Spring Rushing Waters Moon
Things we think about here. The snowpack, in all regions of the state, is way above average, nearly 150%. That means three things: an easing of the drought that has plagued the state, especially the southwest corner, a solid supply of water for the Colorado River basin states, and a much lessened fire danger over this summer. So much nicer to go into the summer months with good water supply. The arid west.
It means one other thing, too. Rushing waters. As the snow melts, our mountain streams will swell, spill over their banks. Our waterfalls will peak, like the ones just below us, the Maxwell Falls. The sound of these streams racing toward the South Platte (up here, anyhow) is one of my favorite mountain sounds. The soughing of the winds. The bugling of the elk. Late spring streams full and bubbling, babbling, crashing.
These are the Rockies now and have been the Rockies for thousands upon thousands of years. We’re here for a moment. We living things witness. It may be our most important act. We are the universe aware of itself and its wonders.
Kate had a not so good day yesterday. Some nausea. A Sjogren’s flare, maybe related. I hate to see her that way. I wish her recovery was one smooth arc from 77 pounds to 100, 105. It’s not and it will not be, but I wish it anyway.
Ruth had her third or fourth Destination Imagination state contest appearance yesterday. D.I., as she calls it, is a national program that has kids join with 4 or 5 of their peers, invent plays, and, this year, respond to improv challenges. There are judges and her team has placed at state the last couple of years in their age bracket. Don’t know how she did yet.
Jon says he’s tired of living in an unfinished house. Due to remodeling at his school, he gets done much earlier than normal this year, April 21st. He plans to use the long break to get a lot of work done. He’s done rewiring, replumbing, cleared out the old kitchen and purchased newer appliances. He’s done work on the kid’s rooms first, building Ruth a platform bed and Gabe a desk.
The first glimmers of new work. I’m taking my cousin Diane’s idea seriously. She wrote: “I think your writings deserve a wide (wider?) daily audience — they so compellingly chronicle daily life along with stretching the readers’ mind — and also possibly they could be gathered/edited in to a book that would appeal to our age group. Have others suggested any such to you?”
My plan is to print out all of ancientrails. I started a while back, but gave up pretty far from completion. That way I can fuss with them in the physical world, compile sheets and posts. Much harder to do, ironically, on the computer. Not sure what I plan to do, but that’s the place to start.
Probably going back to Jennie’s Dead. It’s unfinished and I want to complete it. Though. I may take time, too, to start the book Elise and I talked about, the one that comes from the heart. Main point, work is beginning to reassert itself after the long barren period.
Painting? Yes, that too. Not yet, but soon.
Ta for now. Gotta go down and take Kate off her feed bag. She’ll be free for 10 hours. She sounds much better.
My birthday month passed in a blur of illness and caregiving. February, my seventy-scond February, got underway two days after a difficult day, a full day. I felt exhausted around noon and had several more places to go. Like moving through jello, thick jello on the way home.
Brother Mark, whose grasp of Saudi culture has become nuanced, reported a couple of days ago on a visit to a new camel herd cared for by Bedu. (Bedouins, I think, in local parlance) In his own words: “There was a stud white bull camel, many brown and white female camels,, and gamboling young camels. Gamboling, stretching their young legs out. One poor fellow had lost the lower part of his left front foreleg, but, was getting by on three legs. I met this Bedu fellow. I said I was from America. He said, “Donald Trump.” He then sort of urged me to see the camels. I went forward a bit, but stopped, as I did not want to invade the camel’s space. The Bedu said the stud bull was Saddam Hussein. The camel with the shortened foreleg was Trump.” Humor is cross cultural and international.
Painting. A long, long ancientrail. Walked by so many. A few well, more journeypersons, and the rest of us.
This does not mean I’m uninterested in the quality of my work. Hardly. I want it to be the best I can do. Do I always work at my best level? Of course not. But I do as often as I can. Which is most of the time. I’ll leave the judging to others. I did write that novel. Several, in fact. I did create that painting. Several, in fact. Enough for me. Could I have done this without Kate? No. But Kate is in my life and I in hers. Both of us have sought the best for each other, have sought to create a home environment that encouraged our best work.
Life allows no do overs. We can reconsider, reframe, reevaluate, remember, but we cannot change yesterday, or any yesterday. We can make choices right now.
Here we are in another year. Took second son to the airport at 7 am. Big traffic jam about 10 minutes from the airport on Pena Road. Took 20 minutes to clear. Lot of pissed off people.
On the drive last night I thought about year themes and resolutions. Not a big resolution maker anymore. Nonetheless, I made some anyhow. In short form they are eat, write, paint, exercise, read, teach, cook.
Ruth has paint brush in hand working on a black and white version of a SeoAh and Murdoch photo. It’s so much fun to have her up here painting while I write this. Creativity bonds us. She’s using my oil paints, a medium with which she has little experience. She does have a lot of experience in acrylics, watercolors, photography. Her training has helped me a lot, too.
Went to 
“Back there, where the Help Desk sign is, we have our inventory. Customers can’t go back there, but it’s all searchable and staff will bring you anything you want to see. 8 million comics in inventory. 2 million on display. 10 million all together.” He seemed sincere, but the numbers seem pretty damned high to me. Even so, there’s no doubt there were a vast amount of comic books.
In addition to the 10 million comics several different displays featured toys related to the various universes represented in the comic book world. A true multiverse of the mind. There were Star Wars toys with death stars and yodas, Empire fighters and Millennium Falcons. Star Trek toys with Data, Captain Picard, models of the Enterprise. A large Ironman statue. Intricate modeled scenes from Batman, Superman, the Marvel comics sat alongside small action figures. There were chess pieces made of comic book figurines, including one full chess set with pieces modeled from Batman characters.
Mercury retrograde. Elisa said this would be a time when I would remember my dreams. I have recalled some, definitely more than usual. I’d also reassess my life, letting new things in, chucking the no longer useful.
You might say, oh, the power of suggestion. Could be a bit, I suppose. But recalling dreams when I haven’t been is big for me. Years of Jungian analysis, you know. Running toward something like astrology is a definite change in mindset. And, oil painting? I mean, come on.
Holiseason underlies and inflects all of this, creating moments of reflection and quiet, reinforcing attention to the Great Wheel. Feeling as positive about life as I have in a long, long time.
Discovering an odd phenomenon. My feelings bubble up with less filtering. I don’t feel depressed, not labile. Not really sure how to explain this, though it may be a third phase change? Or, maybe just me, for some reason.
In fact, there’s another example. Over the last few months I’ve been using the word sweet a lot. Our dogs are sweet. Ruth. The folks at Beth Evergreen. Minnesota friends. The loft. My life. I seem to see sweetness more now. I haven’t lost my political edge, my anger at injustice or a willingness to act, but the world has much, much more nuance now at an emotional level.
I see my own holy soul, now claiming more space, taking back some of the aspects of my life I had given over to achievement, to striving. This is strange because it comes as I’ve begun to reach for achievements I’ve blocked for decades. The work of submitting my writing feels both unimportant and necessary. I’m immersed in a community, Beth Evergreen, which encourages the growth and expansion of my holy soul. This is true religion, with the small r, the connecting and reconnecting of our inner life with the great vastness, our part in it highlighted, made clear at the same time as our limitedness.
Now that I’m back from Minnesota and September 5th is less than a month away it’s time to focus on lesson plans. Again. Still. Alan Rubin sent me a template with examples of his lesson plans and I’ve finished three in an idiosyncratic format which I will, today, transfer to the CBE lesson plan model. Still several more to create and then weave together with the B’nai Mitzvah curriculum. 22 sessions altogether, though not all will require lesson plans. This work is a priority until Alan and I feel comfortable with what we have.
Meanwhile I’ll keep working on submissions, a hump I’ve gotten over, and writing itself. Jennie’s Dead still has a ways to go, maybe 30,000 words, and other manuscripts, both novels and short stories that need further editing/revision.
This constitutes the work portion of my schedule through May of 2019 and, with Medea, beyond.