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@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ There has been a shifting of the plan over the centuries. The oak is gradually c Death was standing in the corner, as he often did. He didn't bother her, he never had. Death was not a stranger, how could death be a stranger when you're 98? Death is patient. Death is rarely in a rush. -What puzzled her was that no one else seemed to see him. She noticed the nurses in their starched stiff shirts avoided looking in that corner. She couldn't blame them. They were young. They didn't want to see death. Still, you'd think with their jobs they'd recognize him for what he was, that old guardian of the gates. +What puzzled her was that no one else seemed to see him. She noticed the nurses in their starched stiff greens and blues avoided looking in that corner. She couldn't blame them. They were young. They didn't want to see death. Still, you'd think with their jobs they'd recognize him for what he was, that old guardian of the gates. "Did you hear Ms tk?" @@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ The Doctor closed the door softly behind him. Thought I'd never get rid of him s She sat up slowly and slid off the bed to the floor. It wasn't a leap, but a slide was something. You take what you can get. There was a bag sitting in the chair on the other side of the room. Her her daughter had brought it earlier that morning. She walked over and unzipped it. Inside was a new shirt and a pair of pants. They were ugly, but they would do. She put the bag on the floor and sat down to pull on her pants. Wouldn't do to break a hip just before you're supposed to die. -Once she was dressed she put the bag and couple of towels in the bed and pulled the covers up over it. She stepped back and looked at it. It didn't look much like a person, but then again they never noticed death so maybe they wouldn't notice her being gone either. +Once she was dressed she put the bag and couple of towels in the bed and pulled the covers up over it. She stepped back and looked at it. It didn't look much like a person, but then again they never noticed Death so maybe they wouldn't notice her being gone either. Her feet were still in slippers and made no sound on the tile hallway. She could hear the nurses talking down in their station. She walked as quickly as she could, but it was harder and harder to draw a breath. She quietly opened the stairway door and slowly let it click shut behind her. She stood at the top of the stairs, panting. Slowly she descended. @@ -88,15 +88,17 @@ She smiled. Her son. She loved her son. "Everyone is on a different path," she m "Mom, it's hard enough that I am doing this. Don't make it more morbid than it is." -"Oh dear, I am sorry. I had forgotten." She turned to face her daughter, looking closely at the slight lines beginning to form at the edges of her eyes. She did the math in her head. Sarah was thirty two. "I forget that when you're young you still think you are doing things in the world." She sighed. "I rather miss those days. Not that there isn't plenty to do at my edge. Good lord I think I have done more this year than I did in my 30s, but I no longer have the illusion of it being me that it doing them." +"Oh dear, I am sorry. I had forgotten." She turned to face her daughter, looking closely at the slight lines beginning to form at the edges of her eyes. She did the math in her head. Sarah was thirty two. "I forget that when you're young you still think you are doing things in the world." She sighed. "I rather miss those days. Not that there isn't plenty to do at my age. Good lord I think I have done more this year than I did in my 30s, but I no longer have the illusion of it being me that is doing them." "What do you mean?" "Oh, I don't mean to be coy Sarah, but I can't tell you. I mean that literally. It is impossible to convey. You won't understand anything about this drive until it is your turn. If you have the luxury of choosing." She reached out and tucked a small strand of her daughters hair back behind her ear. Then she pretended not to notice the tear at the edge of her eye and turned back to the window. -It was nearly dark when they turned off the last paved road. The cabin was another ten miles of unpaved road, rutted and ice. It took almost as long as the highway driving. But from up here she could see the lake in the winter. She felt bad about her daughter having to drive back in the dark. She would have asked her to stay the night, but there wasn't time. She lit the stove with old newspapers and dry kindling by the stove. She made a pot of tea and they each drank a cup, sitting side by side on the porch swing, her daughter's head on her shoulder just as it had been all those years before. Before what? Before now? Was that all? Time was a funny thing. Then, gently as she could, without trying to hurry her too much, she packed her daughter in the car and got her heading back down the icy drive toward the city. +It was nearly dark when they turned off the last paved road. The cabin was another ten miles of unpaved road, rutted and icy. It took almost as long as the highway driving. But from up here she could see the lake in the winter. She felt bad about her daughter having to drive back in the dark. She would have asked her to stay the night, but there wasn't time. She lit the stove with old newspapers and dry kindling by the stove. She made a pot of tea and they each drank a cup, sitting side by side on the porch swing, her daughter's head on her shoulder just as it had been all those years before. Before what? Before now? Was that all? Time was a funny thing. Then, gently as she could, without trying to hurry her too much, she packed her daughter in the car and got her heading back down the icy drive toward the city. -This was what she loved about the winter. The absolute silence and stillness that doesn't end,but slowly drifts through the night and into your sleep. She drank another cup of tea on the porch, staring up at the stars and out at the lake, it's stilled edges still locked in ice. It will be breaking soon she thought. She got up and walked down the hill. It was hard walking on the crusted surface of the snow. She slipped and came crashing down on her thigh. She was half surprised there hadn't been a terrible crack of breaking of bone. She rolled on her side and tensed and relaxed muscles and felt around her leg. There was pain, but not so much that she thought anything was broken. All at once the absurdity of it hit her and she laugh back laughing. When she opened her eyes everything was stars. They seemed so impossible close, bright and sharp, yet cold, clear. She shivered. And then she noticed him. Leaning against the tree. He looked different now, more human, less abstracted. He looked somehow polite even. Like a man waiting patiently for the restroom she thought. She thought she even saw him smile at this thought. Here then? She turned her head to the side and looked over a grove a birches. They were young trees, but well established. She turned her head the other way, down the slope toward the lake. She could see the scrawny trunks from here. Grow she thought as she rolled her head back up to the sky. Grow. Like the stars. So many. So many trees. So many stars. +This was what she loved about the winter. The absolute silence and stillness that doesn't end,but slowly drifts through the night and into your sleep. She drank another cup of tea on the porch, staring up at the stars and out at the lake, its edges still locked in ice. It will be breaking soon she thought. She got up and walked down the hill. It was hard walking on the crusted surface of the snow. She slipped and came crashing down on her thigh. She was half surprised there hadn't been a terrible crack of breaking of bone. She rolled on her side and tensed and relaxed muscles and felt around her leg. There was pain, but not so much that she thought anything was broken. All at once the absurdity of it hit her and she laughed. + +When she opened her eyes everything was stars. They seemed so impossible close, bright and sharp, yet cold, clear. She shivered. And then she noticed him. Leaning against the tree. He looked different now, more human, less abstracted. He looked somehow polite even. Like a man waiting patiently for the restroom she thought. She thought she even saw him smile at this thought. Here then? She turned her head to the side and looked over a grove a birches. They were young trees, but well established. She turned her head the other way, down the slope toward the lake. She could see the scrawny trunks from here. Grow she thought as she rolled her head back up to the sky. Grow. Like the stars. So many. So many trees. So many stars. # The farmer in Milwaukee. @@ -261,12 +263,23 @@ Sil sat in a troubled silence. "I think," he said at last, "this is something Fi "And Air is East." -"Yes," Her father nodded, pleased. It is a wheel, yes? I do not put too much into this, but maybe that is the nature of Fire to see it this way, I do not know. What I know is that each had to have a direction. Maybe there is more to it than this, I don't know. I know have never felt any particular pull to the south. If anything I feel a pull to the west. +"Yes," Her father nodded, pleased. "It is a wheel, yes? I do not put too much into this, but maybe that is the nature of Fire to see it this way, I do not know. What I know is that each had to have a direction. Maybe there is more to it than this, I don't know. I know have never felt any particular pull to the south. If anything I feel a pull to the west." "Water again." -"Hmm? Ah, yes. You are right." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He did not mention that water also flows downhill, always toward the sea. He did not know all the ceremoney of the Water People, but he'd seen enough of them to know that she would be a leader among them. He was good at sensing these things. I was his place to find them, the leaders. He had not expected to find them so close to himself though. He wondered though at the old teaching, that love grants clarity. What if there were leaders he did not sea simply because he did not know them well enough to love them and therefore not see what was in them, what if he lacked the clarity he had with his own children and that was why he say it now in her, but not in others who might be just as worthy as her. +"Hmm? Ah, yes. You are right." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He did not mention that water also flows downhill, always toward the sea. He did not know all the ceremony of the Water People, but he'd seen enough of them to know that she would be a leader among them. He was good at sensing these things. I was his place to find them, the leaders. He had not expected to find them so close to himself though. He wondered though at the old teaching, that love grants clarity. What if there were leaders he did not sea simply because he did not know them well enough to love them and therefore not see what was in them, what if he lacked the clarity he had with his own children and that was why he say it now in her, but not in others who might be just as worthy as her. + +He was lost in this thought when he realized he could no longer see his daughter on the shore. He was just about to stand up to look closer when the arrow hit the mast with a loud crack and Iza screamed. He quickly rolled to her side and covered her mouth. "Stay down," he hissed. And then he slithered away, elbow crawling his way over the deck to the companionway. He disappeared down the stairs and returned with his rifle and a glass. He crawled to the bow and and propped the glass against a hole cut in the gunwale, half for this purpose, half to drain water in rough seas. He put his eye to the glass and scanned the tree line. There was nothing. He swept as far as he could to the south side of the cover and then back again toward the north. He was about to conclude that whomever had shot the arrow was gone when he saw him. A lone man was leaning against a birch tree. He was dressed in skins, and had a quiver strap across his chest. He was staring straight into the lens and laughing. + +"I can see you you know." + +They go ashore, spend time with the Ojibwe tribe that's come down from the north to winter cabins on the lake. For them it's too keep warm, to fish, to hunt where there is still game. To works the southern forests. The father has become friends with them over the years, his long hikes in the woods when he was young, he ran away from the village he was raised in to the south, he came to live among the trees. he lives with the Ojibwe for several years before he is captured and shanghaied somehow and ends up at sea on the lake and then later all the way to the southern seas where he has adventures and then he decides to return to the north. He walks up from present day tennessee mountains to the village that's where ashland is now and meets his wife there and settles, but still hutns and fishes, is unwilling to live a stationary life. he spends his summers on the boat, his winters in the forest outside the village. the wife lifes in the village, forages and grows the medicines. she is the village healer. the healer for the whole area. + +They spend a few fires with the Ojibwe. Iza sees a young boy, a hunter who catches her eye. not too much there, but something about him stays wtih her so that he comes up later when she is south. why does she go south? something drives her south. + +her father photographs the Ojibwe and they want him to take pictures of all the new children and the young men who have left the nearby villages to join them. that's his service to them, so they stay a week longer and he makes the photographs. Get into how he does it. The old camera that has been handed down. a film camera artifact from a museum in a city. Her father when to a photo museum and saw the images and the camera and figures out how it works, teaches himself to read enough of the old language to be able to use the camera, which he and everyone else considers a kind of magic. their approach to it is science but they think of it in terms of having its own life, of being a thing that is alive and that can help them. Learning the ways of it, learning its nature rather than a deconstructionist scientific approach. Everyone must learn the way of things and then must find their own way within the way of things. +Everyone to do their own thing is not chaos, it's nature. yes people work together, people help each other do their own thing when they need it but no prescribes the way to do a thing beyond basic community standards. In other words you do not harvest the rice until it is ready, but once it is ready how you harvest it and how much you harvest is up to you and yours. the collective model of the spainish village, wherein some obligations and pressue of the community is exerted in such a way that you want to be better. as in the jui jitsu philosophy that training to be better yourself encourages an esprit de cour in the whole village that makes it stronger. there is thought of the collective, but the thought is how can I make it stronger, not what do I need to do, but what can I do. THey are going to the annual winter festival, the gathering of the rice, but also to her her age ceremony when she will be adopted into wider tribes, the people of the water and everywhere she will go the people of the water will welcome her. |