel pain and some remorse and some anguish at what I did to me and those who depend on me as a role model, a bulwark, a leader.  'Leader went boom.'  God, did she! 
     So here I am.  Here am I.  More middle aged.  More physical pain.  Less restful nights.  A nightmare that does not evaporate.  Poof.  Whiff. I stink.  And contemplating a trip West; a physical hiking trip.  A foothills trip.  Going to have to modify that notion, Cowgirl.  Going to have to face it: you did a stupid thing and now your knee is wonkers and now you will head pacifically into another session of Teach Me physical therapy.  The thigh muscle is weak due to compensation for the knee cap being knocked asunder.  Is blood flow cut off to the ankle and foot due to that little problem?  The impact onto the earth caused the entire knee cap to move??  Suicide is supposed to be quick, not dirty and smelly.  Always smell and I can't smell stuff most of the time.  No wonder I've set my butt on a hot burner.  Maybe if the heat is hot enough, I'll be able to get a sensation and feel something.  Like eating sweets cause they are intense. 
    Friday will get here soon enough.  The cherry tree resplendent in white blooms and busy honey bees; the forsythia behind it a perfect foil.  Yellow foil.  I am grateful for the days these trees bloom.  My spirit has cried for these days.  Each year the sight is a new one to me.  Perhaps it is well that I lose the memory of it and gasp like its a totally new sight each Spring.  Spring.  Spring forward.  Uncoil.  Leap and surprise someone with the sudden unexpected action.  A Jack in the Box toy.  An essence of joy that will never be bottled.  Praise the Powers that Be for the grace and praise the Powers that Be that my partner and I literally used our hands to plant these seasonal beauties.  We host honey bees and probably in just a few weeks, will host birds.  Greedy starlings and sparrows.  Birds, no matter what I think of them.

Clumsy phrase, 'camera angle.'   What do I mean when I say this?  Distancing language; the feel of someone looking down or at an angle or from either the front or back of us- my partner and I huddled on a bench, at the lake side for one reason that actually is a layered reason. Just after 7 a.m.  Its chilly and a bit breezy.  Not raining.  Easter Sunday morning.  Just us two and scads of clangorous red winged black birds; cattails and just coming up iris.  The lake in front of us.  The freeway and its rumbles to the far left.  Houses quite far across the lake. There is a commerative plaque by our chosen bench.  The local Audubon Society has placed the bench as a commeration to a lady who has passed on.  She must have loved birds and water and nature.   So we sit and I open my aged copy of The Wind in the Willows.  What is a children's book?  Would children sit and listen to this sometimes verbose, mostly poetic rambling yarn these days?  I read our traditional chapter: Piper at the Gates of Dawn.  Ah, the fine watery verbage.  The almost tasted row down the river.  Pan. Mystical island; He who helps the animals out of traps.  And the water music.  Pan pipes.  The lost child otter.  The sorrow of the patient waiting father otter, waiting by the weir, waiting and filled with happy memories of his lost beloved child.  Awe and the veil.  The erasing of what the rat and mole have witnessed so that they might go on with their lives in joy.  Spring tide here again.  We read together and gird ourselves in another shared moment; the stuff that keeps us joined and ready to tackle big issues, stuff the world brings in, dirty junk like finances.   We not l only love each other but we like each other; we need to spend time together.  That need keeps us whole.     Later I spy on returning gold finches and wonder where they've journied from.  Their wings so small.  Their journey so long.  They've made it across continents to my little front way station.  Welcome! 

Or how about I'm wearing a turban or maybe I like French maid outfits.  Who would know?  Maybe a pair of ancient boxers are draped around my neck- just cause.   Heh heh.  Would I stink?  Do I stink?  What part of my anatomy would give off the most smell?  What color are my eyes?  Even now I sit here and know that my driver's license claims my eyes are one color and I claim they are another.  What's a cop to do?   Do I like animals or sacrifice them or maybe run them down with my SUV?   Maybe I'm an Amish computer geek listening to Punk Rock.  Thinking about getting a Mohawk- is that the way to put it?  You go out and get a Mohawk?  Like you go out and get a burger? 
     Level of education?  I said elderly.  What if I'd said Old Man or geezer or Old Fart- what level of education do I indicate with each set of parameters?  And what is education anyway?  I can and did graduate high school with a very low level of mathematical ability.  I also chose not to attend my graduation ceremony and didn't see the inside of a prom event. 
    It could be Arctic April or it could be a rain forest Spring or maybe a coastal blowy month.  How about hills and the opposite, flat land?  Lakes and rivers, ponds and bogs.  Wet lands and sage brush.  Poetry and silence.  Frown and grin.  I see Dead soul-free folks walking around, Mommy.  The mailman walked behind me as I shovel-weeded the front this afternoon.  He said the generic, Hi How are You as he paced and ignored my offer of taking the mail so that he didn't have to go clear to the porch and the mail box.  He was on a roll and rolled. 
      I can fashion a credible pie crust from flour, fat and water but can't knit.  What basic brain cells am I missing that I can do one and not the other?  I can be empathic as well as snotty and envious- turbans and chapeaus.  Ebony and ivory; chautreuss and maroon.  Got to color in the lines sometimes, I guess, even though my fingers itch to color outside those even black edges. 

Diffrerent sides to the brain.  Brain injuries cause specific behaviors.  Deflated and inflated balls.  What color is your intellect?  If I suddenly lose the ability to spell as well as usual, what does that same about me?  Onset of dementia?  
    I write quandries and jibberish and beneath, grieve.  Another impossible killing spree.  Not the Amish.  Not  the college.  Not the nursing home.  An immigrant learning center.  A gathering of innocent souls; some probably thinking about their next supper, their kids, their mothers and fathers,  Whether they'd pass a test and then blam!!  Hell.  And into the void.  May their spirits be at peace.  Its those left behind that are the wrinkle in the fabric. 
    My life rumbles on.  Possible record cold tonight.  Neo-phyte rose leaves out there, itching to grow toward the light, not curl into frost and snow.  That's for next winter.  That's not for this oncoming Spring.  Bleeding hearts beet red leaves emerge and how sadly appropriate to my mood.  How wickedly stupid.  I just want to slam something into a wall.  Then I'd have real personal pain.  Pain will be on my doorstep soon enough: I'll lie down for my nightly rest and within a few hours, my muscles will clench and I'll be semi-awake, longing for what others have.  Real sleep. 
    Tomorrow sunshine and warmth is the forecast.  I plan to walk a couple of miles, no matter the cost.  I will do it.  I will walk with my partner to a small cafe/bakery and sit at a table in a room filled with others bent on the same goal- most of them having arrived in a motor vehicle, not a set of muscles and bone and skin and a bag of water.  I plan to have tomorrow be A Can Do It Day.  I can live like I am not yet 70.  I can and will.   Enough restraints.  Air and Canada geese honk and duck gabble and smelly cars.  Going to jump in and swim! 

What will I submit to or enter into with a willing spirit?  Partner and I talked about where we'd like to go when it comes to vacation.  Places like Charleston came up.  I voiced my need and urge to stay in similar places to the nature center that we'll visit in May- wouldn't it be grand to stay in a natural learning center in say, Maine or Vermont?  That led into Scotland and that spiritual place.  I said, Findhorn.  He said what?  I again said Findhorn.  I looked that place up on the Web and found that they do indeed have visitor days BUT a visitor must go with the spirit of submission.  I must willingly and humbly travel all that way then enter into times of meditation and spiritual dancing.  Partner and I hold an aversion to both.  Our trip to the mountain nature center this May includes the invitation of yoga and that's what it is: an invite, not a demand.  We plan on walking around the yoga sessions.  We'll gladly imbibe in the organic food and the sunsets over the lake and quiet walks on forest trails.  Some day, yes, that over the rainbow Some Day, I want to travel to Canada's Cook islands- do I have the name right?  Anyway, the twin of the San Juans only northerly.  I want to explore there, perhaps on an Eco tour.  My ultimate fantasty would be to share the watery world with my daughter.  Perhaps a small cruise ship that also includes lots of land exploration.  Fine stuff.  Probably lots of rain and complaining about the wet moss on our butts! 
    Submission is also a day to day reality.  I submit to mundane chores, attempting to perform them with a spirit of willingness and not a rebellious curse.  It is my choice.  To sleep on clean sheets or to sleep on furred musty sheets.  To pile crusted dishes in the sink or to be able to pull clean plates and bowls from tidy cupboards.  I will never be a Stepford wife.  Sometimes I worry that my need for color has spun me into an elderly crone, threesome felines and all.   I will toss my waning forsythia branches onto the compost pile and replace them with lilac branches- a few years ago I transplanted a rooted sapling from the Mother shrub and placed it rather close to the corner of the house.  Whoops.  That mistake seems to have warmed the sapling.  It produces buds sooner than its Mother.  Handy for the early Spring cravings.

Its still a pelt even if their is a breathing organism inside the fur.  How many million humans don't spend their mornings draped by a fur ball?  Siamese Sam (Samyot) demands a morning sit- or lie in.  Right now his brown and cream body lies stretched from my stomach to my ankle- his dark leg stretched down to ankle.  The beauty and the living Teddy Bear-ness of it.  Guess there is a little kid in me that likes the heat.  His fur coloring makes Sam a combination of Seal Point and Chocolate Point.  Deep blue eyes.  Some striping.  Medium length soft fur.  Benign nature when he wakes.  He quivers in his sleep.  He adopted me long ago.  Our bond partially formed when he was a kitten and very ill.  He possibly got into a poisonous substance.  My previous experience as a paid animal nurse kicked in.  I force fed him with a spoon and squirted water in his mouth with a syringe and heckled the Vet into twice ballooning Sam with fluids.  Slowly Life returned and we kicked Death's butt.  Sam then spent months of teaching his hind limbs to jump and move in cat ballet- his hips still swivel and he falls easily.  His cat brain was not damaged so we count our blessings and go on.
    I found the very first nubbins of Pasque flowers yesterday.  So very soft- green cat fur!  Just when I'd given up, there it was.  I also found sunchoke roots.  I'll include those in today's menu.  I heated pumpkin in my oatmeal this morning.  Trying to fill my yawning stomach.  Not planning to do that again soon.  Didn't like the taste or the texture much.   I cooked millet for supper yesterday.  My friend did not know what millet was.  I said, Like bird seed.  African source of protein.  I eat three hearty meals a day plus a couple of decent snacks.  My weight would go down if I did what a good part of the planet does- eat one or two meals a day and be grateful for the fuel.    Dream on.   Maybe I'll dye my hair magenta, too!!    Lowly lemon mint has just started growing in the greenhouse.  I'll include it in the menus somewhere soon.  Its presence clued me into how warm it was getting in there.  I planted spinach in the growing bed across from the mint- has to be warm enough for that now.     On with the mundane and the plebian.  On with the sunshine and shadows, the sudden awareness that my forsythia twigs have opened their buds and now sport yellow star blooms.  Second time I've brought twigs into the house.   Forced Spring.

Its still a pelt even if their is a breathing organism inside the fur.  How many million humans don't spend their mornings draped by a fur ball?  Siamese Sam (Samyot) demands a morning sit- or lie in.  Right now his brown and cream body lies stretched from my stomach to my ankle- his dark leg stretched down to ankle.  The beauty and the living Teddy Bear-ness of it.  Guess there is a little kid in me that likes the heat.  His fur coloring makes Sam a combination of Seal Point and Chocolate Point.  Deep blue eyes.  Some striping.  Medium length soft fur.  Benign nature when he wakes.  He quivers in his sleep.  He adopted me long ago.  Our bond partially formed when he was a kitten and very ill.  He possibly got into a poisonous substance.  My previous experience as a paid animal nurse kicked in.  I force fed him with a spoon and squirted water in his mouth with a syringe and heckled the Vet into twice ballooning Sam with fluids.  Slowly Life returned and we kicked Death's butt.  Sam then spent months of teaching his hind limbs to jump and move in cat ballet- his hips still swivel and he falls easily.  His cat brain was not damaged so we count our blessings and go on.
    I found the very first nubbins of Pasque flowers yesterday.  So very soft- green cat fur!  Just when I'd given up, there it was.  I also found sunchoke roots.  I'll include those in today's menu.  I heated pumpkin in my oatmeal this morning.  Trying to fill my yawning stomach.  Not planning to do that again soon.  Didn't like the taste or the texture much.   I cooked millet for supper yesterday.  My friend did not know what millet was.  I said, Like bird seed.  African source of protein.  I eat three hearty meals a day plus a couple of decent snacks.  My weight would go down if I did what a good part of the planet does- eat one or two meals a day and be grateful for the fuel.    Dream on.   Maybe I'll dye my hair magenta, too!!    Lowly lemon mint has just started growing in the greenhouse.  I'll include it in the menus somewhere soon.  Its presence clued me into how warm it was getting in there.  I planted spinach in the growing bed across from the mint- has to be warm enough for that now.     On with the mundane and the plebian.  On with the sunshine and shadows, the sudden awareness that my forsythia twigs have opened their buds and now sport yellow star blooms.  Second time I've brought twigs into the house.   Forced Spring.

S. Plath's son has just done himself in.  He was just 9 months old when she did her own mighty deed.  I wonder if he got too much nurturing or not enough or did he live with the pathos of her fame?  He was intelligent; he was a biologist.  He studied life! then took away his own precious consciousness.  I comment from the ignorant side lines. 
     Mean time I look at my own motivation and my own juices or lack there of.  What is it to truly live?  I was contacted yesterday unexpectedly. I'd sent out a feeler about my work and weeks later, got an astute reply.  My dear friend said, no money.  I said, no money BUT that work could possibly be placed in the world and thus fumbled with by strangers in another pocket of this earth.  Why would I care?  I have had other work placed Out There.  Will there come a time where such possibilities won't raise my spirits?
     Due to the answer, I wandered into murky halls and found poetry written 2 years ago.  Most paramount, these lines came from Zeus's forehead; Diablo.  I sent off two to my inquirer.  I could feel the rarified air; could taste my eager drunkness.  Made me giddy all over again. I hold to my chest the knowledge that I'll visit there again in just a couple of months now.  Can I leap over tall chocolate skyscrapers and walk onto that campus a tad leaner?  What will the bone doc. say about my errant knee in the days before I head North?
    Simple, this task of buying nails.  Some one else crafted a wooden garden bench.  And did not use large enough nails for the job of holding up humans.  So I bought nails.  We'll have a re-do.  Mysterious task.  The representative nail photo on the carton turned out to be smaller than the actual nail inside.  I hope this will work anyway.  
     A tisket a tasket; a blowy March day.  Not cold and not warm.   Another small task: I'll place a large tomato that a friend gave me into the small electric food chopper then cook it with almost bare noodles.  The tomato was an offering from a friend.  She got it from the food bank.  I hate to just feed the compost pile with it.   The amount of nutrition in it is not something I care to think about.     Onwards, Pagan soldier!

She calls my given name
I've not chosen one
perhaps I am like my canine companion
and if whispers of dun and white raptors reach me,
I'll run close to the precipice
anything to get a whiff
I know you: pregnant plum tree
swollen cherry limbs
brown unassuming spirea
I'd wipe you all against my cheek
and smile though scratched and bled
here in the arid scrub land
I bury my guts in green
starlings whistle as I sit to a meal
each crumb moist compost.

I wondered as I watched the movie scene if what the kids in the class said about the person would be what was said about my work- over and over, comments on my work- don't understand- not something for me.  Does a metaphor make it all better?  Just cause the sight of a raven's wing reminds me of a black tunnel on I-5 and I state that well, does that make the poem a work of art?   
    I watch my elderly dog scratch her head with a hind foot and think she's doing better.  Then she gets going and lurch walks.  Still licked her front foot all night long.  Allergies.  The Vet. knows and didn't give me an action plan on the problem.  We agreed that I would up the dog's arthritis pain meds and that was that- except for the 41 dollar bill moment. 
     The front little plum tree is again pregnant; about to pop its annual white blooms.  The front gardens mostly slumber in their brown mode.  A friend hesitated and wondered if the Weed Police would be after me again.  I said something about how the gorgeous garden books rarely show gardens in sleep mode.  Just glorious blooming hey!  So my flatlander neighbors will just have to lump my cacophony of shrubs and low brown clumps.  I will not pull out things that merely sleep.  I pruned back the butterfly bush but left the Three Furies alone- might have to do something gentle about them soon, though.  The Three Furies are 3 tangled and tall rose bushes.  They live by the  left side of the house.  Sparrows love to hang out in them and then zoom back to the bird feeder.  Another friend worries that the sparrows are munching rose buds.  So far the Furies continue to bloom.  
     I won't physically travel far today.  I'm very much in Spring mood; have been putting on speed when it comes to all things gardens and outdoors for three days now.  Even drug my ailing friend to the garden table yesterday for lunch.  So resistant and so grateful afterwards.  We watched a white buff colored raptor sail; probably looking for his version of lunch.   Emotionally a part of me will be in Missouri, shadowing my Mom as she goes through her day.  I so wish I could casually knock on her door and fall into a hug.  Going to work on not crying about that on this gloriously warmish day.  Its the weekend so my hours will include my dear companion.  He evolved into much more than just a hubby eons ago.  I am grateful for that.  Steady and sturdy.  Needed in this world.

Nor do I have a "tummy."  I abhor medical professionals who talk down to me.  I have allowed them some access to my body.  That does not mean I suddenly am a child- and I hated that form of speech when I was a girl.  I did shriek this morning.  I admit here that I used a safety razor incorrectly this morning and it is NOT safe entirely.  What a doofus and I pay for it now- the razor slashed through my fingernail and into the nail bed and Gads it hurt like hell and Gads it still is a pain- already had a short nail and now that wants to tear and be a total nasty.  Sigh.  Might end up trying to put a bandaid on it.  Small things hurt the worst.
   Its St. Paddy's day.  I bought into it and went on a Safari hunt for less fat/less salt corned beef.  Safeway's deli lady said that their shipment hadn't come in so I couldn't buy it by the pound.  I ended up buying a little 6 ounce packet of the meat for the ungodly price of 5 bucks.  Total ouch.  Then they were out of dark rye bread.  We had dill rye instead.  Once home, I decided to make cupcakes so that the odd cold sandwich supper wouldn't be quite so stark.  And boiled cabbage.  I bought Guiness for hubby for his evening treat.  He said that a lady at work didn't know what Guiness was.  The blankness of being Hispanic. 
    I'm typing in the evening.  Usually I type in the morning.  Spring is for sure moving in.  Pure pleasure.  Wind but warmer.  The roses continue to live.  Thoughts of planting chives and onions and peas intrudes more and more on my brain.  Thoughts of wielding a hoe upper most.   The wind blew the plastic bench over and exposed a fine crop of last year's yellowed weeds.  I pulled those up before standing
the bench back up.
     Night is for sure here. Blessed light gone for another set of hours.  I hope to sleep for a longer stretch on this night before waking.  I hope to truly rest and not doze with pain as a companion.   We have a few more Quantum Leap episodes to watch and a few more hours of companionship before another day.

I once jokingly told someone that I lived in an Eastern outpost.  We'd just been discussing what it would be like to live in a fire lookout; way up on a mountain peak.  A deep inner layered voice niggles; you really meant it, you know!  What would I include in this urban homestead if the Powers would allow it?  Three to five hens.  A stout six foot fence up front.  An outside wood burning stove. These few additions would make a huge addition to my life. I'd be more self sufficient plus have built in exercise.
   Its almost bud bursting time and lead unfurling time. I've spotted violet leaves and allium shoots.  I'm ready for color and I'm eager/greedy for all shapes and sizes of growth. I miss insects like bees and lady bugs.  I called a rental company about a long handled saw.  They have one.  We need to get that dead limb down before it damages the back of the house.  I merely supervise on this task and feel guilty cause such an endeavor puts dear hubby in the line of fire.
     What do I wear to the library today?  Soft brown slacks and white under sweater and as always, the ratty blue over sweater- must keep the back war.  Might wear my long soft gray light coat, too.  I'm suddenly tired now that its time for me to be out and about.  Siamese Sam is here with me.  Does a masked cat observe the world differently than an orange tabby? 
  The wind plays a gentle whiffle ball punt
tree limbs low
statticky radio gray as March clouds
the prevailling blue piano chords
strokes along a whiskered cheek.

I'm reading a book on neuro-psychology and around the same time, ran into a season of Quantum Leap at the library.   Both have much in common.  What is the self?  What is being?  Does a brain surgeon believe in the soul?  Does that same brain surgeon believe in God or Goddess?  If Sam changes from his known self into a street walker woman or a poor elderly black man, who is he/she?  What would that be like, to pop from one known self to another?  To have so many myriad ethical beliefs to tackle?  How do his core values change or stay the same?   Total fiction.  Total What If?   I tried to explain the premise of the show to my elderly Mother and didn't do so well.  My fault or hers?  She has been a reader and a role model for reading all her life.  She is fast heading toward 90 and her mental abilities will be forgiven for slipping.   This book challenges.  I need that challenge.  P. asked me yesterday if I read mysteries.  I stopped and it was quite noticeable that she'd stopped me literally in my track.  Yes, I do read mysteries but what kind?  And mysteries are not the main focus of my reading forays.  Unless you call this delving into brain case histories and all such oddities a mystery. 
        Physical stuff so quickly evolves into primitive emotional gah!! for me when it comes to Medical Crises.  I try not to let Emotions have their day in such matters.  I really do.  Now I am confronted with the fact that Medical Assistants rule the day in this town.  My left knee may need to be reconstructed but who do I see first?  Not a trained and hopefully wise M. D.  No no.  I am allowed to have an appointment with someone I find out is a Medical Assistant.  A medical gate keeper.  I called up and changed that tune this morning.  And got an appointment for a month later.  Sigh.  I may and probably won't go with their opinion if it involves surgery.  Am I like the man in the book who planned to go mountain climbing even though he was a paraplegic??   Fact: left knee cap moves around.  Fact: left knee makes lots of noise and hurts.  Fact: not enough synovial fluid in there to cushion joints or cartilage.  Fact: I plan to go hiking in May.  Fact: I've paid out a lot of money at a place that is heaven and also is a jungle gym of stairs.   My spirit will rule the day.  I guess if it comes to where I can't lift that leg, I'll stop.  Meantime, I rage about having to deal with medical gatekeepers.  And wait impatiently for the weather to warm so that I can hoe up dirt.
     Another Large Question in my day to day life:  WHAT is an eye sore??   Why is the idea and thought of plenty of plants and trees and shrubs up front an eye sore?  Why can't a front yard host a plethora of color and a variety of stems and heights?  Some plants vine and snake; some dangle and some crawl along the ground.  So what?  This morning I spotted a female house finch at the feeder and I bid her Good Morning.  I love that bit of orangey red cap.  That up and down sway of wing as she flew away.   Her presence was meditation for my raving guts.  

Some folks might conjure up a steel scape; might enjoy the challenge of existence in a ghetto when the subject of what would be your ideal environment?    What would be mine?  Space.  Lots of room to walk and explore.  Maybe a sliding world; for a while I could live on a large farm and manage that; would have to be a green fir rimmed farm; maybe a crag in the distance to have as something to ride my horse to.  For sure green; some rain welcome.  Rain would bring nettles and morels and shrubs and vine maples and Doug firs and of course a mininum of pollution cause my world would have to include birds and wild things of all varieties.   I like the idea of a sliding world; the idea of sliding doors.  I would open a glass door and enter a city scape of gothic many storied buildings; spires and minarets, libraries and museums, artisan galleries.  Artists of all varieties; prayer wheels, glass baubles, iron works, color of every variety and for sure gardens. Exotic tumbling plants would be welcome and encouraged; lawns banned.  Dandelions would be venerated; their seeds fostering finches of all hues and song.  Such a world would also include waterways and glossy wooden boats.  Everyone in this world would be far too busy to be obese; far too engrossed in mind play and humanitarian efforts to want to spend their days gorging their mouths.  This world would foster pedal power and discourage empty brained television programs.  If a person needs entertainment, the person will be encouraged to join an acting group and put on a play or learn to play an instrument.  If a person wants to splash color on a building, that person will be applauded.  What is discordant is harmony in this 'scape.   Voice will be the norm; poetry readings and story telling usual.  Each person responsible for the next when it comes to each learning to their capacity.  Books venerated. 

The physical month is March.  The reality is Cold.  Bitter wind chill cold.  Thank the Goddess that I have no reason to travel across a mountain pass on this day.  I merely must get totally dressed, must brush my hair and look like somebody who cares a tad about society so that I can go to Physical Therapy and then the library.  Physical Therapy is an odd place for me.  I do as they say.  I've stepped into their world and by doing so, have agreed that they know what is best for my body.  Jerry the Head Guy in particular is in charge of my safety and well being for that hour.  He has made my body parts do things that my own brain would never think prudent.  These machinations have allievated some of the hellish pain BUT if he was a fraud, those actions could have landed me in an ER.   
   So  the bubble.  50's era walls and newer glassed windows keep me and my four legged companions comfortable.  Electric base board heaters consistently wash warm air.  The wind chill factor is not something to mess with.  Eats at the bones and causes the inner ears to squirm.  The forsythia and lilac and fruit trees desire warmth along with the light; their buds swell.  Ain't happening, folks!   Day after tomorrow, this storm is scheduled to blow out and maybe then the bare root roses can be set out.  For now they rest in the coolish laundry room.    I watch power lines sway and low tree limbs lower as the wind gusts.  I appreciate the morning light.  This living room is small.  Why must large be better?  Somebody has to clean some time and Gads, just scrubbing the tub made me tired yesterday.  The idea of a maid is repulsive; I don't need an intruder nosing into this warren of half clean/half fur balls.   Prickly me.   Guess I've put off taking off my robe and donning a down jacket long enough.  Have to go face the day now.  Have to quit thinking about hot cocoa!  

First thing Sonny James is up and rocking to the first light; I get up and take away a camera battery that soon will be out of the bathroom and into the nether lands.  I found my bottle of salt water half down the hall next.  He's a feline teenager for sure.  Still too frosty at night for the four rose bushes.  Got to remember to dribble water on them before this day is done.  Fried.  I woke to less pain.  May the Physical Therapists rule!   Common folk at the bird feeder.  They're hungry.  They're tired of cruising parking lots for french fries.  Sparrows but hungry so they are welcome to come snatch some black sunflower seeds.  "Their number one priority is survival." declares a radio person.  Hear and believe.  Our sermon for this first Sunday in March. 
I made pumpkin pie last night.  Breakfast this morning will feature a small slice.  Pumpkin that came from last Samhain; will the pie taste smoky and have a hint of cold full moon nights?  I used electricity to make this pie; blended pumpkin chunks in the blender with water and after rolling the pastry, and using a hand egg beater to mix the spices, brown sugar, egg, milk into cohesive blah, baked it in an electric oven.  The stove came with this 50's house.  It still works so why spend cash to buy a new gizmo?   We'll stick with the basic white and black electric box.  I'd love to install an old wood burning cookstove.  I love the charm of a wood burner.  Probably couldn't split wood like I did in other times.  Plus the smoky stove would do a number on my older lungs. 

Goals for this day: gentle persistent exercise.  Less picking up of the fork.  Less lifting of the cookie jar; yes, chocolate lurks in there.  Let that rest.  Heh heh.  The womanly thing or just the civilized thing: got to make sure we have clean clothes for tomorrow.  Dusting something probably will be a way to use a few calories.  Funny how the balance of taking in and wheezing out sneaks in; no matter what I do, weight issues barge in.  Wonder if I were a Ms. Twiggy, would this still be the case?    Poetry.  Even one line will do- one line without an inner critic riding along.  Roller coaster.  Green paint smudged on a rough brown fence. Turned table legs are textured; architecture in a town that is mostly ranch house dominant.  I bring in what I lack.  Glass on photo frames and glass on mirrors bring in light and reflection of that light; opens these vintage walls to the outer world yet allow me to sit here barefooted.   Am I pumpkin in a blender?  What would it and what does it feel like to whirl around in a blender, the blade sharp enough to penetrate tender flesh? 

Tradescant.  John Tradescant.  I'd like to meet that fellow.  He was the head gardener to the English Kings Way Back When.  I'd love to have him come striding up my walk on this blowy March afternoon.  Four bare root roses sit in my cool laundry room, young green leaves itching to be out in the dirt.  Our night time temps most likely will head into the teens this week but after that maybe we can let them out into their natural world.  I can only hope they continue to be ok until that heady moment of life by the driveway and the forsythia and catmint. 
     Its not candy cane days anymore.  Its almost spearmint popping up from the dirt time.  The forsythia twigs in the pressed glass vase are punk now and ready for the compost box.  Time for me to brave the gusts and prune off a couple more brown twigs.  The annual miracle, this transformation of brown to heady yellow.  I need it as I always do, my annual ear fog blasting out my annual cold or is it allergy attack. 
     Journals.  An opportunity to spit language; to hawk a loogy.  I can't resist a blank page.  I can't not doodle or carve or sink a hook into the murk; Goddess bless me and my need to burble.  The radio blats an afternoon story and hubby concentrates on that and the pup runs in her sleep on her rug to the right of my chair.  Godiva Chocolatier naps in the front Bay window.  I could be outside doing little yet doing much cause I'll be in the elements.  Ducking the 20 to 30 mile an hour freshet.  So great to have a place to shove words that don't involve measurments and waist lines and crappy posture and crooked hips.  These inner joints feel fine.  I wait for Tradescant.  I wait for a patient gardener who knows how and when to pat a living plant into soil.  How to help that bush live for generations.  Somebody who gives a breath or two to the preciousness of it all.  Who is not afraid to jump in and scream Yes! to the cold liveness.