When The Worm Eats The Bird

I have been re-reading my collection of Georgette Heyer novels.  She wrote stories that took place in the Regency period in England (she was English) and they are exactly like reading Jane Austin, only possibly more amusing because her characters engage in more outrageous adventures and her heroes and heroines mix with more colorful characters. 

If you are lucky enough to find copies of her books now they will most likely be masquerading as Harlequin Romances.  I can only assure you that the book covers are most misleading!  There is always a romance in each one but there is no bodice ripping.  None.  No hot sex.  No titillating swelling of body parts.

Philip has read most of the Heyer books in our collection more than once.  That should tell you something.  The writing is fantastic!   

The point of telling you all this, at risk of creating more competition for the rarely found copies of her books, is to say that the colorful language in her books is infectious and all day long I have been waiting for the excuse to use the expression "Touched In The Upper Works" because it is such a wonderful way of saying a person is, uh, you know- MENTAL.  I realized that I wish I had been taking notes as I read so that I could mull over the fineness of these antiquated expressions and dust some off for fresh use.  I believe it is the very richly layered language that makes me want to return to them again and again.

Language is love.  Language is my love.  Words are my perfume.  Everyone curates their own collections of words and it says so much about each of us.  We can learn so much about each other by examining which ones we've collected and to reflect them against the still-life portraits that might be painted of our lives.  Paint and words.  Sometimes paint is as edible as letters and pages. 

One of the main reasons why I never stuck to painting is that if the paints are glossy and rich enough I find myself in extreme danger of licking them off the palate.  The turpentine, as well as the citrus turpentine alternative both smell so intoxicating to me that I find I have brought the little dish to my lips and just in time realize that proper beverages are not poisonous.

I applaud experimentation.  I embrace posing.  I say you should always try a muslin on first before you sew yourself into a costume that doesn't fit you and might leave something raw hanging out of the seams.  Don't commit your soul to a life it can't abide!  Try the shoes before you buy!  Posturing is the trademark of all teens.  It is something that we may laugh at them for and we may find ourselves feeling so superior that we know ourselves so well we don't have to work out who we are and strike fetching poses to see what effect they may have on the atmosphere: electric or sulpheric?  That is the question.

Better to do a whole hell of a lot of posturing as a teen and get all the kinks worked out before adulthood settles in, because posturing adults are far more ridiculous than teens. 

Gardening is releasing the random thoughts I've missed.

What if the worm turns...and eats the bird?  What then?  What would the world become if worms could eat birds all of a sudden?  How much might that alter the entire fabric of life on earth? 

Something is shifting.  You might suggest that things are always shifting.  This is more or less true.  Yet I think there are times in our lives when some grain of sand gets stuck in its course southward between fissures of rocks and keep an entire mountain from collapsing.  A mountain that must collapse in order to create new valleys and new directions of water flow.  Just as the earth needs to be swept clean by fire periodically.  Us humans keep getting in the way.  But when a grain of sand holds back the entire evolution of a person's life (I'm aware of freely mixing the figurative with the literal- call it a constant internal arm wrestle) then everything stops.

Like constipation.

What if your life has been stopped up for years? 

A close friend of mine recently made a comment about my bad luck.  She said that if anyone was going to break a bone, of course it's going to be me.  I see what she means.  I do.  Calamity seems to be my clinging shadow.

I'm not feeling my misfortune.  I mean, I did feel it for the past few years, but not now.  Everything has felt so impossible.  Like I could drink a river and still be thirsty because something fundamental was wrong with every organ in my body.  It's not wrong anymore.  The grain of sand has shifted.  It has ground down or slipped into the next frame; whatever a grain of sand must do when the overbearing pressure of necessary evolution settles in for the long kill. 

All of a sudden there is flow again.  The air is moving.  The house is getting cleaner.  I'm still feeling edges of the depression that stays with me always, at least in the wings, because it is my brain, it is my body, and unless I can rip it from my skull it will be what it is.  But when everything is flowing there are more good days and better sleep.  More balance.

You know we're hanging onto what we have left with all our might even though there are mere threads anchoring us to what we are building here.  We have no credit cards.  When the money is gone each pay period, it's gone.  No savings.  When the car breaks it's doubtful we'll be able to pay to fix it.  If our health fails it will be just one more tangle.  We have no health insurance and no credit.  It's like free-falling into the future.  In a way it feels more free too.

I admit that no matter how much I tell myself to feel otherwise- I am frightened of losing this house and the garden that is finally taking shape and filling out.  I am frightened of losing the paying job I have that I really enjoy.  I am frightened that being happy will, once again, signal the evil eye of the universe to punish me.  Punish me for being happy.  I am scared of everything coming dreadfully unraveled around us. 

What I've learned through my calamitous existence, is that when all the rubble settles, when the mountains fall, I will still be here like a cockroach if it isn't my time to go yet and I have no control over all of that.  What I can control is how I use my time and find my happiness in the present.  I will keep rebuilding Rome no matter how many times it falls.  If I lose this house, this flock of hens, this city, this job, this pair of pants...

I've rebuilt myself and my home and my garden many times.  I may feel I'm getting too old to do it again after this, but if I find myself cut loose again I will build again.  It's my nature.  Through fire*, flood**, and drought I will keep resurfacing, re-igniting. 

This week I rediscovered what it feels like to read an engrossing story on a quiet warm afternoon with no one around.  It was like learning to laugh for the first time after death.





*Literally.  It was a doozie of a fire too!
**Many little floods.  Never had to evacuate my house in a boat though.