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this day

20191120_160552

Am half way through.   I don't know what i expected,  but i did not expect this.

i quit reading fiction long ago.   The last was Louise Erdrich,  who i love beyond love.  I don't read it because i have no life then.  My life is in the pages,  the words,    I hurry through necessity so i can return to my life,  which is happening in the pages of the book.    I don't know what i thought i might find in this book but i have found 

what i needed to find.

half way.  I don't know where it's going at this point.  I am uneasy but totally compelled.  There is more truth here than anyWhere i've been for so long.  Is it True?,  this is Fiction.  But is it True?  I went to pick up the dear Honda Car from the Emissions mechanic today.  It's been a week again.   This time they replaced leaking hoses .  3.    Alyssia and Emrie gave me a ride there.    It's better,  but the consensus is that i need a whole new carburetor.   OK,  but they don't do that.    Don't now anyone in Oroville that does.  Maybe Chico.   I leave and head for the grocery store and at a corner see a 

TREE

i am startled by it.

There are trees Everywhere in Oroville.  Zillions of trees and at the corner of  Robinson and Lincoln,  there was a single most magnificant tree.   Why didn't i take a pic of it?   I don't know,  but i was filled to the brim with the Sense that so many trees in this small town/city  were touching roots…touching

and that the power people PGandE  were going to shut down the electricity at 4pm  AGAIN because of high Fire threat….and the book so far says nothing about Fire and Trees and might not,  but  here,  it's Fire and Trees and i want to get back home so i can get back into my real life inside the pages of the book  so i hurry.

 


20191120_160402

and i understood.   Finally,   today,   something about this Cloth that has been on the Wall Curtain for i guess months now.  I can go forward with it.   I finally understood its language.

 

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19 responses to “this day”

  1. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    Grace. Draw me an eye. Love all your words today. Love.

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  2. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    the whole world needs to read this book, remember what you have said here at the halfway point, it’s a wild ride

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  3. Liz A Avatar
    Liz A

    I am reading it again … and yes, there is sometimes more “truth” in fiction

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  4. Patty M Avatar
    Patty M

    I believe those of us who read and loved this book have connected.
    It’s wonderful that a creative act can change or open minds like
    this book.

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  5. judy martin Avatar
    judy martin

    I have not read this book – but I read what you wrote about it and I am changed a little. Your writing is something very special Grace. Thank you for writing your blog.
    Shall read the book too. xo

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  6. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    I have difficulty parsing exactly how much that book has awakened and shifted within me. At this point i’m pretty much decided it doesn’t matter except to the part of me that likes to measure and record things. Am just back inside from a spontaneous walkabout with Miss Mama exploring various spirals within the field and the part of our little woods that doesn’t freak her out too much provided there’s somebody with her. So so soooo many trees. Many that have fallen (and i continue to visit and study) in our time here. Many more have only partially fallen while we’ve been here – for long enough time to be greatly changed by now within the signs of both their resilient life-force and altered form(s).
    Today J. worked from home. We are both so weary and frightened and struggling to remain on the same page at the same time because the fear and the knowing what’s ultimately at stake. Despite and because of all this I asked if he would like to walk down to the Grandfather with me. He said yes immediately. Told him i wanted a picture of myself hugging it to show the hickory’s trunk size for blogging purposes. And also to share with him, as something we did together, this specific follow-through on my plan for The Next Sunny Day.
    Yes. We understood much unspoken had been shared. It showed in the way we hugged each other once back in the house. I told him of yesterday’s experience with the pair of oaks. How the one tree was embodying him by way of oak-based puns so i finally got the fact those two trees creating a single crown between them were personifications of US. His eyes relaxed more than i’ve seen them in weeks. He laughed that a tree would lovingly heckle me with puns. I admitted, as an extra special gift from me to him, that a number of his unstoppable at times downright painful-to-me word plays are pretty damn funny once I slow the revs enough to fully appreciate them for their own sake.
    ~~ For me, the actual reading of that book was really just the beginning of awakened insight and a sharp upgrade in my general local awareness. Like really focusing and seeing instead of mainly *feeling/grokking the surroundings more than studying the linear details. Also know what you mean about fiction becoming your life while you’re reading it. That’s why I stopped writing it, frankly. Knew i was good at that and just had to continue sitting by myself in a room while i persevered describing things from inside my head in order to “get somewhere” but ultimately decided i was way more interested in Having a life than writing about an imaginary version of same. But have always loved reading it and am never fully happy during times when for whatever reason i deny myself, or feel i simply don’t have time for, such pure and nourishing pleasure. It was so much easier to read novels after the car accident because fiction for me is always more about feeling at a deep level and willingly taking the ride. Rather than scrupulously Remembering the way i find a need to work my brain when reading non-fiction.

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  7. Dakotah Avatar
    Dakotah

    I quit reading fiction because my own life became so interesting. The events of my life are the stuff of books, things mostly categorized as “fiction”. Now I know they are real. I’ve kept copious notes yet it is impossible to get it all down. I need to get back to writing the books. The first is largely completed. Finding your own story can be quite humbling and cause for stillness and quiet reflection. Sometimes I find it difficult to move forward.

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  8. Elizabeth Ingraham Avatar
    Elizabeth Ingraham

    I am so happy you have this book. If you didn’t have it, I would have sent it to you. The confluence of you, this book, and us is the best type of synchronicity.

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  9. Liz A Avatar
    Liz A

    “I don’t read [fiction] because I have no life then … my life is in the pages “
    This is so me … and I remember reading a novel once, far far into the night, even though I knew I had to get up the next morning for a job interview … I turned off the light, then laid in bed, eyes wide open … gave up, turned the light back on and kept on reading until the alarm went off.
    And yes, I got the job

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    consciously
    MAPPING
    Us
    our threads, tendrils, root tips seeking to create
    Health
    for the Whole of Us….each for our own work
    like a Forest does, like a world Forest does
    the Trees sent you today as medicine for me, for
    my sense of weakness
    to help me trust what i know to be true.
    You have no idea, or maybe you do, what it
    meant/means to me to see your name and words
    here today.
    THANK YOU and such gratitude and Love

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  11. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    ok…i can draw you a million eyes…they take a
    minute.

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i have a hundred pages to go

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it requires at least 2 reads..i see that clearly

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i believe that Trees
    have worked this….trying to help us understand
    what they so so elegantly know

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it’s not easy, this book.

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    you are lucky. like Lucky
    to have another human being to share with
    Big Lucky
    i think this will be enough Fiction to hold me for a long long time

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Hey Dakotah….
    my own life is nothing except what strives to survive
    inside, INSIDE the Whole Big Story
    i could never imagine writing the whole big story, even a page of
    and the Whole Big Story pretty much defies writing
    But, this person caught a fragment in such a stunning way

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i would bring my book to work and tuck it under some
    piece of clothing and go into the bathroom for chunks
    of time to read

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  19. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    yes to both those sentiments

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