6th September, 2018 Thursday
Tea is black, the honey local and the milk from a goat.
Dream land, well, I roved. I’m in a room I do not know and think the figure in the corner chair is my Mama. An old friend is stretched on settee under a high window. The pleasant conversation is just over. Its time for him to leave. He says good bye and as he leaves, I say to Mom, “He’s known me since we were 12.” Then change it out, I am watching/am in an old black and white. I’m walking with two women down a street in the town I live in now. But the time of this is long ago when town was just brand new. I check to see if who made the film knew all the buildings that should be in view. There they are and I approve. And with the women I walk the bridge…that’s where I woke.
My Mama went 18 months past. I always pay attention to her visits in my dreams. She was not clear this time…the place she was was greyed and fuzzy rubbed. We loved each other, she and I, in ways that reached beyond conflicts that arrived as we got old. Those conflicts were damn hard, oh yes, they were. And in their waves I did despair that I had really really lost her and, fucking hell, that hurt. But as she dimmed on this side of that strange divide we all are headed for, I knew way deep that it was just a thing we were supposed to do. And the lullabies I pulled from hers to sing her off to that last sleep washed us clean again somehow. And now I have to weep.
Some woman who knows some things said my Mama won’t shut up. She’s sorry for so much. Although I knew already, this laid a lot to sleep. Let go that shit. I love you too, yes, I do from here and to the Moon.
The day is warm again, the heat still lurks. We fend it off inside with r2d2 AC things which stand in rooms with trunks to windows to vomit out the air they munch. White noise. They ran for almost two months this year as the heat was just astounding. I have been sticky way too long. I want the cold to come.
Ask me how I feel bout picking up the poo when its that cold I want.
Mole. That magical Mexican pepper sauce. The alchemy of ingredients which depending on the hands that mix and grind is as unique as a fingerprint. Italians have their Sauce, their Gravy, each Family’s secret. Mole is the same.
I had a friend who Moles just tell me, “Oh its so easy!!!” Then twenty minutes of the steps she dances through so beautifully. She lost me after two. I have no cooking Spanish and she, no cooking English, but we did understand. And she wants our chicken. Mole does with chicken well and Pozole will do too. So today, she will take chicken.
So yesterday, an alert sounded on my phone. Mountain Lion sighting near the local elementary school not that far away. We know there are lions living in the forest half a mile from here. One is quite the frequent flyer across my field. A neighbor caught him on his phone while great big cat walked through our grass a month before we owned it.
But for a cat to be all that way inside the town, poor wretch. Confused and cannot find the path back home. My daughter schooled me about big cats. Stand and face, make noise, be big. If you turn your back, they’ll take you by your neck. Yell loud and throw what ever you can find. Tell him, “Go Home. You do not belong.”
Well, doesn’t he? He was here first. Their range is 100 miles of roving and that will easily include all the towns around. They were almost gone and now they are quite happily recreating. So the young are finding new paths to roam through yards and even through some homes. They never have attacked a human here. At least that’s what they say.
The one they saw yesterday was most likely young. Not versed in humans and their homes. A teenager whose mother let him loose to find his way while she waits for siblings in her womb to birth. She has no more for him, “Be Gone. Good Luck. SCAT!” He has to find some ground that is not hers or any cat’s. He’s young and dumb and will most likely chose it wrong. You know the boy, his hormones and his hunger, drive him to do the worst thing. Poor Guy.
I felt relieved when the phone alert that came shortly after said they had not found him. Find your way, big cat.
Did I tell you that my husband is a tinkerer. A tool for anything he has to do. His workshop is a masterpiece of storage for all those just the rights. He is a master at the Rights, in all the ways he is. A friend watched him fiddle one day and dubbed him a contraptionist.
Our kitchen sports a deck with quite the mythic view. A great big Ponderosa frames the Gorge, its River and Volcano too. I sit out there some evenings with a glass as my gaze wanders all that distance, so much Earth’s Art. Last night I fed the dogs and go and sit out on that deck. The kitchen door bursts open and the contraptionist appears. He’s got his espresso machine tucked under one large arm. In the other hand he has some tools, he has to change a flange. Quite the sight, I tell you. How wonderful he was to bring his tinkering to me so I would not be alone. How sweet he is, my contraptionist.
Ta
Tea With Me 