The Color of Now

So the Royal baby got himself born! The British Monarchy is an interesting group to me, and they have just added a character...

Meanwhile, I'll let you into a little secret: I am well. I think the neurontin makes the difference. Off-label it is commonly used for bipolar, and I feel more stable than I have in a while. Of course, it means I now take 4 stabilizers. I would have to be crazy not to be...

And I will feel well until something happens, and my mood shifts. That's the way I roll. Tomorrow is group therapy day, and I can't wait.

But now, it's quiet time. We had a rain storm yesterday, just sheets of it coming down. And then again, one last night. I didn't hear it last night, but yesterday, was full of thunder and lightening, and the trees whipping round.

I have let the cat's window down, but Georgia remains inside. As the only girl, she is not so fond of getting her feet wet, and the ground is saturated with water again. It is the fullest of Summer and the cherries are in. I miss the sour cherries from the Old House. The cherry tree bore, without fail, large buckets of sour cherries every year. I loved them raw, but they also made a spectacular Christmas jam...

Everything drips outside this 3 hours before dawn, but the flagstones just past the door are a dark grey. The container garden needed the rain, and the flowers have been deadheaded, and sparkle and shine in the light. The frogs are silent now, but the crickets are always chirping at this hour, and it makes it less lonely sometimes. I know some of you are awake; it is 6 hours ahead in the UK, and 8 hours ahead in Russia. But waking at this hour, sometimes carries a burden of feeling alone.

Even with the dog's butt pressed against my leg...

Today is a day, not for the flooded field, nor the leaf-dripping forest, but the hillsides, and there are many here to choose from. Of course, I choose the hill the Old House stands on, but you may choose your favorite hill, if you like. The wine berries are gone now, but the crepe myrtles are there, standing in that spot of sunlight. The one on the hillside was pink on one side of the House, and purple on the other, and white in between.

In her last days, Mom planted a red one, in front of Dad's study window. Or rather, she picked, insisted on red, and I planted it. The pink was my Mother's favorite, and the purple was Dad's and the white was my own, but they had never had a red one. My Mother thought only in symbol, and I am sure that the red meant something, that she was trying to say to Dad. I just don't know what. I only know that, in the end, she was sending him a message, as they so often did, through the garden.

And so, in my aloneness, I have planted a red geranium, her flower, and I contemplate getting a crepe myrtle for the garden out back here, to mark my passage in time at this place.

And the two drunks I know? The one that calls and the other one? They are being taken by the disease, into death, and I cannot, above all things, drink or control another's actions.  The one that calls, is apparently out of the hospital, and calls at all hours. Now, that is loneliness.

The one that lives close by? His leg is swollen to the size of a young tree, and his arm became frozen in his sleep, yesterday night. But he did go out for drinks in the evening. So, you see, he is happy in his own death seeking way.

But it is not a morning for living on the side of the cliff, but the hills. And it is time for me to wander to the crepe myrtle, whatever color I choose...