Bruised and Wounded, I turn to Nature.

 

Painting: The Bird Table, Charles Walter Simpson

It may take me hours, off and on, to write this post. I am in a mood. But it's not temporary. I've been floating here for years now, in this strange space that I now call my home and my mind. By nature, I am optimistic, but I am also a realist. I live in contradictions. The latter is both a blessing and a curse.

I love birds. A crow nested in one of my trees earlier this year and we became acquainted. It talked to me all summer long until the end of August when it vacated the tree and departed from my life. I have felt odd since. I would go out at first light and water, before the heat settled in, right before my walk. Sometimes I would weed or spray plants and the crow would sit and watch me, occasionally making conversation. I fed it. Sometimes it followed me from the front lawn to the back and sat on a limb and watched me work and water the back garden. I lament its absence now and somehow when the crow left,  I felt a darkness come over me. Part of that darkness was exhaustion, both mental and physical. I had worked extremely hard in the gardens all spring and summer in extreme weather. I stayed dehydrated despite drinking water and gatorade. I suffered foot and leg cramps at night. My body ached from bending and then pulling things. All I looked forward to was Placebo coming to the USA and then Brian Molko didn't come, and September turned into a nightmare of people I love getting sick. Very sick. And then I was sick, too, at heart. And I had spent too much money wanting one thing or another.

My brother-in-law died Monday. I can't really remember not knowing him. He was a lot older than me, a Vietnam vet, a pilot and officer, even more than that. He was incredibly gifted and did things in the war that are not talked of. During part of the war, he lived in some Embassy in Cambodia, but we didn't know that then. After he retired, he and some friends created the airport at Destin, Florida. His death signals a strange ending to me. I don't like feeling like this. I don't like it at all. 

I always turn to Nature when I am bruised and wounded by life. If I can't touch it, I paint it. I write about it. I think about it. I look at Flower Magazines, I dream and plan. One habit is studying old gardens in history.

I wish my adult, shiny black crow was back. I wish for so many things. I wish. I wish.

Wishes are like curses.