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Honesty is the best policy

20231004_140138

 toward the end of the 77th year.   I have gotten lost this year.   I don't know if i will be found,  i don't know what found means.  It remains to be seen.  There have been many things,   and continuing,  the Fertile Void.  Tay died and Minnow has come.  It bothers me deeply when i don't say the truth,  speak it Out Loud.   My heart is broken for this country,  for the peoples of this land.   We are broken.   

i want to find things to carry me from day to day.   to believe in.  to form Hope in.  In the meantime,  i believe in this Hill.   I vow to remember how to make oh so thin flour tortillas,  enough so they fly off my bread board for All of Us.   This i can do.

otherwise,  maybe i'll remain lost with no plan.  Floating along this slow river where any day can be any way?   What about that?

this was the first pomegranate,  much before the 5 others that still remain on the branches.   That Rain….this happened.  This will be Her 6th year.  There is only little fruit flesh,  but it is SWEET .   we'll leave the 5 for another month or more.  Things take time.

Last night,  SomeThing came.   To Puppy's food bowl on that table outside.   I thought it was her…maybe 2:30 or so…but Minnow lurched  toward the door ,  her body rigid      I let her out and there was a squirmish and growling, snarling i can't identify.   Something medium sizeed.   and she chased it off down into the Doe Forest.   

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25 responses to “Honesty is the best policy”

  1. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Go, go and make your fine tortillas, keep checking on what is still growing on The Hill, keep sharing in the joy of Emrie and Giana, go to the movie reels in your head about past times that brought you simple joys.Are you able to go and devote an hour or two a week maybe to help out at Emrie’s school during recess? Could be one way to go…
    Just last night, Rich and I were talking about your good goat cheese that you brought us when you came to our home, after we had first moved to New Mexico in 2013. You also brought yellow hots for us to try, walnuts for me to dye with and lots of cloth plus the great huge enamel pot to dye with.
    This has been a year…a year that I could not have anticipated so in my honesty, I should say that I went from doing all I could to research rehab hospitals and bugging the heck out of my husband’s doctors to try to help find out how to help him to pivoting and seeking funeral homes and even writing an obituary when I was told to consider hospice. Blessedly, he has come through and is getting stronger every day but that whiplash of emotions and constant activity, was very hard.The thing is, you just have to move into it, do the best you can, and come out the other side. I learned that I am a lot stronger than I realized, that I had some nursing skills that I never knew I had and that, when determined, a lot can get accomplished!!!
    BUT, I wish I could do the same about our country for I cannot even begin to tell you how I feel about the state of this country. How the cruelty, lack of humanity, exhibited every day by the so called congressional leaders, is so corrosive, it eats away at my soul. How the former President, who is evil, a traitor of the highest order, a totally reprehensible human being is allowed to walk the streets, is beyond me. AND now,President Biden is allowing the Wall to continue…I have lost my way in knowing this country that I live in. Where is my Dad’s America??? I have such a strong sense that he is weeping right now.
    This morning, news comes that one of the guinea pigs, pets of my grandchildren has died. They were given the guineas to take home to become their pets when they left the 5th grade, the guineas had been the class pets. (Our grand kids are in high school now so these pets have been with them for a long time.) Two little sweet dears, a chocolate guinea pig named Hershey and a fluffy white one named Dumpling. It is Dumpling who has died. I will speak to my grands this weekend but I know that today is a very sad day in their home.

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  2. jude Avatar
    jude

    Here you are grace, right here, the same caring person I always find here, just going.

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  3. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Grace, you’re one of the most authentic people I know .. your expressed honesty and openness is what draws me back to your blog each and every day. I wrote to Marti this morning saying that aging is not for sissies. Grace you are no sissy .. you got this!!!
    As for what’s happening in our country .. I have no words but a whole lotta HOPE!!

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  4. Peggy McG Avatar
    Peggy McG

    To thine self be true.. it is what keeps me sane!

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  5. CatherinE Avatar
    CatherinE

    I’ve been thinking about you all day today, Grace. What being lost means. And honesty. And – coincidentally, I’ve been learning to make corn tortillas with masa harina. I can make thick ones but I haven’t mastered thin ones. I’m hesitant to press that lever on the tortilla press hard enough.

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  6. Laura Avatar
    Laura

    I am afraid to walk outside at night. I listened to your recommendation, I think Terry?, but I will never walk outside at night. I am not fond of going out to do errands even in the daytime here in my red county. Men, especially with beards, creep me out. Teen boys terrorize stores and neighborhoods.I feel safer when I am out in the Bay Area, than here.
    I want to find hope, but when I feel Nicolle Wallace falter, I feel scared. 50+% for Trump? Nothing makes sense anymore.
    I will go back to read your most recent posts that I have missed.
    Xoxoxo Dear Grace

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  7. deb Avatar
    deb

    I wouldn’t say lost. You wander and you wonder, but you always seem to get your bearings and home in on your heart.

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  8. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    In thinking about what Deb just said above me…can people get lost or are the things they believed in, loved, knew…is that what has become lost?
    Either way…I understand and in my 64th year feel many of these feelings you and Marti express. Personal life, the country and the world…today Israel. War and in Afghanistan, an earthquake, flooding in Scotland.
    It feels never ending.
    I told J. today I’ve lost a sense of hope. I just keep doing my small things, because what else am I to do?

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  9. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Laura,
    I don’t know you well or where you live…but I can relate to your comment. The past month or so, I’ve taken over the grocery shopping duties and have been going Friday nights on my way home from work.
    Last night was so strange. One entrance door was locked, and as you wnet in the open one…they had blocked all of the normally open places to walk right in with grocery carts. Customers had to walk along the front of the store to enter the shopping areas near the locked door.
    I later discovered that all of this was because there have been many robberies and the company will not hire security.
    I think I have to rethink my whole shopping system.
    I did not feel safe.
    ugh
    Take care, yes?

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  10. Liz A Avatar
    Liz A

    From the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: “Wildlife species seen in the (Oroville) area include coyote, badger, fox, bobcat, porcupine”
    And from http://www.Buttecounty.net “Residents in Butte County coexist with a myriad of wildlife, including bats, squirrels, foxes, raccoons, opossums, deer, skunks, snakes, mountain lions, coyotes, and bears.”
    Have you seen any scat in the area that might narrow down the list?

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  11. Laura Avatar
    Laura

    Hi, Nancy
    I live in Placer County, Ca. The similarities are uncanny. Where are you?

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    your Dad’s America. Weep he would, but then
    he would dry his eye and
    Tell us something. Tell us what? What would Dad tell us?
    Dearest Dumpling…a good good long life. Sail away,
    Dumpling

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yup

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    We count on Each Other

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    True
    True is Standing and Facing

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i don’t know yet…..about lost, jut am
    it.
    i’ve never tried corn. Would be so worth while….
    i don’t know why, but we all, Alyssia, Jenny and me
    are Jonesing for New Mexico Food. Like always, but this chili season it’s WAY intense. Not Mexican food
    which there is a ton of here, food trucks, restruants…
    am working to remember all i learned in my years there, just everything and Jenny is ordering green chili on line.
    i need to write about that. New Mex Green Chili which is like a Universe of its own….so ONLY of that earth THERE.
    Such a perfect example of the Magic of Plants
    Marti just sent me Red Chili.
    the cast iron frying pan….get it HOT. a spoon of LARD
    tilt the pan a spoon of flour and “toast” the flour to golden brown, till the FRAGRANCE rises…then 2 spoons of the Red Chili powder 2:1 toast more again…the
    FRAGRANCE , a split second it would scorch….your focus
    is Sharp Intense
    slowly add water to consistency , it thickens
    JUST RIGHT
    it seems so simple, so almost nothing, but it’s Everything
    EVERYTHING.

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    we try to understand
    we need to try to understand
    i keep thinking, this is my EARTH. This is my Earth

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    focusing on these words

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  19. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    my bearings. the bearings are always there FOR me
    Earth, my bearings

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  20. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i don’t know how to speak of all of these things yet.
    They sit with me on the edge of something, and i
    breathe with them. I look for places of Hope “out there”
    searching
    and i find an island of hope with US … we Hold Each Other
    and i think so much depends on US
    all the Us s everywhere. and we ARE MANY
    We look for each other

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  21. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it doesn’t really matter….what comes, comes.
    Minnow is learning how to play her part

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  22. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Hee would say, weep then rise up, get on with it and do good…

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  23. CatherinE Avatar
    CatherinE

    wow, great description of cooking! We don’t really do New Mexican or Mexican here in Maine. But farmers here grow corn and poblanos and jalapenos, so we make do.
    There’s a poem “Lost” by David Wagoner. You probably know it. The last line goes “The forest knows / Where you are. You must let it find you.”

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  24. Yvette Avatar
    Yvette

    Let’s stick together.

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  25. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Santa Clarita, CA…so South of you 🙂
    I lived for 5 years in the Carson Valley/Reno areas of NV. Love it up that way.

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