August 12, 2008

10:34 a.m.

Movers

A slight sore throat has come to visit. I've been having to sleep with a fan on in my room, and sometimes long drafts end up irritating my throat. Fortunately I just ordered Sambucol along with some other supplements, and it's worked very well for me in the past as an antiviral and general knocker-outer of creeping coldy type things. I hadn't been able to get it for a while, and now it tastes slightly different, less syrupy. I wonder if they changed the formula somehow. Anyway last night was the first night I didn't have to have the fan, and the apartment is very comfortable now.

The cool morning is turning into warm, and my jasmine is throwing out so many new shoots I know it's going to come back. I lost about half of it while I was away; it didn't get watered enough for the July heat. It loves me, though. My poor orchid that lost all its leaves has put out tentative new ones, and I just noticed that one nub has disintegrated already and there are lots of little bugs in it. I've lost it, I'm afraid. I'll have to put it outside to fend for itself and fade. I think I already repotted this one and cleaned it up, so I don't know what else I can do except spray it a bit and hope for a miracle.

Once in a while, one doesn't make it.

********

At my new house I will plant crocuses. My sister has always had crocuses; they're not only harbingers of Spring, but symbols to me of home ownership and belonging. When I have crocuses, I'll know I have arrived! There will also be lilacs, as Dar loves them best of all, and we have some years gone to see the lilacs in bloom in Boston. We have many photos of each of us, mashing our faces into huge bunches of blossoms. The first year I'd gotten him one of those Polaroid cameras that take the tiny sticker pictures, and we went mad taking mouse-sized photos of us everywhere. I put them in a very small album. One day we'll be sitting around, all old and settled, looking at these things laughing our asses off at what queer birds we were.

I'd also like to have a Dogwood tree. The color varieties are so subtle, and they all look antique to me, like they're not really in this time but coming through a filter from an earlier century.

I know this is weird to say, but I love getting older! I know it's inconvenient, and scary, and involves a lot of letting go. But right now changes feel good and necessary and it's knowing that changes are happening, big ones, that is getting me through these times. I need these changes. There has been too much same. If I have had multiple lifetimes, this is probably the longest I've lived so far. It's possible I'm approaching 50 for the first time. What a gift.

********

It must be in the air, because our dear friends in Texas are going through big changes, too. Jonnie is moving to Albuquerque. The band told me this and I have not talked to J. yet, but we know she's been trying to plan a move for a long time. The air in Austin is killing her. She gets debilitating asthma and lung infections that put her in bed for weeks. She wants to be nearer to family, and it looks like Albuquerque is the place they can gather. She says she'll come back to Austin for a long weekend a month, so she and Calvin will still be together. That may just be transitional, but then, I wouldn't put anything past them. Maybe they'll pull it off. They're not conventional people.

And Calvin is firmly ensconced in the house of his dreams, on which he continues to work, in the city he loves. So there's no option of him going anywhere.

She said they'd definitely do our house concert this November, maybe 2 nights this time. We make a boatload of money there. It's sad to think our playing days there might be over soon, though. How things change; venues change, tours change. We used to go to Florida and make a killing. Now one short tour a year is about all we can book, what with things closing down and the house concert market so shifty.

And I say all these things and look around at my terribly messy kitchen table (it's become the office, again) and know that I have to clean it up in order to think straight, and I need to rehearse a lot before Thursday. That means today, as I'm going to see Dar tomorrow. I try to embrace my disorganization even as I try to get myself to clean it up. All these little scraps of paper. Unfiled bills. Receipts. Magazines I can't decide to read or throw away. The huge bag of paper and cardboard recycling that must be sorted. I begin to think about it all and then get overwhelmed, and look out the window instead. Then I go to Diaryland hoping for something illuminating. Voila! An hour has passed! Well done.

But now it's time to take the book covers out of the press and do some stitching. I'm feeling very cozy in my Salvation Army pants, which I washed and hemmed.