SETTLING IN

spring lizard creek

The water to the house comes from a spring 6 or 7 hundred feet up the meadow. A 2" pipe runs from the spring to the house. In the spring box the pipe has a screen over the end to filter out salamanders. It's a slight uphill and the weight of the water in the pipe pushes it up the pipes into the house where I use it. The screen in the spring box was silted over, so I cleaned it, setting the water free to flow down the pipe. This morning it was dribbling out of the lowest fixture, meaning tomorrow it will be up enough that I can wash dishes and get water related projects going.

The spring the water comes from is completely surrounded by Christmas trees. I still drink water from it in the form of tea or coffee. Cats drink it. If it gives me cancer I'll be sharing the fate of a large number of people in the county. It doesn't seem right that mountain spring water is now poison. When it's poison in the mountain springs, it's poison all the way to the sea and into the sea. A salamander probably 8" long, pink with black spots, lives in the spring box. Last year some Christmas tree workers getting a drink of water found him and pulled his tail off. I was glad to see his tail grew back. I figure if the water doesn't kill the salamander it won't kill me.

The house is beginning to come back to life. The spirit in the house was asleep after I'd been gone for so long. I'm straightening up this and that gradually, filling trash bags, getting ready to move back in. It's been a storage space for so long, it's time now to get much of the stuff out and to the dump and Alleghany Cares to make room for the other stuff to breathe. A lifetime of bringing stuff in and not taking stuff out has created a logjam that will take some tending to.

I still talk to Jr in my mind. I feel a little more comfortable at home as something more than a turn around place. Gradually, one step at a time, I'm feeling like this is where I belong now. Jr in the background, instead of in the foreground of my mind is new to deal with. I learned when I went anywhere, like to grocery store, to turn around and get back as fast as possible, because of no telling what. Now I don't have that reason, but the urge is still with me to get back as fast as I can.

TarBaby is still at the vet. I was told on the phone this morning he is eating well and has come around good. I can pick him up tomorrow. Also can visit him today. I'm torn about visiting him. I know he's lonesome in his cage, and feel like a visit will make him all the more lonesome when I leave him behind. I want to visit him, but don't want to give him the false hope I'm there to bring him home. However, I also know how important a visit was to Jr incarcerated indefinitely. A visit makes a day less long.

I recall sitting with Jr in the nursing home, his addled mind trying to figure out what and who got him there. It's where I learned how important it is to people shut away in nursing homes to have visitors. Somebody to talk to who will listen, sometimes. Or even somebody to talk, just to hear talking, to be talked to, a familiar face, somebody who cares. It's tremendously important. Or even to be visited at home when not well or fading away of old age. It was the light of Jr's day whenever anyone dropped by. I want to be more conscious of people I know who need visiting in similar circumstances. Didn't Jesus say something about visiting widows? They're the same, people dwelling in loneliness. Even television doesn't fill that hole. The depth of loneliness wants the human touch, spirit to spirit.

It's life spirit that is precious. Perhaps it could be the most precious, have the highest value of anything; even a van Gogh painting not nearly so precious. And how do we regard it? Bombs from the sky. They don't always hit their targets, but somebody gets it. Collateral damage. Wrong place at the wrong time. Shit happens. I can't worry about any of that any more. Throughout my lifetime the same things have happened over and over, keeping the economy rolling and making the rich richer. It is time to turn within.

The months spent with Jr took me out of everything I was involved in before, leaving me free to make my house into a home instead of a turn around place. It's time to move in and a mess of stuff to move out. Starting with the bed and the water, we're coming back. I like the new bed so much that I lie down for awhile sometimes just to experience it again. I'd guess three quarters of the people living on earth sleep on a bed that is a solid surface. It's like sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag. No springs to sproing.