looked and looked back for this. I couldn't quite remember what it looked like. Is from March. I don't know what it is i think it shows me, but something. i have less and less Will to find words….wish i could speak in pictures, like pictures would come out of my mouth….like bubbles or something Better yet, little movies.
the Party. At A, the Wall Garden, the abandoned Wall Garden which is now just a cardboard garden. They are in what they call the lookout that was going to be for chickens….way back in the beginning when we thought everyone would be living here any minute. Alyssia decorated. Streamers and banners on the canopy above the picnic table for the 6th birthday of the child that was the reason i am here, the Trisomy 13 embryo. that was supposed to live a week or so, sometimes maybe up to a year, but rarely, born without a face. i said yes. i will come and live out whatever is with You. and here we are. Emrie. Six years.
her father called in the middle of things. I watched her face as she talked with him. Dad, she says. Dad. He is a policeman in Houston Tx. In the last year, UnderCover…under what cover i don't know. Dad….he is working as he calls. It's awkward. She is shy with him. There was talk about her going to Houston for her birthday but they didn't come up with their half. So are saving for maybe Christmas. She wants to go. Wants to be with them. Him, her Abuela and Tias, his son Aiden, 11. Who he also doesn't live with. a little while later, Aiden calls. He is good with the conversation, having a sensitivity for her, asking her open questions that she is able to answer. To both of them, she says, without prompting, Thank You So Much for calling me.
and here we all are except for Julian who is still in New Jersey with his father and Jax who is in New Mexico with that family, but the Core of us, here and now Minnow, taking her place.
and Brinley…who can appear so much a waif….her hair….i said some time back, Jeff needs to teach himself how to do her hair and it's true but also equally or maybe more true is what Alyssia said….it's her Natural Hair. It's how she wants it and it's true…when she is required to sit for braids or someother kind of "product" order, she feels violated. She wants her hair FREE.
tonight i sit here looking back at all of us today….Minnow down on the floor dreaming, her feet moving, she makes soft growling sounds, Puppie is out there somewhere, figuring out how she is going to be All the rest of us in our Homes
with the INTENTION to be HERE. Together. Like we were today.
on that triangular shape rock by the table leg. SO young lizard, maybe an inch and a half at most? never seen a lizard under the table, or, here, anywhere in the periphery of the "house". and coming just as i was thinking about what the effects of the presence of a new dog might be. as if in direct answer….Dont Worry.
things change in the blink of an eye.
and Emrie went to her new school this morning. To meet both 1st grade teachers and for preliminary evaluation. Success all the way around. Everybody liked everybody. Nice and spacious classroom. The teacher doing the testing grinned and said….well,
we've got a real smarty pants here!
she read a whole book…with inflection, no hesitation, words new to her, like B R E A D, not just familiar sightwords.
tomorrow she is SIX years old.
as Hildegard von Bingen tells us…..All shall be well, all manner of things, Shall Be Well.
Love to All and
Metta circling out and back
and out again
she came with her ball. a ripped tennis ball. more boxes checked. Chicken. Talkie has become a Bully since Tay is gone. She presides over the immediate space here, the steps into the "house", often shitting on them, she intimidates Puppie, Emrie and Brinley have pool noodles if she is in a particular mood….she drew blood on Alyssia's leg for no reason yesterday but for whatever reason, acknowledges some kind of hierarchy of species…..Dog. Give space to Dog. She did. no incidents.
Goats: were wary. lined up as they do, staring. Staring. Staring. all the while Minnow thought about her ball. Did not think about Goats at all.
and at the end of the day, Puppie showed up…fast, from Sunny Ray's Forest and startled Minnow who ran at her scattering Puppie to somewhere but stopped dead when told to and later, Puppie was under Alyssia's Van watching. That's going to take some time.
It could have been a trial run. But we thought….why not. Why not now. So…there is this smallish in comparison dog lying on the floor in front of the screen door. It's 10 something p.m. Morning will come soon enough. and we will go from here.
the girls fround this baby Gopher Snake. We were cautious until deciding it was not a rattlesnake….the Sierra Nevada Gopher Snake looking so similar, at first glance, the patterning, behavior. Size of a soba noodle. maybe almost a foot long. 10" for sure. and then we saw that it was dead. just behind its head…pierced by a cat tooth. Why i do not love cats. They kill and walk away.
Emrie brings these 3 leaves and says You need to keep them. Put them in a safe place.
Veronika, cousin Veronika who has lived in the little Yellow House next door, the first house that Alyssia had in Oroville, that she still has a rent to own contract for is moving to So Cal. Getting a Divorce. Found a new man. Taking her two little boys but, leaving all the cats, kittens and Minnow. Left a note for Jeffrey in his van with the house key. She'll be back in 2 weeks for a couple days. The cats are just like so many neighborhood cats. and then
there's Minnow.
a Border Collie mix. Looks very dominant Border Collie. She's 5. What do i say here?. For the first few years Veronika had her she lived in an apartment. The Yellow House was her first yard, a small city yard seperated from Alyssia's White House by a chain link fence. A wall of bushes and trees. There's a pool ladder set against that fence. The kids and Minnow go back and forth. When Minnow is told to stay home she does. Only comes when invited. Her yard has no front gate. I've never paid much attention to her. When i go to Alyssia's and park out front she comes to greet me, i pat her head, say Hi Minnow and go along. In the past i had Tay with me. Veronika, young and very lost in her Issues generally ignored Minnow it seems. Minnow has pretty much been just on her own. They have had all those cats and kittens, for a while, ducks. And all the roaming neighborhood chickens. Which she ignores, just loving her ball. Which Alyssia said today "She learned how to throw it for herself". A dog that throws and catches her own ball. Jeff is expected to take her to the SPCA for rehoming. Alyssia's household has two dogs. Jenny and her man have two dogs.
Jenny has taken a few days off work to be here to "get things done" and they all came, to put in the last new Rim Gate and to do two loads of fallen branches for the land fill. Conversation. Votes. Try Minnow.
As Jenny said, it's a check in almost all the boxes. She is not agressive with other living beings. She has no urge to "leave home". She is somehow a Happy dog with next to zero attention. She loves kids. Everyone, including me, thinks 6 acres needs a dog.
I have never lived without a dog. i will never have a dog like Tay.
i looked
UP
to see if i could see the oh so small bird that has the Song of only one note…..that it was singing just overhead and couldn't see it because it's too small and grey and smallandgrey but i did see
the crazy branches of these Foothill Pines Pinus sabiniana California Foothill Pine, Digger Pine Ghost Pine Gray Pine double click the pic How Beauty Full y crazy and magic these branch designs……WHY? i wonder. What might the "purpose" be??? or
is it just another example, like butterflies and flowers, the MIND of the Universe, the Mind of the God Thing, pleasing ITS SELF ? and i think….as i write those words….God Thing….how i used to try to explain God to my kids….one of which now is Jenny, and i think how Emrie doesn't know that concept….
be sure to double click
On Being the Pause Newsletter
Go to YouTube type in Ayisha Siddiqa look for the On Being signiture
the poem On Another Panel About Climate Change They Ask Me To Sell the Future and All I've Got Is a Love Poem.
last line being: "i'd follow love into extinction" and i would
" leaves good. cooked with garlic, sauteed. An easy grain crop to harvest and use. delicious, can be popped like popcorn. Makes wonderful cereal. yields extremely well with minimal water. chickens love it too." Making Home Sharon Astyk
each day, their own selves. this one, a Gentle Day. a day of watching shadows, the OtherBeings of beings. The other forest of Tree people, Tree Beings, of things we say are in~animate but caste shadow that talks.
mid week Farmer's Market. OK.
Before Covid, when i first got here, Emrie and I would go. She was little. We held hands and looked. And then, Covid and we didn't go. And then last year when Brinley and her father moved in with Alyssia, and Jax came, so many days a week, i didn't have the wherewithall to take all of them. And really, to tell the truth, didn't want to. I wanted it to be how it used to be. Me and Emrie. But. it's not how it is.
And so.
Since it was going to be a balmy 95 degrees, we loaded up. I don't know what all Alyssia told them, but my speech, while driving, was that i didn't want to feel like i was herding chickens. That i knew that THEY knew how to behave, like
walking, not running. quiet voice. touch with your eyes, not your hands. polite. notice where you ARE. Look at where you ARE. and i don't know what all else, becase they are very verbal. The drive there which is about 10 min was Brimming with conversation, about the above and then all manner of somehow vaguely related threads
We DID it.
Aside from the fruits and vegetables, there are many tents of "prettys". i'll let you imagine that…and they all chose something at the end. But they also talked with the vendors, like the Blueberry Man about Blueberrys and how he loves them and how he had a potted Blueberry also for sale. and how we have Goats, so blueberries are not practical for us ….they asked him questions and had thoughts, the young woman who had postcards and small prints of her ART….how if they wanted to, they could get good at their Art and someday have a tent at a Farmer's Market and they told her all about their own Art work and Crafts …she listened…they EXCHANGED. and the young woman doing massage on someone, on her table, face down and we stopped and i told them what she was doing and THEY talked, about how instead of taking medicine and going to a doctor, you can care for your body in a different way and be well…and i told them that maybe they might want to learn this????, how to heal bodies….
and on and in the end, they voted for sno cones instead of going to the icecream store, 2 to1 so as you see in the pic…. was serendipitously the Tree island in the parking lot…of the Ginko….there's only one….
they TALK. it's exhausting, because they want and NEED real and honest response. and i miss those easy days of just me and Emrie, slow and sweet, but if i had asked her
she would say that they want to come too. All of Us. She would say All of Us, oldnana.
