windthread

real quick….there are things i need to do…like feed some Goats, give some water to some Plants

but….

there is a kind of 911 feeling this morning, i just read Liz’s words which said, yes, it’s a true feeling

we are being tempted to UnRavel

i have not gotten far with Resmaa Menakum’s book. just the intro, but i remember him saying, in the
podcast with Tippet….we need to learn to PAUSE

so…PAUSE….Breathe….wait a minute
We are CRITICAL TO and FOR EACHOTHER

later….

and go to NPR WEEKEND EDITION and listen about the GRAND ACHIEVEMENT of the POULTRY WORKERS in VIRGINIA

from the middle of the night.  no context upon waking.

 

how FIERCE she is for Life!   What?,  third day in transplant pot,  already….NEW !   She begins again,  wasting No Time…I take this deep into my Self…Waste no time

 

the second lesson.    I had not stitched down the Crow.  maybe wanting to indulge in my misery as Don Juan would have suggested to Castaneda

but i remembered a Moment,  many years ago when i was wanting my friend Joyce Tinkham to teach me beading.  One of the first things.   Take such care to not spill your beads.  We were working with micro seed size…tiny….and maybe i felt reckless to her?,  but she told me.  She had been taught by her Tlingit grandmother.  and her first teaching for Joyce was….take great care to not spill your beads.  if you do,  Every Single Tiny Bead     MUST    be found.  MUST BE.   no matter how long and arduous  the search.  If one single tiny bead was not found,  the Bead People would never give Beauty to your designs.   

i had not stitched the Crow down.   Just left loose …. part of the tail feathers went missing….because i was having Feelings?  I stitched down today and Cloth Making has taken me in again.  Cloth is patient.  Cloth waits.

*  John Lewis.   as if Family.   a brother?,   we will Call the Grapefruit Tree       John Lewis.   Even tho i feel her as female,   John Lewis is her name.   She WILL grow.   There WILL be fruit.

 

 

Detroit.   White Panthers.  " an anti racist political collective founded in 1968 by PunPlamondon,  leni Sinclair and John Sinclair.  it was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton,  co~founder of the Black Panther Party was asked what white people could do to support the Black Panthers.  Newton replied that they could form  a White Panther Party.   The counter culture era group took the name and dedicated its energies to a cultural revolution.   The party worked with many ethnic minority rights groups in the Rainbow Coalition."

to avoid the Draft,  my childrens father and i married in 1968 because the only program offered by Peace Corps was for married couples.  Peace Corps mean avoiding the draft.   

at some point,  Huey P. Newton said.    :    Free your mind and your ass will follow.

 

there was more to the Story.    I didn't find out until the next day when Jenny called.  When Alyssia left to go pick up Julian,  Jenny and her man had just pulled up to the little road that is next to the creek,  just outside the Gate.  They intended to stay there,  wait,  be immediately present if needed.   When Alyssia drove down,  Emrie saw the truck…she was elated.   I don't know the details,  have not talked to Alyssia about it yet,  but Emrie was ADAMANT that she NEEDED to see her New Nana…it's been months.    They stood,  6 ft apart at the edge of the creek,  everyone wearing their masks….Emrie has a child mask…..she and Jenny spent about a half hour tossing stones into the water…one of Emrie's most loved events,  they kept the distance,  showing each other their stones,  telling about their stones.  What all else i don't know,  but Jenny said Emrie was completely within the protocol.   She would SAY…..i HOLD YOUR HAND, New Nana  but didn't move close.    It didn't seem to stress her.  She was just so so happy to see Jenny in person.   There was talk about Maybe,  Maybe working toward being able to hold hands.

sitting next to  this rock from N Mex i am thinking about Joy.   How that word has played greatly over the years….talk of    Joy abounded,  personal joy,  joy of much larger scope,  planetary joy.   Joy.   I thought of how Joy in a significant part for me,  has always been about Making.   and how in these days now,  i am not making.  but deep into trying to understand SomeThing i am not understanding.   and today,  to wonder about Joy. 

two things….one from Patty of roadlistening.blogspot.com….."maybe doing has lost its luster and Being is normal now"….these words hold a key

and then from Jan,  re how we went through life….."unskilled and naive….thinking love would take care of everything"

and back to the post of  7/12….wanting to leave someThing for the kids…and not at all any Thing or Things,  not a Cloth or any Drawings,  not even any words  except to say to them,  to tell them,  that i Cared.   That i thought as Jan said that love would take care of everything.  I somehow believed that.   and i dropped the ball   

 

 

i woke yesterday to this in the email.  From Marti.  I'll let her talk about it in a comment,  but it was such a JOY and i felt lightened to see and listen about it.   This pic is from the screen of the laptop.  It is SO MUCH MORE in her photograph.

had many thoughts and went about the morning feeling full of possibilities and then mid morning sirens came and went…we are just close to that highway to everywhere around here,  a main artery,  and there were sirens.  Ears prick and you continue what your doing but listen for their direction and the

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i just lost about 20 min of words.   just disappered as if i'd never typed them.

so.   without all that led up to it….Alyssia and Emrie had come to change the ice.  By then,  a full out Fire,  Close,  Miners Ranch and Mt. Ida.   The sky became FULL of circling planes and helicopters….flying LOW,  one plane causing a Pine here to sway and Emrie and i Waved and Called Out…..HELLLLLOOOOOOO!    THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! over and over.  Alyssia watched the alerts on her phone and talked to Jenny.  In the midst of calling out,  Emrie and i brought her blocks out to the table and built castles and bridges.  The Goats pulled In to themselves and came up here,  by the door.  Puppie came up from down at A.  

it went on for 3 hours.  They were taking water from the creek canal just up the way.  Refilling for the drops.  I don't know how many fire trucks were involved…more than 4 and they are BIG.    A  t one point,  Alyssia decided to leave and go pick up Julian from her house in town     in case   in case they cut off traffic to the Hill.    But right about then,  it slowed and quieted.  it was 8:45.   No need for them to come back.    it was Over.

i looked again,  at dusk,  Marti's cloth.  Sun Flower 

 

 

 

i left very early this morning to give water at A and B.  just in case.   I saw that all the Tall Grasses over Tazmeena's grave had become dry and flat and i pulled them and tossed them over the fence to the Goats.  Mostly RattleSnake Grass…the nutritious seed pods.   I'd forgotten the shell.    I'd woken with none of the sense of possibility,  of Joy,  but rather trepidation because i'd not gone to water B in all the comotion,  a 100 degree day,  the GREEN BEANS,  the just planted Malabar seeds.   But i found all to be well.  And even more than well.  Things….appeared to…..have….GROWN?   Spent then a long time at A.  Repotted the grapefruit tree and avacado in large landscape pots i'd brought from N Mex.  Watered long and deep.  Listened to the new Morning Dove that has come for Jenny.  She loves them.   And i thought and cried no cry for her and us….she had come from Chico last eve.  Was somewhere in Oroville,  alyssia said…"somewhere",  and i know where that somewhere was,  am sure of it…was down at Lakeside where all the FireFighting was Staging,  there in the parking lot,  ready to drive through if they evacuated us.   Cry, no cry,  tears well up writing this.  She couldn't come here according to the Rona Agreement.  She was there,  like 2 minutes away,  and she couldn't come and stand with us,  yelling Love up to the SkyFliers….we couldn't be together

 

 

from later today.  stenographer's notebook.       I'd thought all along that i'd been   uhhhhh,   preparing for something.  Something i thought would be of Value.   A lifetime of preparing for something that would be of Value.   It was all about me.  Because i thought that.    Here i am.  almost over.   and i never found the something or got "there".   Yesterday,  there was no urge to load things up in case.  I just thought….we'll load the Goats.  the cat carrier,  Talkie's travel crate is Ready,  under the table where Emrie and i were building castles and bridges and yelling love to firefighters in the sky.   I have the black bag with important papers…it sits there in that back room.   Everything else,  i guess i would leave?   i guess,  cause there was no thought to load anything.  none.   This surprises me today.

still,  no Cloth making.

so…some voice says:  you are no longer legitimate.   you take up        space.   Time to      go.

?

I am keeping things Alive.    Keeping things i have Caused,  alive.  Garden.  s      Gardens.   I have planted the Malabar seeds in both A and B.    Almost as soon as i finish giving water,  the soil on the surface is dry to touch.   It Hovers around 100 degrees.  there are no clouds.  Full Sun.  I walk the paths back and forth and am amazed at the GREEN of the trees,  so Green.  the tree frogs that appear in the spaces of the wood of the Wall Garden.   This

Mullien

unfazed,  and even,  continuing.

I am deeply engaged in Some Thing.  I can't  "name" it,  can't exactly say,  but i am.  deeply.  I remain in The Book with the People there.  I remain in the Call that arises from this….What will you ….DO?,  grace?   Way back,  you felt this and then way back, you somehow ………forgot?    I think of words…apathy?,  indifference?   but they don't hold themeaning…it's more like having fallen into a Spell.   Is that it?   No.   that's not it.   I assumed,  maybe,  that people in power who knew more than i do would do the work needing to be done.  ?   and went about my own business of becoming.   How long has it been?  since the 60's?   And  how many of us have gone along,  seeing to our own business.   How has this seeing to our own business formed a kind of Resist that pressed together to avoid so much that was needed for the Good of the Whole.   for Every Body Else. and for Every Body Else,  truly means for us.  for  US.    They say…take 3 or 10 years to know your Whiteness.  Then,  come to the table.   Ok.  This is about how much time i figure i might have with luck.   OK.   I want to come to that table.   I want to leave something GOOD for the children.

Emrie…Julian…..10 years in the Future…are these words still here?    Are you reading them?   I am talking to you….,  this is me,  your Old Nana….can you remember?

 

 

 

the yard was very overgrown and she worked to mow it down but saw this cluster of Plant Being and "knew" it to be saved.  Now it has spread,  in just this short time,  Chicory.   These are pics she messaged me and when i saw them i remembered the roadsides in Michigan.   Have not seen since.   Till today.  the Blue Blue Up Turned Face…Face of     Love

Alyssia.   i watched her become born.  to my daughter.  who was 16 years old.   This is a …..long?,  no,  Big?,  sorta,  uhhhh,  a story of some sort… that really wasn't long or big at all at the time,  it was a story of a 16 yo girl giving birth.  and Alyssia was born and there is no,  none,  no way to say how much i love her.  How much she means to me now as a PERSON.  a WOMAN.  

you might remember me telling how i had wanted her to be aborted.   How the stubborn daughter,  Jenny would not.

and here we are.   Today.   This evening.  and we try to have a conversation in the midst of Her Daughter's imploring…PLAY WITH ME,  YOU GUYS!    in a pandemic when we are all this 3 yr old has to play with…this mother and this old nana  and all while the mother and the old nana are also trying to have this conversation that goes back to Anne Frank.

it feels all crazy.  and it is.  all crazy.

i have finished the book…The Warmth of Other Suns,  reading day and night except for holding the hose to give water to Plants, feeding Goats,  cooking food, eating,  cleaning the plates and pan….finished it.  But it's not finished.  Pages have turned ears and marks.  Dates.   Dates of just before i was born.  then on, all through my life…i can track my own existence along with the dates of the lives of the three human beings in this book.   Where i was.  What my own life was at that time.   There is much to do after finishing reading.

and then

i go to On Being,  the  white bougie online thing  and find that she has returned Resmaa  Menakem and now Robin DiAngelo for conversation and i listen and i go check out DiAngelo's   book,  White Fragility  which is OUT OF STOCK at amazon  and hear how exhausted Resmaa Menakem is now,  in this moment,  today        and i try to have this conversation with Alyssia and it's hard because Emrie has a hard time sharing,  but

her mother and i need to share

and i think….there is so much at stake in this moment.