Yesterday, a feral cat that I had fostered for a couple of months last year fell asleep from sedation and arrived at the final destination of her suffering. She had both cat leukemias – rare, the doc told me. Grateful that someone found her and she hadn’t died in a fetal position in the bitter cold. Instead, she died in a fetal position on a sterile table, wrapped in a towel as I whispered to her.
Concurrently, I rediscovered LZ after watching a documentary. Working two jobs, I took a break for the IMAX experience.
Born in ’62, I came of age in the disco era. But I counted LZ as one of my favorites, along with Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, and Steely Dan. Days later, I’m drawn into the music again. It’s the JPJ arrangements and the young Plant’s vocals, oozing sex and melancholy. And that’s the hook. I pass on Page’s avant garde stuff. I think it’s pretentious and it reminds me of my exhusband–that meandering guitar shyte.
At 13, I ran away to California. In the late 80s, I moved back to this Americana swamp with my toddler daughters. It was to be a pit-stop. But now it’s 2025. A million stories like mine, I’m sure. And so, I come from a matriarchal family where men are more of a hindrance than help. We were/are spiders, well…ya know. Biologically, I’m flooded with HRT that surely must include too much testosterone and I ask myself, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? I could have used it in my 20s-30s.
Some people have traveled around the world. I’m fairly certain that they don’t understand the magnitude of their lives. They have met oceans of people and through them, even more experiences. Exponentially. A lifetime of universes. Such fullness of life, it makes my heart squeeze. A network of neurons, embodied in lived stories and meetings, touching and firing off with each encounter and each retelling of an encounter.
But you and me, the working grunts, if we get to fuck and laugh and watch a good movie once in a while, that’s as good as it gets. It’s small. I’d write a song about it, sketch a picture, or do a narrative dance, but I don’t have the creative capacity. We’re handicapped in that way. Getting the bills paid.
Or maybe I’ve got it really good in my 20-mile radius, and I’m just too greedy for more. I could add this ungratefulness to my guilt pile — if I think too long on it. How fortunate I am in so many ways.
Beckies and Brandons of the world, yeah, I could live as a termite instead of a spider, as you do but, I’ll tell you, my football loving, church-going, wafers. It’s the drama that goes with termite living. Sisters, don’t you know the chaos cuts short the cream. You’ll instantly understand listening to this.
Mattie, the frail cat had a miserable life, with a two months respite of ease and comfort. She had the biggest blue eyes and a croaking voice when she meowed-like she had smoked too many cigarettes. RIP my little beauty. | My hormones are unreasonable. | The country is turning into the Third Reich. | I recognize my life is very small. A quark.
Depression is setting in.
Springtime is the antidote. Twenty-six days.
Until then, I could pull the cover off the keyboard that has been sitting in a corner for decades. Or not. There ain’t no tutorials for an AfroCelt Sound System track or Pat Metheny but I’ll bet I can find one for Led Zepplin.