20191101_164050

 


20191101_153120

I woke at around 2 something.   Sound of the Owl speaking.  Close.   I lay there,  seeing in my mind,  Talkie on her branches.  A sitting duck.   Listened a while then got up and put on shoes and a sweatshirt.  The FatMax flash/spotlight,  me,  Tay  go out into the cold.  Walk to the end of the house space here and shine the light into the trees.  I try to encourage Tay to bark or at least run some.   She doesn't.  Does not respond to things in trees.  We turn off the light and stand.  After moments,  again,  the Owl Speak.  Repeat.  3 times. It's cold so we quit and go in.  By now,  i am wide awake.  I don't want to,  but i compulsively look on the phone to check the Maria Fire and a video spontaneously begins of a horse.   People are trying to load it in a trailer too small,  but i guess all they had.  The Fire is OrangeRed just in the background,  the horse rearing,  it's shrill scream.    And i think it was this horse that did it.  Suddenly,  i thought that Everything is just all too much.  This morning i waited for Alyssia to call.  She goes down to near Fresno on Thursdays for a class.  Leaves the kids with her brother in Sacramento.  Arrives back here,  home around 2 am.   So i wait until she has recovered a little to tell her that i can go pick up the car today when she can give me a ride.  The mechanic had called yesterday to say that Car still does not pass emissions standard.  Has been there since Tuesday.  They did a full tune up but found the problem to be a carburetor insulator.  He had looked everywhere he knew and could not find this part.  1986 model.  That runs pretty great,  uses NO gas.    So she called and we talk a little,  she's tired but will come in a while.  Says that as long as i am TRYING,  "they" will give me extensions if i provide the paperwork.  At some point,  if there is no hope,  there is an appeal process.  

we pick up the car.  He's a very nice person.  But keeps his professional distance,  smiling just slightly.  If i can find the part,  he will put it in.  Ok.   I say….I DO have a 1983 Toyota pickup.  Here he does smile before he looks off into the distance.  

I stop at Lakeside Market which has electricity again…5 day shut off….and get some FOOD.  I'd not planned on Car being gone so long,  so had relied a lot on Talkie's eggs.  

Pull in here to the parking spot at the Gate Bottom of Campsite A.   Get out  and walk a few steps toward the gate and there,  in plain sight is this piece of  cloth.   It's silk.  I'm sure a Glennis.   Lying there,  at the gate.  The second pic is more the true color.

Just there.   Perfectly there.  I stare.  ??????   

It's There.  as if to protect.  it's long edge aligned with the gate,  pointing out,  to where any fire might come from.  

Earlier,  i'd thought….i'll just give up.  But then,  as always,  thought follows….How?  How do you Give UP?  What exactly do you DO?,  to give up?    I have never had an answer to that question.  And here,  a piece of Cloth,  from WHERE?  HOW?  i have no idea but….it's just there.  perfectly aligned with Everything.         So…ok.  we just go.  ok.

 

 

 

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27 responses to “how do you quit? how do you….give up?”

  1. Joanne Avatar
    Joanne

    Havejustin look on internet for your part or tell me what and I will ask some guys at the greenhouse to look. Not like you drive much anyway. Love the cloth you found a message. Just do what you can and keep going. Love to you and goodnight from Maine. Where it’s very cold tonight but the sky is full of stars.

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    Those same. Same. Stars are here too.

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  3. Acey Avatar

    it’s very good medicine for all of us that you share some of these parts. both the moments of magic and overwhelm.

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  4. jaime Avatar
    jaime

    Please tell us what part you are looking for. A 1986 carburetor insulator for what kind of vehicle? I’ll look too. The whole fire season and the lack of sleep takes it’s toll. What drains you and what replenishes you? Finding the Glennis moon was wonderful but it sounds like you could use more support. (Captain Obvious here.) What can we do to help? Love you Grace. Just going.

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  5. grace Forrest Avatar

    today was a first at the Overwhelm. I don’t know what to say about that. It’s like…of course. It’s overwhelming, and yes it is, but also…as i am in town, people are just going. Living.
    Its what people do. There are exchanges that are funny and good and we all just go but we also are BURNING.
    it’s all just so strange. And i keep thinking, there is NO ONE to lead the way out

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  6. grace Forrest Avatar

    Jaime…what replenishes, what drains. I think of these.
    And at the end of this day i am just tired. The Owl may come again and i will go out again. For Talkie.

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  7. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    for a few years now my primary care doc and i have been discussing the ongoing collective neurological ramifications of living in a globalized dominant culture where cognitive, emotional and psychic dissonance is the norm. Now with your permission I’d like to include your experience as just described in this comment when I go to see her next Tuesday. It would add necessary dimension to how we ponder the cultural mutation specifics about our country specifically. Mostly so far the conversational slant has related to northeast-centric concerns like rising sea levels, hurricanes blaring out of nowhere as an ongoing thing, small yet persistent earthquakes waaaaay too many people like to pretend aren’t happening on the regular and ever increasing deforestation-by-commerce.

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  8. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    shoot. I definitely hit “reply” to your comment about being around other people in town. the utter absence of leadership. how that kind of thing culminates from a different perspective to the one we tend to focus upon here.

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  9. Dana Avatar

    I don’t blame you for feeling overwhelmed. I know I would be in your position. To be constantly on the alert for danger….owls or fires…is very draining. I recommend as many naps as you can fit in. I’m thinking of you with hopes for your increased sense of safety and security.

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  10. sparrow Avatar
    sparrow

    and so we just go…

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  11. yvette Avatar

    Why can’t fly?
    My brother is into cars but Americans are not his strength ( not realistic)
    How can we help?
    How can I help?
    This morning on the news there was a timelapse videoclip of how the fire starts and spreads. It’s frightening and to know you there close by …GRACE

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  12. cynthia Avatar
    cynthia

    so much love to you gentle day grace may it be one

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  13. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    I’m in Birmingham for a week visiting my brother and stay off the web during my family time. Not sure why this morning I broke that rule and came here. Maybe just so I could send you a big giant visual hug.

    Like

  14. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    grace, the car is the Datsun? If so, your mechanic probably already checked this but I have to do something to help so I went searching but couldn’t come up with much since I don’t know the model of the car or the VIN # but here is Nissan’s website for parts: maybe, just maybe here is an answer:
    https://www.nissanpartsdeal.com/
    I think your speaking here of how it is in CA is one way of coping with wanting to give up at times for these past years in CA have surely been a testing time as well as a wondrous time. To put it down in writing, maybe helps to somewhat ease the whole of how it is to live in CA, with all of its rules and regulations, with all of its beauty and space and also with it’s on-going disasters…it has to be a shock to the system, especially coming from New Mexico, where although the living can be hard, it is also so much more laid back in so many ways.
    You use the phrase, as do I, “Stand and Face” and it is not lip-service but what it is is hard, and tiring and dispiriting at times, unrelenting, overwhelming but then, as you have shown so many times, it is the will to keep on going, one foot in front of the other, that is how you navigate this journey that brought you to the Hill. You are where you need to be and if you need further proof, well, just look at the cloth scrap…

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  15. Liz A Avatar

    how a scrap of cloth can hold so much

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  16. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    For those of you trying to help by sourcing the part for grace’s car, it is not a Datsun but a Honda per grace.

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  17. yvette Avatar

    Thank you Marti……
    I understood you don’t have a blog or something but your writing here and at Mo’s toutches my heart so deeply.
    Thanks!

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    i would love it very much, Acey…and would love to hear
    anything you might share about that.

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  19. grace Forrest Avatar

    i need to continue working with it. There is
    PeaceFull ness to be had.

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  20. grace Forrest Avatar

    belov~ed Sparrow…we do. and we become MORE from it

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  21. grace Forrest Avatar

    it is how things are going to be.
    How you can help is just being YVETTE
    being There, where i know i can find you.
    This is a very BIG comfort and Love

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  22. grace Forrest Avatar

    so much, so much LOVED finding you here

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  23. grace Forrest Avatar

    i think so. Your HUGS are powerful medicine

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  24. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes…the contrast to New Mex is huge. the Live and Let Live state. But i believe in California, too. Many things legislated here are the groundwork for legislation in other parts of this country and all are worthy. All are needed.
    and yes, the understanding of
    Stand and Face
    yes.
    Living your Truth. We live our Truth.

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar

    continuing on, into today, days later.

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