Pig and farm report

 

my right hand hurts because tendinitis has gripped my first two fingers the fingers in my bow hand my right hand hurts because I have been practicing Bach my right hand hurts because I am anxious my right hand hurts from pulling weeds and kneading bread my right hand hurts because I have been driving so much and I'm gripping the goddamn steering wheel like I'm about to be raptured and I'm not right with jesus I have not treated my hands as precious babies throughout my life they are pretty beat up

I go to the beach every day I watch the beach for hours I am not in a hurry with it I have distributed the silk sheet I have rinsed my hair in a tide pool I know which seabirds will be standing in the mudflats I know how barnacles stink in the sun I know what the tides are I have read and memorized the tide tables I have culled and given away the sea in my head I have considered how long it takes wounds to heal 

sometimes my son feels like my jailer everything wobbles and is in flux especially time during covid I am at 37% or 10% or perhaps 22% I cannot function after a few days of rain last week or two weeks ago or last week or yesterday I realized it was autumn as firmly as a handshake as riotous and alarming as a sneeze or a white boy high five never high five me my right hand hurts from high fives my brain hurts from high fives there will be no more high fives I love my son who takes care of me and he never tries to high five me and I am so glad and so lucky that he's here

autumn moved in and the entire planet shifted and I felt the shift this is not crazy old lady talk I felt the shift in my bones it was a few days before I woke and smelled campfire smoke from the state park come in through my bedroom window early in the morning the campfire smoke took root in my hair and stayed and it rained another day and six trees at the beach gave up their root balls and crashed blocking the road today it is windy a wind storm and I have a plan to make enchiladas and I should get to it but I have misgivings about starting a cooking project when the wind is high and trees are going to tree heaven just eight miles away and I lose power out here so frequently

my son's truck is fixed for now and it cost me a pretty hunk of change and it cost him a pretty hunk of change it cost all of us but I feel it the most because I have so very recently been dirt poor and I still think in my wobbly brain like a dirt poor person it is not that far behind me just four years behind me I worried about all the money it would take to fix my son's truck I worried that I would become poor again even though I own this house and have a pantry full of food and a bed that won't fall through the floor and working electronic toys and a car I rarely drive any more except to the beach and the state park gripping the steering wheel like I'm about to be raptured

that picture up there is from the only sleepover I ever had or attended as a girl as a leggy wild eyed girl with my friend Elena Benoit who I remember because not only did she attend my only sleepover but she and I read the entire school library in the third grade including dictionaries and encyclopedias this was a pact we agreed on and kept already that sleepover at my mother's terrible house looks dangerous and unsupervised what was happening what I tried to crop the photo and because I am typing on my pc because my right hand hurts too much to hold my ipad and type with one finger as I usually do the crappy cropping mechanics combined with my lack of skill made the photo too dark but I have the original and maybe darkness is required to see myself here my leggy wild eyed girl self with one friend and a lot of books my right hand hurts and my hair smells like campfire smoke and I am not okay this morning I am still a wild eyed girl twirling in a bright blue dress with a belled skirt

all I have done so far today is wonder why my heart keeps pounding like a horse inside me and make a roux and smell my wood smoke campfire hair swirl around my head and even though I know what a roux is what a roux is meant to do* I am still impressed when I make a roux and its thick magic happens every single time and now all the things are happening at once the enchilada sauce is cooking the lights are flickering I am writing to beat the wind and to apologize to myself for not writing here every day so it isn't such a shock to find out I can still do it

my right hand hurts because I went too long without practicing Bach and thought I could dive right in even though I know better and my writing practice here suffers and I suffer because writing feels lost but Bach felt lost until I rosined up my bow and got to it

mastery of practice is mastery of art I know this deep down in my leggy wild eyed self I taught this to all my students both writing and violin for years and here I am twirling in my blue summer dress and pulling weeds and listening to the news though this dress is a bell and when I twirl the skirt balloons out like a Sufi dancer and my whole head is holy and fills with smoke and air

I am at 37% or 10% perhaps 22% not in my right mind though I am neither depressed nor manic I watch too much television news I worry about the post office I am distraught over what is happening the past three years to our very basic freedoms I worry about women of child bearing age who might need an abortion or a divorce or a vote if the republican party gets another four years I am fucking worried and we should all be

I feel a little bit crazy but not actually crazy you don't have to be the Kleenix Lady who rushes over when I start to cry at an AA meeting or a doctor's office or any public space because you want me to stop you want to stopper me to throw a blanket over my whole messed up life to stop me from howling to stop my animal grief to stop me from becoming fully my animal self as my terrible family destined me to be I might go into survival mode in a ball on the floor today but it's okay you don't have to be the Kleenix Lady instead join me in keening and howling join me in the best ever cure

I am so glad the days are getting shorter

*

*I know what a roux is meant to do might be a Johnny Mercer song but it is not and he's dead so he can't have it though honestly he should have thought of it living in the south as he did