October 19, 2009

Today, as I do once a month, I got ready to sample the water in Four Mile Run. After collecting my equipment I coaxed my 14 year old Corgi, Dazzle, out to the car. She was reluctant to leave her warm corner. Her hips are stiff and weak and don't always hold her upright. We had to build a ramp from the back door step as she wouldn't stop hopping down, and crashing into the the ground and smashing her chin. I scooped her up and deposited her in the floor well behind the driver's seat. She used to settle in there, tucking her tail around her, so it wouldn't get caught in the door, resting her chin on the bump in the bump in the floor. I thought she was so smart. Now she barely knows who she is. She used to be delighted with a car ride knowing that we only put her in the car to go somewhere good, with water, and trails and lots of good smells. When the car slowed to a stop she would hop on the back seat, circle around, then hop back down ,over and over again, no matter how hard I tried to train her to wait. I never succeeded in training her, time did that. Now she whimpers softly and I can tell she is unhappy but I'm not sure why. I suspect she wants to "go", even though we already took care of that. I wonder will she wait or has she declined so far that she will soil her space in the car.
As I drive down to the stream, I wonder is this the last trip? As little as 6 months ago she still went on long distance road trips. She loved to sleep in the big van, as we cruised on down the highway. At the rest stop it was clear that she enjoyed the novelty of place. New smells, new smells! That phase had lasted a year or so as it coincided with my need to make frequent visits to my mother who lived in upstate NY. Now it is clear the time of extended car trips with Dazzle is over. This short trip is more than enough. I scoop her out and deposit her gently on the ground. She rallies enough to take care of business, explore a few feet and then makes it clear she is done. She wants back in the car where she feels safe.

October 4, 2009

It was time to tidy up the garden. I cut back the Iris leaves, trimmed the cinquefoil and excavated the weeds. Found my two basil plants. I had used a few leaves here and there with tomatoes, in a pasta dish but had never made pesto sauce. I decided it was time to make a batch before the frost killed the plants. I had been gardening all day so I was tired, not looking forward to standing in the kitchen plucking basil leaves. I grabbed a colander, found a chair on the deck and sitting in the sun with the colander between my knees I started plucking basil leaves. With a surplus of plants it wasn't necessary to get every last leaf I could just choose the best, freshest unblemished leaves. As I sat and plucked it reminded me of being a kid, sitting on the stone back door step, colander between my knees shelling peas. Eating as many as I put in the colander. What a simple pleasure that was. My favorite chore. It strikes me that the childish pleasure of shelling peas has transformed into the yuppie ritual of stripping basil.

My daughter says I need a blog!

I am a journal writer, not a blogger. I have a notebook in which I write sporadically. I used to write primarily when I was unhappy. I found it useful to look back and realize that whatever I was fretting about had diminished. Then as I got older I used it as a memory device. There were events, places, people that I wanted to remember. Writing them down helped me do this. I have a collection, now, of about 20 composition notebooks ( the kind with the marbleized covers) covering a span of about 30 years. When I have to travel by air, I select one at random and read it. Sometimes they make me laugh but always I get perspective. "The unexamined life is not worth living" as Socrates is supposed to have said. The last 5 journals have illlustrations, photos and clippings. Again, my daughter's influence and the advent of digital photography.

My father died 2 years ago and my mother has reached a stage in her life where her mobility is severely limited, her mental powers are sometimes fuzzy and she is becoming more child-like in her demands for emotional as well as physical support. When she decided to subsist on tea and biscuits during the day and alcohol and potato chips at night we moved her into an assisted living facility. Slowly I am beginning the task of sorting through the accumulations of a 50 year marriage. The usual photos, bibelots, tchotchkes. Hundreds of items of clothing ( my mother shopped as a hobby) many with the tags still attached. As I folded up the clothes for Goodwill it was like sifting through the layers of an archaeological dig. The layer of chenille sweaters, the next layer of shirts with shoulder pads, the collection of 1970's silk blouses, the corduroy jumpers and turtle necks. Having helped my mother pack all these clothes a few years prior I knew that she could identify each piece, and tell a story about where she bought it, who she was shopping with, and if it was a successful piece on what occasion it had been worn. My mother's life story is told in her clothes. My life story is in my notebooks. Will anyone ever read them? Indeed would I want them to? The most likely reader would be the self same daughter that prompted this blog. Would she really want to wade through a rather large collection of often undecipherable scribble? Further more wouldn't some of what I had written cause her pain? After all I had written these notebooks for my self. I used them as a vehicle to vent, to say the things that should not be said out loud. Even I don't agree with some of my conclusions when I go back later.

So maybe that is a function of a blog. A journal for public consumption.