The Great Wide Sky

One of the things I love best about Oregon are the gorgeous skies. California doesn't have them like we do here. Vast skies of clouds and blue and always moving, shifting, changing, and breathing. It makes my breath spread out farther and go slower. Especially when I'm on farmland and I can see so far all around me.

Picking fruit and vegetables is meditative. Rhythmic. I like doing it with friends but last summer I found that I liked doing it alone best of all. Alone in the tall bean rows with the sky talking to me above. I like to bring my headphones and listen to music. I let my thoughts do what they like to do best: live a life all their own. I have an obsessive mind. It can be a great weight on me at times playing the same tapes over and over and over until I want to rip them out of my skull. Often times, though, when I let my mind wander it's like my dreams. It says what it needs to say without filtering or trying to cover up its irrationality.

It usually runs through old unsatisfactory conversations or situations and comes up with new endings, better endings. A frequent activity in my head is letter writing. I don't write letters much anymore in actuality but I write them constantly in my head. I also have these great long monologues, stories that the universe keeps waiting for me to tell. Sometimes I speak so eloquently in my quiet reverie of picking fruit that I wonder who is really speaking and I know I'll never speak so eloquently when I race home and try to recall the perfect words.

Sometimes I want to sing along to the words in my music out loud. I wish I was the only person in the entire world. Because if I was then there would be no one to question me or wonder if I'm on enough medication.

I miss playing my favorite game. My favorite game is dress up as another version of myself- who I could have been, who I might become. My whole life has been one long dress up session in which everything I do becomes a separate life: when I was a costumer I was a poor dressmaker working 14 hour days to make beautiful clothes for rich patrons that I would never myself be able to wear. I had needle holes in my fingers from hand stitching corsets* and I imagined myself hunched over candle light in a bare stone walled room to stitch gold bullion trim to the hems of gowns.

I dressed the part and my life unfolded accordingly. When naked I want to crawl out of my own skin. I have never felt I belonged in a body at all but when I dress up I can do anything, be anyone, and shine. I didn't love my body or hate my body for its faults or virtues. I never really had body issues exactly. I mean, like any young person I would complain about my thighs or my sizable ass which even when I was at my thinnest never disappeared. But I did always appreciate that I could dress my body up well and become invincible.

It isn't an acting bug either. This is something else. I hate acting. Trying to get me to do some "fun" improvisational acting workshop is like trying to pull teeth from a giant agitated steaming buffalo. There is nothing I want less than to dress up to go on stage. I have never wanted to literally play roles. The enjoyment for me is that we all play roles in life anyway and I enjoy dressing the part for them. Making an occasion out of the ordinary. I have always appreciated the ambiance and the story one garment can tell. I am never not me when I dress up. I am always myself; a self amplified perhaps, but still the same self.

I have always enjoyed watching others to see if they see behind the curtain. If they see that today I am a poet of rare grace. I wonder if they see that today I am a spirit wandering the ragged moors of my imagination in a gown gathering moss and fragile fibers of earth behind me like reluctant ghosts. I wonder if they see that I am a baker in a small town with flour on my cheeks and skill in my hands, I wonder if they can smell the warm yeast and taste the crust in their own mouths as I walk by. Does anyone actually ever really see me?

Now there is nothing to see. I have become ridiculous. I have made a disaster of my body; breaking my bones and becoming too large for any dream but one of being the bearded** fat lady which holds no romance for me. No aura of interest and no hidden treasures wait there. I know there is a reason I have come to this point and until I figure it out I will not be able to exit this nightmare that my own shell is. I have made dressing up impossible. Which makes me feel lost.

In spite of these reflections I did feel answers stirring as my hands reached again and again for more berries. I commune with the plants and become like a branch myself. covered in fruit. I'm not sure sometimes if the trees and grasses can all hear me. I think they do.

*I really did, as a matter of fact.

**My "beard" consists of five chin hairs but I suspect that there are more waiting to sprout. I bet I'll get one new one each birth day until I look like a real treat.

Driving In My Sleep

I am just including this picture as a kind of distraction from the crazy talk that follows.

I've been driving in my dreams again.* I actually own a car in my dreams. It's a vintage tomato colored convertible of uncertain make. It shows up periodically. Usually I'll be desperately in need of a way to get to some of those classes I'm always taking and missing and I suddenly remember that I have this car.

Last night I didn't have that car. I was in a giant house having a birthday party to which most of the cast of friends were talking to me as though we were old buddies. I was embarrassed to be the center of attention in a huge group of people, as I am in real life. At some point we all went across the street to sit around and watch a kid's soccer game. One of our actual neighbor's children was playing in it. But not Max.

Philip and I had to go get something so we left in a van. At some point I realized that no one was driving it and in a panic tried to climb over the back seat to get at the brakes and gas. So it was a stressful car dream. I managed to get control of the van but later on after some weirdness walking through a stranger's house deep in mourning Philip went to run an errand. He ended up crashing on his bicycle and couldn't walk.

Often times, the best part of my dreams, which are nearly always nightmares, is when I curl up in a ball and sleep or rest during which time the whole dream is permeated with static comfort, a kind of quiet state. Strangely enough I am usually curled up comfortably against complete strangers to my real life self but who I recognize from some other place and time. When I am forced to action in my dream there is almost always a point at which my dream self, with total dream awareness, wishes desperately to rewind the dream to the static place where I was in a non-state.

What I find most curious is that those moments in the midst of nightmares, those perfect moments of peace and calm and comfort are never something I experience in real life, and when it happens in dreams it feeds my corporeal self. It stays with me all day as though it was a real memory and I revisit it again and again until the realness of it begins to fade. Whatever stranger I happened to cozy up to is like a protective barrier against a scene of violence or anxiety, like a windbreak. I am not a cuddly person in real life. I can't sleep with an arm around me, it breaks into the sense of quiet I need in order to sleep. When sitting too still and too close to someone, even someone I love more than anyone else in the world like Philip, I become unnaturally aware of their breathing, their heartbeats, their warmth, their hair, their smell, and it is all too close and I feel suffocated and suppressed.

Which leads me to tell you something very personal: I cannot sleep facing anyone. I cannot sleep with some one's breath blowing against my face. Even if that breath was the sweetest smelling on earth. The sensation of warm breath against my face feels like a tribal drumbeat pounding in my ears preventing me from being aware of anything else.

Sometimes I wonder if death is nothing more than permanently joining our own subconscious existence. I wonder if our dreams are less like a playground for our subconscious and more like a parallel universe in which our subconscious actually exists. How is it possible to dream of a spacecraft moving through my body and have it feel so real that it wakes me up with liquefied insides, organs still being pushed aside as solid matter moves through my body? Awake and feeling exactly as I did in my dream is enough to make a person feel like they are going mad.

Although, as it turns out, I was going mad.

I would prefer that death be completely still. I would prefer that it is an unconscious state in which my matter is transformed into different matter without my being at all aware of the metamorphosis from corpse to fertilizer or ash. I don't want to be permanently retired to my nightmare world which is filled with all the horrors of this living world, only worse, because they never stop. They never die. The wars are never over. The homework is never finished. The bus is always gone before I get there.

Those brief moments of total safety that allow me to, at last, really sleep are rare and those guardians of my peace and comfort are fleeting beacons of light in a dark so morbid that I often carry it around with me for hours after waking; the bleak war torn landscapes, the bodies in bags, the guns, the dying, the screams, the sorrow that develops into a shroud so thick it's like being buried alive; it is hard to believe that such a well developed hell is just a figment of my imagination.

It does explain why I am never very still in real life. Except for when I settle down with beer and watch reruns of favorite movies and sitcoms until I am so tired I can no longer hold a beer in my hand anymore. Any other time in my waking life I am a restless spirit. Before I quit smoking cigarettes I would read and smoke and that would settle me down. But without the cigarettes the books don't quiet my body or my mind. I find myself unable to concentrate. I need to tranquilize my head into a forced quietude.

This past week we have cut our beer drinking in half and both of us are feeling relieved to be finally easing up on the beer. Physically we feel cleaner and better. But in the last week my dream life has become more vivid again, harder to shake. My sleep has not been as good. Drinking a lot of beer has a very soporific effect not just on my body but on my subconscious as well. My sleep is less conscious. I don't remember my dreams as much, I sleep more deeply.

The only other remedy for my peculiar problem is sleeping pills I suppose. Yet I would prefer not to take them. I wonder if there are any psyche meds out there that can medicate the sleeping self? It's as though my subconscious needs it's own therapist and it's own particular medications. Wouldn't that be funny if I called a therapist and asked to make an appointment for my subconscious? Hearing such a request, I am sure, would inspire any therapist to rush me in for a consultation.

Having the dream life that I have has made me feel like an outsider for much of my life. It's like constantly existing in two worlds and at the same time not completely living in either. When you've just been crawling across war torn border lines in a nightmare the previous night, covered in bodies where no clean sunlight ever shines and you're in a social situation during the day time where you're supposed to make small talk it's difficult to transition. It's like trying to have an amiable insipid conversation over the constant haranguing of machine gun fire, only the person you're talking to doesn't hear the other noise.

Which makes me sound completely crazy. I can't tell people I didn't actually hear their comment about how much fun eating celery is because I was busy trying to shut out the noise from my previous nightmare, because that is like lighting up a neon sign on my forehead that reads: "STRAIGHT-JACKET ME NOW".

Am I the only one who thinks old fashioned straight-jackets are kind of chic?



*For anyone who doesn't know it already, I have never had a license to drive a car. I have a motorcycle license to drive my Vespa, but I can't drive a car.

The Last Ten Days In Pictures

(Plus: lyrics to live by)

One of my old friends in the Portland Rose Garden "Frederick Mistral". His scent is a heady old rose scent, his leaves are healthy and relatively disease free, his growth is prolific. He likes to get very tall. He is generous with his blooms all season. I will be planting one of this rose in my new garden and if you're looking for a great rose with rich scent, I highly recommend this one.

The rose garden is so sprawling, so large, it is difficult to capture it's scope with a camera, at least a camera like mine. I didn't see the whole thing on our visit. I'm hoping to go once more this season which must be about to end.

Now I'm not positive (because a couple of days have passed already) but I think this is a rose called "Karen Blixen" that I've never grown. She doesn't have a stunning scent, but the blooms are really elegant and arching (weak necks) which is not ideal if you like erect stems, but when arranging bouquets in old teapots, which I like to do, arching stems make for a better arrangement.

My mom giving the ol' sniff test. Like most of them, this one failed. So sad. So unnecessary. It's time that all rose breeding programs included a direction in scent. There are enough mild and scentless roses to please those who prefer them (or who are allergic to strong scent). I love that David Austin makes that a priority, though what he likes about the "musk" scents he sometimes comes up with is a huge mystery to me. But his rose "Abraham Darby" is brilliant with it's rich warm rose scent and it's prolific growth and gorgeous form. Sorry, I'm getting carried away aren't I?

Lots of eggplant fun in the past week. Not everything I made turned out as good as could be hoped. These did though. Simple round slices of eggplant grilled to perfection on the BBQ after being brushed with a rosemary marinade.

These stuffed round eggplants turned out pretty good, the stuffing which consisted of the insides of the eggplant sauteed with sliced stale bread, dried thyme, fresh tomatoes, onion, butter, olive oil, and lemon zest turned out superb...but the stuffing was so good that we kind of didn't enjoy eating the plain eggplant it was stuffed into. So as pretty as these are, I am going to do this again as an eggplant casserole or as a stuffing for something else such as big zucchinis or tomatoes.

The commissioned project I did to cover my friend Sylla's chair cushions. This is the before picture. I don't blame her for wanting to have them covered.

Especially in this wonderful bark cloth!! This was a very satisfying project. I did have to redo one of the zippers which sucked, but that's the way it goes. Better to redo it and preserve my professional reputation than to let anyone think I do shoddy work.

She was pleased with the results too which is the most important thing.

And lastly, this was a superfine summer meal we had. Freshly picked corn on the cob with a nine dollar sandwich made with bread from our local bakery "Red Fox Bakery", and grilled eggplant, pesto, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese. Oh my. So good. It's making me hungry right now.

It's such a relief to have pictures again. The main computer is still not fixed. The motherboard was fried and can't be easily fixed because it's a Dell and they have all kinds of proprietary issues. We've been debating how to proceed. We could have another computer built more cheaply, to replace this one, but we are leaning towards fixing what we have because this is a chance to not throw something away. Something I want to be more careful about in my life. It's so tempting to just start over with a computer, it can be cheaper, but overall, if we can just fix up what we have and throw away only 25% of it (the motherboard and the case for the hard drive both must be replaced apparently) then we're keeping more out of the landfill.

Anyway, Philip installed my camera software onto the laptop and now I can move on. I can update my Etsy shop, and just as soon as I recall what my password is for my flickr account I can update that too. It's such a relief. I know, I already said that.

IT'S SUCH A RELIEF!

So I folded six loads of laundry, even though I only washed four yesterday. That's because I had to fold the loads that had been sitting around collecting dust for days before even starting. All I got through were my back log of sheets and towels. I have a lot of raggy towels I use for canning and drying the dog and other fun things like that. The hamper was full of them. Every sheet and comforter cover and towel in the house was in the hamper. So I have a whole extra day of laundry doing to do if I want to be completely caught up. Here's the thing: we have only a family of three and I can never keep up with my own laundry, how the hell do you larger families face such gargantuan piles of it? I know that I am a weak-ass when it comes to laundry so I'm hardly a person whose laundry skills you want to compare yourself to. Laundry has always been my downfall and I'm mostly alright with that.

It doesn't mean I don't keep trying though. I'm an excellent housewife in most ways, but we all have to have our dark areas, right? Except for you perfect people out there. Don't talk to me.

I had a nightmare last night. It was not one of the worst, thank goodness. I don't remember much of it except that there was a very bad man who must have had some keen evil powers because he was monitoring myself and two other women through a television we couldn't turn off. One of the women was pregnant and eating something spinachy. But then we were all three eating something spinachy. Then the bad man was in the room with us and I was hiding. That's all I remember. Spinach-baby-badman. Aren't nightmares fascinating?

Oh wait, and I costumed a bunch of people for some strange event but my old costuming partner Autumn was there and was scoffing at me and my work and it was all very stressful since I apparently have quite the inferiority complex. It was all somehow connected with my mom living in an apartment in the city.

My knee hurts today which is annoying. It's always got to be something, doesn't it? I can't decide if it would be wise to skip the gym today or not. I don't want to hurt my knee more but I need to not lose any momentum with the gym thing. I feel like I should not strain it today, that's what my gut says. At least my burn is scabbed up and healing well. (I hope you're not eating your breakfast right now.)

On the agenda: laundry, pesto making for the freezer, and salsa canning. Which means a trip out to my favorite farm. Which means locating the back road so I can avoid taking Highway 18 on my scooter except for about a quarter mile.

Do you ever think about all the ghosts that walk the highways? I was just suddenly remembering the old lady who died in a violent crash on that same stretch of highway last week. We were on the highway not long after the crash happened and had to take a detour to the farm because of it. Lisa E. and I were both pretty sure we saw fire on the road just before turning off. On our way back we saw the white car that was wrecked in the ditch, smashed like an insignificant pumpkin. What's amazing is that the old man who was driving it lived. But what an awful day. And to make it so far in life with a person, to be old together and then lose one of the pair in such a violent way. I can't help but wonder if the old man hasn't died now too? It's not uncommon for old folks to follow loved ones into the grave not long after being left solo.

It happened to Johnny Cash. When we heard that June had died, Philip and I both said we wouldn't be surprised if he followed her in the near future. Not three months later and he was dead too.

I don't know that I believe in ghosts, in a haunting kind of way. I guess I kind of do. Or at least I believe that spirits linger. Or at least leave some imprint or memory of themselves behind. I've felt them before. Maybe they were actually the spirits themselves, but I tend to think that what I have felt is the residue of their existence. Like a three dimensional photo. Sometimes I get the shivers walking through such imprints. I was just thinking about how many lives are lost on American freeways every single day. It's a phenomenal number. It's eerie to see how many crosses are set up to remember them on the sides of the road. I used to be haunted by those, especially because one of the first ones I saw was to commemorate a girl who went missing (last seen at that spot on the freeway that is marked in Rio Grand California) and (I think) later turned up dead.

So I wonder, if you were to clear all the cars from a stretch of freeway and achieve total silence, could you hear the spirits there? Would they be weeping? Screaming? Sometimes, (and this is one of those instances where it would be totally appropriate to remember that I am a freak), I feel like it's one of my main jobs in life to remember the dead. To speak for the voiceless. I see dead animals on the road, or crosses commemorating human life cut off, and I find myself speaking to them in a kind of mental undertone. Making a note that here was life. Here was the end of something beautiful. Remembered. It can be overwhelming though when in my head I start taking count of all the dead in the world. I write them letters. I send them notes.

My head is like a mailbox for the dead.

I haven't really said these things out loud before. Not in detail. You can totally understand how come one of my most frequent fantasies is to take a ten year vow of complete silence? Anyone who knows me knows that this would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. Which is perhaps why it is a particularly compelling fantasy. Isn't it always what is most unreachable that we reach for in our dream world? The flat chested poor girl wants triple D breasts, right? The nerdy guy who can't speak to girls wants to be the next James Bond, am I wrong?

This all reminds me of the music I was listening to while cleaning yesterday. My play list started with "The Buena Vista Social Club" soundtrack, then I listened to "Ziggy Stardust", and finished the event off with Roy Acuff singing one of my favorite all time songs "The Wreck On The Highway" which is all about whiskey and blood running together. It's also religious. Even though I am not religious, I love a lot of religious music. Mahalia Jackson is a favorite, as are the old classical pieces written for the church or in celebration of Jesus like Handel's "Messiah". Another of my favorite songs is "Were You There" by Johnny Cash which is all about being nailed to the cross and being shoved into a cave to die, you know how Jesus was entombed and then rose and all that jazzy jazz? These are very violent songs.

On a side note, I have been a huge Bowie fan since I was 13 years old when my mom insisted that I would love this guy. She bought his latest album "Modern Dance" on a trip we had made to Mill Valley and we listened to it all the way back up to Ashland Oregon where we were living at the time. She told me when he would be appearing on MTV, which was relatively new at the time, and made sure I was up to see it. I totally fell for him and his music was the main soundtrack to my life for years. As I was listening to him yesterday I was amazed at just how many of his lyrics are completely loony. Yet I totally get them as do so many people. He evokes a feeling, he communicates something with drug addled words that somehow makes sense. How does he do that?

"You're squawking like a pink monkey bird" can only come from either a crazy person, or a crazy person on drugs. We know the answer to that one by now. It kept making me laugh, hearing these lyrics that I took so seriously when I was younger. His was a voice that spoke my language. Yet, I had never been exposed to, and would be surprised at being exposed to a pink monkey bird even now. I'm going to look that up...

Yeah, I think Bowie made that one up.

I will leave you with this sage piece of advice gleaned from the Ziggy Stardust album:

"Don't let the milk float ride your mind."

That's what I always say.