Strange day. This morning, I finally came to the conclusion that the sonnet cycle had probably ended. Until the last sonnet was written, writing them was something of a compulsion - every day or so another poem wriggled its way out of me - not quite in the sense of "regurgitated", but more like an itch that needed to be scratched. And then - all of a sudden - it just ended.
Part of it may have been the dream about Jim I had last night. Very strange dream. We were sitting in his van, and he came up with the idea of moving to - somewhere. Right then. Leave. Right now. I said, "What? And leave the cats to fend for themselves?" He thought a moment and said, "Well, yeah." My response: "That is SO not going to happen."
I had completely forgotten that he had died, so the dream didn't seem all that strange to me, that he was sitting there. Also, abandoning the cats was NOT something my brother would do, anyway - he took such good care of them while I was in the hospital, they adored him, and slept on his head much the same way they slept on mine. He was very upset when Dixie died - he really loved her. I could only assume that the meaning of the dream was: he didn't want me - or them - to die along with him, which is what the guilt was doing to me. Fine. But I didn't know that's what it meant while the dream was going on, so didn't ask him any pertinent questions. Beyond that, I have no idea what the dream meant. But it felt to me that the sonnet cycle, when I woke up, had ended. The thought that I ought to try to communicate with my brother was still there. Not quite sure how to accomplish that.
The next compulsion that hit me was publishing it. Which sort of made me laugh, after I gave it some serious thought. "Oh, yeah, THAT'LL be a best seller!" Not sure where I'm going with that idea. 62 pages of ... what? Hysteria? Lust? Weeping and wailing?
While I mulled that over, I finished the sleeves on the turquoise shirt, and have to turn up the cuffs and the bottom hem ... just need to hunt down some buttons. May end up going shopping for them; I don't think I have any turquoise buttons laying around anywhere. Meanwhile I've started a long grey jacquard vest which already looks and feels seriously cool. I love the feel of different types of fabric - some types are annoying, some are sensual, some are comforting. I do love experimenting with different fabrics, though. Haven't sewn anything made of jacquard in a while. I vaguely remember making a jacket out of black jacquard, I think when I was in high school. But I have no buttons for the grey vest, either.
It also occurred to me that the Day Book will have lasted about a year next month. I had already back-dated a few of them to July, which is why I noticed; I had started reading Damien's journal after the nineteenth of August 2011 - can't remember which day exactly - but the nineteenth is when they – the West Memphis 3, I mean - were finally freed.
Yesterday, the seventh of July, commemorated Cernos, protector of the grain silos, so also considered a protector of the harvest. None of which explains why I'm having a day-after delayed celebration of the harvest by eating my first corn-on-the-cob of the season - I'm not sure the New England corn has been harvested yet, but I couldn't wait - and that genuine New England harvest food: Flag Hill Sugar Maple liqueur over ice. Heh! I keep looking for corn-on-the-cob – my absolute favorite vegetable of all time - at the farmer's market every Wednesday in Cambridge but haven't seen any yet. I'm not kidding, we should hold a "Thank the People We Obliterated for Introducing Us to Corn" parade up and down the streets of Boston, with someone worthy serving as the Corn Maiden for the parade. Except I can see some mindless goobers from the pitiful manifest destiny crowd having trouble with the concept.
Speaking of which ... the most self-fulfilling re-tweet I've read in a long time: a tweet by someone named Silver Raven Wolf on 7/4/2012 - apparently someone who couldn't decide which Native American symbol to plagiarize, no doubt because she isn't one. Maybe she should switch to "Dumb Pink Buffalo Twinkie" (white buffalos are too sacred) based on this:
Silver RavenWolf@SilverRavenWolf: Angry? Stop. Breath in element of Air, push it out envisioning the anger leaving. Follow with Fire, Water, and Earth. Finish with Spirit.
Naturally, the illiteracy (not to mention the complete lack of logic) of the post pissed me off, even though I wasn't particularly pissed off before I read it. I'm not even going to get into the visual of me breathing water, earth - and fire - in and out of my lungs into my small apartment, except to mildly point out that all I can envision with that scenario is me dying a painful, choking and suffocating death, and, in the case of fire, taking all the men, women and children in this building with me, along with their pets. But, no, we won't be "finishing" with spirit. Instead:
FINISH with grammar-check!!! "Breath" is the noun, as in the example, "You can see my breath in the frosty air." BREATHE is the verb, as in the example, "If I get any more annoyed by illiterate witches, I will have to remind myself to BREATHE!"
Second witch in a row who couldn't compose a literate sentence or operate “spell-check”. She didn't really say what to do if she's the one who pissed you off in the first place. The second vision I had in my head after reading this was me, kicking a bunch of dumb witches in a circle (widdershins) around Stonehenge yelling, "Citizen's arrest! Grammar Police!"
[Pant, pant, pant] Breathe, woman! Wow, we really do get bitchier as we get older, don't we?
I will point out in all honesty that it's very difficult to learn from anyone who never even made the effort to educate themselves first. Want to teach others? Either do it properly, or have someone who is literate proofread your work. The alternative is everyone tossing your lessons, however well-intentioned, in the trash as a waste of their time, because you appear to them to be poorly educated and - well, stupid. Why should I pay attention to an illiterate boob?
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