Great Bear 060315

Thursday, March 15, 2006, 3:32 PM

                I am sitting inside my car, which is shaking violently in the wind, and engulfed in clouds of blowing snow.  White out.  The wind is gusty and the clouds rise and fall and twirl and re-engulf the gar.  Swallowed in white.  Then snow devils, whirling dervishes.  Oh white, white earth, white sky white wind.

                I remember books by XX (old age and treachery sets in), where old people and children were writing color poems, one old lady wrote about her white wedding gown.

                Could you write about snow and never mention the word "white" or the word "snow?"  I'm not sure, but I'd better not sit here and philosophize.  I've been running late all day, and I need to walk and get home.

                I went to the liquor store for boxes, but they didn't have any and won't until next TUESDAY almost a week away.  I went to P&C, their boxes had no topses.  I shopped.  I should have gone to Weggies because P&C didn't have most of what I wanted and what they did have I couldn't find, huge waste of time.  I had to shop because last time I shopped; I had no list and only bought the obvious meat, veggies.  They didn't have any fish; it was put away for the night.

                I went to the bird sore and got millet sprays for Rocky and nice lady there who was all alone talked my ear off even when I was standing in the doorway trying to leave.

                I went to the egg farm, no eggs.  I wonder if they've given it up--the hens at work sign is gone.

                So they have passed and I've accomplished very little.  Did get a little shopping.  Now I need to walk.

                I haven't had a proper lunch because I've been away from home for hours.  I did rip open a bag or vegetable corn chips and scarf down some of them, but I didn't buy any salsa because they didn't have any of healthy kind.

                Vultures are circling, something dead?

                Thick as fog, pale as bleached bone, light as eiderdown

                Windblown and blousy, peppery and fresh

               

                That's snow without white or snow.  But a sting of clichés, I thing.  OY!

                There's four inches of snow on the ground and the snow in the trees is falling out in clumps and sprays because of the wind.  In the sheltered places, there is still lots of snow on the branches, but trees are creaking, rattling and snapping in the wind, scary noises when they come too close.

                It occurs to me that today is season day on Photique and I haven't submitted my full complement of pictures.  I'd sort of forgotten about it in the sorting frenzy of the past few days.  Today would be a good day for season pictures.  I wish I could record the roar of the wind and submit that!

                Good in some ways, lots of snow, but I haven't really seen anything photogenic since I got here.

                Not one picture.

                4:24 PM  I stop at the old lean-to overlooking the river.  It's hard work, breaking trail, plowing through snow.  I think it might be a good place to sit for a moment and rest, but I'm wrong.  Of course, the roof is caved in and the front sitting beam is covered with three and a half inches of snow. Which I don't want to sit in.  I'm about halfway back, or a little more, I walked 37 minutes, but most of the rest of the way is uphill and I am getting tired from the snow.

                I did take one or two pictures along the river, but nothing appealed to me, and it is dark and snowing and not very pleasant for photography.

                I wish I could find something to take a picture of that resonates for me that feels good, looks good.  That somehow shows the day.  I stop and take a picture of a pond with rotted ice.  But it is cluttered with too many branches and probably won't be worth the effort.

                4:37  I take the side trail over to the little spring house and take a few shots of that.  I wanted to write about hopes and dreams but that's hard to do crashing through the woods.  AA tree has fallen across the trail and when I duck under it, I see live spider, moving, climbing up a strand of gossamer.  With all the snow and wind, that's sort of amazing. It will make the walk longer to have come this way.

                I was going to go straight up the road to the car.

                Lots of trees have fallen on the trail and I have to keep detouring through the underbrush to get around them.  Phew.  Wish there were somewhere to sit for a moment.  Puff pat.  Uphill through snow and brush is hard work!

                Finally, heart thumping, I brush some snow, a lot of snow, off a fallen log and sit and rest.

                The buds on the red-berried elder bushes are swollen huge and ready to pop.  I don't bother with a picture though.  Seems funny with all this snow to see spring so immanent.  I don't take a picture because it would only be evidence, not art, and to whom need I prove the existence of fat buds?  Not to myself, I already saw them

                It's 4:46 and I have already walked 45minutes.  But because I came by the spring house, I still have a ways to go.

                4:49 PM I made it to the railroad bed and the gravel bed.  Someone ran a plow through here.  Boys playing?  (Gown boys?)  Or, for the wells?

                4:54 PM  I have made it to the rim of the gravel bed where I paused to take shot looking back down.  I am all sweatified from the climb.  It's much windier up here, white outs.

                4:57  I climb up through deeply drifted snow to a series of promontories in search of a vista, but none of them really please me.  And the light is foul.  But since I'm here, I take a couple shots anyway.  I can always delete them right?  Yeah, right!

                Hopes and dreams.  All my life, I've wanted the same things:  to love and be loved, to be independent and capable, to be intelligent and kind, to be an artist poet writer novelist photographer naturalist shaman.  I'm almost 60 and though I've dabbled in all that and more besides, I haven't accomplished what I'd hoped to which was published books. And won prizes and so on.  Is that how I should measure my success or failure?

                5:08 PM I am back at the car.  I walked 61 minutes, not too bad, on 16 minutes more than the target, but still, I wanted to stay on target since I have so much to do.  The car again is shaking and engulfed in blowing snow.  I've got my breath back and am all sweatified from the exertion, rosy cheeked, and exhilarated from the wind, though sometimes it seems to steal my breath.

                Tonight is trash night, but it's so very windy that I don't know if I dare put out the trash. 

                I have groceries in the trunk waiting to be put away, fish, eggs, olive oil, tissues, etc.

                Before I start the car, I read one poem from Patrick Lawler's new book, Feeding the Fear of the Earth.  I read another after I turned off the engine when I first got here.  I read them both twice, sitting in plumes of falling and drifting snow.  Once is never enough.

                5:30 PM  I am home. It is still snowing and blowing and the roads are getting snowy again, I'm glad to be home, but wish I'd been able to get boxes.

                I walk in with bags of groceries and out with bags of trash.  I take out the full garbage can, the large heavy bag, 2 recycling bins.  The rest I'm afraid to put out.  Too windy.

                Oh and I forgot to get back-up batteries for the Psions.  I wonder if Keith will ever have time to fix the others, and if he can.  Pasada C, the Canon powershot 500 that got run over.

                I nee to talk to Keith about the recycling, as he did it wrong again, only differently this time.

                I probably should change my clothes, maybe just put my PJs on, because all those up hills got me all "sweatified" and I will probably get a bad chill if I hang around the cold house in damp--very damp--clothes.

                I was thinking about Patrick's poems.  The one where he has two famous people meet each other.  In lots of them, the people don't even appear at all, as themselves.  (Some do).  It's as if he Patrick plays the parts of those famous people or someone else does.  There are some pinciples at work, and a lot of wild imagination and language connections.  So far, I haven't been able to do it.  I've never been able to imitate Pat.  His mind works so differently.   I think he's some kind of genius in some areas.

                I have to get those groceries put away and ought to take out the compost while I'm still dressed and see if there is any other garbage safe to take out.  I hope it's not as windy tomorrow as today.  I don't want my garbage can to blow away.  I know that's a trivial concern, but I don't want to waste a single penny buying a new trashcan.

                Tonight I am having Salmon for dinner.  Or is it lunch, since I never had one.  I think I will lay it in a frying pan and lay vegetables around it and make a one pot meal without it being a stir-fry or stew or soup or anything.  It would be a goodnight for a soup or stew.  But I don't think that's what I want to make.

                I am sitting here thinking of Florence rather than doing what I need to do, a small issue that I hope doesn't kill me.  So much for Dr. Lal's test.  Failure.  Bad failure.

                When I open the new Olive oil I bought because I was all out and had been using some other oil, the metal seal has already been broken and there is no plastic seal over the exposed olive oil.  I feel a sudden wave of exhaustion.  The idea of taking it back to the store seems too much effort.  But someone could have poisoned it and I could die.  I pause with the oil in my hand and then pour it into the pan and lay the salmon in and the mushrooms and zucchini.  THEN, I see two other bottle of olive oil I hadn't seen, not in the usual place I keep them.

                I think, if there can be good coincidences, like meeting Keith, there could also be bad ones, like buying a bottle of oil I didn't even need and poisoning myself.  I hope I don't die tonight in horrible agony.  I hope I don't die at all.

                Ever, but particularly not tonight.

                That reminds me, I'd been thinking about comparative religions, the sameness and their differences.  I'd like to follow that thread, but I have so much to do.  I am very hungry and scarf down my salmon, mushrooms and zucchini, which reminds me of the Todd Anthony School of cooking.  I'd like to pursue that thread, too.  My lips burn a little and I worry again that the olive oil might be poisoned.  Or it might just be chapped lips and salt.

                Does that oil taste bad?  Is there an unusual bitter aftertaste?  Will Morphine help if I am in unbearable pain?

                I am going to treat this meal as dinner unless I get hungry later. Then its lunch.  Since I had no lunch.  If there is a later.  AK!

                I just realized that I didn't finish taking out the garbage and recycling.  When I brought the last bag of groceries in, I totally spaced out about taking out the next two loads of trash.  Never mind the compost etc.

                I was thinking of Sara identifying "jo(e)'s" kids as boy in black, shaggy-hair boy, with-a-why and beautiful daughter on the closet door.  Those are the only names she knows them by.  I'm almost forgetting their real names. The global community has invaded our living room.

                I'm telling you, I have a bad taste in my mouth; I should have taken that olive oil back.

                7:17 PM I took out the compost, the rest of the garbage and recycling that was safe to put out, and prepared and mailed three "letters."  Now I feel unbearably tired and I don't want to stand here washing dishes and run down and do laundry, etc, I want to sit at the computer and rest or just go to bed.

                7:59 PM  I changed, collected a load of laundry, started a load of darks, and washed about 1/3 of the week's worth of dishes piled up because I've used all my available time for sorting--otherwise I feel as if I'm accomplishing Nothing.  I still have to eat, sleep, shower, walk, shop, do laundry etc.

                9;29 PM put away the first 3rd of he dishes, washed the rest of them, put the clothes in the dryer, and started the lights.  Now Keith.  Yay!

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary