A Reprise

I can't write much anymore. I just don't have the presence of mind for it. But when they come, if I turn them away, they won't come back so much. That's the way it works. So even though I can't write a story, I can at least tell you what Dr. Thorn is doing, so that you know The Empty City  is still around. Dr. Thorn is sitting at her desk in a bare office. She is a picture of elegant tragedy. Her long, white fingers are entwined around a telephone receiver, not a cordless kind -- the cord is dangling down impossibly long and hopeless like the seventy-foot-long cords you would see at granny's house that have to reach all the way across the kitchen and dining room. It's an old telephone, but it's not as old as the fingers holding it: they look like carved ivory that might yellow a bit over a few hundred years, but nothing more. As a vampire, she is exempt from signs of aging, yet the price she pays is an indeterminate look about her eyes and face: noth

Blackberry vines , a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. The flowers on the blackberry vines are starting to bloom. I can't wait to have blackberries this summer.

Lovely a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. I thought for a moment I was climbing the steps to the beekeeper's mansion. It makes me want to return. Reading: Gone to Earth , by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb.

Truly one of the most amazing shops I have ever visited. The Path of Tea was filled with incredibly kind (also calm) staff members and divine tea selections. I did not have my wish list with me, so I went on whim. The three of us shared a small pot of ginger white tea. We selected our preferred cups while the tea was brewed. Susan chose the celadon, Nathan the fish, and I was immediately drawn to the black and white design with a green rim. While we had tea, I mulled over my choices. One of my choices, White Chrysanthemum, was not available, so I ended up with something I had been drawn to but assumed it was not a white tea. A staff member recommended it to me, and that was how I found out it was a white. I chose Ancient Snow Sprout, Kyoto Rose and White Truffle Rooibos as my take-home loose leaf tea.

While we were waiting for the museum to open we stopped for a cup of tea at Hotel Zaza. First, we toured the lobby. "White" tea in the British sense. This was a very upscale hotel, in which every detail was exquisite (and a cup of tea cost $4). The porcelain cup was thin and delicate as paper.

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. Today I saw my favorite painting again. Every few years I have the chance to see it again, and each time I see it my impression is different. The first time I saw this painting was in a museum brochure. Riding home in the bus from a school trip, I read descriptions of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts' permanent collection and studied the paintings. I fell in love with this one. A couple of years later, I saw the painting in person. I was thrilled beyond measure. It was much larger and more vividly colored than I had imagined. Years later I saw it again. Today was my third time, I think, to see this painting. Since my last viewing I have seen a great many paintings by Corot and his contemporaries and have become familiar with the Romantic movement with which his art was involved. In fact there is a companion piece to this one in the Kimball Art Museum that I can visit as much as I like. This time I wa

I'm sitting in the sun in the middle of the day having my first coffee of the day after working six hours. I feel so wonderful now. I am listening to my favorites playlist with the windows rolled down and eating my spartan chicken sandwich. I feel like Jane again. The sun makes me feel like summer is approaching. I will languish in its heat and feel wonderful. After days and days of work I have reached reprieve. Oh, my gosh, I am going to break the rules for a second though and talk about science. I feel like a part of history now. Our government has mandated that all of our potassium iodide be made into a drug that suppresses the thyroid and prevents cancer from radiation exposure, because we must ship everything we have to Japan right now. The person that is doing the quality testing on all of the product leaving our facility is me! But now, I am tired, and I can rest, and I can breathe, and I feel like everything, everything, everything is right.

To come outside at the end of a long day to find such beauty, to be seeing its end, having missed its beginning. I miss my embroidery and my quiet times. It all feels quite far away. I wonder when I will have the presence of mind to enter wistful realms again.

Gone to Earth a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. This story is so flawed, unusual and dark, unlike any Victorian novel I have read. It almost reads like a preternatural cinema, technicolor reds and oranges bleeding over a black landscape. It is unapologetically unhappy. Reading: Gone to Earth , by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb.

Because you wish it a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. Reading: Shirley , by Charlotte Bronte.

I was reflecting on what it means to be spring. The earth is ancient, and it is brand-new. Right now. These signs of new life have no memory of the previous season. They never knew the bitter parch of last summer or the snow of winter. The earth is new. Today I consider the path I have chosen, or maybe the inevitable path for me. Unable to trust the institutions of others, I just listen. I try, like the earth, to be old and new at the same time. Sometimes I find a path or a similar mind that gives me confidence. For example today, I saw this quote attributed to Buddha, "If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him." And I also engage in that delicately balancing practice. I walk with my hand open. I do not close it. I do not close it on someone. I do not close it on itself. I just walk with my hand open, welcoming the understanding that comes from the pain of loneliness, welcoming the joy that comes from fellowship. I am not saying I am perfect, but I try to be

I was thinking tonight about the ingenuity of Shirley. When the story began I had an impression of Caroline being a very mundane, almost trite person, in love with Robert but on the whole secure and complacent in a very common way. Having no competition, having his obvious regard and their both being single, almost assumptive in her hanger-on visits and French lessons at his estate. Then, Robert rejects her, and she makes a complete turnaround from being an average young woman in love to a positively tormented soul. And you really see the progression, and see Caroline grow through her pain into a noteworthy being. The moments that are her darkest, when she visits the old maids and takes comfort in their companionship, burying her pain while confronting her darkest fear, being old and alone. When I look back on those times I am almost sorry Shirley entered the picture. She is loud, annoying, although I know without her the story cannot come to its end.

Vignettes of this spring day a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr.

Lurks in the dooryard a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr.

Blow, and teach me of my insignificance A small and resisting thing Blow down all of my ego For in its absence the other half of my brain returns Oh, I am weary But I hope that the wind and the birds around me now don't care about the things others think are so important Weary and resisting thing that I am I need to know that I am insignicant, and the other things are unsignicant A hundred thousand tiny details to give me a hundred thousand tiny little pains that add up to one big pain Others think these little pains are a part of science Or do they, or do they even care Hell, what do I know I am not really a scientist, but I did sort of think that we based decisions in empiricism not A hundred thousand tiny little details I swear these little details are making me stupider No, that is not quite what is bothering me I feel sort of hunted and sort of cut down I feel that a random blighted mind focuses malicious intent on me, then forgets about me for a few weeks, Then remembers me a

I look down, and there they are, together again. a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. It's because Chevre knows how to treat a lady. You should have heard those thuggy neighbor dogs going after my boy today through the fence. I felt like I was protecting my private school going violin playing son from the rough muddy boys. The way Chevre looked at me with those dark uncertain eyes and stayed close by me. I know, baby, I feel that way a lot myself in the world.

everything I have ever written is so bad.

Peach blossoms a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr.

started blooming yesterday.

I went to my garden and saw my plants and watered them. I never go near then without getting on hands and knees and inhaling the sweet and bitter scents of my various herbs. They liked me. I felt them welcome me. When I came near them and cared for them I realized I was no longer alone. The same when I passed my old porcelain doll and saw her pallid face glaring in the darkness, as mine does from old photos. I held her and realized that when I am with plants or a doll, I am not alone, yet when I am actually not alone, I am alone. I reflected how I am a solitary person, and to interfere with this is to give me acute pain not easily healed. If you would poison me, surround me with mediocre minds. Their banal words and transparent thoughts are bitterer than rue. Pointless conversation topics and meaningless words I feel to my very soul, as though it is my own breath expelled and stolen from good use forever. Truth and beauty are their monsters in the closet, the other side of the mi

Blind besotted superstition a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr.