More Sleep Required

Had a large time at the wine tasting, and so
did my friends. I don't know when I've laughed
so hard. My sides still hurt. I am glad I know
these women, and I am grateful for just letting
life happen for a change. Not asking why. Just
going with it. We had such a great time, but we
have agreed that what happened in New Harmony
stays in New Harmony!

I've been to New Harmony several times. I can't think
of a time that I've been there when I didn't feel guilt
on the way there or guilt on the way home for a variety
of reasons. This was the first guilt-free trip. I also didn't
freak driving over the bridges. I am hopeful that I am
progressing.

Now, I just feel sleepy. We got home around 3. Then I
went to see my grandson. He had been in FL for 10 days
to get out of this freezing cold, powerless town. It was
so good to hug his sweet little body and to see that smile
that never fails to melt his GiGi's heart. We had a good
time visiting but then GiGi's late night was catching up
with her, so she had to get her arse home. From the time
I got home until the time I turned the lights out, I was
pretty much in the bed. I tried sleeping, but have a hard
time sleeping during the day, so I read. Still rereading
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mainteance. I confess
to only half-hearted reading time. Though I am adjusting
to my new position, I still find myself rather exhausted
at the end of the work day and pretty much useless
and resistant to wanting to take in anything more for
the day than perhaps an episode of Home & Garden TV
or Biography. Though the work is draining, I like very
much what I am doing.

That being said, I am looking for some book suggestions.
Son is reading another Cormac McCarthy--All the Pretty Horses.
I think I'll read that when he finishes it. I think I may order
Ekateringburg: The Last Days of The Romanovs.
It looks interesting.

Some sunshine today. I am shooting for a Molly walk.
Must start walking. Must start taking care of me--
taking care of her. She's only getting her evening
walk with hubby.

But for now, the bed is calling me back. I have a bad
case of the sleepies, which is ok in my book. I just feel
relaxed, and it's such a rare thing my body is willing
to give into it and let it have its way with me.

Uncle Sam
Howard Finster

I Can Understand


I could never be bulimic, but I understand
the need to binge and purge. Emotions run
that way. Let me just down all of this shit
and then puke it up and be done with it.

I've been doing that tonight in my own way.
No food involved. A burning of letters, a trashing
of emails, a tossing into the garbage can the last
remnants of a time best lost to time.

Yesterday, we had tornado warnings all day. 60
mph winds, power out again to people who had just
recently got it back, shingles off roofs, limbs falling
on cars. It was wicked.

But I woke around 5 to a waning moon. Still full
to the naked eye. It shone through the bare branches
and through my naked windows, it cast its light upon my
open eyes and I was grateful. I was at peace.

Though I am tired, I am not alone at all. There are
so many tired, hurting, cold and hungry people here.
I don't know how many are still without power.

My son ate one of those MRE meals when he was staying
all night at the shelter his church had established after
they finally got power back. Those of us who had a radio
found out (three or four days later) that those meals had
peanut butter crackers in them. Peanut butter crackers
that should not have been in them as they had been recalled
several weeks ago. My son spent part of the day in the Care
Center having IV fluids pumped into his body. Could be
salmonella, but could be a virus. More testing required.
He was sleeping when I talked to his wife earlier.

I am thinking of the irony and not appreciating it at all.
Make it through -7, no heat, little food, no lights--only
to eat some GD peanut butter crackers that should not
have been distributed.

Life is slowly getting back to normal--whatever normal is.
I suppose it's the going to work, taking a shower, being able
to cook, having heat, driving a car, talking on the phone.
I suppose that's part of normal.

I look forward to this weekend. I finally have some coworkers
who like to go to wine tastings. We are going to New Harmony, IN
tomorrow for a wine tasting. We'll stay the night at the New Harmony
Inn, do the tasting, go to the Yellow Tavern, come back to the room,
put some music on and dance our uninhibited asses off.

Here's to life going on and on and on.

And to the fact that we are all in one piece, and relatively
healthy and still wanting to be a part of the whole mess.

Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

Donald Hall

Crazy dream night

I spent a long time typing out my dreams from last night
and lost the post. Don't have the energy to retype the dreams,
but I will go look at these creatures who appeared and try
to see what they mean as totem:

bears (in more than one dream), spiders (in more than one dream),
a wolf, an eagle, moths, worms, crickets.

Damn, I needed to print that post. My father was in two of the dreams.
I was killed in one of them but rewound the scene to be sure I didn't
die. The world was covered in snow. All the buildings made of snow.
There was a telephone and a ruse. A spiderweb and a dream catcher.
A strange game with spiders puncturing your flesh if you made a mistake.

Oh well, maybe I'm not supposed to remember these dreams.

*****************************

What does the spider archetype mean in dreams? According to http://www.thecrypt.ca/realm/divin/dreamd_s.shtml, dreams about spiders mean that, "The spider is usually symbolic of an unkind and sneaky individual. Are you the spider building a web, or are you being dragged into one? A spider's web represent[s] entanglement and the general complexities of life. Depending on the details of the dream, it could also be symbolic of a smothering individual in your daily life." In my own spider dreams, I don't find this to be the case. Usually, they are more consistent with Carl Jung's interpretation (also from thecrypt.ca), "a symbol of wholeness due to its circular shape. He called circular symbols 'mandalas' and said that they had valuable meaning for the dreamer. The spider and his web may be calling for an integration of the dream[er]'s personality leading to greater self-awareness and resulting in feelings of completeness. Therefore, the spider and his web may be considered profound and spiritual dream symbols which call for greater self-understanding and encourage us to derive meaning and satisfaction from the intricate framework and interplay of life." Spiders, to me, have represented a deepening of a sense of connection to the world, a physical and psychological symbol of the "string theory" of quantum mechanics. Everything is, in some way, connected.

Pink Trees

George Colin

Nothing to figure out, really, and no surprises. I'm just tired and it's way after the fact now and doesn't matter that much anyhow but I guess it does or I wouldn't say anything about it or write anything about it

She asks me where the coffee mugs
are--this the third day of the power
outage. I say The cabinet above the
microwave but I think Why is it that
you don't know? The next morning,
she asks if the "brown" cat can go out,
and I say, You mean Dante ?, and she
says, with her strange accent, OOOh,
of course, Dante. She didn't even know
his f***ing name. I've had him almost 11
years. And I am thinking again how odd.

How odd. How insignificant. How terribly
sad.

But I'm too cold to think too long or hard
at that point. And I'm too tired of being in the dark
and stuck in this house.

And I realize it all matters more than I can
let it matter.

At some point during the week, as we all
sit huddled in one room with a propane
heater going, playing Texas Holdum (sp?),
she mentions by name the brothers and sister's
cats and dogs and lots of other minutiea
which starts becoming what it's been all along
which has always seemed to be monumental
in so many ways.

Not in some linear fashion did she throw these
things out, mind you--just
in the course of a long night's conversation.

I remind her the next morning, when she
asks once again if the brown cat can go
out, that yes, indeed he can and he has
been going out for almost 11 years
and his name is Dante and the mugs
are above the microwave.

P.S

No alzheimer's or dementia here--selective
memory.