The Furious Spinner

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. It's twenty-six years to the day that we met at a writing workshop in East Lansing, Michigan. It was a hot summer day as nineteen of us gathered in a basement room, the men on one side, the women on the other. Mario came over to where I was with two other women to introduce himself. He brought Bill, his suite mate in the dorms on the sixth floor of Owen Hall where our whole group stayed. It was a six week workshop that changed my life. Now here we are twenty-six years later. Me and my sweetheart. I am grateful for every minute, hour, day, month, year I have had with this man.



I spent part of yesterday with Linda after going to a work meeting in Vancouver, dropping Mario off at his acupuncture appointment in Lake Oswego, and shopping in Portland. In other words, a lot of running around. I sat with Linda and the dogs outside as the sun was going down; then I made her a light dinner and sat in the living room with her after she took her shot. (She finally convinced her doctor to let her try something to get her calcium down. The doc kept saying, "I don't think we can get it down this time." What a stupid and insensitive thing to say. And Linda shouldn't have had to convince the doc of anything. It's up to Linda to decide when she doesn't want any more treatment, not the docs.) I stayed until she was ready to sleep. I called the dogs in, kissed Linda good night, turned off the lights, and left. I drove down Berge Road toward the SR14, turned a corner, and there the sliver of the new moon hung in the sky, like an earring dangling from the ear of the goddess of night. I stopped the car and stared in awe. Couldn't wait to get home and show Mario. I led him outside up by the Old Oak and we tried to track down the seductive sky jewelry: We found only a bit of it. But it was fun trying.

Last night before I went to sleep I talked to every Visible and Invisible I could think of, begging for a good night's sleep. It had been two or three weeks of three to five hours of sleep a night. I needed a rest. It worked. I got seven and a half hours of sleep.

I decided to take the day off. I got up and made an offering to the faeries and bees: A little chocolate milk and honey. (See pic) Then I adored the poppies.



My day off lasted about two minutes. I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon making stock flower essences from my mother flower essences to send off to the faery doctoring crew.

After lunch I mailed out some of the Church of the Old Mermaids flower essences. Then I drove to Sams-Walker park, which is near where I used to live, to make flower essences. I shouldered my two bags and started down the path. Just then a great blue heron flew over me, low. It flew around one more time, then disappeared in the trees. It seems whenever I make flower essences birds show up: bald eagles, crows, great blue herons.

I made flower essences of bleeding hearts, bird's-foot trefoil, self heal, lupine, knapweed, yarrow, and mullein. The mosquitoes tried to eat me alive; the sun tried to blister me. But I talked to the flowers anyway. Such fun. Two young mermaids stopped by, hair wet, in black bathing suits. They asked me what I was doing. "Making flower essences," I said. "I'm hanging out with the flowers and the fairies." "Cool," they said. And went on their way.

Mario and I had pizza for dinner. Watched a couple bad movies. I took Mario out to a pond just off SR14. The water lilies had closed up, but dragonflies still flitted about, snatching bugs from the air. Suppertime.

Time to get off this computer. Have a good night.

May You Love in Beauty!

Bird's foot trefoil


Knapweed


Mullein
7 comments

7 Comments:

Happy anniversary to you and Mario, Kim. You are special people.

May you have another good night's sleep. I'm still waiting for one this week!!
Vickie

By  Anonymous, at 10:39 PM  

Congrats on the silver! Ours is coming up this year, too.

By  Will Shetterly, at 10:52 PM  

Thanks, Vickie. Now get some sleep, love. Anything I can do to help?

Thanks, Will! Hugs to Emma and congratulations. Seems like it was yesterday and a million years ago.

By  Kim Antieau, at 11:02 PM  

Congratulations to you both! I wish you many more happy and joyous times together.

Making flower essences sounds like such fun - wish I could join you in body,but spirit will have to do!

Hugs Susan

By  Susan, at 11:45 PM  

You and Mario are such tender lovers, best friends, writing colleagues and kindred spirits. I celebrate that day 26 years ago that the gracious Universe/Goddess/Whatever brought you together.

And special thanks for another series of delicious flower portraits! After seeing your most recent photos and then receiving info from you about your camera, I've decided to treat myself and my blog readers to photos, hopefully, like yours. As soon as the brand new Pentax K100D camera comes into the stores--they say in July--I'm buying it. That is if my not-so-agile fingers can manage the controls. Thanks so much for leading me down this new creative path...

much love
Patricia

By  Patricia, at 8:53 AM  

Thanks Susan and Patricia. (Is that Susan in Belgium?) Patricia, I saw the yellow flower on your website tonight. Just lovely! You've got the eye. We're all flower maidens. Or flower maids. Flower mermaids? Wait, Steve took some great flower pics, too. Flower men? Ah heck. In Church of the Old Mermaids even the boys and men were Sister So and So Mermaid, and they were honored to be so named. So?

Oooh, a Pentax K100D. You'll be way more modern than I am! Can't wait.

By  Kim Antieau, at 10:26 PM  

Yes, that Susan...happy day!

By  S in B, at 2:53 AM  

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