Music and Dreams

 

December 26, 2023, NH: no socks, but leg warmers and Lynxie in the distance

I’m not a musician, but I always have music running in my head. I asked The Husband, who is a musician, if he always has music running through his head, and he said no.

“Really?” I asked him. “Your mind is quiet when you aren’t thinking about something?”

“Except for the humming noise that’s always there,” he said.

“That’s in your ears,” I told him. “It’s because you’ve become an Old Fart, and you can’t hear most of what I say to you.”

“Yeah, well, you mumble and besides that, you’re weird,” he replied.

Amazing how they always hear that kind of thing. My deaf grandfather could hear a whisper from two rooms away, if it was about him.

But I do have music always in my head, and The Husband’s right, it’s partly pathological. Often the music is just a phrase, that I may have made up, because I don’t recognize it; and sometimes it’s a line or two of a song I’ve heard; and most often it changes every few minutes, all through the day, unless I’m concentrating on something else, like writing this essay; and I don’t much pay attention to it. But when I’m doing something mundane – like walking down the hall or grocery shopping – I often find myself humming or singing or even whistling whatever bit is currently circulating, and I don’t usually notice that I’m doing it.

It was pointed out to me years ago by the chiropractor whose office was next to mine in the clinic space we shared. “I like that you’re always whistling or humming,” he said, by way of nothing, one day. “That way I always know where you are.”

Hmm.

The other day, a total stranger in the Co-op parking lot came up to me, as I was pushing my laden cart out to my car. I must have been singing out loud.

 “Are you learning that piece for a performance,” she asked, kindly, “or are you just self-comforting?”

Huh.  Now there’s a new concept.

I had to think about that awhile: what is this concept of “self-comforting”, anyway? Was she making a New-Agey kind of comment, or was what I was doing actually comforting me? If so, why did I need comforting --- oh, never mind: who doesn’t need pretty much constant comforting in this current world of ours, anyway?

I don’t know the answer; but I started to notice how I feel when I notice I’m doing the music out loud. I have to admit that if it’s out loud, I do feel lightened emotions, and sometimes I actually will consciously up the volume and sing loudly and on purpose and feel kind of elated when doing so. And what’s maybe more telling – I always hum when Rasta Furian and I are having a love-up. He thinks it’s the human way of purring, and we both enjoy it. Rasta has a very extensive repertoire of purring noises, so maybe…maybe he’s actually singing?

Same day!

However, I also have a pathological music thing: I have what the late Oliver Sacks, in one of whose books I discovered the name of the pathology, calls musicophilia.  I dread, dread, dread the periods when I’m sunk into a musicophilia time, because during those times, there will be one – just one – musical phrase, usually part of a song I’ve heard sometime in the past 3 weeks (it rarely happens immediately), and it will play incessantly over and over and over in my head, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for weeks, and sometimes for months. My latest bout happened this summer, and started soon after I got back from F-FL, and it was there for 7 months before I finally got rid of it. I don’t dare even tell you what the phrase was from, because as soon as I let myself start to think it about it even in this off-hand way, I can feel – literally feel it, it’s a sensation in my spine and brain – that it could catch me again in a flash.

There are ways to stop that kind of pathology (some of you might think of it as an “ear worm,” and you’ve probably all experienced a limited version of what I’m talking about at some point in your life).  The cure, a psychiatrist who was a long-time t’ai chi student of mine, one day explained to me when I was bitching about my then current repetitive song agony during class, is to sing – either out loud or in your head – the nonsense song that’s called something like “Mairzey Doates and Dozey Doates” or some such thing – does anyone actually know? – which no one really knows or understands the words to - every time you notice the offending music, over  and over until it stops. So it takes time and persistence and attention, and it’s exhausting, and the longer you wait to do it, the longer it takes to be effective. But, blessedly, it does work, and that weird little ditty, for some reason, doesn’t get stuck and replace the one you’re trying to kill off.

My 7-month problem took so long to eliminate because the piece that got stuck was from some music I actually like very much, so for too long I was sort of enjoying it, until I wasn’t. And then the irritation had to get big enough for me to remember the cure and apply it.

So: how, you might wonder, can even the ear worm of ear worms be present 24-hours a day? Because I have another strange mental thing – not a pathology, really, but relatively rare (which I also learned about from Oliver Sacks’s writing – someday I’ll maybe also tell you about tasting colors, which he also illuminated for me and that I had no understanding of until I found my symptoms described in his books. That’s called synesthesia, and I have a very mild case).

But to my point: I’m also a lucid dreamer.

Lucid dreamers are aware they’re dreaming – I don’t know how it is for all lucid dreamers, but in my case, my normal-consciousness mind always actively observes the dream I’m having, and often either makes commentary, or can stop the dream if I don’t like where it’s going, and redirect the action, sort of like the director of a play. I’ve several times actually said to my dream characters, “Ok, let’s change this. You say this other thing, instead of what you just said, and you do this thing instead of that thing in response, and let’s see where that goes.” And then I resume the dream again.

I find lucid dreaming quite useful – I never have nightmares, because dreaming, for me, is more like watching a play or a movie: one of my favorites was the dream in which I, and some dream-friends, were battling vampires who were attacking our castle from the skies, and we could fly, and shoot arrows, and, of course, we won. Or at least I assume we did, because I wouldn’t have it any other way, though I don’t remember the end of it – it was one I continued for several nights because I was enjoying it so much.

I also can restart a dream I had one night, if I enjoyed it, the next night. And I consciously recognize repetitive dreams while I’m dreaming them. I often think to myself, “Oh, it’s that dream again!” and can make little changes or decisions – do I want to walk or ride a bike this time, do I want to take that path or go the other way, and so on. Because I find that repetitive dreams usually have messages: i.e., they’re usually something I should pay attention to because my mind uses them to work something or other out, or warn me about something. I remember them (being a lucid dreamer doesn’t mean I remember my dreams for any length of time any more often than other people do - only the really good ones), recognize them, and experience them from the normal-conscious part of my mind in an observing and decoding way, sort of like a math problem I’m working on as it happens.

But lucid dreaming also means that the part of my brain that has the musicophilia pathology is still present while I’m dreaming, and I’m aware of the music playing over and over incessantly. It doesn’t become background music to the dream; it’s just always there and always playing in the normal-conscious part of my mind. Two or three different parts of the mind must be involved, because, while the music doesn’t interfere with or become part of the dream, neither am I any more able to stop it playing while I’m dreaming than I am able to in an awake state.

It’s maddening.

Speaking of which, senile dementia seems to run in my family. One of my waking nightmares, as I grow older, is that at some point I’ll be taken by it; and some kind-meaning soul who doesn’t know me, or doesn’t remember about the musicophilia, decides to play music for me, because music seems to soothe people with dementia and Alzheimers.  What’s most likely to set my musicophilia off is music with words. So if, in such a circumstance, you see me trying to stab myself in the brain or rip my ears off, assume the musicophilia is driving me insane, and sing for me the Mairzy Doates ditty, over and over, into my ear, for however many hours and days it takes until I calm down.

And don’t turn the music back on!

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

23 December 2023

Photos by Deb Marshall, help with one...

For the record: I was out reading for almost 2 hours!

 

 

Cold Comforts

 

Rasta on the comfy chair; socks and blankies ready

I don’t live on a farm, but I do live down a long dirt driveway in a story-and-a-half log Cape set in the middle of an old cow pasture, with woods behind and to the side. I also am part of that generation that grew up in rural New England – one town over from where I now live, in fact – when all the old folks, and all the younger folks who weren’t well-off --- which was pretty much everyone --- had large gardens, did a lot of canning and freezing, had a root cellar in the corner of the house cellar, cut a lot of wood for heating, and often kept a few chickens, and maybe a milk cow. My rural grandparents, who I grew up next to, kept the chickens; and there was a dairy farmer up the road, so no one local kept cows.

So I’m the child of the not-well-off child-rearing generation of that time. I married a city boy – what was I thinking??? – and we’re the not-well-off rural folks who are now grandparental – or in our case, grand-auntal and granduncle-al age. I don’t live on a farm, but the way we live is still reminiscent of that lifestyle I grew up in. I have a giant garden, and can and freeze and store most the vegetables we eat all year; we bake bread weekly; we don’t have a root cellar, but make do with baskets in our tiny walk-in pantry and cellar; we burn wood (and the Husband cuts wood – pretty good for a city boy!)) to stay warm. When winter nears, we stock up on all the things my parents and grandparents did: candles, kerosene for the oil lamps, food staples like flour, maple syrup, honey, sugar, mustards, some exotic sauces, ginger beer, vinegars, and jams (which I no longer make), and chocolate – yes, chocolate is a food staple. It’s one of the four main food groups, which are: Red, Green, Garlic, and Oily. Chocolate fits into the Oily category.

Some of the things we stock up on weren’t available up here in the north country when I was a kid: olive oil, tomato paste, chili sauce, decent coffee, mushrooms that aren’t slimy in a tiny little can, really good cheeses - many made locally, and spices that aren’t just salt and pepper but from many different cultures, among other things. Back then, we made our own fermented foods in great crocks in the cellar, but now we can buy locally made stuff with spices we’d never even heard of when I was a kid. And fruits – then we had frozen or canned blueberries and if we were lucky, a few frozen or canned sour cherries, strawberries, and blackberries, and rhubarb sauce. We had baskets of apples, of course, and sometimes a few pears. Now we grow and preserve all those, plus peaches and raspberries, and we can buy so many fruits I rarely or never saw when I was a kid. I was an adult before I ever saw, or tasted, a mango or avocado or persimmon or Clementine or Meyer lemon. Amazing! 

Tarp-covered rows of wood; snow shovel ready

In our backyard are many cords of wood piled up, because we heat with it, mostly. And nowadays we also stock up on cat food, cat litter (the cats of my childhood used the great outdoors whether they wanted to or not, no matter how deep the snow), cat treats, and birdseed and suet.

By kitchen and back doors, all winter reside containers of ice melt, and in the garage is ice melt and clay cat litter for spreading on the icy days; in the woodstove room, which we call the Chapel because we put a stained-glass window in the gable end, live my plants: potted bay and kafir lime trees, which live outside in the summer; a pot of “cat grass” – which is just oat grass, also used as a green mulch in these parts – for the furries; Christmas cacti, one of which belonged to my grandmother, and amaryllis that usually decide not to bloom, plus pots of freesia and Canna lilies that will bloom, sooner or later. Orchids, which will bloom from time to time, live on the cabinet counter in the cooler dining room, in the west window.

We keep a big pot of water on the woodstove, plus a Japanese iron teakettle, and we have a huge water fountain on the floor. Capes have small rooms, and the air dries out fast when the woodstove is cranking. And yes, during periods of no electricity, we stay warm, can melt snow for flushing and cleaning, and I have many times cooked on the top of the stove – it’s excellent for making soup, cooking rice. Every time a big storm threatens, the kitchen shelves get covered, just in case, with numerous pitchers and jugs of water for cooking and drinking, and the bathtub is filled with pails of water for flushing – something I’m told city dwellers with city water don’t have to think about.

Woodstove and fountain

Whenever I’m home – not working, not running errands – at least once a week there’s a big pot of soup cooking on the stove, or chicken bones boiling down to broth. This happens year round, but in winter it’s a fragrant and comforting smell and sound, and the kitchen – at the far end of the house from the woodstove room – gets warm and moist, and the weekly bread rises well in spite of the temperature outside. The cats often perch on the counter next to the orchids to keep an eye on the birds eating seed and suet off the porch railings. If I’m lucky, I’ll see the raven swoop down to snatch a hunk of suet, then fly to the pine tree across the driveway to laugh at me. When I bring the bird’s food out in the morning, he shouts from the big maple at the end of the driveway, alerting the blue jays and others that breakfast has arrived. The mourning doves, in their gray-brown coats, arrive mornings after the jays, and again late afternoon, which is also when the cardinals arrive. They all make a comforting knocking sound as they feed from the railings – as if wild winter sprites were knocking at my kitchen door.

In our living room is a big chair, big enough for me and two cats, that faces the double doors to the Chapel, where we can watch the woodstove flames dance (there’s glass in the front door of the stove), and get a stream of warm air passing through to us. This time of year, the low-lying sun also hits a solar-powered device hanging in the south windows, which turns a couple of crystals, which in turn send rainbow patches dancing across the walls and floor. My old Christmas cactus bloomed, as usual, at Hallowe’en; but the smaller one is setting up buds, and one of the freesias has sent out a flower bud stalk, as has one of the orchids. The plant with the purple shamrock-shaped leaves is abloom after its summer outdoors; and the lime tree has produced two blossoms, and has two tiny limes growing slowly. Its blossoms are incredibly fragrant, making up for its fruits, which are pretty much inedible!

Lime blossom, tiny fruit, bay in back

This time of year, even more comforting things arise: I remember to put cardamom in my coffee, which is lovely; and once a day I allow myself a quarter mug of eggnog (also local – there’s not much point in not eating local, when the local stuff here is sooooo good and better for us and our neighbors who produce it) in my coffee, then filled to the brim with local raw milk. Oh, my, yum! And it only lasts a little over a month. To sit in that warm chair with cats and fuzzy fleece blankies, fuzzy socks on feet, a mug of eggnog/milk/coffee at hand, and a couple of good books in lap --- true comfort. It usually results in a nap…

Which is, after all, what our bodies and minds crave most at this time of year.

I plan the upcoming mid-winter foods: lamb koftas with minted yogurt with lemon, for sauce; French-Canadian corton, redolent with garlic and cloves, to eat for breakfast on toast, and its near cousin, tortiere, the pie we eat for Christmas Eve; muhammara, the middle eastern dip made with roasted red peppers, olive oil, garlic, cumin, pomegranate concentrate, and walnuts all ground up together, sometimes with a few grilled olives added, and harissa strewn across the top…Oh, the comforts of the savory exotic foods we eat at this time of year!

Bright lights

This year, we have no snow, and I got soaked through yesterday running errands. The brook and the marsh it feeds across the street, and the little ponds and the brook, that runs from the larger brook that empties into the marsh, under the road, then around my house and back into the marsh, putting me and neighbors on a tiny island, were all running high and fast – it was almost like spring. But today, after repairing some wind-caused damage, and discovering that my garden shed got soaked, indoors, from the driving rain and wicked big wind that also knocked over my wellhead go-around and moved a large rock that helps hold it in place --- again – sorta like spring --- I was happy to come back in, to the woodstove, the smell of soup simmering on the stove, the happy purry kitties ensconced in the big chair, and my eggnog-coffee. 

In two days, it will be Winter Solstice. The sun will slowly, slowly, start to stay out a little longer every day. We won’t notice it for some time; but in the meantime, we have the little shining rainbow lights during the day, the shiny eyes of our furry buddies, the shine of the colored lights hanging from one of my house’s corner posts, the shining evergreen between my house and that of my close neighbor, that she drapes in lights this time of year.

It’s cold and dark, but we have comforts. Snuggle down. Enjoy.

For the blog: 19 December 2023    herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

Orchids, west window

 

My Friend is a Ghost

Lonely late November porch chair

 

My friend in F-FL, when she moved into her assisted living room – which is on the first floor, only about 20 feet from the dining hall, activities room, elevator to the library and mail boxes, door to the cute little garden, and close to the receptionist and the doors to the great outside, the puzzle room, the sun porch, and the rocking-chair bedecked front porch – all the things that all the residents in the facility need to access several times a day – my friend, instead of hanging from her room door hook a sign with her name, or a pretty wreath, or a happy picture like all the other residents have done – she, instead, hung a huge set of wooden rosary beads.

“To keep the vampires out, or to keep you in?” I asked her.

I got a glare in return. Not funny.

My friend has long white hair that she keeps off her face with sparkly hair bands. She wears long, flowing, light-colored, semi-see-through dresses – et ne pas porter des culottes - and is often barefoot or wearing light sandals. She rarely leaves her room except to pick up her frequent shipments from Amazon, and to haunt the place at night when no one else is around except the nursing staff. God forbid that she have to have an actual conversation with other residents, and she refuses to eat in the dining room – she eats alone in her room, so none of the other residents have gotten to know her, or even have a conversation with her.

The following story was told to Cousin Paula by the nursing director at my friend’s residence, who gleefully passed it on to me:

One or two rooms down the hall from my F-FL friend’s room lives a very old woman – over 100 years old. When my F-FL friend (FFF) moved into her room and the Aged Lady saw what FFF had hung on her door hook, Aged Lady decided that FFF belonged to a cult. My commentary, here, is that that isn’t far off the truth, it’s just a cult of one.

But then Aged Lady caught sight of FFF flitting around the place in her long white hair and long white dresses (sans culottes) and realized that – actually –FFF is a GHOST!!!

And ever since then, Aged Lady refuses to walk past FFF’s room without a CNA (certified nursing assistant) next to her to protect her from the ghost!

I hope I always remember this story, because it’s the best one from F-FL yet.

Plant thriving near the woodstove

Today is one day past half-past November. The sun was out; there was a light breeze; it was in the low 50’s.  We’ve kept a couple of fold-up porch chairs – the canvas type – near to hand in the dining room, just for a warm, sunny afternoon when sitting outside could reasonably happen. Mostly it’s been only warm enough for the cats, but today was my day.

I put on a polar fleece hat with ear flaps and a visor (to keep the sun out of my eyes), a polar fleece high-neck shirt, a polar fleece scarf wrapped several times around my neck; I zipped up my polar fleece late fall jacket, put on my polar fleece fall gloves, and brought out two polar fleece blankets for my legs, which were covered with flannel pants; and I also had a Body Warmer tucked into my waistband. My feet were in my felt clogs, but I forgot to put on socks – I’ve got to start wearing socks again! The two blankets over my lap and wrapped around my legs were almost enough to keep my ankles warm in the breeze. I plopped the chair down in full sun, put my books on the porch rail, my coffee-milk (with a little local-farm eggnog in it) in the chair’s drink holder, the newspaper and a pen (to do the Sudoku and Little Words puzzles) in the chair’s zip-up pocket, and read and puzzled from noon until 3 pm, when the sun got so low there was nowhere I could move to and still be in the sun, and the temperature started to drop.

For part of the afternoon, one or another of the cats joined me in the second chair, or sashayed by on their busy projects. Birds were calling – mostly chickadees and crows and jays; the breeze blew my wind chimes from time to time. An occasional little bug flew by. There were the purring sounds of trucks in the distance. Something did a lot of rustling in the fallen leaves across the driveway – probably a cat hoping to scare up a squirrel. I read; and then I fell asleep, until my book hit the deck and woke me up.

Rasta, lime and bay thriving near the woodstove

I gave up on the garden when we had snow last week, and it was, as always, an autumn relief to finally say Enough for Now. All the garden work I’m doing now is bringing bits and pieces to the garden shed, as I locate them: the slug catchers a friend borrowed this summer and recently returned, a pile of cardboard I’ll use in the spring to do one of the chores I’ve given up on for the time being, binder twine I’ll use to hitch up vines next summer; and I finally remembered to empty the birdbath and turn its bowl upside down for the winter; stuff like that. I’ve updated my perennials map and my garlic map, and put away my garden notebooks. This weekend I’ll organize and store away my garden belt and bag for the winter, shake out the dirt and straw bits, and put away in their winter storage tin any leftover seeds. 

I noticed that the very last of last week’s snowstorm finally melted today. Except for the light – the low, grey and brown, sleepy November light which starts to disappear around 3 pm – it could have been a very early spring day.

But it couldn’t, not really – our minds and bodies are readying for winter. While I dozed, I had a slumber dream about dozing near the woodstove; the cats were ready to go inside for the night at 3 pm; it feels like midnight at 6 pm. The body wants more rest, and more warm foods. Turmeric milk suddenly sounds appealing to me.

On my porch all summer hangs a spiral wind chime made of copper leaves. It has a light, almost fairy-like sound. I’ve brought it in for the winter, because winter winds are sometimes too much for it, and I don’t want it scaring the winter birds that I feed on the porch railing. I’ve hung it from a lamp at the door to our office/library room; we brush it accidentally whenever we walk by.

This will be my winter song of hope, and comfort, and possibilities!

 

For the blog, 16 November 2023: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

Photos by Deb Marshall

The leaf chime

 

A Witch Stole My Leeks

 

California Poppies, end of October

A Witch stole 3 of my leeks.

It must have been a Welsh witch; or maybe my garden gnomes/gremlins are Welsh.

At least, that’s what I assume happened. There were 6 waiting for me to harvest the night before Hallowe’en, and only three the next morning when I’d decided it was finally time to pull them and went out to the garden to do so.

One of the things leeks are said to do is keep away evil, so maybe it was the gnomes. Or a good witch.

Or maybe the gnomes are Scots and they needed them for cock-a-leekie soup; I don’t raise chickens, so I don’t know if any local hens went astray on Hallowe’en night. Or maybe it was a Scots witch, who wanted to add leeks, for their protection against wounds, to her cock-a-leekie eye of newt stew – rich and warming nourishment after a night spent flying around in below-freezing temperatures under a nearly-full moon.

I do know the cats were very interested in something they could see out the south-facing windows that night. They aren’t allowed out after dark, I have a dark enough imagination to fear cock-a-kitty soup makers. The garden and compost bins/gnome winter housing is visible out the south-facing windows.

I’d put the gnome’s bottle of whisky in the garden shed a couple of days earlier; I should check to see if it’s still there. Whisky would be a fine addition to cock-a-leekie soup.

It’s looking very like November out my windows: lots of bare tree branches, but there are also bright flashes of earlier seasons. A lovely maple just across the street is still in process of turning orange and rose, with many green leaves yet; the grass is still very green; the puckerbrush on the edge of the kitchen pond is bright yellow. Rasta is busy pursuing and eating late-season crickets, and the calendula is still in full bloom, but the CA poppies have finally succumbed. Monday – day before Hallowe’en – I sat out on the porch in the sun for an hour, wearing a winter vest, hat and polar fleece gloves,  reading and drinking coffee milk, and it was lovely until a breeze picked up. There were crows calling, I heard ravens in the distance, the wind chimes gave an occasional melody. In the background, as in all backgrounds in the country, was the omnipresent growling song of chain-sawing.

I am, however, going to have to break down and start wearing socks again. 

Crow; Clare McCarthy photo

Monday at dusk I picked a pint of fall golden raspberries. I had to brush off a number of sleepy, slow-moving wasps as I was picking. I must go out and see if the canes and their emerging fruit got frozen during the past two nights. If not, I’ll be picking again this weekend. I still see the rare cricket when the sun is warmest, and the pollinators, though slow, are still about. I haven’t seen a toad or heard a frog, or seen a snake – except the slumbering one I disturbed when I shifted a rock a week ago – for several weeks.

My garlic is planted and bedded down with straw; my asparagus beds are covered with compost and straw, with fresh shavings in their pathways. I’ve started to put manure on the perennials, and come across many worms in the manure. This weekend is supposed to be a little warmer – I’ll finish that job then, so the worms can dig in and find winter homes before it all freezes solid. Raspberry canes need to be cut down; straw needs to be mounded around some of the perennials. If there’s time, there’s a lot of weeding to do. If there isn’t time, I’ll curse the lack come next spring.

I have 57 books on my list of books waiting to be read; all but one that I stole from my F-FL friend have been read and passed on; and I admit I’ve added a bunch more used books, and a few new books, since I made my list in the spring. But I’ve also passed 40 from that original list on to other readers, as well as a dozen I’ve fished off my bookshelves that I know I’ll never be interested in reading again.

One used book that I got from…it was probably Thriftbooks, but may have been a different used-book source, came with a return address of a previous owner pasted inside. On a whim, I sent her a postcard telling her that her book wound up in NH and that I was enjoying it greatly. The book was one of the series that the British tv series “Call the Midwife” was based on; and I mentioned to the past owner that my grandmother had been a nurse who for a number of years ran the maternity department in our small local hospital, and her stories of that time made the book series that much more interesting to me.

A couple of weeks later I got a nice letter back from the original reader. She, too, was a retired nurse; and had recently down-sized and moved closer to grandchildren, out in the great Midwest somewhere, thus getting rid of many of her books.  She also enjoyed the Midwife series because of her profession, and we had a short correspondence about that.

I wish I’d know these books when my Nana was still alive. She was a constant reader, and besides enjoying a good story, she was an excellent storyteller.  I think she would have loved this series.

But what a good thing to remember on el Dia de los Muertos – the Day of the Dead, when our dead relatives can cross the barrier and visit us, just after Hallowe’en, which the Celts also believed was the one time of the year that the dead could  pass between the worlds.  

I wonder if we could all share a bowl of cock-a-leekie soup together, and a dram of whisky…

So long as I could be the cook!

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com,  1 November 2023

Photos by Debra Marshall

Late October roses and Bells of Ireland