Walking

Freda sent me this poem this morning.  

I've walked twice (a piece with Luci, then later to meet Freda for the Real Walk) since reading it.  The air feels clean and the temperature now reaching toward 70--a perfect day, except it's not.  What happens in Ukraine affects us all.  So many Americans cheering for Putin is shattering.  

We walk to run into artists and music and trees--and to watch dogs who don't know much about anything wagging along happily, as if life is normal. 

Go For a Brisk Walk 
by Gene Guntzel

Go for a brisk walk every day
Either around dawn or sunset
And you may run into Chopin or Monet,
Charlotte Bronte or a mysterious brunette
Who turns out to be Maria Callas.
Bessie Smith, Jack Benny, you never knew,
The Duke of Earl slipping away from the palace,
Kafka and his fiancée strolling in the snow.
Melville whose book you meant to read,
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Princess Diana, Van Gogh,
Out walking, despite all they’ve been through.
“To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need,”
Said Emily Dickinson. (She’s here, too.)
Life is hard. Oh Lord, the miseries we bear
And yet it’s good to get out in the open air.

On the personal good news front, I have had six pain free leg days with a flare only on Wednesday.  This, it seems to me, is evidence that I'm on the right track with these epidurals.  It's amazing how much longer days seem for getting things done!

I do have to have a tooth extraction on Friday.  A tooth recently filled is now split to the roots and can't be fixed.  It's been bothering me since the filling and I thought maybe the filling was just loose. The dentist says that our teeth just get softer as we age and we need to be careful about what we bite. 

I get another epidural on Wednesday--my hope being that the effects last a long time and I'll be able to travel by car to Georgia before or after my April trip to Virginia.  

Charlotte's Birthday Party

Our Can-Do-Anything Janet Oglethorpe paints and designs awesome rooms, writes beautifully, teaches exercise classes, inspires and wows her friends, and matches certain dogs to certain humans to perfection. 

Yesterday she hosted Charlotte's birthday lunch and served us Julia Childs' Boeuf Bourguignon, cauliflower rice, sautéed green beans, and chocolate mousse, along with Bill's yummy homemade bread.  The music was a chorus of repeated Ummmmms around the table: Kate's, Janet's, Charlotte's and mine.  Every bite was delicious!  

Not only has Janet mastered Julia's 42-steps-to-make stew; she does a spot on imitation of the French chef!

Here she is with our girl Luci who--when hearing I was going to Janet's house, where she lived for two days before she moved in with me--insisted on going along to see Janet and Bill and their three dogs, Mia, Val and Molly. 

What a perfect afternoon, celebrating Charlotte's birthday, February 23rd!  

Ramblings After Midnight

          1. Being Brave

Having gone to bed early last night, I just woke up and thought it was morning.  Little Cuddle Bug was missing from my bed but when she heard me get up she ran from the living room to greet me.  Yesterday she napped so much I wondered if she might be a little sick, but she's her sweet playful self. 

She came up to the side of my bed and asked me ever so politely if it might be okay if she went outside for a minute.  She rarely makes requests or gets up in the night, so I could tell she had business to attend to.  "I didn't want to disturb you, I could see you're sleeping, but if you don't mind, I would like to go out," she says. 

When I ask, "Do you want to go outside?" she runs to the door with great joy--I can only call it joy! When she gets near the door, she tenses up as if for a brave attack on her imaginary prey.  She holds that position until I get the door open, then she runs to the same spot she always runs to, barking and growling.  She thinks she's huge in these moments and a force to be reckoned with--quite the opposite of the docile little thing she is during the day. The night brings out the wild in her. 

Once, she must have seen something real in that spot--maybe a possum or skunk or cat--and forever after that one siting, she goes there with a clear intention: kill the interloper! If not mortal danger, she hopes to, at the very least, warn the critter that she could inflict some serious damage. 

On these middle of the night trips into enemy territory behind the jasmine trellis, she runs very fast.  She doesn't stop until she checks out the whole back yard and gets an all-clear.  Only after her patrol ends is she ready for more mundane business, like having a pee next to Jan's house. 

Makes me wonder how often we bulk up ourselves for battle just remembering something scary that happened way long ago? I know I do.  I can do the Luci-equivalent of tensing up my muscles at the prospect of approaching a problem that lives only in my head--though I'm more apt to run away from than toward. 

Several neighbors have spotted a coyote recently.  So when I do open the door after dark, I stand guard in the doorway scanning the yard for anything wild that could give itsy bitsy Luci a run for her money, or worse.  (She thinks she's protecting me and this vast-to-her estate; I think I'm her protector.  Maybe we're both deluded and naive?)

Now I have returned to my bed and she has lifted up the covers to burrow all the way down under where she likes to sleep right up next to me, curled up in a ball.  She loves her little cotton cave and I can return to sleep with peace of mind, knowing that if any interlopers do come near, she will announce and pounce. 

          2. Correction...

To yesterday's post: 

Kate assured me that native Texans do indeed--contrary to my generalization--say "love you to death" and "Fixing to."    I stand corrected.  Turns out, after she reminded me (indignant that I would draw such a line), she does share almost all my linguistic Southern!  But you have to have been born and raised (not reared) here--and she was. 

Most everybody we know, turns out, is what Kate calls a "transplant." Including me. I noted upon my arrival in Texas that people gave me a look when I said "I might could" and certain expressions not shared by transplanted people from north of here.   Once a college professor at St. Mary's stopped class to ask me, "Where in the world are you from?"--which got him laughter from the class and  embarrassed me into silence.  

(I wish I'd been bold enough to ask him the same question, but I knew: Chicago.  And who makes fun of Chicago?) 

Once Kate and I took a road trip to Georgia together.  We braked for thrift shops and butterbeans.

The red clay sweet tea humid air of Alabama, along with one of the five-in-a-row Jesus stations we turned on just so we could imitate and say "Amen, Sista!" --got us both hamming up the Southern.  Whatever country church revivals I've been to, turns out Kate can do back-woods Baptist with the best of 'em.

          3. My poor ole leg. 

Several of you have called and texted to say that you hope the shot I got fixed me right up.  The jury is still out. 

Some nights I wake up moaning just like before, but yesterday afternoon, I had a few glorious pain-free hours.  

It may not be one and done like I'd hoped, but I know I'm on the right track. I get a second shot on March 2nd.  Then I'll see a back specialist and find out if I'm up for a road trip. 

Talking Southern

Bob, my brother of 70 years, and Betty, my almost-sister for almost as long, have incredibly detailed memories of our shared childhood in Cochran, Georgia.  Conversations with both of them take me on "little trips down memory lane"--hilarious only to those who were there. 

Only in the South do you hear people saying that they "love to death" some person or thing.  In reading South To America, I read that phrase with the delight of recognition of an old friend--the first time I've ever seen it in print.  Southerners she wrote,  "loved James Brown to death for two generations."

It's fun to encounter expressions that were casually spoken in childhood by people of the same generation.  Septuagenarian friends and family in Georgia all get it: we loved our musicians and movie stars "to death." We loved our boyfriends and girlfriends "to death"--if only until we broke up with them.  And often the expression is followed by "but."  "I love her to death but she drives me crazy." 

Southern accents are the most mimicked  of all.  As the author of South to America points out, Southern dialects vary from region to region within the South in ways that only Southerners can recognize. But many expressions cross over:

"Have you done your homework?" might be responded to with "I'm fixing to do it."

Fixing is an active verb, suggesting actually doing something to prepare for doing something else.  But in our lingo, it means, "I haven't done it yet, but now that you remind me, I will in a minute."

When Nellie and I were traveling in Italy together, we sat near enough another table to hear the women talking.  We both guessed what region of Georgia they came from.  (I remember I said Fort Valley--a tiny little town in Middle Georgia, not far from Perry where my mother grew up.) At the end of the meal, we asked them. Both Nellie's guess and mine were close.

The Southern accent imitated by people from outside the South is embarrassing to hear.  They ramp up the hokey to its highest pitch so that it's unrecognizable to native speakers.  They exaggerate the kind of Southern that we do ourselves when imitating, say, Dolly Parton.  Those of us who grew up with an ear (and Mother tongue) for talking Southern can mimic ourselves, but outsiders never get it right.  

Same with actors playing a Southern role.  A real Southerner has to turn it off--as non-Southern actors mangle it. 

Another uniquely Southern phrase is "Mama N'Em."  If you're going on a trip to see your mother, father, three aunts, two uncles, and seven  kids, you might say we're going to see "Mama N'Em."  Mama gets top billing.  "Mama and Them" includes everyone who might be over at Mama's house for dinner.

When Carlene and I are traveling, we can go into Mama N'Em lingo for miles and miles.  Wonder what Mama N'Em is cooking, wonder if Mama N'Em ever got the carport fixed after the storm, It's been so long since we seen Mama N'Em.  

Southerners rarely attempt to imitate the lingo, accent, or grammar of other regions.  Maybe because we've been the butt of linguistic jokes ourselves, maybe because it's just too hard to shape our mouths right to "do" other places.  But we can exaggerate our own drawls all day long and mangle the grammar accordingly.  It's like an insider's joke on ourselves.

Knowing what a Thing is

Will is taking me to the pain doc to get an epidural steroid injection this morning as a first step toward remedying the leg pain I've had for months. I feel optimistic now that the real source of the pain has been identified.  

We live in an age of specialists.  The knee bone is not connected to the thigh bone it turns out--at least not when it comes to medical treatments.

The knee joint is indeed connected to the thigh, which is connected to the hip, which is connected to the network of nerves running down the leg from the lower back.  But a separate doctor is needed to attend to each part; it was a physical therapist and a massage therapist who discovered that what I've been experiencing may have  little if anything to do with my knee replacement. 

I assumed that I was having a particularly lengthy recovery from knee surgery, and the knee doc must have assumed the same.  He sent me pain and PT prescriptions, along with: "I wouldn't worry about it. Replacement recoveries take longer for some people than others."

I wasn't asking the right questions, nor was he.  It was my massage therapist, not the doctor, who suggested I get an MRI--which revealed severe bulging of L4 and L5, binding the nerves that run all the way down the leg from the lower back. 

Once again, as in so many areas of life, asking the right question can make all the difference.  If I had known months ago what this was, I'd be way further down the road to finding a solution. But I am where I am: hoping these shots from a pain doctor will stop the pain, then seeing a spine and back doctor to decide where we go from here. 

❤️

Happy Valentine's Day to all my beloved friends and family!

I'm so grateful for friends like you who read my random little blog.  

I started this blog at 65 as a way to record my birthday trip to the West Coast for my mama and friends.  When I came back, I realized it was going to be my place to record my life for myself and anyone else who might be interested--grandkids, books, movies, etc.  

I'm heading to Helotes in a bit to pick up Elena for a sleepover and dinner out wherever she likes.  A perfect way to spend hearts day!

In the middle of another night

Some nights it's my leg that wakes me up--a burning pain that an MRI last week gave a name to--garden variety stenosis that most people of a certain age know all you need to know about, caused by bulging in L4 and L5. I'm seeing Jan's pain doc on Tuesday and hoping for an injection that will make it better.  I'm so ready to do a road trip when the weather gets nice--which requires a whole lot of hours sitting.  

While I'm up, I might as well watch some art videos....

When I started this adventure of online learning, I was attracted to art journaling and card making--and there are countless good videos that I call the "oh wow" lessons.  Using gel medium, gesso, water color, acrylic paint, alcohol inks lets me play like a little kid just for play's sake.  I made nothing remarkable, but what fun it's been!

Then I discovered the gel plate--a plate made of gelatin that allows me to make mono prints with paint.  Once I get started, I get so absorbed in the process I could do it all day! Sometimes Jan does it with me, and she's falling in love with it,  too.

With the finished multi-colored and textured pages on rice paper, music paper, and whatever is at hand. I cut them up to make cards, envelopes, and collages. My favorite project was covering an entire armoire with circles cut from gel prints. When I get some relief from the leg issue, I hope to do at least one entire wall with a mosaic of gel giblets. Or who knows? maybe the kitchen cabinets. 

My best teachers are four older women, like me, my inspirers: 

Lyn Belisle (with whom I've taken wonderful in-person classes before COVID) and online classes after lockdown;  Jane Davies (Vermont), Jennifer Nieuwenhof (Australia), and Bobbi Baugh (Florida).  These artists are makers of magic who make me want to get right up and try to do what they're doing!

In the middle of the night

In my house on this tiny patch of Planet Earth, I am enjoying once again the night hours--the best hours of the day for solitary explorations.  I read, watch art videos, eat cake if I want to.  And I can plan what I'm going to do when the sun comes up.  I rarely make anything in middle-of-the-night hours, but I do the prep. Tonight it's sorting brushes.  I have a large basket filled with brushes I've bought along the way, but until I watched a video last night, I didn't realize the difference between flat, round, and angled brushes.  All this time! and I've just grabbed a brush, any brush, without knowing which ones are made for making which marks. 

As a self-taught-plus-online-classes person, it's amazing how much I never knew! I'm quite sure brushes have been mentioned in many of the classes I've watched--but you know how it goes: You can easily skip and/or forget certain details you don't deem important in any life lesson. Going it alone, there's no expert in house to say, "That's not the best brush if you want to get the line you're trying to make."  But what a thrill it is to finally discover what to do with a tool you've had all along but never used!  Now my brushes are sorted by type and I'm putting each little bundle in its own coffee cup.

Daytime hours are just as good, but different sorts of good.  I know I've shared this poem before, but it's worth re-reading, I think. "The night will be your home tonight/You must learn one thing/ The world was made to be free in." 

Sweet Darkness

Written by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

No More Events For Today

At 1:01 a.m. this morning, my phone  told me it was 27 degrees.  It also announced, "No more events for today." Presumptuous telephone!  How the heck does my phone know that I have no events for a day?  I'll show Miss iPhone! 

I don't actually have any "events" most days--but that's because I don't employ IPhone's built in calendar.  (I still prefer paper calendars, like paper books.)  Today I'm reading an excellent (new, hardback) book I got in the mail as a surprise present yesterday.  

Those of us who grew up below the Mason Dixon line, as did Imani Perry, as did I, will be fascinated by this book.  There are so many paradoxes built into the mythos of The South and Perry does a great job of telling the stories and placing them in a larger context.  A scholar, a professor of African American Studies at Princeton, she has written a very readable account of the history of The South. 

I'm appalled that I spent so many years with little interest in history.  Day and I went to Harper's Ferry a few years ago but I had no idea how much history happened in that place.  After reading the first chapter of this book, I'll definitely want to go back there. 

So until my 4:00 massage with Gabi later, this is a wonderful event for this cold day--reading this book.

One of the blurbs on the back of the book says it so well: "South to America marks time like Beloved did.....I have known and loved the South for four decades, and Imani Perry has shown me that there is so much more in our region's fleshy folds to know, explore, and love.  It is simply the most finely crafted book about our region, and nation, I have ever read."   Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

I'm reading it with my underlining pen in hand, studying it really, and marking luminous lines on every page. 

 

Salvation in the parking lot.

Parked in the CVS lot, talking to Will on the phone, I noticed a man at my window smiling.  The attraction, as always, was Luci.

"I wish all the girls would look at me like that," he said.  "What a sweetheart, what a gentle personality--I bet she reminds you of your husband."  

I gave him the on-the-phone gesture, so he smiled and went inside.

When he came back, he had more to say.  He told me he is raising his 7-year-old granddaughter all by himself.  "Since she was two," he said.  "I mean nobody's life turns out exactly as they expect.  We all have hard times, probably even you," he said.

The phone was on bluetooth.  Maybe he assumed I was waiting for my phantom husband to return from shopping?  Anyway, Will got to hear the whole thing and I could imagine his face: "Houston, we got a story!" 

Especially when he got to this part:

"Where do you go to church, pretty lady?"

"I don't go to a church," I said.

"That's okay," he said.  "Even Jesus didn't like church."

(I considered saying that if Jesus like church in his lifetime, he'd have a hissy fit if he saw what some churches are doing in 2022, like the MAGA people at Cornerstone chanting the obscene anti-Biden chant.)

"It's not about church," he continued--as he handed me a bulletin for his church.  "It's about standing at the foot of the cross." Here he pulled out a wooden cross from his pocket.  "From the Garden of Gethsemane," he said.

"Turn on the radio right now," he said, "and you can hear my preacher preaching.  He's on from 4 to 5.  It will be a blessing."

Here's where I reminded him I was still on the phone, but before he told me he and Buckner Fanning were friends back in the day.

"Bucky was a good man, but he wasn't a saint.  No man is.  We all put on our trousers exactly the same way."

I was curious where this was going, trouser reference and all, but I took his bulletin and said, again, that I was talking on the phone. 

As he walked away, I rolled up my window.  "You can take all the time you want if you need to get saved," Will said. 

"That's okay," I said. "I got all I needed."  

"The Art of Growing Older"

I sent this link to Carlene--whom I consider the best artist I know at this: The ART of Growing Older.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/09/03/grace-paley-aging/?mc_cid=c9da0502a1&mc_eid=7940cd5ca2

This is her response:

Another ART Class!    Thanks!   It (Getting Old) has to be an ART form because it requires Concentration; Selecting memories you never want to lose; Choosing which friends to never forget and always be adding if when the Choices narrow; Create seasons to Cope with health and grief issues and acknowledge they don’t only happen to the Getting Older years ;  Choose to see how Beauty is most evident when we smile which puts our wrinkles in their proper places to tell our stories;  Get regular exercise …. when  you are feeling blue  (about anything), walk it off ….guaranteed to erase or loosen wrinkles;  Refrain from  sitting too much,  make something for someone and get it to them; eat good food, but No Need to  watch TV to get updates on beauty - it is not something we DO, but it is for sure just what we BECOME ….. imagine how Things, Antiques, Furniture, China,etc become more beautiful as they age and are loved and cared for and cherished and used. … it is about Staying Alive and Not Missing the FUN OF AGING!   And don’t listen to what upstarts contribute to the conversation!