I may not know exactly what you are feeling, but I would say that things are hard in many ways now and the hardest is anger, sadness, panic. With these, it seems it’s not enough to drink more water, stretch, get outdoors, take a nap, get a coloring book.
I sat down with a man eating ice cream at the Lane county democrat ice cream social. I asked him if he’d gone to other democrat party events. He had not. In fact, he did not know it was a democrat event despite signs, a fundraising entry fee and democrats everywhere. He thought it was just a free ice cream event. I engaged him on a few issues and it went alright. Though, ultimately he thought human extinction was the solution. We’re all gonna die, I said, thinking he might get the joke, but he didn’t.
We then thanked each other for doing what we can and adjourned our conversation.
Later in the evening I trimmed the tomatoes until it got too dark to see. I like picking out the vines that don’t make tomatoes and thinning them. It’s kind of like the blackberries that hang over the back fence. My neighbor doesn’t keep up on them and I used to cut them back but now I cut out the non berry prickly stringers and even spray them with water sometimes. I noticed this year how beautiful their flowers were and how much bees liked them.
Back at work she said, I love folklore and when I heard this I felt it, the love, and said I think I do too. What is folklore exactly?
Folk is people and lore is stories. I thought it was academic but it’s life.
She said it can be old stories or new stories or things written down or spoken. She gave more examples and situations and from them I was convinced I loved folklore. And folklife. Some people use this term interchangeably.
Like, check this definition out, “folklife is often hidden in full view, lodged in the various ways we have of discovering and expressing who we are and how we fit into the world.”
It seems as if we are folklore and folklife in the making.
It’s been too hot lately.
I hauled a bucket of water to the empty rock in the cemetery. It is a bird bath memorial sort of thing. It was bone dry with a cigarette butt when I sat on a bench yesterday evening in the heat before it got dark.
I vowed to put water in it for the birds and wildlife that pass through.
I estimated amount needed and put it in a 5 gal bucket and walked. It was heavier than I expected. I hoped to not see anyone as I didn’t really want to explain what I was doing. I would get more crazy lady on the street votes. I immediately ran into neighbors asking, hey whatareyoudoing with the bucket?
Once at the foothills of the cemetery, I had to get in gear for the uphill trudge. I remembered the days of CrossFit. I dug in, counting to 30, switching hands on the bucket. Step oof step oof step breathe. I rested a moment here and there in the shade. I made it. There were 2 people sitting on the bench and I said excuse me I’m putting water here and they thought that was nice, “the birds will be happy.”
I removed the cigarette butt and poured in the water. It was full.
The time to get the water from here to there took six minutes and 37 seconds.
I am a water bearer but my sun sign is virgo, which is an earth sign, practical and of the ground. My rising sign is Aquarius, which is a water sign, the water bearer. Wait, no, it is an air sign, even if it is a bearer of water. “Aquarius is associated with the element of air due to its focus on intellectual pursuits, communication, and humanitarian ideals.”
“The water we Aquarians pour is Consciousness” is what my Aquarian friend told me later.
Ok, I’ll take it. We carry ideas and pour them out, not usually literal water pouring, but for me it was. It was a part of my folklife that day.
Music: Agua by Cellomano
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