Monday, June 15, 2009

(i'm just so) full of it

Look, don't wonder what that's supposed to mean. If you don't know then you should probably just stop reading right now.

(Don't worry, this isn't another one of those f the world and love everything posts...or vice versa...)

I'm pretty tired today. An average of five hours of sleep for the last three days has been both fantastic and exhausting. Friday I was up way too early. Saturday I was up way too late. Sunday I think was yesterday.

On Saturday, after a late brunch (yes, even) and a few little chores, I headed off on my own in a northerly direction. As I drew close to my destination, I saw deep blue stormclouds ahead, electricity plunging toward the ground... The color alone was exciting, much less the possibility of a storm, but it seemed so distant... I headed down the last few miles of road, driving under the white line that separated blue skies in the south from purple in the north. No rain for us today, I thought.

I arrived at the homestead around three o'clock, with just enough time to walk around and see how many seeds had not sprouted, how many plants were not growing, how my beautiful little melons had wilted--I was rather dismayed at the condition of things, not remembering perhaps that growth happens in its own time, that there is waiting, that there are setbacks but also transformations. I saw, only, failure and negligence, drought.

And then it started to rain.

It kept coming down for a few hours, not steadily or heavily but reliably, anchored by a stretch of lightning and the pull of thunder. No dark skies, just a gentle grey... I played piano and cut rhubarb in the rain, for the (absolutely delicious) torte mom was putting together. Just before sunset, the clouds thinned and the sun broke through, as it will so often do... Birds took to the sky again and I waded through the field, wet to the knees, while infinite numbers of daisies whispered to me the lyrics of a long-forgotten song... Light-filled drops of rain clung to blades of grass like so many tears, waiting to be blown away by the night wind. A sweet evening.

After wandering around for a while attempting to capture some small remembrance of this beauty with my total-piece-o-shite camera, I hopped in my little red wagon and took off for my sister's place, further north. We went into town for a beer at the Muny, and after hours of talking and some pretty decent jukebox tunes (seriously, folks, A Little Less Conversation!) we closed the place down, and then closed the night down... Guess we haven't seen enough of each other lately. Lonely factor's getting pretty high for some of us out here.

So, after we'd voiced and vented and sometime just before sunrise I took my last sip of wine and crawled into bed. Woke to the sound of the f-ing cat doing her I'm-so-horny-I-need-to-get-out-the-house-now or maybe just I-want-the-F-out routine, but whichever it was it was enough to make an extremely tired person feel like the world was coming to an end. Managed to squeeze in a little more but holy crap, was I beat when I got back to mom and dad's...I took one look at the garden and practically had a nervous breakdown. For a moment it just seemed like the whole thing was coming apart... but, you know, as usual, there's nothing for it but to go, so I downed a cheese sandwich, put on my grandma's red straw hat and stepped out into it.

Quite suddenly, I had a change of heart.

Things are different than they were, and that's just how it's going to be. That unexpected beauty we experienced last summer may not come again, but something else will, and we'll learn from it, live with it. Until yesterday I hadn't been able to see anything coming together this year, in this garden, but somehow putting all those seeds in the ground made me feel, once again, that sense of possibility, of color and texture and scent and flavor, of something not yet seen...of the unknown. That wicked hummingbird moth in the chives, a bumblebee at my knee, corn that emerged overnight... So much had changed in just a few hours, with a bit of rain and warmth. After that, I worked all day in love instead of madness, in peace instead of fear. And so we must continue, as gracefully as we can.

2 comments:

JB aka JayBee said...

I am grateful to have access to your writing. You are able to invoke so many feelings and images in your writing. I am jealous.

I look forward to also having access to your person.

fremenine said...

I think they invoke me more than I do them, but I'm happy that some part of that has come through.

Sorry we've missed each other this week, again, but it's been a hell of one for me anyway... I think I tagged you last, so call when things look good.