March 14, 2005

• Torn

  I’m not tired of blogging Iditarod updates, trivia, and
  significa.  That won’t happen at this time of year.  Causes
  of this seasonal obsession of mine may relate to my empathy, my psychic
  attunement to my environment.  Among the dozen or so leaders in
  the race at this time are four of my neighbors, four valley residents
  known and liked by many others in this big valley with a small-town
  feel to it.  Along with the rest of the valley and to perhaps a
  lesser extent the whole state. I’m Iditarod obsessed, caught up in a
  wave of enthusiasm and swept away.

  But I’m torn.  I have other things on my mind to blog about,
  too.  I have a personal life and an inner life.  Those things
  don’t stop for a sporting event, natural disaster, or any other
  thing.  Life goes on, and for the last few years I’ve been in the
  habit of blogging my life, the present part of it and my memories of
  the past.  Several times recently I have seated myself here and
  thought about writing down what’s on my mind.  I try to sort it
  out and organize it and decide which of many threads to pick up on the
  keyboard.  Then, torn between and among so many different thought
  threads, I take the easy way out and do another Iditablog.  Now it
  is time to attempt to bring my journal up to date.

  Home Life
  
  
  There is a new cat in the house.  I call her a kitten, in contrast
  to the two “old ladies” whose home this is and was before we moved in
  to be their caretakers.  Doug insists that Hillary is not a
  kitten, but a small cat.  Born last November, kittenish in
  behavior and still eating kitten kibble, she probably qualifies as
  “kitten” in veterinary terms, but I understand Doug’s
  perspective.  She is long, sleek and slender, lacking any trace of
  baby fat.

  Named for a famous mountaineer, Hillary is a climber.  Several
  times a day she will scale the highest shelves to the uppermost perch
  in the front room, the top of a stereo speaker, where she surveys her
  territory briefly before descending, knocking down books, incense,
  rocks, rubber stamps, postage stamps, trinkets, and/or the thermometer
  along the way.  Why and how she makes the climb noiselessly
  without apparent impact on the terrain and then bumbles and tumbles
  down bringing down everything in her path, I don’t understand.

  The Weather

  We had several
  periods of extreme cold weather this winter.  Cold weather isn’t
  over for the year.  We still need heat, and even though we bought
  about 30% more firewood this year than last year, we are almost out of
  fuel again.
  

  Outside now, on a sunny day, it feels like spring.  Last week, we
  had a hailstorm.  Hail at any time here is unusual because of the
  intense warm updrafts needed to form hailstones.  This time of
  year, it is unheard-of.  But weird weather is becoming
  common.  Still, taking the long view it looks like Alaskan winter
  now.
  

  Up close, in places like the base of this tree, you can see that breakup is beginning.
  

  This winter’s snowfall was greater than usual.  It is piled really
  deep in the places where it landed when Doug shoveled the roof. 
  The path to the outhouse, between the trailer and the little cabin
  beside it, is still frozen hard enough to support our weight, but soon it will
  turn to neck-deep slush.  Then what?
  

  My Past

  I think the next phase of memoir writing is going to be some revision
  and expansion of episodes already written, unless of course that proves
  to be too tedious and toilsome.  If that’s the case, then I’ll start
  scanning more photos and proceed with the adolescence and/or the 1970s
  where that end of the tale leaves off now — unless and until the
  scanning gets too tedious and toilsome.

  Inside SuSu

  I’ve alluded briefly in passing to some of my recent dreams. 
  There was another one I haven’t mentioned.  I woke one morning
  with a sense of awe.  I’d dreamt that I was floating over the
  planet.  The atmosphere was dark and gloomy and the air was foul
  and smoky.  I glided over bloody battlefields and villages where
  mothers cried as their children starved.  Then it was as if I
  burst through a door into light and life.  Everything was clean,
  green and beautiful.

  I described the dream to Greyfox and he interpreted it as
  prophetic.  How wonderful it would be if that were true prophecy
  and I would see the planet burst through that portal into the Age of
  Light and Life.

  I see another possible interpretation, that it symbolizes death, my
  death when I transcend the horrors and hardships of this world. 
  Doug says that makes sense to him in light of my belief system.

  And I also see another reasonable interpretation, that it is nothing
  but a wish-fulfillment fantasy.  It’s easy enough for me to wrap
  my mind around the idea that the dream is all three:  a prophecy
  for the earth, a promise for me personally and an expression of my
  deepest desires.  Why not have it all?

  

  • 7:19 pm
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