"Lists must be made."
By uttering that sentence aloud, I woke myself up from a deep sleep this morning.
I’d just had a two-part dream: first, sitting alone in a large old gymnasium, making and marking tiny paper labels, then affixing them to parts of something that resembled large artificial flower buds. If there’s symbolism to that, it escapes me; I’m not any kind of crafter. In fact, on a recent fact-finding mission to an assisted living home and the senior center here, my brain practically short-circuited when during the tour at both places the managers proudly showed off their cafeteria/craft rooms. One of them had the day’s craft project materials already laid out on the table.
Except when Deana Blanchard guided the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival’s “Ladies’ Art Society” to create altered books - true works of art - I’ve not leaned toward any sort of craftiness. But Yancey County has more artists and true crafters than any other county in the US, and my home is full of their works. Ninety-two pieces (I just now counted them; I’m really into counting things these days. That does not include the gorgeous white glazed bowls in my cabinet - Claudia Dunaway’s last firing before she sold her kiln and became a woodblock printmaker. Oh, it also doesn’t count the cool dragon print towels she gave me when she was first experimenting with that craft). All in all, I’m guessing the value of the art and books I’ve collected since living here well exceeds what I paid for the house.
The second part of the dream was being joined by dozens of other people in the making-and-marking-of-tiny-labels. I was supposed to be in charge, but everyone was being loudly sociable and sloppy and smoking - basically not in the least bit interested in the project. My dream-self was frustrated with the unruly group (no one I know in real life), and I was trying to make them understand that before they did anything, they had to make lists! When I finally did wake up, I was relieved it was just a dumb dream.
However, I really do need to make a daily list - things to check off, things I might need, things I can finally get around to, now that I’m car-free and gave away most of the tools I rarely used and were languishing in the shed. If tools languish, that is. The friends who took them had lost theirs in the Helene flooding.
Yesterday morning, Jim and I had to detour along the ravished Cane River to get back to Burnsville. The shortcut right below his house was plugged up with emergency vehicles, dump trucks, and passenger cars. There was ice at the sharp curve, and a pile up we didn’t want to risk joining. So off we went in the other direction, along the river, which comes off the west side of Mount Mitchell (the highest peak east of the Mississippi). The Cane has been so altered by Helene that we won’t live long enough to see its return. It is already being restocked with trout. Sterile trout, for some bizarre reason. Helene’s devastating race to the Nolichucky Gorge scoured the banks away. There probably isn’t a turtle or a catfish left where the riverbanks used to be. What this will do to our wildlife is incalculable.
I remember when we were living out in Higgins, Ex got so frustrated with something while building the deck, he threw his hammer across the river. The riverbed is so wide now, that’d be an impossible feat.
Enough. Time to start a list.
Cheers,
Lucy