i woke this morning to snow fall.  thick.  fast moving falling.  and it continued most of the day.  off and on.  probably 6 inches at least.  overcast with a cloud cover.  sometimes wind.  High in the low 20's, tonight a Lo of 7.  cold.  the dogs are getting kind of old and didn't want to go out…dog door…. so i put on my boots and  got the snow shovel from the Albatros (garage/shed/building) and shoveled them some paths around so they could pee, etc.  shoveled the porch and steps.  3 of them are small and the snow went up to their stomachs.  i had put plastic on the big front window but this ment that i couldn't see the snow.  so though it will be colder in here, i pulled it all off.  just after that, like moments,  a very LARGE hawk swooped low.   it's been quite a while since a hawk hunted around here.  cat.  where's the cat…sleeping on my bed.  ok.  only one truck has gone down our road all day.  it had that very singular stillness that snow in the desert brings.  was like there was something insulating everything from sound. 

i felt all day, and on into now, like i never woke up.  like it's all still dreaming.  it wouldn't get warm in the Room so i rearranged.  Rocking chair in there, door table into the livingroom so i could keep an eye on that hawk through the window.  and later in the day i brought over the lamp that has the bulb that simulates natural light.  i stitched.  maybe part of the dream like quality was that the stitching was s l o w.   but i have gotten almost all of the right panel of the Diaries cloth stitched down.  but by the time that happened, it was too dark to take a pic.

and the phone didn't ring.  once.   usually at least a telemarketer calls and talks to the answering machine, or something political.  nada.  just silence. 

and i started reading this book.  i had had it once before, a long time ago, and read part of it.  people i work for had it on their shelf so…borrowed.  in the beginning, it says:

"It was better, I decided, for the emissaries returning from the wilderness, even if they were merely descending from a stepladder, to record their marvel not to define its meaning.  In that way it would go echoing on through the minds of men, each grasping at that beyond out of which the miracles emerge, and which once defined, ceases to satisfy the human need for symbols."      from the Judgement of the Birds,  The Immense Journey, 1946  Loren Eiseley

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27 responses to “dream day”

  1. Valerianna Avatar

    Some days are really like that, aren’t they, the dreaming days…. I wonder about them. Haven;’t had one in a while. I imagine that once my studio is finished, I WILL again! ( its CLOSE TO DONE!). That is quite a pile of critters in that photo – couldn’t tell what make they are -er, um, one cat, two dogs?
    I’ve not read that book by Heinrich, but I have read “Ravens in Winter”, a fascinating read. Actually, I got it as an audio book, which was good, cause there’s a bit of science in it that I thought would be sort of boring to read, but was fine to listen to. Since there are so many ravens around me here, I wanted to know them more. I learned a lot. I think I’ll see about this one, I forgot about it, its good to get a cue of books ready!

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  2. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    V…such an odd day, yes. haven’t had one like this in quite some time and it’s almost time when i can legitimately go to sleep again,
    so…who knows. maybe it will just stay Dream Time.
    i am keeping track of your studio. i await the day when you
    move in
    what will that feel like for you???? you will tell us. so i wait.
    i don’t ordinarily feel alone. or whatever that word might mean.
    but today i did. i felt really alone. like i was only one being of my kind on the planet. not sure what to think about that…maybe will follow the words above and “record my marvel and
    not define its meaning”

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  3. Valerianna Avatar

    Sometimes when I’m out stacking wood in the quiet forest, I feel like the only human around. Usually I like that feeling. But this year I have felt alone more, too. Not sure if I mean “alone” or “lonely” – whatever those mean… very unusual for me, too as I find so much company in trees and moss and ferns and ravens and owls and bears and bobcats – even when its just their tracks or calls I hear – just that I know they are there. Well, of course, the trees and plants don’t hide, but the critters slide by unnoticed, but they do leave clues that they’ve been through. And Kitty Pasha is good company, the best kind, the sit quietly on a log next to me, listening intently to the forest for long periods of time, just BEING together in silence on the log. Its remarkable. I want a partner like that! I mean, a human one. Pasha is surely my cat partner! “recording my marvel and not define its meaning” – that’s hard for me, mostly, or just not my way…

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  4. deb Avatar

    oh, pangs of homesickness for a northeastern winter. I cherished days like that even when they came in weeks at a time. lately I’ve been dreaming about skating at night under the stars. the picture of the room with the tumble of pups is perfect.perfect.

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  5. jude Avatar

    i felt that you felt like that today i think. but i couldn’t get myself to ask.
    and here a dream as well, falling into who knows what, just to feel connected to something. didn’t touch big cloth. it remained folded.
    i see the ring in the distance like a shadow of a spin.
    and here still warmer than ever imagined. no fire, lettuce in the garden. light rain. fog.

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  6. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    i think it was more for me today of feeling at odds with the world.
    like i experience things differently*. ordinarily i don’t pay much
    attention to that. but today it seemed as if i was supposed to.
    we’ll see if it becomes any more clear.
    *have chosen to
    lonely i think is something i won’t feel. Alone, yes. today,
    very Alone.

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  7. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    northeastern winter…well ok…and for me, MidWest winter.
    but this is
    the SouthWest.
    South Central Middle Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico.
    not.
    but funny you mention skating. we had a creek way down
    a hill behind my growing up house. i skated that creek.
    all winter. many winters. it became a completely different world and it was mine.

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  8. Nancy Avatar

    Grace it sounds like a 3 dog night…Burrrr! I have sensed your alone-ness in your last comments/posts or something. I don’t know how to say…an apart-ness.
    I really really like the idea of: “to record their marvel not to define its meaning” This is such a good statement.
    Stay warm friend.

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  9. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    Nancy…you have???? maybe it’s been coming on and i
    wasn’t aware of it? hmmm. well, then, Bueno.
    apart-ness.
    i have always loved apart-ness.
    and maybe………who knows……..this is to understand
    the apartness?
    we know, that i am thinking of NOT apartness. of
    throwing in
    with the daughter.
    there are questions about how that might go. do i
    really,
    need a seperate space?
    i think.
    we talk about acres. and i think, yes. somewhere far
    back.
    maybe that’s some of what this is all about. but it’s
    really just facing where i have gotten myself to in these
    last years…. *
    of dis engaging. but when you dis engage
    you
    well
    are disengaged.
    *not really “these last years”, but all the years

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  10. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    can you see
    your woven pocket
    hanging from the lamp
    with the crow feather?
    it’s always there
    the bead face

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  11. jude Avatar

    i always seem feel somewhat alone. still wondering about communication.

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  12. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    you have to really want it

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  13. jude Avatar

    right. you just helped me make a decision.

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  14. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    then, as always, having NO IDEA what you are talking
    about, i am glad.
    you are some One who i have found that is
    like me
    or, that i am like
    and that is
    just an amazement. a gift beyond anything i expected.
    i trust you.
    trust your ability that is far beyond my own to
    weigh things.
    i lean so heavily toward
    uhhhhhh, what,
    toward
    toward i don’t know.
    i love you, Jude Hill. even with your Santa cloth.

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  15. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Serendipity–I find this while reading the blogs before I shut down, relinquish effort, and crawl back to the comforting comforter. Alone is what I felt acutely as evening turned it’s early dark. I spent a part of the afternoon packing books and CDs for an elder friend I’ve known and worked for on and off over many years. She is selling or giving away half of what she has lived with the past fifty years–selling her apartment–and preparing (she’s eighty plus) to live a State away in an ‘assisted-living’ apartment she bought. We weren’t really intimate friends, nor family, yet everyone I have close association with over a long period of time converts (in my mind) to ‘family’ though I remain aware they are not actually. Actually I have no family (there is an in-communicative brother not far away–but he does not feel like family). I’ll be seventy in one more year. So, tonight, I fell into this well of remembrance–everywhere I went, I was remembering the past–when everything was the promise of some future something–only now, that’s done. The world, my neighborhood, everything I see has changed radically. It is what it is, my life–partner-less, child-less, companion animal-less, and only dead, dwindling, or distant old friends, or new friends centered around some shared project (my writing group-theater group-yoga community-poetry community-the feather project and blog correspondences). A feeling of being irrelevant pervades my thought. Does everyone aging in one place feel this too, I wonder.
    I went to my writing group like a dream walker, wrote, but without interest, and returned home in the cooling mist before the oncoming storm like a ghost that no one could see. It’s probably a planetary thing, or perhaps the full moon approaching, or maybe just the facts seeping through. Climbing the stairs, I wondered what might become of me in another five years when the stairs become too difficult, when my knees give out, when I can no longer cart heavy loads, when no one remembers me. Then–snap–I made soup and washed dishes, wrote this, and, though nothing has changed, something shifted.
    Tomorrow is another day–probably.

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  16. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    Hey, michelle………there’s a LOT to speak of here. a LOT.
    and i’m up for it.
    so lets sleep on it for now. but
    a LOT to speak of.
    a sweetness to you, to touch your brow on this night…
    xoxo, g

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  17. Nancy Avatar

    Ha! I do now! The light sort of evaporates the color (at least in the photo), so I hadn’t noticed. Thank you for pointing that out to me…it makes me very Happy! 🙂 Weeee…

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  18. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar

    every day it’s there.
    every day i look.

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  19. Nancy Avatar

    Oh Michelle…
    Michelle…Michelle.
    Grace is right there is so much here. I am much younger (52) than you, but I have had moments of these thoughts related to my mom (going through all of her belongings) and her friends. Just helped her 87 year old friend move into an senior condo. She got rid of most everything. And is quite happy about that!
    Rest well tonight. Tomorrow brings new light.

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  20. Nancy Avatar

    OH Grace Thank you for this! I had some oddness my self today so this is most welcome 🙂

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  21. deanna7trees Avatar

    this post of yours ‘haunted’ me through the night. i used to feel that ‘alone ness’ you talk about but don’t anymore. and irrelevant????…you are anything but irrelevant. you must not be aware of how much influence and inspiration your words and info shared on your blog have on others. i am somewhat in the same situation as you are without close family or intimate friends but i am where i want to be and maybe that’s the difference…i don’t know. i try to live in the moment and enjoy every one of them that is given to me. i hope you are feeling better about life today. it’s too bad we can’t just say ‘beam me up scotty’ so we can have these conversations face to face but i for one am grateful for all of you here.

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  22. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Michelle..i have been fooling with the water pipes and
    now need to go off to work late but your words are
    with me very much and when i get home.
    i think about this a lot. it has been a topic of
    conversation with my daughter for some years now.
    so…in a while, love.

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  23. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Deanna sent me back to see responses–so here I am–and it is another day–slightly cold and rainy. I use days like this to cook up things for the future (food, like the turnips and parsnips for a stew, and the corn and batter for fritters-practice a song a theater piece I’m involved with-setting aside gathered gifts to give for the Holidays so soon upon us)…and how I love your responses. I am where I’m meant to be too and not suffering. These thoughts come and go like the wind. Sometimes dark and sometimes light, and always a balance for continuing. I Continue, and I’m grateful for this community, it’s openness and welcoming.

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  24. Deb G Avatar

    You are reminding me of a couple winters ago when we had snow for three weeks straight, lots of it. Very unusual for around here. It was the first time I spent Christmas by myself, I was very alone but not lonely. Alone-ness, sometimes I am too comfortable with it I think. Once in a blue moon I get restless. I have Mind of the Raven on my bookshelf. Haven’t read it yet.

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  25. Nancy Avatar

    Yes, I thought that these feelings must fly in on the wind now and again. Isn’t that the way of the darker thoughts? I agree with Deanna…”beam me up Scotty”! I’m glad today sounded lighter in mood. 🙂

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  26. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yes. alone really, is what i would miss most. if i
    wasn’t. i might need it more than i even know.

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