Like a Chapter Book –

This is not an illustrated tale.  It should have been, but we were doing instead of recording it all.  So for those of you who have been sliding by, just looking at the pictures, this will be a disappointment.  For those, however, who tune in for the language (and mayhem) – here is a bit of fodder for the friendship:

Journal entries –

July 10^th:

            I am sitting at my desk, working away on the reclamation of my 2007 photo book, which turned out to be a very satisfactory and expensive editor’s proof – in other words, it taught me a lot about what I have been doing wrong.  I am still doing things wrong, but they are different things now, which I think is a step up.

            And while I am sitting here, I can hear through the wall Tyler Castleton, curse his knuckles, rehearsing a song with April Meservy, just before they record it.  I can’t hear anything but the piano, really – our seven foot Yamaha grand – just the chords and the rhythm.  It’s a moving song, and pirate songwriter as I am, I am hearing a million different melodies to it as he plays – all of them heartbreaking.  So I am listening and editing and tears are running down my face.  Just little ones.

            So I get up to go into the studio—my philosophy is that, if something works, you oughta tell somebody it does—and as I walk in, Tyler is starting to play a tiny bit of “Come Thou Fount,” which I’m thinking must be in the bridge somehow, and which only pulverizes me further.  I talk to Guy in the control room for a second, then dodge into the studio proper – just pop through the door – and because I tear up a little, telling Tyler I like the song, I excuse myself by explaining that M just left three weeks ago, and I am more than usually delicate (I cried at the vet’s Monday, just telling them that I appreciate the fact that they’ve been there for us).  And what does Tyler do?  Oh, he was charming and asked after Murphy and grateful for the praise.  But as I am walking back down the hall, I hear him start into “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.”  And was that even nice?

            Now I’m  trying to mop myself up with copy paper.

July 11, 2008

            Yay, yay, yay.  Another studio note.  This morning, they came and got me to listen to a track and give recommendations on the background harmony lines.  I LOVE this.  I haven’t been in the studio for so long, really – not since the Priddis crash.  But as I sat there, listening to the recorded vocal and offering a number of suggestions, I realized – this is really what I do.  Somehow, at the bottom of all the other things I try, this fitting of one vocal line against another is as fundamental to me as flying should be.

            I remember when my mom taught me about harmony—sitting in the old basement at Mother Jeanne’s dark piano –  long past tuneable, but imbued with the same magic every molecule of that ancient place held – and going over “I Know that My Redeemer Lives,” a heavy, descending line.  Teaching me to sing it, and hold my own against the melody.  It was like taking the weights off my soul.  And it really is like flying: fitting that sound of your voice into all the other frequencies – diving through them, rising in brightness above them, underpinning them with shadow.  Or like a fish, slipping through the water, flashing through dappled light, bound by currents, and yet defying them, seated in the flow, and yet nosing through the threads of it – quickly, fluidly, brightly.

            When I sing in church these days, it’s always from the stand in front, and I have to sing the melody.  It never touches me and frees me – I am just the rod the others play around.  I prefer leaping.  Dancing.  Questioning.  Crossing.

            Shoot.  I gotta sing more.

            I will say this about my life: we sing, our family, and when we have the chance to do it, it is a festival of lights.

July 12, 2008

            This will sound silly, especially if you are a beastless person, but we have animals who embrace us.  Not Skye, who would rather walk between your legs or bark to express his joy at your company.  But Piper – and now, Sully, both of whom get a certain soft look in their eyes, the ears curved gently, elegantly back, and then push their foreheads softly against your chest, and remain very still – only that little pressure, a request that moves your arms to wrap around those dog shoulders, just as gently, and ends in matching stillness.

            And then, Sophie.  Sophie the terrible.  When I feed in the stalls, Sophie is a snake, darting her head over the top rail to snap at Dustin (who is often – but not always –  just minding his own business).  I have heard her teeth meet on air, and knowing that those jaws can bring 300 pounds of pressure on a thumb nail, and that those teeth can rip through horse hide easily, I wonder that I am brave enough to walk among these beasties, and do it every day.

            But it is not that part of Sophie I’m telling—it’s the other side.  The user side.  She doesn’t care for horses, but she loves us.  And yesterday, when Westin came to trim hooves sadly in need, I held Sophie’s lead rope, and we stood back, watching him finishing up Zi’s trim.

            Suddenly, the oddest thing happened.  Suddenly, my arms were full of Sophie’s head.  It had come from behind me, that elegant neck curving around my left shoulder, and the broad, smooth chocolate cheek pressed against my chest.  Again, in stillness.

            She wasn’t looking for treats – that’s Zion’s game.  She wasn’t doing anything.  Just that huge body at my back, and the embrace of that neck, and the stillness of the tucked head.  And again, my arms, almost of their own accord, were wrapped around her head – this is part of what was so odd about it; a horse cannot usually abide having its eyes covered, its head held.  To much danger in the world.  For eyes that are made to see in almost 360 degree vision, voluntary blindness is a great gift.  To me.  Given to me.  Twice.  Two hugs.  Two still silences.

           —-o—-

            This morning, Guy and Cam fetched us some hay.  Such a casual statement for such a frighteningly important thing.  Hay is getting harder to come by: thank you ethanol.  Thank you late, slow spring.  People in some places are selling their horses to anybody who will take them.  (Take them where?)

            But our friend Westin had some hay, and I bought it.  But he doesn’t deliver, which is a problem.  We need some 220 bales to make it through the winter.  The horse trailer can handle maybe 45 at a time.  We may not be farmers, but we have become haulers.

            So Guy and Cam went to Lakeshore to pick up first cutting – not my favorite, but there for us to buy.  They loaded the trailer with those seventy pound bales and brought them home to the barn, where I met them and helped (oh, big help) unload.

            Lorri came, wearing her baby, face out, in a soft carrier.  He was not interested in hay.  He, pacifier still somehow stuck in that mouth, slept through the whole thing.  I have no pictures, of course.  I called Chaz to bring the camera, but she has yet to master a stick, and the only two cars left sport them.  So I have a phone shot only.

            After the unloading, and circling the very local eateries, searching for an exciting breakfast, we ended up at home, making French toast (Guy made it – he does all the significant cooking now), which we took over to Cam and L’s house.  We ate while the Scooter slept.  I ate too much.  I eat more than Guy does.  I wonder why I can’t lose this ten pounds?

            Then Rachel  kidnapped Chaz and me (and Guy came) and off we went to the Farmer’s Market on First south, in the park.  She’d just been and found some wonderful things.  So we went with her and found some wonderful things.  There was a woman who does tie=dyed things, who had some cool Chinese silk scarves with tassels that she had dyed seductively.  The flame one, scarlet and orange yellow, wild but somehow subtle – and fabulous on Rachel.  So, behind her back, we bought it and Guy stuffed it into his pocket.

            There was a little band playing, an old, skinny black guy on guitar, singing “Dock of the Bay,” while the young other guitar player, the one with the surfer-spiked ashy hair, tried to guess which chord was coming next.  And the old guy in the big hat, no look on his face, using one stick on a loose sprung single snare.

            The hippie booth full of driftwood and bead mobiles, redolent of hemp.  The adorable Chinese girl, who with her cute anglo husband, manned a table full of the must utterly delightful and delicate felt sculptures of patisseries and sushi.  The lady with a load of fused glass pendants – one especially nice green one that Rachel bought not even behind my back, and presented to me with shining eyes.  So we were forced to come clean, retrieving the scarf from Guy’s pocket to wrap it around her waist.  No good deed goes unpunished.

            The booths full of exotic breads and home grown corn and raspberries and squash.  At the book binder’s stall, we found a medium sized journal clad in anime golden carp, put together with careful art –  a triumph of one of the world’s oldest and most respectable of professions.  We slurped mango ice sticks, picked over hair bows for Kirsten, browsed through boxes of geodes, bought dangly earrings, effusive with stars.

            I should have taken the camera, I know.  But I didn’t today.  Another day, perhaps. 

            This was a wildly extravagant use of time, and cost us far more than staying safely at home would have done; by now, that closet upstairs might have been pretty thoroughly dismantled.  But then, I would not be wearing this gorgeous piece of fused green glasses, and we’d really have missed the mango.

            Saturday is for chores, you know.  Chores and hay.

            But maybe next week, we’ll go to the market again.