Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A Clarification On "The Wren".

Having come back inside and suddenly turned on harsh fluorescent lighting in the bathroom (the Husband is a light-sensitive sleeper, and 4:45am comes early), it occurred to me that the previous post might need some clarification.

The sex angle is not just a random bit of titillation. See, I went out for a glass of wine and some paganly surfing when I got home, the Husband expressing two desires: one, that his fairly newly legal wife might come back in and make with the sexy when she was done with wine and surfing, and two, that he would be allowed to nap until such sexy happened.

So I came back in and was a happily obliging wife in a room dark and quiet, lit only by candles and serenaded only by the purring of the cat and the contented sighs of the dog. Those candles were honey candles, lit in front of Their cabinet, and then I slunk out in my bathrobe, covered in sex, to go deal with Death in my own weird way.

I don't know if I'm just starting to sound more like Ms. Dirty of Graveyard Dirt, but I doubt she'd find anything odd about me being out there in a bathrobe and the pair of Converse low-tops I wore to our wedding not-quite-a-week-ago, sniffing the magnolia scent in the air and the dead-wren smell so close to hand and the smell of me and Husband on my skin.

And then I came in here, lurking in the bathroom, trying to capture what I always think of as the wildness of the woods at night - a phrase that popped into my head some sixteen years ago when reading the "Song of Amergin". It was the "who knows the place where the sun rests" part; I immediately thought, "What is wilder than the woods at night?" No-one has ever given me an answer.

That, really, is where I am from and belong. Covered in horse and sweat and sex, carrying a dead bird around at odd hours so I can preserve its bones so that I can talk to it later, surprised once again at unnatural light. Don't get me wrong; I like my hot showers and Internet and being able to read after the sun goes down. But after being outside, seeing by either moon or stars, I always react to electric light like I'm unfamiliar with it. It looks odd, as I always think it must look to the animals who come up to our windows in the dark.

So there's your context; a strange yard with some weird things afoot, a witch who makes with the sex and then goes out to deal with the death, and the smell of honey candles, flickering in front of images of Them that I'm sure any of our ancestors could have and probably did make. A husband sleeping after his wife came to him like a succubus, a dog curled into a ball on a blanket in front of the altar, a black cat sprawled on the floor. And nothing wilder than the woods at night, surrounding all this on at least one side.

The Wren.

I got home tonight around four, grabbed the dog and went outside, only to find a dead wren on the patio. It's near a window, so I'm sure the poor bird took a fatal header into it, as they are sometimes wont to do.

The dog was very interested in this. He was very disappointed that I did not allow him to snack on our departed friend. The wren stayed where it was while I pondered this (a dead wren on the porch, not letting the dog eat it. Ew.).

The Husband came home, we came outside, and I showed him the poor little bird, already being eaten by ants. "We'll have to put him in the woods," he said. "Um..." I said. The Husband, knowing me rather well by this point, knew where this was going.

"You want to keep the bones, don't you." Notice there is no question mark there.

"I was thinking of sticking the wren on an anthill," I said, and we went inside to gather my things for tonight's riding lesson.

I came back. The wren was still there. I did a few things around the house, got in bed with the Husband for a bit, and then...came out here to put the wren in an opportune place next to the garden.

What really happened looks like some kind of Hogwarts math class:

If a witch (W) wants, after sex with her Husband (Sex and Death, anyone?), to don a bathrobe and head out to the dead wren (DW)with the intent of putting it on an anthill (A) without attracting attention from her housemates (H1,2), which means no flashlight (F), but also doesn't want to get bitten by the ants already consuming DW, how does she do it?

Quickly. And carefully.

W is unbitten, H1 & 2 seem none the wiser, and DW is now in the garden. I talked to it, apologizing for the windows and wishing it a nice sojourn in the Summerlands/a good next incarnation, and explaining what I'd like to do with its bones once they're clean.

So help me, if I see that single row of teethmarks in it tomorrow, I am having a ton of salt delivered to this place. Because it does occur to me that while I've seen bluebirds, woodpeckers, hawks, crows, cardinals, mockingbirds, and sparrows aplenty, I haven't seen or heard a single wren since we moved in.


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Creepy Things.

Trothwy and Evn have heard all about the Scary Thing in one corner of the yard. It wasn't immediately evident until we'd been in the house a few weeks, then - WHAM. I was walking the dog at 5am or so, and suddenly got the feeling that Something was going to come out of that corner and eat us both if I didn't pick him up and high-tail it back inside.

I did no such thing, of course. I put a protective circle around us, waited for the dog to do business, and then went calmly inside. I thought whatever it was would see that A. trying to scare me wasn't fun and B. that we meant it no harm. I was wrong. The Scary persisted, though it's lessened somewhat.

Now, this is the Creepy part.

I advised the Scary Thing, after an annoying visit by Crazy Landlady last week, that I was certainly less likely to annoy it than she is, so it might consider helping me keep her off the premises as much as possible. I felt like the idea was being considered, but haven't heard a thing since.

Yesterday, I discovered that the devastation of my garden, which I had previously attributed to moles from below and deer from above, had taken a turn for the...well, creepy. Because Something knocked half of my tomatoes off the stems, and then bit them.

Big whoop, you say. Deer, you say. Ever heard of deer that leave one row of very human-looking teeth marks? Yep. One row. Like something that only has one row, either top or bottom, of about four to eight human-shaped teeth of the size you'd find on a fairly young child.

(shudder)

I am willing to accept any rational explanation for this. In fact, I'd prefer one. But dammnit, I am a country girl, I know what deer and bunny teeth look like, and this ain't it.

Suggestions, folks? I've sprinkled coyote piss granules and put up fencing, and am considering a nice "hex sign" on the fence. But what I'd really like to know is what, or Who, is in this damn yard.


Monday, May 27, 2013

Everything Is The Same, And Everything Is Different.

We are now married, thanks to our wonderful officiants Evn and Trothwy. Thanks, y'all :) Awesome job, and I owe you each a stole*.

Not much went as planned. The outdoor concept was nixed by the Husband, who was fretting about a 60% chance of rain. While the ceremony was outside, the noshing was inside, which, of course, meant it did not rain a drop. Frigging Texas.

One set of Husband's relatives wound up not showing at the last minute because they "had to spread dirt in the yard". This is why brides write to Miss Manners and ask if they can bill guests for, say, the tables and chairs that were then completely unnecessary. Other guests had last-minute disasters that had to be tended to and towards which I feel far more sympathetic.

When I realized the initially almost-forty-person guest list had dwindled to a much more manageable eighteen or so, I thought, "Well, at least we didn't pay per-head in a hall somewhere" and then heard a low chuckle from Somewhere and a Voice saying, "This was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

Not exactly, no. But much closer. And Husband's Mother didn't show up, which I'm sure made everything much better than it might have otherwise been. I owe Somebody for that, and I'm sure the bill will be coming any day now. I'm on the lookout. I'm also wondering if I need to unshoal the "Husband's mom doesn't do or say anything inappropriate at our wedding" sigil from the others, since that's now done and the others aren't, really.

Sigh - I'd like to stay home and think about all this, and possibly even do something about it. But alas, I scheduled a lesson for today, so contemplating my new married state and the intricacies of sigil use are going to have to wait.

Everything is the same - I have little free time, the Husband and I are interacting pretty much as we were three days ago, I go to work, I will come home and cook. Everything is different - our relationship is now easy to explain, we are legally bound, we have created something new together.


*Evn and Trothwy were considering wearing stoles as indicators of office for the wedding. Alas, the Catholics are quite proud of their products, so no stoles were bought and worn, and Evn did not show up in a Bishop's miter and robe**, which would have thrilled my blasphemous little heart no end.


**He also didn't show up wearing only body paint, shoes, and a t-shirt with "PLEASE EXCUSE MY ENORMOUS PENIS" written on it, and I am still somewhat disappointed that I didn't encourage him to do this with more seriousness.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Here Comes The Bride.

Evn, yesterday, reminded me that a wedding isn't about the two people involved so much as everyone else who's attending. Trothwy said, "It's YOUR day."

I am the Bride, and tend to lean towards Trothwy's view.

I am the Bride. Despite being recently divorced and handfasted to my Bridegroom for two years, I feel very...new. Shiny. Like this is a whole new ballgame, even though I can't imagine much changing between myself and the Husband/Bridegroom.

But there's something different. Maybe it's, as I said to him over something silly a few nights ago, that he taught me to dream again. I can dream, now, about a little barn and five or so safe schooling horses, and maybe giving lessons on the weekends at a place where I call the shots. I can dream about living somewhere else which is NOT godsdamn Costa Rica* (don't ask). I have someone, now, who genuinely appreciates every little thing I do. Someone who dug me a garden (which is being decimated my moles from below and deer from above, but I digress).

I survived a financially ruinous divorce in which I lost Land and stability and pets, and came out, as Deb said I would, feeling bulletproof. And with this official, legal marriage, I feel even newer. I mean, come on - I'm 42 and have been married, if not legally, to the man I'm marrying on Saturday for two years already. Why did buying plastic cups in pretty spring-party colors at Sam's make me feel so fluttery? Why am I starting to think that I need some sort of veil for him to lift on Saturday? Why am I thinking that a ban on sex until Saturday might be both incredibly hot and remarkably symbolic?

The things he asks of me are so few, and so simple, and really come down to two things - that I love him, and that I be myself. Really myself, not some domesticated version that's easier to handle and explain to the neighbors and doesn't inconvenience anyone.

Well, that and tuna casserole. He loves it when I make my mother's tuna casserole. And cookies. And that tater tot-poblano-roasted corn-cheese gunk. He adores that shit.

Back to me.

Maybe this whole Bride thing is because I've never done a wedding by myself before, and while his family certainly has helped, we've done a lot of the logistics. I'm wearing a dress I haven't fit into in eight years. It has cherries on it.

How symbolic, right?

All the kidding and flippancy aside, this is momentous. I will walk through the yard on Saturday to the altar where Trothwy and Evn and my little horned Bridegroom wait (if only he could wear a set of small antlers). And when everyone finally goes home, we will be alone for the first time as legal spouses, Bride and Bridegroom, as much archtypes as people. I have no idea what happens after that, but I suspect it will be wonderful and interesting and something I never even saw coming.

*I have nothing against Costa Rica. I just also have no more desire to live there than I do, say, London or Finland.