Some of the flowers I gathered today on my walk

and some of the dragonflies my friend and I saw yesterday.

A long list of to-dos


Starting with watering the yard, again. My water
bill is going to be outrageous. It's overcast and we have
a chance of showers today, but I'm not holding my breath.

So, I'll go water. Then I'll go take my walk. Then I'll come
home and shower. Then I'll go to the employment office
for a review of my UI. Then I will prepare for yet another
interview. I am grateful to get the interviews, but it is
disheartening to not get the jobs. I either have too much
education for certain employers, or I have the required
bachelor's but it's not specific enough for them, or I have
the skills but I don't have the master's or it's very plausible
that a certain someone is making sure I don't get a job,
which is a bitter pill to swallow.

I'm so damn tired that I can't even muster any emotion
about it right now. I just know I have much to offer
if someone would just give me the chance. I have worked
for so long that I simply cannot make peace with this being
at home all the time scene. If I could just accept the present,
perhaps then I would just live in the moment and do the things
with this old house I've always wanted to do but never had
the time to do. Or I'd take up watercolors again. Or I'd spend
more time walking trails, journal in my backpack, jotting down
lines or perhaps whole poems. Or I'd be more than a warm
body occupying space when my son comes home from school
or when my friends come to visit or when my husband
gets in from work. I'd be a better gardener. I'd dry some of
my herbs, freeze some of the others, make some oils with some.
I'd perhaps get all the crap cleaned out of the basement and all
the walls complete inside. I'd cook even better meals than I cook.
I would not need to self-medicate every day, earlier and earlier
in the day as time goes on and I feel more and more isolated.

I need to just be.

I feel that I have lost almost 2 years of my life to this inability
to move on and let the past be the past. I am drained emotionally,
physically (largely because I am such a poor sleeper), intellectually,
artistically, and psychologically. I am so not well.

On that note, I shall get off my arse and go water the poor dying
flowers.

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain

Lest I forget

I have no clue whether it is important to remember
dreams and/or important to forget them.

My father came to me last night. First dream, his hair
was white and I knew he was old. First dream I've had
of him in which I saw him, for the most part, like he looked
before he died.

His eyes were covered with some type of bandaging--like an
Ace bandage but transparent. Over that wrap, he had on sunglasses-
huge glasses that looked almost like safety glasses. We were going
somewhere separately. He took a stairway and came back down on the
other side and made it in about the same time as me though I had
no stairs to walk up or down and no bandages. He got in his
car and I said I'll see you there, Dad. I remember thinking how
surprised I was that he seemed to be walking without effort--
slowed down a bit by the stairs but not much.

Next dream, he was young and he told me he was tired. He was
going on shift--bartending at some upscale resort place. He not
only had to make the drinks, he was responsible for some grilled
foods and appetizers. I told him I would help, and he let me.

Scene flash: we are standing in front of a pool. Everyone there
is a senior citizen except me. My father is but I can't see that.
His hair is black and his body strong. And he says, as the music
starts in front of the pool, Just let me lift you, like I once did
and I said, But you can't. I am too heavy and you don't need
to strain yourself. But he puts his arms around my waist, and
we move toward the water, music playing in the background,
my back to his face, my body knowing he is smiling.

whew....whew....can;t make a deep sigh here, but I just allowed
myself--no--my body just let me sigh like that.

In this together, and alone

I was walking this morning at the track when I saw a car pull up as I rounded my last turn to get in my 2 miles. It was an old friend who has become a new old friend. We walked a few more laps and I told her I needed to go home and take Molly for a run at the cemetery. So, she drove there and waited for us.

We walked out into a field on the outer edges of the cemetery. She gathered wildflowers--purples, blues, oranges, yellows, and whites. I did not know their names. I admired their determination. Her bouquet was more beautiful than anything a florist could put together.

We saw bees and grasshoppers--those little creatures who seem to be such an oddity now.

We saw three differtent types of dragonflies--one whose body was black and cobalt, one whose body was deep green and whose wings were transparent, one whose body was green and black and whose wings bore the shimmers of translucence.

It was humid as hell (whatever that is supposed to mean). But we parted, she with her lovely bouquet in her hand and me with Molly in the back of the Highlander, and I kissed her cheek and thanked her for being there.

Discovery


The insides of my refrigerator scream
to be released, but I am not the messiah,
and my love for feeding the hungry
dissipated by early afternoon, heat
so obnoxious that I felt myself in an old
Twilight Zone episode, the one where
the sun bakes everything in its path,
the one in which debutantes and gutter
drunks whither away and die together
in separate places, their purpose
unknown. I am frankly quite tired
of the heat. My feet burn at night,
toes extended beyond the boundaries
of borders whose meanings get lost,
whose purpose seems futile. Tonight,
I shall stick a toe beyond the fringes,
let the cool air attempt to palpate
Ultima Thule, that forbidden zone
in which few things survive, a toe
such a small piece but no less significant
than the whole body, the mastodon,
the men who come creeping, faces
covered, to explore whatever mystery
they think lies beneath the cold, the years.

Neil Young--Don't Let It Bring You Down