Signed, sealed, delivered but not aligned we arrange ourselves with hands like fins we arrange ourselves according to time the island shrinks as the tide rolls in the island hides in the moon pulled sea our fur warmed in the sun’s brief kiss we roll in the waves and dive so deep we roll into the water to play and fish the fish flock to school to avoid our teeth we chase and catch and eat our fill now the island is a shallow rock reef the flash of the fish as they come to grief the tide rolls in, the tide rolls out we climb back on our island as it climbs out
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I walked south on Marrowstone Island two days ago. The tide was starting to come in. The little island is covered when the tide is high and everyone has to go swim. I think they were enjoying the sun as much as I was.
Home meadows are becoming more common, for pollinators. Unmown, with wildflowers. There is a movement for a no mow May, to help pollinators and insects survive. This will help the birds too, because insects are food.
I quit mowing half my lot in 2007, after checking with the neighbors. I had just finished a divorce and I was paying my ex and I did not have time to mow it, nor money, nor inclination. My lot is L shaped. The 1930s garage extends onto the second lot, which is perpendicular to the first lot and goes to the middle of the block. The plumbing goes there too.
The lot is a deer stop. The deer circle a route that is often the same from year to year. This lot is not very visible from the road because a huge rosa rugosa, well over my head, fronts on the street. The deer come in through the driveway. There are high fences around it now, but there are still two other exits. One at the other end, to another driveway, and one past the garage next door. I watch for fawns in the spring, the mothers will leave them there some days.
I have birds and nests and sometimes raccoons and squirrels. I have seen coyotes within a block. This year I have a pair of “swamp robins”, also known as varied thrush, at my bird feeder. That is a first. My present cats are allowed out on leash or in the cat cage, so I have lots more birds all around the house. The birds apparently know that the cats are contained.
The lurker in the cover picture is Sol Duc. The grass is already deep.
My front and back lawn are still lawn, sort of. I have not used any weedkiller ever, and have lived here since 2000. Siberian squill and parsley and daffodils and forget-me-nots are busily invading the lawn. Also oregano and thyme. The deer are unenthused about most of these. They can come through the sometimes mown back of the house, but the front yard is fenced to protect my roses.
The deer do eat the squill. Maybe I could have a lawn of squill, mown by deer.
I like my lawn full of weeds. I am not very interested in grass and I like birds and insects much more. Ok, not cockroaches or fleas. We are not warm enough to have a lot of mosquitoes in my yard.
Maybe the deer like the leaves but not the flowers.
The wild has taken over the center of the block and now is creeping through my back yard and my front yard. And I am rooting for it all the way.
A relatively young man comes to see me.
Problems, a bit intricate, I type a thorough
history as we talk. I make suggestions
and he is to return in a few weeks.
He receives a copy of the note and plan
spit out by the printer.
He returns. There is a pain component.
He does not bring the journal I suggested.
He seems no better. I add a little to the plan
and suggest that he return again.
And again and again. Fourth visit. No journal.
“What have you tried that I have suggested?”
He replies, “I haven’t read your notes yet.”
“You haven’t read my notes yet? In three months?
I’ll tell you what: how about you return after
you read my notes and try some
of my suggestions. Why come in if you aren’t interested
in trying anything?” I do not go to rage.
It is not my problem. It is his problem.
If he doesn’t like the plan or doesn’t want to read
(yes he can read) or doesn’t want change,
that is his choice. Don’t waste my time.
He does not return.
It is a mystery. What did he want?
Why didn’t he tell me if he wanted something else?
If it was opiates perhaps he asked around
and decided I am the wrong “provider”
since I am very careful about those provisions.
A mystery. I wonder if it could have played out differently. Then I let it go and move on.
Virago gives positive and negative definitions, but all female. The most positive ones are of a very strong woman, “like a man”. Is there a male word that means the same thing? A word for a man, where the most positive one is that he’s very strong, “like a woman”. Perhaps “like a woman in labor”. Let’s make one up if we can’t think of one. “Obstetico”, perhaps. A man who complains like he’s a woman in labor, but the positive definition is strong like a woman in labor.
This is a watercolor postcard. Helen Burling Ottaway painted a bunch of postcards, with wonderful detail. These snapdragons could be viragos or obstetricos or perhaps both. This is from 1999, two years into her ovarian cancer. So the song is the Bald Headed Blues.
Time is the evil thief I am thinking of today. This is my sister, Christine Robbins Ottaway, painted by Helen Burling Ottaway in the early 1970s. Time has stolen both of them.
This is another watercolor, over a pencil drawing, 10.5 inches by 14 inches.
Today I refuse categorically to yearn I miss stupid things: that you rise early too still this morning it’s annoying to learn no one to talk to at the hour of stupid, no you Impatient with my feelings, I wish you ill hope you wake and want to whine and moan hope you wake early and feel over the hill but have to be quiet and grouse all alone hope your mind buzzes like a hive of grumpy bees while you spy on the internet and feel superior hope you gather more facts piled like logged trees and wonder why the piles don’t make you merrier I hope you slowly open and become aware you think you know everything and nobody cares
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Sol Duc is playing a game alone, capturing her back foot with her front, claws out on both. When she realizes I am watching, she puts her head down and pretends to be asleep. She isn’t asleep, I can tell by the claws and the ear tilt.
This is Donkey Oatie and Sancho Panda. Helen Burling Ottaway did a series for a book or a show or something in the early 1990s. I do not know if it was ever published. There is no date on this. This is colored pencil and the drawing is 9 by 12 inches. I think she did larger watercolors as the final project.
Is being ridiculous evil? I read that today is National Humorous Day. We need humor to let go of stress and blow off steam and to go from the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic relaxed one. Humor is a really good way to go. So watch those silly cat videos and laugh. Ok, not when you are at work. But even at work, my office manager and I needed to blow off steam and laugh. One day she was playing whale songs. I heard her say very seriously into the phone, “Oh, those are whale songs. Dr. Ottaway insists on whale songs.” I howled, because she had picked them. For revenge I made whale noises at her between patients all day. Anybody walking into clinic might have thought we were loons. I can do loon songs very well, better than whale songs.
I know a slightly different tune for The Dummy Line, a variation. There seem to be a bunch!
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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