BARBIE MEDUSA

gray day

 

More rain, more overcast sky, more fog, more mud. Dense fog on the mountain today. Low-flying clouds cross the mountains along this stretch, crawling over them south to north like big white snails. The first five miles were opaque in dense fog and I took a detour over a muddy road that was a beautiful drive. Trees in fog are misty like a fairy tale. I drove out of the fog and it was another t-shirt day in late December. Wanted to see Carolina beat Atlanta in football, but that's not what I saw. At the beginning, Justin said Carolina would lose because they've lost their magic. I told him I'd said to friend Carole on the phone earlier that I want them to win too much, afraid I'd jinx them pulling for them. Not many years ago I went to a nascar race in Charlotte with Justin. He'd got a couple of free tickets. First car I pulled for was the M&Ms car because I like M&Ms. He was the first to blow his motor. Next I pulled for Jr Earnhardt. He blew his motor. I quit pulling for anybody. Nobody else blew an engine. When I'm watching a race on tv and feel like pulling for Joey Logano, I back away, not wanting to jinx him. I watch games and races with dispassion to keep from jinxing anybody. I know it is absurd to think I have such power, but too often it looks that way. I pull for Danica Patrick and she wrecks.

exit

I, too, suspected Panthers could lose, for the reason Justin said, they've lost their magic. Last week they came too close to losing. And I knew Atlanta would come back full force after their humiliating loss to Carolina the last game they played. The tension of Panthers going for their fifteenth straight win and Atlanta determined with all their power not to let it happen, made a good game. It was a tight game. Both teams struggled for every inch of ground. Atlanta won the play of the game with a stupendous Hail Mary pass and an equally stupendous catch. The quarterback had been hit hard three times before the play. The moment the ball left his hand he collapsed in agony. It took everything he had to throw it so far, so accurately. The receiver had three guys on top of him. The ball went between the hands of one of his blockers and into his hands. Beautiful throw, beautiful catch. I appreciate a good play, whichever team does it, and exclaimed, Great play! Justin said, Harrumph.

coyote with apple in its mouth

 

It was more fun seeing Vada than the tv. Upon arrival, as soon as we'd done our greeting hug, she took my hand and told me to go with her to her room. She wanted to show me her new toys. I knew her grandmother had given her a Barbie house and was curious to see what it could be. My first thought, it would have to be big. And it was. Three floors. About four feet high. Pink Beverly Hills post-modern neoclassical kitsch architecture. Something you'd think Paris Hilton might live in. I noticed there were no stairs. Of course, I thought, Barbie is about playing pretend. I asked Vada, Does it have an elevator? She said, Yeah! I'll show you how it works! It is a simple mechanism looking like it will go on working beyond the first two weeks. It has a garage with a mini Mustang in it and a swimming pool. A mermaid lay on her side in the pool having an underwater nap. She has half a dozen Barbies and several decapitated Barbie heads she plays with as much as the whole Barbies.

speeding car

 

One of the Barbie heads had long black hair. The new puppy dog, an "English cream lab," found it in a puddle of water in one of Vada's toys on the deck, floating face up. Dog picked up the head, brought it toward me, got in trouble and had to drop it. The wet plastic hair looked like the Medusa's head with blacksnakes writhing from her scalp. It was very peculiar to look at. Barbie Medusa with painted-on eyebrows and eyes, ruby lips. For a moment I thought I was watching a Derek Jarman film. Throughout my time there, the puppy curled up at my feet. I realized it had felt my gentle touch when we met and was drawn to it. I said it smelled dog on my shoes and pants, which it surely did. There came a time daddy scolded the dog for not curling up at his feet. The little dog is already afraid of him. He thinks he's training it, but for now he's only keeping it scared of him. It will grow up with his martial teaching and become a martial dog, which is what he wants it to be. We have different ideas of a dog's value. He will make a companion of the dog, Gus, to go places with him in the truck, be obedient and fierce, a protector for Vada to grow up with. It is a charming puppy and will make a great dog. In her room I called her Vada Tomata. She said, Don't call me that. I'm not food.   
  

prays for dogs

 

 

 

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FORTY YEARS ON A BACK ROAD

tom pruitt's house today

 

Forty years ago, this day, this minute, 9:20pm, I was driving on the Parkway in the densest fog there ever was. I understand some of the fog in the Pacific Northwest is thicker. Absolute white like inside a cave is absolute black. The fog that night was dense. I'm used to it now, though it is never easier to drive in than it was that night, my first experience. Could only use first gear and creep. Had to hang head out the open window and look down at the tire and hold it next to the double yellow line in dim light. The fog absorbed the headlights in a white-out. I think of those nights driving when it is so dark it's pitch black, the headlights seem to go only half as far as usual. Stay in the rhythm of keeping the tire next to the yellow lines. Until a place where a road came into the parkway or entrance/exit to an overlook where the yellow lines ended for a space of about thirty feet. I never knew if I'd find the yellow lines again. I wondered if loaded pickup was headed toward the ditch and down the side of a mountain. Then the yellow lines appeared, I'd been on track. Ten or more years ago the maintenance crews painted segmented lines through the open spaces, a welcome assist.

 

the goat rock from waterfall road

 

I mused at how interesting it was to enter my new life, my commitment to the unknown, to chance, passing through a dense fog the last five miles. So smitten by the symbolism of it, I embraced the fog as a passageway into a new life of I did not know what. I had committed by giving self no option. The decision was settled. Whatever hardship went with it, I'd learn as time went by. I knew it would be intense hardship. No running water in the house, and an outhouse. Took water out of the creek behind the house in buckets. That wasn't anything. The first month, the month of November, cold to somebody from coastal South Carolina, frequent snow on the ground in the mornings, Tom gave me a job with a bush axe for clearing an acre of saplings and briars that had grown up in a meadow he wanted to return to meadow. I realized later he gave me this job to see how long I'd last before turning around and going home. I used it for boot camp. I wanted to work myself into shape and find the rhythm of hard labor, my purpose in going to the mountains to be a caretaker of a farm with beef cattle, totally inexperienced. 

 

waterfall road the backside

 

Somehow I knew without knowing that the mountains would be the place I live out my life. Looking at living my life, the mountains are the place to do it. Looking at making a living, the mountains are not such a good place to be. I could have found work that rewards a college degree, but did not want to wear a tie, work in an office and tell people what to do. I wanted to commit to hard labor. I had fallen in with Meher Baba a year before, which turned my inner direction 180 degrees around. I see my life an arrow shot straight up, going away from its source full speed. Momentum wears itself out, the arrow stops, falls back, turns around and flies full speed returning to its source. The first year was the turning of the arrow's direction. Most curiously to me of all is that these mountains are my blood source, which I didn't know for the first 25 years, as well as what I call the home of my soul. And that's not symbolism. It is best I came here from outside. I could not live here after growing up here. Much as I love the culture, I would need to distance myself from its control. As it is now, I honor the culture without it having controlling interest in my life. I've let the culture be my graduate school.

beside waterfall road the backside

This house was the Air Bellows School house. I've known well a handful of people who went to school and have met and spoken with another handful. Altogether, I've known ten people who went to school here. I've met people who were saved here at revival meetings they had sometimes in schoolhouses in the old days of horses and wagons. I feel a reverence for the house considering what all has gone on that these boards experienced. I feel a reverence for the house as itself without any mental references. It was constructed by the people of the community, some of them carpenters. The simplest possible construction, so simple it is almost in the Japanese style. This spot of ground is, indeed, the home of my soul. After living here around twenty-five years, I had a feeling that seemed like it came from higher self, that I now have my PhD in mountain culture. Not an academic title from reading, rather experiential, first hand, listening to old people tell their lives, working with mountain people, drinking with them and going to church with them, learning their theology, incorporating what I assessed the best of it into my life. Leave off the male hierarchy in the churches and I'm all with their theology, though in different words from what they use. I am post-round earth, post-evolution, post-the science of psychology, post-the 20th Century renascence, the new classical age for the future. I regard that unimportant. I was with old man Tom Pruitt, it's all in the red letters. The rest of it is history.  

the goat rock from waterfall road the back side

 

 

 

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CATFISH THE TALKING CAR

Another crazy day. A cloud resting on the mountain since early morning. Sometimes it precipitates a mist, sometimes a short, light rain, mostly fog. Out the window I can't see past the fence to the donkey meadow. Out another window, can't see the other side of the road. Fog this dense is beautiful to me like a sunshine day, a day of snowing, any weather. I tend to be in agreement with the variety of weather as it is happening. Fog gives the green world the appearance of a Japanese screen and renders the whole outdoors a Japanese garden. The balance of wet and dry is essential to life forms like the balance of light and dark. I like the rain to keep the ground moist for the life forms rooted in the ground and for the forms that eat the ones with roots. Donkeys eat seeds to wildflowers and spread them around the meadow. Went out a little bit ago to make photos of the green world in fog and the glistening colors wet. Wild violet and jewelweed seedlings peep through the ground cover leaves from last fall. Stillness in the air. The windchimes ting one to three notes. Today was the day I was to take car to mechanic to have new horns installed. Friday, when I backed down to the barn for a trunkload of hay, I noticed afterward the car left a string of transmission fluid pearls on the asphalt in the path I'd taken across the road. Oh no. Another problem to solve. The ground was too wet in the low place I drive through to the barn. Slip and side. Made big ruts. Six mudslinging runs building up momentum toward the slope that goes up to the road covered in grass that grew through the gravel. I'd get up it a ways, momentum would cease, tires spin and smoke, nothing to do but back up to the barn and make another run for it. The tires spinning through the mud packed the grooves between the treads, tires slick and wet, unable to get a grip on damp grass.

I walked back to the house to call Justin. He was getting off work and would be here in a while with his truck and chain. Crossing the road I saw the line of transmission fluid. My heart sank. I was down there in the mud shifting forward and backward, forward and backward, getting unstuck from the mud. I thought of the strain I'd put on the transmission and it low to empty of fluid. What have I done? Justin arrived, had me drive the car as far up the slope as I could. He hooked the chain to it, a chain my car was no contest for. He pulled me up out of there so smoothly it felt like I was driving out. Smooth and even, not a hesitation or a jerk. We talked about the transmission fluid, if it leaked that much on the way to the barn, and not on the way back, it's empty. Justin's thinking was a gasket. Today I decided to drive to the shop with whatever fluid is in the transmission. It was the same distance to  his shop as to town where I could buy some fluid. Walking to the car, I was questioning the expensive chance I was taking, driving eight miles with dry transmission. Turned the key, the battery was too weak to turn the engine over. Right away I felt the car itself was telling me not to do it. It wasn't like an omen warning me. It was the car, itself, refusing to go. I would pay attention if I were to take it for an omen, but this was the car shutting itself down. If I were to use jumper cables with somebody else's battery and override the car's direct communication, pleading with me like James Brown, baby please don't go, I would go against knowing the transmission would not make it. When it's obvious, right in front of my face, there it is.   

Back to the house, called mechanic to tell him about the car not starting. I said I believe I can have some fluid and battery charged by tomorrow afternoon. Called next door neighbor, Gary, asked if he'd be going to town today or tomorrow. Today. I asked him to stop at a parts store and buy me three quarts of automatic transmission fluid. He was going to the parts store anyway. I thought I'd get him to jump my car into motion after putting in the fluid. He had a battery charger. I had a fifty foot electrical cord. I'm not sure how long I could let the engine run to recharge the battery with a seriously leaking transmission. Better to use the charger and run through the fluid on the way to the repair shop than sitting still charging the battery. I don't know what else to do. I've had to borrow a charger enough times that it is time now to buy one to keep in the car. I've found the plastic funnel to assist pouring the fluid down a narrow pipe. Ready to problem solve. I like knowing a good mechanic, who does reliable, trustworthy work, listens to WPAQ AM out of Mt Airy online. Has a laptop with speakers that give good sound. Chuck and I connect with our appreciation of the Stanley Brothers and hillbilly music. I hear excellent old-time fiddling in there and banjo plucking, hillbilly gospel singing that makes the tears flow. It's ok to shed tears in front of Chuck over a good gospel song. He feels it too. He plays rhythm guitar in a local gospel group, Covered By The Blood. He's Crystal's daddy and Vada's grandpa. He has kept my 93 Buick Century, the Catfish, in motion. 

Gary is back from town with three quarts of fluid. We checked the charger and the battery was fully charged. I coiled up the cord and put it in the five gallon bucket I keep it in. I put the charger on the back seat in case I need it tomorrow. We're set. An appointment for tomorrow same time as today. I'll fill the transmission just before leaving. Don't want it to drain out overnight. This is a frightful experience that in the past would have flustered me into a spin. It didn't take hold of me this time. I took care of it, step by step. The part that made it work so smoothly was my confidence things would fall into place. The car refusing to start told me something I'd been suspecting about this car, it is conscious. First time I blew a hole in a brake line was less than two miles from Chuck's shop. Second time I blew a brake line, I pushed the brake pedal in front of his garage door. It stopped, but pedal went to the floor. Every time something goes wrong anymore, the place it happens is the best place for whatever it is to happen. Today it spoke to me the only way a car has to speak, like a donkey would speak to me, like a dream would speak. I've been gentle with the car, kept it in good running condition. When something breaks down, I get it fixed right away. Today the car convinced me it is aware. I've suspected consciousness in motor vehicles for some time, though had not had any direct communication with one. It brought donkeys to mind and dogs that have been my friends. I learn to communicate with my pets. I'm one who believes "dominion over" means responsibility to take care of and nurture. The last time it had a flat tire, I found it in Farmer's Hardware parking lot. No easier place to change a wheel. It seems like the car and I have found a flow between us.

       

photos by tj worthington

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FOGGY MOUNTAIN TOP

A beautiful foggy day. I call fog beautiful for the way it gives the natural world a sense of a Japanese screen. Rhododendron leaves glossy wet, the crooked limbs in the foreground darkened by the mist of rain. Last year's leaves cover the ground, a soft carpet speckled in shades of reddish brown from light tan to dark like a pointillist painting. Green spikes of daffodil leaves, six to eight inches long, point straight up in clusters, poking through the carpet. Snowbirds and chickadees peck among fallen pine needles, reddish brown. The birds hop and run about, slate-gray and white, quick bird movements. The female cardinal wary, pecks a seed and raises her head to nibble the seed out of the shell, looks in all directions, flew to a rhododendron branch. I suspect a psychotherapist would call the birds hyper-vigilant. The squirrels are too. Heads darting back and forth, looking in all directions, each eye covering half the way around. They appear to shift attention from eye to eye while seeing from both. The cautious bird survives. They have predators in the air and on land. A momentary lapse of attention is all it takes to be snatched out of the air by hawk talons or from the ground by cat claws. That's ok, too. They go on to their next lives and the hawk or cat has a good meal. The cycle of life. Hopping and flying candy bars. Out another window I see Jack grazing a mound of hay in the fog.

Talked with friends on the phone twice during the day. Both complained and drooped to the ground within over how boring it is to have a wet, overcast day. And I was enjoying it, admiring the richness in colors on a wet, overcast day, the windows Japanese screens. The sunlight bleaches colors, while rain and fog bring out the colors, make them shine. I don't understand seeing a beautiful day like today dreary. It wasn't even bad to go out in. Walked to feed the donkeys and back. Walked to the mailbox and back. Did not get wet either time. It was as beautiful to me out in it as a sunny day. I live simply because I want to be close to the elements, the weather, the seasons, day, night. All the green things were perked up and cheery, feeling good, glowing on a warm day above freezing, wet on the leaves and the roots. Winter grows wearisome after several months, heat going all the time, cold floors, but it's not a problem. My car drives well in snow and mud. I have sweaters, coats, heavy socks and hats. As long as I keep the electric bill and the kerosene bill paid, I'm ok. Winter is the time for feeding hay to the donkeys and extra seeds for the birds. Whatever the weather, I go out to take hay to the donkeys and think nothing of the weather. If it's zero, I dress for zero. It is a love gift I'm taking them, so it is not an inconvenience for me. It's what I do. Rain, I wait til the rain calms down. The donkeys stay in their shed during rains. The rains don't last long. It's not like the donkeys go hungry. They stand in their den, side by side, and gaze into their meadow in rain.

photos by tj worthington

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DONKEYS AND CARROTS ON A FROSTY MORN

 

donkey jack

 

Today was another winter day, temperature 30 and 31 all day, freezing fog in the night and all day. It makes a beautiful world with a thin coat of white ice on every twig on white background. The pine limbs are hanging toward the ground by this time of day. Fence wire is covered with a thin coat of ice. A thin coat of ice is on the ground, yet the rocks and the road were warm enough from temperature above freezing so long that ice did not form on the roads. Today was the obligatory Monday drive to town. Out of food and needed some prescription refills. The car was covered with about a sixteenth of an inch of ice that adhered to it like paint. I started the motor, turned on the defrosters, closed the door and set at the windows with gloves and scraper. It was like trying to scrape paint off the car. The ice was like it had been sprayed on the glass from an aerosol can. What a job it was, scraping the ice off all the windows. The defroster helped a little bit on the part of the windshield directly over the defrost ports. It is a penetrating cold too. No wind. Out there in the natural world of trees, rocks and ground, it is beautiful and uplifting. On the machine, it's a different matter. I note how the donkeys and the calf take it like it's what's happening today. I think of the remnants of Sitting Bull's tribe living in Montana through the winter and up in Canada. Their teepees made of buffalo hide, several layers, they must have done all right. Though by this time the pickings were slim. They lived closer to the elements than we do. They wore warm clothes, to some degree. In my way of seeing, that's close to the bone. However, people have lived in cold temperature zones for a large number of centuries. People live remotely now in the Yukon, Lapland and Siberia. On days the cold borders unbearable, I tell myself this is Finland and it's a good day. It works. It doesn't fool me into blind belief, but it changes the attitude like the flip of a switch. A don't worry ~ be happy moment.

 

jack's crystal mane

and jenny's watchful eyes

 

I served the last two carrots this morning, the other reason a trip to town was essential. I really dreaded it. The fog was thick and the ice froze white on twigs and on the spikes of Jack's mane. Note Jack's ears turned backwards listening to what I'm doing behind him. His head was in motion to the right to get sight of me with his right eye. He'd been watching with his left eye before. I approached him from his left side. The fence is between us. I am leaning over the fence and a little bit over Jack's back, holding that odd little box I stick in his face, trusting he would be still for a shot of his mane, trusting he trusted me not to pull any surprises behind his back. I love about this picture that it tells a degree of trust I am happy with. I don't want to invade their donkeyness and alter it with neurotic humanness. These are African Wild Asses, North African rugged terrain desert herd animals. Not many more than 500 exist in the wild, remotely in Somalia. They won't last much longer. They eat donkeys there and they do poaching, they're in dire African-style poverty that needs another word, poverty doesn't tell it. The original donkeys are beautiful horses, silver with white legs and half dozen thin horizontal stripes. Jack's and Jenny's genetic history left the wild a very long time ago. Their ancestors have been in service to humans in one way or another for some countless generations, until by now donkeys are disposed toward humans like dogs. A lifetime of learning from dogs and cats how the silent ones communicate, and how to get to know somebody who can't talk, has been a good foundation for getting acquainted with donkey people. A donkey's intelligence is extraordinary. I never underrate Jack's or Jenny's intelligence. They both have instantly fast minds and a martial artist's control of their bodies that is automatic because they exist in the flow, the Tao, now.

 

jenny surveys her domain

 on the foggy mountain

alpha donkey

 

 

jenny jealous jack might

get one more chunk of carrot

than jenny gets

 

 

jenny's ears half way back

warning jack stay back

ice cream man is her friend

 

 

I like to leave the donkeys to their donkeyness with each other. I don't like to train my dogs, nor do I train my cats. I like them to have their own lives unto themselves and conform to my will by their choice. It works out good. They like it like that. I get obedience not even asked for. Before paved roads and coyotes, I had a couple of dogs, one at a time, and like Mr Bojangles, still grieve. For the reasons I don't want a dog now, or an outdoor cat, donkeys live here. They are said to keep coyotes away from cattle. I've not witnessed any confrontations. I'm grateful day and night for this opportunity to become acquainted with two donkeys, female and male. It's kids in the back seat every morning at the fence for carrot time. Jack moves too close to Jenny, or Jack  wants another chunk of carrot at the same time Jenny wants a new one, Jenny darts her nose at him, her ears back. She's gets a sleek look about her. I'm guessing their ears being so big and vulnerable to having one or both bitten severely in a fight would be a grave danger, so they lay the ears back to their neck. Jenny hugs her ears in tight when she lights into Jack with her back legs. Those ears back snug are the sign to look out. The degree of her aggression is measured by her ears. I love the woman Jenny is. She's affectionate and she's sufficient unto herself. She's alpha donkey, she rules, no concerns about elections, the biggest one rules. I know Jenny likes to be first, but for morning carrots, Jack runs to me wailing his sax in a wave of ecstatic trance, eyes glowing joy, ears pinned back, neck and mouth forward like a Marino Marini horse, lips twisted just right to hold his note. I have to give a carrot to Jack first. He's right there and Jenny's behind. She looks on in disapproval softened by acceptance.

    



jenny says ice cream man

jenny wants another

chunk of carrot pleeze

jenny and jack say

ice cream man ice cream man

don't forget the starving donkeys

 

jenny says it's so cold

in alaska it's so cold

in alaska

 

 

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