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DragonMan

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

bonemanWhen I wasn’t calling him by his real name of Doug, I called him either HMO’Keefe or Dragonman (sometimes shortened to DMan.) The former was a nickname of his choosing based on an historical character. The latter, and the subject of this blather, is my nickname for him. Once in a great while, I called him Boneman which was his online moniker when he wasn’t using HMO’Keefe.

I don’t really remember how it got started.

We met on an anthropology listserv (a kind of online forum.) I was the middle-aged undergraduate student with no fear and he was the gentle scientist. As is my wont, I blasted into the group with questions and commentary. He was one of the first to respond. In his gentle manner, he told me I might want to tone it down a bit. I said, and I’m pretty sure this is exact at least in meaning, “Ah hell, y’all are hollering ‘fresh meat’ and loving every second of my nonsense.” He laughed. The group gave me a hard time, but they gave everyone a hard time. They also seemed to like me. I’m kind of likeable on some days. Doug became my academic mentor.

columbus in the springWith respect to the listserv, I think, he said something along the lines of “I’ll help slay the dragons.”

I said, “You are the dragon! And, besides, I’ll slay my own dragons, thank you very much.”

We were friends a good while before we were lovers. During that friend phase, he was the Dragon in the Computer. It wasn’t until later when we both left our marriages that we became a couple. I don’t know when it was that we went from platonic to romantic, but I do know when, where and how it was consummated. Most of our time together was spent 800 miles apart. I remember our 3D meetings in vivid color.

Boston in the snowI think the nickname tickled him. He adopted Dman. I have mixed CDs he put together for me labeled A Dman Compilation. I called him DragonMan. I had no interest in slaying the dragon, but I may have tried to tame him. He had a stubborn streak particularly with respect to his leukemia and the ensuing chaos. There was friction. Oddly enough, I was the fire breathing one.

For Mother’s Day this year he gave me a gift certificate to a gardening catalog. After much fretting and carrying on, I chose the lawn dragon. I didn’t tell him what I ordered. I wanted him to be surprised. At the time, I was sure it was priced too high and would be too small. I was wrong. It’s quite substantial, just the right size, and a fitting memorial. It was delivered a few days after his death.

The eye of the dragonI put it out Monday, finally, just before the first snowfall of the year. I set it amidst a bed of white stones. The stones are temporary. This spring I will plant the area with Irish Moss.

I bought one small clump of the moss this year and plopped it in the yard to see if it would thrive, just survive, or plain old die. It has thrived and is remarkably beautiful. I was loathe to buy more than one as it was expensive and I need about 20 of them, but since it’s doing so well I’ll get what I need or maybe more. I’ll probably have to take out a mortgage to fund this, but it will be spectacular.

snow dragon in the gardenI enjoyed seeing the dragon frosted with snow this morning. As much as DragonMan bitched about it, I think he liked snow. I don’t think he could have done 30 years in Boston otherwise.

I miss him, but the dragon makes me smile much the same way he did.

—————–

I typed the draft of this post on a Neo2. The Neo is a nifty little keyboard with a small screen. It can hold 8 small files. Allegedly it’s all the rage with writers, although designed for classrooms. It weighs next to nothing, is cheap, uploads to word processing programs easily, and nobody would be interested in stealing it unless you’re in a room full of writers. My dad showed me his and I drooled all over it, so he gave me one for my birthday.

It’s great for dragging out to the garden, or the auto shop waiting room, or any place that a laptop might take a beating. It runs on AA batteries and is just a little gem. If it breaks, or is lost or is stolen, you haven’t lost your whole life. It’s a nifty little tool and I’m quite impressed with it. It reminds me of my misspent youth when I worked in a law office on IBM’s first electronic typewriters. They too had a tiny memory, but were tremendously useful for storing paragraphs or legal descriptions used over and over in a case. I think I love this little thing.

http://www.renlearn.com/neo2/default.aspx  (Aw damn, like they’re discontinuing you them in the states.)

A Hallelujah Chorus in Leaf Mulch

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I love windows.

I love windows.

It did my evil little heart good to get outside in the garden today.

I hadn’t attended to any of the leaves until today because of the cataract surgery. When one lives in a forest, this is, perhaps, not a good idea. I am not exaggerating – I had fallen, unraked leaves that accumulated on their own into 1’ and 2’ piles in the fenced area of the garden.

I did a lot in the garden this past spring. Doug was recently discharged from the hospital and not well enough to be left alone for several weeks. That time period coincided with a streak of beyond-gorgeous weather that makes a body’s heart hurt.

I’m reading a book by Julia Keller titled A Killing in the Hills that is set in West Virginia. I’m not very far into the book, but she astounded me on pages 27-28 with her description of an Appalachia spring. I’ve spent years trying to develop a concise, accurate description that could be conveyed in writing without accompanying photographs.

Keller wrote:

It was a beautiful place, especially in the late spring and throughout the long summer, when the hawks wrote slow, wordless stories across the pale blue parchment of the sky, when the tree-lined valleys exploded in a green so vivid and yet so predictable that it was like a hallelujah shout at a tent revival. You always knew it was coming, but it could still knock you clean off your feet.

leavesImagine if you will that the acres surrounding my barn exploded into a lengthy mountain music version of the Hallelujah chorus. That was this past spring. Imagine now, piles of leaves waist high being mulched with a lawn mower. Can you hear the closing strains of those Hallelujahs as they shelter the plants for the winter under a blanket of leaf mulch. Yes, the wheel turns.

Gardening and writing keep me sane. Last spring, my sanity was hanging by a thread. Some would argue the thread broke. That stretch of spring, with its soaring melody, kept me grounded. Since Doug slept a lot, I spent a lot of time outside – often working by lantern light.

My long-time readers know that my garden is a work in progress – one that began with acres of packed gravel inches deep in unblastable clay. In the beginning, to plant a daffodil required a pick axe and sometimes an auger. After 22 years or so of waging battle against bad dirt, I was sure this year was going to be The Year My Garden Landed on the Cover of Southern Living.

a lot of work

During the 2013 Garden Palooza

By my standards, I poured a ton of money into the ground out back. I painted lawn furniture, bought new cushions, planted a dozen or so shrubs and bushes, and planted flats and flats of petunias and impatiens. I babied a patch of Irish moss, let lavender roam free, and lost all sense of prudence when I bought the fountain and the super-duper-big planter to hold a tropical, vining plant. This was going to be the year.

And then the rains came. The news described them as “scattered storms.” Every one of those scattered storms stalled over the top of my piece of heaven and monsooned. I joked and quipped and carried on about building a lotus pond combo moat to try and keep my barn from sliding off its foundation in a mudslide.

I measured daily rains in inches. Really. If memory serves, we had one of the wettest Mays and Junes of all time and I got more of those scattered storms than most.

Marine Corps Veterans - Daddy and his Good Officer's Wife

Marine Corps Veterans – Daddy and his Good Officer’s Wife

And then Doug went into the hospital for the last time. As I moved into my role as psychopomp, the garden boiled in the wet heat. And then it was overrun with weeds. And then the lawnmower broke. And then I was grieving.

The garden is a mess. A passerby (if I had passerbys) would swear it’s been neglected for decades.

I’m hoping the weather holds for the rest of this Veteran’s Day weekend. I could do some serious cleanup, weeding, this-and-that’s and have a garden ready for frolicking come March. Last year was the first spring I was able to just leap into planting mode without having to spend on weeks on winter clean up. I’m hoping for a repeat.

petunias in november

Petunias in November!

It’s been abnormally warm.  I found blooming petunias today as well as a climbing hydrangea with buds. It’s too much to hope that this weather will hold for long, but I’m enjoying it.  My serotonin levels are enjoying it and I’m pretty sure my Vitamin D got topped off today.

Four months.  I can hang on until then.  Happy Veteran’s Day Weekend, y’all.

Coming Home to Me – An I , But Not a We.

/ wvfurandroot / 8 Comments

So. I’m sitting here rocking out to A.J. Roach (what a talent!) and feeling like myself more and more.

I like this song about his great-grandfather – Appalachian storytelling at its finest.

Blogging

Blogging

I’m of a mind to tell stories these days. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.

To quote an old friend I nicknamed Guitarzan, “It’s been an ‘orrible year, just fucking ‘orrible.”

But I’m getting my sea legs on this new journey.

Y’all know me – the state of my house is a reflection of my well-being. I’m pleased to announce that the house is getting tamed. I’ve made much progress in the past couple of weeks. The study is functional, plastic bins are getting emptied, junk is being dispatched and stuff hung on the wall. The house has been in a state of chaos for so long that I am just loving the return of the Barn Wa.

I’m rocking out to A.J. on the new stereo receiver. Some low life stole mine during one of Doug’s hospitalizations. Listening to stuff on a boom box is Just Not The Same. I need it loud. I need strong stereo definition. I need the walls to vibrate. (I am an old woman with cataracts and hearing loss.)

Onkyo -- Needlessly Complicated

Onkyo — Needlessly Complicated

The music is so good. And I’m at complete peace in this moment. True Confessions: I’m drinking wine from the Dollar General. I’ve surely sunk to a new low because this $3.85 Cabernet tastes wonderful. I’m planning on restocking the wine rack with it.

The Berry Berry Sweet dog (new to me) is snoozing on the stack of pillows oblivious to the ear deafening music. I’m now convinced he’s deaf as well as mostly blind. Perhaps, I should have named him Keller. In any event, that’s a story for another day. Such a story needs a proper telling.

I was asked to critique a novella for a friend (hi Mark!) The process of reading critically and reading something new and reading something written by a friend has made me long to get back to my writing. I haven’t written anything serious in years. I can’t remember who said it, but somebody famous said they hated writing, but loved having written. I love all of it, but it takes tremendous amounts of time and energy – both of which have been in short supply. Right now, I’ll have to be content with the blog which I really missed. I think I need to do this. It keeps me sane. (And we know that’s not something to be taken lightly.)

Berry Berry Sweet Dog

Berry Berry Sweet Dog

I was telling a friend the other day that Doug’s death had the blessing of making me realize how loved I was by him and by others. The support and patience given to me has not been received carelessly. I get teary-eyed and lost for words when I try to talk about what it has meant to me.

I just made the mistake, maybe, of looking at pictures of Doug. This is not how it was supposed to be. Nothing about the past few years was how it was supposed to be. And yet, here we are. Or here I am. Using the singular pronoun rather than the plural flays my soul some days. Today is one of them. I like being an I, but I also liked being a We. Now, I’m just an I and I miss the We.

Now Clapton is on the box. Some of you will say, “So, what’s new?” But, I haven’t listened to my man for probably a year. It’s just made my heart hurt to much. Listening to “Have You Ever Loved a Woman” is breaking my heart. And with that, I’m going to drink cheap wine and reminisce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOXGXySitvw