the impossible,

I know I ponder the theft of param from the world. Maybe she was on borrowed time the night that I first found her having used all her lives. I can only imagine. She seemed offended mostly as she was dying. Like oh dammit, I did it didn't I. This sucks we all seemed to be thinking. It breaks my heart in all sorts of ways. More than deaths of older animals or ill animals. It was nice to pray with my mom for the cat though as we sat there. She did seem more out than in if the tales of cats are true. But I thought for sure she'd be the one to call 911 and save someone's life one day. What a reckless but prescient cat. I had her in my arms one moment before which makes in worse in that I wish I'd have carried her into the house and locked her away from harm. But that goes to inevitability doesn't it- it's so hard to say what prevention looks like when you let your animals be themselves and be free- and she seemed heartily defiant when it came to cars and to the neighbors driveways. I do wonder the point of it all - all of that and then to come to this in so short a time. I mean really- it only made it better in that either God would miraculously heal her or she would die in a moment. I gave her all night to make up her mind even though she died over 5 minutes time, but in the end I pictured her with Jesus, and I buried her in the backyard with a sprinkling of miniature roses. Mortimer attended at a distance, being the only of the three other cats to really sense the depth of what was occurring. But anyway,

And now what. We're so lucky to not be exposed to death more often and to be able to mourn the loss of a cat and not have rows of human bodies to bury. And I find it hard to have witnessed healing on Friday, to a strange encounter at Ralphs to hear about another womans healing, to have my cat die and then cathy come over to drop off some fishing line just this morning and ask unknowingly if I could pray for her cold for healing. And as I prayed her breathing actually became clearer. What can we do.

It is like you say a matter of surprise. But it's an honest untainted reaction to both the good and bad of what comes to us. And I suppose that's how it should be- its a bad day when we both predict a miserable outcome and hope for nothing more or find no joy in something so miraculous as someone being healed of scoliosis or the unfathomable construction of a pomegranate.

But still it is hard upon us to be caught so constantly in between.



 

m’s heart is sad

And so therefore is mine.

 

Rest in peace, sweet Bodo. Hope you are chasing tennis balls in the sky.

As I had,

just today thought my dog Bodo was on the verge of death. Turns out he might just be dizzy. Mom and dad just took him to the vet. And they're keeping him overnight. I see this as an highly appropriate to my own life. I mean he may still die soon. His hips are bad. He really was not getting around well. And he's still victim of the natural law. I'd like him to die in his sleep. Pass peacefully. NoneofthisheartwrenchingSuffering business. That pathetic and heart rending look from those dark, soulful eyes of worry and not quite rightness and no language but common emotional searing to tell me. I am allowing myself to grieve the short terminable life of dog and mankind. It is after all tragic. Even though I know we are subject to frustration in the hopes we will be set free from bondage and decay. It SUCKS. So I am grieving. It's all very lenten.

And his dizzy muddled decaying condition I still can look out the window and call it lovely. Call him lovely. The sky, the rain, the fragrance of flowers snatched on the wind- as i myself feel carried in the choppy waters will try not to speak death upon myself and life. I will simply look out and up and call it lovely. Because inside all is internal chaos and churning- threats of cliff jumping, failure and unpleasantness- heavy handed upon my heart. But outside of me,  it doesn't seem so bad.

My dearest penelope,

I have never been so glad to be back home in recent memory. No slight of course to your hosting. It felt as if I had not been gone that long. Or as if it was a place I frequently visited. Such a testament to letters and pictures to breed such comfort and familiarity to a place. It is possibly a credit to the expansive nature of time this trip also or all the twists and turns that made it stretch so far. Perhaps it made me a little thin. I don't know. I don't think that was quite it though. I got all the sleep I needed, I had time to myself, my own adventures, my own splurges and withholdings. I was fed and watered regularly. But I found with relief my former life- the moon overhead as the bus rolled me home. I had tried not to count the minutes as we traversed and seeing the worm moon was a happy grace. There were small mercies to every difficulty, the screaming kid that needed to be sedated, my spacious seat and good movie to watch, dad locking me out of the house but someone to bring me home and the dogs to wake him up. I love california. I love being home. I had never thought my 'being at home anywhere' could be a negative, but perhaps wunderlust needs to be built up until the longing has you itching and gasping so that you can leave a place for a month, months and think nothing whatever about coming home to your own desk and bed, so aquainted had you got and how much you wanted to be elsewhere.

But this time, oh desk, i missed you, oh garden! how in bloom, how at the tip of take over, oh purring cat! oh car!... that or some grief sends you in need of rescue, of familiarity, of recentering and retreat. And I'm glad my home is that. That i look at the mess fondly- to love again my lists and my routine. And here I go yoga, and swimming and necklace making...

It is highly possible I could be emotionally allergic to certain places. I will have to see. For instance I had el pollo loco and there i was with a light rash and hives and it just looked from the mirror that my chest was reddish as if i'd been in the sun but under the magnifying mirror it showed the pattern of discontent broadly and quite plainly. Sometimes it doesn't take much and sometimes the toxicity builds until your joints hurt. I always think, whenever my heel hurts, that my colon is unhappy. Muriel said that to me once. Heel pain is linked to the colon. So whenever I step, I say, oh colon! behave! stop your aching! What have i eaten! What have I done to make you sooo unhappy! And believe it or not, there may be a correlation. Sometimes it does not take much to signal that something is deeply wrong and has always been.


But as it is, I'll send this letter off for now, out into space for you to receive. After all I have my lists, and things to return. I'm out of hangers also. And lolly needs a bath. This is how I found my garden- on the verge of takeover. Somethings need to be watched closely lest the vines choke all the other plants in their wake- but let that go. More later.





m.