The Sky and Its Stars....

"The sky and its stars make music in you."  ~ Denderah Temple wall inscription, Egypt

This may be one of the most beautiful quotes I have ever seen.  Just thinking about it makes me think of sitting in the middle of the night-dark pasture and staring up into the blue-black sky and all the tiny lights there.  There is that feeling that swells in the chest, as if my heart were unfurling wings that were too large for the space, and I always breathe a little too deeply, can't pull in enough air.  Since I was a child, I have wished that I could fly up into that sky and feel what owls must feel as they race along those empty spaces, wished I could rise up and up until the dome of Heaven was there like a velvet curtain before me and I could see the sleeping world below.

Even when I'm driving at night, the sliver of the sky through the windshield fills me with the same peace.  Sometimes, when I am so restless that there is no other way to be calm, I go out driving late at night, listening to whatever is on the radio but hearing only the silent songs of the stars until whatever has been pricking me with its sharp little claws lets go and I can be peaceful again.

Maybe later this week, I'll go up to our place in the country and let the day fade to night, let the sun slide behind the treeline and wait for the stars to flicker into their accustomed places in the darkening blue background.  I haven't taken the time to hear the symphony in awhile, and this quote has stirred a yearning in me.  There is no better place I know to let them weave their spell than in that silent place where only counterpoint will be the wind in the trees and the sound of tall grasses rustling.

Saint Joan and Dagny Taggart

(edited about a hundred times....)


Joan never cared about the in-betweens
Combed her hair with a blade did the Maid of Orleans
Said Christ walked on water we can wade through the war
You don't need to tell me who the fire is for
- "To the Dogs or Whoever" - Josh Ritter


I'm reading Atlas Shrugged and going through the continual crisis of my professional life.  If you've ever read AS, you know this is a combination of things designed to result in introspection.  I'm reading AS on my Kindle, and I think I have highlighted about two-thirds of the book. (Which you can see, I think, if you know who I really am, have the Kindle app, and "follow me" on the Kindle page...)  I've come to the conclusion that, despite what I said in my last post, in the most critical ways, I probably am Dagny Taggart, and in my own way, I am trying to keep my own personal Taggart Transcontinental running.  


I see so much of the dystopian world she struggled against surrounding me, so much double talk, government ineptitude, false "progress," and general malaise.  I feel like I'm fighting the same kinds of illogic and refusal to think she found lurking under every rock.  But I keep doing it for the reasons she did.  I can't let them win.  I can't accept that this is all there is or all that anybody wants.  I can't let go of something I love, something I believe to be important, vital even.  I can't be the person who steps back and says it can all go to hell, to chaos, who gives up and walks away, who says there's nothing left worth fighting for.  


And there is so much worth fighting for.  There are all those beautiful faces every day, all those wonderful moments, every precious time one of them can get what they need to go where they dream of going.  That is what I battle for, what I get up and put on the armor and take up the sword to protect.  


It's not the path of least resistance for me.  It never has been.  This is my very conscious choice to stay on this field where I am and fight.  But I also want it understood that this is not a path of crucifixion and martyrdom.  I don't expect any praise for it or any pity.  I am not looking for acclaim or awards.  This is what I am and what I was made to be.  There is a cost to it, but there is a cost to every calling, to every choice, isn't there?   


What else could I do, though?  There has never been anything else for me. You do the thing you feel the bliss, the consuming passion for, the joy of completeness for, inside you until you are led to a new understanding.   That is what I am doing now, and even though there are times when following this bliss leads me through moments of terrible pain, the fundamental joy of what I do does not alter.  The pain is not related to what I do.  The pain is caused by those who try to stop me from doing it, or who try to keep me from doing it the way I know it to be right.  


What I don't have that Dagny had is that soul-deep joy of understanding in another person.  It would be nice to have another person understand why I do what I do, why it is important to me, not to talk it to death, but just to be able to look at them and know they get it.  Of course, in her case, I guess that understanding is laced with pain since the person who understands it does not really want her to do it any longer, or at least not in the way she's doing it at the present time.....  Complicated, isn't it?  I'm not quite done with the book, so I don't know yet who is going to win that fight, her steadfast idea that it's wrong to walk away and let it all fall down or his idea that no matter how much of herself she destroys trying to save her portion of it, it's already dead anyway.  I have to say that this is no small portion of the thing that is keeping me reading.


You may wonder about the reference to Joan of Arc at the top.  Partly, it comes because at some point during my reading the Josh Ritter song there spun through iTunes while I was reading and the lyrics clicked with what I was reading.  The connection between the woman I was reading and the woman in the song got made.  Hence her presence in this blog.  Joan has been kicking around with me for a lot longer than that, though.  I have a very old saint's medal of Joan that I wear as a reminder on days when I really feel like crap as among her many patron roles, she's patron saint of strong women.  For awhile a couple of years ago when things got very bad indeed during a time when they were already going poorly, I used the picture of her from the US War Bond posters of WWI as my FB icon.  I don't know if anybody else even noticed, but I enjoyed the irony immensely.  


I have always admired Joan of Arc.  She went up to a bunch of hopeless (and I mean that both ways -- without encouragement and useless) men, told them that she had a vision, made them believe her, saved her country by the force of her will, and kept her beliefs even when everyone sold her out afterward.  Her values hadn't depended on them....  Somehow, I sort of feel she, Dagny, and I are related.  On the surface we may not look much alike, the peasant turned general, the fictional tycoon with the spine of steel, and the humble local school teacher nobody will ever hear of, but I think in this much at least we are kin:  we know what it is to have a purpose and believe.  Maybe I don't shame them too much with my comparison.  And no, it hasn't escaped my notice that at least one of us so far (I don't know about Dagny...I'm not done with the book) wound up on the fire because of it.  


Well.. as Joan herself said, "One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it.  But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying."

Another D--- List

Just what you wanted to read, right?  Sorry.  I'm not up to a rhapsody in print.  You get this or you get black ramblings.  You choose.  Yeah.  That's what I thought.

Things I Enjoy Thinking About Right Now:

• The Kodak Brownie Autograph I bought today.  It's delicate, functional, logical, and lovely.  It is absolutely art.
• Atlas Shrugged.  I can't stop reading this book.
• The Soul Skin from Levenger I ordered.  I want it now.  I have no patience.  Get here, damn it.
• The metallic royal blue color I just painted my toenails.
• The fact that my pit bull will come and drape herself across me in a "hug" every twenty minutes or so just because she knows I need it.
• My roses are blooming again.
• Ito En Green Tea only gets better when it approaches room temperature.
• Someday, they will fix the church organ, and I will get to play it again.  Someday.  It's been six months.

Things I Don't Enjoy Thinking About Right Now:

• I dreamed about D. recently.  That hasn't happened in a long time.
• I feel as if I've lost a little of my "muchness."  Probably why D. showed up in my dream.  He only shows up in my dreams when I feel like hell, smiling and politely reminding me of all my inadequacies.  He was the king of them, the one who taught me just how much I fail to measure up, so it's only natural that he shows up when I feel this way.
• I am not Dagny Taggart.  There is no John Galt.  
• My roof is leaking.
• I'm tired of being alone. 
• My father actually told me he worries about how much time I spend online. (This was after I installed Chrome on their computer, set the apps and extensions there up for them, updated everything else on it, walked them through how to use it, and helped him order something from Amazon.)

Pluses and minuses.  Tonight, I can see which column is heavier, and it has nothing to do with the number of items in it.  Maybe I'll rotate out of this soon.

Not to Be Too Cynical, But....

"No good deed goes unpunished." ~ Clare Booth Luce

Storm Coming

I've been out here all afternoon in this hammock, reading and trying to get my mind to unhook from the things that pester and attack it, a little like the real-life mosquitoes and yellow jackets I try to ward off with limited success. The sky is now taking on that bruised, boiling quality and all the tree frog choruses are singing. The oven-like heat of the day has begun to dissipate at last, and the sun is still visible as a neon-red ball through the breaks in trees to the west.  

I can hear today's thunderstorm walking over the eastern ridge, its distant and irregular booms coming closer, and I know this peaceful idyll won't last much longer, this moment of cool sanctuary between the heat of the day and whatever torrent is striding across the hilltops. 

I wish you were here to see the eastern sky darken, the first jagged bolts flicker down to touch the the ground. I wish you were cradled in this hammock, too, listening to the pleading song of all the things that cry out for rain and the distant road noise of late evening traffic hurrying home to beat the storm. I wish you were here to smell the sweetness of the rain as it slowly fills the air and watch the colors of everything, the deep green grass, the blue and red bottles on the bottle tree, the orange lantanas, the scrap metal chicken with the Coca-Cola sign tail, all of it, intensify and become miniature jewels. 

The storm is closing the distance now, and my little yellow dog is reminding me that it's time to go inside.  Watching the day melt away into the rain, listening to the soft susurration of the tree above me at it stretches into the sky and prepares for what is to come has been a soothing thing, something I needed.  Inside the house, there will be things to clean, feed, and take care of, myself included.  The dogs lead the way to the porch door as the wind begins to make the live oak leaves hiss, and we all go in together leaving the empty yard for whatever will walk there next.

Looters and Thieves

I am past the mad now, and only the hurt is left.  I came in from watching the lightning tearing up the distant hillsides, but I can still feel the echoes of it ricocheting around inside me looking for a way out like everything else I'm trying to keep locked down.  What's the point of screaming?  What's the point of slamming a fist into a wall? It won't fix the root of the problem.  It won't get back what they took from me.

And so, despite everything else, the looters win, I guess.  I have fought so hard.  I foolishly thought I fought well, too.  I tried to fight nobly, tried to be optimistic.  I held my head up with pride, and I thought they couldn't get to me.  You know what they say.  There's no fool like a damn fool, and my God, I never wore the motley so well, so perfectly, as I am just now.  

I can't win when the deck is stacked.  I can't play when there are no rules, or at least no rules that I understand, rules that change constantly.  It doesn't matter how good I am, how much of my bleeding soul I carve out and give.  It seems, in fact, that this is the very thing that is the wrong thing to give.  It's a terrible thing when your best is worthless, when you are.

The Shirt I Mentioned Yesterday

This is the shirt I mentioned yesterday in my post.  It's from phippsart on Etsy.  I've had it in my favorites there for a long time, and I decided to get it.  It has amused me for awhile, and since I seem to be on this kick and surrounded by it on all sides, I figured, "Why not?"  The art is quite good.  If you go to the link and look, you can see close-ups.  

Music and Dogs

Yesterday, I went reluctantly to town. I needed to run a couple of errands that could not wait, and I had to get the missing pie ingredient.

I started at my favorite flea market digging through the massive record bins in the back.  I'm going to try a project I saw on Etsy which will require colorful vintage album covers.  It was about three hundred degrees in there, but I took my time flipping through the albums looking for covers with interesting patterns or color combinations.  It was an odd journey through music history.  There were artists I knew, groups I'd never heard of, and of course there was the ever-changing panoply of fashion.  I found that I wanted to leave the groups I knew best, unwilling to bring those home and cut them up.  I kept thinking, "Somebody might want that one to listen to or put up on a wall somewhere."  I know that was sort of a silly feeling, probably, worrying about some anonymous person somewhere who might possibly want an album at some undefined date in the future, but there you have it.  I left the Elvises, the Tchaikovskys, and the KC and the Sunshine Bands alone.

After the junktique and a couple of other errands, I stopped by the local OfficeThing in an attempt to replace the powered USB hub Roux chewed up the other night, zapping her lip but nothing more serious than that, fortunately.  She got one of her bored gnawing spells when I was out of the house, and for some reason, the USB hub seemed tasty....  OfficeThing, of course, had NONE!  They did, however, have a good sale on USB 2.0 external hard drives.  I need a big one, 1 TB or larger, so I was looking at theirs.  I dithered, decided to wait a bit longer for back-to-school sales and maybe a coupon, and left, buying only a pencil case shaped like a purple Converse Chuck Taylor high top.  Do Not Judge Me.

I came home and got my pies made just about the time the daily massive thunderstorm came through.  I got them put in the freezer to chill and solidify since this easy key lime recipe needs that, and I fiddled around on the computer and read, listening to music while the thunderstorm boomed.  My little yellow dog, Yelldo, followed me around while I was putting together the pies so much I thought I was going to trip over him.  He hates storms.  When I sat down on the couch, he huddled behind my knees.  He's so afraid of everything.  

After all the storms cleared, the air was sweet and cool, and even though it was getting dark, I decided to go outside.  I took my hammock out, hung it, put out my new citronella candle, and read for awhile.  I remembered to bring a booklight this time, too.  It was full dark out before I decided to go in, and the new little glass-topped solar globes I've stuck here and there in the edges of the yard glowed like fairy lights.  I'm enjoying that outdoor space more and more.  I just wish I had somebody to share it with.  It would be a wonderful space to sit and talk as the day slides away.

As for the music part of my post, I've become a little obsessed with Calexico over the last couple of days, especially with three of their songs.  My favorite by far is "Inspiracion."  It just gets stuck in my mind, and I want to hear it again and again.  Coming in a close second and from the same album is "Fractured Air."  The lyrics in that one caught my attention.  More angels and devils there.  It seems like everything I listen to or read lately has angels and devils in it, and most of them aren't acting in their normal roles.  I don't know what's going on with that.  There's a shirt on Etsy I think I'm going to get, though, that has one on each shoulder, psychomachia in print....  Anyway, the last song is one I just found last night, "Missing."  It's very different from the other two, but again, the lyrics drew me in.  The very different sound of the three songs is one of the things I like about Calexico.  You just never know what's going to come out of them.

Today, I mostly read.  I'm deep into Atlas Shrugged now, and I can't seem to put it down.  I literally read out the battery on my Kindle.  I'm waiting for it to recharge, and then I'll read some more.  It's fantastic.  

I need to be making plans to see Windsor.  My time is running low.  Soon I'll be back in my classroom for the endless cycle of meetings and whatnot that precedes the school year.  I really want to see Windsor this summer.  Maybe I can go sometime in the next few days.  I wish I could get somebody to go with me.  It would be more fun with somebody to enjoy it with, somebody who would think it was interesting, too.  I think everybody is pretty much tied up with kids and obligations, though.  

The rain is still falling, a new wave pattering heavily on the metal roof in the back just now, so there will be no nighttime hammocking for me tonight.  Perhaps that's just as well.  It will give some of these mosquito bites a chance to heal up.  It seems the citronella wasn't a perfect solution.  Sigh.  Oh well.  More music and dogs, I suppose.

Enough

I'm sad and I feel like crap tonight.  I'm not putting up with this.  I know where it goes.  It ends with me sitting in the middle of my floor in tears counting up all my sins and flaws and Roux trying to lick me in the face, wagging her tail with doggie anxiousness to make it all better.

I am putting on the playlist that's called "Bouncy."  I am getting off Etsy before I buy a bunch of crap I don't  need because it's shiny and I'm sad.   I am getting off Google+ before I tell people a bunch of crap they don't actually care anything about (anything about my life in general absolutely qualifies).  I'm posting this and then I'm getting off here for the same basic reason I'm getting off Google+.  Anything I say here tonight other than this would neither entertain you nor edify.  I'm closer to Lear's Black Fool than any other kind tonight, and I assure you all the humor has barbed wire in it if it's present at all.  After I'm done here, I am going to read until such time as I feel tired, and then I am going to bed.

Tomorrow, I am going to the junktique, and I'm going to get some stuff for a cool craft project that I saw today, and I'm going to make something with my own two hands.  I'm going to pick up the missing element for the pie I was going to make tonight and was thwarted in so doing.  Tomorrow night, I'm going to make homemade pizza and have key lime pie for dessert while I watch a movie that makes me laugh.  If the weather doesn't totally suck, all that will be after some hammock time.

In other words, I'm not going down this damn primrose path again.  So there.

Flea Market

Yesterday, I went to see one of my best friends.  We had lunch, and afterwards, we wound up at a HUGE flea market.  It's one of the biggest ones I've ever been to in this state.  I guess we picked the perfect day and time for it, too, after noon on one of the hottest days of the year inside a large metal building with many fans, but no form of air conditioning whatsoever.

The first indication that this place is going to be interesting can be seen when you drive up.  There is a Model A Ford parked casually on what used to be the loading dock of this old warehouse.  Then, when you get out, the sound of some guy singing covers of old 70s rock to his guitar hits you.  And so does the heat.  Like a sledgehammer of wet nastiness.  We stumbled more or less blindly up the concrete stairs into the relative coolness of the shade past a rack of motorcycle helmets, a church pew people were haggling over and a coffin that was propped upright and headed for the entrance.  I was thinking, "Oh yes.  There might be some good junk in here. Very good junk, indeed."

There are only two kinds of flea markets in the world, you see.  There is the kind where people buy a bunch of cheap plastic crap from China, little statuettes of clowns and bad tools, stupid things that have redneck jokes on them, and stuff that is not even clever enough to be called risque but can only be called tacky, and they fill up space with it.  That is the first kind of flea market.  I hate that kind.

Then there is the second kind.  This kind has good old junk.  It has stuff that might not be fancy enough to make it into an "antiques shop" but is certainly vintage.  It might be a little bit banged or dented, but it still has charm.  You can usually find all the kinds of things I like, stuff with character and history, at a good flea market of the second type.  Of course, you will also find a large collection of used electronics from the 80s (well, actually from every time period) and God knows what else, because that is the true fun of a real flea market.  There is something for everybody.

This one was the second type.  There were the obligatory book stalls filled with old westerns, Harlequin romances, and serial spy thrillers.  There were booths so packed with collections of stuff I have no idea WHAT all was in them.  There were people who "specialized" in only vintage kitchen or only vintage linens.  There was enough "repurposed" furniture and "shabby chic" to fill a house, even one the size of mine, with.  Not all of it was to my taste, but there were some really wonderful pieces there.  If I had had a truck and some more money in my bank account, one or two of the big pieces would have come away with me.  The prices were good, and the people were willing to "horsetrade" as my grandmother would have called it.

I wasn't much in the haggling mood, though.  It was just too damn hot.  I kept feeling like I was going to melt and slip through a crack in the concrete floor.  We'd pause to stand before one of the huge fans, letting it blow  warmish air over us.  Even though the fans were mostly as tall as I am, when the temperature outside is over 100, there is still only so much it is going to be able to do....

My friend found several things she liked, and I wound up with some neat pieces, too.  I got a lamp that struck my imagination, and of course, I found the obligatory silly hat.  I found a little green ink bottle shaped like a school house, a 1950s reproduction of something older, if the dealer knew his stuff.  My friend found an old coffee pot with flamingos on it, her particular passion.

And then we stumbled across the back section, the salvage portion.  It was mostly furniture in need of help and stuff you might want to weld, paint, or restore, but I was in heaven.  That is my kind of junk, you see.  I love architectural pieces, use them as display pieces by themselves sometimes.  There was an entire sign from an old movie theater that said, simply and elegantly, "Cinema" that took up a space as long as my entire living room.  The old light bulbs dangled forlornly from their sockets.  It was fantastic.  I wanted to photograph it instantly.  There were about five tables, including a very small desk with with a lid that opened and a place for the inkwell, that I would have bought instantly if I hadn't been acutely aware of my budget and how much abuse I'd already done it this month.

I couldn't resist the enticement of a pair of worn brass bookends, though, and even though I thought the price a little high, I took them up to the counter to ask if maybe they might come down on them a little.  I had two interesting bottles in my hands and the bookends, and I waited for the guy to finish up with another customer, and I asked him about them.  He came down off his first price to the price I was hoping for, and I told him I'd have to go get more cash from the ATM because I didn't have enough left to get everything I had on the counter.  He just laughed and said, "Well, tell me this.  Are you going to come back again?"  I looked at him like he was insane.  "Yeah.  You don't have to worry about that."  I was thinking to myself, "The real problem for me is going to be keeping myself out of here now that I know this place exists...."  And he came down again on the price of all of it again GREATLY.  This is the kind of place that I like to shop....

Out we stumbled again, past the coffin, past the pew, into the waiting glare and humidity juggling lamps and juice glasses, teapots and blue bottles.  My friend backed up to the loading dock and we waited for one of her purchases to be put in the back of her van while we gasped, angling the air vents toward ourselves in a desperate attempt to get it to cool us down faster.  After the loading was done, we took off to find something to drink and a place that had good air conditioning, both of us feeling more than a little limp.  It had been a good day, though.  It's a really awesome place.  I'm just not sure I want to go back until I'm sure that when I come out I won't feel like I've been gently simmered and brought to boil.

A Thought I'm Having Lately

If you miss me, you can’t text, you can’t email, you can’t post it on my Facebook wall. If you really miss me, you come and see me.

~ No Strings Attached

__________________________________________________________

Just a thought I'm having lately.  Some people I can only "see" via electronic communication because of the distances that separate us.  That makes this medium a blessing, enabling me to maintain relationships that would otherwise fail.  Somehow, though, it has become a replacement for others that I should be working harder to maintain, some kind of pretend game when the real thing is available if I'd only take the effort. It allows me to wrap my comfortable solitude around myself and pretend I'm being sociable even when I'm actually only going through the most rudimentary of motions with the people who are the most worthy of more. I need to be getting in the car, picking up the phone instead of putting my fingers on the keyboard.  The reason is quite simple, and it was brought home to me today once again.  The interaction just isn't the same.  

Maybe sometimes there's no other way but the quick message dashed off and responded to whenever the situation allows.  Maybe sometimes the demands of this insanity we politely call life doesn't permit anything else, really.  However, I'm damn sure going to try to find a way to spend more time seeking something more than the quick Wall post, the casual text.  I'm losing too much of value if I don't.

10.000

I just noticed that my hit counter has reached 10,000 (at least in its current incarnation).  Auspicious.  Thank you, whoever you are, for bothering to stop by.  I know most of you are here for the Beowulf's Boast or because Google dumped you here by mistake, but anyway, thanks.

Hammock

I have several things headed my way via shipping companies, little things I got from Etsy or monthy supplies I can only get from amazon. One package, though, that I was not expecting to arrive quite so soon was my Pawley Island hammock from Levenger.  I only ordered it a few days ago, so when I was going through my email this morning and checking on delivery dates for some other things, I was astonished to see that the "Satans in the White Vans" were due to drop it off today.

I looked out at the untidy state of my yard and shook my head.  The bahaia grass has just about taken over my front yard, its untidy v-shaped heads sticking up everywhere.  Between a flat front tire that needed air and sporadic rains, I haven't mowed lately.  I knew I would need to tame the jungle before I relaxed in my new hammock.  

Roux informed me her great nemesis had arrived sometime while I was still getting dressed, which is about par for that course.  It doesn't matter how early I get up, they are always going to arrive at the least-convenient moment possible.  If they can catch me still asleep, changing clothes, or just out of the shower, they do it.  I think they have some kind of detector.  I didn't even try to go to the door, a process that would have involved falling over several animals half-clad.  The delivery driver knocked, leaned the huge box with the hammock in it against the porch wall next to my door, put a totally redundant post-it on my storm door, and left.  When I finished dressing, I dragged the box inside.

This afternoon when Dad got home, he came down with the air tank to fix the lawnmower and his cordless drill to help me hang the hammock.  After a little trial and error (the suggested measurements of height didn't quite fit our situation, of course), we got it at the perfect height.  It was gorgeous.  All I wanted to do was lie back in it and stare up into the shifting canopy of the tulip poplars above me.  I resisted, though, and got on the Husqvarna.....

After the grass was cut, I came back to the little outdoor room I'm making there under the tree.  The beginning of it is a small concrete pad poured long ago to be the foundation of my Granny's chicken house.  While I was growing up, it was a picnicking space, and then my grandfather kept the huge metal smoker he used to cook hams and turkeys for the holidays on it.  Now, it's been swept clean.  The hammock has been hung. One of my bottle trees is out there.  There's the big  outdoor lounge chair  for if anybody else ever decides to come visit.  The silly blue metal flying pig I bought at Prairie Arts that was the first of my metal menagerie guards the corner making a space that is very much me, very much relaxing.  I climbed into the hammock and managed not to flip myself out the other side. I thought that was a very grand accomplishment for my first time in one in about twenty years.  

The hammock is fantastic.  It's made to be a two-person hammock, but I'm here to tell you that while it's possible to get another person it it with me, and that the construction would certainly hold somebody else, I'd have to know that person very, very well, and like that person very, very much before I'd let them lie in it with me.... Let's just say it's a piece of furniture that would sort of create intimacy. Even though the light was going, I read for as long as I could see.  If I'd been wise enough to bring out my little booklight and clamp it to the top of my Kindle, I could have read longer.  Maybe tomorrow night.  

I took off my glasses and laid them and the Kindle aside.  The whole world eventually faded to frog song and night noises.  Fireflies glittered randomly at the edges of the woods, not quite the mini-pyrotechnic display they put on at some times of the year, but occasionally one of them would streak across the yard flashing on and off like a miniature low-flying comet.  There was a bat darting around in the open spaces between the treetops.  I could have slept there all night.  It was a place that was full of peace.

I've wanted this hammock for years, loved them since I was a little kid and we had one at home, since my cousins had one and we all piled in it together, since there used to be one strung between the trees here so long ago, since I spent long summer afternoons on my Nana's porch reading in one.  I can't wait for the sweet golden days of autumn.  Then, looking up into that tree will be like looking up into a ceiling of pure gold.  

It's lovely to find a refuge in one's own backyard, lovely, unexpected, and so very necessary.  I don't know why I always wait to look.  If you need me and can't find me or happen to need some peace of your own, swing on by and come around back.  If you're really lucky, I might even get out and let you take a turn in the hammock.  

Tired

I got out of the house.  One of my best friends and I went out and had lunch, went junkin'.  We didn't go to our usual haunt since it closes on Wednesday.  We went to two new places, and they were really good finds for me.  One of them has a whole yard out front of architectural pieces, something I've been looking for and unable to find.

The whole day was a bit surreal for me because in my upsetness (not a word but go with me here) last night, I got distracted and double-dosed myself with Topamax, taking 400 mg instead of my usual 200.  I woke up just before I hit deep sleep, had that moment of panic and convinced myself that I had forgotten to take my pills, went back and forth about it for a few moments, and took them again.  There's nothing like stepping that stuff up, and to suddenly double it is no fun for anyone.

Tomorrow I will be buying one of those fantastic old-lady day-by-day medicine boxes.  Damn, I hate my life sometimes.  I am getting all the accouterments of geriatric life here in my mid-thirties.  I will leaven this by buying another pair of cute reading glasses to replace the ones Roux destroyed in the middle of the living room floor last night.  I am not sure this is really a "feel good" purchase, either, but I am NOT going to let the pit bull win, and if I have to wear the glasses, they might as well make me smile.

I did okay today, but it's been the whole-fighting-through-Jello situation all day long.  I told my friend that if she found me staring stupidly at anything shiny to tell me to "come along" like she would her children.  They're both under the age of 10.  She laughed.  She's known me since we were 8, so we've both seen each other in every kind of situation.  At one point, she took this stuff for migraine, too, so she knows how it goes.  She takes prodigious care of me sometimes.

While I was out, I found a copy of the Edgar Bulwer-Lytton novel that has the famous first line, "It was a dark and stormy night..." in it.  I had to buy it.  It's a VERY old book, small and green and pretty.  I have sort of a thing for old books, and so the combination of the image of Snoopy on his house with the typewriter it conjures/ the kitschy first line everybody recognizes/the physically lovely book made me have to have this one.

I came home and went to bed. Sleep grabbed me like a giant fist and pulled me right down. The meds just made me so tired.  I only intended to sleep a little while, but when I finally pulled myself out of it, I had slept for about four hours, and I felt better.  I suppose it's cycling out of my system now.

Now I'm just sort of playing on the computer (I finally got an invite to Google+.  Yay!!), watching an very old, very scary movie, and still drifting the slightest little bit.  The horrible glass wall of separation is mostly gone.  I just hope that when it's completely gone, the sad doesn't come back in with it.

Briefly

...because I am not supposed to be doing this right now.  I'm supposed to be getting dressed to go somewhere,  but I stopped long enough to check in on the electronic universe and got pulled in....

Isn't it funny how something you look forward to becomes something that falls a little flat?  How something that should be a cause for happiness becomes sharp around the edges unexpectedly?  I had that experience yesterday, and I'm still feeling the aftereffects of it today.  I feel like I accidentally let somebody down, like if I'd only done this or that, then everybody would have been happy and....I don't know....there would have been dancing glitter unicorns or something.

It's dangerous to second-guess.  It's dangerous to look back.  I know that.  That's how people get turned into pillars of salt.

I can't stop myself, though.  And I'm having all the pleasure and success with the endeavour that's to be expected.

I'm getting out of the house soon, anyway.  Maybe that will help some.

Last Flight

On July 8, the space shuttle Atlantis will take off for its very last flight.  I wish so much that I could be there to see it go.  I came of age during the age of the shuttle program, and its victories and tragedies are little landmarks in my own personal history.  To see it ending for good now is poignant.

I remember desperately wanting to be an astronaut when I was little, seeing the first launches of the shuttles on TV like everyone else.  We were also taken on field trips from church and school to the Huntsville Space Center to see the technology that had led up to those huge white ships that did what seemed so impossible in those days, took men and women into space, let them walk in the weightlessness there, allowed them to see the world from that perfect vantage point that suddenly put everything in its right perspective.  We came home from those field trips with stickers for the Apollo missions, rubber balls shaped like moon rocks, little white plastic model shuttles, and flyers for Space Camp.

Then came the summer I visited with my great uncle and aunt in Cocoa Beach.  My great uncle, like so many others who live in that part of Florida, used to work at Kennedy, and in addition to my family's trip to the Disneys, we went to see the Space Center as well.  I don't really know which made the stronger impression on me, the costumed cartoon characters or the towering rockets.  I still have the tiny silver charm of the orbiter on my charm bracelet, still remember eating the dehydrated ice cream we inevitably bought in the gift shop, still remember sitting in one of the command capsules.

I remember, too, how excited my mother was when Christa McAuliffe was going to be a part of the 1986 Challenger mission, how excited everyone was, really. There were posters and tote bags sent out to teachers everywhere by NASA.  It seemed to be a new age of Space, a time when suddenly, it was no longer the sole province of science, when it could belong to everyone who loved it.  And then came the tragedy, the horror of the loss. I can still remember watching it on TV, seeing the bright proud bird disappear....

When the first shuttle went up after Challenger, I remember being so afraid.  I can remember that everyone waited anxiously to see if it would survive.  When it blazed its way safely into the heavens, that, too was a moment of emotion, of rejoicing.

Now, the experts say it's time for the shuttles to rest, for something new to take their place.  Only, I'm not sure what exactly that's going to be.  Space doesn't seem to be the passion it once was for us.  It seems to be more of an afterthought.  I wonder now what the next generation of children will watch wide-eyed and dream over.  Even though I understand that the technology on those big white vehicles is not state-of-the-art anymore and may be too costly to maintain, there is still just something about them that catches the imagination.  I hope that doesn't fade away with them, that the majesty of them transfers to whatever takes their place.  If nothing comes next to fill that void even if something does come to get satellites into orbit, it would be a real loss, indeed.

Dreams

You're walking in my dreams again.  Every time I close my eyes, there you are waiting for me.

The first time, I dreamed that I was a child again, running and playing in some golden woods.  My cousins were there, and in the way of dreams, we were looking for something, some grand pretend adventure we'd devised.  I no longer remember what.  I suppose it doesn't matter.  The light came through the trees in that greenish dappling, and, suddenly you were there, too.  Suddenly, you always had been.  You were one of us, one of the scruffy gang of explorers there among the trees.  You grabbed my hand and we pulled each other along as we ran.  That time, when I woke up, I smiled.  I felt happy.  It was a silly, sunny sort of dream, and it didn't feel wrong for you to be there.

Since then, though, when I drop into the world of dreams, you're always there waiting.  Last night, I dreamed I was simply walking through the house, taking care of some chore.  You came and knocked on the front door.  I stood there astonished as you rocked back on your heels slightly, looking over your shoulder at something that had caught your attention, waiting for me to open it.  It took me a long moment to decide whether I was going to or not, and you turned around and studied me quite seriously.  Both of us were much more serious than the opening of a front door warranted.  Then a group of my best friends appeared, and the situation passed.  I let everyone in.

I wish I knew what you were doing hanging out in my dreams.  I'm almost sure you have a million better places to be.  I'd sleep much better if you weren't doing guest appearances, too.  This is strange.  Hopefully it will stop soon.

Fireworks

It's almost the Fourth, and I just read an article on Mental Floss about fireworks and how they've changed through the years.  That got me thinking about family picnics and memories from the past.

My uncle would always go out and buy about an extravagant amount of fireworks, usually several hundred dollars' worth, every Fourth of July.  He loved them.  We'd gather at my Nana's house, have a big meal that invariably involved some of PeePaw's five million watermelons (every year he had enough that we couldn't give them all away fast enough), and we'd wait for dusk to fall and the heat to taper off some.

It always started with sparklers, with writing our names in the gloaming, tracing shapes, pretending they were fairy wands, fascinated by them and just a little afraid of them as they hissed and spit for their brief moments.  Then there were the other "little" amusements, cardboard tanks that spat tiny colored balls of flame as they rolled, paper tubes that shot parachuting soldiers along with their bursts of sound and light into the sky, bottle rockets that screamed across the yard from their makeshift launching pads.  When it got really dark, we'd all be handed Roman Candles, helped to hold them as they kicked slightly.

Then it was time for the children to sit down and the "big kids" to take over.  My uncle was never happier than when he was setting up the huge fireworks and setting them off.  One after the other, they'd go up shimmering in the dark Mississippi night.  Green, gold, red, blue, fountains of color and big cannons of sound echoing over the empty pasture and the little pond.  We were a rapt audience sitting on blankets watching with murmurs and excited cries until the very last ember faded from the sky.

I miss those times.  I miss the family togetherness of them and the sense of wonder there in the darkness.  I miss watching my uncle and my dad in those moments of pure happiness as they lit the fuses and ran back laughing.  While I still love fireworks, still love to watch those flowers unfold in the heavens, something is always missing even at the most elaborate of the professional shows.  I suspect it's probably a mixture of too much watermelon and too much family.  Maybe someday I will be able to find it again in my own back yard.

Tumblr

I just realized that I've had my Tumblr for a little more than six months now.  I was looking back through my archive and noticing certain trends.  I really like the archive feature of it for that, for a way to notice how my interest in some things comes and goes, how my interest in many things stays constant, what a massive freaking geek I am.  I'm posting a link to the archive here if you'd like to go take a look at it, too, even though the most recent posts are always streaming along the side of this blog.  I know you're just "eat up" with care, but, hey, there are pictures, moving images, and MUSIC over on Tumblr..... (just sayin')

Waverly

I first saw Waverly on a Governor's School field trip during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school.  I took two classes there, but the class that took me to Waverly was Architectural History.  I still remember the first time I stood in the center of the house and looked up at the huge plaster medallion with its acanthus leaves three floors above me, felt the somehow cool air in the midst of a Mississippi summer being pulled through the house up through the cantilevered balconies to the windows in the cupola, a perfectly designed system of ventilation, a house that breathed.

Everything about Waverly is perfect, really.  The aforementioned cantilevered balconies?  There are three of them, octagonal and perfectly supported by the weight of the house, not one single column needed  to hold them up as they soar like sheltering wings over the main hall.  The house is an architectural masterpiece.  I remember studying that portion of its building during Governor's School, how far ahead of its time the design was.  The house was designed also to have gas that was made onsite to light it, a two-story ice house outback to preserve its foods, and it has its own river landing close at hand.  It is in every way well-thought and self-sufficient.

And then there is the story, the story of the house that was abandoned for fifty years after squabbling heirs walked away, the house inhabited by bats, goats, and bales of hay.  The house used by drunken frat pledges, hunting parties, and God knows how many young lovers trysting.  It became the "spook house," the house of ghosts, the abandoned house in a jungle of brush with the huge magnolia out front waiting, waiting, patient for its resurrection, for the people who would be brave enough to find it and love it and remove the last of the baby squirrels from its light fixtures, who would stand on ladders and scrape off the dirt dobber nests from the dental moldings, who would plaster and paint over the limericks and love songs of those who had written on her walls, who would live without plumbing and without electricity until such time as their restoration efforts permitted it....  It's like a fairy tale, really.   I've been in love with the story of Waverly for years, with the story of the house who waited and the people who gave up everything to be her family.

Seeing Waverly again today, time folded in on itself in an odd fashion.  So much of it was exactly as I remembered.  As with anything that is from the long past, I had forgotten many things.  Too, there were things that had changed and fallen into disrepair.  The maintenance on an old house of any size is a constant chore.  My house needs diligent care and more money than I have at all times.  How much more then does something like a plantation house demand?

As I walked up the drive, the first thing that struck me was how tattered her exterior looked.  I've seen this before in historic homes, especially the white ones for some reason, and indeed, as we sat on the back porch during a portion of the tour, Ms. Snow, one of the owners talked about the incredible cost of repainting.  The painting cost alone is almost equal to what I still owe on my small mortgage.  Then there will be the cost for a new roof in the new future as well...

The great houses of the cotton plantations were built lavishly because there was lavish wealth to maintain them.  Cotton was King, and it was always going to keep coming in.  They were the mansions of millionaires.  They were built with the most modern technology and engineering of their time, in some cases to experiment, in some cases to show off, but in every case to give a bastion of comfort and culture to their families in a place where those things were decidedly lacking, little castles on the frontier. Could their owners ever have looked down through the corridors of time to see a period when they would be museums as well as houses, when they would be not the self-sufficient suns of their own tiny cosmoses, but tiny minor satellites with erratic orbits that no longer see the solar rays often at all?  Could they have foreseen a time when trying to keep the plaster-walled palaces upright would be an ongoing challenge?

Mississippi is full of historic houses, most of them private residences, that are facing these challenges.  Many of them have been restored as ongoing labors of love, couples reclaiming them and pulling them back from the brink of doom slowly over the years, polishing away years of neglect until they shine again.  Some of the houses are owned by charitable foundations.  There are two such houses near me, and they make me terribly sad.  They are in desperate need of serious care.  I think it's better when somebody actually lives in the house, actually invests in it that way, sort of draws that line in the sand and says, "I'm digging in, for better or for worse.  This is where we stand or fall."  When people can lock the door and walk away from it, maybe it's easier to tell yourself that something can wait another day....

Waverly is lucky.  She will shine again.  It made me sad to see her so faded, but I know "her people" will take care of her.  I want to go back and see her when she is repainted, see her be that jewel once more.  But still, I worry.  As money gets tighter and tighter for everyone everywhere, not every place like her will be as fortunate.  And, of course, one always hopes that her own luck, that grace that has kept her and sheltered her through the years of emptiness and goats, the years of pledges and parties, will not run out.....