Dab Float Flick Wring Press Slash Glide Punch

Happy Marching into who knows what's next. To start my day yesterday I moved through my space using Laban's eight efforts to the sounds of The Juju Orchestra, and then I read half of a collection of short stories by George Saunders, Liberation Day. Laundry tumbled in the dryer, then was folded, we went for a walk, groceries were purchased and put away for the week. In short, we had the sort of day we take for granted. The kind I worry are numbered.

This weekend I attended a funeral. I had to switch over my pocketbooks, and in the changeover I went with a bag that had my slide whistle tucked inside one of the compartments. You never know when a slide whistle may be needed. The two hour trip to the funeral was a trip back in time, a homecoming, and all day feeling of deep and abiding love. I cried slide whistle tears most of the day. I ate two of the most delicious pierogie served to me by a classmate of my sister's, talked to my former school bus driver (he's been driving a bus for 49 years!), shared theatre stories with family friends, and heard the most moving love story. I stood in the wind high up on the hill in the cemetery, with my ear covered as the snow spit sideways, wishing I'd worn my winter coat, feeling once again, underprepared, but with a slide whistle.

The funeral felt like a hug from the friend who died. His last words to me when I saw him two weeks ago were, "It's going to be ok." I want to believe him. I'm trying. His ability to make others feel good, to lift others up and build community was so strong it ripples out still after his death.

How can we know anything?  We don't. We can't. There's faith. Hope. People doing small acts of good in a world full of muck and mire. 

This morning my car won't start. A dead battery. I craned around to see if there were jumper cables in the back seat. Nope. But there's a pool noodle, for keening.

Unrelated and Related Fragments About Ownership

Everyone has hauled out their holiday decor overnight, and now each home dances with projected snowflakes, or an inflatable chicken dressed as Santa bobs in the wind by their front door. Yesterday I found myself in the wonderblitz of Target, considering lights. You can buy them by strings of 200, coiled on large plastic spools, for $28 each. I'd need at least three to cover the tree by the barn. That's a lot of money for something that is impermanent. I decided to not buy anything for the holiday and dig around in the attic when the mood strikes. Then I bought thirteen dollars worth of toilet paper and left, but not before taking a slow stroll through the makeup to ask myself, "Do I care about this anymore, either?" The answer was no. I do not, but part of me wants to. The sparkly part.

I tested negative for Covid yesterday morning. It's been a long two weeks of feeling taken over. I'm still coughing and tire easily, and toothpaste tastes fusty instead of minty. When no extra line appeared on my test I had the impulse to call my mother to share the good news. She would wonder what I'm talking about, gone long enough to have never heard the word "Covid." 

When I was unpacking the toilet paper, I noticed a man was standing by our newly sorted shed, his red umbrella popped like a mushroom in the rain. I pointed him out to Dan, then I saw the man punch numbers into his phone, and Dan got a call. For the next few minutes Dan politely explained that the shop is closed for the season, and yes that information is on the website, and today is Sunday, we live here, we're closed. It is obvious we are closed. The property is under a good deal of construction with a path being replaced by the house, so there are pallet piles, large stones, and heavy equipment in the driveway. The barn is closed, the farmstand is zipped up. There are no signs saying we are open. But this man was insistent in his need to shop, to browse, to consume. When I saw his wife step out of our shed, I was stunned. Who just stands in a total stranger's shed as if it is a bus stop? They sat in their car and kept Dan on the phone with questions for a long while, saying they would place an online order and then Dan could bring it out. Then they spent more time browsing on their phone, and must have decided that it was just too much to bear. They left without any announcement or fanfare. In spite of my frustration with people who act this way, the hostess in me hopes they noticed the charming ducks, dibbling in the mud by the pond.

I looked up William the Conquerer to read about him right before I fell asleep, just because his name popped up in my head like a real estate ad while I was walking down the hallway to the bedroom. I didn't realize he ordered the compilation of the Domesday book, a survey listing all the land-holdings in England along with their pre-Conquest and current holders. Adelina Joculatrix is listed in the Domesday book. She was a jester and owned land, unusual for women. I wonder if anyone ever showed up in her shed, demanding to be entertained. I wonder if she kept ducks.

Since Your Death

A found poem from signage read on the PA Turnpike between the Quakertown and Wilkes-Barre exits

Fallen rocks
Falling rocks
Fallen
Fallen
Fallen rocks
Fallen
Fallen
Falling rocks
Fallen
Falling
Fallen
Fallen
Fallen
Fallen
Fallen