OVERPRIZED INTENTION

First poppies after the rain.

You all know it, but it bears repeating: it is some sort of heaven to listen to a soft rain in the night. I was in a lovely chat with a friend, doing some riffing and ripping on Dylan. Way leads on to way as it does when you are in the zone. I stumbled on a Grateful Dead version of Visions of Johanna which caused me to look up the lyrics. (Here's an excellent Dylan version.)

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind ...

Talk about yutori ... music is all about being inside of a mood or a place and taking the time to look around.

Later on Friday.

It pains me to tear out producing tomato vines, but they have been in there for two years at least. I need to start fresh if I am going to have tomatoes at all. I have volunteer tomatoes and tomatillos already. And then there are these poppies popping.

Sunny Saturday, espresso in the making.

9:00 am is my wake up time. The lights went out earlier than usual, more on the 10:30 side than the midnight slide. The alarm went off at what seemed like 5, but was probably 7:30, and just back to sleep I went. I have, however, walked the perimeter, checking for plant action (Iceland poppies blooming) and spent a few minutes tearing out more of the tomato plants. There are a lot of vines to pull.

It's cold and overcast outside. I am still in my jammies and under the covers reading and snorkeling around the internet. Janet has yet to get out of bed, but is still breathing and snoring. Butterscotch is making bread in the quilts. She would probably like some petting, but my hands are otherwise occupied.

Reading Sex Object. This comment had some resonance for me.

"My father—so smart as a boy that he skipped seventh grade—had wanted to go to the school [Stuyvesant High in lower Manhattan]. But at thirteen years old he got caught stealing a car and a guidance counselor told him he was no longer eligible to take the entry test. This was a lie that shaped the rest of his young life..."

I read about UC Santa Cruz in the Life Magazine issue after the one featuring the killings at Kent State. Although I had become fairly disenchanted with the entirety of high school and had stopped anything resembling college prep, I decided this was the school for me. I immediately began to go to junior college to make up for the classes I had missed in regular high school. 

I went to my guidance counselor to borrow the university catalog. He informed me that I had to return it the next day as it was impossible that I would attend UCSC. 

I got in with a full scholarship.

Between my father not wanting me to go and providing no help or support of any kind, and a guidance counselor telling me to not even dream or aspire, I wonder where, besides my single-mindedness at the time, I managed to go there.

Encouragement matters.

Later Saturday, no longer Sunny.

One reason I don't like the weekends is that Janet is home all day. All she does, no matter what I do or so, is sleep and watch people barking on the television. I don't know how folks can stand to watch the news, as the energy level is always pitched to hysterical drama and doom. So, for someone as challenged with focus as I am, and always thinking napping can be good, having Janet suck the energy out of a place is even more unpleasant. I need to come up with better strategies.

I did get a bit of weeding done. So much sawgrass, so many mallow plants and dandelions that the poppies and cosmos are struggling in one area. Now, after having cleaned the bathtub, I am determined to re-organize the bathroom cabinet and finish cleaning the bathroom. Janet is in bed again, after having been awake for about two hours.

Now Monday.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Last year, I was so depressed on my birthday I am not sure that I fully got dressed and out of bed. I cried a lot. I was thoroughly disconsolate. Not sure how I am going to be tomorrow. I wasn't really thinking about it. Peter is taking me to dinner somewhere. But I think I can feel the pit just a little off the road I am on. We shall see.

A CERTAIN KIND OF EDEN

It seems like you could  but
you can't go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It's all too deep for that.
You've overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you're given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010

And here is one of my overprized intentions: refinishing.