It’s a Dream/But There’s a Real World/Waiting
I dream regularly of emergency lights<overdue for an oil change> popping on in my car and logistical impossibilities only I am asked to solve and trying to get somewhere before it’s too late lately. Packing while people actively undo my work and deadlines sprint at me. Having to calmly argue everyone out of my way even though it’s a stark emergency just I’m the only one dealing with it. For someone living an intensely domestic, small life my subconscious remains extraordinarily sure I am actually in the Hunger Games. Probably for the best, anyway.
‘Could have been a night
Like any other
One of us has to drive’
Last night, though, I dreamt a guy from high school<doesn’t matter which one; one of the cute ones> and I were bumming around this gathering for whatever reason and he wouldn’t tell me whose baby he was quite pregnant with, but he kept showing me his dick and offering to also have my baby while I laughed and reminded him my marriage is only open for viewing, not touching and that I am still very happy. In the dream we have had this conversation before so I’m sure he’s a stand-in for a specific friend who is forever but we’ll never fuck and we both know it and that’s too bad. He looked good pregnant and his dick looked very enticing too.
‘It’s gonna get harder
Still
Before it gets
Easy’
My sunglasses disappeared a week ago and I truly cannot survive without them. I want them to turn up, but I have directly seen Outside with my face eyes for a week straight and something has to be done sooner than later about that. The snow’s receding <rapidly rapidly>, even though it was snowing when I woke up<cranky> this morning. The pussy willows are beginning to bloom along the way to school and the elderberries are just beginning to burst their fat little buds into thick, impossible leaves already exponentially larger than could fit in such little, swollen points. Despite the fattening of bud and yellowing of willow branch, it remains the dog balls of winter and I remain constantly irritated and there is not yet an actual leaf in sight.<that’s not even true; the P. aurea and R. laciniata and Heuchera spp all are already greedily seeking sun>
‘Can’t keep
Safe
What wants to break’
Today<so far> it’s that A wants to prevent our <dream pregnant>friend’s girlfriend from camping this year because she and A are having friction. I cannot express how far out of line it is for A to think he has any right at all to dictate anything at all about camp. Even with our blood turned to acid between us, Bea and I never once tried to do anything more than avoid each other at camp and when I took over paying for it, I simply didn’t tell her when it was and one of the other lifers booked a second week to go with her. No one is barred from camp except as a result of their own bad behavior at camp. And that’s only happened a scant few times in my lifetime. No one owns it and no one’s in charge of it. This is not A’s ground to hold and I find myself furious that he would even think of suggesting trying. Whatever conflict he needs to have with this woman is his problem and hers. Not mine and not camp’s. Especially since he still hasn’t even been yet. How do you presume to try to prevent someone else from going to a place you’ve never even been? The amount of overstepping here makes me dizzy with fury.
‘I’m alone in this
I’m
As I’ve
Always been
Right behind
What’s happening’
I’m growing tired of managing so many peoples’ feelings and conflicts. I know that this is a direct result of the amount of community we’ve built; I do. But I find myself feeling like the lightning rod, being struck from any and every side and turned into a conduit near constantly. I cannot be the only one emotionally capable among us all. Four human people and two dogs in this house alone, nevermind the number of local thunder clouds who don’t live under my roof but are only one step removed. I do not want to confront the possibility that I am beginning to burn out again. I have had such a short<so short> period of relative health and cheer. I’m not ready to let it go but the only other apparent path is to kick down everyone around me in order to keep my ground. Seems less than generous. However. It is not my problem that everyone else is a moody, whining baby and I’m tired of being expected to soothe and sort and reassure such ridiculous complaining.
‘She’s a light
She’ll always be
A little far for me to reach’
It’ll pass, I’m sure.
‘I thought I was something fierce
I thought I was
Ten times smarter’
I still haven’t started seedlings. It’s basically April. It’s hard to believe in seeds and lights and the smell of dirt right now and I can’t see my way over that. Last year was worse. I got them all started<late> and good and sprouted and then misaligned a tray and an entire flat dried out and died and I guess I’m still bereft about it. Almost nothing got in the ground last year. Only the garlic was properly handled out of the entire spread of gardening I usually do. Only the garlic. I should remind myself that my reward for that is that the new baby garlic is already coming up through the straw. I should go gaze at them and fuss then make myself get pots on my way back through the barn. I’m going to have to trick myself into getting this done.
‘Love would be
Something that
I just know
How you gonna know the
Feeling
Til you’ve lost it
I’ve been losing plenty since’
Last night, A was mourning how hard it is to grow things <in the thin, bedrock soil>here and that was what got me yesterday. The only choice <aside from moving> is to slow down and move at the pace of the land or it will never heal. Certainly, no one else has found another way so far. That means a simply horrifying attrition rate. He and Mister call it Hunger Games planting, but it’s the only way I’ve found to suss out where things should be and to coax even a small array of species to hang on anywhere. Just keep trying. Keep moving, keep planting. Almost every fall I hopelessly scatter wildflower seeds widely and never see a sign of most of them again. Every spring, I plant close to a hundred baby plants and spend the summer watching each one slowly give up. The land here is demanding and extreme because it is very badly harmed and it frustrates me I’m the only one who will slow down for it without taking it personally. Just ask how you can help and hear the answer.
‘Maybe something
Else I’m missing
Something
Good
And you’re the reason
It’s a dream
But there’s a real world
Waiting’
– Jimmy Eat World