Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Went out, came back in, and of course I have to tell about it before I leave to do errands. I've made five attempts to upstream some photos, but Userland won't have it today. I'll keep trying while I write. Walking up the slope, I found the crust on the snow covered with these strange black specks everywhere I looked. What is this? Teensy bugs, little gnat-like creatures, all over the snow. What's up with that, I wonder? And once I reached the highest place on the little ridge I regreted not having brought the campstool--where did I put that thing?--and tried an experiment in creating my own reality by manifesting a good sitting rock. Nothing bigger than a football anywhere. Kept trying to surprise myself. Turn quick, Why, there's a perfect rock for sitting on! What a surprise. But it was useless. There's nothing up there. And then I was turning to come back and--what's that? Whoa. There's a perfect rock for sitting on! What a surprise! It was unfortunately in full view of my own "near" neighbors, the rich horse-y folks with their springer spaniels and fancy cars and gigantic houses, usually concealed behind ridges from view of my own place. Northeast: Northwest: The dark smudge I spotted in the distant sky to the north when I first reached the high spot was probably from the burning they've been doing along the highway. Soon the smudge had drifted to where I stood and dampened the colors a little, and everything smelled like woodsmoke. It moved along, though, leaving its scent behind. From up there the creek is just far-off white noise, a background hiss. The distant occasional bird sounds--magpies and robins--were muted, almost inaudible. Drone of a passenger jet on its way to Reno, from Portland, probably. Rapid squinch-squinch-squinch of Apple's footfalls around me in the gravelly mud. On the way up I'd regretted not having gathered juniper berries earlier in the winter. I am out of dried berries to use in medicinal teas for people's urinary tract difficulties, and you should always have some on hand. Robin hordes had gobbled every one. The trees were berryless. Then halfway back down the slope I noticed a place covered with them, a windfall of old fermenting juniper berries just lying there in the dirt! Wasteful birds! and so I sat on a dryish clump of dead weeds and plucked the firm ones out of the dirt and filled my hat. As I did, Sally loomed in smiling to my face to pant and slurp and touch noses, and then Apple, ever the agent of chaos (echo of Get Smart there...), leaped all tongue and mud into my lap, and I tossed her off with a shout, and she fled happily, running running elipses around the trees. Well washed, the berries now lie spread in baskets on the kitchen counter. Enough for this year, anyway. * * * Back home, I saw that the 7.5MB download I'd left in progress was finished, and I had a listen. WOW. If you are a Salon member and have not checked into this yet, I really recommend you get today's free download at http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/wmd/2005/02/02/antony/. Thomas Bartlett has chosen a "strange and beautiful" song to offer as this week's free MP3 download. I find it amazing. I hope someone else will give it a listen and tell me what they think. Bartlett never had been particularly fond of this artist's work. Then he heard this song. Here's a fragment of his reaction to Antony singing "Hope There's Someone": "This is the work of a profound and fully formed performer, and what I had heard as lazy eccentricity I now hear as part of a perfectly realized, sometimes uncomfortably intimate artistic vision. He sings like Bryan Ferry with the warble taken past affectation to the level of confrontational, punk defiance; he sings like Little Jimmy Scott, the most angelic of vocalists; he sings, most daringly, like Mahalia Jackson, with a rich gospel contralto that should be laughable, but hits you in the gut with pain, not laughter." * * * Nope, no photos yet. I'll try this evening.There! Kind of a letdown, when I was trying to be whimsical, but it's finished, anyway. 1:45:41 PM    comment []

Another dazzling morning. Cold. Made a fire while waiting for tea water to heat. Toast and cream cheese. OJ with the vitex capsule. The fire started easily--crumpled notebook paper with my brother's scrawled alphabets, mashed cornflakes box, some bits of bark, voila, a blaze. A pine log to get it going, and then the juniper. The wood I would have ordered in was too green. So we stay on the budget: Every other morning, a good hot fire. I slide back the greenhouse door in the afternoon and the heat, and scents of hot dirt and hot rosemary and two kinds of sage, spill in. This morning, breakfast is done with. The stick of wood I just shoved into the stove pops and protests. The laboring ceiling fan spins heat from the chimney-pipe down to the chilly rooms. Next, quick shower. Next, layers of flannel and cotton knit, Caterpillar boots. Next, out--oats to the patient llamas, and a little climb to the west ridge-top--where I'd construct my yurt if the land were mine, where the golden eagles came that time--and a bit of a sit on the canvas campstool to see if I can put my finger on the magic of today. I've laid down three drafts of a lengthy new poem. Now I have to think about it some. Too soon I must climb into the muddy blue pickup and drive out to do commerce with the civilized world. Above and beyond the obligatory, I think a goal for my afternoon will be to fetch back something bright. 10:03:11 AM    comment []