WIND CHIMES

martha in her snow nest

This morning an additional 7 inches of snow fell on top of what was left from the other big snow. This one had enough wind to keep the wind chimes going the whole time. It made a good sound track for the snow/ice/rain. In very first light, TarBaby acted out wanting me to open the window. I saw fresh snow, a little, maybe half inch, thought that's nothing to get going about. TarBaby decided to stay in, but didn't like me closing the window when he wasn't done smelling the air. Wake me up in the night to open the window and you decide to stay inside, I close the window and go back to sleep. If you want to smell the air, get out in it, I'm not bringing it in here. Thus spake the resident giant.

Woke up later and it looked like 5-6 inches, then later it looked like 7-8. I'm going by a square rock with a flat surface I have sitting on an upright locust log. Caterpillar likes it to sit on and survey her hunting ground where she can see farther. The last snow melted from it, and the crown of snow it has now looks like 7-8 inches. I'm not going out there with a yardstick to measure it. Forecast of rain tonight and tomorrow. It's 32 now and will drop below that in the night to turn all this snow into a snowcone landscape. I won't be going to the radio station tomorrow. Between here and there, the only thing I know for certain is the driveway to the station will not be scraped. I could walk up the driveway, but can't park the car in the highway.

I was looking forward to a show of the Lily Brothers. Haven't played them in awhile. I think I like Everett Lily singing Barbara Allen about the best of any I've heard. It's amazing to me that they played 7 nights a week at the Hillbilly Ranch in Boston, living in a trailer court, for 20 years. They didn't record much and didn't tour the mountain circuit. They played in Boston all that time. Last year I went to Marion to see Everett Lily in his 80s make music with his son's band. He played the mandolin most of the time. He had to play sitting down. His son walked him onstage to his chair. I recognized his degree of frailty as close on the heels of Jr's. The son had a protective air about him that I recognized in myself with Jr. Come to think of it, the son probably grew up in a Boston public school.

My friend Bob lives in Missouri and chose his path like I did mine. After high school we worked together in a shoe store selling shoes. Like me, he chose the path of stupid first, and he stuck with it for quite awhile, because he was locked in. But when it spit him out, he went on, got a PhD in psychology, a better wife, and a better life. We were friends who married friends. And both the women friends were friends because they were just alike. It wasn't alike like Bob and I were alike in naivete and just plain stupid. Their alikeness was being a bit too experienced for women their age. Both had serious psychological problems. At first, I thought I could help. Then I saw there was no possibility. I was in it way up over the top of my head. So was Bob, but he tried to stick with it. He never gave up until he hit bottom. We got back in touch after at least 45 years by internet, email, and keep in touch as friends.

Bob's attitude toward this world is not nearly as jaundiced as mine. When I exceed practical good sense, he lets me know. He lets me know when I say something in these blog entries that is a little too particular to me that I make generalizations about. He keeps me reminded that the StLouis Symphony has brought him to tears and jumping up in crescendos of applause for brilliant musicianship like I feel and express with old-time musicians of these mountains. I've kind of divided things into city mind and country mind. He has come to be an advocate for city mind, reminding me there's a lot to it that is really good. I appreciate that and like it so much I feel like I created it because it was needed so much.

Sometimes Bob will write back to me by email what I've written in the day's entry in the language of the science of psychology. I love it when he does that. He sometimes makes me out as doing pretty well, and other times like I don't even want to look up the definitions of the words he uses. I like to be called on it when I step over the line into bullshit. I like it because I don't like to cross that line, even though it satisfies at the moment. If you read this fairly regularly, you know I cross over into bullshit every once in awhile. Maybe all the time. Maybe it's the rare moment I'm not writing bullshit. I don't even know if there's a line between bullshit and the way things are. I have an idea, this being duality, Maya, illusion, I can only say honestly, as Socrates put it so eloquently, I know nothing.

Every time I make a statement that appears like I know what I'm talking about, remember, I don't. I never will. Writing is a form of talking, and I have to go with the Australian Aborigine way of seeing it, that the voice is for singing praise to the Creator only, not for talking. Talking is waste of energy. They lived in small tribes, or extended family. We live in a country of 300 million and rising. We believe talking is what the voice is for. Singing is what rock stars do. When talking isn't enough we have blogs. Here I am, blurring the line between bullshit and true interpretations. Of course, I want my interpretations to be true, but there's no way it's possible for anything to be true. Perhaps the only thing that's true is nothing is true. That sounds about right.

I'm sitting here at the desk with the computer. TarBaby just now walked up my arm, walked across my shoulder and down the other arm. He is turning now, nesting himself into the space between my arms, putting his front feet on my left arm as he hunkers into cat meditation. That seems to me kind of real. It would be hard to convince me it's illusion, a dream. If it's a dream, it's TarBaby's dream too from his own perspective. Is it a dream because we perceive it? We perceive a dream too. Maybe we're dreaming together. I don't know. I tend to see it, no matter how it's analyzed, you treat somebody like shit, they'll treat you like shit. There is something going on in this world of duality, and I can't say for sure about any of it. So please, when I sound high and mighty like I know what I'm talking about, remember this, I don't. It's not like this is repentance day. I take it for granted you understand this when I'm writing. Thinking about it, I became uncertain. It's just wind chimes tinkling in the breeze.