28 August, 2018 Tuesday
I will continue. Its good for me.
My favorite incense is burning right behind the screen. Temple incense. First it was a gift. A merchant at Christmas, grateful for my pile on her California counter, said, “Here, I want you to have this.” It has been quite the gift.
I have calmed my inner storms with it. I have calmed my children with it. I have practiced Yoga with it. I have taught Yoga with it. I have meditated with it. I lit it the 27 times it took to show my house in California before the man who claimed it came. I wished my mother happy as she passed with it. Most every person in my world who has experienced it has loved it and I have gifted it on. There was a woman who told me it hurt her but she let me know quite soon after that, she liked to hurt me. Oh well.
My husband brought me sunflowers the other day. I love sunflowers. Love them. Happy things for me.
My tea is green again. The dishwasher is emptied. The laundry line is moved along.
We share the laundry with my daughter and SIL. They generate a lot of dirty cloth working with dirt, veg and chickens. They bought good machines the year before they moved here a year ago. The machines this house sported, well, lets say they hailed from another age. The new ones we all needed. Please. So those two gifted us two with clean with steam and even moved them in for us.
We all are a little frought with laundry stress. “Whose shit is in here now, right now that I have only so much time to do my clean. Dammit. Oh Well.” We do not tell about laundry. So its a crap shoot, loaded visits to the tiny room as to what pile we might find out to go in, on top that wasn’t dry yet but moved on so mine can dry. And, oh yes, the stuff that lies in wait. And waits. And waits. And waits.
I avoid the tiny room for days. I have a basket on the floor of my closet which caches my daily shed for days and days until I have nothing left that’s not in it. Then one day I feel strong enough to stuff it in a large bag and down two flights I haul to the tiny room.
This tiny room is brain for this bizarre house. Hot water tank and radiant heat heart as well as laundry happens in the teeny tiny room.We can open the front load doors but bending to retrieve the shit thats clung to the way back in that dryer is at my age a contortionist’s achievement.
So this morning, I checked the state of Tiny. It had sprouted since my last visit late yesterday afternoon. So I shuffled washer to dryer and found things in my waiting bag that didn’t smell and put them on because my closet can yield no mas. Its all waiting in the Tiny.
So sunflowers, yes. He found them a few days back and brought them home to me with cards of love and friendship. He put them in a tall, clear upside down bell, thick glassed vase. They smiled at me but looked a little lonely. Its a big vase. We did go to Market next day. We didn’t take the Zoi as I cannot talk and walk young Zoi at once. I needed to talk. Talk I did. Beef. Good beef. And salmon from the River. And chicken from the SIL after I earned the right to buy from selling some to a passer by. Time to go. Our bag was full and my husband had had enough of chat. He walks to the car and I am trailing behind and there on a rack was…
Amaranth. Ruby dripping luscious Amaranth. I was a goner. I stopped. Wow. Do I have the time? Yes. Fuck it. He’ll be fine a minute.
It was a whirligig of stalks all rubberbanded for three bucks. I tried to give her five but she said no. I fell in love so fast with their dripping gentle willowlike gestures. Spewing out of my hand. Yes, its amaranth she said. Its the grain in early form. Wow. Old ancient, beautiful. And they wanted to keep my sunflowers company so they waved me down, sure as shit they did, they did. So home and in the vase they came. They are all so pleased.
See?
Ta.
Tea With Me 