Accommodation and Picking Mushrooms at the Edge of Dread

A relentless southwest wind blows in the Laramie Range of Wyoming. It has blown for eons, scraping the mountains bare of soil, carving out the landscape. It causes trees to grow at an angle and lifts into the air things that ought to stay on the ground. It complicates all manner of human activity. People who live there successfully have reached an accommodation with the wind; some who couldn't, went insane.

Disability is a steady west wind in our lives. It permeates our existence, altering the topography of our days and causing our family and our life to grow at an angle. Without judging the wind as good or bad, we can observe the truth of it, acknowledge the force of it in our lives, and take the measure of our accommodation.

from Changed by a Child by Barbara Gill 

Someone I know who was angry with me about one thing or another said, You need to get your head out of your ass, spouting poetry. I know the person who said it to me, and it stung, but not for much longer than a moment.

Your head is just too much in the clouds. You should probably stop reading and go outside. There's validity to that.

I suppose.

I've always read to accommodate my thinking self to the world. Words -- particularly those strung together as poetry -- help accommodate my imagination to the world.

My boys are back from Switzerland and with them come buckets of chocolate and laundry, addiction to Pokemon Go, deep man voices and walls that can't contain the loudness. I'm not sure whether it's seeing them again or the circus-like atmosphere of the RNC and the swirl of clips and memes and Tweets, but I feel giddy. Like I can't stop.

I have to stop looking at videos and memes and visual things. I have to read. Words.

I take the measure of my accommodation.


What Kind of Times Are These

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows
                  uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but
                 don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light —
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.

Adrienne Rich, from What Kind of Times Are These

Speaking of Russians (see yesterday's post)

This morning, Oliver screamed for me to come and look because the workers who have been constructing a McMansion directly behind our home were cutting down the old trees that lined our property. These trees are on their side of the property line, so they are certainly free to do whatever they'd like, but several months ago, when I'd objected to them cutting down those that line OUR property. the developer assured me that he would let me know when any more tree-cutting would happen.

I wrote him an email that expressed my dismay and called him out on his lack of communication and disregard for our community. He replied with his own email, calling me nasty and antagonistic.

Okay.

Like the proverbial fly to shit, I replied and disagreed that I'd been nasty and antagonistic, that I'd only expressed my dismay that he'd neglected to inform me when he was going to cut down the old trees and that I was concerned about the lack of privacy that would result.

The developer -- let's call him Mr. Potter, shall we -- then had a mini-tirade and, in a nutshell, called me a communist seeking to dictate what sort of changes he should make to his property. Because, you know -- communists do love trees.

Buzz, buzz, buzz. 

I told Mr. Potter that if discussion with members of one's community about radical changes to one's neighborhood constituted communism, then I was a proud member. I signed the email:

товарищ Элизабет

I really did.*

Then I said, Mr. Potter, you're nothing but a scurvy little spider. **

Not really.

Then I riffled through my Barbie closet for this little green communist cap with the red star that one of my roomates in college brought back from Communist China for me many years ago. I thought it'd be fun to parade around in my backyard naked with only the cap and perhaps scare the workers from continuing their work on the second story of the McMansion. I'll come up with a system to do the same when the McMansion goes up for sale. Mr. Potter will have to come up with some kind of disclosure to the future owners of the $3 million dollar heap (yes, that's how much these houses cost and are TRIPLE the size of ours) that a Naked Communist Woman lives directly behind them, and she's closer in form to a Russian gulag operator than Madame Butterfly.






That lonely outpost on the Arctic Circle is looking ever more attractive. I hope Slava will welcome my children and goofy dog as well.















* That's Russian for Comrade Elizabeth


** I'm referring to George Bailey calling Mr. Potter that in It's a Wonderful Life

Inspiration by photo with a CBD update

So, I'm sitting here at my desk (yeah, I know, I'm sitting) staring at this photo of Sophie and then this photo of a tree that looked exactly like a stooped woman in a long dress:

and since I'm often inspired by photos, place them in front of me before I begin to write, I stare at these two and empty myself of all thought, place these fingers on the keys and

just go.

Sophie, despite having several days of a terrible head cold and the accompaniment of a full moon (which ordinarily causes mucho seizure activity) has had no seizures to speak of in weeks. We raised the CBD dosage, and I do believe we've found the right amount. Other than an occasional weird tonic thing in her sleep or napping that is momentary, we haven't seen a single thing.

Holy moley. Holy crapola. Holy shit. Allelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Allah. The universe is abundant.

And that tree. Now that I think about it, I might resemble it. A bit stooped and perhaps sagging under the stress of the last couple of decades. Obdurate and long-faced, my roots deep. Still here. Silent, knobby, folded in upon myself. Hunkered down. It'd be hard to get an ax through my trunk to cut me down.

Girl Who Loves Trees

Long before I learned that something was wrong with my baby, I walked the streets of New York City with her, bundled in my arms or in a Snugli. Her gaze nearly always moved upward toward the few trees that peppered our block. City trees, at least those on the streets, are generally ginkgos -- hardy to the onslaught of pollution and pee. When we learned that Sophie had a debilitating form of epilepsy, we continued to take her out and about the city, but it was Central Park that she loved the best, turning her little face up and toward the many beautiful trees that graced its paths.

I said then that if she were a Native American, her name would be Girl Who Loves Trees. 


Today, Sophie lives to go outside, to walk down the street and always, always, she moves her head and eyes up and toward the branches of trees, conversing with them, I'm sure.