Finding a Few Words

 Got almost a week of almost complete silence and enjoyed it too much. Could do another week. Watched a lot of birds and read some books. Did some cleaning. Will probably get back into the shop today to get organized for working again.

Thought a lot about the Jell-O Art Show and the archiving but didn't get started. Really tried to have a real vacation without the constant work. It was nice enough to get started on the pruning so I have sticks all over the yard, but in the places where I put them, not like after the storm. That was a lot of wind. I feel like I need to make the apple tree a lot lighter so if it does blow down, maybe it won't do a lot of damage. Usually the strongest winds come from the south, which is blocked by the shop, one reason I think that tree has lasted so long. The shade is so important to keeping the house and yard cool in summer, I'd hate to lose it completely, but it's probably a hundred by now. Still gives decent apples when the squirrels don't eat all the blossoms and buds first. 

I've gotten a lot more willing to prune radically as my trees age. I can see how they do better with shorter limbs and airier, less dense crowns. My rule is I want to be able to reach all of it with the pole pruner so I don't have to hire anyone to do my yardwork yet. It's my fun to wander around the yard making things less chaotic here and there. Still like to leave a lot of cover for birds and possums but with the number of dogs on my block I'm about the only habitat left. I spend a lot of time watching the backyard. 

The Stellar's Jays are amusing. I saw one tuck some seeds into a branch and then cover them with a bit of moss. I think they all watch each other hiding seeds and then raid the caches...chickadees probably hide the most. When the seed feeder gets low they go into overdrive. My theory is that the squirrels can smell the hidden seeds but the birds all watch the squirrels and follow them around for the bits they drop. Lots of hungry wildlife, but I'm not seeing evidence of rats for a change. Maybe that's the good side of having lots of dogs around. 

Still feeling immersed in silence, so not a lot to report. Not a lot of energy for picking up my various responsibilities so I'll probably continue dragging my feet. On the last can of cat food though and I haven't figured out what all I need to print for inventory. It's a bit too wet and cold to dye bags, but I still have to fit in the laundry on any day that even looks dry. I put it out, it gets less damp, and I bring it in to finish off. I would still never buy another dryer. I hope I never stop trying to consume less and subvert that dominant paradigm. The whole season of buying leaves me cold and while I also try to sell things, I have reached an uneasy settled place with that, for the time being anyway. I'm very grateful to have a way to make money that is working. 

Still, the Friday night before the first Saturday off, I dreamt about trying to get to Market. I had some kind of funky pushcart more like a luggage rack and I kept thinking of more things I needed to take. I never made it downtown. There was snow, a hilly terrain, and it was in some strange city. Also I am usually looking for a functional bathroom in so many of my dreams. I realized today that probably all of the semi-functional bathrooms in my memory are dream images. I can't imagine what house I would have been in with a non-functional toilet...that seems impossible. Plus I have only been in a house or two in the last many years. I remember my Mom had an often-told dream that her toilet overflowed all down her sweeping marble staircase into her opulent entryway. I think it was her way of telling herself that she never really wanted that dream house...as it turned out she lived over 60 years in what was her first and only real house of her marriage. I guess that is kind of turning out true for me, too, although I have lived in both houses on my property and built most of this one, so maybe closer to my dream. 

I think she loved her house, but when it came time to turn it into her old-age security, she didn't complain. I tried not to, as I didn't go back and help with the liquidation. I knew I would want much more than was good for me to bring home and the best way to remain unattached was to let it all get sold or given away to other people. I have very clear memories of that house and some of them are not that pleasant anyway, so I don't need to feel attached. I'm also shocked to find out there was a covenant on the deed...we lived in a restricted neighborhood. Delaware style, though...it was owned by an Italian Catholic man who bought the land and developed it in the mid-1940s. I suppose he was just "punching down" by excluding Black people, since in other locations Catholics were also not as human as other humans (here in Eugene, for instance) but it's disturbing that it was right there on the deed and my Dad signed off on it. Probably Mr. Paoletti also had to sign off on it when he bought it whenever that was. It was 1956 when we bought the house, which had been built by the previous owner. It was semi-rural then and I loved the neighborhood and roamed freely as a kid. I knew the area was segregated, but of course was not aware of the reality, that it wasn't by choice, and that violence was close to the surface of it. Delaware did not secede but it was primarily southern in the colonial era, and there was plenty of Jim Crow. And one of the last lynchings, very near my house. None of which entered my grade-school consciousness.

I simply did not look for any challenges to my worldview until I emerged from the cocoon of tree-climbing and wild-roaming childhood. I remember I joined the Job's Daughters because my friend was in it and my Dad was a Mason. They didn't admit Catholics (and we were, via my mother, though my Dad was not religious) but they let me in since I could play the piano and they needed someone to play for the secret services. I don't think the little girls were actually let in on any of the secrets. I wasn't anyway, and I didn't stay long. I know I understood that it wasn't okay to exclude Catholics and I was certainly aware of Civil Rights and the many movements, but not deeply. It was a safe and protected life of privilege, mostly characterized by striving to rise into the upper classes who lived around us and who were among my school friends. I knew I didn't belong, but I developed a superiority anyway, maybe in defensiveness. It centered around being smart, and nothing else. I was not good-looking with my buck teeth and weird hair so I never realized I had an attractiveness, and didn't use that for my purposes of being better than. Just smart. I had a high IQ, but not that high. I'm no genius. I still struggle with that humbleness though...that early programming is in really deep. I hope I show off less. I hope my inability to reach my potential has humanized me. I hope I can shake it long enough to accomplish a few things on my list though...a few more of my goals. Strike some kind of balance of being grateful enough for what I've been given and lucky to get, and what I need to give back. 

That's my goal, I guess, a balance. Nothing too amazing, just some kind of ordinary accomplishments. Maybe I'll start on some of them today. Or maybe I'll take just one more day of vacation and silence. It has been satisfying. I want more. Too bad I never got the woods that was supposed to surround my dream house, but I'm glad I have a good enough imagination to feel like I'm in it when I look out my windows.