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And In The End
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Oct 16, 2008 5:11 pm
246 Views
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September has come, it is hers
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.
--Louis MacNeice
Wally next door is madly driving his tractor around the back garden; it’s dusk now, so I can hear rather than see him. He’s quite a social creature, in the very nicest of ways, and as the autumn nip creeps into the air his activity becomes frenetic, as if trying to stuff as much interaction into the failing light as possible. Everything must be finished before the snows start.
Word has it that somebody finally bought the house down by the river, the one on Wally’s other side, and I imagine he’s been down to them today, making sure they’re wanting for nothing. He’s like that. Both my house and Wally’s are on the ridge, and the neighbors are on the lower meadow, right by the river, so the tractor comes in handy when visiting. Imagine a giant campground in the old-growth forest. Tall oaks and a floor of many-colored leaves. This neighborhood is Wally’s playground. A better neighbor never existed.
Now that there’s someone in residence down there, I can see lights shining through the trees at night. There is the occasional shadow of movement, and faraway laughter drifts up. I’ve been here almost a year now, and the place has been vacant all that time, so these small subtle movements give the impression of fairy activity, as though perhaps Brian Boru has set up shop. I like the idea.
Kitty’s curtain is going down, friends. I just stopped by to say, see yas all later. Some of you know I’ve already been off doing that witchy work, the autumn pathworking that signifies the end of the year; the virtual equivalent of Wally’s garden cleanup tasks. It’s been eye-opening this year; Pluto’s movements have provided quite a show for all of us who watch the global financial disasters and the choice between Obama and McCain. Will it be the old or the new? Kitty smiles her knowing grin.
At this moment, Pluto is backing up on the bases, requiring us to clean house and rid ourselves of the accumulated detritus of our lifetimes. In response, I’ll be shutting down the FF profile and getting out of town for a while. Nothing too drastic, just a need for movement. I think that's all it is, anyway. Who knows? My virtual house is in order. The smell of adventure is in the air, and it’s more than autumn leaves. I want to smell jet fuel and maybe see some mountains.
And I’m changing. I’m not sure if I’ll be back. Ana knows where to find me. God bless you all, my friends. If this is our last interaction, know that I wish for you the peace that passes understanding and that deepest of joys that comes from being true to yourself.
Love, LadyK
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Planes, Narrowboats and Automobiles
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Aug 14, 2008 4:44 pm
314 Views
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There was an Old Man in a boat,
Who said, 'I'm afloat, I'm afloat!'
When they said, 'No! you ain't!'
He was ready to faint,
That unhappy Old Man in a boat.
--Edward Lear
It was June and I had the best World Tour that I could possibly have planned in front of me: a flying visit to the East Bay, a no-holds-barred graduation party in San Francisco’s North Beach, and a fantasy trip into the heretofore unknown wilds of the UK, land of my forebears.
I had been imagining this day for months. It’s Friday and John’s last exam is finished. Birds are fed, the dog’s had her last pee, and I have a second to catch my breath. The entry hall is piled with suitcases. The house is quiet, the mad rush of cleaning and straightening done. I enjoy the smell of polish and the shine of the floors, the quiet order of it all.
Now picture one of those animated world maps where a little plane takes off and follows the red line across the globe. Plunk! We’re in California.
Middle child Liz is graduating from high school, having spent the final six months of it living in my best friend’s spare bedroom, wrapping up her senior year 2,200 miles from Mom. She did a marvelous job. Her grades were up; she even got a scholarship. At the ceremony, the huge open-air auditorium was crazy with life, a sunny California summer with mad celebrations going on all around us. My heart was full when I saw how many people had gathered for her. All my kids were around me; all their friends, all my friends. Parents of kids who’s young lives were played out in my back yard. People I hadn’t seen for donkey’s years.
That night, we gathered at a twenty-foot-long table running most of the length of Figaro’s in North Beach, the Italian section of San Francisco. Celebrating with Lizzie were old friends, new friends, sisters, dance kids, kids whose pigtails and sunburned grins adorn my picture albums, kids whose first hangovers had been spent crouched in my hall bathroom. Platters of gnocchi and bottles of wine littered the table. Ancient Italian fiddlers are trolling for tips. A sudden commotion starts; half a dozen kids start kicking off their shoes. I laugh and pour another liberal round of wine, waiting for the inevitable. The kids have nabbed the fiddler and heads are bent in quick discussion.. Ties come off and skirts are tucked into waistbands.
For, my friends, reels are the same in every language. The entire restaurant was treated to the impromptu prowess of some of San Francisco’s finest Irish dancers as they leaped and spun like the insanely happy dervishes they were. They were kids out of school for summer, after all. It was magic to see the wonder on their faces. A mighty party it was, a fit celebration for the achievements of my little Liz-Cat, Lizzy Lou, my brown-eyed girl.
Next it was my turn. And about bloody time.
It’s animated-world-map time again. This time the plane’s going East, across North America, across the big ocean, to England. That’s, let me see, three time zones West followed by eight time zones East. (Forget any thoughts that this was simply a good lesson in orienteering; it just shows you how far I’ll go to make sure I have a proper babysitter. In any event, it was enough to give a Kitty vertigo. For real. I still have it!)
Landing in England was a visceral memory, more like I was coming home than visiting a foreign country. It is the home of my DNA and my heritage; the place where six degrees of separation quickly narrow to five, maybe four. (Yeeessssss, I can sense all of you “real” English out there looking down your noses, and if I am very, very quiet I can even hear the harrumphs. Damned Colonials giving themselves airs. Harrumph! Harrumph! However, you simply can’t change facts. Me Gaffer Ollie waved goodbye and took Gammy Becky with him when he sailed with Penn on that last trip to Delaware back in 1683, that’s all. This lot just got born on the wrong shore and grew up talking funny.)
Back in the 21st century, the plane taxied through an overcast morning, green trees surrounding the runway. This is the land of Sir William, Oliver’s ancestor, Keeper of the King’s Privy Purse to Henry VII (that’s a cool title; after reading up on it a bit, it appears he was one of the finance guys). His 500-year-old manor house lies just a couple of hours up the road. His son, Sir Stephen, was Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Sergeant of the Poultry to Henry VIII (I have this picture of him as being one of the king’s valets who also happened to be in charge of the henhouse). It’s their surname that was handed, father to son, right on down to my father, and so on down to me. Skipping down the stairs to join the crowds for Customs, I permitted myself a little Kitty grin.
After a tense exchange with a particularly thick border agent, I’m wondering if she’s going to ship me back to the Colonies. “Address where you’re staying?” “Well, I’m staying on a narrowboat, so there won’t be a fixed address, as such.” “A narrowboat?” (She says this like a narrowboat is a hand grenade. I have this sudden vision of Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served?, dressed up as his own mother and saying “A HANDBAG???”) In the meantime, Brunhilda over here starts looking at me like I’ve got an AK-47 hidden under my shirt. It occurs to me that I’m not going to win this one. There’s an empty box on the form and Brunhilda says I ain’t passing Go until I find something to put in it. I produce the address of the boat-hire company and that’s good enough for her. Whew. I was on my way.
And a bit nervous, too; after all, I’m meeting a man I met online over a year ago. Mark is there as I exit Customs, tall, as handsome as his picture, and the recognition is warm and easy. Ours is an unconventional relationship from the perspective that it continually defies definition; there don’t seem to be any rules, “shoulds” or “have-to’s”. I love how we are the same in person as we have been online. It’s a perfect start: a quick hug and the luggage is stashed in the boot. Before we know it, the adventure has begun.
There are many kinds of boats in the world, but I am convinced that none is quite so satisfying as a narrowboat. They are indigenous to English canals, though they’re no longer made only in England. The traditional style is extremely distinct. The Olson 30 ultralights we used to sail in LA weren’t as long as these, and as they are extraordinarily stable, I don’t get seasick like I do on sailboats. There is something that’s vaguely reminiscent of a gondola, but I think that’s just because both craft are narrow, and the stately cruising on England’s canal network is rather the same speed that you might achieve on a Venetian canal. They are indeed narrow – just 6’ 10” wide. Most of the canals we sailed were just wide enough for one boat to be moored on each side, and for two boats to pass in the middle. Speeds generally don’t exceed 4 mph, and we found, as we learned how to navigate the boat and began to relax into our holiday, that even 4 mph is considered Autobahn speeds to some. “What do you think this is, the bloody M6?” was the snarky comment of one disgruntled homeowner as we motored by in stately dignity. And, I admit that the longer we were out, the slower we went. It is the nature of, well...nature.
A “short” narrowboat is 37’ long, and the longest is perhaps 70’. We were getting ready to moor one evening, enjoying the lengthening shadows, when suddenly we saw a monster 70-footer bearing down on us, plowing through the water at a shattering 5 mph and weaving madly (which could be considered a bad thing when the boat’s longer than the canal is wide). It was a beautiful green model that had clearly been hired for the day, and was being driven by a middle-aged Liverpudlian, dressed to the nines and drunk as a lord. The front deck was draped with his well-oiled buddies, arms slung about shoulders, high jinks underway. As they weaved past us, Guv’ner waves over at me, hat pushed back, tie askew, and shouts, “Where’s the next pub, luv?”
I suddenly saw that six-degrees-of-separation thing in a whole new light.
Below deck, the boats are totally self-contained, from tiny bedrooms and showers to a fully-functional gas cooker. While anything electric is powered by battery (Kitty bravely left her  dryer at home – I know, Balty, it was terrible, I almost broke out in hives), there are HD televisions and surround-sound systems adapted to narrowboat use. We saw narrowboats with solar panels, miniature windmills and satellite dishes; narrowboats with Vespas on them; narrowboats crowned with herb gardens and geraniums, open stern doors revealing marvelous tiny washers and dryers; lace-curtained front doors, potted plants, doormats and garden gnomes.
The countryside was an unending feast for Kitty, who used to consider her library of English children’s books and literature and poetry and history a far more desirable bag of loot than the boring junk that other kids played with. As we sailed, my dreams and memories played havoc with reality. Besides the relaxed population of everyday canal-goers, there were characters out of Edward Lear and countryside out of Wind In The Willows. Bits and sights showed up from Carroll and Barrie, Lewis and Tolkien and Shakespeare. I was in heaven. Mark drove while Kitty got to spend her days standing on the prow with her face in the wind. The wildlife was kin to my own river creatures, tidy brown mallard housewives tending their fluffy young while their green-headed mates petitioned us for leftovers. Swifts and cormorants; herons and swans. Reeds and towpaths and Renoir clouds. English canals are smaller than their American counterparts, which meant that I could see everything marvelously close up. So see I did. I gobbled up the scenery like an apple tart.
As you cruise the canals there are inevitably locks to be navigated to accommodate the rise and fall of the landscape. Coming up on a lock, we would find a place behind the others patiently waiting to get through. Mooring, we would jump to shore and walk up to the lock to see the order of business and get a bit of a stretch. Inevitably, if there was any kind of a queue at all, the boat-bound sheep-dogs and pointers of our fellow sailors would be literally flinging themselves around the shore, bouncing madly up and down in the sheer joy of being free. Spotted dogs, liver dogs, scruffy and smooth; tongues hanging out, eyes sparkling with laughter. Rolling with abandon in the grass to get a good scratch. Plotting their escapes from their Lord and Master. I fell hard for those boat-dogs. Really hard. Like, if-I-ever-go-back-I’ll-have-a-dog hard.
For go back I shall. Next summer’s plot is being hatched already, and I find that I have many more memories than I can possibly attribute to the few days Mark and I shared on the canals. Life was so slow, so peaceful, so utterly far removed from all that we face every day on this planet. I need some of that as part of my life. Every day. Forever and ever, amen.
As I read over this tonight I am filled with memories and affection. A memento of our journey sits on my desk. It was from a tea-shop we visited, a sunny little café that was attached to one of the many drydocks that cater to the boating community. It’s a small brass plaque; as I’m examining the shop wares, Mark brings it over to me, a soft grin on his face. Please Don’t Walk On The Water, it says.
God, I'd love to walk on the water. I'm almost tempted to try. But I think not. Not today.
I'd rather lounge on the foredeck with my imagination in full Technicolor.
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For Ana
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Jul 19, 2008 7:47 pm
Mood: beautiful,
518 Views
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I had an interesting year this year.
First, there was the move across the United States, which was a pretty scary transition. Whoever leaves California eventually learns: You are moving from the land of Anything Goes to the land of Being Responsible. It doesn’t matter what state you move to; it’s always the same.
You all know why I did it – it’s because my kid got to start attending a seriously better school. The family got to trade its million-dollar California postage-stamp property for an idyllic riverfront, complete with soughing oak trees, short jumps off long piers, and sassafras tea.
There’s another piece, one not everyone knows: I came home because my parents were aging. My mom was not going to live long. She died in February of Alzheimer’s, and there is a flower growing on the Thornapple River where we scattered her ashes.
Dad died too, in March, and rather unexpectedly; born in 1920, he had always told us not to expect his death until 2010 or later. As we know it now, life in 2008, regardless of what money can buy, was too much for him.
Sigh.
A lesson to be learned, my friends: money can’t buy you love. Can’t buy you life, either. My dad was wealthy. If he could have bought it, you can bet he’d be alive today. Instead, his ashes now reside in a box, under a marble plaque, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
I went to England this summer, to meet a man I met on a chat site some years ago. We sailed a narrowboat on the Shropshire Union canal. Made endless cups of tea; cooked bangers and mash; sampled fish and chips and mushy peas and bacon-and-egg buttys as we walked Nantwich’s ancient streets, carrier-bags full of sweets and second-hand books. I got home and carefully labeled my circa-1800s map with our trip.
And I was thankful. Added another layer to my life.
We Americans don’t get to do that very often. I savored every bit and remain thankful that I had it.
Ana, please take this lesson with you. We have what we have. There is nothing more. Please love your family, understand the passing of time, and be at peace.
Sorry it's not more profound; but unfortunately, life tends to be scrappy and inelegant.
Full of bug-bites.
Love, LK
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Sploosh.
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Jul 18, 2008 7:38 pm
451 Views
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There is the moment before
Arms akimbo
Moist, warm heat
Dying to know the cool of the water.
There is the moment after
Sploosh.
Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.
Cool popsicle relief
Marvelous
The kisses of fishes.
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Pleasure
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Apr 17, 2008 3:01 pm
611 Views
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Oh my, my friends, how Spring stirs my blood.
I saunter lazily to the refrigerator to splash some chardonnay into my glass, and my eyes sweep the vista that is my green, tree-filled domain. It is Spring, and time for mating. It is such an urgent feeling, and I have received so many lovely winks and smiles and kisses. It makes me pat my head and rub my tummy.
It’s river-down in two weeks. That means they’ll close the upper dam and open the lower, shrinking our river to a trickle. It gives us dam owners a chance to don our hip boots and wade knee-deep in muck for four days. Identify the sunken boats, the rotting logs, the cool slimy mud and things that might menace us during our summer playtime. While the work is hard, and muscles ache, there is also that visceral pleasure of work well done, and pleasures well earned. Feet up, and colors remembered.
It brings to mind a great book by Joanne Harris, the woman who wrote “Chocolat” some years ago. In “The Five Quarters Of The Orange” she wrote of living by the River Seine, and stalking the great fish that lived in the river. This particular fish was a myth; a curse. Of course, she caught the fish and defeated the curse. As all children should. You should read it.
I have not been here long enough to remember any particular fish story, but the simple act of planning for a “river-down” excites my soul. I have bought my hip-boots and assembled my collection of rakes. I had a survey done, and I now know that the north end of my property includes a satisfying stand of trees that sough in the wind and poke twig-fingers at your face when you scrabble through. And when you have pushed through, you find a place to lower down bottles of wine into the cool river and find a burrow for reading in the summer afternoon; while the sun bakes your face and the children splash with pleasure in the crazy sun-shine.
In summer, I’ll return to California to see my daughter graduate. I’ll move on to England to touch base with my love, and return to Michigan to watch the sun set while the children catch bluegills and we lay a linen table with candlesticks and fat cigars, pretending we are in France.
So nice to see you again, mes amis. The best of summer to all of you, and, as Ratty on the riverbank, I will look for you again.
Love, Kitty
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Plagiarism
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Feb 17, 2008 5:34 pm
940 Views
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I was thinking; always a dangerous activity for a kitty.
There are so many meaningless blogs out here; blogs I wouldn't read if God let me quit my job and have all the time in the world.
Yet they're out there.
So I decided I would plagiarize Jake and see what happened.
Sausages.
He he.
LK
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27
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The Road Less Travelled
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Jan 25, 2008 9:14 pm
920 Views
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Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love (give love give love give love.....)
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
-- "Under Pressure" by David Bowie / Queen
Dear Friends,
I have been a bad blogger.
I started by scorching through here in early 2007, pompous California landowner, words tripping on words, as self-indulgent as can be. I blew my entire (figurative) wad on a quintet of really fun pieces; only to end up finding myself facing an unexpected quandary: a life change. And, it’s not just a life change: shit no! I find I’m leaving California and turning my entire life on its ear.
Before I know it, I’ve dismantled my life, finding myself standing in the sunshine, shouting directions for where to put boxes, carefully saving the delicate shards of my relationship, wrapping it in tissue paper, hoping it will survive til a later time, lying it alongside those firm handshakes, those St. Patrick’s Day memories, memories of innocence lost, babies born…empires built, a marriage broken. Mementos of a Mexican seaside, of ozone-flavored sunshine; icy New Zealand lakes and misty Irish fields, all lost…all treasured, all part of my life, all to be packed away for later. Hoping they survive til I get home.
I find myself saying, Pack them all well, for you turn fifty this year, lassie. Pack your youth well, for if you forget it now, you’ll never retrieve it again.
I raced against time in September; painting, carpeting, getting my house ready to sell in record time. I found a house in Michigan. The market turned to shit; I barely stayed ahead of it. I got really, really lucky; somebody bought my house before it even hit the market. Thoughts turned to Michigan: acreage on the river. Swans, ducks, a red-tailed hawk and a house in an oak forest. Cross myself three times and spit on the ground; I was one lucky Kitty. My God, my patron saint, my karma – whatever you call it – was watching over me. Another of my nine lives.
So, imagine this. You’re 49 years old, and suddenly you’re free again. You don’t own a thing; you have your 12-year-old kid at your side, a wad of money in your wallet, a GM Suburban at your disposal, and you are facing the indescribable pleasure of a road trip. California to Michigan, running from your old life to your new….or, is it from your new life to your old?
In the turning of the wheel, who can say?
I worked like a madwoman. I packed bird food, settled cages, shoved tranquilizers down little cat throats. My eighteen-year-old daughter stood on the curb, lip quivering, brown eyes glassy with tears, waving goodbye to her mother and the only life she’s ever known. She’s staying in California; as a privileged, 21st Century American girl, she can do that; she doesn’t accept compromise. It is a different lesson our offspring will learn, and we are no less for not comprehending what they see that we do not. History will judge us.
We left, driving across the Carquinas Bridge, to David Bowie and Queen, singing... (guess) ... Under pressure.
The crossing was a blur; while worth fond memories, it is best because it is over. There was a breathtaking moment outside of Salt Lake City when we turned a corner and a mountain the size of God appeared in the blue morning. The next night we traversed a snowy summit outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, sleet slanting across the headlights as the caravan followed one anothers' tails through the mountainy night. Coming home into Grand Rapids at 5PM on a Monday night; joining the rush hour traffic as though nothing had happened -- as though thirty years had never passed -- giggling madly to myself to be home, home-home-home like ET, home again home again, jiggety-jig.
In the days since then I have sat in my aerie, overlooking the Thornapple River, and counted the swans. My son comes home from school, content in his role as strongman, knowing that the schools are better here, and hence, expectations have raised a notch, but equally content in the knowledge that he has risen to the challenge. He is expected to understand respect; but equally, he is expected to be a son, and to enjoy his youth.
Between the snow and the brilliant sky, I have become intensely color-sensitive again: sky-blue, black trees, white snow, and the occasional red flash of the cardinal, are all I know. Closing my eyes, it is heady stuff. It is quite enough, to know that such rich experiences are what we get in an American life.
How time flies, my friends. And for all the time the journey has taken, how I have needed every minute to know what the road passes by.
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14
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New Year's Eve, Anyone?
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Dec 29, 2007 4:36 pm
817 Views
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Last year, I met a wonderful number of friends online. We met, some might say by accident, in the France room. Any way you look at it, it was quite special. I am thrilled that you are part of my life now.
Back then, I was from California (8hrs GMT). I'm now from Michigan (5hrs GMT). You are from everywhere else in the world.
Will you join me? Shall we bring in 2008 together? It is a fond hope.
Please say yes! While the world hurtles toward Nostradamus' End of the Universe, let's ring in one more year together.
See you in France on December 31!
Love, LadyK
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Night In Three Parts
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Nov 5, 2007 10:56 pm
960 Views
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I.
Across the night, the winds sing, chilled
waiting for no one, they are gone
as a freight train around breathless corners.
II.
I am driving; the highway passes
below me like a smooth grey sheet.
Guarding our passage, sentinel stars
are watching, winking not; it is night.
III.
Alone in my bed, my fingers etch a pattern
of trees on the window; stark
naked silhouettes; the pane is damp and cool.
The hand lies flat against it,
enjoying the cold.
copyright LadyKitty 1977
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Michiganders, Michigeese
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Aug 16, 2007 8:46 pm
1044 Views
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Einstein said that he could never understand it all.....
-- James Taylor, Secret O' Life
I don't know which of you talked to them, but the word-elves are back. They knocked down the door the other night, looking for steak and eggs as though nothing had happened.
Little buggers.
Lots has happened lately; so much that I I officially qualify myself as “breathless”. It is a delightful thought:
First: I’m off to my home state of Michigan tomorrow, to go be a Michigoose again. (If you don’t know what a Michigoose is, Google it). This particular Michigoose is bringing three kids; two my own, one my Liz’ boyfriend.
Second: next week we will a) be Abstaining with my brother the Shakespeare professor, b) driving racecars with my Brother the engineer, c) reliving our Childhood while kayaking down the Thornapple, and d) Dancing with the Irish. In between, it will be e) toasts of Laophraig (Expensive Scottish whiskey that gets you drunk as shit in two thimblefuls) and f) watching Liz run the horses in a true Michigan setting as we cross our booted feet and drink my brothers’ homebrew on the back Forty……
And all in all…….g) a Great few days off.
Jeez, how musical can we be??? I might be Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music.....do re mi fa so la ti......(I can almost hear the refrain....)
God I need this.
Third: I AM A PROUD MAMA. My daughter Liz (see the photo) won her first FIRST as a Champion Irish dancer. This is the equivalent of qualifying for the Olympics.
And before you ask: no, that is NOT a dog on her head.
ISN’T SHE LOVELY? (Isn't she wonderful...)
Fourth: Still grooving. Working too hard. Counting cards with my beloved. Thankful for friends who are willing to seize the day.
All in all, a good weekend. I'm dizzy with possibility and cruising on auto-pilot.
More, more more, when I am landed and grounded.
LadyKitty, signing out.
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