220629 witches and frogs

June 29

i am shattered by the news this week. i cannot finish the sentences.

*****

I was about to leave my writing to go and look for Rocky. K was worried, since we didn't see him after the old bridge, but here he comes (Rocky, that is), looking a little frazzled, as if he was worried too, limping a little on his right foreleg.

*****

120 kilometres to the city, five times in seven days. Twenty-five hours on the road. With the baby and, for four of the five trips, the dog. With gas $2.16 a litre. This is the down side of living in the Estrie. In Etobicoke, the vet is five minutes away and the doctor is ten minutes away. There are more stores and gas stations within five minutes of us than there are in a twenty kilometre radius from us on this hill. We have only tiny Mansonville, with its one corner store, one grocery, one gas station. There is also a bakery and a European deli. In the summertime a cantine opens beside the gas station to sell hamburgers and poutine. Living here is a trade-off. On the other hand, the woods are outside the door, the air is clean, the water is from our own well, the dog can go collar and leash free all the time. Fortunately, it is not every week that one of the dogs needs surgery. Grandmothers are not just in for the grandchildren, there are "grand-dogs", and still, sometimes, the grown children can use a hand. Retirement, not exactly: this is why I am here.

This week marks K's and my wedding anniversary and the anniversary of the covid shot that did me in. K bore the brunt of it: so much fell on his shoulders. I am grateful that he was there; he helped me to find medical care and kept us fed, took me to Toronto, stayed up with me nights when I paced the floor in pain. He walked through it all in a pandemic, without answers, without trail markers, stood by me.

*****

Frogs:

I have made a game of counting how many frogs I see at the cow pond each day. If you go too near they will jump into the water. Some of them yell, "EEK!" as they hop in, and we hear the loud gulp of the bullfrog.

The cow pond has bull rushes. There is a tall fluffy-topped plant that grows along the roadsides in Ontario and here, that is "invasive", not native. It likes the exact environment that the bull rushes like and has taken over the swamps and roadside wetlands in many places. But I have begun to think that plants and animals that have migrated, or been brought by people to another place are not "invading". Plants and animals have been travelling all over the world since before the current continents were even born, and they thrive or die, depending on whether or not they can adapt to a new location. In a hundred years or a million years they will be native to their soil.

The bluebirds who use this birdhouse have taken their first brood of the season to "Hansel and Gretel" them in the world. The parents will return in a week or so to lay again. Bluebirds sometimes raise three broods in a year.

I slept in the tent last night, and woke in the night to see the stars in a black, black sky, the Milky Way a blaze of white. The temperature dropped to 11 degrees; I was warm enough, but Rocky, on his blanket, might have been cold. He would not stay on the small lawn-chair mattress that was my bed. 

This morning the dragon was swimming in the malingering clouds.

Mumma Yaga

Sara Bareilles,     "She used to be mine."

It's not simple to say
Most days I don't recognize me
That these shoes and this apron
That place and its patrons
Have taken more than I gave them
It's not easy to know
I'm not anything like I used to be
Although it's true
I was never attention's sweet center
I still remember that girl

She's imperfect but she tries
She is good but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won't ask for help
She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up
And baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine

It's not what I asked for
Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person
And makes you believe it's all true
And now I've got you
And you're not what I asked for
If I'm honest I know I would give it all back
For a chance to start over
And rewrite an ending or two
For the girl that I knew

Who'll be reckless just enough
Who'll get hurt
But who learns how to toughen up when she's bruised
And gets used by a man who can't love
And then she'll get stuck
And be scared of the life that's inside her
Growing stronger each day
'Til it finally reminds her
To fight just a little
To bring back the fire in her eyes
That's been gone 
But used to be mine

Used to be mine
She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine

The tall ones, some over four feet, are the interrupted fern. The others are part of a group that look so similar that I have not learned to tell them apart.