In Apologia

As much as I enjoy the mornings, my spirit is heavy today. I unintentionally upset a friend yesterday; we'll call her Dark Star, after the CSN&Y song. I am a person with invisible disabilities, and sometimes they get the better of me. They also make me creative, for which I am profoundly grateful, but that's beside the point.

My life is much like others, treading an invisible tightrope in this impossible world. Sometimes I focus so much on what I get out of being successful at walking that tightrope that I jump up and down in victory. I forget that others are on the same rope.

Which brings me back to my solitude in the mornings. It is a time that the world is quiet and I can be heard. It's a time when Nature can also be heard, but that's beside the point, too, at this moment. I pride myself on speaking for those that are voiceless, but I forget that others, who have a voice, are in pain sometimes as well. And for that, I apologize.

More and more in this world, we have to scream to be heard above the din. That's the reason I loved that storm that hit Roanoke earlier this month, the derecho. For those of you with no knowledge of our area, we had a terrific windstorm, a derecho, that also graced us with colored lightning: green, pink, purple, orange lightning. Nature was screaming. And when she stopped, a majority of us in several states lost the voices of the mechanical things that surround us. We lost electricity, and everything that entails. Many lost water as well, and civilization in a relatively small corner of the world was thrown back into the last century.

When I was young, I could visit a time and place without telephones, cell phones, PDA's, iPods, and even refrigerators and flushable toilets. That was when the sound of a great-Aunt's house was the carriage clock on the mantle, and the trees rustling outside, and the breeze pushing in the screen door. When the quiet voices murmuring in the parlor laid out the memories of an even more quiet time: that of the past, and their youth.

Which brings me back to Beth. She is the voice of my youth, and of quiet times spent talking in a dim room. When she visits now with her husband, we'll call him Bubba, I soak up all the talk and sophistication that I can. She is the best of solitude, with the best of company and I miss them keenly when they aren't here.

But yesterday, I was listening to the loud, electric scream of my disabilities in my own head and she had to scream to get me to notice what she was saying. And now, here I am, in a quiet room with the dawn breathing outside, trying to apologize for my noise.

The Dog End of the Afternoon

It's not usually when I write, I know. I think yoga woke me up this morning, and I have been caught in a whirlwind of a day.

I'm the kind of person who gains a lot of 'water weight.' Who knew ice cream had so much water in it?

Woken up at 1 AM by a 'friend' who called to say he had been admitted to the hospital again for drinking. As a person in recovery, I am used to this kind of call, but it was particularly irksome to the cats, because they had just gotten to sleep two hours before. So now it is 3 AM again and I am blogging again.

I have decided to gain 15 pounds and grow a double chin for my 30th high school reunion. Why let everyone else have the fun of being thought older and wiser?

Speaking of my friend...let's call him "Mike". I only take his phone calls because it reminds me of the joy of drinking at 3 AM. I loved crawling around on the floor throwing up and drinking more until I could hold something down. I always hid the liquor, even though I lived alone. Waking up beside the toilet was like a vacation. And I looked like a movie star! Ernest Borgnine...may he rest in peace already. This was all the fun parts of drinking; the unfun parts were worse. Like jail. Being committed. Divorce. Losing all my friends, my dignity, a car, a dog. Going into eternal debt for treatment. Although I did have fun there...

I traded all that fun for a chance to watch the universe unfold it's magic. The coincidences that aren't, the new friends who love me just as I am, the chance to live: not materially successful (although I have had that), but spiritually successful. I love trying to further my connection to a higher power everyday. Things of the material world can pale beside the world of the mind and spirit.

I find that I use to long to live in a Harry Potter world, and now I do exist in one, not of human making, but of something much bigger than all of us.

I realize it's usually a career killer to talk about all this, just as it embarrasses people when I mention my sexual assaults. But some elephants need to be talked about before tea is served at the dog end of the afternoon.

So We'll Go No More a Roving, By the Light of the Moon*

Except he will. I saved a kitten-sized, baby bunny this morning by the light of the moon. The unicorn meat eating cats are near-sighted and sometimes bring down something a little less prosaic, like a rabbit. They have this catch and release program that whatever critter they catch must be released back into the wilds of my small apartment.

What amazes me, is the little critter let me pick him up. He was perfect, and I wiped the cobwebs and cat hair from his face. He didn't struggle or bite; he just rested in the curled circle of my hand. I walked to the edge of the forest and put him on the ground. He froze a moment, this tiny particle from my Higher Power. 

Again, I am touched by wonder. There have been many miracles in my life, to accompany horrendous trials. My life has not been easy. But I am profoundly grateful that Something feels the need to show me that I am not facing Life alone.

In another age, I would have been happy with this 'breakfast in bed' habit of the cats. But I am happy to eat yogurt and let the cuter animals go free, as if by whim.

My wish is that you are touched by wonder today, and that you explore it. Under the moonlight exists magic, and I hope you are up now, and enjoying the almost dawn.

So we'll go no more a' roving,
by the light of the moon.
Though the night was made for loving,
and the day returns too soon. *


*Lord Byron

Water of Life

I am late this morning. Sorry about that. I woke up at my usual time, but I was delayed writing by the piece of cake that ran into me and jumped into my mouth last night. It's that NPR (National Public Radio) time of morning: coffee and dogs and the real news of the day...

Can't believe how well Neville Longbottom turned out, can you? Have you seen the picture of the adult Neville? Usually I go for Slytherin, but his pic is enough to make me turn to the side of Light...

As for the cats, they are happily hunting this morning, but it has been a long time since I have heard the desperate squeaking sound moving around in the dark of the apartment that means another hapless creature will have to be caught and released into the wild again. The cats go wild when I do this...but I feel it my duty. I can't stop the cats. After all, that's why cats were domesticated, but I can lessen the impact on Mother Nature in my small corner of the world...

We are getting some rain in this small corner, which the tomatoes and zinnia need in order to sing. And the ground must be happy and well satisfied before the humming starts. I think the cukes (cucumbers) are a no go this year, as well as the squash.

I am missing the Pond and the night sounds encouraged therein. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to swim in the Pond, but I love the look and sounds and smell of a Pond. I know, I know, I did enough kvetching about the Pond, but that was because I had to clean it. But now that the Pond is the Pool, I am glad just to be situated near any body of water. I think that being near water makes humans happier, naturally, than any other geographic design. After all, we come from water, we are made, mostly, of water, and we need it to live. How strange can it be that we like to be near it, or that the sound of it makes us wax poetic?

And, for me specifically, water is a main component of coffee. I could mainline the stuff.

I hope your day starts near a body of water, and that you have the resources to partake of it, in whichever way makes you happy. As for me, I am off for more coffee...

The Cat Steals Over the Meadow, a Slow Dawn Rising

So, it's almost 4 AM again and, after moving with me from bed to computer and back again, the dog has decided it's bed he wants to be in. Serves me right, waking up at outrageous hours like this. I am beginning to think it's a seasonal thing. I have a feeling I wouldn't be getting up at 3 in the morning if it was bitter cold outside. But with weather like we have now, I can prop the door open and the cats can get a good unicorn hunt in before dawn.

And cats are what is known as pre-dawn hunters. Small critters forage for food in the wee hours before dawn. The kind of small critters that cats love to eat, rabbits, mice, unicorns, etc. Just some trivia to start your morning...welcome to my world.

It's amazing how good cheap coffee tastes this early. It tastes just as good as the expensive stuff. It's all relative to time, as I pointed out in my last blog. A cup at 3 AM tastes much more satisfying than a cup at 6 AM, not simply because my taste buds have been resting overnight. In the house I live in, pre-dawn is reserved exclusively for myself and the cats. As I said, the dog usually goes back to bed.

Although now, the dog has decided that, as long as I am going to run lights and keep him awake, it is a sterling time to have a tug-of-war with me, with his favorite toy playing a pivotal role.

Dawn is coming. All of those who did not have electricity know the importance of this time of day. The ancients in the Roman Empire down to Ben Franklin lauded this time as the best time for reading and writing. And then for a quiet, contemplative walk in the Garden.

After a light breakfast, I would have headed down to the Forum or to the print shop or wherever I worked. I would come back at 11 or so for some olives and lettuce, or some oysters, and laid down for the subsequent nap during the hottest part of the day.

So you see, I am not far off of the time schedule laid out by those in the past. It makes one wonder what schedule was kept by those who lived "pre-history," or that time in history before Humankind had the alphabet. I would imagine it would fall within the lines above, to maximize the use of day light. So the invention of electricity laid to rest a schedule handed down through eternity. And my habit of waking up at 3 AM is not unhealthy, as my therapist would have it. Just timeless as dawn.

There is a waiting quality at this hour that is interrupted by the sun and the stirring noises of modern peoples. I would like to have my ashes spread at dawn, along Tinker Creek, where I spent the best times of my life, strolling with my service dog, Eddie. 

Right now, Jupiter, the Moon and Venus are in close proximity from our viewpoint. I'm going outside to enjoy the view, until the daystar obliterates the sight...have a good dawn, and I will be imagining you down at the Forum, waiting for me to appear to carry our daily greetings...

The Tick Tock of the Carriage Clock

defines mortal Time. Especially in the morning hours, before the sun has risen, but after the cats have gone out. The cats hunt unicorns in the pre-dawn era, before the world stirs. You know, that NPR time of day, when the coffee tastes best, and water is again delicious.

But now it is daylight, the clock chiming for food. I have some zinnia, pink, different pink, deeper pink, and yellow and orange. They came up, just as I realized I am not going to have an easy summer with the squash...I have had only one, although the blossoms are worth the wait. But the blossoms are reabsorbed, and another blossom takes it's place, to fade in it's turn. Rather like all mortal promises...

The Pond has turned into a pool filled with water the color of turquoise. No plants remain, no algae, no leaves, just the sound of the pump and an artificial construct of those who don't like sharks or frogs. It attracts birds and insects, and the insects drink to their peril, sometimes being overwhelmed by the water on their wings or the chemicals.

I put out chemical free water for them and the birds, and the neighbor animals, in this heat. The grass is crispy to the foot, which is not much of a concern, as I am not a 'lawn person'. But the tomato plants have stopped humming from lack of rain and I miss the sound in the mornings.

The heat is gone for a while, but the best way to stay cool is to watch the deer slowly grazing nearby and to listen to the clock in a twilight room.

Summer to Come

It's writing time again...I was having coffee with a friend last night, in a tremendous storm, and having the time of my life. Just to let you know I can have a good time...which some of my fans doubt.

I cleaned the pool again yesterday, and looked for my frog friends. I didn't see them, but last night, when closing up, I heard them. I was relieved. I wish destruction on no creature. Except some insects. And since I live in Insect Central, the Southern part of the U.S., it's more of a wishful fantasy than anything else.

I have been thinking, way too early, of the lemony quality of fall. Sweet, sour, and filled with memories of a coffee house, and the light streaming in the windows, enveloped by the scent of cakes and the cup in front of me.

But it's summer, and if I am to practice mindfulness, I must yank my imagination and memories out of autumn storage, and into the hottest time of the year. We are just starting to get the heat of a summer that some say will be fierce, as predicted by the mild winter that we had.

I like playing with water, and the only drawback to cleaning a pool full of leaves and algae, is that someone as short as I am must GET IN the pool to clean it. I have 'fished' things out, not knowing, and not wanting to know, what they are. On the other hand, I have pretty much figured out which smart ass tree is donating it's leaves to what I call the Pond. I'm just lucky the deer don't come up to drink out of it. The skunk scent probably keeps them out of the area.

Woofstock, a dog festival, is coming to Roanoke this Saturday, at Elmwood Park. I am contemplating taking The Dog. I wonder if they will have face tattoos for the puppies? Or me, for that matter?

I am constantly reminded how much my brother liked going to Scotland. He now has the Scottish lion tattooed on his calf and has acquired a Highland bull. He truly is a pasture ornament, nevermind the 4 Paint horses my brother has, who cannot be ridden. He had the bull castrated, because of his aggressive nature. He cannot breed, or eat, this critter. It just hangs out in the pasture and looks cool under the Scottish flag waving from his flag pole, and eats. Maybe he should have had more children. He likes feeding critters.

Practice mindfulness where you are, along with me. It is no more than not thinking about anything but that moment, or what is right in front of you. Of course, if you are at work, don't practice mindfulness, but dream of the summer to come, and the first time you swam in a pond...