Pig and farm report March the Eighth: storm watch edition

The wind was high this morning so I got out of bed and quietly ran down the hall to turn on the tea kettle and the coffee pot and to heat up the oven so I could bake the dough I prepared yesterday the first time in 15 days I have wanted to bake or eat wheat or much of anything else for that matter.

The best way to count this measure is to think of it as one statement that's divided in its inflection.

1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 6, 7, 8 then repeat quickly with grace and grief but breathe between 6 and 7 and sail through 8 spin on the edge of a copper penny hold your breath then start again 1, 2, 3, 4.

Wind gets under my skin. It feels like panic needles it ricochets up my spine like some kundalini junkie robot waiting to jump me on a dark street corner and drag me back to my home planet. Wind makes the power flick off then on then off it causes the trees to wave their crazy arms and screech outta the way! outta the way! in their keening tree voices and squirrels bombard my roof with tiny pine cones in their terror. In my wee brain the moon controls the tides which controls the wind which controls the celestial bodies which control not only my thoughts but my mood swings. Huge swathes of mood swings. Crazy Girl mood swings but Crazy Girl no longer lives here just water and big trees and bigger water and waves sloshing up the earth’s crust saying howdy!

The best way to count this measure is to think of it as one statement that's divided in its inflection.

What was Beethoven living in this moment? How many times did he divide the inflection of a measure until it was perfect? If you look at his original scores he tells exactly what he was thinking there and there and then faster there too. He wrote during storms. Like this one. He too hunkered down his ear pressed to the piano’s throat so he could hear the low pounding chords that rolled through everything he ever wrote.

I went outside a few minutes ago to throw my coffee grounds and a little water on my blueberry bushes and a bat flew in front of my face. Luckily she didn’t bring her friends. Bats have never bothered me but they startle when they swift by in their nun’s habits and nun’s stares always looking quite horrified to see me. I told her not to worry and she flitted her way back under the eaves like a black Victorian mourning hankie.

The best way to count this measure is to think of it as one statement that's divided in its inflection.

This is what I learned from playing and recording the entire cycle of Beethoven symphonies. That and don’t cry.

I’m breathing through the wind storm. Deep sucking breaths that taste like every psychiatrist I’ve ever seen in a professional setting. They always said just take a breath now which I always did deep sobby furry screamy wet breaths that felt like drowning. If you tell me to take a breath these days I might just reach out to slap your mouth. It turned out the breaths helped nobody except the psychiatrists themselves. Telling a person in trauma to just breathe is horrible and cruel.

I am roasting garlic now my oven redolent and broken things to do with my hands while waiting for the tides to recede. The good news is my shingles pain didn’t kick in until just now the longest I’ve gone without feasting on gabapentin and Tylenol first thing in the morning. I’m sitting on my bed with Jupiter snoring loudly and Hal curled in a tiny ball at my side. I feel both loved and a little bit like Meg waiting for the witches to appear and I can keep an eye on the fickle trees from here in case they decide to whip into my bedroom my snowy white bed my down comforter oh the comfort of finally having a good sturdy bed after so many years of sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes that served as a balm against the sprung box spring in that old damp sooty house.

You're out of the woods

You're out of the dark 

You're out of the night

Step into the sun 

Step into the light

Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place

On the Face of the Earth or the sky

Hold onto your breath

Hold onto your heart

Hold onto your hope

March up to the gate and bid it open 

Open!

I’m making an extraordinary clean soup with spring onions wee carrots young turnips white beans and half a zucchini sliced thin and one baby bok choy leaves and all. I added a bouquet garni of fresh thyme and dill salt and pepper some dried herbs de Provence some pepper flakes salt and pepper lemon juice and clear vegetable stock. I’m just letting it simmer on the stove because the shingles are making the right side of my back to seize up again. Bloody hell.