March 8, 2003

"Fabricating Mission"

Saturday's all right for eating. Having heard there's a GREEK restaurant in town, we had to check it out. The Mad Greek is a busy place. They have tasty gyros at a reasonable price. But Julia had her taste buds set for LAMB.

No lamb, sorry. No pastries, either. No matter, I couldn't finish what I had. So pastries were not necessary today. But Yuma needs a fancy Greek restaurant, with all such delicacies. Julia wants to call it ''My Big Fat Greek Restaurant''. It could happen.

After filling the belly, I had to work it off shopping. I had the itch to enter a fabric store. You should know this is a dangerous proposition. We can't enter one and exit without carrying an armload of fabrics home. Today was no exception.

This pile was added to our previous pile. I had to do something with it, other than just dream about the outfits that will be made out of them. So I picked two of them I'd deigned for a simple pullover blouse as these can be thrown together quickly. This is a pattern I've had for fifteen years, easy to alter. Julia has a new multi wide stripe blouse in the 'warm, muted' tones that so flatter her.

I suspect she'll be wanting pictures soon.

I found this brilliantly colorful butterfly fabric, just barely enough. The blouse ended up 1/4 inch (6mm) shorter than it was supposed to, and that was with splicing the facing pieces. But who will know that?

My new blouse. Yes, no face visible. The BLOUSE is the subject!

One of the selections to Julia's growing pile of hopefuls is called 'Celestials', and it is a natural for her, featuring suns, moons and a horoscope theme. This will become a dress, someday.

One horoscopic detail

So now we have lots more fabric. I have lightweight blue chambray for a skirt, a large print mostly green leaves with colorful birds that will become a short sleeved button front shirt, and some unusual orangy sunset interspliced with blue moonlight scenes of cotton that will also become a short sleeved button front shirt.

And Julia still has that purplish maroon tapestry for a long skirt and some greenish shimmery fabric that's been waiting for ages to become a Roman dress. But the Roman dress scares me. The patterns we have are all wrong, and need total refiguring. A false move and there goes fifty bucks of lovely fabric.

So I procrastinate. The simple pullover is easy. I just draw a line on the fabric, over to where it needs to be, based on a sample blouse. No armholes or other tricky interlocking features. SOME DAY she'll get that Roman dress. I'll get brave someday.

At least we have some new blouses.

March 9, 2003

"Just That Small"

Just That Small It was in the darkening month, when fear held its tight grip, and threatened to choke. Would she know her own voice? Would she be able to scribe it when the words came? Or would they all run together, indistinguishable? Inextinguishable, she hoped, if there were such a word. Would she invent words in a tongue no one understood? Or would they be plain enough, plain enough, and yet with enough complexity? She wished for all these things, and held in her hand a small, polished stone. ''Begin to observe the small things,'' a small voice said. ''If you cannot see it, you cannot depict it.'' So she turned the small stone around and around, feeling its evenly rough surface that pleased her fingertips so. Around and around, she turned it, finding it just so wide between her thumb and long finger. Getting to know the stone, she would first start to know the world.   Beginnings were just that small. JAL, 3 - 9 - 2003

March 10, 2003 - A

"Stab It Somewhere"

Here I sit with my feelings and thoughts, trying to clarify them. I'll take a stab somewhere, and begin there.
>>POKE!<<

''Ow! What was that about?''

''So you wanna be a writer, and you hope you measure up, or will SOMEday measure up?''

The luscious depth of an Anne Rice novel, has my stuff got any hint of that? Or is it spotty, sketchy, and vague? Is it hackneyed? Is it tired and retread and . . .

Well, you can see where this crap is going. Still, that's what I was thinking about today. Indeed, that's what inspired last night's poem. I'd just finished the satisfying Violin, and was wondering if my writing has that substantial, chewy, and satisfying quality. Or any such portion of that.

My thoughts are sure chewy. Or maybe they're like old bumble gum that's been chewed for hours. A lot of jaw work, but the stomach still feels empty. Still, I feel a graceful peace. I may not have resolved my curiousities, but I'm willing to keep applying myself and trying.

March 10, 2003 - B

"Another Try"

So I shall have another try. My characters meet and dance their dance. Are they parts of me and others I know re-arranged in different ways? Maybe it's so. Maybe they're parts of me I'd like to be. Or parts of me I am, but simply hidden? I don't know. But I embrace the whole hairy lot of them anyway.

Another 'hairy' one

And they're hairy. The newest one is no exception to that. Jonny sports a luxurious mane of auburn hair. Hair! It's such a shame to waste its opportunities. I grieve to see the shorn soldiers. I guess the generals don't want the soldiers to fight by having an old-fashioned hair pulling contest.

Nope, they want them to use guns and other nasty stuff. Sigh! Aye, talk of WAR is everywhere I go. Bush is determined. I hope that in future history, this won't be recorded as America's most foolish time. Perhaps it is only in the future that we can understand the truth of a thing.

For now, all I have are questions, and I feel queasy about the 'answers' that are given. I'll leave to them, these leaders and generals, to do their thing, and pray for the poor soldiers who carry out their plans.

I'd rather be in 'vampland'. Yes, there are tears, too, in 'vampland'. But there are such beautiful people in 'vampland'. Did I create them? Did they create themselves? They have their own existence. That is enough.

I'll find a truth or two along the way. But it won't be by listening to the loud voices. They can scream all they like. Sport their flags all they like. Can I display a 'World Flag'? Do they even have such a thing? For I am a child of the Universe first. When the world is observed from space, there are no dividing lines on it.

No dividing lines . . .

Humans create the dividing lines. But they are all a fiction, and a worse one than the ones I create. Truth is where you find it. And it may not be where you expect.

So shouting men, do your thing. So shooting men, shall you too. I can not stop you. Maybe a better war will claim your soul. May YOU win. May we know the truth of ourselves. It's a large continent. And it has no lines drawn on it.

My soul has no lines on it. We make these boundaries and they are all false. May my heart always be open to receive truth. I hope to have no impenetrable boundaries. Lack of understanding may create one. I don't know.

What is, is. Until it isn't. That's the way it's always been. Whatever it is.

I'll leave to another day perhaps a better understanding.

March 12, 2003

"Like She's Watching"

This morning, I was following my standard routine, when YAHOO GROUPS up and pooped out on me with a 'server error'. So I followed that urge I'd been thinking about earlier. I went to Rotten Tomatoes to see what movies might be fun to watch.

The musical ''Chicago'' was given high ratings. ''Willard'', the remake of the 70's movie about the boy who befriended rats, was given mixed ratings, but sounds interesting enough despite that.

So I figured, one for Saturday and one for Sunday. But at work, I thought, WHY do we always wait until the weekend to have our fun? Wednesday night would be a perfect night for ''Chicago'' ('Willard's' not out yet.)

I remembered LAURA saying, ''Why do we do the SAME OLD THING? Let's do something DIFFERENT!'' I could feel her spirit watching over us, saying, ''GO! Go have some FUN!''

The decision was made, and all I had to do was wait until the evening. Right then, it was early afternoon. Laura wanted me to KNOW she was smiling now on me, she did. I'm sure of it.

It's not been the first time she's used the radio as a means to speak to me. From the first I met her, there's been this tendency. I remember in Joliet, anxious to join with her after a separation, walking into the Chinese restaurant next to where I worked, and the song came on the restaurant's speakers, ''Think of Laura, laugh, don't cry, you know she'd want it that way''

And I smiled. Today, it was a loo loo. A series of three songs played on the afternoon radio had my eyes welling up with tears and ready to spill over by the time the last song ran. I'm pretty certain, at least I'd like to think, the spirit of Laura whispered into the ear of the one that selected the songs. If not, it's a sure damn fine co-incidence.

The first was ''Angel In Your Eyes'' by John Michael Montgomery. It was like Laura was singing these words to me:

She is my day, She is my night, She is the breath that gives me life, But Sometimes we laugh, And Sometimes we cry, Sometimes we fight and we don't know why, But no matter what she believes in me, She's the closest thing to Heaven, I'll ever see,

Well, because she'd say things like that to me. I have the aural memory of it, and I have a written record. She often expressed gratitude that I believed in her, understood her and valued her unique characteristics.

And then the next part of the song was ME thinking:

She always be an angel in my eyes, Sometimes I feel her by my side, Like she's watchin' over me, I get a chill runnin' down my spine, And that's all the proof I need,

And I thought of how Laura believed in me. By the time ''I Hope You Dance'' by Lee Ann Womack played, I was certain she was whispering in that disk flipper's ear. It was Laura whispering in MY ear, that's for sure:

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder

It was one of the things that Laura loved about me, my sense of wonder. She loved seeing everything anew through my eyes.

In particular, she loved my ocean enthusiasms:

I hope you still feel small When you stand beside the ocean Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens Promise me you'll give fate a fighting chance

Yes, it was Laura. She'd tell me 'never give up'. And she'd urge me:

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance I hope you dance I hope you dance I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance Never settle for the path of least resistance Living might mean taking chances But they're worth taking

Her whole life was about 'never settling for least resistance'. By the third song, I Believe by Diamond Rio, I was good and spooked:

Every now and then soft as breath upon my skin I feel you come back again And it’s like you haven’t been gone a moment from my side Like the tears were never cried Like the hands of time are holding you and me And with all my heart I’m sure we’re closer than we ever were I don’t have to hear or see, I’ve got all the proof I need There are more than angels watching over me I believe, I believe

''Our love can even reach across eternity,'', yes, yes. And my eyes are getting teary just now.

We went to see ''Chicago'' It was a hoot. All the actors did marvelous. Renée Zellwiger's delightfully exuberant performance was wonderful. The three main characters did their own singing, a fact I sat through the entire credits to learn. Oh, yes, I'll want this movie on DVD.

We had such fun. As we exited the theater, I looked up at the starry heavens and felt this big warm glow come over me. Yes, I can feel Laura looking down on us, smiling, glad we had a good time. Yeah, I'm crying again.

March 13, 2003

"False Assumption"

Why is it my nature to turn every observation into a metaphysical one whenever possible? I don't know, but today's observation bears such alteration.

The air in Yuma today is smoky. It stings the eyes most uncomfortably. Not the ordinary state here, it is due to a brush fire northeast of Yuma located west of Yuma Proving Ground and north of Mittry Lake. A fast growing fire, it consumed between 800 and 1,000 acres Wednesday.

News reports said it was seventy five percent contained by Wednesday night. But the smoke is still in the air.

I complained of it at work. The burning odor grew worse, adding a scent of burnt plastic to the mix. I cursed the probably human-caused brush fire, and kept on working. But the stench got worse. I continued to silently curse.

It hadn't occurred to me to go outside and have a look. However, a fellow co-worker did, and noticed a small fire growing in a trash bin just outside our doors. Another co-worker filled a bucket with water and put this fire out.

The smell of burning plastic ebbed.

I grew amused at myself. I was so ready to blame sources far away, never realizing a more personal problem existed. How often do we do that? Assume the fault is only elsewhere, never checking to see what we might fix nearer to home?

Perhaps in the future, I won't be so quick to make false assumptions.

© Joan Lansberry