Wednesday, February 16, 2005

I used to hang out in alleys.

GHOCI spells 'fish.' In case you were wondering.

Last summer we planted two lilac bushes in the front yard. I've always loved lilacs; they bring back memories of when I was a little kid, and played all up and down the alleys in town. For some reason, those alleys were lined with lilac bushes, hollyhocks, and geodes.

Southern Indiana is full of geodes. We used to break them open with hammers and compare the crystals or weird formations inside. I still like to do that, and living here, we can. Geodes are just simply everywhere. I didn't know they were any big deal till people from other places told me so. I've even seen them for SALE in stores! Geodes! The roundish cauliflowerish rocks that make our mower blades duller and duller every summer! People BUY them! Golly, people, our driveway is covered with little geodes. And the large and larger and largest ones are peppered all over everybody's yard here. People glue them to the tops of fenceposts, and place the HUGE ones on either side of their porch steps. There's a house about a block from the post office that has five or six geodes the size of doghouses, all along the top of their front wall.

I think we all take for granted, things that we see every day. Someone else comes in from afar and can see the wonder of it, but we are just too close to see that unless/until it's pointed out. And even then, if it's something that's part of our everyday environment, we often still don't 'see' it like an outsider would see it.

Maybe that's why people who live on the borders of Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, drive all the way to Spring Mill in Indiana. It's something different.

As for the lilacs and hollyhocks, we used to make dolls out of them. Plus, just to smell those lilacs takes me back to those days of playing in the alleys. Broken glass? We didn't care. We just fell on it and picked out the big chunks and wiped off the blood with goldenrod.

I don't remember that the hollyhocks had any odor, but those lilacs. . . . mmmmmmmmmmmm.

My point? It's way up there in the beginning, where I said that we planted two lilac bushes last summer. One of them died, and we thought the other one did, too. But today as I was leaving for school, I saw a fearless little stick covered with tiny buds, peeking up from the ground.

It's going to smell really good in the front yard this summer.

I hope we are here to smell it.

It's getting harder and harder to make ends meet these days. There is a possibility that we will have to sell our house.

2004 brought us such incredible disillusionment, and heartbreak, and broken dreams. 2005 started well, and continues good, but the financial and emotional losses are still terrible.

I will never understand how some people sleep at night.

As for all of YOU, dear, dear people, you have restored most of my faith in humanity. Thank you.

I do have a message for the person who is flooding my inbox and comments right now: "Courtney Klein," please stop emailing me. I don't know you. I am not interested in whatever you want me to look at. I do not want your packet of information. I have no interest in reading about anybody's "last days." I do not care about what you want to tell me. You are a stranger. Get lost. I block your IP and you email me from another one. Go away. You're worse than spam. I don't know what you're selling but I am not interested. Now. Is there any part of this message that you don't understand?

That little bud-covered twig really made my day. It's beauty, waiting to be born.

I hope the cat doesn't eat it.