NANCY, THE COW

When I was still in elementary school, my father bought a cow and brought her home to our 30 acre farm and country store/home.  He tried everything, having grown up on a real working family farm.  We had two pigs, Ricky and Johnny, who seriously lacked personality and social skills.  "Nancy," as our new cow was named, had personality, but was more challenging than Daddy had anticipated.  While she provided more than enough butter, cream and milk, Mother was overwhelmed with too much of a good thing.  She churned, skimmed, and boiled (for safety) milk for our use and had much to spare.  For a while we were in surplus with items made from milk, including Mother's famous butter pound cake. You can only eat so much cake.

Ricky and Johnny watched with quizzical interest as Daddy daily chased after Nancy, who was obsessed with freedom.  To boot, Nancy was hand-raised by women and had no interest in or respect for men.  Couldn't help but admire her for that.  Time and again Daddy had to resort to asking for help from Mother or me.  I felt Nancy was making my point for me, that women are just as good as men at everything.

Since there were no other children in our family, I used to commune with Nancy after school and soon she began to look forward to our talks.  I fed her what goodies I could find and she enjoyed licking my hands and face.  With a tongue as raspy as sandpaper, I didn't need to exfoliate.

Whenever I approached her tied in the field, she would rush madly to the end of her tether and give me pause for my safety.  She was a big inscrutable animal and I was a sliver of a girl.  I didn't want my final adventure to be "trampled by a cow in the bud of youth." Somehow I know my intimidation was surely excessive because she did indeed love me and the feeling was mutual.

Without pictures of Nancy, I send along my version.  

Nancy, the man-hating cow

LIFE

To find oneself alive is at once wondrous and mysterious.  For nine months we gradually come to know our own awareness and witness the muffled sounds of a world just outside the womb.  When Mother cries or becomes excited, we perceive her cries or protestations magnified.  It is a fine home with mostly warm baths, no hunger, and soft walls that caress our coiled legs and compacted bodies.

Then the day comes unwanted, violent, and world shattering, when we are forced from fetal Utopia into a chaos of bright lights, beings other than Mother, and detachment from security into endless space.  Hands slapping us into vocalizing our horror are delighted when we utter our first scream.

Daughter #3 cautiously observes all things new.

Childhood is long and humiliating.  We can't wait until we are a grownup.  We fall down and cry; we run away from home and are spanked; we do things to explore our boundaries and have mixed success.  We chew and swallow food that we abhor.  We attend school and graduate school and begin adulthood.

I play Miss Muffet at a May Day celebration.

Adulthood is busy and needs to be a field of competition;  competition for paying your way with jobs and careers;  competition for finding happiness in a life companion and children to carry on; and fulfilling all the personal dreams of achievement featured on our personal bucket list.  For some it is an outer crust, a show of wealth, for some it is a high hat of personal importance, for some it is a sensory composition of what is was to live.

As a grownup, I always felt fulfilled by gardening.

Having sat upon our self-specialized seat, we reach the narrowing lane of life where we sense the ride may soon be over.  A sense of losing all we built to our design begins to enter our thoughts and we reflect on all the people in our past who no longer live.  What did life mean?  Was it just a challenge?  Did we do it right?  Were we really born to just achieve wealth, status, or fame?

No personal goal achievement ever felt as good as participating in Nature.

I conclude for me that the only time is now and that every now has to be appreciated, no matter what your status in the world, which after all is just applause for the soon-extinguished ego.  I conclude for me that appreciation of this beautiful world and its inhabitants is the only value that outlives life.  It is the ultimate thanks for the ultimate experience and adds to a collective living choir of never-ending praise.

My mother marveled at everything celestial and I do too.

VIBRATIONS

Everything that Nature rocks

Has its own vibration rate

Jam and toast and juice and socks

And legs and floors a picture make

A response magpietales.com

FALL

The season you loved so well

Does fill me with nostalgia for you

I miss you each day of  the remains

Can you hear me?

Burning leaves and clear skies

The October month delivers

Immortal beauty and comfort

And I cannot hear you agree

I am here and you did hold me

With love and assurance

You soothed my gravest fears

But Death whispers the final decree.



Response to www.magpietales.com

THE MANY VIEWS OF NOW



Every pair of eyes that behold

A moment of reality spent

Does fashion it with every fold

Of delicately woven intent

A response to magpietales.com

DREAMSCAPE

Out of place, out of time, running

Dropped off, sent away, searching

Steal away

Tear a way

Trying

Find a place to be.

A response to:  Magpie Tales (magpietales.com)

E.T., HOME PHONE

Husband spent the better part of yesterday on the phone to Verizon.  He had been persuaded by friends to somehow tie together his cell and land line in an effort to lower his monthly cost.  It sounded like a good thing.  For him, it was not.

Here I would just like to vent about Husband's lifelong commitment to his friends and everything they recommend.  Having written those words, I have momentarily experienced a gag reflex.

In order to fit in with his friends, he has:  bought into a pyramid scheme; voted for George W. Bush; pulled all his teeth in favor of dentures; and bought a John Deere tractor with all the trimmings; sold said tractor with all the trimmings at a discount to a friend when said tractor proved too much a challenge (hooking up trimmings; unhooking trimmings; turning on, and basically using said tractor).

When Verizon's gadget arrived, Husband dutifully followed directions to set up the new system.  Nothing worked and his heart monitor began to flash hysterically (he has a defibrillator which uses a phone line to the doctor).  Your basic disaster is occurring on all fronts and Husband begins the calling.

Husband begins the calling.

With his cell phone and my cell phone on both ears, he deals separately with Verizon Wireless and Verizon, who are different companies with evidently no information exchange.  The Wireless Verizon got high marks from Husband and he was a gentleman. Verizon in a plain brown wrapper was a long and darkly different story.

I usually distance myself from Husband and his telephone conversations like a happy little tortoise receding into the comfort of her shell, putting the turmoil at a safe distance.  This maneuver only works when you're not in the center of the road.  From the living room I kept hearing vocal escalation and a peppering of abusive tones, and, yes, cursing.  This went on steadily and no apologetic tones were detected.

"Why in the he** do I need a credit check when I have been doing business with you for 30 years?  I don't want to terminate my number and yes the number is available because I'm using it!  I am including my cell phone via the gadget Verizon sent us.  No! You don't need my social security number because you already have it.  My address is the same as 30 years ago.  No!  Not Mathews, Hudgins.  I have not a damned thing to do with Cobbs Creek"

This went on for hours, repeating the same information and cursing loudly.  After all this, the new setup is revealed to be incompatible with the heart monitor and has to be returned.  Concern for his health was real, he was so overheated.  "When I'm dead," he pleaded, "get rid of that damned land line!"
"No problem," I returned.

Today he seems over it and is off to a friend's funeral.  Anything to cheer him up!