Monday, March 14, 2005

Let me add this: as I drove out in my pickup on the aforementioned errands, brother at my side, my vehicle startled a pair of antelope in the road about 200 feet from my house. I was sorry to startle them, but delighted to know they come down in here. I've only ever seen them far out on the open plain.

And on the way back, again, startling wildlife--this time a marmot, and in almost the same place as the antelope. My first marmot. Been here six years and never have seen a marmot, or groundhog, although they once were so plentiful that a local tribe of Indians is called "marmot-eaters" in some dialect of Paiute, and they have a statue on their reservation of a standing marmot.
3:55:57 PM    comment []  


A picture named ma2.jpg
Yes, a good day.

And early this morning I dreamed of my mother, whom I rarely dream about: We caught a series of L.A. city buses to a stadium to watch some sort of event, perhaps a concert. Might have been the Hollywood Bowl. We each had with us a little dog on a leash. She had her little silver Schnauzer mix, Buffy. I had, I think, Apple. At some point there was only one dog--hers--and I held the leash. There was confusion at the end, as crowds streamed from the stadium at dusk and I ran from shop to shop, room to room, all closed or locked, and tried to find where I'd tied up Buffy before Mom found out I'd lost him.

So an hour ago I was driving to the mercantile / post office in what passes for the real world when I suddenly remembered that today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 73.

We parted on bitter terms in 1999. She was on her deathbed of cancer. I was waiting for her to go. She was really pissed off about it. Not so much about the dying--which she had looked forward to all her life--but my presence there with her. She would fade from consciousness and I would grasp her hand; then she would open her eyes, recognize me, and jerk her hand away angrily, wearing a hateful expression. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. It was 7pm. My brother sat in the waiting room ripping pages out of magazines and talking to himself. I knew I had to get him out of there and get him fed. And it seemed clear she would refuse to die as long as I was present. She wouldn't want to give me that "satisfaction." So I left. Took Brian to her house and fed him. Pulled out my laptop and checked my email. I was working freelance at the time. I was afraid I'd lose my clients if I didn't check in from time to time. Kept the laptop online. I had two phone lines at home in California. Forgot that there was only one in Mom's little Bisbee rental.

So they had to send someone to get me finally to tell me she was dead. Died seven minutes after I walked out of the room. I left Brian with his dinner and rode over to the Copper Queen Hospital. It was a quarter to eight. Her body was still warm. She did not look peaceful. In fact, she looked as angry as ever. Only Mom could manage that, I think.

I list her ashes in my Kept inventory (in progress)--in that gray box up there on top of the bookshelf, next to Grandma (in the brass box). As soon as we reconcile, I'll find them a permanent home. Shouldn't be much longer.


2:57:39 PM    comment []  


Monday midmorning and I've done with the early work upstairs and come down to shower and dress and see what the cats have wrought overnight in my absence. Little things--my garnet-and-diamond-chip bracelet lies gleaming on the carpet under the desk in a promiscuous ess. A sky-blue-coated paper clip in the middle of the floor. A black pen under the kitchen table. Again the plastic ball with the bell inside has gotten itself lodged between an apple box and the wall.

A flood of poems came through last night, late, long after it was too late to net them whole. I scrawled on the lined pad in my drowse--How the wind came up and I resumed counting the firewood, no, calculating firewood, something...; upstairs at night--electric heat--the steady friction of the wind against the outside walls causing sparks everywhere inside, and we were all so thirsty; house of fire... he burned us...--what? What was that?, I wonder, reading the scribbles now in the bright morning. But more poems fill me even now--not "ideas for poems" but images and rhythms--my childhood visits to Descanso gardens and a story from third grade about the Everglades; the agonizing death of llama Polly; how the same way owning a dog is like lodging a foot in the slamming door of the heart, pencil sketching keeps open the way to the creative center when words fail you and you fear they may never come again.

I've been sketching for a week. And now this delirious flood. The day is good.


10:47:34 AM    comment []