Sunday in Task Valley

I am lifted by the response from Judi Heartsong to my essay entry. 

Sometimes it's hard to know whether to just follow exactly what I'm thinking or to try to use everything my teachers gave me to make ideas flow with a minimum of waste and a maximum of grammar.

Picture it.  I'm on the floor of my trailer, on a new air mattress, computer on my hip, cat resting nearby on some papers.  The sounds around me are a table fan and the dull thuds of car doors closing at the church that abuts this property.  I look up through the windows to squares and rectangles of a white sky.  I can only hope they fulfill their promise of rain.  The grass in the yard disheartens me when it shrivels and burns. However I have very cheap rent and don't think about complaining about my morale to the landlord.

There are things I need to do today.  Laundry, of course, because I have the time.  Fill more bags with the stuff of my old life is the bigger task.  I tote the baggage of life with both of my parents.  I don't need it.  In fact, having things you never see or use yet have to drag with you is an enormous, wasteful burden.  When they are replaced by empty space, I will have room to fill the space with people instead.  People are the key to lifting me.  They are wealth.

And then, there is my father.  Miserable in the home he shares with the step-family.  I used to go there more often but now I stay home much more.  The effects of this are two-fold.  Dad is even happier to see me when I arrive and I have a new level of peace from not being constantly sucked into the whirling vortex of turmoil.

A third effect is that I have been losing weight.  Part of the reason is that I am not getting as much home-cooking.  The other causes are my unhappiness, my need for fewer calories since I am not always travelling the county and the fact that I can't afford a whole lot of food, anyway.

The young woman I dated for a very short time earlier this year called me a "water addict."  As much as I enjoy water, I think she may be right.  Ironically, I have to note that she must have had 100 pounds or more on me.  Heck, even V could don the seatbelts in my Saturn.  Drinking more water might do her a world of good.  I don't mean that cruelly. 

Also, there are more than ten DVDs and five books waiting for my attention.  There's no way I will get to many of them.  I keep renewing the how-to DVDs I took out last month.

A new sound draws my ear.  Rain pulling down closed awnings and falling to the ground.  Apparently it sprinkled silently, lightly, sparsely.

I want big rain.  Fat droplets.  I want to see my "lawn" waking up, needly leaves of grass stretching back into soft blades.  The last time I mowed, I left the "wildflowers" standing.  Pink, yellow, white and red-orange posies.  Downright feminine of me but there is little other interest to my yard.  The coarse sand beneath the grass is all too willing to take over if given enough of a chance.

The incentive I need for cleaning is the reversal of loneliness.  I am moving my old life out, slowly.

 

an interesting blurb from The Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/quincy-jones/-god-will-walk-out-of-the.html