MILESTONES

Today I reached and passed a milestone, at least it feels that way. After years of allowing my writings to gather dust, I've made a move to get out of the writing doldrums (as opposed to writer's block). I joined Writer's Digest Community and posted the poem I Feel a Clearing of the Skies on the Poetry Corner. In addition, I joined the Weekly Writing Motivation group and responded to the prompt A Secret Passage in the Library by writing a short prose piece. What fun it was! And a man named Art said, of my poem, "utterly delightful." Wasn't that a nice first step on the journey?

MUSIC THAT STIRS THE HEART

I love this photo of my grandnephew, Ryan Bunch, with me at Sherrie and David's horse farm.

The CD of The Mamas and the Papas just came to hand, and I put it in the computer while I puttered around. They're just the best. I love their smooth voice, beautiful harmony, and, best of all, I can hear and understand every word. And, one evening after work, I sat in my little gray and white Ford coupe and recorded the entire recording and sent the tape to Jacob, far away in Vietnam. So, of course there were many tears and sorrow as I listened to Monday, Monday with the lines that say,

"Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee That Monday evening you would still be here with me."

Friday is Jacob's birthday, July 15. He was born in 1948, so this would be his unbelievable 63rd. But he gave up his life just after his 20th. He will always be leaving us again, every time we remember some wonderful thing he said or did. He was an incredible companion. Here's what Danny Smith said in an email today:

"I know how you feel about dealing with the 15th and the 19th, but isn't it wonderful that someone made that much impression on us. Just think I only knew him for about 4 months and just look at how close we got. I would give anything if you could see in my mind and see Jay on that front row at attention a waving and a grinning when he found me. I can still see it as it were yesterday."

Yes, that it's it exactly.

So, this week and next hold the two dates we especially commemorate -- July 15 for his birth and July 19 for his death. We carry his memory and the love he gave to us in our hearts every day. And we shed tears because there was no guarantee that he would be back home with us.

Goodnight.

Tennessee Sojourn

My most striking impression of Tennessee is the beauty and diversity of its trees. There are so many different kinds growing, as the old saying goes, cheek-by-jowl, each with its own colors and textures, that it's just amazing that the soil can support them. And in between the trees are the shrubs and bushes and vines. I'll have to post some photos to contrast with the comparatively stark landscape of my California canyon with its golden grass and occasional dark oaks hugging the ground and with tall sycamores along dry creek beds. Landscape that I love with all my heart. I just found that there's room for Tennessee mountains, too. More later.

MEMORIAL TO JACOB

Well, after a long hiatus following my move to Tennessee, I'm back -- at the request of a friend -- to post this photo of Jacob. Sleep peacefully, Little Brother.

If Ever I Would Leave You

There is a song that has always touched my heart and made me cry. I always thought it had to do with a fear of losing the one I loved . . . and maybe it did at the time. But I'm thinking now that all the anguish that song engenders finds its focus here, in this canyon. When would I choose to leave?

At this moment, just as I'm preparing to go, golden California poppies have decided to cascade down the hillside behind my house. I can almost hear them giggling, they look so happy, as though they're rushing to be first to reach bottom. How can I leave them? Surely I ought to wait until midsummer's heat when the flowers have faded.

Yesterday the cattle arrived to eat the brilliant green grasses that have grown up since the rains. They cross just beyond my back fence, single file. Their strong, solid bodies and stolid manner make me feel safer somehow. In days to come these beautiful, many colored mother cows will give forth little ones. Each morning I'll look for new additions and watch them learn to play with one another, their pure white baby faces and leggy antics a perfect springtime show. How can I leave them? Surely I ought to wait until midsummer's heat has dried the grasses and the cows have all gone home.

And the creek which only floods and flows after especially wet winter storms. It locks us up within our cozy homes until the flood abates, making us feel like pioneers at the mercy of Mother Nature. And then, when it slows and allows us passage once again, how exciting it is to ford a flowing river. Setting us apart from humdrum life. It makes the blood flow faster and warmer, participating in the doings of nature. How can I leave it? Surely I ought to wait until the waters' flow has slowed and slowed and the crossings have dried and I have once again become an ordinary person.

The song says, "If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in springtime . . . summer, winter or fall." The reason why the song hits such a tender place? Because sometimes one must. . . .

I know I'll be just as joyful and captivated when Tennessee gives me pink and white dogwoods in the spring and snow in wintertime and the companionship of loved family members. Just now, though, I'm entranced by golden poppies and mother cows. So, use your imagination and see my canyon where Andy Williams sings of a lover.

If Ever I Would Leave You

Artist: Andy Williams-from his "Warm and Willing" LP
Music by Frederick Loewe and Words by Alan Jay Lerner
from the Broadway musical "Camelot"

If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in summer
Seeing you in summer, I never would go
Your hair streaked with sunlight, your lips red as flame
Your face with a luster that puts gold to shame

But if I'd ever leave you, it couldn't be in autumn
How I'd leave in autumn, I never will know
I've seen how you sparkle when fall nips the air
I know you in autumn and I must be there

And could I leave you running merrily through the snow
Or on a wintry evening when you catch the fire's glow

If ever I would leave you, how could it be in springtime
Knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so
Oh, no, not in springtime, summer, winter, or fall
No never could I leave you at all


Transcribed by Ronald E. Hontz
ronhontz@worldnet.att.net

Flora and Fauna

Well, as you might imagine, my days have been filled with packing boxes with books to go to the library or wherever.  Day of work . . . day to recover.  And I'm not even doing the hard stuff . . . no heavy lifting.  My canyon angel, Roberta, has done that part for me.

But, to get to the heart of the subject matter here, I have to talk about plants and animals, don't I. 

First, the ones I will leave behind.  The oaks that dot these hills are the signature of these oak woodlands.  The ones in this canyon are mostly tremendous old grandoaks, like the one in my yard, broad of girth, tall and stately.  Some, on the steep hillsides are less tall, as their tendency to hug the lay of the land makes their tops broader and lower.  Many of the long old limbs finally go-to-ground and rest while continuing to grow  outward from their centers.

Then there are the sycamores, light in color, tall, reaching for the sky.  The ones here in the canyon are ancient and awesome.  There's one along the road, our ever-changing road which is constantly being washed away and regraded wherever the last flood will allow.  At some earlier time, the creek washed away the soil from its roots, so that it almost stands on its tiptoes.  I never pass it without sending it a silent hurrah for its great spirit that keeps it standing and thriving.  Across the road stands an agricultural pump, about six feet above ground level, where once it sat on soil that was washed away by the creek.  Geology in action.

And, of course there is my great, magical California pepper tree that has been "sculpted" by time so that it's three great trunks lean out from the center to rest their limbs on the ground.  It played hostess to a covey of quail one year, and I watched them come to roost at night, one by one coming out of the tall pasture grass, single file, leaping straight up into the branches, filling the tree with quiet little chortles as they settled into sleep.  The window over my bed would be open when, in the early dawn, first one and then a second and a third little quail would wake and make it's morning greeting to the day.  Soon, the whole tree would be full of beautiful sound, then, one by one, they would drop straight down and scurry off into the tall grass.  Better than a concert.

And then the cats came to live on the ranch.  The pepper tree is one of their favorite hunting grounds and my tree is now off limits for roosting birds.  (sigh)  But the rodent population has been decimated which is a great boon for the ranch.  And these cats are precious and beautiful and endlessly interesting. 

Anyway, I do have several "baby" pepper trees that I've been growing from seeds for years and have had planted in my garden since we moved here.  I hope, with Edward's help, to prepare them for lifting by the time I leave and then to take them to Tennessee where I'll create bonsai trees of them.  They'll have to be protected in the winter, but it will be a great experiment.

So, I've kind of mixed my flora to fauna without intending it.  The fauna I will take with me are my cat Princess and my nine cockatiels.  Three of the birds have already made a trip to Tennessee with me, Walter, Miss Punkin and Turtle.  Turtle was two weeks old when I started driving, a scrawny little thing with beginning feathers that felt like porcupine spines, still encased in their protective sheaths.  By the time Michael and I drove back from Tennessee to California, three or four week later, she was a beautiful pearl cockatiel with soft dark gray and yellow feathers.  It will take some planning to keep caring for nine of them on the road.  But, Nina, or possibly Michael, will be along, and they're both bird experts.  (smile)

As for the flora I hope to take with me . . . or which I have to reconcile myself to leaving . . . are my little mother's irises and roses.  Edward (whom I really hesitate to designate an angel, who frequently calls forth an "oh, you devil" but whose behavior seems to indicate angelhood at times LOL) . . . anyway, that Edward . . . has said he'll do what he can to recover some of them for me.  Let's hear a great big cheer for him.  And if you're wondering why I don't just leave these and buy some more in Tennessee, take a look at the beginning paragraph of a letter my little mother wrote not long before Tony and I moved back to California and into her home.

Hello!  I send you California sunshine before it goes away.  It is so bright I came back in the house to put on my blue blockers and out again to see my little irises that had bloomed for the first time of their life!  Several others are budding to bloom that had been there so long I kept hoping.  And I'm going out often to be sure they are real.

So, that's why it matters so much that I have these flowers that she loved so much.  She would go out in the dewy morning and kneel down to kiss a flower that had just bloomed for her.  And that's truly the way she felt--that every bloom was a compliment to her.  Now, I don't kiss the flowers, but I do speak to them at times.  You know, stuff like, "Mother would be so proud of you."  (smile)

Well, I gave short shrift to why it means so much to me to take along my little birds.   They are like my little babies.  Anyone who has loved a pet of any species will understand, even if they shake their heads at the great number of my little birds.  LOL  Imagine if I couldn't bear to leave the little sparrows I feed or the magpies who hang around looking for handouts.  I will miss them.  And I'll miss the occasional concert of yelps from the coyotes in the foothills around  about and the hawks and kestrels and the two pairs of golden eagles who now and then show us their aerobatic flair.

And, I'll miss my Lucy-girl.  I have been fortunate to be able to pretend now and then that Lucy was my dog.  (smile)  How I loved having her asleep in my little house or hanging about in the sun or shade, just knowing she was around.  What a sweet girl!

Okay, I guess that's enough for now.  I'd better get back to sorting stuff from the BBB (big black bookcase).  More later.

I Want To Go, But I Don't Want To Leave

Well, the time has come for me to leave this beautiful canyon that has been so much a part of my life. Health issues and a growing desire to be near my Tennessee sister and her three sons have conspired to send me away from here but toward a new and wonderful phase of my life.

I just now walked out front for a moment. And this unbelievably beautiful day just wrapped itself around me, the warm sun and the cool and gentle breeze making me feel as though I'm embedded in this place. I pivoted slowly, and the sight of the green hills and white shale cliffs and the oaks and the magpies and sparrows . . .

And the friends . . . so many heart friends who have shown me in a hundred ways that they love me. I have become so emotionally identified with this place and its people that leaving will feel like ripping away some of my heart, I think. It does already feel that way.

But I can't dwell on the pain, since there is so much pleasure ahead. Nina is my dear baby sister. (Sorry, Nina, it's just true. Now you can call me your old sister if it'll make you feel better. LOL) I left home when she was only eleven, and in the intervening years I've mostly spent limited times with her for most of our lives--visits for a week or two from states across the continent and sometimes from across the sea. And I think now, how can it be? How can it be that this so dear person whom I've cherished since the day she was born, is so little "known" to me? To think that I will now be with her, to enjoy her company whenever I want, gives me incredible joy.

And her sons . . . wonderful men who have grown up loving me and with whom I've shared adventures and ideas. How can I not be overjoyed to know that I will be seeing them and spending time with them?

So I guess I'll have to learn to hold onto these two tremendous emotions somehow . . . until time resolves them.

Sometime soon, when all the work that is necessary before moving has been completed, my cat Princess, my nine cockatiels and I will hit the road for Tennessee. I will continue this blog, though it will no longer be a communique from the canyon. I'll try to have my emotions under control next time I write so I can tell you about beautiful eastern Tennessee.