I saw you in the wild

 

Another slow evening at work becomes a spectacular night sharing stories with Jenn on the front porch. The conversation topics covered everything from local murders to how her Grandmother escaped Nazi Germany as a Jew, and her aunt escaping Iran during the hostage crisis while eight months pregnant. We talked about her Grandmother firing a shotgun at four in the morning while out to milk the cows because a strange man had wandered onto her land. I told her about Uncle Ernie telling a kid with a gun pointed in his face to "get the hell outa here!"

Sharing stories over wine, what could be better?? If you are truly lucky, you will each have your own moments of brilliance, when you think to yourself, 'wow, now I'm really thinking... now, we're on to something special and important here.' We traded favorite poets -- I told her about Stanley Kunitz and promised to let her borrow his gardening treatise, and she introduced me to Thomas Hardy. We are planning to have poetry reading nights in our living rooms, and soon, knitting parties to follow. We laughed together about how we're such home-body dorks, and it's no wonder we're turning out to be spinsters!

For a few days there has been this glass pitcher sitting on the mosaic table here on the porch. When I first saw it out there I thought to myself, 'oh, how nice, Jenn is making sun tea!'... and then I began to notice day after day that the pitcher was still there, and so I began to think she must have forgotten her tea, and so have been expected to see it mold. But it hasn't molded, to my great suprise! Last night, I asked her about it. As it turns out, it's certainly not any drinkable tea! It's called Worm Tea. How this works is she has a few covered pails in her kitchen with composting soil and foods that has been filled with composting worms. Through the process of composting, the worms end up creating this nutrient rich liquid. By saving it, Jenn can pour it little by little into the sprouting plant projects we have all around the porch and alongside the driveway. I am in awe!! She is always teaching me something, enlightening my life with the most interesting ideas. I have never me a woman smarter than this sweet cookie.

 

In other news, I am trying to decide between camping in the Cohutta's or driving out to Cumberland Island and camping along the beach for the next four days. The original plan was to just go to the Cohutta's, but I've begun to rethink that since the temperatures are going to be in the low 20's at night. I can't imagine I will enjoy sleeping in such a cold climate, which is why I've begun to think about going to the coast instead. I was talking to my Grandmother about it a little last Sunday, while she made my mother and I a big pot of Beef Borgunon (I'm sure I didn't spell that correctly!). When she was in college, my Grandma use to go camping on the weekends by herself, she said, because that was the only way she could get her papers written. What an inspiring thought!! Wherever I end up going, I'm definately looking forward to getting some real writing done. It's been almost a year since I've written a poem, and I can feel the ache for it in my bones. Yes, my bones.

Speaking of deep aches, I've been waking up in the mornings lately with the longing to leave. I'm so ready for the change!! Can it be March 10th already, please? I am dying to know where I will be going. I need a new future to plan. The many seedlings I've been nurturing over the last year are ready for soil! I look around this apartment I've been in now for five years -- my goodness -- and it even seems as though my things themselves are aching to be boxed and crated away. We're all restless here.