short

i'm average in height, not short, per se.

but this post has to be short.

first things first: i'm awol this weekend. driving to my grandma's house four hours north to help out my mom and aunt with the estate sale. no, grandma's still kicking, but she doesn't remember she has kids or a house, and the nice folks at the assisted living facility are helping her out now...so the house is kind of extra.

i just know it's going to be difficult for my mom and aunt, saying goodbye to a house that they grew up in. it will stay in the family; from what i hear, my cousin is buying it.

that house is infused with my grandma's spirit--or perhaps it's my memories of her. perhaps that is what we think is spirit--that which is immortal, our memories. i give spirit to the house by remembering family meals there, remembering squeezing in at the table, remembering grandpa slipping me marshmallow pinwheel cookies under the table at breakfast.

i have to meet my mom and sister, so again, why am i blogging?

because my friend dilshad lost her father today, and i need to get this off my chest before i get in the car and drive somewhere.

i know it's samhain, i know that the veil is thin. it's closing--like a curtain at the end of a play, it's closing. but it's slow. the person operating the drapery pulls in the otherworld is taking their own sweet time.

there are so many things that are dying. so many.

i keep the picture in my head of yellowstone, after the fires: ashy stumps, blackened ground, and the green shoots, poking through. i understand the concept of life giving back to death and death nourishing life. but it's difficult to watch it happen.

there are so many things being born--multitudes.

the balance between everything is kept by some objective accountant, with worldly pencil in hand. it's getting close to tax time--the endof the year--and i'm picturing some god showing up to audit your life.

what have you done, who have you influenced, what good do you have to show of your hands? i'm a child, caught playing in the dirt: show me your hands, kim, you've got dirt under your nails. and me, denying i know that dirt exists.

perhaps it's that childlike denial of death that makes it all the more difficult to understand. i feel pride that i have a plant that is ten years old. it just keeps growing. i've killed off others--or perhaps donated them to time is a nicer way of putting it!--but this one plant continues.

however, the only reason it continues is because i prune it back. i transplant it. i take half away and repot strands, give them to friends. peices of this plant are all over--in dirt up north, in dirt here, you name it. my plant has gone and done things that a short, season-lived plant from outside the patio door would never consider.

but only because it survives change, even if it's an unwilling accessory.

whenever someone dies i feel like i do a minute inventory of my own life. small, short. i keep my list tiny, and then i lose the list again until i am faced with the inevitability of living: dying.

and taxes.

i work in payroll...tax season IS just around the corner. check your moneymaking papers. make sure you're in order. you never know when april 15th will crop up.

off to the races, folks. have a good weekend.

***

for dil, even tho she doesn't know this blog exists:

from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.