If you'll forgive the possibly distasteful metaphor, I feel as if I'm in an iron lung. I need air and movement. The interminable construction site that is my street and the surrounding area fills the air with whine and hum and hammering -- perhaps also a metaphor for my own complaining, So here's some gratitude: the only part of my garden that isn't dead and brown is the path leading to the side yard where we keep the garbage cans, and that little sliver is just gorgeous. Here's a photo, no filter:
Here's a close-up of the purple flowers on the left:
And that's bougainvillea that is squeezing through on the upper right -- no one planted it, but it's determined to flower there. I noticed yesterday as I drove through Beverly Hills that they'd finally stopped watering the median on Burton Way. It's a wide expanse of green flanked by some ultra fancy hotels and shops, and I always found it irritating to see sun-illuminated sprinklers watering at any time of the day. I guess the fancy folk have decided to join the hoi polloi and endure dead grass in the name of conservation. Hallelujah. I sure wish it'd rain. I wonder when the rain dances begin -- didn't Governor Rick Perry of Texas declare a state-wide Pray for Rain day? I'm in if it works, although I'd prefer some kind of dance, too.
What are you reading? I'm reading a very interesting and good novel by the English author Elizabeth Taylor. The book is called Angel, and is not just beautifully written but weird in just the right way. One of the friends I visited in Chicago the other weekend, probably one of the most well-read people I know, recommended it. I hadn't ever heard of that Elizabeth Taylor, and while this friend doesn't know me all that well, he apparently knows me well enough to have suggested something that I really, really like.
Evidently, I need air, movement and inspiration because this post is going nowhere. The only thing I can possibly say for it is that life here at a moon, worn as if it had been a shell is an ongoing conversation. I'd love to hear your thoughts. What are you reading? What are you listening to? Is it raining where you live? Every time you hear the word ISIS, do you think of on the fifth day of May, like I do?
Hello dear Elizabeth, I hope you get some air and some rain. That little garden is divine.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad for a book suggestion. I broke my hiatus with two books that frustrated me to no end - literally. I loved both of them until they left me hanging with half to no ending. In The Woods by Tana French and Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It's the not knowing and having to make up my own ending that made me so pissed, especially since I read them back to back. But before the frustrating no enders, I read an advanced copy of Amy Bloom's Lucky Us, and I loved it. I love her and her writing and I wished it were longer, and I could imagine those characters sitting around my house when I was little. She transports me, every time.
I just resorted my waiting patiently to be read pile, and I'm embarrassed to admit I've never read him, so I read the first page of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses and I know he can write, so maybe that one next.
I'd like to say it wasn't raining here, we've had more than our fair share, but it's cloudy and coming our way. But we do have those lovely fall colors starting to pop, which is magical.
When I hear the word ISIS I think of the words medieval and evil and juggernaut and maybe I need to think of the fifth of may instead. I should have been a Dylan fan, I had to look it up :)
Thanks for keeping the conversation going. And for getting me to listen to Dylan right now. I've been dusting off the lps and had a Steven Stills and Carole King morning. It was lovely.
xo
Well, you know what book I'm listening to and the one I finished last night was another Kate Atkinson with her ongoing character, the former policeman named Jackson in it. She goes around and around and in and out, does Atkinson. Sometimes I let go for a few moments and then I'm lost but generally, I find my way back.
ReplyDeleteI need to water my garden, no, we haven't gotten good rain in days but not getting good rain in days is completely different from not getting good rain in months or years. I know.
When I hear Isis, I just think of the goddess. Hey- did you get that e-mail for a new online shopping venue called "Glanse?" Isn't that nasty? I think it is.
Ick.
Well, so it goes. I need to wash dishes and finish laundry. Your flowers are beautiful, my dear. Some things, like some spirits, seem to be indestructible.
I wish I had some lovely book recommendation, but all I'm reading right now is nonfiction about parenting or mindfulness (and, frankly, I'm bored with both). It hasn't rained here in ages, either, but it has gone all foggy in the mornings and sunny in the afternoons, and there is rain in tomorrow's forecast, so I'm hoping against hope the forecast is right.
ReplyDeleteThe excitement in my world is that I'm off to a workshop on Monday at some exotic place called Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and two of the three keynote speakers are Alice Walker and Gloria Steinem. I have to say it feels very surreal and I'm certain that even once I get there I won't quite believe it's happening.
I'm sequestered in Santa Barbara at a T'ai Chi Chih retreat. I'm reading the Professor Wen-Shan Huang's book on T'ai Chi Ch'uan. And I just re-read a wonderful piece in an ancient New Yorker about St. Francis of Assisi. I wish it would rain. It is gloriously cool here though.
ReplyDeleteThat photo horrifies me.
ReplyDeleteAnne-Marie MacDonald's new book, Adult Onset. I suspect you would like it. Reading is sometimes the only thing that soothes my unemployed void and so I surround myself. Unemployed as I am, I should wait for the library. But Adult Onset was allowed because my dad is moving to assisted living near my sister in another province. And my mom is still unalive. Way too much information I realize.
ReplyDelete-Karen
I'm reading "For Joshua", nonfiction by Richard Wagamese. It's a book that he wrote for his son as he's estranged from his son due to his own alcoholism. Kinda resonates around here.
ReplyDeleteAnd the weather. Although we had snow at the beginning of Sept., today was a beautiful, sunny, warm day of 21C. We haven't had much rain lately which is good because the farmers are trying to get their crops in and they need it dry.
Work continues on, too many sad stories to recount here but they do make me ache.
All good questions! Let me just say this about that, I am so happy to hear Beverly Hills is finally getting with the program. Maybe the golf courses will get a clue, too.
ReplyDeleteI just finished The Fault in Our Stars. Now, I will allow myself to see the movie. I just started Practical Intuition and am making a go of further developing mine. I believe Orphan Train is next in the queue.