Merry Now What?

I dropped a knife on my toe.  Peeling an onion was slow going, and you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than with a sharp, predictable blade.  Let's give this one a few swipes and get a better edge for chopping onions.  The Sabatier is a nice, heavy 8" piece that has been with me for years; it hones to an excellent edge and is a joy to work with until it slips out of your hand and drops sideways onto your toe, second one in.

The sensation was a mere klunk without pain, even when a dark crescent appeared and started to spread.  Awww, come onnnnnn!  The first day of vacation and... jeez, stop watching the darn thing and get a paper towel, compress, compress, compress.  I am not one to examine my own cuts, but after gimping to the couch and observing the paper towel perform extra absorbency, I thought maybe this needed a stitch.  But wait and see.

After fifteen minutes, it subsided and seemed to hold together with a bit of a gash, and okay, it stopped being scary.  Two of the cats had come by to listen to the swearing and see if they could help by pawing at me and jumping in my lap.  NO.  SKEDADDLE!  SCOOT!  These commands were ignored, so I one-handedly lifted a cat to deposit her out of the way onto the couch while squishing the opening closed with the other hand; that idea was not appealing to her; she slid away, knocking the laptop off the table for me to not catch and land on (yup) the mangled toe.  Compress, compress, compress.  Additional mighty fine Christmas swearing ensued.  Santa writes: Coal for Susan after that string of blue.

I called my friends to tell them that due to stupidity, I would not be joining them this evening and hopefully will hop by tomorrow.  Toe is stinging, loaded with antibacterial ointment, butterfly-bandaged, covered in gauze, and elevated.  The soup is on hold, and will be resumed in a bit.  

In other kitchen news, due to Christmas vacation there are three tanks in residence; one of guppies, another of pillbug babies, and the third of millipedes.  This is temporary, and I prefer them near a sink for caretaking purposes, but away from the counter in case I drop a knife on them.  This morning, while checking the millipede Rancho Coburno, one had emerged halfway out of the moss.  They should get used to being handled; right now they let go of a fluid composed of hydrogen cyanide from their backend to make the predator change their mind.  It isn't enough to harm a human but may irritate a few.  Just wash your hands. You would be surprised to know where cyanide resides in the natural world; just don't swallow too many apple seeds.

Anyways, I picked this guy up and noticed that wow, this is different, for they usually curl into a cinnamon bun whorl.  This one was huge, and had wriggled into a Gordian knot, a round ball of bug.  How the heck did he do that?  Oh my goodness, is that another tail, there's two tails?  Wrapped together. Into a ball. Barry White was playing on the small stereo in the back of the tank.  I put them back and apologized.  It's sort of nice, however, knowing that the environment is healthy enough that they want a family.

Tonight was one of the most magical of nights in my childhood; the anticipation of Santa stopping by our house in the country, so far out you would wonder how Santa would find you.  I would lay in the dark wishing to Jesus and Santa that it would be all right, that nothing would trigger Dad into tearing his gifts apart or smashing plates against walls.  Fear mingled with happy anticipation, perhaps you've felt that in some capacity.  Yesterday, I made sure that my school kids had a good send off, with a gift for each and a small box filled with geegaws.  They got to pick the color of ribbon that I tied around their stuffed animal's neck, faces ecstatic.

A student that I had two years ago came by; she had written me a note in pencil.  I read it at least six times during the day to remind me where I am and what my purpose might be.  She said thank you for being the most awesome teacher.  You were always good to me, I will never forget you.  Merry Christmas to you and your family.  A note like this happens every once in a while, and it is an apt gift from the universe.  I don't even notice a sore toe with a note like that.

Whether your family or you or your cat recognize the holidays, or if tomorrow is just Friday, we have passed the Winter Solstice and are on our way to longer days.  You won't notice the increase till the first week of January, for the earlier time of sunrise does not necessarily match the lengthened time of sunset.  It's a bit of a teeter-totter.  But in these dark nights, begin a flame that ignites an idea, a wish, a heart's ease for someone; you will feel it yourself and be cheered.  The gaiety of ribbon and paper, swirled by dogs and cats and kids is a charm of the season, the deeper jeweled tones of winter take the place of flowers; the light of a candle pantomimes a bit of the sun.  What comes from the heart resounds.

Sleep well, in anticipation of the lighted part of a 24-hour cycle, of the ebb and flow of measured illumination.  Imagine what is to be, imagine what you can do.  Bring one moment of peace to another, and remember that there is more good than bad.  Sweep away sand, seven maids with seven mops.

Decembery

The millipedes have been transferred to a ten gallon tank that allows them to stretch out a bit more, plus the substrate is a nice bed of coconut fiber.  I gathered a bag of dry maple leaves from the piles in the parking lot, and have to bake them at a low temp to kill any fungal or parasitic cooties.  Millipedes, as many other living things, are susceptible to mites.  I've read to leave the mites alone, as they clean the host; then there is the opposite where you take a Q-tip dipped in alcohol and wipe down the side of your beloved critter.  I need to go on Amazon and see if there is a "Millipedes and You" book.

Now, the smaller tank has a few remaining pill bugs, and I was poking around with a chopstick (so handy a tool for many things) to see who was where.  And guess what!  Babies!!  I flipped up a leaf and the tiniest yellow string lifted it's wee self up as if to say "What on earth do YOU want?" and I am guessing that is a hatchling millipede.  Other movement indicates that more than one is scooting about, and then there were tiny yellowish pillbugs as well.  There is a nursery of arthropods and crustaceans in my kitchen.  I am thrilled.  The more, the merrier.

Pillbugs have gills, and are related more to crabs and lobsters than bugs. Millipedes are also closer to marine life, and are supposedly the first animals to emerge onto land some 450 million years ago.  They can live up to seven years, and make really nice, gentle pets.  Yes, I am a nerd.

Other than arthropod housekeeping, this day has been one grand headache; they suspect pneumonia, which will be decided once the x-ray doctor looks at the chest slides taken Friday afternoon BUT THEY WON'T BE IN UNTIL MONDAY.  I'm on the second set of antibiotics, the first being amoxicillin which just tickled the bacteria pink, then something called azithromycin, one tab a day for three days which further amused the farm that has taken residence in my lungs.  I'm going into the third week of bronchial circus, and feel like a semi-animated lump.

An interesting sidenote is that my sense of smell is completely gone, an experience brand new to this humble body.  Coffee smells like nothing.  The cat box smells like nothing.  Anything I've eaten tastes like dirt unless it has a load of salt, which is one of the few flavors identifiable.  I brought home a bag of fish sticks, not the healthiest food, but you just toss them in the toaster oven and then eat.  Were they fish, chicken, or extruded muskrat buttcrack cheese, I couldn't tell ya. Crunchy but only the desperate ketchup gave off faint tones of vinegar.  Any suggestions gladly examined.

I have lived through two neti pots, which several friends and my son swear by.  I hate them.  I don't mind pouring water up my nose, but the burning sensation created in my sinuses feels like a weasel is trying to gnaw its way out of my face. I have tried adding salt, brown sugar, store-bought additive, and plain filtered water and get the same result.  Pain.  Lots of pain and swears.   I will last till Monday, it's already been scheduled for being a sick day.  But enough of my meowing.

No snow, but this city has installed lights for year round that make it festive and fun.  There is now an ice rink downtown for those of you who like their feet moving in an opposite direction of their arse.  New restaurants and bars, and hopefully more attractions will come; but for now, we are colorful.  The grain elevators are lit with abstract patterns, building are illuminated in greens and reds, uplights scale walls of old brick, lending modernity to hundred year old facades.

The young people come down with their families; but even more moved are the folks who saw Buffalo go down into the shards of the Rust Belt as jobs were outsourced, as the Welland Canal took away the passage of grain ships through the harbor, as city planners ran a subway train down Main Street which eliminated traffic and saw the death of downtown.   It's wonderful to see, and if I ever shake this cream of lung inconvenience, I 'll be there as well.  Not ice skating, you understand, but a raised glass in their direction.

Tomorrow I have further plans for the millipedes; there are ample brachiopods that were gathered for Bri and Dana's wedding.  What better place to put them than in the arthropod tank with critters that evolved about the same time as the Spirifers?  It will be a miniature Jurassic Park, with giant bugs.  Fern.  I need a fern.  Plastic dinosaurs, except they didn't show up for another 200 million years. Two hundred million years, people.  That would bother me, the anachronistic warp; I'll think of something.  Maybe.  Head soggy. Ow.

I like December, a lot.  I wish I could recapture some of the enchantment felt when the giant, overheating Christmas bulbs on a sap-gooey tree loaded down with lead tinsel were plugged in.  Nothing like the aroma of hot lead with the potential of burning pine needles.  My Aunt Dorie's tree was fabulous, and she introduced me to the magic of magics: bubble lights.  At her house it was okay to plug in the tree, and enjoy the glow of blatantly primary and secondary colors.
It was calm, and I remember the drive home back to the empty country, and passing the city streets thick with snow and the ornate street globes of the time until we turned onto Genessee, which led to stillness and dark isolation.

The Christmas lights here stay on, this city is happy with the changes.  Change is good, for the most part; you reflect and grow through your choices and memories.  I miss my brother; but a very wise passage from a friend said that grief never ends; it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay, but aligned with the price of love.  Good night, John.  Millipedes and Christmastime, I think of you.  Sleep well, all.

Ain't it the truth!

Friday night in the early seventies meant heading over to my friend's apartment at eight, slapping on Mary Quant, Yardley, and Maybelline; she doused herself with Chantilly Lace which I thought smelled like baby powder.  I preferred Heaven Sent.  No flat irons were invented yet for hair, the thing to do was to lay your head on the ironing board and go at it with a real iron.  I used steam rollers with a metal core that would sizzle your fingers like hot dogs if you grabbed them wrong.  Eye drops to make your eyes bright, then individual lower lid eyelashes were painted on so they wouldn't be smudged by the rest of the construction.  No going out too early; if you were meeting friends at a bar, 11 p.m. was a pretty reasonable hour.

Depended on the bar.  Biker ones, stay out of there all together; preppy ones were filled with LLBean types; at Casey's, be ready to duck out fast as soon as you heard a beer bottle break; Nor-Tel's was an old bar with lounge music, and The Mug would have a band.

If you weren't with a crowd, wear shoes that you could run in, without any foo-foo girly lace ruffled nonsense that would trip you up.  Jeans were best; at the time embellishments included studs, embroidery, paint, sewn on trinkets, and moderate bell bottoms. Why run?  If some idiot lit up inside a public place, the police would be there in a heartbeat as at the time, the county was run by a man who would jail you if you were just sitting next to someone carrying; the wisest thing to do included evacuating the building the second you smelled weed and head to the next door hamburger joint for hot chocolate and french fries.  The whole thing was daring, jittering with the politics of impossibilities, devoid of progress, and gave an edge to life that you thought was reality.

Har de har har, Alice.

Nowadays, Friday night means switching to decaf by 4 p.m. so not to lay awake from a cup of tea's caffeine.  Maybe an early fish fry with friends, then home to jammies and a book or sketch pad.

I used to claim that those years were wasted youth, and there were better things I could have done, such as use the Regents scholarship I had won.  Well, there is truth in that, but the retrospective lens these decades later says something a bit kinder.  People waste time in churches as well as bars, in hothouses and laboratories.  Who did you harm, except yourself?  Hopefully no one, and most of all, you didn't give up.  You knew there was something out there for you to do along the way, even if it wasn't momentous; perhaps helping another living being whether it was cleaning cages at the museum's live animal exhibit, or singing carols at a nursing home.  Picking up a piece of litter.  Leaving a quarter on a railing somewhere.

I helped my friend for as long as I could, for I assigned myself the role of her guardian angel in exaggerated eyelashes.  It was a job I had performed like a seal at my parental home, trying to keep peace and save my Mom.  She wouldn't leave.  As I found my own way out, there was Nancy; seemingly self-assured and wild, but also owning a self-destructive streak that eventually killed her.  It gave me temporary purpose to be the one she trusted, but also partially filled my need to be needed.

That era of my life is basis for continued reflection; I didn't know where I was going then, but I can see the development of conviction, and even longer on, the knowledge to trust my own judgement, which was very hard when you are taught to turn the other cheek.  Don't you turn that face, but get your verbal left hook ready, and know when to leave; wear your sneakers.  I am wise.  I am focused.  I am aware of fallibility and how to get up and start again.  And again. And again. New discoveries happen every day; some I don't forget.  But tonight I have the word "RENT" inked on the back of my left hand, so I don't forget to hand in the check; I currently have bronchial mischief that makes my head hurt, and therefore the brain is battered and deep fried.    

The record for no snow has been broken here in the city of Buffalo, famous for lake effect storms.  If the lake does not freeze by the end of this month, we are primed for some wangdoodle-sized blizzards that will sock us in through March. The almanac predicts a cold, dry winter; but does that take a warm lake into account as storms sweep in from the west?  We shall see.  Shake out the blankets, you are all right.  Take stock of yourself, see the good you have done, and don't worry, dear hearts.  Sleep well, sometimes courage is a slow process.

This Grocery and Sedation

This grocery represents the higher-end offerings in this town; the patisserie has desserts seemingly created by a 3D printer and does not blush at $7 a cupcake.  The meats are individually packaged in a sheet of plastic wrap that graduated from college.  Produce speaks correct English, and the frozen food section knows the Pledge of Allegiance.  You may enter the beer section if you have a passport; and the service folks are super super friendly as if you were the one they wanted the most at their birthday because you can make animal shapes with your hands.  I can make a shark, a dragon, and a crab.  But I'm worried.

I am currently sitting in a cold puddle of water on the couch which leaked from the melty ice pack for my stitches.  Last night, I slept sitting up in the IKEA Poang with a bag of frozen spinach on my head after putting the bag in a ziploc taped with paper towels.  Chopped spinach is more pliant than frozen peas, and molds more accurately to the terrain involved.  As is my nature, I refuse defeat concerning household objects, thus I now sit damply, stubbornly, convinced that the water is evaporating faster because of my angry brain powers sizzling it away.  Pray I do not alter you further, damned water.

Of course it isn't drying quicker, but you see, the cat on the pillow would have to move if I took the dry part, necessary for the power cord to reach this laptop.  So I sit, not admitting that the semi-wet cushion bothers me, nor that waiting for ice cubes to form in my inner-plastic-doored refrigerator freezer takes a glacial age but for crying out loud, I use ice cubes like I use business sense, which is next to never.  But they do well in medical science, better than the chipped-off with a steak knife foamy ice which forms inside the manual defrost freezer unless you defrost it every week, which HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  You see.  This formation of puffy ice is a notch below frozen cut green beans, which are listed beneath frozen peas, which are topped by the frozen spinach. Real ice cubes are the pinnacle, with crushed ice as manna from the gods in an ice pack.  Buy some from the store?  I am NOT going outside as I can't lift anything heavier than five pounds and if anyone saw me, they'd get a shovel to thwack my ass.  I look like something the dog dug up and rolled in.

But back to this grocery, you needed some background as to the mood of victorious rebellion associated with stubborn tenacity, as well as the fact that the intravenous sedation had some seriously glorious Versed, a benzosomethingorother that induces not only drowsiness but amnesia so you forget  the pain that occurred during procedure except I remember that part, prilocaine, bupivacine, candicaine, and michaelcaine.  I'm still on the good ship lollipop, and look forward to further safe landings over the next three days, when I go back to work with two weeks of lesson plans and restructuring a ten page APPR due Monday.  Pass the Versed.  Maybe I can hide in the freezer, now that the built up ice has been chopped out.

Holidays are a nuisance.  Holidays can go eff themselves.  That's another story, one that you probably won't hear.  However, I knew that the building I live in would have turkeys roasting in ovens, and the aroma would bring back desire of a day when my Mom and brother were here, and we would enjoy what she prepared.  I was at the fantastical food grocery, getting post-surgery food (dark chocolate Dove squares, the foil wrapped ones with little messages inside..."Keep them guessing,"  Right. Go sit on a flagpole, you self-congratulating twee morons and make these things bigger); inside a refrigerated case there were individual meals of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, a vegetable, gravy and cranberry relish.  Why not?  A slice of roast turkey is as good as a band aid in some sitches, so I grabbed one and parked it in the home fridge.

Now, another sideline of the anesthesia is that I think there was a muscle relaxant in there so I couldn't flail at the doctor when that little bit near the tail end starting to hurt in real time.   There was snipping and sewing and a smell of burnt me.  But this relaxant has produced nausea, and when I cough, which is often, my bladder says hello, nursing home! and does a little soft shoe.  The past two days have been filled with sleeping, watching movies in a daze, and cutting pet pads into strips.  Go ahead and laugh; I am, as life lessons continue to emerge from corporate candy wrappers. "Accept a compliment", "Sweep them off their feet", "#Ignore hashtags".  Every movie I have watched is The Best Movie that I have seen in years.  I buy them and don't watch them, so there is catching up to do.  Zoolander.  Loved it.  The Bridesmaids. Almost blew out a stitch.   Good times, I was looking forward to the small clamshell tray of giving-in waiting in the fridge.

Welp, I opened it and a whiff that said industrial floor disinfectant slapped out; whoa.  Mayybeee heating it up will help.  This shop has a good rep for prepared food; everything looked nice except for the gray, gooey eggplant as part of the vegetable corpse medley.  A zap in the nuclear reactor, and bam!  It smelt godawful, as if these turkeys were raised in the Post War forties, injected with soap, then frozen and shipped from South America to a warehouse run by unhousebroken walruses.  It Did Not Taste the least bit like turkey.  The potatoes were okay, the cranberry relish was made by angry quasi-religious church people who enjoy suffering as penance, and the vegetables came from an armpit.  I was disappointed but was not going to let them win and so ate all of it, dammit.  Kai happily ate some turkey, so I'm guessing I'm still visiting the Beebleberry Patch; better go cut more pet pads.

The worry comes from why did I eat something that tasted dangerously awful?  Did I want something more to keep me occupied?  Am I going to grow a tail from radium-tainted turkey, or end up in hell for being critical of the scraped from between dead bodies' toes relish?  If anything, it made me feel oogy but probably did me good with getting something in there.

I remember few of the images when semi-sedated: yellow explosions of broccoli shapes which grew into fractals, then becoming yellow crossword puzzles.  Little bits, pieced together, square by square.  The best part was the cab ride there, just after 6 a.m.; the full moon was setting, deeply orange and hovering through bands of clouds just above the horizon.  I am thankful for these images, as ancient as theory says, 4.5 billion years.  It will continue on after all the leaves have left the trees, after we pull our windows closed and have curtains drawn.

Don't you worry, it all works out in the very very end.  Sleep well, without spinach.

One

When I first moved to this apartment, it was enclosed by pine trees on the streets surrounding.  The place was and is a galley style, situated as all of them are, on one of the long arms of the building's design.  The inside corners of the X shape have an updraft of sorts.  Leaves, birds, and plastic bags often are caught in this current to be pushed upwards, past my window to where the current dissipates at the roofline.

One late summer, I noticed two butterflies, ragged-edged wings, dark; I am guessing Mourning Cloaks.  Anyways, they were caught in the updraft, whirling around each other till they were past the window; I thought perhaps a pair had gotten swept up in the small vortex created by the wind.  Accident.

But then, five minutes later, there they were again, circling around, fluttering up, seemingly facing each other in this carousel flight.  Really?  And again.  They kept this up for minutes, apparently descending the drafts to below, then catching a ride.  Were they playing?  They seemed intent on each other, weaving in and out of flight patterns while performing this dance.

But, this carried on all summer, usually around five in the evening and I began to look for them, mystified by what this was.  Catching the cornered breeze and riding it, with a crazily orchestrated bounce around each other.  Were they friends or even the same pair?  Was this sharing play?  A demonstration of what's inside a butterfly's mind?  How could we ever tell, for who here has ever been a butterfly or knows what a butterfly thinks?  It opened a lot of questions, but at the time I was tapping out my useless research papers on the possibility of measuring creativity, what defines creativity, how can it be applied to a business model; all I wanted was to watch the butterflies, the ones who loved each other, demonstrated by interactive wind sailing.

Go back to 1956; my mother's stomach was growing and she began wearing loose blousing.  A baby was on the way.  Baby?  Someone else is coming to live with us?  A human baby?  Not much was said, no preparations that I noticed were made, it was all invisible.  I don't remember a crib, blankets, cards, nothing except that one day I was packed off to go stay with my beloved Aunt Dorie back in the city with cousins Stevie and Ginny, and that Mom was having the baby.

Several days after, my parents reappeared to pick me up, with Mom holding a wrapped bundle and a joyous expression.  My father was happy, a rarity.

"Come see the baby! You have a new brother!" A brother?  Another person?  Forgive my ignorance, I was five, aware of who I was and that things were fine, but religiously kept out of the mysteries of life.  I never liked dolls, and here was one that squeaked.  I ran.  Aunt Dorie came and got me.  March.

I was supposed to be a boy, a first born son.  Dad was disappointed, taught me how to bat, catch, bought me toy guns, a Zorro outfit.  I was not allowed girl things, for that would make me grow up to work the streets.  No bubble bath, it had to be Spic 'n Span in the tub.  I was so clean I was red.  Piney-fresh.  My father hated women, and had beaten them up more than once.  I am surprised there was never any jail time from the stories he told, but then, perhaps they were stories designed to scare us.  They did.

But here was John, a brand-new start, and things finally were right; I was not allowed near the baby, no feeding him, no changing diapers, I was shooed into another room when Dad was home.  My brother grew and was allowed to eat at the dinner table; I was given my plate of food onto a spread newspaper on the living room floor in front of the television.  I complained too much at the table and made my father angry, was the reason.  I ate from the floor until I was in my teens, then was graduated to a t.v. table.  Eventually, John was relegated to the living room as well, when he was big enough that he had opinions.

John was given anything and everything a boy could want; he was a nice kid, gentle, but overwhelmed by the demands of sonhood.  He was supposed to be the best on the baseball team; he wasn't.  The Scouts; he hung in the background.  A fishing boat was bought to take him out on the lake, a swimming pool put up for him to swim.  A Siberian husky that no one knew what to do with, so it was kept outside, chained to a doghouse stuffed with straw.  No housebreaking or training because eleven year old Johnny was supposed to do that, and the poor kid hadn't a clue or the desire to go against Dad's wishes for the dog to stay outside.  It was a sweet dog, touted by Dad as being "half wolf".  Tell me where the hell the farmer would find a wolf in Western New York, but the hypermasculine idea was a great selling point.

I had developed friends elsewhere, it was boggling to see, once we moved to the suburbs, how other people lived.  Ozzie and Harriet were not a myth, Ozzie was not a "pansy" like my father said, but they were my friend's fathers.  If they spoke to me, or asked me questions, I squirmed out a one-word answer as best as I could.  My brother and I grew further apart, he was given a bicycle and once he figured that out, visited his own friend's homes, or would go on long rides with them and their fishing poles.  Dad was jealous.  I could fall off the earth, but John was the next Seabiscuit, the breadwinner.  He was supposed to be home a certain number of hours a day.  The toll of being the Son of Sons had started a wheel of John not knowing what to do or when; conflicted when Dad plied him with money for doing jobs around the house.  He knew he wanted to be elsewhere, out with the guys; but being able to buy metal cars or football cards was pretty great, besides the praise from Dad.

John literally couldn't make a decision; as he aged, fights arose as parental control went down the drain.  My brother was frightened of many things, but did develop a solid network of friends from down the street whom he hung out with until they got jobs or went into the military.  Then John was stuck, back in the clutches of Dad, who had saved money for John's college.  I had moved out by then and had even less contact with him; my Mom would talk to me on the phone, or I would visit and see my brother watching television, his hands shaking.  He wanted no part of more schooling.

My father got him into the heat-treating plant that he worked at; John lasted a few months then developed mono that nearly cost him his life.  He lived at home, doing errands for my parents, who were just as happy to hold onto him; my mother for the sake of having someone to talk to, my father who still held onto the dream of the son who mastered everything without permission to go find out what everything was.  I married, moved to Florida, Chicago, had a baby myself, and would sometimes see John when he drove my Mom over to visit.

We talked, he asked me if things ever got better, how did I develop the independence that was riddled with guilt for him?  I told him yes it did get better, and that he needed a job, go fill out applications and see.  If it took a time for him to get on his feet, so what?  Get out of that house, Mom and Dad will be okay without you being there 24 hours.  If you can get in the car and go grocery shopping for them, you can find a job that will give you a new group of friends, and get you going in a better direction.

He went through a few minor jobs, and eventually landed one at the local hospital in the cafeteria as a server.  He was proud of himself as life sped up, and looked forward to going to work, especially as he met someone who turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.  He tried out and got the job of cleaning surgical instruments, did that for a year or two then was downsized. Lost the job, foundered about, except now he was married to the magical girl who gave him confidence and support.      

A job at the Holding Center appeared, and provided a salary with decent benefits but something was happening where he was getting weaker and in pain.  Iron poisoning?  No.  Turned out to be systemic lupus, which causes benign lumps to form in the body; he had one taken out an inch away from his heart.  What? Why didn't you tell me?  But I knew why, we loved each other but lived in different worlds and he never wanted to bother anyone with his problems.  Growing older made both of us realize that neither of us had it easy, that I had dealt with the sadness of being pushed away by making my own life early on; that he had pushed through the bizarre expectations and fantastical demands and come out on the other side, mostly.  He was expected to call Dad every day to see if "he needed anything" and still run their errands.  But, John was happy, happy with what he and his wife had built; a family of two girls, a house, a cat, and a life he could call his.  Things were great.

Then, he got thyroid cancer, a different kind than I had, and it spread through his body to the point that it was dissolving the bones in his pelvis.  He couldn't walk for months, entered a clinical trial and it worked a miracle.  The cancer had made it into his parotid glands, but was being held stable.  Not remission, but no new spots came for at least five years after the initial growth had metastasized.  He got so he could walk again; they went to Disney World, and devoted themselves to their girls.

Two summers ago, a tumor showed up on the frontal lobe of his brain, where social decisions are made.  He went off the hook, blaming the wife for infractions, wanting to move out, she won't let me get a motorcycle.  Gamma knife radiation was successful, but in order to do that procedure, he had to go off the clinical medication.  Cells were gone, life calmed; but this year, another tumor, again the gamma radiation, again success.  About a month ago, he went in for the three month checkup, and cancer cells had gone through his meninges, the membrane that holds the brain.  Seizures started.  He spent three weeks in hospital, came home on a Wednesday, and died Thursday, when one last seizure took him away.

His service was yesterday.  I was able to meet many of his boyhood friends, coworkers, and my sister-in-law's family; he was well liked, loved.  His two girls were there, one in her last year of high school, the other in seventh grade; they both stood by their mother, holding her hands as the sermon was read before the small box that now contained the remains of my brother.

He had happiness and love, he was not handed his independence, but had to fight for it.  We were not close; months and years would go by without contact, yet each phone call ended with an I love you.  How can a brother and sister be in the same house but so far apart?  There was no cohesiveness; I was the enemy to the end, bequeathed one dollar in my father's will.  I was allowed to play card games or Monopoly with John, but nothing that would have encouraged closeness.

But, you see, there were these two butterflies that played in the spinning updraft of wind, dancing in circles, watching the other rise through fluttering wings, headed for open sky.

Sleep well for me, for yourself, for the world around you.  Good night.

True

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Sunrisen Rose

These fall mornings begin before morning light, when the sky is changing from midnight to dull chalk blue. Slowly, the horizon blazes with an effusion of edged gold; then the mortar and pestle of the universe grinds rose petals into a radiant paste.  A celestial thumb swashes it across the sky in a band of vibrance, abundant with the petals of all the pink roses that that have dissolved into heaven's fire through terran centuries, from the first rose to the ones scattered on yesterday's waves for remembrance.  

Soon it will happen that many humans will leave for their jobs in the dark, like crepuscular hunters, aware of streetlights while vigilant for pedestrians.  A day's work, and in winter's shortened time, they will be cloaked in scurrying night at the hour of return.  Dark to dark.  You can get bogged down in the cold air, compounded by memories of the sun, birds, gardens, toads, and clear pathways.  But we have the autumn to slow down northern life first, to sweep away the butterflies, pull leaves from branches; to provide us with harvest for putting aside, and it's an early one this year, according to the crops being brought in by the farmers of the Southern Tier.  This week is a trip to Michigan, then the eleventh of October is the fortuitous wedding of Brian and Dana, in a park amid changing trees and squirrels carrying acorns.

But for now, there are autumn days to go for a drive begun by a sunrise of voluptuous color; yesterday there was a cloud shaped like a plume, an ostrich feather illuminated by celestial combustion against a blue sky.  Bright red burnished with gold highlights, an exploding fountain.  A nice way to say good morning.

Because I am on the east side of the building, I rarely see sunset unless outside, but the colors of the city buildings change with the angle of sun, from yellow to orange, pink to rose, violet to dark blue.   Once dark arrives, the orange glow of artificial light makes everything appear to be dipped in orange Kool-Aid powder; I hear that there is change coming for a more normal, less expensive form of lighting, and I will welcome it.

After some packing, there will be tea, some reading, and bed.  Tomorrow I bake more cookies with Dorian at the temple, tomorrow will bring more plans and scheduling.  Let the evening dark come and wash away the sun, which is busy setting as the planet rotates.  Somewhere it is time to say good night.  Rest well.

Planetary Ride

Vibrations wavered into a metallic buzzing, becoming loud as a machine, a power saw, a hammer drill.  At first, I surmised it was the crew working on the Skyway, they've been doing repairs and even on a Sunday, Buffalo business pushes forward.

Then it got louder.  Cats ran, plants shrunk in their pots, spiders hung "Gone for the Day" signs and melted into crevices.  I'd better investigate before the floor shifts into a crazy slant and spills us forward into the trees.  The open kitchen window was the source of this incredibly loud cacophony; dishes were rattling, cracks into the wall widened, then something flew away from the sill.  A cicada. One of those immense chubs of bug that you hear singing and buzzing in summer, mostly up in trees. When right on your windowsill, it sounds like the army is sawing the brick building down with a toothed machine that chews up asphalt for repaving while grinding up Buicks.

I had been on my way to the exposed digging pits to get a few more brachiopods before this air raid siren scared a bag of fur off the cats.  The rock hammer, a trowel, and a metal bucket with a few paper towels for more fragile specimens: ready Freddy.  I was after the spiriferids, a species that has two pointed ends like wings, and a longitudinal groove in the middle of the shell.  These aren't molluscs, even though they look like it from the outside; they anchored themselves with a pedicule, so it looked like a shell growing from the top of a stem. I haven't studied it much, but apparently the gizzards were constructed completely opposite to current bivalves.

It was lovely out, overcast with a slight drizzle; a family with three or four boys was shoveling through mounds, it was hard to tell how many kids because they kept moving.  Fossils!  Here's a fossil!  LOOK A FOSSIL!  They came over to see what I was doing and approved, earning a specimen each for their enthusiasm.  LOOK WHAT THE LADY GAVE US!!  I told them it would bring good luck on their homework.

An hour later, I had about fifty in the bucket, with a few translucent shells wrapped carefully; this is amazing, that not all of them fossilize.  Some remain the same material, calcium carbonate, shut away from deterioration by the soft, muddy shale; frightfully delicate, but holding something 400 million years old is incredible, and causes your brain to grow twelve new synapses in trying to understand the immensity of time, life, and small critters scuttering around in mud under a tropical ocean.  These animals rode the tectonic plate from it's site below the dingdang equator, for heaven's sake, up to where it is now called Western New York State and next weekend is the Wing Fest.

Panthalassa, the "Universal Ocean",  covered the planet with most land masses hanging around the South Pole.  Things were moving, and over the millions of years, continents collided, joined, formed mountains, or disappeared.  We are still moving, I forget in what direction, but in the far future I believe the people of Los Angeles will be able to take a bus down the road to Shanghai, China.  This whole beast of North America will plod and swim it's way half across the Pacific Ocean, carrying with it the buildings, sunflower fields, trains, grocery markets, livestock, and people who have no idea that they are going for a ride.  Tell them, at least the Americas North and South, that they are moving at about one inch per year and you may get a look of indignation.  People resist change.  They like to think that they own their backyards.

Antarctica is fairly stationary at the axis, it moves very little; Africa and Australia go a bit faster at 2 - 4 cm per year, but the zoomiest continent is India, as it sits on a bubble of hot magma and furthermore, is half the thickness of the other pieces of Gondwana which broke apart.  It's like a stone skipping across the water, and 150 million years ago, was careening along at 20 cm per year.  7.87402 inches, folks.  It's still the fastest moving chunk, but has slowed down to between 5-9 cm from the pressure of the Himalayas, which are still rising.  By the by, that pretty in pink Himalayan salt that they scrape from the tops of the mountains was once a saline ocean, the Tethys Sea. What makes it pink is the sandstone layer of land that was periodically flooded by the Tethys, and it now sits in a glass jar on the fancy grocery shelf.  Just make sure you get your iodine, there's a rise in deficiencies from people using uniodized sea salt. Look up what it causes; you need iodine.  Need.

So, millions of years and cicada sirens, where does it put you?  Well, maybe it gives you a better grasp of where we are headed, a bit ahead of the analysis in the constant change, growth, and awareness conversation.  Something to think about; nothing ever stays the same, and while you can't deliberately put the brakes on an agile continent smashing into the Asian plate, you can offer your two cents in the next debate on future cities.  Build them at least five miles inland, so they don't end up in an embellished glass jar of salt in the gourmet section of Zaphod Beeblebrox's Milky Way Mart.  If you like your cicadas dipped in chocolate and served at Roman banquets, I will be more than happy to argue in favor of the turbulent noise they produce, as a necessary part of insect perseverance in jolting human sagacity.  It's all the same thing; enjoy the ride, be nice to your surrounding organisms.  Lend a hand.

Fossils are washed and drying, tools wiped, buckets rinsed.  Time for turning in on this whirling ball, so intricate in it's mysteries, so connected as we are to each other.  The night is cool, and several spiders have wriggled through the ragged screen in the bathroom, setting their nets in a bugless realm.  There is that cicada corpse in the bug museum; if I plopped that into the web, I am sure tiny screams of joy would echo no louder than a single drop of water. Plink!  We dine like kings!

Sleep on, sleep well.  Paddle through the curtains, there are stories on the other side.  Good night.

Summer Field

Even the furrows would be dry, and a wealth of dusty soil would expand itself into the air when you pulled weeds.  Weeds are tough, the taproot of a dandelion goes deep, wild chicory even more tenacious.  Plantain was easy, but outnumbered the rest.  If I was smart, Mom's trowel would have been with me, but, most of the time I was snagged by Auntie Anne, who promised a Spanish peanut cookie if you pulled a row.  She would come out and check; they were very good cookies.

So I pulled weeds from the green beans, carrots, and cucumber vines; the corn outgrew the other plants, so it wasn't necessary to clean around the stalks.  As a kid, you're closer to the ground anyway, but not strong enough to pull the most stubborn of mustard plants.  They fought; in fact one knocked me out cold.

The stem was growing out of a crick, over which a plank had been placed for access to the back fields. I was picking flowers to give to my Mom, and the yellow blossoms would have rounded out a meager bouquet.  Standing on the plank, I grabbed and pulled and pulled.  Nothing; this thing's roots were held fast by an underground giant.  After working at the stem, the giant's wife must have called him to a supper of fee-fie-fo-fum bonebread, for suddenly the entire plant came up from the clay bed that it had been hanging onto.

Released, the force of pulling tossed me backwards, and the next I knew was blackness just before my eyes opened to birds flying above in the blue sky.  My palms were bloodied with grey slivers of wood from the old board, and I yelled murder as Mom took tweezers and needle to remove what she could.

Auntie Anne's vegetable garden was huge, dug up by my Uncle Termite's tractor, and, being ground, the earth would catch me when I toppled.  Working down the row, you met new friends.  Guess who was the one to pick up toads, because when you do, they let go with a flood of urine.   Toad pee.  You hook them under their arms and hold them away from you, preferably in the direction of a  cousin.  Once that's over, they blink and would rather be on the  ground; however, hold them gently and they settle into your warm hand.  Pretty forgiving, toads.

Ladybugs, grasshoppers, snakes, rocks, and caterpillars; sometimes a preying mantis, that most Confucian of insects.  Confucius say, cricket sing once; now sing in my belly.  A mantid will buzz through an exoskeleton like it was a pretzel stick.  I saw one eat the head off of a struggling cricket, hold the still flapping body like an ice cream cone, and delight in the creamy, greeny-brown goosh inside.  These are ferocious beings; once upon a barn, I witnessed an indignant mantid strike a defensive ninja pose with a cat.  The cat wasn't truly after the thing, but was curious to play with it to death.  I scooted the fuzzer, and moved the small demitasse to a safer spot in the bushes, so the cat wouldn't get its pride hurt.

Sticky with dirt and plant sap after pulling a row, I would have earned a cookie and a carrot to have. Never washed it, but wiped most of the soil off, and agreed with my cousin that carrots taste best with a bit of dirt in the crevices.  Come again tomorrow, my aunt would say;  I'd make sure that I was someplace else, at least until the blisters went away.  Yet, eating a garden-fresh carrot is unparalleled to anything a grocery can offer; the varieties available from seed are tenderer, sweeter, and sometimes grow legs, as recently happened to a friend.  I wonder if she ever heard wee footsteps out the backdoor.

I am old enough to remember that fruits and vegetables came in seasons; you could get strawberries only once a year, the same with peaches, asparagus, or any other succulent produce.  It was a treat to slice into the first melon, slice strawberries with sugar, have that first ear of corn; you did yourself proud because it would soon end.  This morning, I had a tomato for breakfast; just chunked it up and ate it with a fork.  It was delicious and full of summer, but not quite the epitome of tomatoes.  The season is just starting to rev up in the northeast, and almost nothing says it's hot, the green leaves are out, and birds are singing like a tomato.  Unless it's corn.  There's a farmer at the market who is known for his corn, and sells out before half the morning has gone by.  Why, yes, I think I changed the vote to corn on the cob.

But sit on the backsteps and spit watermelon seeds into the grass in hopes of growing miracle vines in a week when you're a kid.  I've become dainty (sort of) and now spoon seeds onto a plate or stick to seedless.  Rosy red juice, flesh eaten as far down into the white rind as you could; pure fun.  Nowadays we dissect reasons to eat sweet fruit, and concoct rosters of pros and cons.  High sugar content, sure; but rich in Vitamins A and C, antioxidants, potassium, and fiber, and it isn't even a fruit.  Related to  cucumbers, pumpkins, and squashes; the cucurbits, a watermelon is part of the gourd family.  Still going with corn as the favorite, which is not a vegetable either, but a grain.  So much isn't what we called it.

Watermelon at twilight, watching the sun go down, then throw your paper plate into the fire.  I miss my Auntie Anne; Uncle Termite, not so much.  The kids would run around, swat at mosquitoes, and catch fireflies in a jar.  Go in for a bath and scrub off, get to bed and listen to night sounds.  Large moths banging against the screened windows, raccoons squalling at each other, owls, bullfrogs, farm dogs barking, lost cows echoing into the dark, and a far, far away train whose tracks went through the wood, sounding a singular, piercing, heart-wrenching, wavering call as it neared the intersection with a country road.  In the morning, split hoof footprints would be in the mud, telling of silent deer; the smaller paws told of fox and weasel, sometimes decorated with chicken feathers from Wuller's hens.

The sun is setting sooner, we have passed midsummer and are rejoicing in the beginning harvest of the summer crops.  Don't let them pass without indulging, it feeds earth into you with minerals, iron, potassium, copper; it fills you with sun through the vitamins and chlorophyll produced by light from a star.  Hear the planets rotate and revolve, in spite of the vacuum of airless space, they hum; our own, Terra, has the rumble of tectonic plates, the singing of our magnetic fields, the crush of ocean waves colliding, the sizzling crackle of the Borealis; tuck under the covers and dream of songs. Listen to rains over summer fields.  Good night.

Uncle God

While digging about on Ancestry.com, the genealogical website which accesses millions of records in a flash, I have found that I have membership in several families. While revelations can be misconstrued or mislabeled, it pleases me to think that my mother was related to history in terms and names found in books. My father treated her as though he had rescued a mouse who had been run over by his bicycle, and that would pitifully limp about while he shook the shoebox and yelled at it to get better.

She thought she was nothing.  A mistake.  From the age of two, when I understood not so much who he was, but had decided that this angry man who came home around dinner time should find someplace else to go, find another family to bother as if any other group of people would welcome an unpredictable knot of problems into their midst.  Oh sure, they might say, come on in, we don't have enough frustration and demeaning remarks, there should be more.  Would you like to throw a plate? Nooo, you're not really drunk or volatile; we understand. Have another beer, what about a sandwich?  No, it's not a plate of hot food. Whoa! You missed that time; here, try for the wall.  Every freaking day.

I have little access to records of his parentage, and it would be helpful if I knew the languages of his immigrant family who didn't seem to know what to do with him, either.  Most of them were quiet, gentle, humorous people who seemed to have landed from an entirely different planet based on food, where candy was kept in cedar chests, there were always hard anise cookies, and they were so glad to see you, a parade was announced for the neighborhood.  Daj buzie.  Except for the fact that the neighbors remembered my father, and would look at us kids and Mom with pathos bordering on panic as if they wanted to say, run, run for your lives!  

So, digging through Mom's lines, according to Ancestry, has supplied a number of surprises that arrive like pop-up book pages on a flat screen.  First of all, there is very little if any German, the family takes a turn into France where generations did things like bake for Napoleon's army, or maybe burn villages.  Her family came from the Netherlands, Wales, Scotland, Finland, and Norway, places I had not heard that were connected to us, with names that seemed mythical as if her fairy godmother tinked her in the head with a sparkler and said, Look where you came from.

The Folgers who started the coffee business, Hamilton Fish, a Secretary of State; Ben Franklin, Henry the VIII, the Plantagenets, Mayflower Pilgrims, the colonist Robert Hunter, and the King of Castile were behind Dorothy Mae.  This was getting fantastic to me, that world history was entwined through my grandmother, who believed in the curative powers of cabbage and wieners.

I am still in the process of finding relatives and bloodlines, yet have started questioning the validity of Ancestry.  Now, this is how it works: they present the records, you are the one to match dates and names and boy howdy, you can tell when a handwritten record was deciphered into various dates by guessing what shape that number was supposed to be.  Fives become sixes, sevens look like ones, so as far as dates go, pick the one that makes sense and aligns with the family having children. People appear after their parents were beyond child-bearing years, or as replacements named after an earlier sibling who died.  It gives me a headache, and after an hour of who did what to who, the whole thing gets tangled into a ball of worms.

Clarity is key, yet as you and I know, clarity is as tangible and real as a blue sky; once humans open their mouths or write down a record, it becomes fabulous and suited to the purveyor's background; frogs and toads jumping out of people's throats makes more sense.  So, here I am delving amid the Tewdyrw Welsh, imagining everyone speaking like Richard Burton and wearing doublets.  Back, back, another set of parents, another set of parents, it's the 700's, another set of parents, keep going, how the heck do they know who was who; now it's the 300's and a Roman-sounding name pops up.  Tacticus Tegid of Britain.  Well, let's follow Tacticus and see where he came from; already his name had stood out among the dd's and y's that Welsh names are rife with, but now all the vowels are floating off as if those people had one typewriter with 18 broken keys.    

Gwyrddofen Ap Amwerydd is my 58th great grandfather from the year 79 A.D.,
and I wonder how the heck they know that for weren't things written rarely, on rocks?  I hear a ka-ching as Ancestry takes my $20 for the month and gleefully spins a cache of pingpong balls with vowel-less names taken from Neolithicity and You to toss at my curiosity.  But I am going to get my twenty bucks worth of research for the month and plug onward.

About 70 A.D., things get magical, as if the Lucky Charms leprechaun had jumped off the box of cereal and granted me three wishes plus a pot of gold doubloons.  By this time, I am guessing I am talking to sheep or a smart turnip. But a name turns up with a "Ben" in the middle, Avallach Ben Llud, meaning the son of Llud; now, getting ready for a Jewish wedding as our family is, I have learned a lot about Judaism and the significance of names.  Avallach is the son of Beli Llud Mawr, King of the Britons, who had married Anna of Arimathea; they had met in Rome, and Beli invited the Roman Christians to come visit Britain. Anna, accordingly, is the daughter of Joseph Ben Matthat of Arimathea by his first wife, his brother's widow Escha.  

Her sister is Mary the Blessed Mother.  She's my 66th great aunt.  Jesus is my first cousin, 67 times removed.  What really stirred my soup is that clicking on Mary's family members says, in print, that Heavenly God the Father was one of her husbands and that He is my 66th great grand uncle.   Birth, Omnipresent; Death, Omnipresent.

It must be remembered that Ancestry is Christian-based, that the Mormons believe that your family life is eternal, and part of their faith is to help everyone find out where they came from.  So listing God, (on the site it's GOD, like he's yelling at you), seems like valid fact.  If they had listed dust from the Alpha Centauri system as a far-off grandparent, I would be no less surprised.  I will tell you now that I am not Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist; there is someone out there, that I believe, and I guess the closest thing you could say is that I'm agnostic.  Having God for an uncle makes me uncomfortable, like there should be Old Testament carvings above my door to keep the Angel of Death satisfied that no Egyptians are within.

I was steeped, fermented, aged, and packed in the styrofoam of Catholicism which keeps people isolated and away from other religions.  After going to my friend's Episcopalian choir practice, my father made me go to confession, where the priest asked if I learned anything, if I did, to forget about it, and not to do it again.  Jews were a historical Biblical tribe that followed Moses through the desert for forty years; picture my shock when finding out the kid I sat next to in homeroom was Elias Bernstein, a Jew. A real Jew that wasn't mummified or wearing breastplates; he was more concerned with his scores in the school's Golf Club.  Wow, I thought as I brushed by him, I touched a real Jew.

Now the scheme is about finding the validity of this genealogical adventure; yes, these were real people, yes they had families.  Jesus is listed as having a wife and children.  Why not?  These families had descendants, which must be in the billions, but if you have had similar results, please let me know.  It is just too weird, as if a dog had showed up at my door with a human leg in it's mouth.

But the clincher is this: my religious fanatic father, who made Mr. T's necklaces seem paltry compared with all the medals, scapulars, and rosaries that he wore around his own neck; my father who made me go to confession when he found out I ate a hot dog on a Friday, this man who ranted about purity, the Blessed Mother, had everything blue because that was supposedly the color of her cloak, not because he was red/green colorblind; and railed about my Mom's lack of religious fervor, was actually living with a descendant of Mary, who I can guess wouldn't put up with his weekly breaking of household objects.  I still cannot stand anything blue; even if the cat throws up Super Supper, it's a better color than blue.  There are times when I look at the sky and am grateful for the rose and gold sunset. Turquoise, okay.  Close to purple, fine.  Royal blue makes my stomach ache.
 
My son has instructed me that under no circumstances am I to reveal a Jewish thread to his future father-in-law, who would dance on tables and crow joyously if Bri had a drop of Jew in him through me, his mother.  I went back farther, and the names Moses, Noah, Aaron, and Kohen blink back at me, as well I do at them.  Brian is wearing a yarmulke for the orthodox ceremony, I am trying to get him to wear a kilt with the Coburn plaid, which would be honoring my Mom, in a way.  Perfectly.

How can you manage everything that you are supposed to remember? It's suppertime in the Western Hemisphere, and I think a hot dog would be just enough, even though it's not Friday.  I'll remember things tomorrow, there's enough going on today.

You are the descendant of everything that has existed upon this spinning sphere, for it is said that all life generated from the dust of passing comets, meteorites, the clouds of ammonia and nitrogen that first resided in our first atmosphere. The planet formed when gases and dust from the explosion spun and congealed; that spinning increased as when a skater pulls in their arms and now we have night and day.  Water came; biology entered, crawled onto the rocks, and hissed at the other creatures emerging, probably fought over whose castle was whose, and became fanged.  Perhaps this has gone on for epochs, the tides rising and falling still older than anything.

Be kind, be nice.  That's all.  It's the best I can remember to do, I am not getting lariated into anyone's beliefs, nor tragic malarkey regarding stepping on cracks, breaking your mother's back and thus ending up in hell.  If it works for you, fine; as long as it keeps you on a balance beam of self-awareness and of the impact it may have on others different than you.  There will be surprises along the way, just do the best you can.

Sleep well, the summer air is warm but not intolerable, making for a memory of people taking blankets up on flat roof or outside in the grass to sleep.  The sky is melting into the symphony of colors presented at the end of each clear day, beginning with yellow golds reflected upon the downtown skyline.  Pick up a book and read, write a note for a future friend; piece together puzzles that tell you who you are; then let it go, a sylph caught on a breath of evening.  It's a story that floats through layers of time, whose stratification dissolves when you turn the pages of your life.  Good night.

Slow Your Going

This morning a dashing young friend told of a favorite bicycle ride that they would take, straight down a country road; well that wasn't the end of it.  They live amid farmhouses and large tracts of land, now growing green in a riot of summer; a bicycle ride will clear your head if only because you are breathing more oxygen to pump those leg muscles.  Some of this clarifying elixir may make it to your brain, and create a stronger alertness, sharpen colors, and bestow the olfactory senses of a pointer.

I would ride my bike down my street when I was nine, and particularly during autumn notice what everyone was cooking for dinner that night.  Knocking on the door would have not been out of the question; pot roasts simmered, chickens roasted, pork and sauerkraut wafted from the Clementowski's house.  The cool air just at the end of a fall afternoon honed the kitchen incense into a salt and pepper symphony; by the time my bike turned up the driveway, I had enjoyed each household's offerings as if I were a guest.

Prior to living in the town with sidewalks and nearby stores, we had lived in an area with maybe four neighbors stretched out by miles and half miles, ending with a sheep farm and a quarry at one end, dairy farms and cornfields at the other.  The story of the country bicycle ride tuned my fork, as it were, for, sure; a bicycle ride out where little traffic exists is exhilarating, mid green things and occasional hundred year old trees, but.  This rider did not stay on the road, they got off the bike and walked it over fields and clods of plowed furrows to a copse, to sit and breathe, to listen to birdsong.  What caught my own memory was that as they tramped over the field's rough ground, they looked for things "of interest".

Me too.  I didn't sit in the woods, not brave enough alone; but through any of the acres of land surrounding our house, I looked, and you learn about things by first looking.  Toads, spitbugs, grasshoppers, fluff from a mother rabbit to make a nest for her kits; a woodchuck skull, snakeskin, an empty shell from a wood snail; goatsbeard, teasels, butterfly weed, milkweed pods, elf dock, purple asters; fossils from Devonian oceans, obsidian, gneiss, quartzite; feathers, wooly bear caterpillars, garter snakes, corn snakes, coachwhips and rat snakes that looked large enough to entwine both my seven year old self and the bike.  Snakes were okay, the sudden movement would startle, but then the patterns or reflection of light off undulating scales would fascinate.

The abundance of life was taken for granted, for that is how it was and in my small head, the way it would be forever.  Now I know better, through invasive species pushing the natives out of the way, through the development of farmland to town to city or manufacturing plant.  Where I lived is now a headquarters for National Fuel; a godawful drag race track is now the other side of the woods, and NiMo has installed the stilted monsters that carry powerlines from Niagara Falls to the east coast.  The ground cherries are gone, the wild raspberries also; the price of the land escalated, turning the dairy farms into upper crust cul-de-sacs.  No more mooing from a lost cow in the night, no more fresh, cold water from the natural spring on Wuller's property.

By losing wild fields, we also lose the barrier zones that cushion the forest from the buildings; there are two, immense abandoned malls in the area, and the debris ends up in landfills or honest to goodness, is shuttled on semi trucks from destination to destination.  If the shards of concrete and reinforcement wire are refused at one site, it is taken to another, states away.  Or another.  Or dumped into the ocean.  Meanwhile, to hear the lullaby of crickets or the song of a finch, a drive out to the country will take you at least thirty minutes as compared to the flinging of a screen window, open to the rules of nature.

I have felt the bullet sharp click of a grasshopper's legs taking flight from my palm; chickadees have plucked seed from my hand, brushing against my face with their wings; I have held the cool dryness that is snake, fallen in the crick, made a painting with ink from Coprinus mushrooms.  Look when you walk over grass, or a field turned inside out as it waits for seed, find something of interest if only the rising damp smell of earth.  Walk about, learn what's underfoot.  It's a strong lesson from a young cyclist.

Night is closing, supper is waiting to be scumbled together; I hear footsteps in my mind, slogging over rows of field, breathing the rays of an autumn sun, then pushing down on the pedals to get home after grabbing a stem of asters or goldenrod for Mom.  Sleep as the winds blow through tall grasses, over lake waters, through branches where sparrows have bedded for the night; be accountable for how you treat the earth.  You don't have to become a crusader, only toss some seed for the birds, pick up a piece of litter, dispose of chemicals carefully.  Weave your own song through your dreams, so the single notes of one blend with others to make a composition, together.  We are in this together; you, I, the animals, the plants, fungi, protists, and monera; I count rocks as well.  The kingdom of rocks.  I'll explain it someday.

Dream, then.  Dream of the song of stones.

By Heart

Can you say the alphabet of your language by heart?  Do you know the recipe for brownies by heart?  Going to the store and buying a package of Little Debbies doesn't count, people, but remembering how to get there does.  By heart.  This is what it means: from your heart.  Why on earth from that organ associated more with emotion than any other, including the digestive system, (a 'gut feeling' is based on the fact that 95% of your serotonin is in your intestine), is it connected with memory?  Pull up a gyro, my dears.

Not only did the Greeks consider it the center of emotion, but the heart was also said to house intelligence and memory.  You remembered in your heart, so recitation or knowing was said to be "by heart"; you remembered a story by heart.  Ask a child to recite something, and they will look to the ground, as if the task is an impossibility; start them off with "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall..." and their expression changes to joyous recognition.  I know that!  I can do this!  Most of them know nursery rhymes without the realization that they have indeed memorized the lines.  It is not an impossible wall to surmount, and once they understand it, will bubble up with rhyme after rhyme, unstoppable and happy with a talent they didn't know they had.

Remembering the words to be said out loud shares an intimate part of you, the phrases are usually in rhythm whether poem or prose, similar to the pulsations of the heart as it pushes blood through your body, supplying the metabolic processes with oxygen.  Memory fills the spoken word with the personality of the one who is remembering, giving the audience language by which to understand wisdom.  An open door to a place in their heart, if only for a little while.  Like sharing half a sandwich with a hungry soul, the act nourishes and pleases, satiating the innate human need for communication and recognition which resides in our heart's desire.

New debate in the past few years wonders if the Greeks were closer to knowing more about the heart than our current theory, with many claiming that the heart does have memory.  Neurons, those connective tissues of the brain, have been found in the physical heart as well; some folks are touting that as evidence of knowing, that there is sentient thought in four chambers.  Well, who knows?  But neurons transfer energy, not thought or feelings.  Yet there are stories of transplant patients experiencing new patterns formerly found in the original owner's background.  Recognition of relatives unbeknownst to the recipient, fears, awareness of a second personality, and intuitions have been recorded as pointing to the possibility of something further going on.

 Recorded.  Re- means "again", cor comes from the Greek word for "heart"; to record, then, is to tell it again by heart.  Have you ever?  I'm sure you have.  My talent when little was to draw; I was so shy that I would draw pictures of things rather than ask for them, so getting up and reciting something wasn't going to happen until I was made to learn the Ten Commandments and had to recite them for catechism class when making my First Communion.  Idolatry?  Adultery?  Covet?  Words way beyond my vocabulary, but they were Biblical, so I imagined recitation was earning my way to heaven.

But, what do you know by heart?  Did you say the words to anyone, or was it for your own accomplishment?  I don't recite, but I know by heart several poems by Coleridge, Yeats, Emerson, and Carroll.  It's a secret hobby that no one has been allowed to visit, just me, yet it is a happy achievement when I get one down.  In another two days, I will know "Lucifer by Starlight", but for love nor money can the battle be won with "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by Cummings, which is one of the most beautiful poems met.  How can "Xanadu" be little problem, but this much shorter verse frustrate for years?

So tell, who smiled when you stood before them and sang your sentences out, lined up numbers, alphabetted, or told a joke?  That smile told that you made them proud, and for a moment, you shared a doorway of history and understanding.  Good for you.

Storms are predicted this evening, and apparently I slept through a whangdoodle of one last night; I hope this one comes early enough to see, for the rains and winds whip 'round the brick corners of the building, whistling and pulling at windows.  I love to read during a storm, and more, to draw or paint.
Crackling lightning and subsequent thunder lend a Frankensteinian atmosphere to the creation of art, particularly portraiture, as it is punctuated by the heavy rain into a statement of success.

In film studies, the course book advised that rain or water in the scene indicated new beginnings for the protagonist, as a baptism or symbolic washing away leading to change.  As storms push debris down gutters or streams rise, or you look how far it is to the car, slow yourself.  Let the rain pelt your face if for only a second, dousing away the day of it's convolutions, leaving an essence of what was without the complications put forth by dissent, hurt, or anger.  No rain?  Wash your face and hands, then.  You'll feel better.

Let night come to assuage your own heart, remember a phrase or familiar cascade of words you once said to set your compass right in navigable waters. Words become stories, plays, novels, oaths, and truths to share a bit of ourselves with the world, to look in the mirror at who we are.  To remember.  By heart.  Ever on.  Second star to the right.




   

Metamorphosis: At It Again

A quarter, three jimmies, red, blue, and green; napkins wadded above the visors, a half-melted gelatin candy, an E-Z Pass, and a dead Japanese beetle, which is an ornament of significance; all were found in the newer car as I wiped the interior down.  Now, how does a dead bug gain status as a Message?  Because twelve years ago, when I bought the red car, one was jammed in an impossible spot unless I got a knitting needle to pry it out.  He was pretty, shiny green with tan wings, and dead as twenty door nails, so I forgot the issue of body removal and liked that he was there, a scarab, an omen.

This new deceased bug is fairly fresh, for you could still wiggle a leg without it snapping off--calm down, I wanted to see if he was alive-ish.  But you tell me, what are the chances of finding another in the next purchased car after driving the first bug around town for twelve years?  How many Japanese beetles have you found in your car?  That's right; zero.  A Sign, sings I.  What is even more spectacular was that he was found as I cleaned the area between windshield and dash in order to plant the wood snail shell upon it.

The replacement title had arrived at five p.m. the prior day, after the salvage yards had closed and locked their gates.  I had found a junkyard within a mile of the car seller's house, and could walk there after dropping off my old car, my dear old car.  The problem, besides not finding the original title that I had Put In A Safe Place in order to turn in my junker, was that I was transferring plates and had nowhere to store an unlicensed car without it getting towed.  No title equals no plates; no plates means that the car I had purchased sat in the seller's driveway for ten days.  He was very, very good about it, stating that it had been in the driveway for months already, what was a few more days?

So, the sequence of events began to roll once again; title with me to first take the old car to salvage, and there, atop junkyard layers of oil, bent metal, pieces of cars mashed into a hard, tarry ground, say goodbye.  Thank you.  That car got me through college and dark winter nights coming out to the campus parking lot; it took me up mountains, over barely graded gullies, and on roads to Boston.  It only didn't start once, and that was after I had left the headlights on.  Another time, hurrying into work, I left the engine running and came out seven hours later to a still engaged car with enough gas left to get home.

I abandoned the old car, but it felt like walking away from a faithful pet watching you go; I paused at the exit of the yard to check time; down between the few valiant blades of grass and plantain leaf pushing through the gunk lay a yellow coil, a wood snail's old shell.  It went into a pocket and I walked the mile to the newer acquisition, rationalizing that the older car was dangerous, put in a good run, and was ready to go.  Truly, it was.  But I felt as if I had put my grandmother into a burlap sack with a brick and heaved her into a horde of Mongols.  Organ transplants, I told myself and the car, the Chevy, shall live on in other chassis; especially the fuel lines and brake system just done last fall.

The new car is a jolly hoot, masculine, and now named Rudy for Rudolph Valentino.  I've zipped around in it a bit and still find it a mystery as to how to turn the radio off so that it stays off and doesn't come on every time the engine is started.  I'll figure it out.  There are a few paint chips that need filling in; I can do that.  It's a nine year old car with 50,000 miles on it and the owner had kept a written record of everything.  This relationship will be lovely, I do believe; there is an elegance to this toaster-shaped vehicle and strangers have already walked by and said, "Nice wheels." Go, Rudy.

This past Sunday was the couple's wedding shower for my son and daughter-in-art at a park next to a beach; they've been together for a number of years and both sides of the families are thrilled to be gaining additions.  The ceremony will be held outside and Orthodox; a glass will be smashed, plates broken (I get to do that), the bride and groom carried in chairs. Even though they are as comfortable as a pair of old gloves with each other, both are excited with an electricity and recognition of taking the relationship into another chapter.  Like trading in an enjoyable, satisfactory old car that one is quite happy about for a newer choice in hopes of growth and safety, a haven from what's out there in the world.

Many doubt that they would have ever split, and I agree; yet this opening of another door has stories and possibilities; a public commitment put out there as visible evidence of a promise.  Dana's family is warm, smart, and unafraid; Brian has been welcomed with their open hearts for which I am more than pleased. The gathering brought two sides of the family together, and I got to meet with my own in-laws from my married past.  It felt good to be loved and to love, to celebrate a joyous beginning.

My new car will be fine, Brian and Dana are fine; after the immense display of fireworks from the day before, the moon shone carrot red, a brilliant orange through residual ashes in the atmosphere, a ball of fire with auspicious meaning; a genesis for the continuation of life as a promise of loving, lending stability, support, trust, the impending misunderstandings, forgiveness, and compromise in their hopes for themselves and each other.

The dark has finally seeped over the horizon, transforming the ordinary into the haunted, the mystical.  A smashing rain had hit sideways, and the population is still shaking out water drops from sleeves and shoes; myself,  I am investigating my own changes and what will be done; quite an opportunity has arisen and requires thought.  Sleep, then, in the release of the cool night, your fortune cookie chances await to renew and invent; the threads will tie themselves together in the layers below consciousness, in the city of dreams.  You are more than what waking day allows.  Ten o'clock; all is well.

Pizza Biological Party

As a treat at our pizza party, I offered the class the showing of a film that is touted by one of my dear, loving friends as the epitome of live action cute.  Wanting to get away from animation and show them something different, the cat-and-dog-together script seemed like a great idea, promoting animal awareness is right up front in the elementary pantheon.  The film was a five dollar deal at the local box store, and the promo photo was of an orange kitten and pug: Milo and Otis, narrated by Dudley Moore, stamped with approval by some capitalized entity.


I did some research, and found this from the Washington Post: "They don't come any cuter than "The Adventures of Milo and Otis," a heartwarming, tail-thumping story about a curious kitten and his pug-nosed puppy pal. It's totally awwwwww-some.  Enthusiastically narrated by Dudley Moore, this cuddlesome take on Old MacDonald's place follows the best buddies from their bucolic barnyard home to the scary forests adjoining the farm. Already a box office hit in Japan, the live-action film features an all-animal cast under the direction of Japanese author and zoologist Masanori Hata, who urged his stars to act instinctively."  Instinctively?


So after cheese and pepperoni were dispensed, children instructed to chew with their mouths closed, and napkins passed, the movie began.  La la la, cat gets in trouble, dog saves; cat falls in water, dog tosses in a branch for the cat to climb out on; cat visits chickens, cat visits baby pigs, cat sleeps with baby pigs, the piglets waken and begin to nurse from immense, technicolor mama sow.  EWWWWW.  The kitten appears and begins to nurse from mama; EEEEEWWWW WHAT'S HE DOING???  I skipped ahead a few frames and read the back of the dvd box; the filming was done in Japan, 1986.   What else could happen on a farm in a children's film?  Watch this, says the zoologist director.

Actually, other than the cat eating a dead muskrat that a fox had buried, not much until Milo the orange troublemaker is separated from Otis the dog and in their journey each find respectively, a girl cat and a girl dog.  Another pug.  Out in the wild.  Winter sets in, heavy with snow, but each pair of animals survives; the cats end up on a farm, and the dogs end up in a cave and boy dog hunts in snow up to his neck for mice.  Mid-winter, the girl cat, Joyce, whispers to Milo that she thinks it's time.  Time for what, the first grade teacher wondered.  This is a kid's video.  Can't be.  Not possible.  No. NO.

A quick close up of cat butt, and ploop!!  A small, wet, placental bag of kitten is born.  WHAT'S THAT, WHAT'S HAPPENING?   I stop the movie.

"I'm skipping ahead.  We don't have to see this part, it's kittens being born."

"WE WANT TO SEEEEEEE," Nope, nope, nope.  Skip ahead to the dog part, no more cats at the moment, fine, until the girl dog whispers to the boy dog that she thinks it's time. WHAM, I hit the pause button.

"NOOOO, WE WANT TO SEE THE BAAAAABIESSSSSS."

Who would like more pizzaaaaa?  Raise your hands.  Happy teacher.

I jumped to the last two frames of the story, with the two families getting back together after the hunting pug found frozen fish hanging on lines outside of Milo's adopted farm.  Warm and cozy, said the narrator, just as friends should be.  

We cleaned up, I gave away leftover pizza as foil-wrapped prizes and have four days left in the school year; marks have closed, I will get report cards completed this Monday.  It will all be review work from here on out.   Perhaps I will have my new car by then, perhaps I will have begun a new painting; I would like not to think of school for at least three days before starting to get ready for the next year, and have to assign goals to work towards over the few weeks of summer lay-off.  If there are any more movies within this four day period, I'm sticking with Pixar.

Have a busy productive day, plan ahead as to how it will end; endings are important.  The last of spring has hours before tumbling into summer solstice, beginning at 12:38 p.m. this June 21st, tomorrow.  Then the sun will leave us minute by minute quicker, shortening daylight and lengthening the dark, till we ache from the gray mid-life of winter and it returns again.  Go see the leaves, listen to birds, walk near water sloshing on the sand.  Watch the summer sky at night, stand out in the yard and count stars, lucky you.

Last Drive

I dislike the classification of sentimentalist, it seems mawkish and tawdry, illuminated by a mercury vapor lamp into an orange-grey world.  Keep away from me, Hallmark; your platitudes and assurances bring an odor of yesterday's socks.  I also loathe certain words; whimsy, unless it means nosegay; "delish," unless nothing.  No redemptive echo there.  But to anthropomorphize inanimate, unconscious objects?  I'm in the front row.

Through a series of paperwork somersaults, I am in process of acquiring a different car from a private owner, and by gum, the things I'm learning about the layers of who shot John regarding loans, titles, insurance, and no we won'ts, particularly from the apartment complex who said they would not allow me a day to have an unlicense-plated car in the lot.  One. Day.  The old management would have said okey-dokey since the workers would come into my apartment and use my hot sauce on their fast food sandwiches.  Evidence?  Diminishing levels within the bottle, and on occasion, a crumpled sandwich wrapper that missed the garbage can.  That's another story, though.

This story concerns conversations I have had with my 2001 Chevy Cavalier that I would keep forever except that it is accelerating in falling apart, and leaves a red trail of rusted metal wherever I park.  The trunk lock no longer works and the lid is now tied down with yellow nylon and it bounces.  I tried all the suggested remedies, but nothing doing.  The right window is permanently shut, the mechanic put something in the door to keep it up so the car would pass inspection.  The spend money check engine light says hello.  The rear defroster signed off three years back.  Brake fluid disappears with each severe change in outdoor temperature. The body is rusting.  One good tire. The driver's side door was replaced and is black, but by golly, it has a crank window knob.  The left front strut is gone, the right rear strut is soon to follow; this past fall I was helped by one mechanic and had my head danced upon by another to the total tune of $3,000 in repairs.  I wish the dancer a wolverine up his leg someday.  That's another story.

But this red car was the nicest thing I had ever bought myself.  Again, the salesman told me no no no never in an accident till he opened the guts of the driver's side door one day to fix the window and lo, the inside was blue with red spray paint coming to the edges.  The dash has since developed cracks, showing the earthquake effect of a t-bone accident.  But it was a neat little car, a bit sporty, and had a sunroof.  The logistics of payment fit, and I Had A Car.  It got me out of any snowbank, held ground in the worst weather; it only didn't start twice in it's life, once being because I left the lights on.  Any empty college parking lot at night was the better for it, as then the door lock remote worked and the engine always turned over.  The engine is now tired and doesn't accelerate as quickly, but it still gets me to work over one of the worst, bombed-out roads in the city.

So, can an unliving thing care?  Are there agreements and understandings between car and driver?  I love to drive, and miss the long trips I would take mid-State to Corning and beyond.  They will come again via the car that's coming in, who's owner said he would store it until I got the Cavalier settled, thus avoiding the temporary plate business and the unhelpful apartment management.  By "unhelpful" I mean something else, but being a good person (mostly), those sorts of words should not be said except in a wind tunnel; I wish them wolverines as well.

There will be soon, a Last Drive of my old friend who got me out of many places, and took me all the way to Boston, Massachusetts once.  How will I find this new car in a lot?  It's black, which I don't mind, but the red stood out, especially red with one black door.  This thing is a clever box of a car, but it reminds me of a hearse for refrigerators.  A paddy wagon owned by Lurch.  A dairy truck which delivers Stygian milk from contented black widows.  It will not be my formerly zippy red Chevy; comfortable, reliable, friendly as a pony.  I usually pat the car after it gets me home and say 'thank you' because to me, the service seems real, a gift; I guess because a car moves and responds as you wish it to.  My couch is nice, but it isn't my friend (maybe).  I will cry after the last drive.  I know it.  Me.  The anti-sentimentalist.

The line of plastic frogs that live under the front passenger seat facing the door will be moved to the newer digs.  Don't ask, I don't know.  One dropped down there--I teach kids, I give away earth science prizes--and soon a row of toy frogs gradually appeared as they came into my life.  There is a large dead bug jammed between the upholstery and the rear window; he's been there for the twelve years I have had the car.  The wings were a glossy green and looked great so I left him there; he's faded to a dull tan, bereft of former glory, but we all can use some kindness at that stage.  

The trunk needs unloading, picture frames need to be brought in, a good vacuuming wouldn't hurt.  Years ago, I learned that everything is transient, nothing ever stays the same; letting go is a healthy exercise in self-preservation.  In truth, the Chevy is dangerous in spite of new brakes and fuel lines; this black box opportunity was pointed out by a friend's car-smart husband, and it makes sense.  Especially since, as when I got out of my car the other day, a thing was hanging on the lot fence; an earring?  Nope.  A key tag for the type of car I am buying.  Toyota Scion, right where I pulled in.  A sign, says I.  Good enough for me.

We all have one last times, even if we don't recognize them amid vows of return to favorite beaches, restaurants, and especially, friends.  If I knew it would have been the one last time, I would not have been so blithe in my so longs.  Every goodbye shouldn't be dramatic stage-chewing, but there are folks that you say goodbye to knowing it is the last time, and others that, well, life gets in the way, as it should.  Travelers, we are, accomplished beings following an internal compass along paths that occasionally cross, or that are lit by the nodding lanterns held by those who see your journey in their own memories.  Good night, then, and sleep in quiet calm, your heart beating softly steady as you visit places unknown, through the deepest levels of somnolence.  Thank you, old friend.

Internal Archaeology

The energy is stale, confused, and moving in a befuddled way.  Time to move big furniture, rearrange the stations of thinking to clear pathways and move on.  I would like some illumination in body and soul; I wonder if this is part of the desire to construct new arrangements.  Create and finish projects. Doesn't matter, it's an adventure.

The old couch is stuffed with horsehair, and has sproinged springs underneath; it's a camelback with clawed birdish feet, as if it could walk or take flight.  The apparatus will be retied, restuffed, and if the gods are good, reupholstered, which is not a job I should undertake without copious amounts of laudanum.  I can't sew for beans, fabric makes no sense, swearing and pitched pincushions melt into tears and I plead with inanimate objects.

But on to further discovery.  The lovely, vintage 1950's sewing machine is a Morse, which was made with a Honda motor, and is the workhorse of the species.  I've decided that I am not tormenting myself with sewing; if I want to be inventive, I will do it by hand.  I'll draw a picture of a jacket to pin to my clothing.  I don't know if the machine works, I'm scared to plug it in as electricity is second on the list under spiders, and I've shaken hands with Mr. Kilowatt once already.  Grace of God, folks.  But to get rid of it to a good home means that someone has to try out the circuitry; send me a post card if there's anyone that you think could use a good jolt..

This has been a month of clarified situations, sudden events, and now furniture and what has rolled under it, whether by physics or paw.  Time for cleansing, shedding the duller skin to reveal new scales; I am leaving discarded books and gadgets down in the laundry room for tenant perusal, I don't even want to haul anything to the thrift shop.  Out.  Now.  Several have been given to the little birdhouse library near the farmer's market, many already there are titles that I wouldn't give to a pigeon; "Office Feng Shui for Dummies" for example.  People tend not to get rid of the good ones, but I did pick up a nice bio of Bette Davis.

Life is about conflict, the key is learning how to resolve it, said a very wise friend.  Yet beyond resolution resides the throne of yippee, a paean to the times when everything is fine, the culmination of years flowing into planned success. More simple but no less astounding are the small joys that can get you through a day, a penny found on pavement, a mourning cloak butterfly flittering in and out of the leaves above your head, a bowl of soup, a day of breathing.

I almost walked into the bathroom, but hesitated for the briefest of moments until I flipped the switch to the light, and there before me was an indoor circus of three the size-of-a-Buick spiders, each set up in their own separate trapeze riggings across the ceiling.  Perfect!!  I am retraining myself not to shudder and hop at the sight of an invader with octo-hairy legs, and this was a great time to practice the Spider In A Box technique I invented that works and makes things come out alright.  Conflict and resolve.

You get the flyswatter and a plastic tub, this is genius, don't know why I didn't think of this before, and hold the tub under the leggedy fangy thing, and gently nudge it till it drops from the ceiling and into the
container.  The spider tries to climb the slippery sides but can't, so you dump it into another, smaller plastic container and put on the lid.  The only caveat is that you need a container for each spider so they don't fight and moreso, if you think I will open a lid to plop another arachnid inside while giving the first or second prisoner time to make a run for it, just turn the car around and go back home.

This saves the spider, who has an important job which entails catching flying insects and being bird food, and it helps my conscience.  I let them loose in the grass near the building and wish them luck in climbing up the eight stories back to the bathroom window.  But it makes me feel as though I did a good deed in not smooshing one repeatedly with the flyswatter at least twenty times to make sure it's dead.  No spider paste or spider legs to wipe up with a wad of tissue while trying not to scream in case one of the legs wiggle.  I will pick up a many many things, including snakes, but have no information why even the idea of spiders gives me the willies.

My baby boy was lying on a fuzzy blanket in the grass years ago, when a giant brown nasty scooted onto it, a businessman on the way to catch a train; that spider was booking and heading right towards my son.  I yelped, but the rise of You Will Not Get My Child caused me to smash it with MY BARE HAND.  Then I did the dance of ick, wiped the remnants off in the grass, and took the both of us into the house.  I later set the blanket on fire just in case.  Not really, but I whapped that thing against the side of the tree to shake anything else loose before putting it through the heavy load cycle. Those brown ones can be bad news.  These days, however, I am saving spiders.

Moving furniture, sorting clutter, both are a great way to begin summer, which will be devoted to art.  Art, art. art.  I am closing in on a newer car, and have many places that I would like to drive.  Corning Glass Factory, Cleveland, Toronto.  Whee.  But now the buildings of the city have gone from apricot to pink, rose, violet, and finally disappeared, rooftops outlined by twinkling lights.  I am turning in early again, for tomorrow is a busy day.  Clear the rooms in your head, let go of the clock, some events occurred for a reason, others will never tell their tale; you go on then, take your paddle and ply the waters of the subconscious, their currents ever flowing, ever layered.  Sleep, you are innocent; dream, you are divine.