Mabel the Maple

Mabel rises.

 

There could be a story written about her. I mean she collapsed. She was levelled. She was totally horizontal, shrouded in her skirts. And then one branch was sawed off, then two, then three.

And very slowly, she rose again and settled back into the hole that was wrenched from the ground by her enemy Leslie.

As if to say: I'm not done yet. I'm far from done.  Figure out how I did this. Maybe you can too.

Losing the Run of Myself

Up on the hill behind the house the cornflowers grow wild.

Seems like that, lately. Three half-read books on the go, a knitting design that won't settle in and throw itself down.  A writing deadline that mumbles around in my head. Half-finished files of the paying kind languishing beside the desk.

A handyman who is thousands of kilometres away but promises to be here next week to finish off some half-completed essential work.

Idiotic paragraphs assemble themselves like soldiers in my head.

"She held herself like a rebuke to the rest of them: tall, spare of flesh and hair, without bleach or cosmetics.  By comparison, her companions looked overly plump, peroxided, lipsticked, almost tartish."
 

I completed a long and winding grant application to sustain me through the weather of writing another play which is in my head and encompasses, possibly, Skype rehearsals. Two countries, one play kind of thing. Unfortunately, I can't afford to hold my nose and jump into the uncharted waters of no income while this gets created. If only dreams were crusts of bread. La sigh.

My sleep-dreams are about my father. A very helpful father who points out the error of my ways and assists me in setting all my (real) ducks in a row.

As my friend the Jungian analyst says to me: when you dream about your father it means that you are slightly (a lot - he is kind) out of control and your inner male is emerging to help.

Daughter arrives tomorrow for a week, having travelled the length (width?) of Canada from Vancouver, tenting all the way just about and on her own. Brava Daughter, the adventurer.

On the home front, Hurricane Leslie murdered one of my oldest maples which was just reddening up for the fall. I felt unreasonably anguished at the sight of her all horizontal, bruised and broken. But the oddest thing, as soon as her branches were chainsawed off, she rose from the dead and righted herself, proud and tall. I plan to reshape her into some garden furniture once she's dry. A picture of this astonishing sight will follow when I gather my vanishing wits and exit with a camera around my neck.