Tuesday, February 23, 2016

WHERE CAN WE LIVE BUT DAYS?

Nothing quite like an intense and unsettling dream to set you to wondering, if not wandering on a given day. I should have written about it when I first got up but, as you mostly know, I am not generally very focused. And, having gone to bed early, I was hoping to have some quiet time around the house before my mom got up and the daily nattering began. But no such luck.


The dream was disjointed as they so often are. There was shoe buying involved.

Feb 10 now.

I don't know what interrupted me there, probably The People vs. O.J. Simpson on FX. And thence to bed and more odd dreams.

I wandered out to the garden around 10:30 this morning, planning to work for an hour, before working on the house projects. You know how that goes. I am trying for a more methodical approach this year, so I picked an area that had some returning plants to weed and add additional plants. This, of course, took over and I was in the garden until 2:00. And the start of a new tan. And the dirty fingernails.

The cats love gardening with me,  especially Vera who enjoys both cement and dirt bathing. She wiggles and squirms around me, sullying her pristine white which generally contrasts so prettily with her browns. She isn't easy to photograph as she doesn't hold still. 

Feb 23rd now (but just barely)

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi. That's how I greet dogs, but it will work here, too. 

Ooh, I've been thinking of you, of this. I talk to you often, particularly in the last week as I did some serious gardening. I should be posting pictures, but I am not happy with what I get from the iPhone really. No depth of field. However, I will endeavor to take some anyway.



That is Vera Paris with a grasshopper. She does enjoy chasing butterflies,  moths, and other bugs. That nice white fur you see is nearly always covered in dirt during the day. She practically waits at the back door for me to walk into the garden in the morning (I need to see what bloomed over night!), racing to beat me out.

Turns out I rather enjoy weeding. Go figure. I spent many hours pulling weeds most contentedly, not even listening to Crime and Punishment, although it was right there in my pocket, earphones at the ready. I talk to the weeds and make up stories about them being spies and allies as they spread through the garden and I try to get their far-flung outposts.

And then there is the reading addiction. I fell into an Italian policier, and a long one at that. I couldn't put it down until I was through it. That's why I don't read mysteries, as much as I love them. The world will just stop.

So, given that my garden is close to under control for the moment, and I have gotten enough done that I have returned to trying to clean out the guest room and my desk, I plan to have more time to visit with y'all.

DAYS

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Bring the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

— Philip Larkin, Collected Poems, Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 1988









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