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SunClosest of Celeste
Jan. 3rd, 2019 10:42 pmWell, this was a much better day than yesterday. Until a few minutes ago, when I learned something I would have preferred not to be true, and started grinding my teeth again. Grr. Oh well, la la la, IGNORE IGNORE. I need to squirt myself with sage mist. Or maybe just a big glass of water and some Advil.
Speaking of Advil, I've been having a lot of joint pain lately, so I experimentally took Advil before bed last night. The results are still indeterminate. I woke up less from joint pain, but I did wake up once with stomach pain and acid reflex. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. My plan is to keep trying Advil for a few more nights and try to be super careful about what I eat in the evening.
We actually had some gleams of sun today. I went out for a walk, and greeted several neighbors along the way, and also some who weren't neighbors but just nice people walking their dogs. I made some progress with cleaning up post-Christmas leftovers in my room. I decided I'd like to make a list of things I would enjoy doing in the new year. Not big changes or character improvements, mind you, but just things I have available to me already and would like to take advantage of for my own enjoyment. So I did that, and it was longer than I thought it would be!
A friend asked me what it is that connects me to Michigan, and I thought that was an interesting question. I never really thought about it before. So here's what I came up with off the top of my head. I think it's mostly the landscape, and the flora. Rivers and little lakes, and then the big lakes and the grand sweep of the dunes. Oak savannas and birch and aspen groves, the mix of evergreens and hardwoods. Lots of little wooded edges along creeks and wetlands. Glaciated moraine topography with its little outcroppings of sand and gravel. River beds and lakeshores that are sandy, and granite stones rounded by the glaciers. Bumping into old apple trees, raspberry patches, and lilacs that have got loose from some abandoned farm and gone wild. The comfortable feeling of familiarity when flowers bloom at the times you expected.
As I was considering these things, it suddenly occurred to me that I've never lived anywhere for more than 10 years at a time! That was surprising. I never thought of myself as someone who moved around a lot, but I guess I did. I felt as if I'd lived at 1505, my parents' old house, forever, but it was only 1957 to 1968. A bit more than 10 years, but barely. I was still in Michigan until 1986, though, so that was my longest time in any one state. Things seem like forever, until they aren't. And then they're gone, as if in a flash. Makes me think of Hopkins-- "world's wildfire, leave but ash: . . . This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond."
Speaking of Advil, I've been having a lot of joint pain lately, so I experimentally took Advil before bed last night. The results are still indeterminate. I woke up less from joint pain, but I did wake up once with stomach pain and acid reflex. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. My plan is to keep trying Advil for a few more nights and try to be super careful about what I eat in the evening.
We actually had some gleams of sun today. I went out for a walk, and greeted several neighbors along the way, and also some who weren't neighbors but just nice people walking their dogs. I made some progress with cleaning up post-Christmas leftovers in my room. I decided I'd like to make a list of things I would enjoy doing in the new year. Not big changes or character improvements, mind you, but just things I have available to me already and would like to take advantage of for my own enjoyment. So I did that, and it was longer than I thought it would be!
A friend asked me what it is that connects me to Michigan, and I thought that was an interesting question. I never really thought about it before. So here's what I came up with off the top of my head. I think it's mostly the landscape, and the flora. Rivers and little lakes, and then the big lakes and the grand sweep of the dunes. Oak savannas and birch and aspen groves, the mix of evergreens and hardwoods. Lots of little wooded edges along creeks and wetlands. Glaciated moraine topography with its little outcroppings of sand and gravel. River beds and lakeshores that are sandy, and granite stones rounded by the glaciers. Bumping into old apple trees, raspberry patches, and lilacs that have got loose from some abandoned farm and gone wild. The comfortable feeling of familiarity when flowers bloom at the times you expected.
As I was considering these things, it suddenly occurred to me that I've never lived anywhere for more than 10 years at a time! That was surprising. I never thought of myself as someone who moved around a lot, but I guess I did. I felt as if I'd lived at 1505, my parents' old house, forever, but it was only 1957 to 1968. A bit more than 10 years, but barely. I was still in Michigan until 1986, though, so that was my longest time in any one state. Things seem like forever, until they aren't. And then they're gone, as if in a flash. Makes me think of Hopkins-- "world's wildfire, leave but ash: . . . This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond."
