in the last several days,  Tenzen has transformed.   No longer the quiet one,  he has become very suddenly a vocal tyrant.    Standing on the roof of their hut,  he repeats and repeats his most heartfelt vocalizations that are the tongue blubbering followed by a shrill falsetta call.   Repeat.  Repeat.  etc.  Young Nogal stands rapt beneath him,  does not challenge him,  but mutters quietly as he is sprayed (willingly) in the face  with Goat jiz.   This has ended with dark until last night.  I was awakened at 11:30 by something and listened and there we go again.  My hood can be completely silent at night.  This night it was so and   I "willed" him to stop for a half hour,  he was the only only Sound.   The ONLY sound.  Over and Over and Over.  So i got up and with the flashlight turned on the hose at the house, went out in my underpants in the dark and 

hosed him.

it was a distance away,  his roof,  so he only got sprayed but it did the trick.  Enough was Enough and today was moderate in comparison.  But tonight,  a day from Full Moon.  From these days forward i will call this moon the Tenzen Moon.  It's not something easy to forget.  It is just dusk now.  How will things go tonight????  And Why,  has he suddenly changed?  By next year,  if all the same of us are still here,  young Nogal will challenge him and it will become a different story altogether.  Nogal has large scur horns.  Tenzen, successful disbudding which means,  no horns.  Next year it will become Nogal's year.  So maybe that's it.  Take your one year when it comes.  Live it to it's fullest.  So, Ok.

Tomorrow the new Vet returns to "read" the TB test under Sonny Ray's tail.  How difficult is That going to be????  with two people,  me being one?  I have no idea.

 

F

stitched down.  Enough.

 

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maybe this will go in?   From Roz Hawker.   Were supposed to be earrings,  but that was in my dreams,  i no longer wear earrings,  so instead on a string,  which i also no longer wear.  Me.  Nothing but a body.  But  sometimes i wear the necklace….the silver with a Goat's Head,  the copper with the Diamond and a Dot.   I think it will go In,  for the granddaughter.  Sometimes, i'll wear it still.   But anything on my body now feels like too much.

 

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first pouch.  Finish the inside Rim

 

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then they will be sewn together,  back to back.  Just the two might be enough for the small bits of paper.  I don't know,  but enough to begin.

 

At the old cowboy's today he was frail.  weak.  but restless.  Had been awake since 3 am but wanted to sit up,  so ok….

We sat,  probably an hour and a half, him in his Del Rio Bar Tshirt and diaper on the side of his hospital bed.     me in my bleach design La Rana (frog) Tshirt and i guess what are called capri pants on the seat of his 4 wheel walker,  knees to knees.    He fumbled.  He dropped his little pieces of paper towel on the floor,  then leaned precariously to retrieve them.  Over and over he did this.  Alz B used to do something very similar and i wonder what this is,  dropping and retrieving.  Much mumbling that i couldn't understand.

From the book,  Die Wise,  Stephen Jenkinson

"Dying well is the same kind of act as Gandhi's cotton spinning or salt harvesting; a nonviolent insurrection that dares the statuus quo to oppose or prevent it.  Dying well gathers adversaries.  Of this you can be sure.  Dying well means dying knowing that there is much at stake for the greater good.  Whose death is it, anyway?  It is all of our deaths,  one death at a time, until our time comes.  It is one enduring place where we can declare what and who we are willing to be to each other.  We can reclaim our way of dying and decide upon it,  and we must do so now.  We can take it from the hands of professionalization and privacy  and legislated monopoly only by assuming the greater responsibility of learning about death in the course of our lives, and teaching it if we are able, and by being an exemplar, an incarnation of what we advocate when our time comes."

SO.  We,  he and I,  have reclaimed and claimed.   Declaring who and what we are willing to be to each other.  Ok.  Ok.  

and ok.  

Jenkinson talks a lot about stories.  and it is true,  it seems.  that Our Stories are what we GIVE Life.  How we feed ourselves and one another and Give,  back into Life,  what there is that can be taken of us, forward, through and beyond our death.

so i searched in my mind, my memory for stories he had told me over the years and really,  there are only a few.  Most of his story is about his money.  But there are the stories about what his father told him.   

Use Common Sense.  Judgement.

If you don't know,  find someone who might and get a second opinion.

Don't steal.  You are only stealing from yourSelf.

Respect your elders.  You will be one, someday.

 

over and over,  he has repeated these things to me so i think to say them back to him today,  as what his dad Leroy had always said,  how they had become his story and by telling me this so many times,  they have now become My story too.  How he gave me Good Story.   But it seems that he isn't listening.  I don't know tho.  I don't know how to Help.  It seems such a struggle for him.  We spent a lot of time in silence.

 

 

 

 

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14 responses to “the day after and the evening Before”

  1. Mo Crow Avatar

    Ah (((Grace))) such a beautiful witnessing of the Old Cowboy’s fugue state, that drifting in the time between here and wherever our spirits go when we die & I love your pouches for holding the precious words and treasures that have graced “your one wild and precious life” all strung together with Tenzen’s love song, so good to see you back in bloglandia!

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes, all strung together and Tenzen’s love song, woven in to this Now that seems so well, so….uh, so….
    yes too, to being back where i can bring words and Pictures
    and rest in my Self, here….
    and tho it’s late, you come and give me words
    Love Love and Love

    Like

  3. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Full of this post, but too weary to find right words to return….perhaps this…When my grandmother was failing (though I didn’t know she was doing that at the time…she had a bedroom across from mine in the attic and when i was scared or lonely I crawled under the comforter with her over there…she smelled of camphor…she would comfort me and tell me stories but soon drift into calling me by her sisters name. I remember it didn’t matter. All that mattered was her presence and her voice.
    Lovely pouches.
    Poor old Tenzen.
    Love

    Like

  4. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Shared silence is a help, being with him is a help and most of all, you help by honoring what he asked of you…

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  5. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Your pouch is lovely..filled with treasures and words written especially for her…your GRANDdaughter will have a part of you that I think priceless. Like any priceless quilted piece of art it is important that you stitch your name and date on to it. Oh is will LOVE it!!!!!

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  6. .cynthia Avatar
    .cynthia

    ..oh..it is something surprising isn’t it..the simple..and /or ..incredibly difficult act of simply being there..being there with intent..being there simply as a warm body, a hand, a comfort…
    this has been a difficult week and i have thought a lot about being there and holding place..and one of the places my mind went to over and over again was the thought of the sight of my meadow below and the sun coming up and my first coffee sips..and checking in here and i loved the thought ..the power of the image of all the people in various parts of the world doing just the same thing over the course of days and nights and evenings and mornings…whenever it is their habit..of checking to see if you were here..of thinking of your hands ..moving over cloth..touching..or as it happens ..hosing goats creating new memories and holding the old ones of the oc..all of this in the silence of my head..feeling as if i were part of an invisible web of care and delight waiting patiently, silently to slip seamlessly ..yet with an added dimension of appreciation for your return..loosely binding, connecting weaving and stitching us together..being there
    with such grace.. and also of course the joyful sounds of your world .gentle day

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  7. grace Avatar

    this is beauty Full, this grandmother story and to be
    able to picture the small You, being you and her Sister
    at the same time…
    This is the importance of telling our stories….how they
    feed us as Human Beings…
    and yes, Dear Tenzen. He did better last night…just
    only maybe 15 minutes. No hose.
    LOVE back

    Like

  8. grace Avatar

    yes, it all helps but i do wish i could think of “the thing”
    that might free his heart a little

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  9. grace Avatar

    well, what will go in the pouches as these years go are
    initially for me….to help me remember, if i need it.
    She will be with me then and my stories will become hers.

    Like

  10. grace Avatar

    in its way, it is incredibly BeautyFull that We hold so MUCH
    in the silence of our “heads”….our Minds…all Our worlds
    and lives….we are incredible creatures

    Like

  11. deb lacativa Avatar

    I laughed out loud at the image of Firewoman Grace in her drawers putting out Tenzen’s Fires. He was probably grateful.
    You have so many good books with important things to say. How would it be if you read out loud to OCB, I wonder?

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  12. grace Avatar

    a sight to see, indeed we were.
    And maybe he was grateful…it must be exhausting. Last night
    i thought there would be a repeat, but he quit after not too long.
    That’s a possibility!!!!….read to him????? Maybe…..
    i’ll look for something he might be willing to listen to..
    THANKS!!!!

    Like

  13. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Touch comes to mind. Maybe music….his favorite tunes from the past….records or tapes he owns???

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  14. Liz Avatar

    The written word spoken out loud … be it prose or poetry, it can be so soothing. Familiar words to OCB … does he have books about that are well-thumbed?
    And the pouch(es) … the lining is a treasure all its own and I’m sad in that it will become an unseen b-side. Still, I love this project and the potential it holds for your future self.

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