windthread

Music Thursday at the Old Folks Home.     I got there a little late,  the battery on the truck was dead, so changing vehicles around took a little while.   Alz. B's son was there and Alz B.  was sleeping.  Dead Asleep.  So i hauled over a chair and began singing into her skull.  I don't know all the songs so sometimes it's just da daaa da da in stead of words but the melodies are ease to intuit.  So i put my mouth against her temple and sang into her head.  In no time,  without opening her eyes,  she began to sing.   and i realized that what she was doing was 

Scat Singing.

which according to wikipedia is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables,  a difficult technique that requires singers with the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking  medium.   Ella Fitzgerald is considered the greatest scat singer in jazz history.  Alz B might be next.  She did harmony,  she did rhythm,  she kept the beat and kept the temper of the song being sung.  Some old Celtic,  some Johnny Cash,  some Neil Young,  some i don't know,  but she was ON IT.  She HAD IT GOIN.  oh, yes.  until she fell  totally back to sleep for the last two.

and just to be sure because he is going to be gone for two weeks again and she seems somehow more frail,  more thin of spirit,  like they say in chinese medicine and acupuncture,  like the envelope of her heart is thinning…  i had her son check again that all is in place in case she dies in his absence.  Well,  sort of,  but not quite,  but now it's all good.  I am official all around and can go forward with advance directives both at the Old Folks Home and the Funeral Home that will come to retrieve her when she's gone.  I can sign off papers,  identify the body,  agree to advance directives.   So.  All is in place.  It appears that she is going through kidney failure.   And if we  get that far, they will call me and i will go,  and i will sing into her skull a little and then do other things that i have learned to do.  So, we're set.  OK.  and OK.

and early today, before i left i got an email from  Thunder Bay, Ontario.   What a Bright Gift it was…someone who has been reading and decided to respond   "out loud"  because of the reference to the Sorel boots….she too had goats once upon a time and tried to milk before work in the winter in her own snow mobile boots.   And i KNOW Thunder Bay,  on the Canadian side of Lake Superior and near Isle Royale where i used to go because of the Wolves there.   What it felt like to receive word from Thunder Bay….word saying i look at your life, we are sisters.   So all the sometimes concern i have about being boring….i thought….no….if she had a blog and just told things like what was on sale at the grocery store there,  i would BE THERE  for it,  i  would WANT to know…I would LOVE to know…

out of the Blue it was THE DAY to take down the Magic Diaries Cloth and the plastic under it and  expose the windows there,  that are so DIRTY and need to be washed…maybe tomorrow …..or not,  but now i have to SEE them  and all that was on that door counter,  OFF and sorted and given up or not 

and a new order for this While.

just now…Thunder Man again…another STORM.   Last night a huge STORM  so much direct hit lightning and i realized how precarious it all is…how easy it would be for the Elements to Take us Out…easy…but we remain….holding on….so far.

so am looking at this cloth.  Someone asked about the blue color and i tried to go back and find that comment but i couldn't.   the Blue color is there sometimes and sometimes not,  depending on the time of day,  the light…    And i look at this cloth which to me is talking about this Monsoon season….the response of the Atmosphere with the Earth……according to its own necessity or maybe even whim?   We can't know.   So we receive.   as Annie Dillard said…we "receive the given with a fierce and pointed will".   Yes.   Lightning is Here now.  Off.  OK.