The More I Think

I had to step away a little today from writing as I got a touch of tummyache from the big potluck at Thistle's school.  I forgot that little kids would be handling stuff like cornbread and things like that.  It was still quite a lovely night.  Everyone was having fun dancing in lines and doing some simple square dancing also (including the ten kindergarteners who danced in one big line), and I loved seeing all the happy faces.  I realized last night how important community dancing is.  I know it was a huge part of society when our country had smaller communities, and of course it is a vital social function all over the world.

At any rate, just want to say that the more I hear about Asha, and write about her, and consider the hair's breadth by which I did not end up like her, the angrier I get about people who plunder things and people of this world.  I feel guilty about taking breathers when so many people who loved this wonderful woman can never take a breather, but in order to catch and translate all this into words, as if plucking them out of the air (which is the magician's trick of writers), I have to pull out my embroidery or my knitting, or take walks.  The screech owls have been calling all night tonight (they don't really screech; they have a very sweet trill and there is a mating pair on my property--I seem to have a lot of creatures that like to come here and have babies, partially because there is a creek with a lot of places to burrow and den up). I go outside when I am feeling the weight of this story and listen to them--it is not a sad song. It reminds me that there can be singing, even in the dark.

Speaking of a song, here is a beautiful one from Cold Mountain, My Ain True Love, written by Sting, who sings it here with Alison Krauss: