Injuns

No such thing as an Indian or a Native American. Why can’t we learn the correct term and use it? Indigenous was a term I wasn’t familiar with at all until the last few years or at least as it refers to the people who have always lived here before the Colonial periods. If you grew up when I did, they were injuns, they all rode horses and wore feathers. Another fact is that the motion picture industry was born to record the wild shenanigans of injuns. Of course they were silent movies and so one could interject their own personal beliefs instead of actually hearing a voice. There is much said today about how we dishonor tribes by using their names. Our major prejudices are in fact centered around the fact that we continue to give them no voice. Hollywood continues to speak for them instead of to them. Hey, they are humans and we shit on them way worse than we shit on people from Africa. But who is counting? After all there is no winner.  See below for a great eye opener of a film!

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/reel-injun/#.XxWTHeEDz7Q.email

 

I will answer….

What puts the fear of God in us?

We all have a fear of the unknown and so we all fear death. Isn’t that what really motivates us when we seek out religion. That which will deliver us from our “sins” and losing our soul to the devil. But basically all the teachers, Jesus, Buddha, Tao Tzu, Muhammad, Brahma and more represent peace, love and happiness. It is the dogma that has followed up making unfounded predictions to the demise of us and our souls, that if we are honest makes us live our life in fear, has caused wars, enslavement, poverty and continues to warrant burning down and destroying houses of worship and artifacts that have no magical properties. Our soul remains untouched by these outrageous predictions because even though our brain functions affected  by outside sources, our soul operates on the free will that only humans possess. Although, on the outside you may quote Bible scripture that backs up the rapture, in your own heart, there where no one is watching, you question the validity of the dogma. The truth is none of us know what happens when we die.  It is unknown. Through living we experience good and evil and because we have that free will we have the knowledge to choose. Yes, just like the Bible says. We also have a conscious to guide us and help us live our best life like the Buddha suggests. The Bahagavad Gita helps with soul connection and the divine and promotes an ongoing, living work that is never unfinished much like the Tao. Meditation prepares us for the day our soul leaves the body. So no matter when that is and whether the whole earth is destroyed and we all leave at the same time or one by one, isn’t it best to give less thought about death and follow the pure path of your heart while living?

Tucker

Oh for the love of a black pony I would give away all the riches in the world. To have lost that love, although very very sad, is better than never having loved him ever. I once knew a black pony when I was a little cowgirl who was as mean as a striped snake. He did not belong to me, but Mike, his owner and I spent hours trying to catch him. It was when he started chasing us that it became a little dangerous, well at least as far as parents were concerned. My horse also had to be chased but at least he was trickable and with a little grain or a goodie in hand, I could snag him. That bad black pony left a bad taste in my mouth for ponies and especially black ones. Tucker changed all of that. He was a previous pony-go-round pony. No doubt he was probably whipped into submission so he could carry little scared children around and around in circles. I don’t know that for sure. He could have been born being non-agressive. But experience has taught me any equine over 25 years old was trained in the old horsemen’s horse whispering way, which meant they were literally broke. Tucker, we believe was around 30. When I met him, he was wandering around a working horse farm, and was only used for little kid party’s where he was painted and glittered up and sometimes saddled up for another circle ride. Oh don’t get me wrong, he loved it. But I always felt he longed for a little more attention. Later, he was taken to another farm, more a less a rescue at that point, where I boarded my 2 horses. By the time I could move my boys back home, I lost my quarter horse to a very bad infection. My Rebel was alone and Tucker matched my Bobo. Rebel took to him right away. In fact it was eerie that Tucker had the same snip on his nose and once white foot just like Bobo. They were best buds and then along game Lance, the former carriage boy. Their days were spent chasing each other around trying to prove who was more manly. So to give Tucker some relief I took him out of the pasture and put him into the yard, a big yard, enough that he could eat a little grass and be happy. He was the best yard pony and joy to my girls, who loved to brush and pet him. We put a saddle on him and he stood like a statue, not wanting to go in that circle again. Most of the time the girls just got on his back for a minute and rode him around. Not once did he ever offer to step on them, spook, or bite at them. He endured and enjoyed everything they dished out, all 4 of my grand girls. We have not told them yet of his passing. They are on vacation and so their mother and I have time to decide how to do that. We thought about saying he simply disappeared. Not far from the truth because somehow I can imagine the look on his face as he sprouts wings and flies away to find that much touted “rainbow bridge.” Wherever he is, Tucker will always be that black pony that changed my mind about ponies forever. May you rest in peace my little friend. Tucker,

Born sometime thirty something years ago – Died May 27, 2020.

Coronaville Isolation

Watching the forest come alive this morning as a hawk is being severely harassed by squirrels and small finches. He is after the young ones, I think. The squirrels sound like mothers barking at a stranger about to harm their children. The finch is dive bombing the hawk’s head, brave little mom. So goes my newly revived appreciation of nature during our pandemic isolation.

I am reminded of the time our family decided to camp on our property in North Georgia for a week. There was nothing there but woods, a stream, a driveway and a long abandoned giant satellite dish. The previous owners must have installed it before electricity and then left it to ruin. They wanted their tv before lights, water or a place to do their business. Then I am guessing they ran out of money because nothing else was cleared except for a few paths down to the stream.

Leon was an excellent camper and in fact stayed outside even at our home. His fires were perfect, he could set up a rainproof tent, and he could cook in an iron skillet. So Erin and I placed our confidence in him that it would be fun and an adventure to camp there. We had camped many times but there were a few things we failed to take into consideration about this particular camping trip. That was the afore mentioned lack of amenities. We had camped before where sites were set up with water, electricity and a beautiful clean concrete building with while porcelain thrones. Oh, and there was always either a pool or a spring to swim in.

First of all, we had to bring EVERYTHING. I felt like I was moving into an apartment. The very first night it rained like crazy complete with thunder and lightening, so no sleep.  We were dry, almost…. until the tent started to collapse under the newly formed stream.  The next morning Leon fixed the tent but he couldn’t fix us. Erin refused to use our makeshift bucket toilet so I had to take her to the Racetrac that was thirty minutes in both directions. Well that did take up at least an hour of the day but what could we do for the remaining 23?

There is that initial shock. I am stuck here so what can I do? What are things that I have put off because of lack of time. At home, you clean. At camp, you set things up and rearrange them over and over.

Next you want to go buy things. At home during a pandemic, you are not supposed to unless they are necessities. What are necessities? Things to make your life better. At camp, same things …. a hammock, new lamps, magazines (we didn’t have internet).

Then you settle in and start to look around at the beauty that surrounds you. At camp, you stare at the stars at night and watch for lightning bugs. We did things like play cards together, tell stories and we went to bed right after dark. We all slept side by side. During this isolation, when I am alone, I think about those memories and more. How they make up who I actually am.

Eventually, while camping you contemplate the universe. No different, when you are isolated by a pandemic.

Finally, there is the peace that just sweeps over you in either situation, camping or pandemic isolation. You are ready to leave but you will take with you a new feeling that no matter how much longer this earth survives with the people living here, it will be like the water that flows, the flower that grows and the wind that blows. It just does and so will you.

We left our land with a new sense of gratitude for the experience we gained in living our lives isolated in a forest. Today I too am grateful for my own personal step back away from the stress brought on by just being. If nothing else this isolation has given me a renewed sense of the order of the earth much like that little family camping trip did so many years ago. I hear the woodpecker ‘s busy drilling, the buzzing of the dirt dobbers and the chatter of the birds, and I know we are all as we should be.

Boomer Lag

The thing about being “elderly” is you get lumped up with all the axholes. You know everyone who is past 30 is not the same, just like everyone below 30 is not the same. People have become so narrow minded as of late and still make the claim they want to “embrace” the diversity of the world’s humans. Yeah, embrace it as long as its fits into that little self-righteous box they build for themselves. Have you ever talked to a Gen Alpha? Watch out world! They came in with attitude and aptitude and they are going to take away your gen x and millennial social security checks.

Just before daytime

Just before daytime takes over, before the timer knows there is the natural light coming and the night lights remain, there is that hole you can slip into. The one where the spirits linger and the unknown is known. Today that time is procrastinating  because of a rain storm that is moving in like a great windshield wiper toward where I sit on my porch. The delay is known to all the creatures who chirp, scurry and sing. The warm humidity will give way to the wind and the thunder. I can hear it coming and we can all feel it. Just as it should be, just before daytime.

 

 

Waldonish

During these trying times, that I am beginning to selfishly enjoy, I am feeling a little Waldonish as in Thoreau-ish as I am enjoying living in my tiny speck of woods. Transendental thoughts creeping into my empty head. So much nature and yes I do feel “at one”. Every day my explorations make me ponder, no doubt Thoreau pondered, about the fact that we live with so many tiny creatures that we never even notice unless we happen to be sequestered by our government that pretends they don’t want us to die.  Like right now. For instance, in the horse’s water trough that I refill daily there are these tiny little black swimming bugs. Where do they come from? And why live in a temporary small green water bucket when a much better choice would be the crick down the road. Obviously they are brainless. Much like some of the current media I listen to daily during this “crisis”. Yeah, I have something crawl across the road daily in front of me on my walks. Today a poor old snake didn’t make it and was being eaten by a fat bug. Such is life, sometimes you have to take the change and cross that road anyway. Thoreau didn’t have paved roads or electricity for that matter or beer, or Jimmy Buffet broadcasting endlessly on the Alexa Robo, or deliciously cooked meals or maybe he did. Like Thoreau I have no one to share them with. That part sucks but everything else is like living in some kind of weird horror movie when you just keep waiting for things to get bad, but they never really do! The Corona 4/10/2020. (Not the beer)

Fall Out

One day your eyebrows fall out. It’s a slow process just like the rest of your hair. I think they may be the last to go though. I’m only saying this because no one ever told me this. Not my Mama, my grannie, my auntie, no they all obsessed over their bowels,  but that’s another story. Why didn’t one of them just sit me down and say, “One day you will no longer need to tweeze.” Or, “one day you will no longer need a bikini wax.” Oh yeah, guess because they didn’t wear them.

I come from a long line of stunningly beautiful women. Then they go thru menopause and somewhere past that process, well, we all turn ugly on the outside and very beautiful on the inside. At some point, we stop thinking with our Va-j-js. I can’t name a particular point of age because I think it occurs later for some of us. Mary, my mom stopped in her forties and I couldn’t understand why she never re-married after my Dad died.  Oh now I get it. It just occurred somewhat later with me. Let’s say maybe I yo yo’d back and forth.  It sort of coincides with no more cat calls from men. I know, they don’t do that any more. But secretly we Boomers wish they still did. I only say that in defense of men because now they have to channel that energy (when they only think with their man parts) into something else. Some of it good, like building shelves, some of it kind of pathetic, like getting addicting to porn.

But about the time your eyebrows start falling out, you realize you feel like you are about eight years old, if you are healthy that is. You are no longer obsessed (and I speak only from my genetic line) with finding “the right man.” You sleep like a big X in your bed. You eat whatever and whenever you want. You have complete control over the thermostat. Having a conversation with a young man is wonderful and you no longer think, “am I too old for him.” The only difference between you and your eight-year old self is that you can’t stop giving people advice.  Why? Because you want them to know so badly that their eyebrows will some day fall out!!

 

What is our library’s purpose?

I have not paid much attention to our library lately. I read almost everything online and so do my grandgirls. I tried taking all four of them once. You could see the look of dread on the kid librarian’s face when this rowdy bunch walked and a look of relief when they left. I used to check-out big picture books that I normally would never buy and also big thick history books just digging for anything realistic about Florida. Last weekend I went in search of other books that I knew I might not read to the very end and didn’t want to waste the purchase. All classics, all by females, and some of them sort of controversial back in the day. To my surprise, there was nothing to be found but big books with bright shiny new covers. Pretty books and they were selling them! Yes, our library sells books, but very few old ones and no classics. Now I admit, I did not spend time looking for Emerson, Walden, Melville because I was on a mission. My mission was to find female authors. My list was created from an ad for a presentation to be held at the Lightner Museum, the creative St. Augustine Lecture Series featuring Betty Jean Steinshouer, Scribbling Women in Florida. Several of these authors frequented St. A, according to Steinshouer. It’s a pretty long list. I found only one book by only one of the authors, Zora Neale Hurston. No books by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, Elizabeth Bishop, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Rachel Carson, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Marjorie K Rawlings, Sarah Orne Jewett. I also looked for Willa Cather and Edith Wharton because Steinshouer mentioned them also. Nothing! Our library has been reduced to selling cheap books, holding seminars of some sort, and scowling at unruly children in the kid’s library.

Tillie Holmes

Today I am reminded of my Ggrandmother Tillie. I never knew her but as I look at her photo that I found on ancestry.com, I feel and see the connection. Her features are on the faces of my children and their children. Although she looks more fragile because girls have become more resilient and tough now, I see a firey spark in her eyes just like my mother’s. I see a strong squarish chin like my daughters. Her red hair has not shown up anywhere yet. But the strong Jackson gene of dark hair and black eyes probably overshadowed her Irish red. The photo can only reveal a tiny part of the personality and the rest is left to my imagination. It is through my little tribe that I feel her strong traits are still with us.