230317 begun march seventeen
How is it that you will have a day when your mental bucket is empty and then wake up the very next morning with the "spoons" to run a level-four errand? (Sorry about mixing metaphors.) I must have slept well, and after the morning walk, I decided I needed some rainboots, today. The field was wet with melting snow and the morning's rain. My crocs (fake) have holes in the tops though they are lined and my feet were wet in five minutes. Rocky picks his way among the watery mounds of dirty snow because he likes to keep his paws dry. I follow in his paw steps as best I can.
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After that, I plunked myself (old lady word) in the car and set out early, found sturdy black boots for a good price and a pair of summer (fake) croc sandals, also a good buy. In a maze of a hundred aisles, with the help of some excellent staff helpers, I found the items on my list and my way to the cashier. A live person! (as opposed to a self-checkout.) Pretty nice. I am not a fan of auto-cashier machines, especiallly since they "talk" to me, "Thank you for shopping at our store. [I like your hat, NOT.] Don't forget your parcel." I find this insulting and annoying, since it's a ----ing machine! I enjoy talking with a check-out person, smiling, and saying something nice. These social interactions (connection) mean a good deal to me. So, I talk back to the machines, sometimes being rude, but it's a machine! I always thank the real person who is doing "machine duty". There is always one. They are good at jumping in to give you a hand. I get help every time I use a machine check-out. Perhaps I look my age, or, it is that I am often talking to myself or answering the machine's questions out loud!
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I also made a wizard's hat with Robin today. While Nick and Indre went downtown on an adventure, Robin and I went to the Six Points Dollar for some black bristol board. He designed, made a prototype in miniature, and then together, we built a pretty good hat. Robin was very pleased. He also, much to my surprise, repaired one of those push button lights that you put in closets . He took it apart, found the broken connection, taped it with electrical tape, and when the little bulb lit up properly, re-assembled and taped it shut. I was impressed. We had lunch, just the two of us, and played wizards. I took time out to clean the kitchen and prepare some kale salad and fruit. I know that kale is the "in" food just now, or perhaps it was three years ago - I am notorious for being behind the times in my lifestyle, or impossibly ahead - but I love it. It is versatile and goes in soups and salads and always tastes lovely, however dressed or undressed. Robin and I went out a couple of times to see the day, which was cloudy but warmish, very "Marchish", hence the need for real boots. Altogether it was a well-spent afternoon. The Adventure was The Hockey Hall of Fame. Nick and Indre had their picture taken with the Stanley Cup. Cool.
The hat has wolf ears!
This is the thing he repaired. *****
So how does that switch-up happen? The change in mood, in self? A sort of mental rollercoaster up and down the up-and-down tracks, like the Flyer (now gone) at the ex, but the train of the mind take months, or weeks or, just now, days to take the hills! There are several stresses that easily account for the ride. I am at the bottom of a long and arduous winter - nothing momentous, just a long series of challenging (mostly grey) days and weeks, of some ill health, and, with five housemates, six, if you count the dog. (Which we should, since he has an active relationship with each of us. We all interact with him, some more enthusiastically than others!) That is a lot of relationships, as I have mentioned elsewhere. Does one become inured to the mortal awareness of ill health, I wonder? Is it easier when you are seventy-four, for instance? Do you get used to it? It is still a shock to me that my body has suffered a breakdown which will not, at my age or not, get better. Perhaps I have been blessed; I have enjoyed remarkable physical health until 2021, aside from minor arthritis. The shock of the vaccine fiasco and the long months of slow recovery has been traumatic, to say the least.
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Am I repeating myself, talking about this? Perhaps I am, excuse me; I seem to be in a place of re-learning many lessons I now realize I glossed over, as if there are depths to understanding, where you have known the words for many years, even decades, but they seem to ring with a particular truth, and it feels like you are hearing, really hearing them, for the first time. So yes, I am saying some of these things again, no doubt.
I had the sensibility, however, as I waded through yesterday, accomplishing little, to be aware that I would feel differently today or next week. This, itself, is a sort of breakthrough, that despair could be a temporary state of mind from which I could emerge without breaking. If this isn't the magic of the love of life, I don't know what is. We cling to it. We go on. It's amazing to me, though I watched my mother go on, twenty years, when she knew all the time that the brain tumour was coming for her one day. The mass had been removed over and over, each time leaving scar tissue on her brain and a few cells, knocked loose, that would grow into another tumour, until at last there was no way to remove its entangled roots.
This is Elsa with Tamar, she was maybe two weeks old.
My mother seldom had a good head of hair. She was always coming out of the latest surgery, and they shaved her head every time.
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You can only see her silhoulette, but this is the female, I think, because she is bigger than the male, cooper's hawk. I spotted her because I heard her "cacking" call. I am hoping she will nest nearby.
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The sky is often interesting, even in the untidy city. It is so unconcerned with our small human worries; that and its beauty sometimes give me peace.
The sun is setting later and farther north. Monday is the Equinox. I will try and get some journal work done - it's a time to reflect on the last three or six months, and to look forward to the next quarter - thinking about what I want to accomplish, or change.
Rocky and I spend time on the porch, when there is sun enough, or warmth.
I got a picture of the white-capped skunk at last. He lives near us and I have glimpsed him several times. Dear Rocky saw him too, but stayed at my side and did not give chase, coming home safely with me when the skunk had disappeared under the neighbour's car. The skunk is the blacker lump with the white at the front at the back, barely discernable.
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At the end of the evening, having had a tumultuous time getting to bed, Robin has fallen asleep on the couch upstairs. I tucked him in and he was fast asleep in a minute. I will sleep on the floor near him so that he won't wake up alone: a good adventure, and yoga mats.
Good night.
Mumma Yaga
Postscript: It is Sunday night now, two days since I started this post. This is the morning's sunrise.
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* Collective unconscious? Cartoon in Saturday's Toronto Star, John Hambrock's Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, about machine servers in a fast food place. This post was written on the 17th, just to be clear!
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