Winter Waxing Moon
Geez. Talk about over performing. The WeatherGeek, a nearby Conifer Mountain resident who posts on Pinecam.com, says he cleared 12 inches off his drive this afternoon. 8-10 inches here, at least. Maybe 12. Certainly will be a foot plus by the time the snow ends early tomorrow morning. The mountains feel weird if they stay dry and brown well into January as has largely been the case until today.
Winter Waxing Moon
Over to the second H-Mart with SeoAh yesterday. This one is smaller than the one in Aurora, but is much better organized. It’s more like a US supermarket though with very different stock. The Aurora H-Mart is more like an Asian market. I love the produce, the array of seafood, and whole cold storage displays filled with things I can’t identify. As you might expect, there is also an amazing range of sushi, sashimi, (left) noodles, soy sauces, frozen dumplings, other prepared foods like soups and sauces. The beef is all Kobe beef, wagyu, but raised in the U.S.
At the checkout I said to the cashier, “You have to be able to recognize a lot of different produce items. Do they train you?” “Yes, we have two weeks of training.” She smiled. They have parsley, garlic, onions, sure, but also rambutan, dragon fruit, jack fruit, many varieties of mushroom, persimmons, young coconut, bok choy. I’m going to get over there once a month since I’m beginning to understand how SeoAh cooks. It’s straightforward but requires ingredients you can’t find at King Sooper. (Krogers)
I enjoy the time with SeoAh. Her English has improved so much. We had Pho for lunch, one of her favorites.
Cousin Diane wrote a “why don’t you slow down some, just be for a while?” e-mail. Interesting. When I had no choice, during Kate’s first hospitalization, I did prune out many things, but that was necessity. Daily trips into Swedish or Brookdale, occasionally more than one, left me too exhausted to do much more. My friend Mark Odegard made a similar comment on Sunday during our Zoom session. “Your life is always complex, lots going on.” Also interesting because Mark’s got a lot going on, too, but he sees my life, perhaps as Diane did, as having more going on than is necessary.
Gonna chew on this one. No question that I keep many balls in the air: novels, painting, teaching, cooking, housework, grocery shopping, canine care, exercise, writing this blog. Why, you might ask? That’s the part I need to chew on. Partly it’s a sense of responsibility, not just to Kate and our marriage, our home, but also to that ground-in cultural norm of living up to your potential. Yes, even at 72. Still. Another part, and I picked this up from Elisa in our first session on my birth chart, may be numbing. One way to avoid the feelings involved in this crazy period, or, if not avoid, attenuate is to distract myself. Since I no longer drink, having a lot of things going on is, can be, a socially acceptable equivalent. I do have an addictive personality so numbing is native to my personality.
I would like a rest. Just not sure how to go about getting one. Maybe when Mark and Tom come out next week we can talk that through.
Tah for now. Gotta get back to work. Ha.
Winter Stent Moon
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, a couple of days late. 1 below this morning, fresh snow, just a bit. Black Mountain has on its winter dress. When I went to get the paper, the snow crunched beneath my feet and the air slapped my cheeks until they were red. One of the things I love about the snow is that it records at least some of the critters that came through our property. Rabbit, this morning, I think. Two. The waning gibbous Stent Moon was in the south, over Eduardo and Holly’s.
Here a few photos:
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Bit of winter. 9 degrees here on Shadow Mountain this morning. No snow and little snow for us in the forecast. Though. Across the divide they’re getting good snow. Our snowpack is 119% of normal and way ahead of last year. Important data for so many people.
Friday and Saturday were more or less rest days. The week through Thursday night found me pretty damned tired. Worth it though. Gabe threw himself in my arms after his concert. Ruth leaned in for a hug as I left Swigert headed for home. Jon seems to have gained some important insight about himself and the reality of his situation. Kate learned the cause of her months long struggle with nausea and abdominal pain, weight loss. Enough for one week. Thanksgiving moon, indeed.
I’ve not been idle. Using some small, 5×7, canvases I’ve begun to use oil paints. My first effort is here. Doesn’t pop like I hoped it would. I have three more of these small canvases painted with an undercoat. One yellow, one sap green, and one violet. Trying color field painting. Mark Rothko is my favorite abstract painter, so I thought I’d see what I could make using him as my inspiration.
This is venturing into really unknown territory since I know little about oil paints, about oil paint brushes, how to make colors do what I want, canvas. Since I began messing around with sumi-e a while back, I’ve found myself wanting to extend myself, get way outside my comfort zone. A key motivation for me in all this is regaining some tactile work, hand work. When I was a gardener, a bee keeper, a domestic lumber jack, I got lots of opportunity to use my hands, to interact with the physical world. Since moving to the mountains, not so much after the fire mitigation work.
After 12 years as a guide and docent at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, art became an integral part of my life; yet, I’ve struggled to keep art in my life since moving to Colorado. The museums here are not compelling and driving down the hill takes time. Reading about art, looking at it online or in books has not given me the satisfaction I’ve searched for. Painting myself, which necessitates a look into art materials, theory, and careful looking at artists whose work I’d like to use as inspiration, may. I’m not there yet, but I’m having a hell of a lot of fun.
In addition to trying color field painting, I’m going to use the sumi-e ink and brushes to create bespoke Hebrew letters, astrology glyphs, and alchemical symbols. My work in the second kabbalah class, on the mystery and magic of Hebrew, prompted this. I found working with the symbols and letters directly gave me a way into understanding them. I’m also going to create mandalas.
I’ve also continued my reading about astrology. I continue to vacillate between the long time skeptic and the interested novice. Some of the writing is childish, even moronic. That puts me off. Then, though, there’s Tarnas and the Inner Sky by Steven Forrest. Archetypes, too, by Jung and Hillman. A new book on Jung and Astrology. Still trying to figure out my birth chart, how to read it, understand it. Lots to investigate here.
In spite of the various outside turbulence, or, perhaps because of it, these new areas of learning have helped keep me sane, eager. I’ll be at them for a while yet.
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Warmer, 31, and cloudy. The waning Thanksgiving Moon lit my morning walk to the loft through a veil of patchy cumulus. The neighbor in the rental put up an inflatable turkey with a pilgrim hat a week or so ago. Now there’s a Northpole sign on their mailbox, a Santa Claus and Christmas lights. They did wait until Thanksgiving was over. Most of us on our stretch of Black Mountain Drive have less glam. We have lights on at night all year, but just a strand in the front and along the walkway up to the loft. Holiseason brings out the inner kid. That’s Eduardo and Holly’s lights in the distance.
Kate’s still struggling. Her weight seems to have stabilized in the 80 to 81 pound range. She can’t get weight on in spite of eating and snacking. The nausea and the abdominal pain have returned. Her spirit seems good most of the time, but the lack of progress has begun to wear on her. I can see that. What happens next is a couple of more imaging studies this Thursday. Not really expecting that they’ll show anything. If they don’t, Dr. Rhee has agreed to consider tube feeding. She needs to get calories somehow and the traditional way isn’t working.
I’m finding a peculiar satisfaction in domestic work. Dishes in the dishwasher right after use. Throw a load in the washer when I get up in the morning. Cooking what we have. There’s a thread through the day, things to do that are active and loving. I’ve come to like it. One of the things I noted a long time ago was that women’s work (in a stereotypical sense) dealt with life’s basics. Eat. Clean. Support. Repetitive. The clothes always get dirty. The dishes come after cooking. No matter what groceries and other supplies have to be purchased. Rinse and repeat. It makes sense to me now how homemaking is a noble art, a task unfairly distributed by past gender roles, yes, but so important to the well-being of a family.
Maybe if I’d ever paid attention to fixing things, I’d get traditional male role satisfaction there, too. But, I haven’t. Oh, I have my moments. The jerry-rigged deck with wooden palettes and horse stall mat walking surface. The cabinet doors finally fixed with longer screws. But really it just frustrates me to try make the physical world conform to what I want.
One thing that is different now from when Kate had shoulder surgery back in April is that we have a functioning dish washer. Boy, does that make a huge difference. When I cooked then, the dishes went into the sink, glaring at me until I did them. The added step after cooking and clean up wore me out. Now I get the dishes and pans in there right away and they’re off my mind. A mind saving as well as a labor saving device.
Annie goes home today. She’s had her hands full the last couple of days making funeral arrangements for a sort of ward of the Fatland family, Kate’s mom’s family. Barb was 98. Annie’s also doing a counted cross stitch of the Devil’s Tower. Fine work. She’s out of the jail now after 30 years inside, as a guard. A lot of adjustment as any major life shift like that requires.
Around 8:30 this morning I’m into Denver to the Denver City/County criminal court. Jon’s court date for the restraining order violation. Not sure what to expect. Jon seems to think it will not be too harsh. I hope he’s right. He has enough going on with his house and his car, being a single parent.
Fall Healing Moon
A few photos of the new pump emplacement and one video:
Fall Healing Moon
Well pump dead a couple of hundred feet under the surface. It will cost about the same as I’m projecting Kate’s hospital co-payments. Oh, joy. Right now I’m feeling beat down, labile.
I know this is just today’s trouble. And, I know that I’ve solved it. Living Water will have the pump replaced by supper time. But having to spend the day on this, plumber, then well pump guy, has pushed me up to an unhappy edge. Temporary, I know, but right now? Yecchh.
Looked down our well casing. Not much to see. Dark and deep, just like Frost’s snowy woods. The pump truck is in our front yard, boom up about 25 feet or so, lowering down a piece of tackle that links on to 21 foot lengths pvc. They have to be unthreaded and set aside. However deep the well is we’ll have an equivalent amount of pvc. Between 9 and 15 of them.
Then the pump. It labors on our behalf, in the dark, responding when the pressure tank calls for water to keep the house supplied toilets, showers, faucets, hoses, dish and clothes washers. The pump is most of the expense, this one coming in at $1,500. Other matters are metal sleeves for the new pump, new wiring, since the 1991 code requires all wells to have a ground and ours went down in 1982, and, of course, the men and the truck.
Home ownership. The American dream. And water such a big part of it.
Fall Healing Moon
Sometimes. Piling on. You’ve heard of it, right? Jumping on the quarterback or wide receiver or tail back with more big bodies after they’re already down, stopped. Well, SeoAh telling me last night that there was a water problem. Piling on. For a reason I do not understand we have no water. In the whole house. Of course, this happened at 8 pm, after I’d already taken my thc and had a long, fruitful, but exhausting day. Just. Couldn’t. Deal.
But. I checked the electrical panels anyhow. No thrown circuit breakers. All the water valves were in their proper alignment. WTF? It has occurred to me that the problem might be our water pump, but I don’t know how to check that. This morning I got down in the crawl space and checked the fuses on the water tank that stores water for the house. They were fine. I mean, geez.
At 7 am I’m going to call Herb Swindler of H2 Plumbing. Herb, oddly enough, lived in Ramsey, Minnesota, less than 10 miles from our house in Andover. It may not be a problem he can fix, if it’s the pump, but I want to rule out some simple explanation inside the house first.
Gotta say I could do without this.
Fall Healing Moon
Another of life’s inflection points. I want to consider it, honor it, respond to it, but I’m having a hard time. Just too tired. And, I feel guilty about that. Like somehow I should be able to just power my way through and get back to the usual. Which is unrealistic. Certainly for the next few weeks, maybe on an ongoing basis. Need to know what the new normal might be like. Too soon. I know it. So I’m trying to hold back, not speculate, not project. The fact of trying though suggests I’m not always successful.
Here’s an analogy I discovered in the High Country News, my favorite source of information about the West. In reviewing a novel called West there’s a quote from a widowed farmer on his way to the land beyond the Mississippi. He says, to a Dutch land agent he encounters on a river boat, “I am seeking a creature entirely unknown, an animal incognitum.” Apparently Thomas Jefferson also sought the animal incognitum, probably a Mastodon.
Right now, I’m on the riverboat, looking at the western shore of the Great River, wondering what lies on the land which spreads out from there to the Pacific Ocean. It contains, I know, a life incognitum, a life so far unknown. Not entirely unknown, certainly. There will be familiar elements in familiar places, but the rhythm, the demands, the joys? Will change. That farmer and I share a desire to explore the land, to find the incognitums, to embrace them, and find our way anew.
It’s a source of energy. I love the unknown, the strange. Vive la difference! More news as this pilgrim sets foot on the shore, buys an oxen or two and loads up the Conestoga with supplies.
Fall Healing Moon
As Kate’s rehab improves her strength, the middle of the recovery process is underway and underway well. She’ll have gains to make at home, weight gain chief among them, and I won’t consider this incident over until she’s gained at least ten pounds.
In an interesting NYT article on refugia* I began to think about those searing moments of our lives when their landscape changes forever, denuded of the familiar, apparently ruined. Most of us have at least a few, some have many. College often sets loose a wildfire of realizations as the mind encounters strange ideas, ones that can wreck the delicate eco-system of childhood beliefs. Death of someone close, my mom, for example. A failed marriage, or two. Substance abuse and recovery. Children of our own. Moving away from familiar places. (and these are just from my life.) Getting fired. Getting hired. Selling your business. Finding a new, strong purpose.
In the heat of the fire itself, Kate’s visit to the emergency room and the various procedures, recovery from them, for example, it can seem as if all will be gone, nothing left of the old life, maybe not even anything worth living for. This sense of total destruction is often inchoate, a visceral curling up under one of those fire shelters the hotshots use. But there comes a time when the fire has used up all the available fuel, when it goes out, becomes the past, rather than the present.
In that transition from crisis to life in the burned over section, that’s where the refugia are critical. “These havens shelter species that are vulnerable to fires. Afterward, they can be starting points for the ecosystem’s regeneration.” Our love remains, protected by its watercourse way, cool and flowing even during the heat. The dogs and their rhythms remain, a furry oasis shielded from the fire by distance. This loft remains, a literal haven, not untouched, but intact. The house. Our friends who’ve followed Kate on the Caringbridge, near and far. Our family.
But the old forest, the one that stood when the flames rushed up the hill toward us, is gone. Kate will not return to the same house, not even to the same dogs, for they and she have transformed. The homeness of our house remains, but its configuration will change, how we use it will change, how we see it and understand its role in our future will change. The companionship of the dogs remains, but their lives will have to adapt to the new, and while adapting, will change the new in their way.
I cannot yet see how the refugia will repopulate the forest of our life. The fire is not yet out, the crews of hotshot nurses, physical therapists and occupational therapists are working to find hotspots and put them out, to build fire breaks and clear out old fuel. When their work is done, Kate and I will rebuild the wild forest that is our time together, our small contribution to the ongoingness. There is opportunity here, a chance to reexamine old habits, old dreams, old hopes, to reconsider them in light of the altered landscape. What will it give us? I don’t know. But, when Kate returns home and begins to heal here, on our old forest’s ground, we’ll find out.
*”The fires left scenes of ashen destruction, but they did not wipe out everything. Scattered about the ravaged landscapes were islands of trees, shrubs and grass that survived unharmed.
It’s easy to overlook these remnants, which ecologists call fire refugia. But they can be vital to the long-term well-being of forests. These havens shelter species that are vulnerable to fires. Afterward, they can be starting points for the ecosystem’s regeneration.” NYT