Day: August 2, 2013

There’s a lot of life on our porch these days – flowers, chickens, cats, and now, tarpaulin to cover the plywood going on our new tile floor in the kitchen.  Maria is not what you might call domestic. I have socks hanging in various corners of the farmhouse – on the wood stove, the mantel, the dining room chairs. None are dry but we are making progress. Maria is not a regular visitor to the kitchen, she likes to buzz in and wash dishes and uses the kitchen as a thruway to get to her Schoolhouse Studio.

She is my grandmother’s worst nightmare – Christian, an artist, she is allergic to vacuuming, order and shopping. When we visited my grandmother’s grave in Providence I told her she was right about some things, like cleaning and shopping, wrong about others. It is good to be loved, Grandma, I told her. I doubt she ever considered that, but I think she got that I am happy.

It is amazing to me how obsessed Maria has become with the idea of a new kitchen floor. She was waiting all day for the tile man to come (he didn’t show), leaving notes on the door, scanning the road for his truck. She complains daily – many times a day – about the filthy old linoleum floor, glowering at me as if I don’t get it or am obstructing the new tiles. She badgered me for weeks until I called the tile man, and I think she may run off to Europe with him, they love to talk tiles together. Maria  spent an hour or so laying out the new tiles on the floor tonight, trying different random color schemes and patterns – there are two colors, dark and light blue. She asked me for my opinion a dozen times, even though I know she is not interested in my color or design preferences.

“What do you think?,” she asked, moving a tile in the opposite direction that I had suggested.

And then, finally, I got it. It’s an artistic thing, an aesthetic thing. The tiles are bland ugly, dirty. Not artistic in any way. When I saw her stretching the tiles out, staring at them, pondering and mumbling, I realized this was just what she does when she makes a quilt, she studies a pile of scattered fabric and she can see the quilt in her curious artistic mind. This, I remember, is what dogs think, they run images through their mind, and their powerful instincts react to them.

It’s a quilt on the floor! No wonder. I hope Joe shows up Monday, otherwise I am taking Red and going on a long hike.

You there, yes you,

listen to me.

I want to be your Divine Old Dog,

who keeps scratching his back on the stars,

on the back of Saturn’s moons,

on the tips of big old Oaks,

I used to be a frightened and lonely man who lived

in a big old house with wonderful views,

my roommates were confusion and pain.

And then I changed, I met a fairy in a big empty barn,

and I told her I wished to be a

Divine Old Dog, and I gave her an old silver trinket,

and she kissed me on the cheek three times,

and I woke up lying by the wood stove.

Oh, I don’t care what you think of me,

your resentments and gripes, or what your thoughts are

about what you have ever done, and I have ever done.

I am finished with angry people, people who get stuck in their struggles,

and always want help, but only the wrong kind.

I don’t care about all that.

Just rub the back of my head whenever you are sad,

and frightened, and call my name loudly and clap your hands,

so I can hear you.

And I will be your Divine Old Dog, and hobble over to

and fall at your feet, and sigh two or three times,

because I so love to see you smile.

If I were pressed to say what the last few years of my life have been about, I would have to answer that they are about this – opening my eyes. To love, to responsibility, to help, to connection, to standing in my truth, living out of fear. All things I thought were not possible, all things that are. Walking with Maria after dinner, I looked up and saw this sky, and saw a cold front sweeping through and thought again, how close beauty is if I open my eyes.

I don’t know what you see when you get to your back door in the morning, but this is what I see most mornings, one or two barn cats and a slew of hens waiting for us to come out and bring joy and feed to the world. I’m sort of used to it, I open the door, Red goes jumping over the cats and we all head out to the barn.

 

In rural life, most fuel oil companies have not yet been corporated. Fuel oil companies look like fuel oil companies, they have big distinctive trucks in front of distinctive garages. They look like fuel oil companies. In rural life, you can call the fuel company day or night and if you are cold or in trouble, they will come.

In rural life, the fuel oil drivers love dogs, often bring theirs, have biscuits, catch up and chat.

In rural life, people can call up John or Tim in winter and ask for a month’s break in paying the oil bill if they are in trouble.

In rural life, some elderly and sick people get their oil for free.

In rural life, customers get letters that explained all of their heating oil options – pre-pay or not.

In rural life, if you are late on a bill or it got lost amidst the mail, Tracy calls up and says, “hey Jon, you are always on time, I’m not going to charge any late fees, did you lose the bill?”

Haskins Fuel is not my company, but I hear good things about it, I want to take a photo every month.