Birthday post aka Things I am grateful to have in my life (1) Haylee

 

Haylee came into my life in 2007. I still remember the first time I saw her. I didn't know at the time, she was only 17 years old, though she would be 18 in October. I also didn't know she was pregnant with my first grandchild. We had a mixed beginning but during that time, I learned a lot about myself, her, girls, what I thought was life and what was really life. It made me a better person and I will always look back on that time as a period of great growth and understanding of the world. Haylee came into my life when my parents were also leaving this world. I saw old things falling away, things I held dear, I felt great loss and chaos. It was chaos for Haylee too. At 18 she would have her first baby and be living in a very troubling situation. That's just too young but so many girls experience this. And I felt it. I understood it. It humbled me. It reminded me of my youth. It reminded me of how we change in life but how we are always part of our past selves.

Haylee is beautiful, not only on the outside but the inside. She loves with her whole heart. She's been my best friend for so long now. And I see myself in her, and I also see myself through the lens of her own view. 

On my birthday, I promised myself to be thankful for people this year, to be happy that I was having another birthday and was healthy enough to enjoy it both physically and mentally, because that hasn't always been the case in the last six years. Haylee's presence in my life is the gift. That I know her and she loves me.

🔴 Paramore: Decode [LIVE IN JAPAN 2009 | SUMMER SONIC] 🔴

The Ambitious Fairy Project Soundtrack 2022

This song was chosen for the lines, "How did we get here, I used to know you so well? How did we get here, I think I know."

There are moments in our life when we wake up and just wonder how in the hell did we get here. This is the performance I love, too. It is also about waking up one day and seeing someone differently. Not in the pathology sense that some people do. There are people who fall desperately in love or have relationships and because they are people with black/white thinking, they are always going to fall out of love soon or destroy the relationship. This song is not about that. This is about personal growth and maturity and seeing someone through that growth. Seeing your own feelings that way. You know. You just know.

All May has been about writing and gardening, the latter overwhelming.

 I have lots of pots to fill. Today I made a Home Depot run, bought sage, lavenders, ferns, caladiums, and 3 flats of vinca. I have sweet potato vines, creeping jenny, lantana, bee balm, and hardy hibiscus to put out, too. All this I am going to finish this week and fill up my pots. I will be putting out zinnia seeds, too. I am very fond of  zinnias. The large plant here is a rose mallow and it's in trouble already. Something is eating on it, so tomorrow I will spray. Very frustrating. It's a beautiful plant and I have rooted two new ones. I suppose one could say that gardening is often filled with disappointments. Plants die. One is always fighting nature to grow a simple flower. It has rained too much, which has given the insects a head start and good environment to thrive in because I can't spray my bug repellant in the rain. I also can't plant either. And it's very muddy right now. I'll have to plant pots first and let the ground dry for some other plants, phlox, coneflowers, jasmine and yes, creeping jenny.

So I have been writing a lot while it rains, taken advantage of the fact that I cannot walk or plant in the garden. I can't even paint the deck.

Overall, I am pleased with both the writing and the garden. I've worked hard. I've been listening to Placebo and even have been making notes for the essays. The only time I took a break the last two weeks was to post some Placebo songs on the blog and to watch Stranger Things, Season 3 because Season 4 dropped today on Netflix. I like Stranger Things. It's so 80s and I love 80s anything. I have been active on Twitter, too. Facebook not so much. Mostly looking at what other people post. Watched a lot of films people recommended. Finished a big history book on the 20th century, more on the book later. I loved it. But it was depressing. lol

But May has been about writing and gardening. It's one of the most productive months I have had this year. And I've been really in the flow and able to do all the things I wanted, even here on the blog. 

Other notes. Ben, Chelsea and Lydia are in the UK today. They will spend a week in England. Then move on to Italy for the rest of their vacation, ending in Pompeii. Jack had to run all kinds of errands today so I didn't get to see him but he called and we talked two hours. It was cold when I went to Home Depot this morning. Warming up soon. Haylee and I need to plot a trip to the zoo in Memphis. Joey told me he would come Sunday and spend the day and night with me and leave Monday afternoon. I imagine we will go see a movie and cook on the grill. It's a birthday thing for me. 

My birthday is June 1st. I will take another birthday photo. Smiling. None from last year, since I was really ill and Laverne was here and we were all so depressed over Lana's death, May 24. Not even cake.

This year I am having cake. 

Placebo songs off the new album, Never Let Me Go,  I have made notes on:

Happy Birthday in the Sky.

This Is What You Wanted.

Forever Chemicals.

Perfectly dystopian album full of despair and anger. But mostly just sad. Very sad. For all sorts of reasons. I hope it was cathartic for Molko. Damn.

"Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat, Standing" (1911)

 

Acanthus Moroccan Landscape 1912 by Matisse.

Acanthus Moroccan Landscape 1912 by Matisse.

I am starting to thrive once more.

I will be the gladdest thing
    Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
    And not pick one.

                    — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Experience teaches you everything if you let it.

We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.

                     — Flannery O'Connor

Still gardening and cleaning up...to be continued.

 Planting these today. I just returned from my walk. Wow. I started at 6:30 and sweated the entire time. Humidity is rocking it this morning in the South. Feels like August weather. I did gain some distance and broke my walking record but it was work and next time I will carry water on me. I have to plant two flats of impatiens and one flat of sweet potato vines this morning. Then move and arrange the clay pots. Tomorrow it rains. I don't mind. We really need it. Two days. I'll be celebrating my Mother's Day with Ben in the rain, Saturday. Laughing. It won't stop us from shopping for some hardy hibiscus. We'll pause for dinner with Jack, Jamie, Pete, and Chris at Longhorn's. I couldn't think of a place to meet at noon but there.

Things I have accomplished. With Patsy's help, I pressure washed the deck, getting it ready for painting. Patsy pressure washed chairs and the concrete patio. Wow. Looks so good. She and I both cut and removed dead or faltering roses, plants, tree limbs, crepe myrtle messes from the front lawn. It's amazing how much we got done. Just amazing.

Happy Mother's Day 2022

I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.

                 — Langston Hughes

P.S. My mother did belong to the greatest generation of the 20th century. When I reflect on her life objectively, I don't know how she stayed sane. She was flawed but incredible. As we often say in our family, Mother was a force of Nature.

Things are happening everywhere.

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
                  

                                 ― Susan Sontag

The Girl with a Hoe.

 Serious gardeners have the best weapons. Seriously. (lol) This is my new garden hoe, made of recycled agricultural disc blades.  One guy said it was the Scottish claymore of weed killing, seven inches of welded steel. It's heavier than I like but the payoff is less work. It's sharp and designed to hit rock. Rogue brand. I am about to go to work. I just got back from my walk, a record breaking one according to my Apple watch. Amused. It made me think of the girl with the hoe, Jeanne Crain, from the film Leave Her To Heaven. The sister who loves to garden. Her sister is a sociopath murderer. Gene Tierney plays the part of Ellen. When Ellen realizes she's lost, she dies and from the grave implicates those who once loved her. Yes, I know, I watch too many old films. But this one is so good.

Iggy Pop in Richard Stanley's Hardware

Can a girl read Jane Austen and watch Richard Stanley's Hardware at the same time? Yes, indeed, especially if the girl is me. I remember watching Hardware when it first came out and I thought, aren't these low budget films so much better than some of the expensive stuff. It was just coming off the 1980s, a decade that produced some of the best small films and classic pop music ever. The 1990s cult classic Hardware reminded me a bit of how I felt when I first saw Bladerunner. Yep. A lot of people I knew hated that, too, and I was the lone member of my group of friends who said, Bladerunner is a classic in the making. Oh, well.  I felt the same way about Hardware though it was not as well made, acted, produced, or none of that; the post apocalyptical images still resonated with me and Angry Bob won my heart. (I always wanted to use a semicolon.)

I am watching some old cult classics this week, looking at characters and music and how the films were presented. Meaning the art and 'some such stuff' that nobody but me really cares about anymore. I am not a pop culture junkie. I just like to look at film like I would look at Sandro Botticelli which is very beautiful high art.

I've been trying to think about the 20th century. That's another story and another blog post. But I got to thinking about how hot it is in India this week, hotter than hell, hotter than it is in Hardware according to Angry Bob who says it's 110 F degrees. And then there is Judge Alito's draft of his "rooted in history" manifesto intended to repeal the 20th century. It's important to remember the 20th century. I mean it's the time where we really faced some incredible issues. It's the 'age of extremes' as one historian wrote. Look at the horrible wars. Dark days. Very dark days. The Great Depression, and I really dislike people who don't appreciate what people did doing that time. It was not easy and there was great suffering.  What has really affected us all is population, hence looking at Hardware. After all, the goal of technology was at one time in this film, to alienate humanity. And yes, population is  going to be a problem. But getting back to the good in the 20th century. Well, Civil Rights of all kinds and that is what Alito is after, that is what he is setting the precedent for, to take us back to the times before and don't let this get you confused. This is not about culture. This is not a culture war. This is a religious war. Extreme Evangelical and Charismatic Catholic war. After all, most of the people protesting the Court the other day were Catholics for Choice. 

I don't really worship anything but beauty and it's not the kind of beauty that is always pretty. And I read Alito's manifesto and it's all about religion and morality. Our parents and grandparents suffered and died so that we could be who we wanted to be, say what we wanted to say, and believe whatever we wanted. Two horrible wars in the 20th century and a bunch of smaller ones that are extremely dark, too.

But we can't have our cake and eat it, too. 

We are going to have to choose what battles to fight.

I hope the TikTok generation can handle it as good as my 18 year old father did.

Donna Tartt's book has deeply affected me.

“Even if it meant that she had failed, she was glad. And if what she'd wanted had been impossible from the start, still there was a certain lonely comfort in the fact that she'd known it was impossible and had gone ahead and done it anyway.”

               — Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

Will we? Did we?

"The twentieth century proves that the victory of the ideals of justice and equality is always ephemeral, but, if you manage to safeguard the freedom, you can, however, start over ... do not despair, even in the most desperate situations. "

                — Leo Valiani

              Erring on the side of Hope

The world is unjust and much about it must be endured or maybe abandoned.

BUT SPIT AT IT IF YOU WANT TO!!!!

But do no harm.

Cordelia's Farewell by Edwin Austin Abbey