Encounters

 

The other day everybody was getting cabin fever so I suggested we go for a drive -- you know, that great American pastime just tooling around in the car, listening to tunes, stopping at Dairy Queen for a banana split.

So I piled everybody into the van, one of those big old E-350 Econoline jobs and hit the road. We had nine souls on board: me and mom, my mini-me, the baby and the toddler, the two boys and two aunts. 

Along the way I had to stop for gas and to give everybody a bathroom break. The pump hose was twisted and I was trying to get it untwisted when a man filling up on the other side stepped around and said here let me do that and I let him. He looked in his early forties, broad-shouldered, fit, no gut, wearing jeans, tee and a battered ball cap.  His hands were rough and calloused, arms tanned. Once he had the hose untangled, he held up the nozzle, winked at me, inserted it into the filler pipe and got the juice flowing. Then he touched his hat with a finger and headed into the station office. I watched him go. My kids swirled around me, my aunts jabbered. My mom, holding the baby, looked at me.  

The pump dinged and my mind snapped back into focus. While I was replacing the hose nozzle and trying to pay, the man drove off without me noticing. The pump wouldn't let me pay for some reason so I went inside to pay. The clerk said a guy had already paid for me.  I couldn't quite process that for a second. Who? I asked and he said that guy in the baseball hat.

Oh. Who was he, I asked. He didn't know.  The man was a regular customer but he always paid with cash. Did he say anything, I asked.  No, he didn't, just said he was paying for the lady with the van.

I walked back to the van wondering.  That fill-up was like a hundred and fifty bucks. Why would he spend that much money on someone he didn't know? He didn't chat me up or anything. Our whole interaction was less than a minute, with maybe a dozen words spoken between us.  

My mom was watching me as I came back to the van and climbed in. What? she said. Oh, nothing I guess, I said. That guy who untangled the hose for me paid for our gas. Why would he do that?

My mother looked appraisingly at me then said you know why.

But he doesn't know me, I said.

My aunt, who had been listening, said, he knows you, dear, at least by sight. And she told me who he was and proceeded to fill me in on his biography.

While she was talking I started the van and drove back onto the highway. As I did so, my other aunt cut in to say, well, I don't know who he is but I wish he'd point his nozzle at me the way he did at you, dear. Both aunts cackled. 

********

For lunch we stopped at a local burger stand.  It's family owned and operated, serving burgers made with local beef and veggies. They bake their own buns.  They also serve roast beef sandwiches. They make great potato salad for a side and serve homemade pies for dessert.

Behind the stand they have picnic tables under shade trees, a place for children to play and a dog-walking area.  A bit behind the picnic tables is a creek to wade in or skip rocks.

After we finished eating, the kids rushed over to the playground and my aunts and mother went wading in the creek. The toddler and baby stayed with me to get their lunch.  I unbuttoned my blouse and let them have at it. Using the double cradle hold I fed them both at the same time.  If I didn't, my toddler would throw a fit. But I told him I needed him to show his little baby sister how to latch on and suckle without hurting mommy (He was the biter, not the baby, but now with a job to do he didn't bite and suckled gently.) 

I relaxed against the picnic table, enjoying the day and the feel of my little ones against me, looking up at the fair-weather clouds. Some women get stressed out by breast feeding but I have always found a sort of dreamy pleasure in it. My whole body relaxes in contentment.

While I was nursing, a high-school-age boy sat down at the next table to eat his lunch. He glanced over at me a few times and I smiled at him. When he finished he asked if he could talk to me, calling me ma'am.  I said sure and he came over and sat down beside me. He said he'd never seen a woman nursing before and was it okay if he looked and I said okay.  His attitude was a nice change from the usual scowls and growls I got when I nursed in public.

He asked after me and my husband. I said I was a new widow and really hadn't got used to it yet.  He said it was awful to hear that and his cousin's husband was killed in an accident at work last April and it was a really bad thing. Then he said he was just starting his junior year in high school and would be 16 next month. After he graduated he was going to join the Army. He wanted to be a tank driver. I said that was an admirable goal. I didn't know any tank drivers and he would be the first.  

He asked me what it felt like to nurse and how long did I nurse, looking at my toddler, who was 29 months old, and greedily sucking away. He asked why I didn't bottle feed with formula and I explained the natural advantages of breast milk. He asked what breast milk tasted like and I said I didn't know, never having had the urge to drink my own milk. But I had let my husband taste it and he said it was sweet. You mean like Eagle brand, the teen asked me and I said maybe.

My toddler broke off nursing and scrambled down, asked where his grammy was, spotted her and trotted off. My baby unlatched and posited, so I burped her, held her for a few minutes, then put her in her cradle and took out a couple of handiwipes to clean her and then myself. The boy watched everything I did intently. When I began wiping my breast he asked why I did that and I said to keep it clean and prevent any infection. He watched me holding my breast and using two wipes to make sure it was fully clean.  When I opened another handiwipe to clean my other breast he asked if he could do it, please could he. I hesitated, then said okay, sure. He took the wipe and began to carefully clean my breast, giving special attention to the areola and nipple. Then he hesitantly cupped the breast, looked up at me and I smiled okay, so he wiped the whole breast very gently. His hand was warm and I enjoyed his touch.

When he finished cleaning, he put down the wipe, leaned forward and lightly kissed first one and then the other of my breasts.  I was a little surprised but not much.  I was still in my semi-dreamy state which his caressing -- and that's what it was -- had brought full on. He looked up at me and asked if he could taste my milk. I nodded and watched him take my nipple in his mouth and, kneading the breast with his hands like a cat, begin sucking.  I felt strange.  For some reason, I kissed his forehead. He stopped suckling but still held my breast in his hands, looking at it. . Then he looked at me and said, It's wonderful, like it came from God. He wiped my breast clean again. Then he hugged me and said he thought he loved me.

I closed my blouse and said it's nice to be in love. It's one of the best feelings in life. I'll take care of you, he said. I'll marry you so you won't be a widow. You won't have to worry about anything. Just as soon as I get out of the Army I'll marry you.

I smiled at him, took his hand and pressed it to my lips.  If you still want to when you get out of the Army, I'll be here, I said. Oh, I will, I will, he said.

A woman was yelling. He looked around.  That's my mom, he said.  I better go. She's probably mad at me.  She's always mad about something. You're not like her at all.

And he ran off, turning around once to say I'll marry you! Don't worry about anything!

Then he was gone. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back

 

A while ago I decided to burn off some of the remaining fuel in the Twin Beech's tanks rather than drain it all before putting the plane in storage and flew down to our now-abandoned local airport. I've written  a few times before about it and some of the memorable, to me, people who used to populate it -- Duane, the old FBO who served with my father aboard the Kitty Hawk when he was a young man, Jim the gypsy cropduster, Randy, the ace A&P guy who knew all our planes as intimately as a lover, and Butch, the short order cook at the diner who'd walked into the parking lot pushing his motorcycle, out of gas and looking for enough work to buy some and keep on moving but who instead got a job that put him back on his feet and made him a valued asset to the community.

There were others I've not written about but that I remember well.

Anyway, I circled the field. The runway had no yellow X's painted on it.  There were no NOTAMs saying it was closed, so I dragged it a couple of times checking it out, then decided to land.  

I hadn't intended to, but suddenly I felt the pull of older days when I was in and out of there a lot, often with my father or grandfather, my husband, my mom, my mini-me and the boys.  So I set down on the old familiar strip.  

This was the runway I'd first flown the old Beech from, my grandfather right-seating it as he coached me through taxi practice in the big tail-wheeler, then teaching me wrist-action on the throttles to keep it lined up and straight on the take-off, not forgetting to lock the tail wheel, then managing throttles and rpm, cowl flaps, flaps and gear as we climbed out.  Then flying around the flag pole, as he called it, doing pattern work, remembering to lock the tail wheel before landing, he teaching me all the tricks  to minimize landing roll, pounding into my head the need for stabilized approaches no matter what the wind and weather, watching that airspeed like a hawk, crabbing it, slipping it... 

Oh, he was a stern instructor. But he knew everything there was to know about flying any kind of airplane there was. And he passed it all on to me, or as much of it as I was capable of absorbing.  And in later years my own flying taught me that I knew how to do things when I needed to do them that I didn't know I knew because he had taught them to me and embedded them in my brain, filed away for use in time of need.

My father taught me how to fly out of this airfield, flying one of Duane's old rentals, Cherokees and Tomahawks, an ancient Piper Colt and an even more ancient Piper Cub to learn managing a tail dragger, a Citabria to lean basic aerobatics before I got the full dose from an old AVG pilot down in SoCal.... When, years later, the Navy thought they'd teach me how to fly it was all so familiar -- and none of the instructors were even close to being as hard on me as gramps and even my dad.  But granddad was the toughest.  By God, he was going to make sure I did it right, whatever it was.  There was no "or else." I would do it. Period.  And do it till I could do it in my sleep, exactly right every time. Thank you, thank you, dear grandfather.  I'm still inhaling and exhaling thanks to you.

I parked the plane in its old spot, shut down and climbed out.  There was a light breeze in the sparkling sunshine.  The sun was warm on the ramp. Everything was as it was. I walked over to the operations shack, tried the door, locked of course. I expected that.  I don't know why I tried to open it. Habit, I guess.  I peered in the window, half-expecting to see everything trashed. But nothing was disturbed as far as I could tell. It was just empty.I stepped up onto the covered porch, appreciating the coolness of the shade, and walked over to the diner, my hand automatically reaching for the screen door.  It opened but the inner door was closed and locked. Inside I could see the counter and stools, make out the coffee urn and other tools of the trade. Nothing was touched. Maybe the average passer-by didn't realize the airport was closed, so left it unvandalized. I walked over to the door to the restroom.  Locked, of course. I went around to the parking lot and saw a car parked and for a second thought someone must be here, then realized I recognized the car, had driven it.  It was an old Chevy, one of the beaters Duane kept on hand for pilots to borrow. Why was it parked outside? Who knows? Maybe Duane had put it there so people would think somebody was here, same as I thought for a sec.

I went back to the diner and sat down on the bench by the door and looked out over the empty flight line.   The past stirred.  All those people. Everybody's gone now, I thought.

Duane passed away shortly after he shut down the airport and retired. I didn't even know about it till someone casually mentioned it. That gave me a jolt. Not only because he'd died, but that I hadn't known. No one told me.  He was important to me, a friend of years. But I guess no one considered me his friend, probably never even thought about me.  Well, that's how it goes.  How many people do you know and like that others in your circle don't know about at all? Or how many in their circle don't know about you? Funny thing is that for the longest time I didn't know Duane's first name. I always called him by his family name. With a Mr. in front, of course.

Randy left when the airport closed, as was to be expected.  He was thinking about leaving even before then.  There was not enough work to keep him busy. I knew where he went at first, but he's moved on from there and I've lost touch.  That's also the way it goes.  People in your life for years, then one day, not.

I don't know where Jim is.  I asked around once and most people just shrugged.  One guy said he'd heard he'd tangled with some power lines crop-dusting somewhere in Georgia.  But who knows? He called the Twin Beech a freight dog, and also referred to pilots who flew it as freight dogs, though nobody has flown freight in an 18 professionally for many years, so no freight dogs of either description around any more.

And Butch? I don't know.  I remember Duane saying that when he told him that he was going to shut down, Butch just said that he'd been looking for a job when he arrived and he'd be looking for one when he left.  And that's what he did. He left. Got on his motorcycle and rode away.  At least with a few more dollars in his jeans than when he came. All the work he did to resurrect the airport diner and bring in customers...ultimately futile, accomplished to no end. Like so much of the effort we put into this life.

So I'll never see any of those people ever again. 

And my grandfather and my father are both gone, too. And my husband. So many and so much that were are not any more. Who's next to go?

Maybe me.

 

 

 

 

Nothing much

 

I'm the little black dot in the lower right on the top chart. I guess that's okay.  I'm destined to be the old ball and chain. Or was destined. 

But I ain't or warn't no trad wife. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if my "marriage zone" is a reflection of my personality as evidenced in this chart, lower left:

 

 

Wut?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I descend from revolutionaries and religious radicals

I was reading the family genealogy and came across another ancestor, John Rush, who fought against the redcoats in the Revolution.  And was also another Quaker, from a family that were some of the very first Quakers.

By the way, the name Quaker was one of the names various dissenting religious groups got tagged with by the English in the 17th century; others were Diggers, Seekers and Ranters.

 The family hailed from Hornton in Oxfordshire, England, probably living there for centuries. But the direct ancestor of my American Rushes was Captain John "Old Trooper" Rush (1620–1699). He served as a cavalry commander in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army during the English Civil War, and converted to Quakerism in 1660. He and his family followed the William Penn colonists to America in 1683. They settled along Poquessing Creek in Byberry, Pennsylvania. 

I found it interesting that he is the ancestor of Dr. Benjamin Rush, surgeon, abolitionist, women's rights advocate, professor of chemistry, Christian Universalist and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It seems I am descended from a long line of radical Protestants who believed in liberty of conscience and who were also equally radical republican egalitarians. Nutters all, the English aristocrats would have called them. But they kicked King Charles's ass and King George's, too. And created America, God's own country, as they used to call it. 

We have a copy of The Soldier's Bible, the version published by the American Tract Society for Union troops during the Civil War. The original was created by Cromwell for his army, condensed from the Geneva Bible, mostly from the Old Testament.

It's baffling to me how much religious hatred there was in Europe in those days between Protestants and Catholics.  My Anabaptist German ancestors, the Dunkards, were tortured and burned alive by the Catholics and fled to America to escape them. The Martyr's Mirror recounts the horror in detail. There was Bloody Mary in England, and Cromwell did turnabout on the Catholics.  Then there was the Thirty Years War. I guess none of those guys had any use for Matthew Chapters 5 through 7, which to me is the heart of Christianity, and what I always try to keep in mind, despite my doubts and skepticism about, well, everything. Considering that those who founded our country emerged from that intolerant, murderous era, it is remarkable that America embraced from the beginning religious tolerance and freedom of religion as a fundamental tenet. I think it speaks well of us as a people. It was that liberty of conscience thing come to fruition on a fresh new continent.

Anyway, my John Rush was a member of the Sons of Liberty.  He fought at Brandywine, Germantown, White Marsh, Red Bank and the Siege of Ft. Mifflin, where he was badly wounded, having his leg and arm amputated. He was just sixteen years old. He had earlier survived the brutal Paoli Massacre, where the Brits showed no mercy, refusing to accept the surrender of wounded Americans and bayoneting them. If Rush had been killed in that massacre would I exist today?  I guess not.

Another of my ancestors, William Hebb, also fought at Brandywine and Germantown. I wonder if they knew each other. Hebb also survived a brutal assault by the Brits, the Baylor Massacre, when again the redcoats refused to accept the surrender of wounded Americans and bayoneted them. The behavior of the British against us in the Revolution was so monstrous that even a century later John Hay could tell Rudyard Kipling that the only thing that held the United States together was hatred of Britain. 

Oh, after the Revolution Hebb was such a vigorous abolitionist that he was chased out of the Old Dominion and settled in what is now West Virginia. Five of his great-grandsons served in the Union army.

One of the many oddities of history is that in the 20th century we fought on the side of Britain, our old arch foe, and they formed what they called "the special relationship" with us.

"Now, I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him."
~ Ishmael, Moby Dick

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about you

 “If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca 

“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near―
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you ...."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince  

 “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until the moment I was lifted and struck.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 

 C'est tellement mystérieux, le pays des larmes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you know what time it is?

It's later than you think.

 It's later than anyone thinks.

 

 

Lastly, you who read; aye, you

Who this very line may scan:

Think of all you planned to do ...   

Have you done the best you can?

See! the tavern lights are low;

Black’s the night, and how you shrink!

God! and is it time to go?

Ah! the clock is always slow;

It is later than you think;

Sadly later than you think;

Far, far later than you think.

~ Robert W. Service

 

 

 

 

Reading

 I published this in an old blog I had, October 27, 2017. Since Annie Dillard passed away today, I thought I'd republish it.  Kathy Shaidle, the Canadian poet and social commenter, sent me a nice note about it. She liked Dillard, too, I guess. And reading. Shaidle has since passed away. She was an interesting person.  I learned a lot from her movie reviews, more than just about the movies. At one time she tried to be a "sex pot" but failed. She wrote about it. She did not know where her mother was buried and did not care. 

N.C. Wyeth, cover illustration for the March, 1922, issue of The Ladies Home Journal.

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of my favorite things to do is read.  It always has been, but I don't read now the way I read when I was younger.  Then, reading was a special, private door into an unknown and fabulous world of elsewhere, othertime and otherness.  Now I know they're just books.

“Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.” 
 
“I read with pure, exhilarating greed....  Books swept me away, one after the other, this way and that; I made endless vows according to their lights, for I believed them.”

"When you open a book,” the sentimental library posters said, “anything can happen.” This was so. A book of fiction was a bomb. It was a land mine you wanted to go off. You wanted it to blow your whole day. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of books were duds. They had been rusting out of everyone’s way for so long that they no longer worked. There was no way to distinguish the duds from the live mines except to throw yourself at them headlong, one by one.” 
 
“What I sought in books was imagination. It was depth, depth of thought and feeling; some sort of extreme of subject matter; some nearness to death; some call to courage. I myself was getting wild; I wanted wildness, originality, genius, rapture, hope. I wanted strength, not tea parties. What I sought in books was a world whose surfaces, whose people and events and days lived, actually matched the exaltation of the interior life. There you could live.”  


“Those of us who read carried around with us like martyrs a secret knowledge, a secret joy and a secret hope: There is a life worth living where history is still taking place; there are ideas worth dying for, and circumstances where courage is still prized.”

~ Annie Dillard,  An American Childhood 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bra ha ha

 I don't wear a bra unless I have to and have been that way since puberty. I hate the things. And I recently read an article that supported my choice with, apparently, scientific evidence that bras cause all kinds of physical problems and don't prevent anything.

The study by a French sports scientist named Jean-Denis Rouillon followed 330 women who stopped wearing brass, ages 18 to 35,  over a span of 15 years, comparing them to a control group of women who continued to wear bras.  The results: For those who did not wear bras, breast tissue became firmer, not looser. Nipple position lifted, on average, by 7 millimeters per year. The internal supporting structures of the chest — Cooper’s ligaments, the pectoral muscles, the connective tissue — became measurably more active and more effective at holding tissue in position. 

The study was done in the early 2000s and there have been no follow-ups that I found, but it does seem to, um, uphold my impression.  Bras are necessary sometimes  — vigorous movements are uncomfortable without them. Guys may like looking at boobs bouncing up and down under your blouse or shirt but it is annoying (the bouncing, and sometimes the looking) and can even be a bit painful. Another reason is to be polite in public and not attract attention when it's inappropriate.

But otherwise I like to let the girls breathe free.  And that's not just a phrase.  Bras cause sweating, chaffing and other discomfort.  The sweat that can't evaporate causes rashes, even  back acne where the bra strap wraps around behind you. When I do wear a bra, it's such a relief to take the darn thing off. 

My breasts are naturally firm and don't sag. That seems to run in the women of my family.  My mom still has a nice rack and she rarely bothers with a bra, too.  I think I got the aversion to them from her.  She tells me her mother, my grandmother, also had firm breasts.  I remember her but honestly never paid any attention to her boobs.  I only mention my mother's breasts because we've talked about this, concluding some women need the support of a good bra and others, such as we, do not.  But we all need to wear a bra in public situations for the sake of decorum and social expectations.   

These days I only wear a bra when I go into town or have a business meeting. People assume certain things about you if you don't wear a bra, especially if you are on the large size, and who needs that when you are just running errands, and you certainly don't want any attention to your physical endowments when you are talking important matters and expect to be taken seriously.

But around the ranch on normal days, I almost never wear a bra. If I'm meeting people about ranch business, of course I do.

I wonder if bras will eventually become out of style, like girdles. Who wears a girdle anymore?  They used to be a common undergarment but I don't think I've ever seen one for sale when I've been out shopping. Maybe they are, but I just haven't noticed.  If I did, I would think they were some sort of prosthetic device or something. 

Hosiery is another item of wear that seems to be almost gone.  In my grandmother's day, nylon stockings were a must, held up by garter belts that you lashed on over your underpants. What a pain. In my mother's day that gave way to panty hose and now most people don't bother with stockings at all. Supposedly, they are making a come-back, but I wonder. I enjoy wearing thigh-highs and knee socks; I do it because it's a style I like.  But among the women I know, stockings are just one more thing not to have to bother with.  I can see a day when bras will be considered the same way.

If you watch old movies, especially pre-code ones, it's obvious the women aren't wearing bras. Or if they are, they are very flimsy. The modern support bra doesn't seem to have become common until the 1940s sweater girl era when bras were used to emphasize the shape of the breasts under the sweater.  Then came the Fifties with the nose-cone pointy bras. Ridiculous. But with the Sixties came the topless bathing suit, which turned out to be a, um, flop. Still, it was a sign the times were a-changing. Then came Carol Doda, who I think was the first topless dancer in 1964. A rock formation in Yosemite is named Doda Dome in honor of her.  (I just looked that up!)

Then in the Seventies came bra-burning in the name of women's liberation.  Guys may wonder what the connection was, but that one of the first things women did to express their "liberation" was torch their stupid bras tells you how much the things are hated.

Of course, men were baffled because they just think of breasts as sex objects -- sweater puppies, whoopie cushions. So letting them free seemed like some form of provocativeness, which it wasn't.

I especially hate to wear a bra when I am nursing and my breasts are leaking, swelling with milk, contracting after feeding. Clogged milk ducts, mastitis, thrush, even reduced milk production...gawd. All that goes away for me when I don't wear a bra. Okay, guys, if you want to look at my stupid boobs, look. Like you've never seen tits before. I don't care.  Of course, as I said, if I must go out in public, I have to bra up and strap on a nursing bra for the duration.  But I hate it. I think I said that.  Haha. 

Anyway, what a relief it is not to have to armor-up before going out the way women did back in the day, with granny panties, bullet-bra, girdle, stockings and garter belt. These days that's all history.  I have run down to the post office wearing just a sun dress and nothing more. There would have been a time not all that long ago when, had I done so, I would have been arrested.  These days the only thing that might happen is that one of the loafers lounging in front of the general store next door will say, "Oh, honey, you just made my day!" 

 

 

 

 

 

September

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 September was when it began.
Locusts dying in the fields; our dogs
Silent, moving like shadows on a wall;
And strange worms crawling; flies of a kind
We had never seen before; huge vineyard moths;
Badgers and snakes, abandoning
Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten;
Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods
Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors
Rising from the earth - all these,
And more began that fall. Ravens flew round
The hospital in pairs. Where there was water,
We could hear the sound of beating clothes
All through the night. We could not count
All the miscarriages, the quarrels, the jealousies.
And one day in a field I saw
A swarm of frogs, swollen and hideous,
Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,
Huddled together, silent, ominous,
And heard the sound of rushing wind.
~ Weldon Kees

 Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
~ Carl Sandburg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So full, so shaken

 

“There are moments in life when the heart is so full of emotion

that if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble

Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,

Spilled on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The past superimposed on the present

It's funny how you think about the oddest things, unconnected stray thoughts bubbling up from your past when you are tired, sleep-deprived, dealing with stress caused by multiple things.  

Like, I was wide awake, nursing, and I suddenly believed with absolute certainty that I was still in the Navy and I had to fly that day and I began thinking how I could get in the cockpit without anyone seeing my baby and how I was going to manage nursing her.  I was really puzzling that out and turning over different methods in my mind for several minutes -- and no, I wasn't dreaming: I was fully awake, aware of a blue jay squawking at a cat outside the open window, looking at the apples on the apple tree down the yard. Yet I was feeling a fresh sea breeze in my face while smelling a funk blended of JP-5, jet exhaust, hydraulic fluid, laundry soap, greasy, oily, steamy fumes -- that good old carrier smell. At the same time, I was in the cockpit, airborne, feeling that constant, deep-seated rumble from the engines, aware of the rush of wind just inches away outside the canopy, my shoulders warm from the sun...all of it.

I mention this because I just made a post about a test I took that told me my personality was such that I am not susceptible to these sorts of phantasms. And I thought the test revealed an accurate aspect of my personality.  I ain't no Terrence McKenna. But, nonetheless, there I was in the midst of a kind of secular rapture, for lack of a better description.

I guess there actually is a reason saints and mystics and seekers disappear into the desert or the mountain reaches, fast and flagellate until they begin having visions.  American Indians went on vision quests to discover their spirit animal. Such a quest would involve something like running non-stop for three days without eating or drinking until you collapsed and began having visions, hallucinating  on the verge of death, at which point your spirit animal would reveal itself to you. It seems that even I am susceptible to that, at least to some degree. Not a fan of it. Won't pursue it. The here and now is good enough for me. I have enough trouble trying to understand that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby blues

 Worst I've ever experienced.  I would nod off without knowing it for a few minutes and wake up crying, calling out for my husband. I was terrified he was going to die and then I realized that he had and I just totally crashed emotionally.

Thank God my mom has been here with me. 

My lower body feels like I've been beaten with a baseball bat, really heavy bleeding, lots of big clots, my stupid boobs are swollen, sore and throbbing. My...oh, never mind. It may be worse that it ever has been, but I know it will pass.  I just have to hang on to that thought. 

And you know what? I have a baby girl! I almost didn't. But I do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, gee whiz

 Sigh.  I guess my plans to become a mystic on a mountain top shall come to naught. 

Bummer, man.

Well, at least this explains why I can't become hypnotized -- I volunteered for that during a college class and it totally didn't work. I thought about faking it for the lulz but I didn't. 

(I have pretended to be hypnotized in other circumstances so I could do things I otherwise wouldn't do -- I had no control over what I did! I was hypnotized! And a swell time was had by all. Heh.)

It also explains why sciencey stuff is my thing while touchy-feely, woo-woo stuff is not.  I guess it also explains why I become bored in church or with philosophical blathering, psychoanalysis, dream interpretation....  I tend to view it all as phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock and roll. I try not to.  I really do. I do want to believe. And once in a while I manage it. But there is always this little voice at the back of my mind giving the raspberry to it all. 

 

 

If y'all want to take this yhar test, here she be.

Speaking of accents -- we were weren't we? No? Well, Ima segue anyhoo -- I was at a roadside rest stop sitting at a picnic table waiting for my mom while she visited the restroom and a couple was walking nearby. The woman was looking at the sky and suddenly she stopped and stared at something.  Then she pointed and said to her husband (I assume), "Is that a flyink sawsuh?" 

He looked where she pointed, shading his eyes with his hand. "Well, it's certainly something," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before."

I looked where they were looking and saw far up in the sky a buzzard (okay, a vulture) lazily circling, riding a thermal. A pretty common sight in these parts. I assumed the couple were tourists from back east somewhere, New York or thereabouts, city people unfamiliar with nature.  I thought about telling them what they were watching was a bird, or, as I suppose the woman would have said, a boid, but I didn't. Let them believe they were seeing something outré they could tell their friends about.

I guess that anecdote expresses my practical mindset.  If I see something unfamiliar in the sky, I don't automatically leap to the conclusion that it is an alien spacecraft from another planet piloted by little green men out to kidnap nubile babes and steal their orgone energy. I just go, "Huh, wonder what that is." 

See? I'm so dull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I have lots of things to write about but my mind is kind of out of focus these days, casualty of a psychological IED, if you will.  But a good night's sleep or two will take care of it in the by and by. Been here before but this time has been a little rougher for...reasons. Nomsayn?

“Discouragement is a moral state, a failure of heart; you treat it by taking courage, not Prozac.”
― David Gelernter 

 “'Last forever!' Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.” 
― Annie Dillard 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old -- and not so old -- couples

A repost from May 9, 2023.  Neither my mother nor I knew what was waiting for us in the months to come.  Sometimes they don't abandon you, God takes them from you. What might the next years take from us? My mind shies away....

_____________________________ 

 What makes a marriage last?

I've asked both my mom and dad that.  Boomers, they married late after having very rich and, some would say, adventuresome youths -- my father being a naval aviator participating in Linebacker II, the Christmas bombing, etc., during the Viet Nam War, my mother being an Army nurse during the same conflict and then a volunteer with the Barsky Unit of CMRI in Saigon after her service.  They'd both seen a lot of the world, including visiting the Soviet Union; in fact they first met on a ship sailing from Yokohama to Vladivostok, although they didn't date seriously for a couple of years after and marry a couple of years after that.  Then, once they married, we kids, two brothers and me, the youngest, came along some years after that.  And this year they will celebrate their 46th wedding anniversary.

Watching their interactions, it's clear they enjoy each other's company and are happy and comfortable together.  They will sit in the sun room and talk with each other for, it seems, hours about any subject under the sun -- current politics, the stock market, friends and relatives, their careers, places they been and things they've done, recipes and what to have for dinner, their children and grandchildren...just anything.  Now and again, they fall silent.  One may gaze out the window while the other reads something or checks his or her phone, then the conversation picks up again.  

Of course, that's not their whole day, and often they are apart for most of it, if not all of it, doing their separate things. And of course, when they  were working, often they would be apart for long stretches.  When my father was on a cruise, he would be gone for months.  During the Gulf War, he was away for eleven months. 

So what's the secret to their long marriage?  They shrug.  They don't know.  Just take it easy, don't be a self-centered jerk, be considerate, think of the other person first, always remember why you fell in love with them, and so forth.

But I think there could also be a predisposition to staying married, an inherited or genetic component.  One of my sets of grandparents were married for 51 years before the husband died, and another set was married for 68 years before the husband died.  Neither wife remarried, not that that was realistically expected to happen at their ages -- at least, I wouldn't think so.  

My mother did say, when we talked about this, that you should not rush into marriage hastily, but get to know the person quite well, analyze your own emotions and make sure you are not projecting a personality on the individual that is not really theirs.  Don't ignore or dismiss their faults but think about whether you can live with them.  And don't ignore or dismiss your own faults.  Be pitiless in your self-evaluation.  Try to see yourself as the other person sees you.

I would add, based on my experience, imagine what it would be like if the person you love, whose life means more to you than your own, should abandon you.  What black depths of despair would you endure?  Why would you let that happen? So, dear friend, do all that you can do to see that that never, ever happens.  Love, yes.  But also be worthy yourself of being loved.

 Two musical takes on the same thing; if you can do anything to prevent it happening to you, do so:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was an accident

 I've written about how my husband decided I was the one for him the first time he saw me; love at first sight as you might say.  But it wasn't that way for me.  My love for him just sort of came to be without me realizing it.  Then one day he was all the world to me and I had no idea how it happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heaven Too

Don't take it for granted.  It's not. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number Five

 

Well, I'm due any time now.  I'm looking forward to getting it over with, and I'm praying my baby will be born safely and healthily.  It has seemed like something didn't want me to have this baby.  First, the shock of losing my husband, and everything that has happened because of that. Then my mother, whose help I rely on in so many things, including helping care for my children, fell and broke her hip and has endured a health struggle since then. Then I fell off a ladder and badly injured myself, including having a punctured lung. Then I tripped and fell heavily, breaking my arm and wrist.  There were other things. And just a week ago I got the tiniest little cut on my right hand and it got badly infected and my hand blew up to the size of a catcher's mitt in just a few hours. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. Fortunately, I was already at our house in town near the hospital and a regimen of Amoxicillin is handling it.  Amoxicillin is considered safe to take while pregnant. I have my fingers crossed that all will be okay.

My mother is with me and though she uses a cane to get around, she is determined to take care of me and the new baby.  I do so need her. My mini-me wanted to come with me but I needed her to be with our toddler. My aunt is staying with her and looking after the boys, who have been very subdued, lately, so I hope everything is under control. 

This will be my last baby, the last from my dear Jeff.  Whatever has been trying to cause me to lose it, I hope it will, in the end, have failed. 

Okay, that's it.  I'll see you on the flip side. 

 

 

 

 

 

Cowboying

 China being our biggest export market for our beef, I've been learning a lot about that trade and the politics involving it.  For one thing, I was wrong about Trump.  I thought he was to blame for all the troubles we've been having selling to China, but that is not the case.  Until his first administration in 2017, China completely banned the import of American beef. Trump got that ban lifted. I was still in the Navy then  and never paid any attention to such things. I should have.

As of today, China allows the import of 164,000 metric tons of American beef annually.  That's until 2028, when the deal will have to be re-negotiated.  The Chicoms will probably dither on that until they see who the next president will be.  The tariff on U.S. beef is 22 percent.  That's compared to the 12 percent tariff the Chinese impose on Brazilian beef imports. And the quota for Brazilian beef is 1,106,000 metric tons this year, scheduled to go up to 1.13 million metric tons next year and 1.15 million metric tons in 2028.  Is it any wonder I am looking to invest in or buy a Brazilian fazenda, as a cattle ranch is called down there?

The Argentine quota is 511,000 metric tons for beef, that's why we invested there.  As a data point, Australia's is 211,000 metric tons.  The US of A's quota is the smallest and we even only have that thanks to Trump.  Bless you, sir. With reservations. The on again-off again tariff battle of the last few years has played havoc with our business and any planning for the future we try to do. As to what Tump announced today, Lord, Lord.

And that's not even considering all the other obstacles to beef production we face.  Not long ago we lost a BLM lease after the Bureau decided to classify buffalo (bison) as livestock (long, complicated story), so we opened up some of our marginal grazing land we had left fallow for years and drilled water wells (anticipating one cow-calf pair per 10 acres) but have since had to abandon that plan and, in fact, have reduced our herd, while expanding our operation in Argentina.

Oh, and I bought a sheep ranch in Argentina because there is no export quota on Argentine mutton to China while American mutton is totally banned from China. 

One advantage we have is that  American beef is regarded in the Chinese market as a high-end, premium product and is desired by wealthier consumers and specialty markets, so we can charge a pretty penny for it. The Chicoms love heavily marbled grain-fed beef, and that we can supply. American beef really is excellent.

But American beef is subject to strict Chinese regulation, including a Ractopamine ban, no beta-agonist drugs allowed at all and it must be certified by the USDA as having never been administered growth-promoting additives or synthetic hormones.  Our cattle meet those requirements.  A lot of American (and Canadian) ranches' cattle cannot. (Enjoy your MacDoogle's "all beef patty," suckers!  Haha.)

 Also, all our exports must comply with China's nationwide electronic traceability framework, which requires verifiable digital tracking records from our ranch to the Chinese port of entry. And believe you me this requires a lot -- a lot lot lot -- of paperwork that must be absolutely accurate to the last jot and tittle. For egg-zample, all 9060-5 series documents (don't you worry what those are -- but I have to!) for China must be physically (not digitally) signed by a USDA Food and Safety Inspection Service Public Health Veterinarian, who includes his or her DVM degree credentials and District or Circuit codes with the signature. A standard inspector’s signature won't cut it. And so on down the line.  Just thinking about all this gives me a headache. 

We also export to South Korea, which has its own set of strict requirements and unique demands.  For example, the beef must be certified to come from cattle no older than 30 months. We export to Japan and Taiwan, as well, each with their unique requirements, compliance with which can drive you batty. As they say on Ork, shazbat! 

I have had to learn all this stuff this year, and so much more -- had to, to keep the ranch from going belly up. Nobody else but me and the ranch foreman, God bless him and his crew.  A ranch is not just a bunch of cowboys roping and riding, singing git along little doggie and hollering yippie-kay-aye. It is a complicated business. 

I sure never thought I would be doing this for a living.  And to think when I first came here after leaving the Navy I couldn't figure out what to do with myself, even trying to help out at the cookhouse to make myself useful, then becoming a flying chauffeur, and now look at me, knee deep in paperwork, not enough hours in the day to deal with it all. Well, I'll get a handle on it eventually and it will become routine.  That's always the way it is. Frazzled almost out of my mind at first with some new challenge, then, finally, it becomes routine and I just do it without thinking much about it. At least, I hope it's going to become that way. That's what I tell myself anyway. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A wish, a fear and a hope

 
Let Me Please Look Into My Window

by Gerald Stern

Let me please look into my window on 103rd Street one more time—
without crying, without tearing the satin, without touching
the white face, without straightening the tie or crumpling the flower.

Let me walk up Broadway past Zak's, past the Melody Fruit Store,
past Stein's Eyes, past the New Moon Inn, past the Olympia.

Let me leave quietly by Gate 29

and fall asleep as we pull away from the ramp
into the tunnel.

Let me wake up happy, let me know where I am, let me lie still,
as we turn left, as we cross the water, as we leave the light.

The League of Minor Characters

by Kathleen Flenniken

The main character sits on his childhood bed
naming everything that's gone—ex-job, ex-wife,
ex-best friend--and finally apprehends

the breakdown we've felt coming since chapter five.
When his doctor calls with test results, most of us
decide to remain minor characters

like the quixotic neighbor growing
bonsai sequoias, or the waitress with thick
glasses and a passion for chess,

because the main character, in the thrall
of a relentless plot, can't help hurtling toward
the crumbling cliff edge. And who needs that?

Some inherit genes from generations
of minor players, some must learn to guard
those sunny Sundays with the paper

full of heroes in distant gunfire. And some of us
who've gotten smug over the years turn another page,
turn on the football game, until one day

the doorbell rings. We close our books,
adjust our eyes, and the protagonist
sweeps in insisting himself into our lives

with his entourage of lust and language,
sorrow, brio. Hero, anti-hero, it hardly matters
with the lights this bright. The music crests

and it's time to speak.

 

Kindness to Animals

by Anonymous

Little children, never give
Pain to things that feel and live:
Let the gentle robin come
For the crumbs you save at home,—
As his meal you throw along
He'll repay you with a song;
Never hurt the timid hare
Peeping from her green grass lair,
Let her come and sport and play
On the lawn at close of day;
The little lark goes soaring high.
To the bright windows of the sky,
Singing as if 'twere always spring,
And fluttering on an untired wing,—
Oh! let him sing his happy song,
Nor do these gentle creatures wrong.  

 

 

It's all true!...or not.

 This below is from the paperback book Stranger than Fiction by Frank Edwards published in 1959. It's a collection of curious or unexplained incidents that Edwards collected and retold in his syndicated radio program of the same name. Edwards was one of the most widely listened to broadcasters in the country in the 1940s and '50s, specializing in investigative journalism.  Later he turned his attention to Fortean-type oddities such as are recorded in Stranger.

I used to be a sucker for this kind of stuff when I was a kid, believing every word.  It was published in a book, wasn't it? So it had to be true.  Nobody would write and publish things that weren't true.  That would be wrong. 

The paperback I scanned this story from my mom got from the Weekly Reader Children's Book Club, Scolastic Book Service or some other school book-order program when she was a kid. She can't remember which one.  But she was enamored of these kinds of stories, too.  And you know what? Now my mini me is reading it and she loves it.  B-b-but but...thanks to the darned internet, she's looking up the incidents and taking all the mystery out of them. She doesn't bother to ask her mom or her grandma if they are really true, she just asks Mrs. AI, that know-it-all smarty pants and buzz kill. Thus dieth one of childhood's pleasures: wonder. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. 

Oh, if you want to read Stranger, you can borrow it from the Internet Archives. But for heaven's sake don't fact-check the stories.  Just be a Fox Mulder and tell yourself, "I want to believe!"