SINGING STARS, LAUGHING EARTH

Daily bread, daily cats and dogs, and daily living

Luna can howl, too

   Today, the cats are glaring at me.  Cricket, our black cat, wants to know why all that SNOW is still out there. Don’t I realize she doesn’t like walking on it? Can’t I get rid of it?  Chaco resents that I’m keeping her out of the cellar, where strange men are Doing Things to that big box we call a furnace.  She feels she should go have a look inside it, and I’m not letting her.

“Relax, girls,” I tell them. “Have some catnip.”  

      I wouldn’t mind having some myself.  We were without our heat for over a week, getting by on spaceheaters and pretty damn glad we put a fireplace in, because our odd geothermal/radiant floor system went kaplooey.  That, I think, is the technical term.  

     It was the only part of building the house that didn’t go well, and we knew it would have to be replaced, but knowledge is just mental prep.  It doesn’t stop you from feeling what you feel.

    For us, this last week or so, what we felt was cold.  It reminded me of the days when we were building here.  And I do mean building, because we not only took a chance on buying the land, we decided to be General Contractors, taking an active part. We hired out what we couldn’t do, and Steve, very organized about it all, had us interview three of each - three architects, three well guys, and so on - then choose the ones that best met our needs.  It was a good plan.  It only fell down on the geothermal unit, because we couldn’t find three of those, and the one we did find turned out to be a schmuck.  Again, that’s the technical term.

    Other than that, building was a lot more straightforward than either of us thought it would be.  This isn’t to say it was easy. No, no.  It was work that took all our spare time and obsessive qualities for about a year.  There were good days, bad days, and some days that were just interesting.  

    A good day was when the footings were put in, but before the cement was poured, when I went around to the part of the earth that would hold our home, and placed pollen, sage, feathers, and some special stones in the corners and the center, thanking the land we’d rest on, and opening a conversation with it.    

Really.  The sky does this sometimes

    An interesting day was when I was working outside, clearing brush, and one of our new neighbors, Mitch, stopped as he passed to welcome us to the neighborhood.  “You’re gonna love it here,” he said with great enthusiasm.  “I got an explosive license!”

     Later, I found out that meant he did big firework displays every fourth of July. He took me for a tour of his basement to show me the stacks and stacks of them, but when he lit a cigarette, I gracefully and quickly withdrew.  

     A bad day was when the foundation guys were late with the pouring, and with winter coming on, we were getting a bit hysterical about it all.  That evening I called the guy and sobbed, “I want you to know I wake up crying every night.  And I want you to wake up every night, thinking about me crying.”

     Apparently, tears are what big construction guys fear most, because it was done the next day, and our framers were out framing in one of the worst snowstorms of the year.

    A really interesting day was when we entered the building to see all the dry wall up, and Steve said to me, “We’ll prime it today, and finish the painting tomorrow.”  He is the ultimate optimist.

    Another good day - when the well was sunk, and water gushed from the ground in a marvelous torrent.  I thought, oddly, of the day my water broke and I went into labor.  

   Another good day - when I finally finished the damn insulation  (I was known as The Bat Queen, because it was my job to install all the insulting bats).  On that day, before the drywall went up, I placed many magic objects behind the insulation, including copies of my son’s early writing and drawings, copies of my novels, a newspaper, a magazine my husband was published in.  And I wrote praise and blessings on the walls behind the insulation.

     In looking back, there were clearly more good days than bad, which wasn’t true of our house hunting experience.  Go figure.  Maybe we’re just karmically marked as DIY folks.  Or because we’re writers, our inherent attitude is, ‘if it doesn’t exist, we’ll just have to create it.”   Actually, I wrote my first novel because I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read.  

    But no, it wasn’t easy.  It was down and dirty work, and after a year of it I longed to put my girl clothes back on and go get a manicure.  But I think we do ourselves a grave injustice when we believe just because something is difficult, it’s not right, looking to  ‘easy’ as a sign that we’re on the right track.  Nor do I think the opposite is true.  Like a good Italian who always adds and never subtracts, I think both are true.  It’s right when it’s meaningful, and sometimes getting to meaningful is hard work, but generally you also have a sense that the work is good. That you’ve chosen well, if not wisely.  And here, finally, is what told me that.  

    In November, after we’d put in the well and septic, but still hadn’t broken ground for the house, a Celestial event occurred - The annual Leonid meteor shower.  Astronomers said it was to be one of the best ever, and I decided to leave my small house in the city and go watch it on the hill. That meant waking up at around 3 am on a cold night, but there are no streetlights on the hill, and it’s far enough away from the city that we get the best view of the stars.

     When I arrived at our land, I bundled up good in sweater, coat, and blanket, and sat on the hood of my car (still warm), looking up.

     I’d anticipated a bunch of shooting stars, but what I got would certainly give Mitch’s explosive license some pretty stiff competition.  Discs of fires, with sizzling tails danced across the darkling plain.  Stars poured down like discarded petals of flowers in the wind. Tiny drops of light burst out and disappeared.  And in the distance, from different spots on the hill, I heard human voices, gasping, calling out, ‘Aaah!”  

    This was more than a meteor shower.  It was a conversation, between the children of the earth, and their progenitors, the stars. In it,  I recognized something - that I was here not just to build a house, but also to touch my origins, and be touched by them, with stardust shivering down the sky toward my new home.

     Dawn began to rise in the east, but in the still dark western sky, stars continued to fling themselves toward earth, as if they yearned for us the way we yearn for them.  Then, as if I hadn’t had enough magic already, the coyotes started to howl.      

    If you’ve never heard coyotes, you should know that their cries seem to contain both wild laughter and exigent longing.  You can’t help but think of drunk old men, and the call of the goddess at the same time. Those who know the language can interpret: Someone caught a bunny?  Coyote pups want their pack?  I’m not conversant, so what I heard was a reminder.  I’m made of stardust, and, as the bible says, an earthling of the earth. I’m part of each, where I belong.   

     Humans absorb wisdom and mystery through their skin and senses, and it lives in us in wordless ways.  The land shapes us, body and soul.  The song of the coyotes, the dance of the meteors,my neighbor’s responses, marked me that night, and claimed me for this place where I’d chop wood, gather water, and chat with stars.   

     Later, when other canids came into my life, I’d have to remember that.  I’d long been friends with felines, but soon the canids would put me on notice that I still had more to learn. Next time, let’s go back to my dog, shall we?

     You can find out more about my novels on my website, wildreads.com.  And here’s a recipe that’s both grounded, and sparkly.  

STARS AND PLANETS FRUIT SALAD

During the worst part of the heat crisis in my house, my friends Amy Atkins and Mary Browne, two amazing women, invited me for a lunch which they prepared.  It was elegant, immensely tasty, and just what I needed - to have someone else cook for me.  Here’s what starfruit look like, beautiful as the Leonids.

These starfruit SING!

Ingredients

thin, broad slices of mango,
papaya, and blood oranges

Starfruit slices

Some raspberries

Dressing

1/2 cup pomegranate juice

1/4 cup pineapple juice

4 tbsp honey

3/4 cup raspberry vinaigrette dressing

Simmer the dressing briefly over medium heat (about five minutes). You can add other fruits as you prefer, and if you like heat in your salad, toss in some cayenne pepper or tabasco because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!