witterings and ramblings

 

A few things I wrote elsewhere I wanted to keep hold of: 

My brain is always going a million miles a minute, it feels like.. so this is just a taste of trying to put some of that down into text.

What is the concept of time?

"I've been thinking about this for years, since a dream I had in high school. Time is a fractured crystal/matrix on tangent point with the three dimensions of physical space, and -of itself the fractures in its own matrix become something like the Droste effect light going into infinite mirrors within mirrors - there is loss and duplication within the fractures of a magnitude we cannot quite grasp."

 I did have this dream - it was what, 1996, 1998?  somewhere around there, I remember looking at my computer in my mother's house and wondering how I could capture even a tiny bit of the idea to save it for later... I sat down and wrote 'The Crystal Matrix' and 'The Philosopher of Crystal Valleys' somewhere around that time.. and the type of dream still returns to me once in a while - and I can never quite grasp it - it falls apart the more I try to understand it.  I've written a bit about it in my book 'Time in December' in some ways, but had to mold the idea to fit the story in a way that was slightly more specific than the whole concept.  I do like the scene in the movie Interstellar (or, as I more commonly think of it, the movie with the girl named after Murphy's Law)... but I don't feel it quite hits the right 'umami' taste of the 'real thing' I experienced in the dream, very very close to the idea, but something was missing

 

Charlotte this morning : 

"Charlotte's blue heeler side was showing this morning - definitely herding dog there - I slept in today because it was Sunday and she was completely focused on getting me outside to feed the chickens, nose bump, alarm snooze, beleaguered sigh with chin on bed, nose bump, hard stare and excited eyebrows every time I move... okay you're FINALLY up....circle to door, sigh, head to stairs, ok.. yes human the coffee (but, chickens? you know about the chickens, right? *head twist and circle*), okay the cookie, I like cookie too.. but... chickens? Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, turns circles.. *I get the chicken feed in the container* OK oh boy! *nearly soar through air on the way to the door* we're finally feeding the chickens! If that dog could fly, she would have all the way to the coop with me."

Mark says I could make four panel cartoons of this sort of thing.. and that is the best I can do in description.

 

And, about the night before last : 

"I had this dream last night where my brain was trying everything to wake me up, zombies, extra limbs, fantastic glass objects with light streaming through them in a temple where the water was rising, going through books that don't actually exist, seeing people in an office that I knew were TV actors and saying hello to them as their characters, walking through mazes that defied gravity, crowds of unfamiliar people, a ghost, papers and signs in foreign language, vehicle issues where my key didn't want to work, logging into work terminals with the wrong password, trying to open combination locks from years ago - just one puzzle/problem thing after another and each thing I faced I was like 'ok'.. go through the motions, get through this thing and you just know something else will show up etc.. but none of it actually pushed me to awake - and then, I picked Esme up at the bus stop during the rain in my mail vehicle (instead of my normal one) which the mail vehicle doesn't actually have a seat there, and I never take it home in the first place ---- and THAT did it --- it was such a surreal mix of real and 'wait, what - that isn't how this goes, this is never how this goes' that it finally did wake me up. And I thought.. wow, zombies, extra limbs, Japanese and Escher-type mazes didn't do it, but being in the wrong vehicle at the bus stop does. *that's my brain, I guess*"

... "still what makes me almost/ (the most) amused is that all the far-beyond-reality stuff doesn't 'faze' my sleeping brain, it just tries to find the way around it as if I am already knowing it is a dream and 'meh, these things happen' etc.. but the actually almost real normal thing but still 'hey the details are wrong' task was what shook me awake. In the dream I was asking myself 'is the stripe on Esme's coat just like that, I don't think it is....' and enough of those mismatches made me question enough to kick me out of the dream entirely" 

 

I really wish I could explain the glass figures - they were absolutely ethereal delicate, breathtaking and luminous - like sundial-shaped shells - - I worried if I tried to pick them up they would shatter just from the pressure of the touch - they were sitting on a shelf in front of some clerestory windows, but the water was coming in from the stairs above, rising in the sunken temple area (blue-green stone, similar to the minecraft underwater temples) and I needed to get out of there and continue my 'quest' - I think at that point I was looking for a bookcase to put the books in my office that I was sharing with several characters from Fringe and Warehouse 13, but really in the dream, I understood that my brain was playing with me there with the actors/celebrities/characters and the books that didn't exist were foremost on my mind (if I can see them and they are books I can make them again etc.) that if I was going to have them for a while yes I did need a bookcase... and then of course other things happened, in the crowd there was a girl in a yellow dress, who was asking me questions and I suddenly decided I could phase us into a ghost mode and get through the crowd and bring them to where they needed to be and warn them and some other people about some things, give them some philosophy etc. which was fairly basic, and then continue on my quest, saw my mail van, delivered some mail, sorted out codes, had the combination lock question, 39, 11 and I don't remember the last one, maybe 5 or 45, I didn't get it open - it was from ten years ago, and then I saw my daughter and two other girls getting off their bus, but not at the bus stop, and picked her up, but her coat had the wrong stripe, and I didn't recognize the other girls, and that my van doesn't have that seat there is a shelf there (which has happened in dreams before, conflation with another vehicle) and then I was still right-hand driving and somebody on the side of the road wanted us to pick up furniture in the van and I was dubious that it would fit or that I could lift it, but I got out and loaded it up with superhuman strength, and realized the texture of it was all wrong and at that moment I was investigating why it didn't feel correctly under my hand and that kicked me fully awake

me(brain)-->kick studio <--laundry crunch

 So the long work weekend is over - and it looks like I have today off.  It is dim and humid from the rains the past few days, so I am still feeling a little quiet and wondering how much effort I want to put into things that need effort put into them.  And if I should play a little hooky from sweeping and laundry and etc for a few hours and work at my studio table, which would be very much more enticing if there was adequate light.  I've been playing with Hungarian again the past few days, remembering what I had nearly forgotten before it ran out of my brain - same thing I did with Finnish a week or so ago.  And I've done some French today to counterbalance it.  I worked on a bag yesterday while we watched the Hunt for Red October. 

After the small route yesterday, in the rainstorm, I was SO tired - enough to go to sleep, but I had gotten the pork loin on the way home anyway, and rounded everyone up to go out in the afternoon (since the rain had stopped, and that also makes me tired), and go get our major grocery list (still forgot a few things).  I was standing in front of the aluminum foil with Esme, trying really hard to do the 'bouncing ball map thing' with the entire list so I knew where we were going and how fast etc.. which I usually do in the back of my head -and I couldn't even focus on which aluminum foil we had at home compared to the assortment in front of us - and for a moment, couldn't even realize if Reynold's Wrap was aluminum foil or saran wrap.  Esme saw that and she knew I was very very tired, if I couldn't do that, and also didn't know ten steps ahead of myself where we were going next (I knew maybe the next two).  I was honest with her about that, so she knew why I wasn't doing my usual thing.  Mark was off on the other side of the store (he drove, luckily) getting other things.  

That kind of tired feels like being drunk, knowing that my brain isn't working to the potential I'm used to - I said it was a lot like this Princess Bride quote to both of them in the store, as we walked out- and then I had to make the meme.

But, I snapped up enough to get all the items that were on the list and a few that weren't (but missed two or three non-urgent things, because I didn't want to go across the store, and the other we weren't entirely out yet).  And we got home, made dinner and I didn't even crash hard until at least nine.  And then the dogs got me up and down half the night - so I'm halfway to brain power this morning and starting on my second pot of coffee at 10:30 am.

I'd like to push myself over to that studio table to work on a large sheet of paper with all my pencils, but I know that will take a few hours -

hours that could be used folding laundry, making a bed, washing counters and sweeping floors, and just general pickup from having been on at the post office for five days - and then there is just general buildup of stuff overall that happens with my ADHD and I don't find it bothersome until I actually get time maybe to do something about it (and even then, bah)

I think about the ink I was so excited to get four months ago, and have used twice?  That almost does it.  I think about yarn that looks like yarn the computer keeps advertising to me and I say 'if I just dug that out, maybe I could do something nice with it'.. and again, I counterbalance that potential use of time with the laundry, and cost-sink-analysis of how much benefit I'll truly get out of it as future me scowling at present-me wasting time doing-things as much as wasting time staring-thinking-things.  I think about time and space and that feels like lighting up a giant light bulb, I think about lots of things, chemistry, geometry, baking, the garden - and still the biggest factor is the dimness and the outside weather.

since it was wet outside, and she didn't want to miss dinner when it was eventually served yesterday, Lyffan slept in the table space just behind my computer monitor for a while yesterday.  I caught a couple of pictures of her, although it was entirely voluntary- she let me know she could have gotten up and left during that 'snappy eye thing' but she didn't - and please let her know when the tuna was ready.  *can opener did that, and Esme still had to poke her a bit to make sure she understood yes, now, come downstairs!*

Esme also made up a great batch of our Dragon Spice porkchop spice from Mark's metric recipe.  I have trouble sometimes without the scale he has doing it by hand.  I ordered some maple sugar chili spice the other day and will be interested to see what that is like when it comes.  I like to look at what the spice combinations are and keep some on hand to add to rice and stirfry stuff - but only for things Esme and I eat.  Mark keeps his mixtures for things specific, like meatloaf and porkchop spice, and they're good - but I like to try some different things. 

*stare into coffee cup a bit more*  if it wasn't so dank, I'd think more about baking

it's going to be one of those days, and the pinball method is probably the best thing for it.  do three things here, do three things there, continue moving until you're tired, try not to sit too long before getting up and pinballing a few more things - look at progress - decide the next three things etc etc...  the look at progress thing is just as important as the small break to drink coffee etc.. and to say 'that needed to be done, and now it's done' helps to do the next three things

11:30 I decided, after folding and sorting and starting another load of laundry, and putting away all the eggs from last night that had been set out to dry - that I needed to make a little french toast and then see what I wanted to work on next after that.  I've turned on some extra lights up here, picked up a few things, and planning some more steps.

4pm :  I've done some Japanese, and finished the laundry stuff, and Mark had roasted one of the ends of the pork loin since this morning so we all had sandwiches

7 pm : I did something at the studio table, and it wasn't half bad.. but I played a lot of my game, as well  I also went out and filled the chicken's nest boxes with fresh chips and poked around the garden, then cut up a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few peppers and some of the lime basil and put it in a freezer container to make some food with in the next few days - the cherry tomatoes had just been in a bowl in the fridge building up but it was high time I did something more with them

drawing

engres cau'r ça va

/philosophy post/ I find myself saying this little mantra to myself, and others, even without knowing the true provenance of it, when I'm just trying to get over the hump between now and 'a little ways from now'... was talking with Mark about that, I've gotten so much better on the postal route with the 'encapsulation of useful time'... I'm not wasting time, I'm getting paid and doing a necessary job, but still, it often feels like I'm just pouring the time into a bottle, corking it, and setting it on a shelf to look at but nothing really 'happened' during that time.  I delivered mail, another day, and I'm tired again.  

engres cau'r ça va 

It's hard enough, but it's okay.  / We've closed the hard thing up, and it's okay.  

après ci ca va

after this, it's really okay

aux troussé / à ses trousses 

It's on my heels, I'm being chased by it

Assez quoi! / Quoi?  / A ne se très se quoi / je ne sais quoi

Enough already / What is it? / It doesn't matter a bit / I don't know what it is

 

Some of that feeling, I've come to realize, isn't all anxiety, some of it is my ADHD.  And I'm using my own brain against myself (in a way) to keep myself on the task at hand, and since that is a huge effort, it feels like anxiety, but it IS getting the job done.  And I'm getting better at it.  But the 'extra tired' also comes with that territory, of doing the task and also doing the task of keeping myself on the task.

In the past, when I first started doing mail, there was so much more to worry about overall that I would actually feel mini anxiety panic attacks - because there was so much to worry about, and I was here pouring time into this task and trying to make it make everything else okay, eventually.. finances, life, goals, ultimate understanding etc etc.. I let my brain spread out too thin and didn't keep it on task - and then when I was finished with the route I STILL had all the regular worry waiting at the end of the 'string' of time.  I would spread it all out all day long like a huge four dimensional matrix in my head and look at all of the red flashing lights and then turn myself into a ball of stress.

It took a long time to hold my feelings in my hand, separate them down into their elements and look at them and not feel that domino-effect cascade of panic with it - and not have that panic come and take me over at the end of the day or whenever something else went wrong later.  That's a lot like the kids who sit still all day and then have a meltdown at the end... but all this time it was just masquerading as something else in me.  But also, the answer to it was in me - I just had to look at it for what it was telling me, so I knew what I needed to respond with.

So sometimes I have to take myself by the lapels (figuratively), and go through the paces:  I am one creature, at one sequential time, that this sequence has a beginning, and an end, and is moving at a set pace that I cannot change much.  The only thing that will make this feeling better is to continue along this time-string doing this task until it is done. (small breaks can help sometimes, but that's also a bad habit - it's like stopping while climbing a rope, you're still hanging there, and getting through to where you can put your feet down is so much better)  So, I'm doing this, and will continue to do this until it is done.   Because it is a task that does need to be done, and I'm the one here to do it.  And then, later, we will think about the other million things.   THEN I can let it overwhelm my timestream and matrices like a Rubik's Cube and work like an overactive pinball machine trying to make sense of this Universe.  But not while we're doing this NOW... and yes, somehow, that still feels a lot like anxiety, but a different color.  And treating it just as 'I have anxiety and worries' never helped before, like having this reminder about time does when I know it is this.

 

an attempt at what it feels like, to be stuck doing the one thing, but your brain continues to bounce while you try to hold it to the one orange line that is the shortest distance between the two points, it is naturally wanting to be a quantum particle anywhere at all within the triangle 

languages : I did mostly French, Japanese and Russian today with just a touch of Finnish to see if I still remembered the words.  I also did the 'minimum' on both profiles (about 50 xp) and we'll see how much time I have tomorrow.

bits of surrealism

a sketch : Turkey Mama and her Chicks

I couldn't convince myself to get into paints or pencils last night, even though I've been sort of 'itching' to - I can't get over the hump of spreading out even more things, among the things I've put away and those I haven't yet ... and doing messy work that takes physical time, and then putting it away or leaving it out - having yet another physical thing that no one else will ever see except maybe here etc etc... even though the urge to create is really really strong -- I understand most of our society's response to such a creative SPLAT as I used to make daily was : 'Do you ever sleep?  What do you do with all of that?' and those are both valid and further confusing questions

it's an ongoing existential crisis thing and I feel like I deal with it pretty well considering the absolute event-horizon space-warp thing that goes on in my head all the time.  I've worked hard to 'slow my clockrate' as Mark calls it - we're both 'high clockrate' people in his terms, but it's all mental work and sometimes especially after waking up from dreaming, it feels a bit futile and like I really SHOULD race around doing eighteen things, and then I remind myself that I'm only human and it's impossible to do everything at once, no matter how much coffee you drink.  It all feels so surreal, finite vs. infinite, NOW time vs. all other time.

 

So part of my coping with the exact difficulty of 'create--don't create' at the moment is reminding myself I can open my graphic processor, which is not very technically advanced, use it to choose colors and put some things down like a digital etch-a-sketch and just because I don't want to go to my studio table or art easel, it doesn't mean I have to choke that urge down to put an image 'out' of my brain, or play with the process, like the turkey mama and her chicks above.

 

 

and I can try to urge myself to finish other things I've started

pulled this off the little loom and finished it up  

It has a button closure underneath there and is big enough for a pair of glasses, a checkbook or several pens

It's 8 am.  I stayed up until 10 last night (didn't even make nine the night before) and was up only once with a dog, and then slept until 6:30 am.  

Finished the A1 Russian course.  I'll keep going on Duolingo now as I had sort of held off of it and done the other languages because I was guaranteed to get some practice every day doing that.  I feel I can read Cyrillic a lot better than when I started that - which was a goal for Bulgarian learning.  The Bulgarian site sends me a word of the day every day, written in Cyrillic, and I've been able to pronounce it from the word quite a bit better before clicking it to go to the page with the translation, trans-literation and pronunciation audio clip.

did a smattering of Greek, Danish, Spanish and French, will do something on my phone later

started another crochet tote bag to make during television time, it's smurf blue

have to call the mechanic later today (he didn't respond yesterday but I only called him once) and see if he has ordered the parts for the truck.  Work Saturday - of course that is still a worry about getting home, but what can I do about it other than call the mechanic today, which has to happen a little later.  I'm feeling lately like Samuel Beckett just before the Quantum Leap... like I have way too much energy but if I begin to expend it instead of save it for the things I need to do, I will fall to exhaustion instead.  So it's a bit like having your physical body on a leash while the brain is a bouncing puppy.  And yet - I don't want to get into other huge things either, because I can't sustain them.

Baking might help.

Watching a bee gathering nectar in the clover, while watering the garden and filling the chicken dishes, helped a little, too.

Made breakfast, egg and cheese on toast.  Set out a stick of butter from the freezer to thaw to make something with later.

Made cinnamon rolls, with just a glance at a recipe and hardly any measuring (the butter was pre-measured, because it comes in a stick) - they turned out pretty good, at least, while hot and with coffee.  Sometimes these things get hard as a rock when they cool down - will look at that.  I can see why some people use cream cheese in this type of recipe, and perhaps with more flour and something like that I could roll the dough even thinner on the parchment paper and still get it back up without it becoming lace.  It's been years since I even tried to make them from scratch, coffee cake used to be my goto because it didn't require the rolling.

Summer Solstice 2024

 

*outside, it is still dark - and I want to sleep*

I hit the snooze button to try to slip back into dreams...

 

Get up, get up - you'll miss it - the spirit animal tugs at me, it's not my dog, she's downstairs sleeping, but it does the trick as good as any real nose

 

ten more minutes, for the 101 year old woman to tell me what I did wrong with the brown sugar, oh, she's not going to, I have to figure it out myself... 

 

 

pull myself out of bed, remember it is the day, assemble myself and heat up a cup of coffee, stagger out into the already bird-chirping sky-lightening world, long after the moment I would normally push myself out into the world on this day - which is usually before the full veil of dark lifts, when I am still uncertain of even where to put a foot down, much less my wits

 

I think about how I have 'two tries' this year, solstice, and my birthday, days following each other, to see the world as this - and I wonder if I will use both of them, if that is what this is for, comparison...

 

But I am here, moving through the world - and ready to see what it has brought me here for at this moment. And a bird passes overhead, up above the power lines above me, as I am admiring the pale blue light of sky... long before actual sunrise, before any pinkening has come to it. And as I walk, make the turns as I am using to making them - it strikes me at one moment all this sense of scale of the environment, as the colors begin to resolve themselves into pink mimosas and yellow rudbeckia - as the gray of the road and the green of the forest separates into layered and tiered colors...

 

I walk home even before true dawn, look back at the road one time to see the pink fingers coming across the sky - my alarm has not even rung yet - I step into the house and grab up some pens, sit with my dog on the porch and try to capture this - yes, I am small in the world, and it is in motion, and I am here to experience it.

language clock

 

 

this is one of the things I do sometimes to get an idea of how I am using my time in languages, and spaced repetition (golden time, as they call it, in several language learning platforms)   Even before I really figured out what that was - I noticed I WAS using that method, of separating things out by 6, 12 or 24 hours  I really do much better spacing it out like that than trying to go all one language or in really large blocks - sometimes 5 to 10 minutes is enough to 'make my ears smoke' - especially in Spanish and Catalan, and other times I can work for a half hour or more and not feel overwhelmed

so when they say I could really be fluent if I focused on just one language?  No, I don't think so.. I think I'd get so overwhelmed and swimming with multiple things in the one language that I would stop and not go back to it for days - which, I do sometimes... but since I'm rotating through 10 to 15 languages, I'm never static or frustrated for very long - I just go to other content, and then bounce back when I feel I'm ready, whether that is 6 hours later, or three days, or even a few months  And other languages REALLY help me understand more - I was studying Romanian when I tried to learn Spanish, (and already A2 in French) and it was so VERY hard... and then I tried to learn some Portuguese, and bounced in a little Italian, and dove deep into Catalan, and then came back to Spanish and said 'Oh - there's MORE room for this, in the right places now, in my head - and it's not mixing with the French so badly I can't keep them separate'  That is definitely a synesthete thing

 

of course, languages isn't the only thing I do all day - although, looking at that clock, you'd wonder maybe?  I've gotten little girl off to school, worked driving postal route a few hours, came home and did some laundry, cooked dinner etc.. but this is a good example of how I smatter / scatter languages throughout the day and make progress over time, and this is three years into my 'goal' so it is not a passing fad.  I continue to recognize more and more in many foreign languages when I watch videos, television and movies.

I also did an audio test in French during that larger block, and came out with 80% recognition of the words.  I watched a children's video in Latvian, and did some more clozemaster in Bulgarian - all the rest was on my two Duolingo profiles (one mobile)

 

Catalan meses : Surface practice with sound, DuoLingo learning from Spanish

gener

febrero

març

abril

maig

juny

juliol 

agost

setembre

octubre

novembre

desembre

I'm in that 6:30 pm block right now doing Czech grammar on the whiteboard - mostly just writing down sentences from Duolingo for reinforcement of the grammar topics I know I'm weak on - then I can look at them all together

Bits

 

'sushi rice' actually brown rice with rice vinegar, sugar, salt and white sesame seed, nori seaweed sheet, wasabi, soy sauce, red curry paste and real mayonnaise

 

opened up an old set of gouache paint today, it had started to separate in the tubes, but tried to see what I could do with it with no plan

Blue Valley

Meet me in the meadow

under the shadows

of these trees and mountains

where it is hard to tell the difference

between flowing rivers and bending grass

when the light has begun to cascade

in rays as it does, spectacularly surreal

through the openings in the clouds

and the rest of the world is still drowsy

in fact

I'm already there

I think I always have been

 

 

 

It was one of those mornings - when you know the week is going to take off from you soon, but perhaps today the slope will still not be so steep... but it's only a maybe, so you're holding your breath, unsure what you want to do, unsure how you feel about it, caught between the present and the future and shadowed over by anxiety of the past, all wrapped up into a nice little yarny snarly ball that doesn't even have a reason to be upset, and you're not, really.. just a little tired and unsure if you can start anything... because you always want to start eighteen dozen things, and you always haven't finished twenty dozen things, but *sigh*... it's just like that

So you put some rice on the stove,  and wait.

You do the dishes, and the laundry,   and wait

You do language lessons,  and wait

And because you're not good at watching it - you turn the rice off, to steam

You open up one page of your sketchbook, sit down and let it take you somewhere

but then, you blink, and again, you're waiting

You make the rice into sushi rice and eat it,   and wait

then you look at the clock, and like the rabbit, 

put on your cloak and run for the door

hoping to get the errand done

and then you are home again, and exhale

and wait

And it's all good, really

You make the coffee, and wait

And it's all good, really

at the moment

(you're just so used to knocking on wood)

Languages : Japanese, Czech - threw a French high grammar monkey wrench in at one point just to jag the brain, and it was fine, then did the rest of the unit of Dutch I had done part of once.

Language geek

I did a few of these charts last year or more ago, just to see how often I return to the activities / switch the activities over the day and was just as surprised then how much I switch all through the day in almost spirals.  They say this 'spaced repetition' is all the rage, but I've been doing it for years.

Typical language geeking while off from post office today, did my Japanese Kanji reviews and a bit of DuoLingo in Japanese and Spanish first thing in the morning. I also took some time to browse and read hiragana and kanji and look up things on signs and advertisements and images that I could not read at first. I took some French tests, Japanese and Spanish review sessions and then played Stardew Valley for an hour in French... and a bit more here and there waiting for things over the day.  I was playing it in Japanese here and there, as well, a few weeks ago.

 

We took Esme out for her birthday dinner after school and also picked up the truck from the mechanic.  It still doesn't feel 100%, but we'll still have to see.  Then I finished the laundry and crashed when we got home, because it is cold and it felt like it had been a long day already.

 

As usual, when the animals wake me up in the night I spend a little time on some language waiting for them to cycle in and out of the house and getting ready to fall back asleep.  I don't do this on my phone, but at the computer desk.

 

Friday : a non-work day : it is now 1:45 am on Saturday (at update)

 

 

Saturday and Sunday will both be 'work' days... we'll see how that goes

Time and Space by Marie Lamb, painting series

The artist at work on painting #2 : Time and Space : 'The Machine'

 

Time and Space #1 : 'Escape Velocity'

completion date: August 5, 2021

This painting was sold at the Arts Round the Square event in September.

I didn't have time to really talk about it with the buyer - and I was nervous!  I told him that I took a compass and ruler to the canvas and worked from one side to the other until it was finished.  That is technically true.  But yes, there is always 'more' behind my work.  This image actually shows concepts for space ships / light speed travel, an observatory and the idea that we will build a pathway to Space.  Below, a countryside scene with houses, bridges and streetlights shows Earth.

Our stall at the Arts Round the Square event in Paris, TN on Sep 25, 2021

 'The Machine' : Imagine a huge turn-crank machine you put a quarter into at the top, and turn the crank and it goes through all the motions, passing the quarter through the gears and shafts until it comes out, like pachinko, at the bottom, altered and reduced to a tiny pearl - that is then plucked up by Charon in his boat and taken away down the River Styx.  Yes, that quarter is your life.  Over Time and Space, being worn down through the Machine.

I took joy this morning in the mathematics of the trees, again. The powder blue criss-crossed with burnt umber at angles and intersections. The mist out of and into which a hawk soared above the branches, pointed out by the younger eyes beside me. As I am contemplating twists and turns and melancholy steps waiting for the future paths to reveal themselves, it all resonates with a similar tone, rich and varied underneath, and forming to a harmony that says ‘for now, look.’

Algorithms.  Parabolas.  Integral Trees.  Patterns of Dispersion.

It's in the mathematics of the trees, the stones under my feet, the approach and the descent.  It is in the heads of small growing plants rising up through the flat planes of soil.  It is in the steps that we take down the road and the patterns of the many feet running by in the forest, and behind the fences.  It is a rhythm and a harmony of music that is mostly silent, but like music, gathers over time into the patterns and meaningful phrases.  It is in the wrinkles of a face, or the tracing of hands through their motions day after day, and in the tracking of eyes on the horizon waiting for a sign through the passing of astronomy and birds and rain.

I get into this state, seeing this whole that is so much larger than myself but so invisible to most... and I don't know what to do with it.  I can draw, write, record.. but I am only a drop in the river, waiting to see where I will end up and if anyone else is listening to the same music.  It is such a solitary music, even when shared, that still .. a reminder that we are Being, and that over Time there is no such thing as Chaos.. as even the rain on the window tends to fall back together after it has fallen, somewhere, somehow.

After a million miles, I still return to the garden

Spring wants to come, but it is still cold.

I am feeling introspective this morning, as a result of one of what I call the 'million miles' dreams - like I've lived days and months and years in a movie-like realistic experience.  The experience comes complete with books, movies, clothes, people, conversations, stores, driving, maps, cooking, laundry.. everything except sleep.. realistic places and things that are not quite real and I know they aren't but I just can't break out until some certain circumstance.  I had one the night before last that only lasted 'two weeks' dream time, but the one last night was months, maybe a year.. and so slippery I can only grasp thoughts before they slide away.

When I wake up I feel like I've lived a 'million miles' elsewhere and wonder about the coherence of space time and reality.  I'm relieved, and confused, and curious and exhausted all at the same time.   I worry a little about my memory, which on many things is so sharp and clear and organized and then on many other things it feels like I'm sorting through soft cheese to find the bits that matter and ignoring the rest hoping it will "reboot' and be useful for something.

I know it is my photographic memory and stress and some sort of cosmic whack-a-mole all combining to create that and that it isn't real time.  98% of the time I can separate real time and dream time.. but there are things that sometimes seem a bit too real - like looking at the (non-extant) scar on my face in the bathroom of an apartment I didn't rent in the 90s, waking up only because I realized that my keys were not MY keys.. as I saw myself walk in the door holding a bag of groceries..

There are even titles of books and magazine articles that turn out to be entirely in my own dream (this is rare for dreams, I've read.. to read entire things in dreams, website URLS, phone numbers and addresses, children's books with pictures.. it all fades away and I can't keep much of it.. some of it I write down as my stories that I am publishing again soon).  I even hear and read things in other languages in my dreams, but not often, and usually as a result of something in 'the real world' having had a good dose of it.  I'm still waiting for the moment I grab a book randomly off a shelf and it is empty inside, or lorem ipsum or something like that... but so far, in dreams and reality the books have all been complete, sometimes even to having the copyright page and year inside.

 I often have said that I keep all the things of this world 'in my head' so that this plastic dinosaur, although lovely, doesn't have to be in my physical hand to hold onto the sense of it.. but in my dreams I guess I take that to the next level recombining and recreating everything down to the plastic dinosaur or book, or endtable, a collection of keys or pocket change or fabric pattern. 

The pizza box in my dream last night was from a television show I had watched earlier in the day - and at the point I made that connection I was able to initiate waking up.

What do I think about when I boil it all down through years lived but not lived?
What stands out about this world the most?

Family.  Time.  Growing Things.  Repetition.  Math (matrices, sine patterns, exponential curves, scatter patterns, spatial patterns both in and not in crystalline form).  Space (The feel of real space around me, touch, cause and effect, conditions and improvements).  Doing Things that alter time and space, randomness, spontaneity, things that are unexpected vs orderly progressions.

There is something about the math - bits that come in the dreams and chemistry and other things that I know I don't consciously understand and probably never will.  It is a 'dream' within the dreams.. something that teases me but I will never have enough time to focus on and figure out.  I feel the taste of it and then let it go.. and concentrate on the other big thoughts - family, growing things, doing things in the real time before me. 

I am going through my seed vault and looking at potential, while a little bit of my mind is still turning over all the other ideas.

I do this every year, work some varieties, see the seeds germinate in the earth and grow along their potential, unfurling leaves, flowering, setting fruit and seed.. different weather patterns and phenotype and nurture every year - some years flourish, some drought or mold or bugs .. some things produce and others do not -  eventually I let Nature take back over and the weeds come up and the earth returns to Fall and Winter to go over again.  But there is a concreteness to this, too - and a tie down to time in a succession of months of regular progression.

I am thinking right now about tilling the earth when it is warm - days or weeks or a million miles twelve times over from now.

I am thinking right now of little girl coming home from school in the afternoon, better from the cold and sinus that have been awful for her and Mark this week.  I am thinking of the flowers growing and the snow yesterday, and the water sound from the freezer this morning, and that tomorrow I run the mail again.

And I am thinking that today, is today, and reminding myself that a million miles of lucid dreaming did not exist for everyone else - I am not in the Planet of the Apes staring at the Statue of Liberty thousands of years in the future (although, honestly, there are days it feels like that)... Today is one day after yesterday, and two days after the day before that... and so forth and so on.

bits

Not sure if my Wicket chicken is gone... went out there and couldn't find her.  The wild one, Gennet, was still there, and she is the one who can fly.  Not sure.. we'll see.  Was talking with Esme about what to bring to the Thanksgiving food drive at work.

Reading a new series like Outlander - Timewalkers.  I'm enjoying it.

I had a dream that our home improvement store sold drawing kits and individual pencils and papers.  That would be so nice if it did... I should sit down and make another drawing some night but I just can't find the time to focus in.  I did a handmade Christmas card to send to a boy in the news.. and that took me a few days to get myself organized enough to sit down with paper and pens and do it.

I've been closing every night for the past two weeks (or almost every night), but this is the last night of that.  It's felt like we were all just ships passing.. coming home, falling into bed, getting Esme up for school -- go to work and don't see her again until night again.  Now we'll have the stress of Black Friday coming up but I have schedules with two or three days on and a day or two off.. which will bring back more sanity (read: introvert needs to recharge)  I hope.

I need that downtime to let my brain expand and branch out into the many things I've been shoving back for 'later' - like drawing, math, science, time.....   I try to remove all that to the background but it is a type of stress to do that time and time again in favor of only what is in front of you and must be done right now.  I'd never do well at an assembly line job.  These past two weeks I've felt like I was  getting that long-yard stare of the android that hasn't been charged properly....can function on some level but not as I should be.

bit

We had an eventful morning.. try again for the zoo on another day.  Mark demonstrated his excellent road skills and made me aware I need to practice them more, too.  Esme is up at Grandma's house and I went out to the garden to weed corn and mark some plants to *especially* save seed from later...  I should finish the second pair of pants I abandoned halfway through last night.  My right hand is green as grass and probably will be quite sore later tonight... and my shoulders will be glowing with sunburn.

Tomorrow is 5:30 am sunrise - I checked... and contemplated more in the garden while I was down in the corn pulling grass, on places I have been over time, and the memory of being at the experiment station down in the corn and pumpkins weeding and stealing shade in the plant rows in the middle of the afternoon....cold water evaporating on skin that was beginning to speak of sunburn and dust sticking up to the elbows in the splatter pattern, the smell of grass and roots and the sound of water gurgling down into holes that are invisible to the eye..carrying water again and again over the land tracing the same steps lightly and carefully through the field while leaning lopsided to balance the bucket weight.  That is a muscle memory that still 'feels' the same even twenty years later...  I didn't quite appreciate it as much back then - when I was fourteen - but I do now, and the moments string forward to me across the years as I unwind a vine from this or seek the roots of a weed there...   I imagine living in an endless summer to just grow corn and pumpkins and beans all year long... and think about time travel being in actuality this specific skill - to pull a moment forward and 'mix' it across all the years and learn more from time in a 'stack' of moments year after year.   That is because this is how my memory works -- a moment is only a moment because you have done something in it that 'sticks' and it can pull you back to it time and again - a twisted stitch or stop in a seam, looking deeply and seeing light shining a certain way, unexpected discoveries, a word of advice that suddenly makes things clearer and purposeful...

This is the time of the year I am the most contemplative...my habit to be reflective and think about 'being' in general.  As I weeded I thought distinctly of the moment last year watching the sun rise over the Duluth cityscape, receiving a beautiful birthday text from Mark, but not liking where I was, who I was with or what I was faced with and feeling all of the buoys of my spirit, Mark, Esme, home... were far away from me.. they were somewhere, safe, .. but I wanted to get back to them and could not yet.  I remember pulling the jacket around me...feeling 'bare' as the other clothes we had worn were in the washing machine, seeing people stream by in vehicles as the morning just barely lightened, and being whistled at for being out on the street with a newspaper that early in the morning...    I am home this year and where I want to be - family safe, corn in the garden growing, sewing on the table in the house... and time in time, to feel the sun rise up and turn.
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//In Other News//  :  The Cherokee White Eagle corn is almost as tall as the Glass Gem corn, although they were planted two weeks apart.  The Peaches and Cream Sweet Corn is tasseling and silking.. while the Mandan Bride mixed Indian corn is tasselling at half the height and no silks yet to be seen.  The Japonica corn (planetd just after the Glass Gem) is just as tall as the Smoke Signals corn... and the Pink Hopi Corn is hanging on in the very back of the garden.  I should have kept better records on it all - but tied some orange tags around some stalks to indicate that I think they are doing better than their peers and I should save their seed for next year. 

The pea crop is excellent - our first in many years, maybe ever for me, that has produced 'food'... I did not keep them separate either, the Mammoth Melting sweet peas seem to be the ones that are dying off now and the Wando Peas are the ones that are just starting to go gonza... the Bosnian Bean is starting to put on beans and is wandering as high as it can - over six feet.  Shackamaxon beans starting to climb, the King of the Early have flowers on them already.. lots of green tomatoes getting ready, cucumbers.. the zucchini family is not doing very well out there - very little produce but there is some.

crafting one day at a time

peach zinnias

Lots of little projects to pick up on a bit here, a bit there. I began putting a few more rows on my knitted blanket begun way back last Spring. I had put it up away when it began to get 'hot'.. and recently it is time to take it up again. Inspired by my browsing yesterday, I found my bag of old patchwork, once meant for a quilt backing for Esme. I cheated back then, and used a big piece of striped flannel instead. That worked, and she still has that quilt on her bed often. Esme saw the quilt pieces and remembered it was for her. She was so excited Mama was working on her quilt again. She even told Daddy she couldn't go to bed yet, because Mama wasn't done with her blanket. She doesn't know it would take months, even if I did work on it whenever I could.



the blanket in March
it is much bigger now

Sometimes I feel like I've lost my spark with crafting. Other days I know I'll get back to it when really important and/or seasonally important things have finished. With also working full time (which we are blessed with, I must remind myself) it is a wonder sometimes I do much else at all. Winter is approaching (after fall, Mark says.. remember we have FOUR seasons here...) There is always cleaning to do in the house, and I often do not do as much as would be good, but enough to be practical. Esme's wardrobe has mostly 'rode' during the late summer here - she has not been outgrowing things at the pace she was this Spring. Some things are getting in a worse condition and needing to be replaced. It is nice to wait until the end of a 'season' if possible, and that is what I have been doing. This fall or winter type dress caught my eye as inspiration to cash in on soon. I could see myself making two or three of those to replace several summer sundresses that are now too small to be saved and well.. not very fall/winter at all. The worn out clothes will likely become quilt piece fodder.


2 by 2 inch scrap squares... slowly growing patchwork
one of the reasons I do not let little fabric bits go to waste

I am slightly inspired to do more in patchwork. Cold mornings turn my thoughts to warm blankets and 'comfort' things in the house. I stare at full bed quilts and wonder 'why can't I get mine done?' Then I remember: I fear the big 'sheet o'fabric' needing to be bound to another big 'sheet o'fabric' laid out on a floor somewhere and mercy to the creatures of the household running around while I try to get something done with pins. It feels like something I should borrow the office for... someday when I have enough time to transfer such a project up there and get it done. And then it would have to be sewn - and I would have to keep my sewing machine there until it was done or transfer the whole pinned mess back down here and worry about losing pins onto the floor. I fear that will not be anytime soon, so I keep putting off the projects and never actually getting them to that stage. Awful.

Fiat Bunny

The Rabbit Prototype (aka Cthulu) is finished!
I'm mostly happy with him. Also happy to announce his resemblance to the demony Elder God (<--Lynn: this links for you) has diminished.


As with all prototypes, there are little places you know can be tweaked in the next one.

His legs especially, while they sit nicely, look a bit funny when held like this.

Lynn asked how much time per day I spend on things like crafting, weaving, drawing etc... That depends on the day. We are usually up near dawn here, and working on all number of things. If I had to estimate - I'd say I probably craft for about four hours a day - but that is spread out through the entire day and in-between other things (like waiting for my machine to reboot into Windows or browsing through submitted news articles for my editing job). There is always time to tie a knot in a new needle of thread - or stitch up an arm or leg while reading.

Weaving is a different matter, though. That I usually 'take time out' for, mostly because the frame is across the room from the comptuer ;o) I haven't been working too much on my dream bag - but I have started the back side of it now.

For the drawing - pattern drawing and little sketches can happen throughout the day as well. I might take a half-hour or hour out later on to listen to some music and make one of my random-line drawings, that start in random scratches on the paper, and end up as many figures with symbols between them.

Also: Sorry to hear Blogger has been so awful lately with the comment verification! *growl* I'll see what I can do about that!


Mouse blisses out while getting petted in a sunbeam.