Shake, Rattle & Roll Over

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Life at Home

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It took three shakes to get my attention.

Well, maybe two.

I slept like a baby through the first — the earthquake that with rapidly increasing knowledge and expertise we call a fore-shock.  It took place about two a.m Friday night — or the wee hours of Saturday morning, however you prefer to think about it.

The second — the BIG ONE —  came Saturday night around eleven p.m.  No need to lie.  That shake rattled me.  Along with attic rafters and joists, all the way to the foundation of our just about refurbished fifties Ranch.

But thank God some things remain the same; my steady-as-a-rock better-half wouldn’t have breathed a word had I, in my confused state, not asked,

“What’s going on?”

“Earthquake.”

Just that.  As if such were an everyday occurrence in Oklahoma.  Before he rolled over to go to sleep.  To leave me alone with my thoughts, trying like heck to process his answer.

Earthquakes don’t happen in Oklahoma.  Certainly not everyday.  Well, maybe a long, long time ago, who knows.   And the last three out of four nights — the last three out of three ‘every-days”, if we don’t count Sunday.  And why not ignore Sunday since it’s evident that earthquake epicenters believe in setting aside Sunday as a holy non-roller sort of day, the way most believed — a very long time ago, when my fifties Ranch was brand spanking new — in my slice of the world.

Like most places in the  U.S.A., Sunday is business as usual.  Except at Chick-fil-A restaurants.   And liquor stores.  (Because we are located in the Bible Belt, after all.)  And now to complete a holy trinity — the earthquake business — which must need its Sabbath rest.  So it can start fresh on Monday.  I suppose.

In spite of several nearby states feeling the effect of the Big One, I forgot it by Sunday morning.  I went out to my garden as I do everyday when it’s not raining.  I forgot about it until I read a blog comment Sunday night.  Then after responding, I forgot it again —   as I sat out of the garden all day Monday waiting for the boo-koos of rain promised by weather forecasters — which for the most part passed us by.

I forgot it until last night’s third shake — what I’m now calling an after-shake — in hopes that this coda completes the rock ‘n roll trinity.

My husband was not here last night to tell me that the weird rattle and earth movement I felt sometime before nine p.m. was an earthquake.  He was out-of-town — tending business, as he has for much of the last month.  But just to let him know I was on top my earthquake game, I fired off an email to him all atwitter, which I labeled “Another Earthquake,” shouting the following text:

“Smaller.  Shorter.  Still Scary.”

Sort of like a tweet without the Twitter.

Last night I consoled myself with laughter by reading a blog post about the twin quakes from The Lost Ogle.   This morning I consoled myself with an admiring glance of my angel watching a still world from my kitchen sink.  But tonight, if another quake comes, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

If Number Four comes — what I will, without affection call the After-After-Shock — I may have to grab my Bible like cousin Deb use to when a twister was coming.  Tell myself it’s only another quake.  Then wonder about the Second Coming.  As I turn to Mark 13  — oh gosh, did it have to be thirteen? — and give it my full attention.

Someday

04 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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Surely the pendulum of autumn is swinging toward winter, as I woke this morning to find my back garden frosty — the first time this fall.

The patio appears bare without orange and lemon trees.  Favored, for sure, since they spent the night indoors with their lime tree cousins.   But those other tropicals of mine?   Well, I left the Tacoma to fend life for itself — unprotected.  While without my husband’s presence, the best I could do for  two hulking Hibiscus was to huddle them together with a few other tender perennials —  invited only because they parked their pots in the right  spot — under layers of great-grandma’s quilts and a paint tarp.

I hope they made it.  Well, most of me hopes they made it.   The pendulum swings back and forth on whether their summer beauty is worth the price of five months in the house looking — well, to be kind —  less than their dress-for-success best.

Meanwhile, on the warm side of the window, I’m waiting inside.   It’s a luxury to do so, to not have to venture out on a cold morning like today  — to  warm-up my car, to dress myself in warm clothes, to wait for the car heater to work its toasty magic — as I did  in my twenties and thirties and more than half my forties.  How many times did I tell myself on those drives into school or work that someday — that someday, I would choose when to go out and stay in — that someday, I wouldn’t  live life to suit other people’s needs and wishes and clocks —  that someday I could keep time and spend it as I chose.

Well, so far, with only two out of three, someday hadn’t arrived in full.   But the rest of my someday will surely follow.

Not today, of course.  Because today I’ve got to move an orange and lemon tree outdoors and I’ve got to lift off the quilts and tarp to see how yesterday’s choices fared.  And I’ve got to spread mulch.  And time permitting, amend soil in the east garden that’s close to being done.

Yep — even though it’s still cold, I need to venture outside and work the garden.

And yep — I sure like  the sounds of hearing ‘someday.’  Why talking about ‘someday’ makes me think I have all the time in the world.  And then some.  In spite of that pendulum swinging toward winter.

Still Life

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

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“And if she did not remember these things who would?  After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life.  She did not even know the whole of it!  Perhaps she should have written some of it down…but really what would have been the point in that?  Everything passed, she would too.  This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with the new clarity, the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.” 
– Evening, by Susan Minot
 

I woke up thinking about last night’s mad dash to post a few October stills while October still had breath in its body.  As if this blog was my very own Pinterest board to remember life with a few little links.

Then as one thought always leads to another, I began thinking about all those October moments — no less important — that passed without an attempt to preserve the moment.  No written words.  No images, published or otherwise, at least in my possession.  Like,

  • last Sunday’s final Moveable Feast for the year, a rare event where every family member sat in attendance,
  • a cute almost 10 month-old Reese Caroline dressed up like a little lamb for her first Halloween, so unhappy in her costume you’d think she was being led to … (no I can’t say it…),
  • the beauty coming forth in the east garden, once a forgotten side yard used to grow weeds and hold leftover stone,
  •  the nine Nellie Stevens hollies planted on Saturday — doesn’t this sound like it belongs as a stanza in the Twelve Days of Christmas?, and
  • my new kitchen finally finished… except that I’ve decided to repaint it all again.

And the list lives on into infinity.

And then I look up to see the morning light casting this lovely November image on the wall — the very one that became header for this post.  Perhaps, I think, it’s a gift for All Saint’s Day to remind me that what we see is not all that’s there?

I reach for my camera to capture it.  To find, with no surprise whatsoever, that it wasn’t at all what I saw, it wasn’t at ALL what I experienced.  Not by half.  Because what I observed was so much better and richer than what I’m able to preserve.

I post a few words and images knowing, even as I write, it’s not necessarily the best of everyday life or even the best of me.  But sometimes, yes sometimes — perhaps when the light is just right, and maybe’s it when I’m most aware of the play of the light and shadows, that a few words are born into the blog that mimic life in the moment enough to breathe shallowly upon the page.

A still image begins to sway and dance so that it’s a trick and treat to the eye.  Mere slats from my window blinds cast shadows on the wall which mysteriously transform into a musical staff; the shadow of curled ironed work of the floor lamp looks like a treble clef; and something — I’m not sure what — maybe leaves on the tree outside my window? — begin to jump up and down the lines looking like musical notes dancing upon staff lines.

The shadow and light become a symphony like this.

And I think: Can life get better than this?  If life is like THIS every moment of every day, then there’s no such thing as an everyday life — at least, as. everyday is commonly thought of — COMMON.  PLAIN JANE.  VANILLA.  Dare I say….BORING?

And because of this mind set, and our own lack of attention — for surely I’m not alone in attention deficits — is it any wonder we can’t know the whole of our lives?