i have as much soul as you and full as much heart
saturday--i found this guy on tiktok who does posts about women. all the adorable things we do. decoding our behavior for men. things that make us happy. great and respectful ways to treat us. he does all his video clips with humour. he's a canadian from sask and i have to say he was pretty spot on in all he said. it made me cry actually. a strange reaction, maybe but that's what happened. i was crying because at least one guy out there is respecting, loving, building up, and cherishing women and it feels so rare. and so good. i was also crying because the contrast was so stark with what i've experienced in relationships and what i should have experienced and i grieved that a little bit. tiktok. who knew.
i was thinking about it this morning. if by some miracle another guy makes it through the cloister to this nunnery life i live, i want to be so much wiser. i really want to be. God grant me the grace to learn my hard knock lessons.
i did it. i went grocery shopping. i have food again. i was ready. i wore a mask. i feel like that's what you are supposed to do now. i couldn't breathe. just ambling slowly around produce bins, i was sucking air hard. unless i'm sitting still masks make me breathe really hard, so hard that you can see the mask being sucked in and blown out with my breath. i just can't get enough air. i feel like i'm working out hard. is it an asthma thing or is it a fattie thing or is it both. i don't know. i just know that as soon as i get to my car i rip that thing off and gasp for air.
a word about fudgsicles. if you find yourself choosing between brands and you think well fudgsicle originals obviously. no. you are wrong. put it back. chapman fudgsicles are far superior. trust me.
last night i edited photos while watching movies. i watched robin hood--the one with cate blanchette and russell crowe. well that left me wanting more. so then i watched jane eye. oh jane eyre. you never
disappoint. the one with mia wasikowska. it's my favourite of the favourites. maybe i'll read it again. i'll tell you a secret. i'm afraid of my books because i'm afraid they have silver fish inside. i don't want to open it up and have squirming grossies fall out or ONTO ME. so if i take a book from the shelf i take it outside and step on it (to squish any squirmies) and fan all the pages outside. that's at least what i did one time. to be fair there was no sign of any squirmmie grossies but you never know. anyway the scene when mr. rochester is trying to tell jane that he loves her and she can't see it through her grief at leaving and at losing him and because she knows already that she loves him but can't imagine that he loves her but how she is so little, and poor and plain (not really. she is so pretty i have never since i read it as a young teenager believed that she wasn't beautiful in her own way) but she declares her equality to him before God and in reality and she is so vulnerable and so powerful in the moment and her face as she trembling with passion and pain and unbelief and hope "you love me?" gah. it's so poignant and beautiful. i had to watch that part twice. charlotte bronte, mia wasikowska thank you. your souls touched my soul.
this morning out on my porch for a scripture time i was visited again a couple time by the hummingbirds. it's a wonder to sit so close to such a tiny miraculous little thing. to see her bright black eye and the light through her whirring wings. i got some pictures with my phone but came to the conclusion that the phone camera is not good enough. so now the big boy is sitting waiting at the ready on the little half moon table. speaking of which i looked out on the porch this morning as i was feeding the old lady her numnums and saw that my purse had spent the night out there. whoops. i didn't check but i think the five dollars is still in there. nobody comes up my steps besides food delivery boys, and judy. yesterday judy asked me for half a tsp of salt for her muffins. i told her i would throw it over the balcony. i shook some salt into an empty spice jar and was about to throw it over the edge when i saw her in the yard. she was holding a margarine container and a dishrag. "are these yours?" "mm.. probably. how did you get them" "mumble...fall over...i'll put them on your step" she starts walking around to my stairs and i realize that my underclothed bottom half was about to be revealed so i darted inside to cover myself like a respectable woman that i am not. when i came out i was startled to see her right at my screen door. ha ha. she is kind of stealth mode sometimes that judy. she didn't say a word about my sudden disappearance and reappearance. she just took the salt and chattered on about something else. it seemed like 10 minutes later she was back with 3 warm banana muffins for me.
billy and norm brought me the sacrament this morning. i took it on the porch sanctuary. i swept for the occasion and laid out a yoga mat for billy to kneel on. it was only my 2nd time to have the sacrament since march when the churches were all closed. i feel so grateful to be able to take it and for the gentle love i felt from Heavenly Father when i prayed before they came.
i finished april 27, 2019
a photog with a tripod on a neighbouring dune
there was this time after the sun set when all the sky sand world was a pastel pink ice cream dish of love. my camera was dead but i recorded some of it on my phone.
april 28, 2019 we drove to the south east corner of new mexico and visited the carlsbad cavern. you take an elevator down 754 feet and walk a 2km path around the strange cave formations. it's been called the grand canyon with a roof over it. it was too dark for pictures. but it was strange and wonderous. the theme of our trip to the south west was "other worldly". every place we visited was strange and marvelous. we wanted to see the famous bats that pour out of the caves at sunset but the bats weren't in residence. apparently bats migrate? i never considered such a thing. so we left earlier than planned, dipped down into texas for a while and at el paso skipped back up into new mexico. that night we camped at the foot of the organ mountains. the tiny little road that brought us there seemed like it was bringing us to no where. the sun was getting very low as we started up these very narrow roads with hairpin turns all grown over with wild desert foilage and suddenly it opened up to a campsite right at the foot of these rough toothy mountains. the camp was scattered with jolly campers playing the guitar and singing in spanish. we could hear them from all directions, echoing all over the camp. i loved that. i'm pretty sure we ate in the dark. and changed in the open under the cover of darkness.
the next morning we could see more clearly what a beautiful place we were in, but we didn't stay long. April 29, 2019 we headed west towards arizona. but before we left new mexico we got the famous (green) chilie cheese burger that you are supposed to eat in new mexico. we got ours at mcdonald's which is kind of a fail, but we enjoyed it ironically and unironically.
we got to the tuscon area and saguaro national park. here are some of my favourite photos from our time exploring the park. it kind of blew our minds how vast and far the saguaro 'forest' spread. otherworldly--am i right??
giants. it was super windy blowing in stormy clouds and then blowing them out. some of the cacti were in bloom.
when they say giant they mean it.
that night we slept in pretty campground at the base of the santa catalina mountains (in catalina state park). we have a thing about camping at the base of some gorgeous mountains. heather, as is sometimes her wont, got up in the early hours to go pee. she slid out a side door, a maneuver she mastered over our 2 week car sleeping venture. later in the light of the morning as we were prepping for breakfast we discovered a dead scorpion right outside of her door. we shrieked inwardly at the thought of what could have happened if she, like me, left her shoes outside overnight ready on the ground just outside the door. luckily she kept them inside and put them on before leaving the safety of sahib. did you know scorpions glow in the dark? now you do, and like me you can't unknow or unsee that in your mind's eye.
well that's enough for now.
Comments
i know! he said there was too much out there putting women down and he really wanted to put out good uplifting respectful content and he's married too, so i think he must have learned a lot from his wife too. and possibly sister.