Pastiche diary, from a letter to a friend.
Do they have permission? Can you grant it?
Can they grant you permission to not be with them?
Is it necessary to elucidate?
Perhaps it's a strange thing to ask.
My writer's mind can invent lots of explanation.
It brings to mind stuff like company towns, but surely you are not the sort to want to own a town.
It's okay if you don't want to answer, and whatever answer you might offer is okay.
A friend once said, that she didn't think there was anything I could write that would stop her from caring for me.
That was one of the very best notes I've ever gotten from anyone. It just fucking blew me away.
Things like vulnerability, the difficulties of being exceptionally bright women, and the importance of kindness, even a little...how it can stem things (with the river motif, to me; the stem in the flow redirecting it).
They watch me. I watch them. It's the Vulture Poem, right there.
Savvy people. They have a good and complex core of people who see reality for what it is. They get as close to it as anyone does, other than people in my family, and people like you.
I'm tending my garden a lot. After this garden I think I have to stop getting invested in gardens until I fix some other stuff about my life, which involves how I get stuck here because of my gardens and my houses full of broken plumbing and my delightful but crazy dog, who goes mad when there are thunderstorms anywhere near.
That can be hard, when you live with a dog like that in a monsoon region. He went through a glass window once, with a thunderstorm far away, for some time...until he just could not take it anymore.
I left the house for a few minutes, to tend to matters in the other house (this sounds rich, but they are both broken down houses, long story).
After a few minutes, I heard the sound of breaking glass... and ran out into the yard, going into full Mom mode...."YOU JUST STOP THAT RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!"
Got into the house, found him flailing through the heavily broken window, bleeding, already had chewed a piece out of the screen.
I pulled him back, and he was so scared, and he was so guilt-wracked. (he's a border collie, btw).
Dog Fail! Then he went into shock more, and went running around the house, dripping blood from his foot and his mouth where he'd tried to get away from the terror.
Fortunately...so very fortunately, he did not cut any kind of major vein or artery in the process.
But it scared the shit out of both of us.
Later, we dealt with thunderstorms some more (I've had Casey since summer of 2007; he was about a year old then)
I made a place for him to hide, under my bed. My bed is a piece of 3/4" plywood on top of cinderblocks. Bedding on top.
Originally it was too shallow a cave, but he'd try to go under there anyway, and watching him fail was painful and it had to be helped.
So I fixed up the brick heights & stuff and made it so he could get under there, though he still has to kind of creep. But he seems to appreciate that.
He goes under there when there are train whistles, lately, although not always.
The trains are over a mile away, but we can hear them here.
I don't know why the trains are a problem. He does not always go under the bed when the trains whistle.
At the same time, I feel more safe when he hides under my bed. It feels better.
So what kind of crazy is it when a woman feels better when her dog is acting out his trauma thusly?
I know he's nuts. I got him from the animal shelter, and he spoke to me.
He stood in his cage, ignoring stuff, but wagging his tail.
Didn't beg at the cage door, didn't cower, didn't threaten.
He was in a very difficult situation, and he reacted to it in the exact same way I hope I would if I was ever imprisoned.
Look good. Don't let the bastards get you down. Control yourself.
He's a smart dog. But he has a lot of problems.
They tell you at the good shelters, that you'll know when you found the right dog or cat person.
Now, back to the weather!
Of course, it hasn't rained here since last September. All we got was the bad freeze in early February, which killed a fair amount of usually cold-survivable vegetation, and scared the shit out of me, sitting here in my house with a few little electric heaters, for three days of temps running from just below freezing to down to about 0oF.
100 year freeze, the newspapers reported. Yeah, sure. This is just more of the violent changes climate change is engendering. I'm sure there are lots of newspapers up in the midwest explaining hurriedly about how those there tornadoes are just a 100 year event.
Experts agree, everything is fine! Go back to your T.V. and relax.