. Spinning .

It seems as we get older that we are more aware of coincidences occurring in our lives. Now it may seem that age has something to do with it as far as the connections we make, but I’m talking about time relativity of hours, days, or weeks at most.

The day my mother died, I was working in my shop with a brand new customer when I got a phone call to come down as soon as possible. I had to explain to the lady that I had to leave, and she was extremely understanding and willing to come back the next day to finish up. In taking her name, I was stunned to find it was Sally, a relatively uncommon name; I knew of only one other Sally, and then, of course, there was my mother whose Polish given name of Salomea was Anglicized to Sally.

At the nursing home, my sister and I sat for a couple hours, then I suggested she go back to work and I would stay a little longer. My mother only half-wakened for a few sips of cranberry juice—her favorite—the aide gave her, and I was about to leave when a nurse stopped by and offered me some orange juice. Fifteen minutes later, my mom died. The day, I remembered later, was Willie Nelson’s birthday as well.

Earlier this week I included in one of my posts a short fantasy statement about an aunt’s death to dramatize the notion of handling the big changes in life versus the niggling little ones. In the same entry I mention my Aunt Olga’s Funeral cake recipe which is a very real part of my life, and quite delicious by the way. The same day, my father-in-law told us that J’s aunt died.

Today I ran around quickly through the weblogs I read regularly, and one hit me right between the eyes. It touched on a topic that is deeply troubling, and one with which I am wrestling right now. I couldn’t leave a comment; I could only leave the site. I’ve very rarely felt so raw and exposed and in confusion, turned and ran.

There have been many other instances, especially lately, and I realize that I have become more aware of them now. Does coincidence occur in some design or fashion for some purpose by a greater mental force than our own? Or is it just a sixth sense of sorts to which our thoughts are tuned in to higher frequencies. It’s curious. It’s also scary.

Well it’s nice to see that I’ve been writing rather prettily lately, and by some nice comments left on the entries, it seems that some of you have appreciated it and graciously let me know. Thank you. I was in a very poetic mood for some reason. But it’s over now, so I’m back to being just plain old me.

In cleaning the basement of the water and going through boxes, I’ve come upon the last two boxes that show severe water damage and were too wet on the bottom to move. One holds my rooster dishes–many of you may be familiar with the pattern–Poppytrail, cream colored pottery with a red and green design and a rooster in the center. These served me well for many years before I bought the Bennington green and black spatterware about 13 years ago. I knew they wouldn’t be damaged by the water, were too heavy to move until I set up more shelves and had the time to rebox them.

The other box appeared to hold some papers and magazines of J’s. I started from the top and worked my way down a couple inches before I came across several bride magazines. I grew suspicious. Then I realized the dates were from 1990 and that the slips of paper marking the pages were in my writing. We were married in June of 1990, and moved into our house a month later. On the bottom of the box–the worst spot to be in if you’re a book in a wet box–I found five books that I must have been reading at the time we moved.

When Rabbit Howls by The Troops for Truddi Chase, a book about multiple personality disorder.
You-Forever by T. Lobsang Rampa, a book on mysticism and book 6 of a course on psychic development.
Agartha, A Journey to The Stars, by Meredith Lady Young (actually, channelled by Ms. Young from Mentor) who promises “at the very least, it will challenge and expand your current definition of reality.”
13th International Herpetological Symposium on Captive Propagation & Husbandry, edited by Michael J. Uricheck, Ph.D., a rather dry report that covers fascinating subjects such as Bacteriology in Wild and Warehoused Red-Eared Slider Turtles; Breeding on Thin Ice: The husbandry and propagation of the Malagasy Tomato Frogs; Factors and Pathology Related to Reproductive Failure During Gestation and Delivery in Milk and Kingsnakes; and Keeping and Breeding Dendrobates azureus and Some Other Poison-Dart Frogs in Europe. (I have no idea where this book came from, it doesn’t even have nice pictures in it.)

And, on the very bottom, dry and handsome as ever, Willie, An Autobiography.

Every now and then I’ll go up to a window. Winter is changing into Spring with the friendly rain, and I don’t want to miss it. Sometimes, you’ll wake up in the morning and the season has changed without you. And sometimes, even with the daylight you just won’t see it because you’re busy folding T-shirts or matching socks and wondering what to thaw for dinner and counting sugar in the peas and bread.

Even when you’ve been born and raised New England and buffeted by white wet winds and gone on to smell the day that Spring arrives, it never should be something you just get used to. Even in a lifetime blessed with years of maturation, the day is only eighty something out of close to thirty thousand so it’s rare enough to stop and watch it happen.

I’ve been lucky to see the Northern Lights three times, a couple full eclipses, the starshowers that fireworked the night skies for several hours two years ago, and the speck of planet visible to the naked eye that’s rarely seen. My senses scream in disbelieving protest at the purpled hot pink of an artist’s palette, yet I have seen a yellow sky in afternoon before a storm, and the silent crackling that you don’t need your ears to hear. I have run to take a picture of a peach and aqua sky in evening, although I’ve never bothered looking at the photo after that. A three by five image just doesn’t match the unlimited sky my eyes have clicked upon and stored in the artistic memories file cabinet of my mind. The smell of Spring before the buds have even thought to waken is as distinct as that of warm pavement in the rain.

The time lapse photography is happening this morning to the season, and the patches of lawn are growing by the hour. Sometimes, it’s important to be there.

That’s how it seems to go sometimes: Just get through the day and somehow, a week, a month, a year has passed, and you’re on the last few pages of your life.

These days, my life is up and down. This is fine–I’m an up and down person; I can handle it…usually. I remember in a Contemporary Fiction class we read a story, I don’t remember which, but we discussed the story arc. It was properly there, but I felt it as electrically charged as the conflicts rose like spikes. The diagram would take on the look of a politician’s lie detector readout.

There are bunches of little things to deal with every day and these are usually my downfall. The women in our family are greater at handling the big things: We know exactly where Aunt Olga’s Funeral Cake recipe is kept, and pull it out while getting down the details of the arrangements and pulling out the winter or summer black dress depending on the season. Disasters are okay because we know what needs to be done. But as I put in a post the other day, it’s the “ants” that will do us in. The colony that lives in my mind right now is plotting something big–and I can overcome the challenge when it comes down, have no fear; but the tickling of their feet scurrying in preparation is annoying me no end.

But there you see? Today is almost over, and the week flew by so fast…

Yes, a tribute to loving, fussy mothers everywhere (and I do mean, everywhere) whose love reaches us forever in some way because they have thought of everything to prepare and assist us in our lives.

This is day three of the great cellar mop-up and I’ve finally toggled up the nerve to open up the wet-bottomed barrels in which my life is stored; the pink crocheted teddybear that slept beside me in the cradle, the little one-eared red horsey that was next in line, all the way up through the huge golden doggy that was flattened down to three inches high by sleeping underneath me constantly while I battled with pneumonia, to the baby clothes and wisps of hair (born bald, my first wisp came at the age of three), a plastic Hopalong Cassidy and all his cohorts and their steeds, and report cards through the years–even the one with the “D” in art that still makes me cringe, my First Holy Communion dress and crown and veil, my gold Honor Society banner from high school, and so much more. All safe, all dry, all perfectly preserved because my mother, who we had threatened with our intent to bury in an oversize baggie, had everything lovingly held in plastic bags that kept the water out.

Sure wish I could tell her now that she was right.

He is so very tiny, yet twice again himself in just a year. Fingers probe and curl just as before, but now with comprehension of the touch of skin that holds the voice inside. He need not kick the air in futile search, for he has found the earth to trust to take him onward and into the magical spaces of the others. And it is fun, because he will have them chasing after him with worry since he used to stay wherever placed before. And this: The way he moves his mouth can make them do the same in imitation. The food is strange and varied tasting though, and he is helpless in his ways to make them understand. While some is flung, and some spit out, more than he really wants gets in before the milk he knows and loves. He has learned to talk by reaching out his arm, and though it makes no sound, it seems to work. He will watch them even when they do not know it, because he is smarter than they think but keeps it to himself until he is sure, and then he will surprise them—he has learned it makes them glow when done that way.

He is one year old today.

The white hush of winter is slowly rousing with shades of blue and green; waking in notes of almost forgotten songs that fled south to abandon the months of sterile cold snow. We who have remained behind are glad to welcome back the prodigal sons of Spring as we sit and listen to the tales of where they’ve been and warmer places. We drink from the cups of wine they bring as gifts, the grape hyacinth and the rosé heather that has been blooming beneath the fluff of frozen water.

Today I saw the orange placard of the robin announcing his arrival.