Journal continued
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Jan.8,2001 cont.
Ok, I am a total nervous wreck now. I know I heard someone banging on the front door, Ernie barked at it, and when I peeked out the door here, I heard a car pull away. I have my little camera turned on and tried to capture a pic. for you, it sux, I know. However you can see the mill on the inside, I have a curtain hanging at the side window and you can see a bit of the mill equipment in the foreground. It looked a lot better befor I converted it to a .gif file. Maybe Daniel can do something to make a clearer picture for you when he gets home. I sure will be glad when he gets home tonight. I hope he isn't late.
Jan.10, 2001
Well, a lovely hollowed out day today. Already it is beginning to fog over nicely and looks more like a watercolor painting, seen from a distance. I had an argument with Daniel this morning, over what I couldn’t now tell you so I will assume it was silly and insignificant as most disagreements between lovers usually are, and can be easily mended this evening, with the reestablishment of love and trust in that special, special way. (If you know what I mean.)
At any rate, last time I was writing you I had another knocking on the door incident and Daniel is of the opinion that it is the ex-bass player for their band, who I didn’t like anyway, coming around messing with us. He was out here a few nights ago, about 2:00 a.m. with some of his friends. One of the cars had pulled up and parked under our willow tree. We heard him and another guy in two different cars, turning around in front of the building, laying down rubber, revving their engines, you know, the usual redneck sounds, they drove away when we went out the front door.
Regardless of who it is, I want them to go away.
I was talking to a girl yesterday that lives in a duplex down from where Daniel and I used to live, she told me that the people who used to live in our old place had lived there for seven years and that they were the head of the local BDSM group and that they did a lot of work with a Ouiji board there. Perhaps that could account for the spirit activity. Who’s to say? At any rate the conversation ended amicably and it was nice I must say to talk to someone.
This evening, I got a phone call from a research group wanting me to participate in a focus group concerning women’s health issues in this area. They will pay me $50.00 and feed and water me. LOL
The lady told me they were getting together 10 women just like me to talk about medical care for women. I told her if she could find 10 women like me, my hat would be off to her. I hope it works out where I can do it, the money would come in very handy and I could take my big pocket book and maybe bring home a few goodies from the buffet. LOL
My sister has moved into her trailer ok. I think of her a lot and hope she is safe there by herself. She had a little dog but couldn’t take him with her, that’s sad, at least I have Ernie with me always to keep the monsters at bay.
My sister thinks I should go to a therapist. She’s right of course. LOL However I would hate to have all my highs brought down and all my lows lifted up till I was nothing but a flat-line surface dweller.
Sometimes I do get a bit weirder than usual and perhaps a tad paranoid and I like to make my bed in unusual places. For instance, I sometimes will sleep in a closet, or make a bed on the floor under the table. At one point I was sleeping in the car quite a bit. But that was some time back, I haven’t done that in a long time. I was sleeping in an old ‘70 something Volvo. Pea green with a metallic blue driver’s side door. A really cool car. I was asleep in it when they came and told me my grandmother was dead. So I don’t sleep in cars now.
I don’t see that as a particularly peculiar behavior, in fact, if you are afraid someone is out to get you and you want some peaceful sleep, it’s not a bad idea to sleep in unusual places where they would be unlikely to look for you. That’s the way I look at it anyway.
A moving target is harder to hit.
Jan.20, 2001
Oh my, I have been too many days away from here; I am a wreck right now. Due to financial circumstances our phone was cut off, so no way to get to you and let you know what is happening.
Remember the girl I told you about that lives at the duplexes where Daniel and I lived briefly? Well, I have been babysitting for her while she goes to the University; this will be temporary until she can find suitable day care for the little boy. At any rate I am out of the mill a bit.
I like children; they are the only honest things on the planet. Children and dogs actually. Both are as good to you as you are to them, not like adults, that may or may not return kindness depending on what they get out of it. At any rate the girl is going away for 2 weeks in a couple months and she said if I watch the baby while she is gone, she will give me her old Cadillac. I said ok, although I don’t have a license I can give it to Daniel to drive. LOL
She has 3 cars and wants to get rid of a couple of them. I can use the computer at her place while I am there.
The shock of getting out of the mill has made me sick lately, I can’t sleep. If I get to sleep, I can’t stay sleeping because of the nightmares that jerk me out of slumber like rough hands. I’ve been hearing music coming from the creek at night too. One night I heard blue grass music just as clear and loud and I could hear people singing and dancing, another night it was jazz and tap dancing, quite annoying actually.
Last night was a cold snowy night. Wind chills below zero, roads icy and dangerous. I was afraid Daniel would get trapped at work but he made it in our old junky car that always runs no matter what! LOL
Daniel took us to town to get a couple burgers. The sun is out and so terribly bright it hurts the eyes. The mountains some distance from here are covered in snow. The folds and creases lay like cloth, stunning white against the upturned dazzling blue sky. I like the hidden coves and hollows of the mountains. Where the shadows never leave and no one ever sees the secrets that pass there.
One time, several years ago, we went to look at a farm for sale. It was what they call a water-shed farm. Meaning it was all the land leading up to the tops of the surrounding ridges and hills that would, when it rained, shed the water that way making the farm some 50 acres.
We went to look at the place one day in mid October and oh the sky was like crystal and each leaf was slinging its separate color back and forth in the breeze like paint. The old dirt road leading to the farm was ankle deep in crisp brown leaves and made every step we took roar and startle. It was a mile hike back into the folds and arms of the hills, either side of the road walled in by forested swells of earth. Trees reached and met overhead and in places it was like walking through a tunnel of color and sound.
I’ve never been any place like it since. We walked the mile back into the secret hollows and came to where the hills gave way and what remained of the farm house sat huddled on the ground. It had stood as long alone as it could, and finally gave up and lay itself down. Only the woods and creeping things seeing it’s descent to earth, it’s collapse.
It had been a yellow house with white trim and a green shingled roof. Bits of debris were scattered about it, pieces of old ladder back chairs with the back legs worn short from someone long ago having rocked back in them. A bit of curtain still clung to a nail at one window and inside I could see papers and crinkled floorboards and leaves that had invaded the house and turned to dust.
There was a little spring close by; surrounded by stones laid there how many years ago I couldn’t say. The weeds across the pasture were shoulder high. Joe Pye weed, and Queen Anne’s lace and Indian Paintbrush, jumbles of blackberry bushes and crab grass swirled together and almost obliterated the path to the gray empty barn. Not a breath of air stirred back in the hollow, the hills rose up on all sides till it seemed we were standing at the lip of some great bowl. The quiet was complete like walking into a tomb, and overhead the piercing blue sky arched away and away.
The feeling there changed me and has haunted me to this day. A sadness and emptiness, the sharp pang of time passed and passing still. I carry that memory like I carry a stone from my mother’s grave. To remind me of things gone away into the sky of autumns past.
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