I talked to the grocery man filling the shelves with lettuce this week. I am no longer buying bagged salads or boxed mixed greens. We have a Cabinet member who could be the most ignorant Secretary of Health and Human Services ever in our history, who has removed all measures to safeguard our foods. The lettuce man told me there were, so far, no issues with our store’s produce, but to be safe, buy foods grown and processed in California. So here is my first several times washed Romaine lettuce. We here in the states have some very stupid voters heading off to the polls to cast votes for those who have learned how easily those voters can be manipulated to keep the CEO’s pockets spilling over with the money saved by unsafe practices.
The front entry is finished this week. Next, when the rain subsides, I will have the concrete floor coated in the color of the exterior paint. Just a bit of repotting and changing some plants around yet to go and then I can move on to getting the garage floor treated. I moved the gong to the sunroom where it seems to fit better.
The new pillows arrived.
And the new placement of stones opposite the bench.
Because of handling these stones, I thought I should write about them at my weekly Shut Up and Write session at the library. Here is an excerpt.
Stones S. Webster
I thought I should write something about stones today. You know, the ones we pick up just to feel their roundness with both hands. Holding their weight with such tenderness as we turn them this way and that to feel the smooth surface, knowing it will have to come home with us. Georgia O’Keefe stole her friends’ stones to line up along windows and floors in her own home. She felt justified in this because she said those friends would never love the stones as much as she did. I saw them in her house and wondered about those she stole from. Did holding onto the friendship mean more than holding a stone? I would have retrieved my own stone from her house and thereafter watched her closely. At least she understood how holding a stone can matter. How keeping stones within reach just to touch in passing can bring such calm. Mine are formed into a snake in the garden. Others in a line from that garden along the walk to the front door. Inside there are bowls filled with stones just waiting to be held. One bowl has a stone someone gave me – a stone she coated with a clear acrylic so it would forever have the wet stone look. She even pointed out a face she saw in it as she pressed it into my hands. All I see is a stone choking on someone else’s expectation. The next hole I dig, that stone is going deep inside where it is free to rub itself back into existence. And hope by the time it works its way up to the surface, no one is waiting to do anything but toss it back down.
I am back to working on the Concertina Story Book. Just laid in the second illustration. The poem that will go with it will be about a warrior chief that you can see taking form….love where his head dress is heading.
I should have it finished by the end of the week. Sadie will keep an eye on my progress.
Til later…