Bee-eater

How do things work?

I acquired this magical board from a site called BNB.  The minute I saw it, I knew my grandson would love it.  It has large nuts to turn, a dock cleat with rope, velcro boards to pull apart, buckles and magnets and sprongy things and locks (not those lox,) light bulb jobbies and dohickies and all those things that have names, real names, but I don’t know them.  Stuff that people have devised so that their jobs can be done. Purposeful items, not frou frou;  working items in the real world.  I love them even if I don’t know their names.

It is fun to have someone, a young someone whose eyes I can look through and see the world.

 

Last Laugh

Deep in the dog days yesterday.  In tears or just about, all day.  I never know if I have a right to feel this way.  Seems like the world is in dog days all the time now so I consider my shit puppy stuff.  Nevertheless, it is daunting to me.

Woke up this morning saying to myself what is happening in your life is no different than what your life has been forever.  What makes this different?  Beth is not here.  She was a bulwark against despair.  She was my little friend.  I loved her.  She loved me.  I miss her.  I am pining for her.

Damn death.  Damn loss.  I miss her.  I could moan and groan ad infinitum, and end up laughing.  That’s the key isn’t it?  Laughing.

They say the Grim Reaper has the last laugh, but does he?  Not if you choose your death.  Beth had the last laugh.

I miss you dearheart.

In honor of Beth and George Booth (whose cartoons remind me of her):

 

Trees

I took a walk in the Grand Forest today with my trusty sidekick, Izzy.  As I strolled along (I can’t walk very fast as Izzy is a loiterer and sniffer and poker into bushes, and I like to eyeball the trees,)  I was thinking about the books on trees I’ve been reading.

You probably know the books I’m talking about, the ones that talk about trees communicating with each other through the fungus on their roots as if they have a very advanced telecommunications network.  I love this idea.

Scientists compare the trees to humans and our ability to communicate, feel empathy, help hold each other up, etc, etc, as if the world is just one big mirror of us writ either large and small.  How solipsistic.

Are we the only yardstick in the universe?  Maybe trees should be our measure.

As I walked along I was struck by how much the forest had changed since I was here last.  Some small trees had fallen over, large branches littered the forest floor and quite a bit of clearing of ivy and blackberry seemed to have taken place.

I missed my elbow tree (I found it later further along the path.)  I came to a spot where the trees had folded over the path to create a tunnel.  Sunlight flickered through  and I head birds whittering away in the underbrush and calling in the trees.   The smell of cedar and fir and pine, and old pine needles and rotting wood and wet soil and layer upon layer of leaves sloughing into smaller bits soon to be subsumed into the stuff of soil wherein the seeds of new life might take root.  Oh, it is grand.  It’s the smell of life itself.

I thought I might run into a black bear and what I would do.  (Look him/her in the eye, and say “…not today.”)

I thought I might run into an assailant and decided I would either go for the nuts or the eyes.  Wondered if my knees would reach up that far if he was a tall man.  Then, I started thinking about the trees again.

They are silent.  I’ve never heard of a trees attacking anyone or anything.

I walked past a bit of a ravine.  In the hollow was the remains of an ancient tree.  I could only see the root ball.  It was the size of a house–a two story house resting on it’s side, subsiding back into the ground but still formidable.  Oh, what a tree it must have been.

A woman on the trail asked me about Izzy.  I had  stopped on the trail bouncing my fingers up and down in the deep moss that covered a branch.  Izzy is an an easy dog,  I said, even though he has not been easy this week.  He’s been needy this week as if he is channeling Rob’s anxiety over his health.  Still, he can’t talk and that’s a blessing.

Trees—they are silent, they provide shade and sustenance.  They look after each other, helping the weak when they can and giving their dying energies to nurture others.

Consider the tree the next time you’re looking around for a role model.