Not feeling it.

For the past two weeks I just haven't had my heart in writing.  I wrote that I was wanting to write and excited as well in a previous post but that has deflated like a long old balloon with a ppppppffffffffttttt sound as it exhales it's last remaining bit of umpf.

Am I getting too much blog life and not enough of living life?  Did I get myself over my head trying to juggle 4 blogs and trying to write to all that make a comment?  Heavens I have barely the time to read other blogs anymore and I'm not fully reading them as I want to.

Is it the weather that is calling to me with it's brilliant blue skies?  The green hills that I want to walk upon?  

All of that but also I'm not sure if I am blogging like I use to.  Life has changed and my tempo has too.  Am I writing for me or for others?  Is anyone out there?  I see that I have activity and then again I sometimes see nothing.  As one who writes by blogging, feedback does encourage my writing so a lack of response discourages me.  Do I mind writing just for myself?  No....yes.

Am I saying goodbye to blogging?  Maybe.  I guess I'll just play it by ear.  

I haven't taken a decent photo in ages.  I haven't caught up on my home movies that I have struggled to archive.  I need to decide where to store all my photos and upload them to a new place which will take time.  I want to work on the family genealogy that is time consuming but a pleasure and excitement at finding where that leads to.  I want to make friends and get out with them.  I've become lazy.  I've been depressed.  I've been everywhere in my head but where I want it to be.  Where blogging use to help I feel sucked dry now.  

I need to rethink

Rewrite

Leave it to Paul Simon to come up with the great lyrics of his song "Rewrite".  From the first time I heard it I loved it. 

I've been working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I'm spending
It's just for working on my rewrite
Gonna turn it into cash

I've been working at the carwash
I consider it my day job
Cause it's really not a pay job
But that's where I am
Everybody says the old guy working at the carwash
Hasn't got a brain cell left since Vietnam

But I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I'd no idea
That you were there
When I said help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer

I'm working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I'm spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna turn it into cash

I'll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
When the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms

And I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I'd no idea
That you were there
When I said, help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer

My head has been leaking in or is it out, the need to write deeper.  With the past many months when I have felt devoid of words that I want to express I think it is starting to emerge.  Like a bulb in the ground the thoughts are pushing out to receive the light, to grow, to open.

That story I want to tell that maybe I will begin to write, not for the blogging, but that story that I think can be worth telling.  We all have stories within us.  Storytelling once was a way to pass the evening after supper along time ago.  A time to pass on family stories or of a childhood long gone to the young ones who would sit in rapt attention.  Maybe a story was told that would be well remembered and laughed at or one that the listeners would pause in thought to think they were glad that never happened.

In doing the genealogy I have found descriptions that made me wish I could be told the story of their lives.  The family members, husband and wife, who died in a tornado.  Those who died in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, those who came from Ireland to America.  I guess that is why I write to leave my trail for any beyond my lifetime who happened to find me as they do their own genealogy on the family.  

My Love has asked who in our family will be interested?  All the time I put in to researching, who will look at this?  All the time I've put into my photo organizing, uploading, storing, documenting, creating, making archive copies on DVD's or CD's.  What will become of it all?  I don't know.  I don't want to think it will all disappear without meaning to someone.

There's that story I want to write of my mom that only gets more fascinating as I put the puzzle pieces of her life together.  The few stories she told of her life as a child and now I find some of them to be fictitious.  Was it because she was too young to know the real story and filled in her life with what she wanted it to be?  We all tend to embellish stories we tell for the listener if we say it enough.  I want to write that story of hers that sits beside me as I correspond with a cousin of hers.  She is young and her mind clear to tell me what she knew and what she is trying to find out for me.  

I dug into a place I maybe shouldn't have but like me I did.  It was casual in my brother saying that our stepfather Bill was still alive.  What?!  Mom always told me he was dead!  Just like her to say that so I wouldn't at some point go looking where maybe she thought I shouldn't.  My brother innocent in telling me this only peaked my curiosity.  He even lives within a short drive from me not that I would go visit.  I did think to drive by but didn't.  The internet is different.  I found his email address and I wrote him.  I've been disappointed in that he hasn't tried to do the one favor I asked of him, to tell me of my mom and his breakup.  I never was given a reason since I was a young teen.  I don't know why my thoughts to know this are so strong I just wanted to understand why to fill in the pieces of the puzzle that didn't fit.  This man who was so good to my brother that he changed his birth name to his stepfather's name.  One doesn't ask, do or other lightly.  How does this man just drop off the face of the earth once he moved out?  I realize that he is now 80 something and maybe after the 40 some odd years have past, we too are merely a distant memory or lost.  I don't know.  He and I corresponded three times.  He shed no light though he said he would.  The last time I wrote him I told him I would not bother him again if I did not receive any emails back.  He must not want to tell his side.  The door closed.  The story gone.

Like Paul wrote...I'm working on my rewrite...that's right.

Special treat!

E came by yesterday for a visit and brought a big jug of fresh, raw goat's milk.  I have never had fresh, raw goat's milk and it was sweet and delicious!  I think I tried it off and on all day, a little glass here, another glass later, in a latte, and this morning on my oatmeal.  


I had thought it would be tart but it wasn't at all.  It is ultra white and just because I didn't know this, here are the benefits of drinking raw goats milk:


According to the Journal of American Medicine, "Goats milk is the most complete food known".  It contains vitamin, minerals, electrolytes, trace element, enzymes, protein and fatty acids that are utilized by your body with ease.  In fact, your body can digest goat's milk in just 20 minutes.  It takes 2-3 hours to digest cow's milk.


Goat's milk is less allergic.  Easier digestion allows the lactose to pass through the intestines more rapidly, not giving it time to ferment.  Most lactose intolerant people have found that they can tolerate goat's milk and goat's milk products.

There is more but I just shared a little.  I wish we could have this every day!


E. has been volunteering at a goat farm where they raise goats for their milk, they make products out of some of this too.  The lady shows her goats and must do very well as the goats she sells are pretty pricey.  They are Dwarf Nigerian goats and E. says they are quite cute and small.  She has learned to hand milk but also how to set them up with a mechanical milker.  They milk the goats two to three times a day depending on the goat and her production.  The down side has been that the couple are overworking their volunteers which is E. and one other girl.  They provide room and board for them but expect them to work a 10 hour day which is a lot of work.  She has decided that she is going to find another farm with goats and leave this place.  It's to bad the couple don't understand that maybe they need more hands to help with their large herd of goats.


E. joined up with a WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms to find a farm to work on.  I think she will try to find places that others have given reviews on as the place she is at didn't have any.  It was close by for her to pop in and see us, but I think it makes the volunteers to be treated like indentured servants.  Hello...we are not living in the past people!

We shall see where she decides to go next....in the meantime I  am going to enjoy this milk while we have it.  E. thinks we should get goats so we can have our own fresh milk but something tells me this would be a lot for us to take on even if we do have the land.  We are thinking of expanding the chickens and maybe selling fresh eggs.  Looks like the hens are going to get a roomier coop and pen with a remodel by my Love!  Hahahaha!  Hard to get regular work but what the heck...remodel the hen house.

A slump by any other name

Sisotowbell Lane

Noah is fixing the pump in the rain

He brings us no shame

We always knew that he always knew

Up over the hill

Jovial neighbors come down when they will

With stories to tell

Sometimes they do

Yes sometimes we do

We have a rocking chair

Each of us rocks his share

Eating muffin buns and berries

By the steamy kitchen window

Sometimes we do

Our tongues turn blue

Sisotowbell Lane

Anywhere else now would seem very strange

The seasons are changing

Everyday in everyway

Sometimes it is spring

Sometimes it is not anything

A poet can sing

Sometimes we try

Yes we always try

We have a rocking chair

Somedays we rock and stare

At the woodlands and the grasslands

and the badlands 'cross the river

Sometimes we do

We like the view

Sisotowbell Lane

Go to the city you'll come back again

To wade thru the grain

You always do

Yes we always do

Come back to the stars

Sweet well water and pickling jars

We'll lend you the car

We always do

Yes sometimes we do

We have a rocking chair

Someone is always there

Rocking rhythms while they're waiting

with the candle in the window

Sometimes we do

We wait for you

Joni is calling me once again.  I hear her songs from old albums that still trigger an emotional response in me.

I'm in one of those slumps that seem to come and go, but while within my moodiness of the slump I need to remind myself that it will pass.

I missed my children this Easter.  While I had my son I missed those daughters of mine.  Memories are a blessing and a curse, are they not?  I guess I never realized that at some point the chicks (children) would fly the nest and not be with us as before.  The girls all in their 20's and early 30's have their own desires and interests.  For now a tradition of gathering for holidays is not that important or necessary.  Or is it just me that holds on to whatever could bring us all together just as my mom did.  I have to hand it to her that she gave plenty of parties, BBQ's, and vacation times to keep the family together.

I sat at my sister by marriage's table for Easter Brunch with "the old" people as her mother by marriage said to me.  She asked why I was sitting with them and not the "young people".  I wanted to have us all together in my heart...young, old and all in between.  I remarked back to her "I am almost where you are and less toward them".   I said this more for politeness and yet I did mean it.  Am I not in years less near the young and closer to the elder? 

The slump mood mixes me up as to what makes me happy these days.  I want to be happy and surely I have the ability to allow the sad events wash off my back like duck feathers with water?  If I think happy will I convince my heart and head that I am?  Is obtaining happiness that easy?

Since I had children in my 20's my Love and I didn't fly to far from our old nest of our parents.  We accepted the Sunday night dinner or the dinner out to eat.  I was happy to not have to cook.  We were available to be with the extended family for any excuse.  None of us left the area.  Even now my husband's family all live in the Bay Area.  True that side of the family has grown by leaps and bounds and getting us all in one house is getting tight and harder to do but we try to gather together, if not with everyone then with who we can.

This year feels just that much more bitter with my Love's parents not doing well.  There age is showing and slowing every day that passes.  It's bad enough to have my mom but not have my mom with her mind the way it is.  The gathering of the elders to be with the young ones, the Great Grandkids is not easy.  Transition marks our path of Grandpa who has lost his license (for a good reason), Grandma in Assisted Care in the town we live in but not in the town her husband lives in, my mom in another town not ever to leave her home due to her state of mind.  We move around to see them and think of how much closer we are towards them and less of the young parents we once were.  How many dinners did they do for us to be with us?

In Joni's song these words take on a meaning I never thought of so long ago.....

We have a rocking chair

Someone is always there

Rocking rhythms while they're waiting

with the candle in the window

Sometimes we do

We wait for you