Puzzle Number One: Remind me to tell you the tale of the scalloped potatoes.

This comment showed up on my page on Facebook.  I have no idea what it means.  I posted it on August 21, 2015.  Friends want to know, I want to know.  When faced with a serious issue like this I have no choice except to write.  To invent, to create if nothing else a good reason as to why I posed such a statement.  One of my friends is already expecting the story on Sunday when I go to her house for high tea on Sunday.  Note to self, you better get busy and write something.

The obvious to me is possibly I was cooking and a disaster happened with the scalloped potatoes.  Mine are probably not the best in the world but they are good enough for the man as the first time I placed them in front of him he exclaimed he liked my scalloped potatoes better than his mom’s.  High praise, indeed.  However, I am thinking on this particular occasion, a slight variation occurred of the “scalloped potatoes better than his mom’s.” 

 

What could I have possibly done? Potatoes, did I forget them?  Highly unlikely due to the name “scalloped potatoes”.  Cheese, I doubt it.  Onions? Possibly, a new twist on the old standby, a different cheese or cheeses? A different approach to the cooking, baking of the dish? As I sit here writing I am wondering how much time should I devote to figure out what I did right or wrong with the scalloped potatoes. 

I decide to check to see if I had written a blog about it so I searched through old documents according to the probable dates around August 15, 2015.  No, I did not find any blogs or stories written about the scalloped potatoes but I did find out my blog has been going off and on since early 2014.  I also found an interesting bit of writing which I will share with this blog simply because like the statement, “Remind me to tell you the tale of the scalloped potatoes.” I have no idea where it came from in my mind or where I was heading with it. I have read through “Nearly There” which keeps my head shaking, what was this story about.  Perhaps if I pull it out and gaze at it numerous times, I will figure it, work on it and finished it.  Perhaps a reader will have a couple of ideas. Just another of life’s little mysteries.

Puzzle Number Two:  Nearly There

            Walking was an effort, one more step, one more lifting of the foot, placing it on the earth.  She was doing it, moving closer and closer to her goal, a tree that seemed to be loaded down with fruit on the side of a grassy hill.  The grass had already turned brown, waiting for the autumn winds to come with the rain before the winter snows covered the hillside.  She was closer, she could envision the softness of the fruit, the juice running down her throat, moistening her parched throat that could no longer send out noises of pain, sorrow and longing.  Her lips were cracked, streaks of tears long gone held their place on her sun scorched face. Her face had once been fair. Beauty was no longer a priority.  She was alive, she was breathing and now there was hope.

            She could live another day on hope.  She gauged ten more steps to be under the branches of the still green tree. The fruit hung heavy, silhouetted by the sun sinking behind the branches, stems, leaves of the hope of her continuing existence.  The angle of the sun allowed no shade, no shadow from the tree to fall to cool her pathway to the tree.  Her tree, it was her tree.  Simply because she had found it. No trails lead to it.  No one had passed here before her, neither man or animal.  The tree was simply waiting, holding onto its fruit until she could reach it.

            Step, step, one more painful step on feet swollen in shoes nearly worn through.  Shoes that somehow had lasted every minute, every hour through what had seemed like days to her mind.  So very tired. So very thirsty.  Nothing mattered except moving towards the tree, her salvation. I can stop here, I can rest after the fruit and I can sleep.  She shivered, barely wrapped in her torn clothing, arms bared, with deep scratches or cuts that could not bleed because she had nothing to give.

            She had closed her eyes in concentration making the final steps to the boundary of the waiting tree until the side of her face scrape the bark of the tree’s trunk causing new wounds, new hurts but with it came the relief of being there, no more steps.  She drifted away from the new pain in her mind as she stood there, leaning against the solid comfort of another living being, who would give her what she needed. With her arms wrapping around the trunk she fell to her knees in gratitude not caring of more scratches or scrapes on her arms, not caring of the further ripping of the cloth about her body.

            She slept maybe minutes before she somehow shook herself awake from the grip of a slumber. If she had stayed asleep, she would have remained until her flesh melted from her tired bones to mingle with the dirt until she moved further down into the ground to nourish the roots of the grass and the tree.   But before that, the insects would have their day of feasting on the wisp that was her shell of a body. She did not want to give up, she did not want to stop here to linger in the roots where worms traveling through cool earth left their burrows. 

            She moved her body, the shell that housed her spirit.  The spirit somehow lingered giving her the ability for the slight movement of her arms that turned her away from the embrace that she held around the tree.  Her back seemed to mold itself tight against the trunk of this symbol of life for her, she felt more complete somehow with the spirit of the tree reaching out to mingle with the faint light that flickered in her.  She felt at home, strengthen somehow without yet eating the fruit that hung before her eyes as she tilted her head up letting the back of it rest on the tree’s trunk that retained some of the warmth of the day. It was so close, tantalizing, waiting, the fragrance of the sweet fruit teased her tortured dry nostrils, urging a dry mouth to conjure up moisture that she did not have.  She willed her arms to push, she whispered in her mind to send signals to legs that were numb, “Get up, salvation is near.”

“Nearly There” ends at this point.  As for this gem of start of a story, I just am at a lost. What was in my mind?  I will keep echoing the question until my thoughts are pulled off center to dwell on something else.  I feel as I were surrounded by a great growth of vegetation about my feet, vines twisting pulling me off balance to fall flat on my back to realize, I just don’t know where I am going except for this moment and the story “Nearly there” might just have to wait until I am nearly there, reaching out with my hand to grasp a memory in order to say something brilliant and puzzling again.

So as my days go by, I am surrounded by mysteries, small confusions, little revelations, and surprisingly great peace.  I still don’t know whether the scalloped potatoes were brilliant or just a disaster.  Maybe my husband, the man will know.

Butterfly Suicide and Other Things

Butterfly Suicide and Other Things

The man and I did a road trip to celebrate our 36^th wedding anniversary this week. (July 9^th, 2018 to July 11^th, 2018).  It was a reenactment of sorts of his trip to a conference in February to Sunriver, Oregon. Because I had not been able to accompany him through the cold and snow during February, I felt it was my duty to have him retrace his journey with me alongside him during the sunshine of summer. I want to see where he had been, hear his story of travel. Though I don’t like being really cold anymore or being really hot but I was willing to brave the heat in my air conditioned car to see the path he had taken earlier in the year. 

My husband had in February looked carefully at the weather conditions to finally settle on taking Hwy 22 from Salem to Bend in order to hopefully avoid some of the ice and snow of the high altitudes of the Cascade Mountains in our winter. He avoided Hwy 20 from the coast to Bend due to worry about the snow that had already been coming down as a blanket on the highway. Hwy 22 was his best bet. It worked.  He made it there and back.

July, as we travel from our home on the coast we were greeted with beautiful sunshine here and there trying to make it through the clouds. The sunshine never quite made it, we huddled in our light jackets through the coast range, along I-5 to Salem, up Hwy 22 to nearly Detroit, Oregon before the sun finally broke through and I could turn off the heater in the car. I liked it. Being bundled up in my jacket, adjusting the heat without the sun burning down on my legs was my happy idea of a road trip.  

Sunshine, warmth and good companionship, what more could you ask for? We hadn’t traveled far when we started seeing butterflies everywhere. I wince each time we plowed through a cloud with our car on the highway.  Even slowing down did not help as the butterflies were mad with their intention to mate, loaded with pheromones, smashing into the windshield, or the grill of the front of the car with unintentional butterfly suicide along the highway we were traveling on. I kept crying out, No, no, no, but the butterflies continue their dance in the sunshine, heat radiating from the pavement of the road to warm their delicate bodies. It was a reminder of the beauty and fragility of nature.  

We were able to stop by a lake where we use the facilities, no paper available adding to the fun.  I was reminded of my trip to Japan with my sister and how we always carried tissue in our pockets, a purse or jacket or the Japanese friends would reach into their purses to hand out a tissue whenever the need presented itself.  Back to the lake, there was a lovely breeze which was kicking up waves on the shoreline, tall older Ponderosa pine trees providing shade.  I talked briefly to a young man resting in a hammock while waiting for my man.  It was very peaceful, beautiful, and relaxing at the perfect temperature. I kept looking for the butterflies but the breeze coming off of the shore of the lake probably had sent them sailing into unseen meadows where the sun could warm their frantic dancing.  If we hadn’t been on a time limit to reach our Bed and Breakfast lodging we might have stayed longer gazing at the water instead we loaded up in the car and headed back on the road.

We stopped again at a rest area, no facilities.  My husband headed to the bushes, mindful of ticks, etc. so he avoided brushing against the various plants along a footpath.  I amused myself with photographing butterflies resting on the pavement of the rest area.  Finally, I thought to myself a few sensible individuals with a good chance of perpetuating the species.  They were pretty with their wings opening and closing in the heat of the morning.  On my video, I was able to capture only glimpses of the bright orange color of the wings. Beauty resting.

I am thankful for being granted moments of great beauty.  My heart aches for the countless butterflies that we drove through but it is such a part of life, living and being.  Somehow, I felt just a bit better when we drove off, knowing that there was countless places where the butterfly suicide was not happening but an unfolding of wings, a joining of bodies creating hope for the next moment in the future.  It might be all we have.